by Ashby, R. C.
I stood laughing myself for a full minute. Suddenly she saw me. With a ringing halloo she flung off all her motley young playmates and came twirling and skipping to my side.
‘Hullo, Billy,’ she said, not even breathless; ‘I’m a hoyden.’
‘I see you are,’ I said.
‘Please, where are you going?’
‘I’m going to see a ruined abbey.’
‘Oh, how divine. Are we going to have tea there?’
I burst out laughing, and promptly she slipped her arm into mine and marched beside me, with a gay shout that you couldn’t call singing . . . ‘Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules! . . .’
We left the village behind us. She said: “Billy, I can think of some ghastly spectacles, but I honestly can’t think of anything worse than a ruined abbey. Is that really your idea of a jolly afternoon?’
‘It’s historical,’ I said. ‘The monks——’
‘I know,’ she said, long-faced; ‘their lives became drearier and drearier, until with a yell they leapt from their cell and eloped with the Mother Supe——’
‘Stop it!’ I snapped. ‘I’m disgusted with you. You’ve no sense of tradition.’
‘Billy——’ she said, thinking deeply.
‘Yes?’
‘I could have had a sense of tradition, but I never had a chance. I’ve always longed to belong to one of those hoary families with limpets on the keel, that came over with William the Conqueror, so that I could go to the Three Arts Ball as my ancestress, the Lady Guinevere, who was shot for treason in 1066. She sent a cable to King Harold—her old love, you know—that William was approaching Eastbourne. As dawn’s rosy fingers stole into the eastern sky she faced the Norman arrows. Her last words were . . . oh, Billy, it’s too sad. I can’t go on. I only made her up a minute ago, and she’s so beautiful I can’t believe she never lived. Oh dear! What a divine ancestress!’
‘Her last words,’ I said, ‘were, “A woman, by the mercifulness of Allah, is not responsible for her descendants.”’
‘No, Billy,’ said Joan in a subdued voice. ‘She only spoke French, poor darling. She may have been ambidextrous, but I’m quite sure she wasn’t polyglottous.’
Perhaps it all sounds ridiculous as I tell it now. Remember that I was in a wrought-up, imaginative state, and that Joan was just an excited child full of the heady wine of freedom.
I said: ‘You’ve spoiled my afternoon, and now it’s up to you to suggest something better. I haven’t any ideas.’
‘Then let’s go and examine the local haunt.’
‘The—what?’
‘That weird tower thing near where you’re staying. The boy who brings our milk told me it was full of ghosts.’
‘I wouldn’t take you near that place for a thousand pounds,’ I said.
She opened her eyes. ‘Billy! Why? . . . I say, you don’t believe our milk-boy? What a joke.’
‘It’s a particularly unsafe place for you to go,’ I said.
She jerked her arm out of mine. ‘Please don’t be chivalrous to me. It gives me a pain in the neck.’
‘Now, Joan——’
‘I know. When men don’t want to do something to please you they always pretend they’re being chivalrous, and it makes me so mad I could chew a tea-cup.’
I told her she was behaving like a spoilt child, and that sobered her considerably. She said: ‘I don’t want to be flippant. I want to have a really serious afternoon, and walk along the moor road to the cliffs and think about the ghosts of the Roman dead, and the Border dead. . . .’
I broke in: ‘You got that from Ingram?’
‘Yes, he was telling me last night. It’s rather terrible, isn’t it? This is a haunted place, Billy—in spite of my laughing at the milk-boy. I can almost feel it—quite a different feeling from the time when we used to laugh about Lady Robinetta in the garden at Chesley Park. She was just a joke; this isn’t. Honestly I’m serious, Billy. There’s a great giant of a Roman soldier stalks these moors at night . . . has done for hundreds of years. It’s true. Did you know?’
‘I’ve heard,’ I said; ‘I wish you hadn’t.’
‘Why not? It thrills me. I wouldn’t mind seeing him . . . if I had hold of your hand. Though nobody has actually seen him, have they?’
I thought of Doctor Mackie . . . and of Ian Barr.
‘I don’t suppose anybody ever will,’ I said.
‘And he lives in the tower on the hill,’ she said.
‘I never heard that story!’ I exclaimed.
She swung half-round. ‘Look! Can’t you believe it?’
The unwalled road on which we were walking ran clear across the moor, and the air had that lurid clarity which comes before a storm. The blackened heather was exactly like an angry sea, waves of it, rolling under the wind with its sighing, crackling sound. To the east, perhaps a mile away, rose the mound, and on the mound the broch, a blot with jagged edges. The sky behind it was livid; it looked alive.
‘Not canny,’ I said. ‘Yes . . . I’ll give it credit for being the home of your monster.’
‘Let’s go and see.’
‘Not on your life, girl!’
She dug her hands in her pockets. ‘Funk!’ she said clearly; and leaving me she plunged into that swelling tide of heather. For a few yards she made rapid progress; but then the stalks and the hidden stones caught her feet, and she suddenly fell to her knees with a cry of impatience.
‘I could have told you so,’ I said calmly. ‘You’d much better come round with me by the road.’
Her eyes sparkled. ‘We’re going then?’
‘We’re going to explore every stone of that ugly place,’ I said.
This was nothing but a mean deception on my part and I’m almost ashamed to tell it. I knew that a heavy storm was coming and would be on us long before we got to the broch. I wasn’t going to take that reckless girl into any doubtful adventures.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Come on, stout Cortez.’
We swung along at a good four miles an hour . . . and the storm delayed. I reckoned that it would take us about forty minutes to walk round by the road to the broch, and I hoped that the storm would be on us in ten. It didn’t come. I set my teeth. Soon the stones of the ruin were clearly visible, and the tangled, stripped hazel-bushes at its base.
‘Do we storm it?’ said Joan fiercely. ‘Or do we ambush it on hands and knees?’
‘It’s a sharp climb,’ I said. ‘You’ll tear your shoes to pieces.’
‘What,’ she said, ‘are shoes for?’
‘I hope you like it better,’ I said, ‘on closer acquaintance.’
She stood still. ‘There’s something horrible about it, Billy. Honestly there is. I’m not in a funk . . . but we ought to have a torch. It’s pitch-black in there.’
‘It’s pitch-black everywhere,’ I said; and at that moment the storm broke. Such a storm as I never remember in my life before and hope I shall never face again. We simply dropped where we were and crouched like wild rabbits, and around us all the storms of the world congregated together and went mad. Joan shrieked something at me, and I couldn’t hear a word. It was no use trying to talk; the yelling of the wind and the crashing of the thunder, and in a few moments the booming of great seas on the rocks, drowned and deafened us. We both pressed our hands to our ears and crushed ourselves against the ground to keep from being blown away like bits of paper. The sky was jet black until the lightning ripped it open, and then it blazed with blue and white electric flashes. I thought, ‘Wait till the rain comes!’ The rain came. It was as though the sea had leapt over the cliffs and descended upon us. Wall after wall of water until the heather-tops rose and writhed above a yellow torrent. It swirled round our waists as w
e crouched. And this wasn’t a momentary experience. The deluge, lightning, thunder, and tempest continued for nearly three-quarters of an hour. Then gradually, gradually it faded; a little light, grey and wraithlike, crept out of the ravaged sky; and in a plaintive, falling rain, mild and infantile, Joan and I rose up and faced one another. She looked as though she had been taken out of the Thames. So, I suppose, did I.
I said: ‘Are you wet?’
‘No thank you, dear,’ she said sweetly. ‘Where did you put the lobster mayonnaise? Underneath the ice-cream freezer?’
She shook herself and shrugged her dripping shoulders. Then she gave a distinct shudder.
‘You’ll get your death,’ I said. ‘Let’s go, and quickly.’
‘I’m not cold,’ she said; ‘but I’ve learned a lesson.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Not to interfere. That awful place . . . it showed us clearly it didn’t want us.’
‘You think it was the broch——’
She shivered. ‘Don’t ever talk to me again about Roman ghosts. I’ll never forget this. Look at that horrible tower.’
It loomed, as black as a carrion crow, on the mound above us, and the sky behind it was a violent purple slashed with the colours of storm. Many of the hazel-bushes were stricken and looked more tangled than ever. From the ground there rose to the jagged crown a frosty mist, hanging on the lips of those ill-fated stones. I thought of the temerity of the shepherd, Blaik, and I believe if I had been alone I should have charged the tower at that moment and satisfied my curiosity.
I had to confess. ‘I never intended to take you, Joan,’ I said; ‘I knew the storm would be on us before we arrived. It’s too horrible a place for a picnic. The Roman ghost is a tragic fact to the family where I’m staying, and one member of it has already met his death . . . nobody knows how . . . except that he was quite alone in the black desolation of this moor and within sight of the North Sea. Some people say he saw what nobody has yet seen. We’ll never know. But I don’t feel inclined to make a jolly spook-hunting party out of an affair like that.’
‘I’ll forgive you,’ she said with a curt nod, still staring at the broch. ‘What about this man who uses it for a sheep-fold?’
‘I suppose you heard about that in the village?’
‘Yes. I thought where he could go, I could go. They say he’s either in league with the Thing, or daring it. Is that nonsense?’
‘Probably,’ I said.
She tried to dry her face on a sodden pocket-handkerchief.
‘I hope nothing will happen to him while I’m here. They were prophesying awful calamities in the village, and I laughed. I think perhaps there are some things in the world not meant to laugh at. This has gloomed me, Billy.’
‘Let’s go home,’ I said. ‘A bright fire will make things look different.’
She said: ‘Are they jolly people where you’re staying?’
‘Rather sad people,’ I said; ‘a sick old man, and a very brave young one who’s putting up a fight for his house and his tradition. I hardly know them. I’m a stranger.’
‘Are they afraid of the ghost?’
‘Not afraid. They’re defying it. It’s a long strain . . . a waiting game.’
‘I think you’re plucky to stay there.’
‘It’s my job,’ I said, ‘and I rather admire the Barrs, especially the young one.’
‘Should I like him?’
‘You’d probably find him good company. He’s a charming man. He comes from New York.’
‘New York!’ She opened her eyes. ‘Say, I could shoot him the glad mitt, couldn’t I? Why did he come to England?’
‘Because this house . . . ghost and all . . . tragedy included . . . is his family inheritance, and he’ll hold it till he drops.’
She nodded approval and said no more, so we tramped on in silence; but Joan could never be downcast long and almost as soon as we were out of sight of the broch she was making jokes about my draggled appearance and quite forgetting her own.
‘We look like Lord and Lady Mud going to Court!’ she cried; ‘I ought to have a bouquet. Why isn’t there anything to pick?’ She caught sight of some cabbage-like weeds sprouting at the moor’s edge and snatched a handful. ‘Look, Billy!’ She struck an attitude . . . ‘Lines from Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She had three lilies in her hand, and the teeth in her head were seven.’
‘I’ve no use for you,’ I said. ‘You can’t respect English poetry.’
She tossed the weeds away and turned on me with flashing eyes.
‘I do. I can. Beast, to say that! Cadski!’
So we reached the village exchanging happy abuse; and after tea and toast at Ingram’s and a chat about everything on earth but Roman ghosts, I went back, wet clothes and all, to Charlie’s unhappy house.”
x
“Now I’ll come straight to the séance on the Friday evening. It will take a lot of explaining, that mixture of charlatanism and dread reality. I don’t want you to read into what I’m going to tell you any of my supposed views on the reliability of mediums; that is a matter entirely beside the point. The medium who came was a decent, highly strung fellow, an artist to his finger-tips. I was sorry for him. He was paid to get results and he had to work to order. An artist, to work to order! I believe he was sincere, and if under the circumstances he supplemented his psychic powers with a little intelligent conjuring—well, I don’t know that I blame him. In the end, poor fellow, he got more than he bargained for. The only part I hated was the Cynthia part, which grated on every bit of good taste I’ve got, but you can judge for yourself. . . .
Well, there were Charlie and I on the Friday evening, waiting for the car that was bringing these people from the station. Dinner was to be at eight. At half-past seven Ingram arrived, looking very pale. He hadn’t a word to say to either of us, and when he found himself in the library, took down a book at random from the shelves—which by now I had resolved into fairly decent order—and buried himself in its pages.
It was a dismal night, following a dark, raw day. The thaw was well under way, and ugly, sombre patches showed all over the hills where the livid snow had melted. I was tired of the seeping, gurgling sound of running snow-water and of looking out over that untempting landscape, and I was glad when the curtains were drawn and the library fire made up for the night. Soon we heard the grating brakes of the car on the gravel sweep and Charlie went out. When he came back to the library he brought three men with him and introduced them. Mr. Wedgwood. Mr. Hunter. Mr. Harkness.
Wedgwood was a retired schoolmaster; stout, with a moon-shaped, hairless face and prominent, inquiring eyes. His fat hands were restless, and his two thumbs worked incessantly on their respective sets of fingers as though he were rolling cigarette papers. He had the retired pedagogue’s habit of addressing the company as though it were a class of adolescents.
Hunter was one of those queer, wizened, wiry little fellows who take a bird-like interest in everything that is out of the ordinary. He told me that fortunately he had never had to adopt a trade or profession, his private income being sufficient for his needs and his hobbies, which had ranged from brass-rubbing to moth-collecting. He had written a book on English grasses before he took to psychical research. He was apt to twitter and had no sense of humour.
Harkness, the medium, I more or less described before. He looked not too strong, was immaculately dressed, and had little to say.
While they were all warming themselves at the fire and there was still five minutes to go to the gong, Charlie came over to me.
‘Mertoun,’ he said, ‘will you go and ask Miss Goff if she’d care to come down to dinner? I don’t want her to think I’m shutting her out. I ought to have thought of it before.’
‘Of course,’ I said,
‘but after——’
He read my meaning. ‘The séance? Well, of course I should like her to stay to that too. In fact, I hope she will; she has a right to first-hand knowledge of anything . . . if anything . . .’
I went upstairs. All was silent. I knocked very lightly at the door of Colonel Barr’s room. Instantly her voice answered sharply: ‘Who’s there?’
‘Mertoun,’ I said. ‘May I speak to you for a minute?’
She hesitated, and then said: ‘Go into the big window embrasure. I’ll join you in a moment.’
She meant the big window which overlooked the front of the house, so I went there and sat down on the wooden window-ledge. It was dark there and draughty, and looking out I couldn’t see anything but the bushes of the garden beaten down by the snow, and the dark, patchy-looking hillside beyond, with its rivers of melted snow. She came along in her uniform.
‘We’re going to have dinner at eight,’ I said. ‘Mr. Barr will be pleased if you’ll come down.’
‘No, thank you,’ she said, with that air of hers of aloofness, demureness, coldness . . . oh, I don’t know what it was! Rather maddening, anyway.
‘Oh, come along,’ I said; ‘we’ve lots of company to-night. Sit by me. You may be amused.’
‘I’d rather not come down,’ she insisted.
‘Then the séance——’ I began.
‘I’m certainly not coming to that!’ She sounded quite determined on that point.
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Not even any natural curiosity, Nurse?’
‘I suppose I can do as I please?’
‘I think that your presence would please Barr,’ I said.
Her face hardened. ‘I couldn’t possibly leave my patient for so long.’
‘The old excuse!’ I bantered her.
