‘If you prefer to shelve your responsibility and leave me in his hands, one fine morning you are going to wake up to find yourself stark naked in the breeze. Because from the moment I do get control of the Jugg millions you are going to be right back where you were thirteen years ago; and, as God is my witness, you shall never see another penny of them.’
I suppose it was pretty brutal, and I could never have put it so bluntly if Julia had been with him. Afterwards, I felt an awful cad about it, but not at the time; and it had a most curious effect on him. He hunched his shoulders and almost cowered away from me, as though he was a dog that I had been giving a beating. Then, when I’d done, he gave a slight shudder, and sighed:
‘You mean that, Toby, don’t you? Perhaps old Albert Abel was right to leave you the Jugg Empire, lock, stock and barrel, although you were only a kid. Perhaps, even then, he sensed that you had something of himself in you and would make a go of it. I believe you will, too, if you’re ever able to get about again. Anyway he was right about me. There was too much money for me to have gambled it all away; but cads like Iswick would have had the breeches off me within a couple of years. They won’t off you, though. When you were speaking just now it might have been your grandfather browbeating some wretched competitor into selling out. I had no idea you could be so hard.’
‘I’m not being hard,’ I countered. ‘I’m only being logical. I’m up against it, and I’m simply using such weapons as I possess; that’s all. I know you’re frightened of Helmuth; everybody is; that’s why I have to go the limit to get you on my side; otherwise I would never have put it the way I did.’
He nodded. ‘I see your point, old man. Lot in it, too. Mind, I don’t believe for a minute that you’re right about Helmuth. He honestly thinks you’ve gone a bit queer, and that the fewer people who get to know about it the better. As he has been stopping your letters, and you couldn’t let us know how you felt about wanting to leave Llanferdrack, I suppose there’s quite a case for your having tried to escape on your own. But that nice young nurse of yours tells me that you’ve created merry hell here more than once, and used the most feahf’l language.’
‘True enough,’ I admitted. ‘And wouldn’t you, if you were treated like a prisoner? I’m not even allowed in the garden now; and look at this room. Can you possibly imagine anything more like a cell in the Bastille?’
‘I could get Helmuth to alter all that,’ he offered, a little more cheerfully, ‘but as you say yourself, he’s a tough proposition. I’m afraid it would take a greater nerve than I’ve got to sack him. Even if that were justified, which I don’t think it is. And as the Trustees placed you in his care, I don’t at all like the idea of telling him that I’ve made other plans for you.’
‘You are going to, though; aren’t you?’ I insisted, striving to keep the anxiety out of my voice. ‘Getting him to ease up the prison routine is not enough. I am relying on you to get me out of his clutches at once, and for good.’
‘Yes, old man. I quite see that.’ He stood up and, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, began to pace agitatedly back and forth, evidently wondering how best he could set about the unpleasant task I had forced upon him. After a few turns, he stopped in his tracks and faced me:
‘Look here, Toby, I can’t tackle Helmuth alone. He’s too fast for me. In any argument over you he’d win in a canter. You know that. You must give me a day or two to get a bit of help for the job.’
‘What sort of help?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Well, if I called a meeting of the Trustees, exclusive of Helmuth, and they——’
‘No good,’ I cut him short. ‘It would take at least a week to get them together. I can’t wait that long.’
‘All right, old man, all right. But I could have a word with one or two of them and get their backing. Iswick and Roberts are both still in London. Besides, I simply must talk to Julia about it. She’ll be feahf’lly upset, as she has always taken such a good view of Helmuth. But she’s much cleverer than I am, and once she realises that you’re dead set on being moved she’ll think of some way of doing the trick neatly.’
I saw that if I forced him to act there and then he would only make a mess of things, so with considerable reluctance I said:
‘Very well then. But the best I can do is to give you forty-eight hours. I hate to put it this way, Uncle, but I really did mean all I said a little while back. So, for your own sake as well as mine, don’t let Iswick, or anyone, argue you round into doing nothing. I’m pretty well at the end of my tether, and if you haven’t got me away from here by the weekend I shall consider that you have deliberately let me down. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, old man.’ Uncle Paul nodded vigorously. ‘You’ve made it as plain as a pike-staff. Not giving me much time to work in, though, are you? I’d meant to stay here the night; but since you’re in such a desperate hurry, perhaps I’d better travel back to London this evening.’
‘I think that would be an excellent idea,’ I agreed. ‘As a matter of fact I meant to suggest it; because as things are I think it would be a very bad thing for you to spend the evening with Helmuth. Seeing that it’s a fine afternoon, he is almost certain to be out at this hour; so if you telephone for a car at once you may be able to get away without even seeing him. Anyway, I’m sure you’d be well advised to avoid a long session with him tonight. He’s a persuasive devil, and drinking a couple of bottles of Cockburns ‘12 with him after dinner might cost you a five-figure income.’
He laughed, a little weakly. ‘By gad, Toby, you’ve got a darned unpleasant sense of humour; but it’s just like your grandfather’s.’
‘I wasn’t being funny,’ I said quietly.
After that we said goodbye, and he hurried off to order a car, and get his things repacked while waiting for it.
An hour and a half later Helmuth came in. He gave me a searching look and said: ‘What’s happened to your uncle? Why did he rush off like that?’
‘How would I know?’ I replied with a bland smile. ‘He said something about not being able to stay the night because he had urgent business in London.’
A cat-like grin spread over Helmuth’s face and he gave a sudden sardonic laugh. ‘If you think that your Uncle Paul is capable of removing you from my care, you are making a big mistake. Kill or cure, I mean to see this matter through; and you still have a lot to learn about my powers for asserting my will.’ Then he turned on his heel and marched out of the room.
In spite of what he said, there was something in his manner which told me that he was both annoyed, and a little rattled, at Uncle Paul having side-stepped him. And I am pretty confident that I have really scared my uncle into taking action. So, although I’m very far from being out of the wood, I feel tonight that I can at least see a ray of daylight.
Friday, 5th June
I have solved the mystery of the footsteps. Doing so shook me to the core. I break out into a muck sweat when I recall the terror that engulfed me as a result of my curiosity overcoming my fears.
It was the knowledge that the odds are now on my being out of here before the weekend is over that had restored my nerve and tempted me into opening this Pandora’s box. When I heard those steps on the stairs again last night at the usual hour, I plucked up all my courage and rapped with my knuckles sharply on the wainscoting behind the head of my bed.
The steps halted for a moment, then went on. I rapped again. They halted again; then there came a weird creaking sound.
It is now seven nights since the moon was full, so tomorrow she will be passing into her last quarter. The light she gives is already nowhere near as bright as it was. It does no more than make the grating stand out as a luminous patch in the middle of the wall, and dilute the darkness with a faint greyness. I could barely discern the outline of my bedside table, and the wall beyond it was a solid patch of blackness until, as the creaking sounded, it was split by a long, thin ribbon of light.
I held my breath and my heart began to thump. I
wished to God that I had let sleeping dogs lie, but by then it was too late to do anything except curse myself for a fool.
A bony hand suddenly emerged from the strip of light. I saw it plainly. I cowered back. My teeth clenched in an instinctive effort to check the scream that rose to my throat.
It was a small hand; but the fingers were very long and the knuckles very pronounced. It seemed to claw at the nearest edge of the lighted strip. The creaking recommenced. The strip of light widened. I realised then that a panel in the wainscoting was being forced back. I wondered frantically what frightful thing I had so wantonly summoned to me. Something, I knew, was about to emerge from behind the panel into the room. Was the hand human or the limb of some ghastly, satanic entity, that had its origin in the Pit?
I was so overcome with fear as to what I might see next that I shut my eyes. The creaking ceased and was followed by a rustling sound. Then there was a faint clatter and a shuffling on the floor, only a yard from my bed. My eyes started open and I saw a vague grey figure leaning forward to peer at me. I shrunk away; thrusting out my hands to protect myself and moaning with terror.
Suddenly the figure laughed—a high-pitched, unnatural, eerie cackle. The sound seemed to turn my blood to water. Then its voice came—brittle but human, with a child-like treble note:
‘Why, it’s Toby Jugg. What are you doing up here?’
With a gasp of ineffable relief, I realised that this midnight visitor was only my poor, old, half-witted Great-aunt Sarah; and that the outer wall of the Castle must contain a secret stairway that she uses for some purpose of her own each night.
‘God, what a fright you gave me!’ I exclaimed, with a semi-hysterical laugh. Then I levered myself up in the bed with my hands, till I was sitting propped against the pillows, to get a better look at her.
She had left her candle on the steps behind the opening of the panel through which she had come. By its light I could see now that she was wrapped in a long pale-blue dressing-gown, the skirts of which trailed on the floor. Her scant hair hung in grey wisps about her thin face, and her eyes gleamed with a bright, feverish light. As I took in the macabre figure that she cut I felt that I had no reason to be ashamed of the panic with which I had been seized at the first glimpse of her. Despite the fact that she entirely lacked the aura of Evil that had made my flesh creep with the coming of the Shadow, she was infinitely nearer to the ghost of tradition, and I am sure that on coming face to face with such an apparition at dead of night plenty of people far braver than I am would have lost their nerve.
Picking up her candlestick and holding the light aloft, so that she could see me better, she repeated in her shrill treble: ‘What are you doing up here, Toby Jugg?’
Since my arrival at Llanferdrack I had seen her only about half-a-dozen times with her companion, in the garden; and, although I had exchanged a few words with the latter, she had never spoken to me herself, so I was surprised that she even knew who I was. Evidently the old girl was not entirely gaga, and as I wanted to find out what she was up to, I said as gently as I could:
‘Dr. Lisický had me moved up here a few days ago, Aunt Sarah. I’m living here now. You don’t mind that, do you? But what are you doing? Why do you go down those stairs every night at eleven o’clock?’
‘To dig my tunnel,’ she replied at once. Then a sudden look of fear came into her eyes and she clapped a skinny hand over her mouth, like a child who realises that it has inadvertently let out a secret.
‘Why are you digging a tunnel?’ I asked quietly.
‘You won’t tell—you won’t tell! Please, Toby Jugg, please! Nettie must never know. She would stop me. He’s waiting for me there. I am his only hope. You won’t tell Nettie—please, please!’ Her words came tumbling out in a spate of apprehension. By ‘Nettie’ I guessed that she meant her old sour-puss of a companion, Miss Nettelfold.
‘I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone,’ I assured her. ‘But now you’ve told me about the tunnel there is no reason why you shouldn’t share the rest of your secret with me, is there? Where does your tunnel go to; and who is “he”?’
‘Why, he is Lancelot, of course.’ Her eyes widened with surprise at my ignorance. ‘Surely you know that she is keeping him a prisoner there, at the bottom of the lake?’
Bit by bit I got the whole story of the strange fancies that for many years have obsessed the poor old madwoman’s brain.
The bare facts I already knew. When she was a girl of twenty she fell in love with the last Lord Llanferdrack, and he with her. She was many years younger than her only brother—my grandfather—so although he was not then the multi-millionaire that he afterwards became, he had already amassed a considerable fortune. Nevertheless, the Llanferdracks were a proud old feudal family, and the young lord’s mother was most averse to his marrying the sister of a jumped-up Yorkshire industrialist, so there was considerable opposition to the match.
All this happened well over forty years ago, and in Queen Victoria’s time young people were kept on a pretty tight rein; so for a while the lovers had great difficulty in even meeting in secret, and every possible pressure was put on young Lancelot Llanferdrack to make him give Great-aunt Sarah up. Probably it was that opposition which made them madder than ever about one another. Anyhow, they wouldn’t give in, and eventually Albert Abel took matters in hand. He came down here to see old Lady Llanferdrack and, somehow, succeeded in fixing matters for his sister. The engagement was formally announced, and little Sarah Jugg was asked down to meet her fiancé’s family in the ancestral home.
She had been here only a few days when the most appalling tragedy occurred. They were out in a punt on the lake and Lancelot was fishing. He missed his footing and went in head down. It seems that he must have got caught in the weeds at the bottom of that first plunge, for he never came up. He simply disappeared before her eyes. The lake is very deep in parts and they never recovered his body.
The shock turned her brain. Against all reason she insisted that he would come up sooner or later, and that she must remain near the lake until he did. All efforts to persuade her to leave the district were in vain; and eventually Albert Abel bought the Castle from Lady Llanferdrack, so that poor Great-aunt Sarah could have her wish and live by the lake for the rest of her days.
That is where fact ends and the strange weaving of her own imagination begins. Perhaps her fiancé’s name having been Lancelot is the basis of the fancies that years of brooding over her tragedy have built up in her mind; or it may be that local tradition has it that this lake in the Welsh mountains is the original one of the Arthurian legend.
In any case, she believes that the Lady of the Lake lives in it and, being jealous of her, snatched Lancelot from her arms. She is convinced that he is still alive, but a prisoner at the bottom of the lake, and that her missions is to rescue him. This apparently can be done only by digging a tunnel, over half a mile long, through the foundations of the Castle and right out beneath the dead centre of the lake; then Lancelot will do a little digging on his own account, and having made a hole in its bottom over her tunnel, will escape through it to live with her happily ever after.
I asked her how far she still had to go, what the tunnel was like, and various other questions. It seems that it is only large enough to crawl through, and that she shores it up as she goes along with odd bits of floorboard and roofing that she collects from some of the rooms in the Castle that have been allowed to fall into ruin.
But progress is slow, and she does not get far enough to need a new roof-prop more than about once in six weeks. It was the wizard Merlin who put her on to this idea for rescuing her lover, and he told her that the whole thing would prove a flop if she used a tool of any kind, or even a bit of stick to dig with, and that each night she must take every scrap of dirt she removes out under her clothes; so it is a kind of labour of Hercules, and the poor old thing is doing the whole job with her bare hands.
Merlin also put another snag in it. He said that she must not arous
e the Lady of the Lake’s suspicions by digging straight towards the centre of the lake; instead the tunnel must go the whole length of the chapel, then out as far as the bridge and, only there, turn in towards its final objective. On four occasions, too, while burrowing alongside the chapel, she came up against impenetrable walls of stone in the foundations, and after years of wasted work had to start again practically from the beginning.
That has worried her a lot, as she is a bit uncertain now in which direction she really is going; but she thinks it is all right, as she can hear Lancelot’s voice calling to her and encouraging her more clearly than she could a few years ago. He is being very good and patient about the long delay in getting him out, and he must certainly be a knight sans peur et sans reproche, as he still refuses even to kiss the hand of the black-haired Circe who has made him her captive—in spite of the fact that she comes and waggles herself at him nightly. At least, that’s what he tells Great-aunt Sarah, and who am I to disbelieve him?
I should have thought that after the dark enchantress had put in her first twenty years attempting, every evening, to vamp Lancelot without success, she would have gone a bit stale on the type, and started looking around for a more responsive beau; but evidently she and my great-aunt are running about neck to neck in this terrific endurance contest.
After talking to the old girl for about half-an-hour I had got the whole pathetic business out of her. By then she was obviously anxious to get along down to her digging, so I once more promised that I wouldn’t give her secret away, and, closing the secret panel carefully behind her, she left me.
So far, today has been one of the pleasantest that I have had for a long time. My quadrant of private terrace faces south-south-east, so it gets full sunshine till well past midday, and all the morning I sat out there with Sally. I call Nurse Cardew Sally now, as she says she prefers it.
The Haunting of Toby Jugg Page 24
