Echo of a Curse

by R. R. Ryan

  What, indeed, would the metaphysicians say? What did any of them know about black-animism? Or of any hyper-force, the deadly, stealing, undetectable hyper-forces? How did they think the foulness of Man was to be explained? How did the sceptics imagine their Good was to be explained? If any one of them could lie still in evil physical circumstances, in thick darkness, and open the subtlety of himself for those black forces to creep in and possess, he’d know. They were chains, those dark bonds. And there was only one surcease from torment, surrender, total surrender. Disaster to stand half in the light, half out. Obliteration—the one salvation. But who could take it, while those inexorable tugs were pulling one powerfully, surely, gradually nearer and nearer the foul eternity?

  Disaster was inevitable. No action of any kind could stave it off. Better far to let them bask in their apparent sunshine until the last moment. Their ignorance was their bliss indeed!

  Improbable any of them would see the item for themselves. It had not been in the local paper, only in the County News, apart from The London Daily Journal, which everybody called some opprobrious name. Terry took the Times and Telegraph. Mary seldom bothered about the papers. Don, even if he saw the item, would see no special significance; and that applied to Faith as well.

  He would destroy the cutting . . . And live in fear. Fear, not of the Thing approaching, but of himself; of the unaccountable part of him and how it would react to his son’s arrival.

  He rose, rousing the others from their thoughts. It was generally like this, Vin quietly rising and quietly going, as if he were the guest and Terry the host. Faith, too, rose; and this was also a rule. Always she saw her father off.

  “Good morning, Mary. Bye-bye, Terry.”

  They watched them go, Vin’s arm round Faith’s shoulders.

  “Do you know, Terry,” Mary said when the door was closed once more, “I’ve just been marveling that Faith is not famous for her beauty?”

  Terry smiled. He agreed about the beauty, but in secret considered that the girl lacked the other qualities necessary to make mere beauty appeal.

  “Well, it’s strange you should bring up Faith’s name, Mary, for I was just going to speak about her myself. I don’t think she’s looking well.”

  A worried expression dawned in Mary’s eyes. She, herself, considered the girl looked run down and had been meditating tonics.

  “She wants a change,” Terry suggested. “You’ve always taken your holidays about now. What about it?”

  Mary flushed.

  “We shall have to postpone them a little. I’ve got behind with the rates and shall have to wait for my dividends.”

  “When it’ll be little benefit your taking a holiday at all . . . Mary, let me . . .”

  “Please, Terry!” For this question of financial help was an old bone of contention between them. For some reason, which, probably, had a psychological explanation, Mary’s objection to accepting any financial aid from her old friend was little short of an obsession. Maybe it was due to her dumb, repressed caring and as secret a striving against convention. Whatever the reason, nothing would have made her accept help from Terry; and she dreaded debt.

  But, as the morning progressed, she pondered over his words. Something would have to be done. Faith at least must have a change. It was Anne who unconsciously suggested a solution.

  “What about lunch, Anne?” Mary asked, as every day for all these years she had invariably asked.

  And as inevitably Anne answered, “What d’you think yourself, M’m?”

  “Is there any of the cold lamb left?”

  “Yes. Sufficient for rissoles . . . Oh, the butcher’s been and I ordered the meat for to-morrow, as you said. By the way, he tells me Mrs. Clifford’s got another paying guest . . .”

  “Has she? I wish I could get another.”

  “Why don’t you advertise, M’m?”

  “I did, Anne.”

  “In the local papers, M’m. Tom Godley tells me Mrs. Clifford advertised in the London papers.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “She’s made a splash about the local golf courses, the Luston fishing and the historical associations.”

  “Well! I certainly have been slow!”

  Anne smiled. She was a woman now of over sixty and deeply attached to Mary, whose soundest adviser she considered herself.

  “It’s never too late, M’m. Why don’t you write out an advert now? I’ll post it when I go down about the fish.”

  “I will, Anne, I will!”

  She told Terry what Anne had suggested when he came home for lunch, for which he, unlike Vin, who still kept to his old habits, invariably returned. Terry was a man who liked home life—and Anne’s cooking.

  “Is this let of Mrs. Clifford’s a permanency?”

  “No, just for the summer months. If I could get someone for the summer, I’d be able to send Faith away.”

  “Would she care to go by herself?”

  “Well, she’d not mind Mrs. Hampson’s farm. It’s just like home to her and she’s very fond of Muriel Hampson . . . I might manage a few week-ends myself.”

  “What Mrs. Clifford’s achieved, you might easily repeat,” he said encouragingly, to hide his chagrin. It galled Terry to see Mary strive. The day would come when he’d finally put his foot down. There’d be a regular rough-house, but he’d have his way.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  There was a letter for Faith by the midday post.

  “It’s from Mrs. Lessingham, Mum,” Faith said, turning the envelope over and over again—a habit of hers whenever she received a letter and a habit that Terry thought illustrative of her indeterminate nature.

  “Well, why not see what she says?”

  “Yes . . .” Faith opened the envelope with what to frayed nerves might have been excessive precision and read its contents.

  “Oh, Mum, she wants me to go and stay at Feathersdale!”

  Mary laughed.

  “Why do you laugh, Mum?”

  “Well, I was only saying to Uncle Terry this morning that you needed a change and here’s the chance.”

  She did not add that her advertisement had already gone and now, in view of this altogether unexpected suggestion, it need not have gone at all . . . However, perhaps it was just as well. If, by good chance, she did get a reply and made arrangements for the summer months, the money thus obtained could be put by for future contingencies. She disliked the idea of strangers in her home quite as much as Terry, if, perhaps, for different reasons; but the war had put many such women as herself in similar positions. The only thing to do was carry on and be thankful.

  And three days later a reply did come.

  It was from a firm of solicitors in Gray’s Inn.

  “Bless my soul, I know Josh Wray,” Terry told Mary. “I met him in Paris during the war and I’ve had dealings with him since; more than once, too. The last time was regarding that Crayley property; you remember, Mary?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What does he say?”

  “DEAR MADAM,

  “A client of ours has seen your advertisement in the Daily Telegraph and would like to arrange for a visit of two months. In these circumstances perhaps you would be so good as to quote your terms to us so that we may advise our client.

  “It is, however, necessary to explain that the gentleman who has consulted us is a foreigner and has recently been the victim of fire which not only injured his sight, but also inflicted other severe damage, especially to the mouth, which he has to keep covered.

  “It is because he is exceedingly sensitive regarding these disabilities of appearance that Mr. Govina has asked us to conduct these negotiations.

  “Apart from his misfortune, Mr. Govina is a very pleasant person, exceedingly well read, a linguist and by profession an author.

  “It is because he is writing a book upon the cathedrals of the world, their history and architectural features, that he proposes to visit your town, whose cathedral he considers will prove o
f particular interest to him.

  “If the unhappy matter of Mr. Govina’s appearance proves no bar, we can doubtless come to terms. Our client would require his own apartments and all meals served privately.

  “Perhaps you will be so good . . .”

  “What do you think, Terry?”

  “Sounds all right, Mary. Josh Wray’d not deal with anyone who’s not desirable. And, if he’s so sensitive, you’d not see too much of him; and that’s all for the best, eh?”

  “Then you’d write?”

  “I would.”

  “Help me to . . .”

  “Look here, old thing, since a lawyer’s written to you, let a lawyer reply. Leave it to me.”

  “Oh, bless you! I’d not know how to word it.”

  “Then that’s all right.”

  “Vin won’t mind, do you think?”

  “How can he, Mary?”

  For an instant she did not reply, but said at last:

  “We were talking this morning again about how the years have flown.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you realized how long it is since those horrible times . . .”

  “Vin, you mean?”

  “Yes . . . And how . . .”

  “Different he’s been?”

  “Without us really being aware of it.”

  “Whereas we should have a permanent sense of surprise.”

  “I . . . suppose I’ve been quite fair to him?”

  “In keeping him so utterly at arm’s length?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a matter I can hardly comment on, Mary.”

  “Why, Terry?”

  “You know why, Mary.”

  Sudden, almost overpowering emotion showed in his face and, startling her, a corresponding surge rushed through her entire being.

  Both realized the impossibility of discussing this subject further. But Mary said:

  “I think I will speak to Vin.”

  “About this guest business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s not a matter to delay, why not get him on the phone?”

  “Very well.”

  She returned in less than three minutes, her eyes wide.

  “Did you get him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He . . . was most extraordinary . . . He said, terribly loudly, in the funniest voice . . . It seemed to burn my ear . . . ‘Oh, he’s come!’ And groaned . . . It was a terrible sound, Terry. I said, ‘Do you mind, Vin? Because if you do, I’ll decline the offer?’ But he answered, ‘No. Nothing can avert the inevitable.’ And then he rang off . . .”

  She looked inquiringly at Terry; but he said nothing.

  “He is such an incomprehensible man, Terry. There’s always something frightening about him . . . Even now when his conduct’s so perfect . . . I sometimes wonder . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “If he’s sane.”

  “My dear!”

  “Have you wondered that, too, Terry?”

  “Darling! (Neither was consciously aware of the endearment) I can’t discuss it . . . What shall you do about the letter?”

  “Oh, send it . . . Terry, tell me . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “What could he possibly have meant—sensibly, I mean?”

  “Heaven knows, old soger! Vin has said and done some very curious things during all these years . . . But it’s too late to try and explain them now, don’t you think?”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Josh Wray’s letter of acknowledgment and confirmation duly arrived. Mr. Govina would himself arrive in two days’ time and his firm had pleasure in forwarding their client’s cheque for a substantial deposit. When told of the confirmation and shown the cheque, Vin refrained from comment; nor did he offer any explanation of his strange words over the phone. Mary had long since recognized that she and her husband were separated as widely as if situated on opposite poles. Between them existed an unbridgeable gulf. Though they stood face to face, it was impossible for either to touch upon each other’s affairs. They were two strangers, bearing a common name by right of marriage, sharing equally in the love of their children, but less in touch than Mary was with her trades-people. None more aloof than Vin since the days of his sobriety, could, Mary thought, possibly exist. In temperament and behaviour he seemed to have no relationship to that other Vin, Vin the drunkard. Her warmest emotion was a cold, compelled respect for a will that could abjure an evil and abstain year after year. Mary explained this seemingly miraculous change in Vin not by any powerful and inherent virtue suddenly manifesting itself and controlling her husband’s morbid desire, not by any sudden contrition, and not in any way on her account, but simply by the abrupt springing to life of his violent adoration of Faith, a gift from the bountifulness of life that he had not expected. For Vin had supposed the coming child would be a boy. And now, at the moment of telling her husband of Mr. Govina’s advent, she really and truly looked consciously at him for the first time since the start of their neutrality—a period, the calendar told her, of a length almost impossible to believe.

  She thought he looked extremely ill; then said so, offering advice, suggesting a doctor.

  “I’m not ill,” he told her coldly. “If I felt in need of medical advice, I should have it.”

  In view of such a rebuff, what more, Mary asked herself, could she do? Nevertheless, an impression remained with her that Vin’s rebuff was artificial and intended to hide both fear and suffering; but of what he could be afraid of and why he should be mentally suffering, she failed to comprehend. Did it not seem absurdly impossible, she would believe that his concern and distress were both occasioned by her announcement . . . Unless he was not mentally stable. That would account for much. But it was a horrible thought—remembering her two children, who were his two children.

  But despite this temporary concern about Vin and his incomprehensibility, Mary felt uplifted that day, without realizing how little it needed to uplift her now, or how narrow her range of interests had become, a state of things for which Vin was responsible. Had he been the man of means Mary first believed, her present horizon would have been wide indeed, her range of interests great.

  As it was, some little relief from her perpetual money-strivings provided her richest treat and the concentration needed to arrange for a new guest’s arrival her only type of interest.

  Mary and Faith had for some years now shared two rooms on the first floor, one leading out of another; the first being furnished as a sitting-room, the second as a bedroom possessing two single beds.

  She would relinquish these two rooms for the expected guest’s convenience and herself move into the two corresponding rooms on the floor above. During Faith’s absence, she’d get Anne to sleep with her; for now she was accustomed to company at night and would have found loneliness disturbing. She was content and composed in her arranging and re-arranging. To-morrow Faith would be off for her holiday, from which she should return shining of eye and rosy of cheek. This thought alone was a source of optimism. And then, on the next day, their visitor would arrive. She and Anne would look after him, thus ensuring him as much privacy for his afflicted condition as was possible. With a little tact they should soon put him at his ease.

  She hummed as she worked. This incident was like an omen of good fortune . . . And she was happy about Terry. Happy to know that deeply hidden she had discovered a little precious spring of love.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Next day Faith set off on her visit to the Lessinghams.

  Her farewell to Vin was in some respects extraordinary and would, had they witnessed it, have still further perplexed both Terry and Mary.

  The emotion with which Vin said good-bye, the despair pictured on his haggard face, the struggle with which at last he let her go—these things seemed out of all proportion to the occasion’s needs.

  Still more extraordinary was his display of despair when at last she and Mary had entered the taxi
and driven off. Naturally a silent girl, deeply respecting of confidences, Faith said nothing of her father’s strange good-bye to Mary; but she was deeply distressed, even unnerved nevertheless.

  There was much about the relationship existing between herself and Vin that puzzled Faith. At times it almost horrified her. There was something devouring in Vin’s love, something absorbing. It was not the ordinary calm love of any father for any daughter. It was, she instinctively felt, hardly the love of a human being. It was a love that frightened . . . But she was afraid to express her fear. Did she let her father realize the horror with which his transports and occasional mysterious hints filled her, there was no imagining what might happen. She invariably denied to herself the possibility that such an exposure might rouse up in him certain latent furies of which she had seen glimpses, but never more.

  His attitude to her Faith, perhaps rather absurdly, had always felt was that of Abraham towards his beloved son whom he was required to sacrifice.

  Often at night she had lain awake in deadly fear: because in these dark hours the certainty came to her that Vin was waiting for something, but that always her life was never really safe at his hands. Morning light dissipated these fears, revealed their grotesquerie; however, there were exceptions to these daylight reliefs, exceptions when her fear persisted, but, under the scrutiny of reason, took a less morbid shape. And on these occasions her opinion was at one with those of Terry and Mary: Vin was not truly rational, but at times stepped into an odd land of fantasia of his own.

  It was therefore to her a blessed relief to be setting forth, free and alone, to enjoy what should be a delightful change of several weeks. And this despite the wrench she always endured on leaving her mother behind.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The train was not a very good one; it had to stop at various semi-important stations before arrival. At the first of these an odd-looking man climbed into her carriage and took the corner facing her.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Next day Mary received a letter, posted on arrival, announcing Faith’s reception by Mrs. Lessingham and her family and the immediate plans for excursions, entertainment in general, which, it seemed, would include a few visits to the sea by car.