Tales of the Grotesque: A Collection of Uneasy Tales

by L. A. Lewis

  ‘“Oh,” I interrupted, “he has lucid intervals, then?”

  But she shook her head vigorously. “No,” came her flat denial. “He is constantly ‘possessed’. He keeps hopping and sidling about like some horrible crow, and even in his sleep he looks only half human.”

  “‘Then how was he able to direct you to me?” I naturally enquired, and received the astonishing reply,

  “His body is mad, but his mind is sane.”

  ‘What the devil do you mean?” I asked sharply, for this crazy statement sounded suspiciously like a leg-pull.

  ‘She answered in a perfectly calm voice, and I began to admire her level-headedness, though I was badly puzzled.

  “You’ll understand when you see him, doctor. The fact is, he doesn’t realize what has happened. All the time he is strutting and flapping about the place he can talk and answer questions in his own perfectly normal voice, but he doesn’t seem to know that his vocal chords are uttering the words. He speaks as though he were in some other part of the room watching the antics of his own body. It is quite evident after a few’ moments’ conversation that he has some extraordinary sense of standing outside himself and looking on. He thinks his body is the creation that haunts him!”

  I kept silent a few minutes while I tried to take this in. It was a new kind of delusion in my experience.

  ‘Well’ I suggested at length, “you’d better tell me how’ the whole business started.” And it was in giving the account of this that her admirable poise did, for a short time, desert her. I found ample excuse, though, when I’d heard the facts. The ordeal that poor girl had gone through would have driven ninety per cent of women straight off their heads.

  ‘Apparently she and Chalmers had met at a dance about two years before and fallen in love, more or less at first sight. As he had plenty of money there was no reason for a long engagement, though Chalmers was sensible enough to tell his fiancée about his secret fear and the words of the fortune-teller before the wedding. He assured her there was no hereditary insanity in his family, and that his delusion if delusion it was could hurt nobody but himself, adducing the fact that no other person had ever been able to see his spectre even though it presented itself to his ow n perceptions in crowded places. The girl was pleased at this display of his confidence, which made her all the more eager to marry him as she believed her companionship would be a help when he thought the apparition was nearby. The ceremony was therefore hastened on, and for several months it did seem that the acquisition of a wife had improved Chalmers’ spirits. He began to go about much more than he had done for years, taking his wife on a constant round of theatres, dances, and bridge-parties. He even voluntarily alluded to his obsession, and she realized that his choice of such a gay life was prompted by his desire for distraction from it.

  ‘The only inconvenience she suffered was having to get used to sleeping with a light on.

  ‘Well, they kept up a protracted honeymoon for a considerable time, travelling a lot, and staying at all the most expensive hotels. The girl a country parson’s daughter had never lived so lavishly before, and she enjoyed every bit of it.

  ‘At last, however, she suggested that they ought to take a house somewhere and settle down for a bit, if only to return the hospitality they had been receiving from Chalmers’ wealthy acquaintances, and the place they picked was an old Victorian mansion in a Sussex village not too far from Town.

  ‘The furnishers and decorators had it ready for them in a few weeks, and they celebrated their entrance into County life by throwing a big house-party to which a number of Bright Young People were invited. Everything seems to have gone with a swing from start to finish, the Bright Young People inventing their own amusements from day to day and thus saving host and hostess a lot of organizing.

  ‘Mrs Chalmers, however, noticed from the outset that her husband’s recent gaiety was on the decline. He entered into various round games and skylarks when he was literally cornered by his guests, but, as often as opportunity offered, he would slip out unobserved and wander off into the country for hours on end, frequently not returning till the small hours of the morning. He began to suffer badly from insomnia, but turned down all suggestions that he should try sleeping draughts. Mrs Chalmers was constantly waking up in the night to find him sitting in a chair reading, and her woman s instinct finally brought her to the realization that he was frightened to sleep.

  ‘One morning when he came home after three and found her lying awake she took him to task about it. He was more fidgety and distrait than ever, and his eyes had a wild expression like those of something hunted.

  “‘Really, my dearest,” she began, “You were sweet to tell me all about your trouble when we were engaged. What have I done to lose your confidence now? I could see for myself that, whatever your delusion, you weren’t mad, and that was why I never hesitated to marry you. But, if you don’t get a doctor to give you a sleeping mixture you’ll go mad. What is there about this place that’s upsetting you? You were all right until we came here.”

  ‘Chalmers, it seems, suddenly broke down, burst into tears, and went off into a long disjointed account of having found the monster’s home.

  “‘I felt certain I recognized this place when I first saw it,” he concluded, “and I hadn’t been in it many hours before I began to get flashes of having lived here before not in this life, but centuries ago. I remembered vaguely on the second evening of our residence some outré event having taken place in these very grounds, though the house wasn’t there then. I think it happened in some kind of marquee bearing heraldic signs. There was much consternation among a group of priests, and something was put to death and buried in a field about a mile away. I recall being forced to march in the procession to the burial ground, and after that it’s all hopelessly confused but I think I was burnt at the stake.”

  ‘He shivered and threw himself face down across the bed while his anxious wife soothingly stroked his hair.

  ‘ “I found the field that same night,” he continued brokenly, “and the thing rose up out of the ground to meet me. Its got a hypnotic hold on me and forces me to go night after night to commune with it. As soon as it appears I fall into a kind of stupor and can see nothing clearly, though I have a dreadful remembrance after of having stood for hours on end in a rustling, feathery embrace. I don’t know what the thing does to me, but I am falling more and more into its spell, and I have no volition to resist.”

  ‘He sobbed again convulsively, and then muttered in scarcely audible tones: “In a way I’m even beginning to like it! At first I felt that it was angry with me for not giving it a beastly, hybrid vehicle for the accomplishment of its desires. Now it seems content with our loathsome communions.”

  ‘You can well picture poor Mrs Chalmers’ state of mind when she heard this confession. As she saw it, her husband was now definitely suffering from a serious dementia, but she realized how impossible it would be to get his consent to medical advice, and how futile it was to argue with him.

  ‘She uttered no word of criticism, but quietly and firmly made up her mind to follow him to his next assignation and see for herself what he did. Their house-party was now almost broken up, and she had no great difficulty in slipping out of a side-door that evening, dressed in a dark, inconspicuous costume, and following Chalmers along a thickly hedged lane to a five-barred gate over which he proceeded to climb. He had marched all the way like a sleep-walker without once turning his head, and she now contrived to follow him into the field, where she concealed herself in the moon-shadow of a broad and leafy elm. She saw’ Chalmers march mechanically on and halt in the middle of the meadow, where he stood with outstretched arms as though awaiting the embrace of some invisible being. For some ten minutes he remained thus unmoving. Then all at once he seemed to divine her presence, though how he could have seen her in the shadows at such a distance, and with his back towards her, she could not fathom. She only knew that he had turned about and was dashing with unbelievable
speed straight for her hiding-place. She stood rooted there, utterly paralysed with terror, for, instead of the square-shouldered, nimble sprint she had so often admired on the tennis courts, he was coming in a series of fluttering, sidelong hops instinct with the vigorous intensity of a ravening culture. Within what seemed a second of time he was upon her and, seizing her in a grip of abnormal strength, had thrown her to the ground. So, with one sinewy hand on her throat, he held her pinned, while the other, fingers crooked like talons, ripped and tore at her clothing. Her whirling senses shrieked to her that this was not her husband suddenly demented, but an entirely alien presence into which he had been transformed. Her struggles and attempts to cry out were rendered futile in that merciless grip, and she could only lie supine with eyes fast shut to keep out the terror of the metamorphosed face, while in her nostrils clung a farmyard reek, and weird croakings and twitterings assailed her ears. Then her senses left her completely.

  ‘When she came to she was still lying in a bed of long, dewy grass in the shadow of the elm, her clothes torn to shreds and her body bruised from head to foot. Of Chalmers there was no sign. Fortunately a long silk opera cloak she had been wearing had fallen from her at the first onslaught and escaped damage. She was able to conceal the remnants of her costume beneath it, and to reach the house without exciting comment.

  ‘Now, I think she proved herself a very courageous gentlewoman when she made her way to their bedroom by the back-stairs without seeking the aid of guests or servants. On trying the door she found it locked, but, at the rattle of the handle, her husband’s voice now absolutely normal came from within.

  ‘“You can’t come in, dear,’ he said earnestly, “the Thing has come back with me, and it won’t leave.’’

  ‘“Nonsense,” she replied with firmness, “I musicome. Don’t you know you’ve hardly left a rag of clothes on me?”

  ‘“I’ve what,” he shouted incredulously, “what d’you mean? I haven’t even seen you since tea!” The apparent sanity of his tone helped her courage. Chalmers must have been quite unconscious of his actions in the field.

  Must come in,” she repeated, “never mind what you’ve got in there with you. I must help you fight it.” ‘She heard the lock click and a scamper of footsteps crossing the floor. She pushed the door open, slammed it behind her, and stood leaning back against it, her frightened gaze resting on the astounding spectacle before her.

  ‘Attired in purple pyjamas, and holding in his mouth a wriggling garden worm, Chalmers was hanging by both hands and one bare foot from the bedrail in the attitude of a parrot that clings inverted to the top of its cage.

  ‘ “You see,” he remarked courteously, the worm dropping to the floor as his lips opened, “the beastly thing’s got in here now and pinched a suit of my pyjamas.”

  ‘He dropped to the floor, twisting in agile fashion to alight upon his feet, and hopped upon the window-sill, where he perched with his head askew, and went on conversationally, “Now that you’ve seen it with your own eyes I need evade the subject no longer. Here it is even contriving to look something like me and here it undoubtedly means to stay unless we can think of some way to get rid of it. Two heads better than one, eh, dear?”

  ‘He stopped for a moment, scratched the back of his ear with one big toe, and continued: “I wouldn’t mind so much if the brute would keep still sometimes, but it won’t. It seems imbued with an eternal energy, and keeps hopping about as you can see.” As he spoke he sprang from the sill to the top of a big walnut wardrobe and perched there.

  ‘Mrs Chalmers’ face became more composed as an idea presented itself. “It’s movements are so quick,” she remarked, “that they distract my attention from you. Would you mind telling me where you were standing, for instance, when it made the last move?”

  ‘Chalmers’ voice sounded sulky and irritable as he answered her.

  ‘“You little idiot! I wasn’t standing. I’ve been sitting here on the bed ever since you came in.” But the voice came from the grotesque figure on the wardrobe.

  ‘Well, that is as much as I need tell you about the origin of Chalmers’ dementia,’ said Billy, mechanically shelling another nut. ‘Chalmers refused to occupy the same bedroom with his wife because, as he explained, he could not get rid of his uncanny visitant, and it was not proper that she should robe and disrobe in its presence an opinion for which the poor lady was devoutly thankful.

  ‘We put her up for the night, and the next day I travelled with her to her Sussex home to interview the patient. He or rather his body was in a recalcitrant state when I was shown in. The nurse, a big brawny fellow, told me that it had been the devil’s own job to prevent his escaping that morning when he heard that his wife was still away. Even primed with Mrs Chalmers’ account of her husband’s delusion, I will confess that it gave me an uncanny feeling to see the fellow strutting and pirouetting obscenely while his voice said in perfectly natural accents: “Glad you could come, Cole, but take no notice of that idiot.”

  ‘“I wasn’t trying to escape. It was the blasted hybrid, and, if they let it, there’ll be hell popping. Not a woman in the village will be safe from what I can guess of its instincts.” I noticed that Chalmers’ face was heavily coated with cream and talcum powder so that he looked unpleasantly like a sex pervert.

  ‘“Why do you?” I began, and then hastily remembered his delusion. “Why does your hybrid put that stuff on its face?” He hopped several times from Hoor to bed and back again before replying.

  ‘“It imitates me,” he said, “in every little thing I do. I uses my safety razor only it has to remove not hair, but feathers. I suppose it puts the cream and talcum on to hide the quills.”

  ‘I shivered a bit, and soon made a pretext to leave him.

  ‘“Mrs Chalmers,” I told his wife, as soon as we were out of earshot, “there is no need to get your husband certified, but I absolutely insist upon his leaving this house until your confinement is over. Now I’ve a friend a Dr Gunter who keeps a private nursing home not many miles from here. We shall have to drug Cyril and take him there in a closed car. Gunter will look after him until you’re on your feet again, and then you can bring him back here if you still wish to.”

  ‘To my relief, she fell in with the proposal, and that afternoon the plan was put into effect. For once Chalmers seemed to realize that he was in some way identified with his “hybrid’’, for he shouted at me to get to hell out of it for a treacherous hound, while I was adjusting the chloroform pad.

  ‘I stayed on at the house to keep an eye on the wife until her time came, and then ‘phoned Gunter, asking him to come over as assistant. You see, I had found out that Mrs Chalmers’ pregnancy dated from the night of his metamorphosis, and had decided to administer an anaesthetic.

  ‘It would be as well, I thought, if she saw nothing.

  ‘Well, the event finally took place, and my watch told me the hour was two a.m. We removed the er offspring to an adjoining room, where it lived only for a few hours. Confidentially, we made no very serious effort to save its life, and it was just as we had finally ascertained that the pulse had really stopped that a phone call came in from Gunter’s Matron to say that Chalmers had suddenly recovered his sanity. One of his first acts had been to wipe the powder from his face with a handkerchief, and he had then called an attendant, to whom he expressed his satisfaction that the “hybrid” had all at once dissolved into thin air, leaving him with a greater sense of freedom and well-being than he had known for months.

  ‘As it happened, Gunter was then washing his hands, and it was I who took the call. Something prompted me to inquire the hour at which Chalmers had been restored, and the Matron replied that, to the best of her knowledge, it was about two a.m.

  ‘Now then, you can call me imaginative if you like, old man, but I believe that there was something from “the other side” attached to Chalmers, and that it did actually steal his body for a period of time. When the offspring was born its needed vehicle was to hand, and in
to it the non-human strain passed from Chalmers through the medium of his wife. Evidently it could not get back when the infant body died, and I think that, with Chalmers’ debt of suffering paid in full, Providence may have mercifully allowed the hybrid soul to die too. I shall never forget the venom with which its new-born eyes looked at me while I withheld the nourishment it needed.’

  Billy stopped and took a sip of port, but my morbid streak was not yet satisfied.

  ‘But what was the offspring like?’ I demanded.

  Billy shot me an amused glance. ‘Thank God it was passably human in shape,’ he responded, ‘but we had to pluck it before the undertakers came.’

  The Tower Of Moab

  MY INTRODUCTION to The Tower of Moab came about in the course of travelling salesmanship. It is not, I take it, strange that I had never previously heard of the place, since the local residents are hardly aware of its existence, save as a familiar landmark, and, incidentally, a fare-stage for buses. I dare say it is not sufficiently historical to be widely known, whilst yet past its prime as the 'Nine days’ wonder it must once have been. All the same, in these times of cheap public transport thousands of people from all parts must constantly be seeing it: and, to my mind, it would be odd if they failed to mention it in their home towns as something of a national curiosity. I may of course be prejudiced by its special significance to myself, and yet I want to make it very plain that when I first set eyes on it I saw it only as a rather unexpected ruin remarkably unblemished by Time. I use the word “unexpected’, because the place is situated quite near the centre of one of our minor industrial towns close to the crossing of two main roads where every yard of land must be worth a good deal for shops, flats, and so forth. Indeed, the base of the Tower is entirely surrounded by such buildings, which may account in part for the scant heed paid to it, since, like the cathedrals of Canterbury, Peterborough and many other cities, it is quite visible from the adjoining thoroughfares, and its ragged summit, viewed from a greater distance across the sea of roofs, tends to lose interest with absence of detail,