The Echoing Stones

by Celia Fremlin

  “You go back home,” he urged. “He’ll be wandering back any minute now, you’ll see, and you don’t want him to find an empty house, do you? Meantime, I’ll try to track down Flora, and see if she knows anything. I’ll ring Pauline, or Tracey, and see what time she left the Tea Room, and whether she said anything to them about what she was doing next. Don’t worry, Joyce. I’m sure he’s all right. He’s got nine lives, that father of yours!”

  An unfortunate expression, perhaps, to apply to an old man in his nineties. A life for each decade, and the ninth one just due? But Joyce did not seem to make the connection – and why should she, since there wasn’t one? She seemed only too willing to follow Arnold’s advice, and leave the rest of the problem to him.

  *

  Pauline was out and Tracey, summoned to the telephone by a small sister yelling at the top of her voice, “It’s for you, Trace! It’s that man who’s always cross about something!” was less than helpful.

  Yes, Flora had left work early, she admitted, “But the money’s all right, Mr Walters, I locked it up in the till, and I’ve taken the key. I locked both of the outer doors, too.”

  She was proud of herself, had used her initiative, done the right thing. Ought to be congratulated, but Arnold didn’t bother, and so no wonder her answers to his subsequent questions were a trifle terse. “No, I haven’t a clue, Mr Walters. No, she didn’t say. Only that her mother had turned up. Oh, and Mr Walters (here a gleeful note had come into the girl’s voice) “her mother’s boyfriend has been here too, I saw him. He’s been mooching around all afternoon, did you know that? He comes a lot, doesn’t he?” Here she paused, hoping, presumably to get some sort of reaction from him; and when none came she reverted to her former brusque manner. “No, Mr Walters, I don’t know. No, she didn’t say anything about Sir Humphrey, why should she? And if you don’t mind, Mr Walters, I can’t keep talking any longer, I’ve got to …”

  Arnold couldn’t be bothered to feel snubbed, not by a chit like that. He went on to ring Joyce with his tiresomely negative report, and as many cheering words as he could think of. Sincere words, too, for he truly did feel that the old nuisance would turn up all right.

  “So just stay where you are, Joyce,” he reiterated, “and I’ll go and search the grounds. It’s lucky there’s a good moon tonight.”

  *

  There was, too. A full moon, a harvest moon, the huge disk just rising above the Eastern battlements, casting black zig-zag shadows across the courtyard and glinting on the still waters of the fountain. The plume of spray was always turned off at closing time, when the visitors were gone, in a not very effective effort to conserve water, so the pool was flat as glass in the pale, silvery light. Not a fish was stirring, and the circle of bright water, like a still-photograph of itself, gave a dream-like quality to the scene, and Arnold passed on under the archway with a curious sense of moving into the unknown. Which was strange, because the route he was taking – across the terrace and through the park – wasn’t unknown to him at all, far from it. It had been part of his daily life for months. It must be the moonlight which made it seem so unreal. Moonlight can have that effect, especially perhaps the harvest moon.

  The grass was wet underfoot, and the whole expanse of the park looked grey, sucked bare of colour and yet luminous, especially where a thin whitish mist hovered low over the long grass which bordered the woodland.

  No owls tonight: the season of bird cries was coming to an end, though when Arnold stepped under the trees a harsh yattering shriek and a frightened flutter of wings told him that the woodland life was not entirely sleeping. He’d intended for some time now to study the bird life in this part of the country and learn to identify the various songs and cries: had, indeed, got so far as to buy one of the pamphlets on the subject from Joyce’s kiosk, but hadn’t so far found the time to read it properly.

  A little way into the wood he paused, as the patterned light at his feet gave way to a thicker darkness. This was the point at which to decide whether or not to use his torch, and thus risk alerting his quarry to his approach.

  If Sir Humphrey was somewhere here – and Arnold had a powerful hunch that this would be the old man’s chosen direction – then would he welcome Arnold’s intrusion? If he was already lost, hopelessly confused, forgetful of why he had come and where he was, then he might be grateful – might he not? – for torchlight, and a kindly guide to escort him home. On the other hand … Arnold had a sudden vision of the fierce, eagle face, the pale shining eyes: and he knew beyond doubt that whatever else had died and shrivelled and grown inoperative in that old, disintegrating brain, pride still remained, an unquenchable bright core, holding the fort undaunted against the relentless oncoming of the dark.

  No, he would not be grateful.

  And, of course, Flora might be with him. In pursuance of her blithely-held belief that the mad are entitled to just as much freedom as the sane, she might well have aided and abetted this escapade tonight. (“If he chooses to go for a walk in the woods, why shouldn’t he go for a walk in the woods? Just because he doesn’t choose to remember the things that other people think he ought to remember, is that a crime? A crime worse than murder, to be punished by life-imprisonment?”)

  This old familiar argument had been bandied back and forth often enough between himself and his daughter, he felt he knew it by heart. He knew exactly what they would both say. That’s all very well, Flora, but don’t you realise how terribly worrying it is for poor Joyce not to know where he is or what he is doing? And why, Arnold, is it more important for Joyce not to be worried than it is for Sir Humphrey to have his freedom?

  And so on. No agreement was ever going to be reached. But by this time, picking his way along the narrowing and ever more winding path, he at least came to one decision: he would use the torch. Let Sir Hmphrey make what he liked of it. Switching it on, he continued on his way, the beam of light illuminating brilliantly the small circle of damp leaves into which he was about to tread, but reducing all else by contrast to total, impenetrable blackness. The faint grey outlines of huge tree-trunks, the pale, ongoing line of the path amid the dark blur of surrounding vegetation - all vanished in favour of this small, dazzling, step-by-step bit of illumination. However, this was the safer option, he felt. There might be some obstacle on the path over which he might otherwise stumble and hurt himself quite badly.

  There was such an obstacle; and in spite of the torch-beam highlighting it, he did nearly stumble. Certainly he staggered, and grabbed for support at the invisible foliage alongside. Although his hand was bleeding quite badly from the throny shrub at which he had happened to clutch, he never noticed the sticky, tickling wetness as he gazed dumbfounded into the circle of torchlight, at the very centre of which, floodlit like some famous work of art, the white skull stared up at him.

  The sheep’s skull again. The wretched “Charlie”. Somehow, at this their second encounter, Arnold had been slower to identify the thing, and so the shock, right through to his very bones, had lasted longer, by several seconds. He was still trembling when he set off once more along the path, filled now with foreboding, and with a shapeless, ill-directed anger. Ill-directed, because he could not imagine, yet, exactly what it was he had to be angry about; though he knew well enough who he had to be angry with. Flora. With her ill-digested, second-hand and pseudo-revolutionary theories, she was encouraging a helpless, senile old man to get himself into every kind of disastrous trouble, sooner or later endangering his own life, and very likely that of others. Freedom for the mad demands eternal vigilance from the sane – and it was just this vigilance that Flora was eternally trying to circumvent.

  And then he saw her … running towards him across the moonlit glade that opened up ahead, and calling to him in a soft, loving voice such as he hadn’t heard from her in years.

  “Oh, thank goodness …! I was beginning to be afraid …” and then, as the dazzle of his torch swung away from her eyes, she recognised him, and her voice changed as
if by some horrible fairy spell turning words into toads.

  “Oh … you! … You …! What have you done to him? Where is he? You’ve locked him up again, just when …” and now, disconcertingly, she burst into tears, and flung herself to the ground all among the damp leaves, and with the moonlight patterning her slender figure through the tracery of foliage above. Her anorak, a gaudy emerald green by day, looked pale as chalk under the broken silvery light.

  Arnold lowered himself onto the soft damp ground beside her, and felt his own anger draining away under the impact of her tears. Flora almost never cried, not in his presence, anyway. He began talking, almost at random, trying to convince her that he had seen nothing of Sir Humphrey, had no idea of where he was, or what this was all about. What was it all about, anyway.

  The story revealed by Flora, between sobs, was roughly what Arnold had feared it would be. Once again she had been irresponsibly aiding and abetting the old man in his absurd fantasies, even to the point of promising to help him rescue the non-existent infant heir to the non-existent Tudor throne. The two of them were to bring the imaginary child, after dark, to this woodland glade, where a party of horsemen would be gathered ready to escort them to safety in some distant castle. From which, presumbaly, some sort of uprising would be organised in favour of this rightful heir. At this point, the scenario became vague, and gave way to Flora’s immediate rage and frustration at having been foiled at the very outset of this absurd pantomime by the absence of the leading man – Sir Humphrey himself just when the imaginary episode was about to begin.

  Apparently, what had happened was this. Flora had gone to the cottage, as she quite often did after finishing work at the Tea Room, to offer to take the old man for an evening stroll. Usually, Joyce was only too glad to accept this offer, but this time she’d said No, not just now, her father hadn’t been very well and was resting. “Looking back,” said Flora, sitting up, cross-legged now, and sifting damp dead leaves through restless fingers, “looking back, I think I must have been out of my mind to have let it go at that. I ought to have challenged her then and there, and insisted on coming in and seeing him for myself. But like a fool I took her word for it and went off, meaning to come back later. But when I did come back later, it was too late. He’d vanished. I heard the commotion about it before I even got to the cottage – Ida and Joyce were rushing in and out looking for him, blaming each other: ‘But I was only on the telephone for two minutes’ … ‘You know very well the front door must never be left unlocked’ – that sort of thing. It was a laugh, really it was – or at least I thought it was at the time. Aha, he’s given them the slip, I thought, good for him! and of course I took for granted he’d come here on his own without waiting for me. But when I got here, and there was no sign of him … and I waited and waited … and it got dark … and then you turned up! I’m sorry I was such a pig, Arnold, but it was so disappointing when it turned out to be just you. And now I don’t know what to do. No one knows where he is – what can have happened? He was so certain that tonight was the night because it had all been arranged for the night of the full moon. The horsemen had been alerted, they would be there waiting …”

  “Flora,” interrupted Arnold sharply, “I don’t know how you can be so cruel to a helpless old man you claim to be fond of. Because it is cruel, it’s making a fool of him – to go along with all this nonsense, pretending you believe it. It’s insulting: it’s treating him as a child, playing games of make-believe.”

  Flora seemed surprisingly unruffled by this criticism; in fact she didn’t seem quite to see at as a criticism at all.

  “Yes”, she said. “It is a bit like that. The total, non-linear, multi-dimensional reality that a child experiences – it’s something you lose as an adult. Well, most adults, anyway. A special sort of total, unblinkered awareness slips away as you grow older and can’t be recaptured. But Sir Humphrey has recaptured it, that’s why it’s so wonderful being with him. He’s in a different world, he’s breathing air four hundred years younger than our air, and when I’m with him, I can breathe it too. It’s like a fresh wind blowing straight out of the past. The past is still here, you know, in this place. It’s everywhere. Sometimes you can even hear it, if you put your ear to the ground. Try it, Arnold, just try it. Lie flat down, press your ear close to the ground, keep very still, and after a minute you’ll hear it … the beat, beat, beat of horses’ hoofs from a long time ago, and coming nearer. Try it. Just try it!”

  Arnold had no intention of trying it. It was damp and uncomfortable enough just sitting. Everything was cold and sodden and soaked in moonlight.

  “It would just be the blood pulsing in your ear,” he hazarded. “That, and your imagination.”

  “I knew you’d say something like that,” said Flora smugly. “And I knew you wouldn’t try it for yourself, so you’ll never know. But I tried it, Sir Humphrey told me just what to do, and, oh yes, I heard the horsemen coming. Every time. Each time they were nearer. That’s when we started making our plans. And to bring Charlie here too, as a protection against evil spirits. The skull of a sheep has a special potency because of the sheep being a symbol of innocence. And, of course, just the fact of being a skull. Everyone is frightened of skulls – remember how frightened you were, Arnold, when you first saw it? – Well, it frightens the evil spirits in just the same way.”

  “Flora!” Arnold once again sharply interrupted. “You know very well that his is all nonsense. The idea of humouring the mad is all very well, but when it comes to …”

  “I’m not humouring the mad! He’s not mad! There’s no such thing as madness. There are just different levels of reality, and what’s called sanity is merely one of …”

  She broke off. Her eyes widened, her body tensed, and she seemed to be listening intently, fearfully, to some distant sound. Not four-hundred-year-old horses’ hoofs, let’s hope?

  And then he heard it too; far, far away, beyond the trees, beyond the moonlit stretches of parkland, faint as a bird-call, the sound of a distant scream … and then another … and another …”

  “It’s Mum!” shrieked Flora, leaping to her feet; and before Arnold had fully taken in what was happening, she was across the moonlit glade and plunging into the dark, overgrown path. He heard the twigs crackling beneath her running feet, and knew that he’d never be able to catch up with her, though of course he tried.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Flora’s miscarriage had proved unstoppable, though the local hospital had done its best. Now she was sitting up in bed, pale and grief-stricken, and so chastened and quiet as to be almost unrecognisable to the parents sitting one on each side of her bed, wondering what to say. So accustomed were they to being contradicted and pushed into controversy every time they opened their mouths, that her present uncomplicated need for consolation was something they hardly knew how to meet.

  And Mildred felt full of remorse as well. It was her screams that had brought her pregnant daughter racing through the night, stumbling over tree roots, and finally pitching head-long down the steep dungeon steps, slippery and treacherous with night dew and fallen leaves. Screams so unnecessary, too, for in fact she had never been in the slightest danger. Already, before Flora had even reached the treacherous dungeon steps, Mildred had been rescued from her terror by – wouldn’t you know it? – her accustomed escort, and now her knight-errant as well.

  On his way to the car-park, Gordon had explained, he’d been passing along the main terrace and had become aware of some sort of disturbance going on in the dungeon. The dungeon should, he knew, have been closed to the public some hours ago; and so he’d felt he ought to investigate. Finding the main door locked, he’d ventured to ignore the DANGER and NO ADMITTANCE notices, and to make his way down the perilous spiral staircase that led to the disused door in the East Wall. Managing, with difficulty, to draw back the rusted and long-disused bolts, he had arrived in the dungeon just as Sir Humphrey’s imaginary sword fight with his imaginary antagonist was reaching
some sort of climax. Gordon had hurried to intervene but, alas, too late. The old man had already stumbled and fallen, hitting his head against the iron base of the rack and fracturing his skull. And it was at this point, said Gordon, that Mildred had begun to scream. Until that moment, he’d had no idea that she was there, crouching in the shadows. He could understand how terrified she must have been poor dear, and he’d done his best to reassure her, to get her quickly out of the dreadful place, as well as hurrying to summon doctor and ambulance. He’d done, in fact, everything it was possible to do, but to no avail. Sir Humphrey was already dead, he must have died instantly when he fell.

  It seemed clear that in this fraught and alarming situation Gordon had behaved with exemplary good sense and presence of mind; and Mildred, though puzzled by some of the details in his account, nevertheless felt grateful for his kindness and concern towards herself.

  Grateful yes, but not very much comforted. There was nothing in all this to relieve her sadness about her lost grandchild, nor to alleviate her feelings of guilt about her own share in the double disaster. If only she hadn’t lost control and screamed like that …

  Flora, of course, was the one who should have felt guilty about Sir Humphrey’s death. She it was who had contrived that he should miss taking the tranquillisers prescribed by his doctor. She it was who had encouraged his delusions and egged him on to wild escapades far beyond his own feeble and disintegrating powers. By sharing his dim and wavering fantasies, she had instilled into them a life, a purpose, a spurious reality far exceeding anything he could have dreamed up on his own, slumped alone in his chair dozing and muttering to himself in a kind of half-dream. Under her inspiration, he had begin to act-out these fantasies ever more realistically, ever more dangerously, plunging inexorably towards some sort of disastrous end.