Walk with Care

by Patricia Wentworth

  She tried to think of other things, but it was no use. The questions were always there, and if she relaxed for a moment, they were loud again.

  She made up her mind that she would see Asphodel.

  At once there was a certain relief. She knew now that she had been struggling against this decision for days. Gilbert was dead, and nothing could bring him back. She wanted to forget, not Gilbert, but all the tangled misery which had surrounded his death. She had been struggling against being forced to go back.

  At the entrance to her block of flats she hesitated, and finally walked on. She would find out if Asphodel could see her, but she would not ring up from the flat and she would not give her name. She walked on to a public call-box. As she entered it, she was surprised at the lightening of her load. It was as if she had been pushing a heavy weight up hill and now had nothing to do but follow the slope of the ground and let it run down again.

  She dialled in, had her two pence ready, and heard them fall with a sense of having burned her boats. The relief still held.

  Presently a faint faraway voice said, “Yes?”

  Rosalind tilted the mouthpiece a little.

  “I would like to come and see—” She hesitated. Did one say Asphodel, or Madame Asphodel? She chose the latter. “Can I see Madame Asphodel if I call this afternoon?”

  “Have you an appointment?” said the faraway voice. She thought it was a woman’s voice, but she was not sure.

  “No.”

  “What name?”

  “I would rather not give my name.”

  The voice said, “I will ask,” and Rosalind was left with the sound of the current running.

  She waited for what seemed an interminable time. Every now and then she said “Hullo!” The air in the box was used and heavy. Someone had been eating peppermints there, and behind the peppermint there was a faint stale flavour of scent.

  Suddenly the voice said, “A quarter to four,” and with a click the line went dead.

  Rosalind came out of the box, and was glad to draw a long breath. The afternoon was mild and muggy, with a little mist thickening the distance. It was a quarter past three.

  She went back to the flat, looked up Tilt Street on a tape-map, and decided to walk there. It would be unendurable to have to sit and wait. It is easier to meet what you dread than to wait for it to come to you. Rosalind walked fast. There was colour in her cheeks. She was afraid, and she was facing what she was afraid of.

  She asked her way once or twice, and found herself at last in Marsh Street. Bernard Mannister’s number was 29. She looked up at the windows as she passed and wondered whether Jeremy was there. The house was just what one might have expected—a very fitting house for Mannister; a handsome, decorous, respectable house; the paint on the front door new and sober; the large knocker as bright as gold in spite of the gathering fog. The house occupied a corner site between Marsh Street and a side street. She noticed how far it ran back, and she saw that the side street was Tilt Street.

  She walked along by the side wall of Bernard Mannister’s house, with its tall evenly spaced windows, and came to the first house facing on Tilt Street. The door was painted black and bore the figure 1 conspicuously displayed in some white metal. She rang the bell of No. 1, and the door was opened by a middle-aged woman in a black dress without cap or apron. She had grey hair done in an old-fashioned way, down-cast eyes, and a bitten-in mouth like a trap.

  The hall was the typical London hall, with an umbrella-stand and rather dingy paint. There were two doors on the left and a stair going up. The woman preceded Rosalind up the stair, turned at the half-landing, went up a few more steps, passed a door on the right, and threw open one that faced them.

  Rosalind hesitated on a dark threshold, heard the click of the switch behind her, and went forward into a thickly curtained room. Not only the windows but the walls were hung with black velvet. There was no day-light at all. A single low-powered bulb shone through an alabaster bowl in the middle of the ceiling. The ceiling was black too.

  Rosalind’s lip curled a little. After all, what did she expect? A woman who called herself Asphodel would be likely to have all the tricks of the charlatan.

  She walked a few steps and looked round.

  The room was the ordinary first-floor room, its two high windows hidden by the velvet hangings. Such rooms either run back into an L, or are separated from a second small room by a party wall or a folding door. Here the black hangings ran flush with the door by which she had entered, and whether there was a wall or a door behind them it was impossible to say. A single small arm-chair faced the hangings at a distance of one yard. The light was directly over it.

  The woman, who had followed Rosalind into the room, indicated the chair and withdrew. From first to last she had not spoken a single word.

  Rosalind sat down a little scornfully. A woman who had real powers would not need to have recourse to such childish mummery as this. It surprised her now that she should have been so much afraid of coming. The whole thing was ridiculous, a puerile attempt to play on credulous minds. At least the chair was comfortable.

  She relaxed, looked at her watch, and saw that it was just a quarter to four. She gazed idly at the black velvet wall. It was so near that she could have touched it by leaning forward. She leaned back instead comfortably, and then through the scornful amusement and the comfort there went a deep stab of pain. Gilbert must have sat in this very chair, and Asphodel had told him that he was going on a voyage round the world. Was that really what she had told him? He had gone farther than that.

  She made a great effort to put Gilbert out of her mind. She didn’t want to play into the woman’s hands by giving her thoughts that were easy to read. She had meant to keep her mind a blank or fill it with trifles. Instead, the most poignant and agonizing memories flooded her whole consciousness. She sat up, locking her hands together, and quite suddenly the light overhead went out, leaving her in total darkness.

  CHAPTER XVI

  ROSALIND SAT QUITE STILL and rigid, and hardly knew that the light had gone out. She felt only a crushing weight of loss. Then, as she stared before her, she heard the sound of rings sliding smoothly on a metal rod. The air moved before her face. There was a feeling of space, of emptiness, and she knew that the hangings in front of her had been drawn back. She looked into the dark, and could see nothing.

  And then quite suddenly there was a light. One moment everything was black, and the next there was a crystal ball that floated on the dark.

  Rosalind saw the crystal first. It seemed to spring out of the black air like a bubble of light. Then she saw that the light came in a narrow ray from a lamp with an opaque black shade. There was just the one clear panel. The ray came through it, sharp and bright as a sword. She could just see the lamp and the table on which it stood. Last of all she saw Asphodel. She was sitting behind the table with the crystal cupped in her hands. All the light flared on the crystal. The hands that held it were like stiff, pale wax. They did not look in the least like a living person’s hands. The nails were very pointed, and very highly polished. There was a ring with a cat’s-eye the size of a filbert on the third finger of the left hand. The face that was bent over the crystal was in the dusk above the ray. Rosalind saw it as one sees a face under water. It had a horrifying smooth pallor, the features rather sharp, the cheeks sunken, the lips pale. There was pale red hair combed straight back. There were folds of black velvet which hid everything except the hands. There were pale eyes that stared into the crystal.

  Rosalind felt as if a cold finger had touched her spine. Then she reacted sharply. This was the charlatan trying to make your flesh creep. Well, it was quite good play-acting. You could shudder at a play, even though you knew that the horror was only make-believe. She sat up a little straighter to watch the play.

  The silence went on—a thick, heavy silence like a heavy fog. The pale hands did not m
ove. The pale eyes stared. The crystal took the light.

  Rosalind’s hands held one another and gripped hard. She broke the silence with the feeling that she was breaking a nightmare. She said, “Please—” and then stopped because she had no breath. It came to her that she mustn’t speak, and that she must stay quite still. She waited.

  After a while Asphodel spoke.

  “There is a picture in the crystal.” The voice was just a whisper of sound, toneless and expressionless.

  Rosalind said, “What is it?” She could speak again.

  “Mist clearing—” said the whispering voice. “A house on the side of a hill—white—with pillars—white pillars. The mist is all gone. White pillars in the sun—very hot sun—dazzling. Black shadows—black. A black man—negroes—”

  Rosalind’s pulses quickened. Her Virginian home rose before her—the white house with its pillared front and shady porches—the negro servants. This must be mind-reading. But her thoughts had been far from Virginia. … Trickery. … Asphodel could not possibly know who she was. …

  There had been a pause. The voice spoke again.

  “There is a man in the picture—very tall and fair. He is riding a black horse. He rides out, but he will not ride home.”

  Rosalind caught her breath. It was sixteen years since her father had ridden out on the black horse which he called Satan, and had not ridden home again because Satan had bolted with him and thrown him against a stone wall.

  The voice went on:

  “I can see you standing between the pillars. You have a long fair plait fastened with a black ribbon. There is a woman in black. She is weeping. I cannot see her face.”

  Rosalind rallied her self-control. If it was true that the things you had known and felt were stamped upon your memory, then this sort of thought-reading was no more supernatural than the reproduction of sound from a gramophone record. The white pillared house, the black horse, the tall fair man, and the weeping woman were all pictures that her mind would keep for ever. Just how Asphodel saw them in the crystal she did not know, but she believed that she did see them there. If she saw those things, she could see other things. If she could see Lawrence Randolph on his black horse, why shouldn’t she see Gilbert Denny?

  The voice had ceased. The crystal looked dull. It no longer drank the light and held it like a star.

  Rosalind leaned far forward.

  “Can’t you see any more?”

  “No—I don’t think so.”

  “Won’t you try?”

  Asphodel had moved for the first time. She seemed to be leaning back, and the hands that held the crystal were fallen into the shadow of her velvet draperies. She said,

  “These things do not come by trying.” As she spoke, she put out her hand and turned the lamp so that the light struck away from her. It showed only the dense blackness of floor and hangings.

  Rosalind saw the hand come back again, the arm hidden in a wing-like sleeve. She could now see Asphodel’s face only as a blur. Sometimes when the eyes moved they caught and reflected a faint gleam. She had a moment of indecision. She had learnt nothing, but if this was all, she must go. She half rose from her chair and said with a reluctance she did not understand,

  “Do you want me to go?”

  Asphodel said, “Not yet;” and then, “Tell me what you want.” She paused, and when there was no answer, she said, “Or shall I tell you?”

  Rosalind leaned back again. Her thoughts clamoured, “Tell me—tell me!” but she found herself unable to speak. She waited, and heard Asphodel say,

  “You want to hear of someone who has passed over?”

  Rosalind said, “Yes.” The effort exhausted her. Her temples were wet.

  Asphodel was speaking again.

  “I will try the trance. Please stay quite still whatever happens. I shan’t know what happens myself. You can ask me questions, but it will be my control who answers. I don’t know what the answers will be. I can’t promise anything—you must understand that.”

  Rosalind said “Yes” again, and as she spoke. Asphodel leaned sideways and turned out the lamp. There was a click and darkness, and then another click and a very, very faint glow from a heavily shaded bulb in the ceiling. The shade was black. Just so much light came through it as to turn the darkness into a gloomy dusk. In this dusk it was possible to distinguish the contour of the table and the dense black of Asphodel’s velvet robe. Rosalind could still see the oval of her face. As she watched it, she thought it tilted slightly, as if the medium had sunk back into her chair. Once more silence fell, the heaviest silence that Rosalind had ever known. And then quite suddenly it was broken by the sound of a quickly taken breath followed by a cry of surprise.

  “Who are you?” said Asphodel in that toneless whisper.

  Then, before Rosalind had time to speak, the answer came from the medium’s lips. In Gilbert Denny’s voice it said,

  “Gilbert.”

  Rosalind found herself sitting rigidly upright and gripping the arms of the chair. She heard herself saying,

  “Gilbert—Gilbert!”

  And then there was Gilbert speaking to her, quite quietly and naturally.

  “Rosalind—are you there?”

  She said “Gilbert!” again, and felt her head burn and her feet go cold as ice.

  “I want to speak to you,” said Gilbert’s voice—“to tell you—I’ve tried so hard—I couldn’t get through—”

  “Gilbert!”

  “Tell you,” said the voice—“very difficult—don’t trust—” The voice failed.

  Rosalind’s hands clenched on the wood of her chair. She found herself saying Gilbert’s name again. It seemed to come from her stiff lips without any thought behind it. In the dumb background of her mind something agonized.

  “Ask—ask quick! Don’t lose—oh, Rosalind, ask!”

  But all that she could say was just his name. The dusk in front of her seemed to move. The shadows shook before her eyes. Gilbert’s voice came from the lips in the pale tilted oval that was Asphodel’s face.

  “Danger—for you—Rosalind—because of me—torment—” The word went out in a groan.

  Rosalind forced her will. She forced those stiff lips until they said, “Why?”

  “You,” said Gilbert’s voice—“because of me—you must pay for what I did—” There was another most dreadful groan. “Don’t trust—Jeremy Ware—”

  Rosalind felt light and strange. It was as if she had been shocked right out of her body. Thought, emotion, anguish quivered together in some place she had not known before. She groped for Gilbert, but she could not find him. Gilbert’s voice beat against her ears, but Gilbert himself was immeasurably removed. She was wrenched horribly between Gilbert and his voice. There was no Gilbert. He was gone out of her reach. She felt as if she were losing him for the first time.

  She came back to a sense of her body, and found it rigid. Gilbert’s voice was speaking, but she did not know what it said. She caught only the two last words: “Jeremy Ware.” She stared before her at the black hangings and the drowned pallor of the medium’s face, and heard Gilbert’s voice say,

  “Don’t trust—Jeremy Ware—”

  All at once she was calm and steady. The voice that had agonized in her was silent. Another voice said, “It’s a trick,” and an intense cold anger shone in her like the moon shining on ice. It made everything very hard and clear. She said, “Why?” and the cold was in her voice.

  The medium cried out, and a high, thin voice said, “I want to come through.”

  Then Gilbert’s voice again: “I can’t stay—Rosalind—” and a deep broken groan.

  Rosalind’s mind held steady, but her body had begun to shake. She saw Asphodel wrench sideways and throw up her hands. She heard her scream on a high, thin note. Broken words poured from her lips. The two voices contended in an uni
ntelligible medley of sound.

  Suddenly the medium choked and became convulsed. The pale hands writhed and beat the air. The pale eyes, with all the whites exposed, caught the faint light and made it horrible. From the twisted mouth came sounds of hoarse, inhuman distress. Then, just at its most unendurable, the nightmare broke. With a heavy gasping sigh Asphodel flung back. The hands lay still. The head rested motionless. She drew three or four deep breaths and spoke in the same whispering tone she had used at the beginning.

  “Did you get what you wanted?”

  Rosalind held herself, but her voice shook. She said,

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I don’t know anything when I’ve been in trance—I told you so. Wasn’t it any good? You needn’t tell me unless you like.” She spoke as if she were drained of vitality.

  Rosalind moved.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Will you please tell me what I owe you?”

  Another of those heavy sighs.

  “I don’t take a fee—it’s not allowed. Phoebe will show you out. You may care to have a memento of your visit—” Her voice died wearily.

  Rosalind got up and felt her way to the door. She heard the soft sliding sound which she had heard before and, glancing back, saw only unbroken darkness. The velvet curtains once more shut off the L. She fumbled for the handle. Her hands felt stiff and heavy. When she opened the door, the light dazzled her.

  The curtains had been drawn at the half-landing, and an unshaded bulb showed Phoebe waiting. There was a small table which Rosalind had not noticed when she came up. Some half dozen sketches were disposed upon it. Phoebe stood beside the table with the decorous air of an old family servant. As Rosalind came down the steps, she spoke.