by Ashby, R. C.
The next day I was just a navvy, carting about masses of books. Masses and masses of books.”
IV
“Nothing at all happened during the next two or three days. I’m not perfectly certain of the sequence of events because I didn’t use my diary, but I seem to remember at least two very dreary days. I planned out the library shelves according to classified subject, and began to see the dawning of order. Once a day I went out for a lonely tramp, and then the man M‘Coul offered to lend me his bicycle so that I could go farther afield. At least, I forget exactly when it was that he loaned me the bicycle, because the first time it really comes into the story was several days later when I fell off it. But I’ll leave that for the present.
I saw hardly anything of Charlie Barr or Miss Goff. I suppose Charlie was working hard, and Miss Goff certainly was. She seemed to me to have an unconscionably hard time, and very rarely seemed to leave her patient’s room. Of course I didn’t know anything about the Colonel. He may have been exacting, but I remember hoping that she was well paid for her slavery.
I met her one afternoon on the stairs. She smiled at me rather warmly and I put my hand on her arm. She was twiddling the key of her patient’s room in her fingers; she always kept his door locked against intruders.
‘Come out for a walk!’ I said. ‘Just half an hour.’
She shook her head, but I thought she looked longing.
‘Can’t,’ she said tersely.
‘Oh, come along!’ I said. ‘Aren’t you ever off duty?’
‘It’s a special case,’ she pleaded.
‘Is he so ill as that?’ I said. ‘Doesn’t he ever take an hour’s sleep? Do come with me. I’m bored.’
‘Then . . . perhaps in a day or two,’ she temporized.
‘Wouldn’t Mr. Barr sit with him?’ I suggested.
She became frightfully professional, and I felt it was rather impudent of me to make these arrangements, as I supposed it appeared to her.
‘You don’t understand,’ she said; ‘the sight of any other person than myself would have the effect of a severe shock. It might be fatal.’
Of course I’d wondered what was the matter with the old man, and what disease necessitated all this seclusion, so at once I guessed that the trouble was mental, persecution mania, or something of the kind. Therefore I didn’t pester the girl again. All my apparatus arrived from London; I think it was the next day, but I’m vague about that part of the chronology.
As I think I said, the nights came in dark and rainy, with gales of wind. The sea too was always noisy; in fact, there was a violent elemental symphony every night. I wasn’t used to it, and I never slept deeply. I suppose those who were used to it would sleep like infants, just as when I’m at home all the bus gears and klaxons in London can’t rouse me.
Well, I didn’t sleep soundly and every unusual noise disturbed me; so one night I heard something and I woke. That’s the baldest possible way I can express it, but that’s the nearest I can come to it. This wasn’t an elemental noise; it was a movement in the house. I couldn’t place it, because the house was rambling and our bedrooms were far apart. I looked at my luminous watch, and it was 1.45 a.m. I suppose you’ll say that there’s nothing unusual in hearing someone moving in a house during the night, especially when there’s an invalid and a nurse; but somehow this was—well, different. Sounds do convey a subconscious message, and this sound was heavy . . . furtive. It wasn’t the right sound. I only heard it once, but it conveyed all that.
I didn’t get up; I don’t think I moved. In a few minutes I fell asleep, but I woke for good before dawn and the impression was perfectly distinct in my mind. And then I thought, ‘I wonder if that was the poltergeist? Would it make a sound?’ I hardly thought so, but I admitted I was a novice where mischievous spirits were concerned. You’ll see that I had already accepted the poltergeist; or rather my attitude was that half my mind said, no, and the other half said, perhaps. Barr had unconsciously influenced me. After all, he was five-feet-ten and twelve stone, straight from materialistic New York, and he talked in a matter-of-fact way of spirits. I didn’t really mind this poltergeist, one way or the other.
At breakfast I said: ‘I believe I’ve heard your house-spirit.’
He looked quite interested. ‘Honestly, do you mean that?’
‘I heard the queerest sound in the night,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘That would be Gracchus. I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Gracchus?’ I inquired.
His lips gave a humorous twist. He leaned over the breakfast table with planted elbows and fingers clasped. ‘We have to call him something,’ he said; ‘Bingo or Rover would be too silly.’
The conversation might have become interesting, but at this point a telegram arrived for Barr. I ought to have said that there was a village about a mile away, complete with post office and general shop.
He read his telegram and immediately said: ‘Good. Splendid.’ He turned to me. ‘I’ve booked a room at the hotel at Keswick for the motor-cycle trials. I’m going to-morrow for a couple of days.’
‘Good fun,’ I said.
‘Come with me,’ he suggested.
‘No,’ I said; ‘I never leave a job in the middle, and it would only postpone my getting back to town.’
‘That’s true,’ he agreed.
It was a bright morning, and I saw the sun shining for the first time. The sky was particularly luminous and there was a faint sparkle on the wet hills and a dazzling shimmer on the sea. The lighthouse looked like a silver pillar against the blue-grey billows of the horizon.
In the middle of the morning I went up to my room for something or other, and ahead of me on the corridor I saw Miss Goff.
‘Hullo!’ I called.
She turned round reluctantly. I thought—or rather it was evident—that she looked pale and tired. There was a kind of anxious look in her eyes which I didn’t approve of. Now—I beg you—don’t think I was taking any particular interest in Miss Goff. She wasn’t occupying my mind in the least, and this isn’t one of those stories with a delicate thread of romance running through, as they say in the publisher’s announcements. I suppose it was that I couldn’t help being struck by the difference in her looks. In any case, I didn’t comment, because women hate to be told they’re not looking well. It means they’re looking plain.
But as I passed her I caught sight of the back of her hand, and I deliberately took hold of it and turned up the sleeve. There was an ugly bruise running almost to the elbow.
‘You must have pricked your finger!’ I said meaningly.
She snatched her hand away. ‘I have had a fall,’ she said, very coldly; and went into the bathroom, bolting the door behind her. I heard the taps running loudly.
So I went along to my own room, and all of a sudden I felt horribly ill. Giddy and faint. It was like being up for the first time after a sharp bout of malaria; in fact, malaria was my first thought, though I hadn’t had a touch of it for ten years and it had never begun so suddenly as this.
I sat down on my bed and held my head. It was the vilest sensation I ever remember, and it brought with it a kind of ghastly depression. I seemed to be giving up the struggle and surrendering my mind to thoughts of hatred and horror.
Presently it passed away, and having nothing better I drank some brackish water out of my water-jug. But I still felt depressed. I was more than ever conscious that I detested that house. There was something wrong with it. That was as far as I went in my impressions. And yet I liked Charlie Barr and Miss Goff; there was nothing forbidding or repellent about them. Were they conscious of this ‘wrongness’ too? I came to the conclusion that Miss Goff was and Charlie wasn’t. In spite of his poltergeist, which he certainly didn’t regard as in any way sinister. Charlie evidently was
n’t conscious of any such evil influence as I was suggesting to myself existed. But was Miss Goff, and could I get into touch with her ideas on the subject?
Then I pulled myself together and asked myself what real evidence I had for these suppositions. And in the end I decided that all the apparent evidence could be explained away quite simply. It was washed out by plain reason.
My first dislike of the house. Explanation: wet night, gloomy countryside, long cold journey.
The curious brain-shock I had experienced on my first evening. Explanation: heavy supper on a chilled, empty stomach.
Impression of ‘haunting.’ Explanation: superstitious servant-girl.
Curious behaviour of Miss Goff. Explanation: exacting patient.
Bad dream. Explanation: reading ancient history and looking at the moonlight on the ruined broch.
Mithras. Explanation: Curvey’s concerts.
Noise in the night. Explanation: Miss Goff getting her patient a hot drink.
Bruise on Miss Goff’s arm. Explanation: as she said, a fall.
My sudden illness. Explanation: touch of malaria.
The rest of that day was in every way normal. I didn’t see Miss Goff again, nor Charlie until supper-time when we talked about motor-bikes. Afterwards he showed me some good card tricks in the library; I practised diligently, but I hadn’t his knack. Then we talked about America and the American people. He agreed with me that they were charming individually, and more than dreadful en masse. We both deplored their sensationalism and lack of restraint. ‘They’re just adolescent,’ he said; ‘gauche.’ He told me he had had people come by the hundred to his rooms in New York to be advised on the cure of their complexes and neuroses. All their nerves, he said, were in an appalling condition; the women because they had nothing to do but get involved in unfortunate love affairs, and the men because they couldn’t make money as quickly as the other fellow. He used to send them away thinking beautiful, constructive thoughts, and his fee for a private consultation was twenty dollars.
His slightly cynical humour amused me immensely. I told you he was good-looking, and he said his age was thirty-seven.
‘How did you drift into that profession?’ I asked him.
He laughed. ‘I don’t know. I’ve always been interested in the impulses that govern action. Mind-control, and so on.’
‘Hypnotism?’ I suggested.
He swept up the cards. ‘Heavens, no! That’s getting too near necromancy.’
‘Oh, come!’ I said. ‘Don’t tell me those women weren’t hypnotized?’
He gave a ringing laugh. ‘In that perfectly harmless sense, yes. But as for the other—well, I once let myself be put in a trance by way of an experiment, but I wouldn’t do it again. It was only for fun—or rather, to oblige a friend. . . . Will you excuse me if I go and pack a bag?’
The next morning he was gone quite early, and I missed what little of his company I had had. All the morning I worked on my indexing, and in the afternoon I slipped a poetry anthology in my overcoat pocket and went out for a tramp. It rained and I turned back, and then suddenly as I came within sight of the sea the sun blazed out of the clouds with a brilliance which seemed to fire the sad earth. A lustrous blue spread over the sky, and a bird began to cheep in the wet heather. The grey waves were rimmed with silver, and the sea-wind was fragrant. I never remember a more springlike and beautiful moment. I found a sheltered hollow in the moor, and spreading a mackintosh I sat down. It was not in the least cold. I sat hugging my knees and looking out to that sparkling sea with its suggestion of cruelty and power. Then I opened my book at some favourite lines and read them with a thrill.
‘The mountains look on Marathon
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might yet be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave
I could not deem myself a slave.’
I was reading the line, ‘A king sat on a rocky brow that looks o’er sea-born Salamis,’ when I heard a footfall and Miss Goff appeared on the hillside just below me. I waved to her and she came up slowly.
‘Hurrah!’ I said. ‘So you’ve really been persuaded to make a bid for freedom?’
She smiled. She was bareheaded and wrapped in a large tweed ulster. ‘Isn’t the sun glorious?’ she said; ‘it brought me out—only for a few minutes.’
‘Share my mackintosh,’ I suggested, and she sat down and gazed as I had been doing, out to sea.
‘How the lighthouse glitters!’ I said. ‘The moving lamp shines into my room at night. It’s a desolate life for the men. Are they local men?’
She shook her head. ‘No. They haven’t anything to do with this part. They come from Thorlwick, every three months, by boat.’
‘By Jove!’ I said suddenly. ‘Look how the sun brings out colour on that cold, brown hillside! I thought of this place as hideous, but I’m inclined to think it could be fascinating in a subtle way.’
She followed my pointing finger with a rather weary look.
‘Yes, it can be quite beautiful,’ she said; ‘but the sun doesn’t often shine. The rain is terribly depressing, especially in summer.’
‘Have you been here in summer?’ I asked.
She nodded without speaking.
‘But how long have you been at The Broch?’ I persisted.
‘Since about the middle of December.’ She added: ‘Of course, only since Colonel Barr became ill. But I lived only a few miles from here when I was a child.’
‘Where is your home now?’ I asked.
‘My home?’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose I have one—but I don’t see it often. There’s only my father and my younger brother left. They live . . . some distance from here. I’m always in Edinburgh when I’m not out at a case.’
From where we sat we could just see the chimneys of the house.
‘I wonder why they built in such a desolate spot?’ I said. ‘Somebody must have cultivated a taste for this particular part of England.’
‘There have always been Barrs about here,’ she answered. ‘Their original house was on the other side of the hill. That was burnt down more than a hundred years ago, and they built again where the house now stands, facing the sea.’
‘They must have been fond of that ugly Celtic tower,’ I said idly. ‘It certainly spoils the view.’
‘The broch?’ she said, rather sharply. ‘Why, what’s the matter with it? It’s old enough to have a right to be there.’
‘I suppose there are owls in it,’ I said. ‘Owls and moonlight always constitute a “haunt” in the country.’
She gave a strained laugh. ‘Isn’t it absurd? You couldn’t get any of the local people to go within a hundred yards of it. Of course, that’s only the most arrant superstition.’
‘Said she, in a superior manner!’ I laughed. ‘How is the Colonel to-day?’
She pressed her lips together. ‘He’s asleep, or I couldn’t have come out. I think I ought to go back now.’
‘Please!’ I protested. ‘Do stay. He’s a pretty frightful tyrant, isn’t he?’
Her eyes flashed blue fire, and she said: ‘Colonel Barr is one of the best and kindest men who ever lived. I’ve known him all my life. He was always good to my family; helped one of my brothers into a position; made it possible for me to be trained at Edinburgh. My father was poor and there were too many of us children. But for Colonel Barr I should have been a farm-girl, and my brothers swallowed up by the Tyneside pits. I owe him everything. None of my family can ever do enough to repay him. What’s a little lack of my personal liberty when he needs me so badly?’
‘I can imagine how you feel about it, if that is the case,’ I said. ‘I hope he isn’t likely to die?’<
br />
She set her lips more firmly. ‘He won’t die,’ she said. Her tone was curious; it silenced me for a time. We both sat quietly, watching the high waves crash into the unseen shore below the cliffs. Out on the horizon a black ship went by with its trail of smoke; dipped, and vanished. Behind us I felt rather than saw a growing darkness as rain-clouds rolled out of the west to smother the sun. And the coming of the clouds had the effect on me that I dreaded, the return of that chilling dislike to my surroundings which I’ve described before.
‘Miss Goff,’ I said suddenly, ‘were you moving about in the house the night before last?’
She sat perfectly motionless, as though she were waiting for a blow to fall. There was something frightful in her very immobility. Her face was set; I couldn’t read anything from it, but in a minute I saw her throat give a gulping tremor as though she were recovering her breath. Then she said in a flat voice: ‘Possibly. Why do you ask?’
But she had told me what I wanted to know. I said: ‘It wasn’t you, Miss Goff. I know it wasn’t you.’
She dug her fingers into the heather stalks. ‘Who—who was it?’
