‘Whoever he is, I hope he goes soon,’ Anya said. ‘Otherwise I’m afraid poor Marek might really be tipped over the edge.’
‘Poor Marek,’ Gabriel echoed.
‘Poor Marek,’ Alexej said.
Whether or not poor Marek was tipped over the edge by Mr Smith, the others could never agree. All they knew was what he told them over breakfast on the third morning of the visitor’s stay, when they asked him if last night too Mr Smith had gone walking on – ‘Sorry, I mean in, ha ha ha,’ – the water, and talking to the swans.
Normally when he knew the others were laughing at him Marek ignored them; closed up like the proverbial clam determined to keep out the waters of derision. Today, however, detecting the real interest, real concern even, behind their mockery, he told them yes, and went on to describe what had happened.
He had once again gone down to sit under the willow. The moon had been even brighter than the night before; in fact it had been full. And at about two minutes to midnight, down Mr Smith had come from the cottage. ‘I’m sure he didn’t see me,’ Marek murmured, for fear Alexej and the others would claim the man had put on a show for his benefit.
Smith was wearing a black shirt and black trousers. His feet were bare. He had waded into the water but – as on the previous night – it had looked as if he were walking on it. He had walked out a couple of metres. And then, again as on the previous night, as if from nowhere ten, fifteen, maybe twenty swans had appeared. They had glided up. They had circled round Mr Smith. He had murmured to them. And then – one of the swans had detached itself from the group. It was the largest, whitest and most beautiful of all the birds.
‘I thought all swans looked alike,’ Anya murmured, though in such a way as not to interrupt Marek’s narrative. She didn’t believe a word of what she was hearing; but she wanted to hear more.
This most beautiful of all the swans had left the circle. It had swum right up to Mr Smith. And then the man had raised his arms – ‘only they didn’t look like arms any longer,’ Marek whispered. ‘They looked like wings. Great black wings, as if he were becoming a swan himself. A black swan. Or – an angel.’ He stopped, and waited for the others to jeer. They didn’t. They were looking at him, rapt.
‘And then the swan reared up out of the water and seemed to embrace Mr Smith, and – she became a woman,’ Marek whispered. ‘A white, beautiful woman like a swan. Like the moonlight. But still . . .’ Marek hesitated. He didn’t dare look at the others, but he was aware they were staring at him not even remotely with derision now but only, all three of them, with a pity they could scarcely bear. It was as if their hearts were breaking for him. Nevertheless, he had to go on. To tell them –
That the beautiful woman had glided out of the water. That she had glided – part walked, part floated, part flown – over to him, still under the willow. And that as he had stood to greet her, she had enfolded him in her wings, she had gazed at him with great tragic eyes, not merely as if she had come to redeem him but as if he had come to redeem her, and she had kissed him. She had kissed him as he had never been kissed before –
‘You have never been kissed before,’ Alexej whispered.
– and he had closed his eyes and – when he had opened them she had vanished. So had Mr Smith.
All Marek had seen were two or three swans gliding away from the shore, out into the darkness of the lake – and, by the water’s edge, two feathers. One black, the other white.
‘Oh yeah,’ Gabriel said, clearing his throat, trying to sound unaffected by Marek’s tale, but unable to look at the tears he was aware were running down Marek’s cheeks. ‘And what did you do with them?’
‘I picked them up,’ Marek said, reaching into the pocket of the denim jacket he was wearing. Without another word, he held out for the others to see two feathers: one black, the other white.
Gabriel, Anya and Alexej looked; and then they did at last raise their eyes to Marek himself. And though they gazed at him once more with scepticism, if not scorn, and still with pity, they saw that Marek, gaunt unlovely Marek, had been transfigured. He remained gaunt. He remained unlovely. But there was a radiance about him that made him appear – enchanted. It was as if he were glowing with moonlight, with happiness – and whatever he had or hadn’t seen down by the lake last night, they couldn’t begrudge him that happiness, and even felt he deserved it.
What was more, in the weeks, months and years that followed Mr Smith’s visit, Marek never quite lost his radiance, his air of having been kissed, loved and redeemed. And when every now and then they caught a glimpse of the light that still seemed to shine from him, the others almost envied him his madness, and the two feathers he kept in a jar in his room, one black, the other white.
‘He’s all right,’ Anya said, bitterly.
Partly because of their envy, Anya, Alexej and Gabriel prayed that they would never again see Mr Smith – who had left the same day that Marek had told them his story. They remained uncertain whether Marek had been tipped permanently over the edge by the man’s visit, or whether he was still clinging on to remnants of his sanity – by his fingertips, so to speak. But they were sure that should Boss’s friend reappear, Marek would be lost forever, with who knows what consequences for them all.
‘He might run amok with an axe,’ Anya murmured.
‘Besides,’ Gabriel said, ‘with all that business about Smith saying he was who he wasn’t, and that he’d been here before . . .’
Indeed, so unsettled had they been by their visitor that more and more, as the years passed, while Marek was neither asked for nor expressed an opinion, the others started to pray that Boss himself would never return to the house by the lake. To pray – and little by little, to believe . . . that Boss would never return; that their salaries would continue to be paid; and that nothing would ever again happen, to break the spell that had been cast on them.
THE TARN by Hugh Walpole
Like a number of the authors in this book, Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) was once an enormously successful and respected novelist whose reputation waned significantly after his death and who is only now being rediscovered. He published more than forty volumes of fiction and during his lifetime was best known for the quartet of ‘Herries’ novels set in 18th-century England and for his stories of the beloved boy character Jeremy. Walpole was especially popular in the United States, where he attracted crowds at his lectures not seen since the tours of Charles Dickens. But Walpole deserves to be remembered for what he called his ‘macabre’ fiction, which includes several fine novels and a number of horror and supernatural stories, some of which bear comparison with the best such stories in the English language. Walpole’s posthumous macabre novel, The Killer and the Slain (1942) and his story collection All Souls’ Night (1933) are available from Valancourt. ‘The Tarn’ was originally published in the magazine Success in October 1923.
As Foster moved unconsciously across the room, bent towards the bookcase, and stood leaning forward a little, choosing now one book, now another, with his eyes, his host, seeing the muscles of the back of his thin, scraggy neck stand out above his low flannel collar, thought of the ease with which he could squeeze that throat, and the pleasure, the triumphant, lustful pleasure, that such an action would give him.
The low, white-walled, white-ceilinged room was flooded with the mellow, kindly Lakeland sun. October is a wonderful month in the English Lakes, golden, rich, and perfumed, slow suns moving through apricot-tinted skies to ruby evening glories; the shadows lie then thick about that beautiful country, in dark purple patches, in long web-like patterns of silver gauze, in thick splotches of amber and grey. The clouds pass in galleons across the mountains, now veiling, now revealing, now descending with ghost-like armies to the very breast of the plains, suddenly rising to the softest of blue skies and lying thin in lazy languorous colour.
Fenwick’s cottage looked across to Low Fells; on his right, seen through side windows, sprawled the hills above Ullswater.
For Fenwick was the opposite of Foster in this. He did not want friends, he certainly did not care that people should like him – that is, people for whom, for one reason or another, he had contempt – and he had contempt for quite a number of people.
Fenwick looked at that long, thin, bending back and felt his knees tremble. Soon Foster would turn round and that high, reedy voice would pipe out something about the books. ‘What jolly books you have, Fenwick!’ How many, many times in the long watches of the night, when Fenwick could not sleep, had he heard that pipe sounding close there – yes, in the very shadows of his bed! And how many times had Fenwick replied to it: ‘I hate you! You are the cause of my failure in life! You have been in my way always. Always, always, always! Patronizing and pretending, and in truth showing others what a poor thing you thought me, how great a failure, how conceited a fool! I know. You can hide nothing from me! I can hear you!’
For twenty years now Foster had been persistently in Fenwick’s way. There had been that affair, so long ago now, when Robins had wanted a sub-editor for his wonderful review, the Parthenon, and Fenwick had gone to see him and they had had a splendid talk. How magnificently Fenwick had talked that day; with what enthusiasm he had shown Robins (who was blinded by his own conceit, anyway) the kind of paper the Parthenon might be; how Robins had caught his own enthusiasm, how he had pushed his fat body about the room, crying: ‘Yes, yes, Fenwick – that’s fine! That’s fine indeed!’ – and then how, after all, Foster had got that job.
The paper had only lived for a year or so, it is true, but the connection with it had brought Foster into prominence just as it might have brought Fenwick!
Then, five years later, there was Fenwick’s novel, The Bitter Aloe – the novel upon which he had spent three years of blood-and-tears endeavour – and then, in the very same week of publication, Foster brings out The Circus, the novel that made his name; although, Heaven knows, the thing was poor enough sentimental trash. You may say that one novel cannot kill another – but can it not? Had not The Circus appeared would not that group of London know-alls – that conceited, limited, ignorant, self-satisfied crowd, who nevertheless can do, by their talk, so much to affect a book’s good or evil fortunes – have talked about The Bitter Aloe and so forced it into prominence? As it was, the book was stillborn and The Circus went on its prancing, triumphant way.
After that there had been many occasions – some small, some big – and always in one way or another that thin, scraggy body of Foster’s was interfering with Fenwick’s happiness.
The thing had become, of course, an obsession with Fenwick. Hiding up there in the heart of the Lakes, with no friends, almost no company, and very little money, he was given too much to brooding over his failure. He was a failure and it was not his own fault. How could it be his own fault with his talents and his brilliance? It was the fault of modern life and its lack of culture, the fault of the stupid material mess that made up the intelligence of human beings – and the fault of Foster.
Always Fenwick hoped that Foster would keep away from him. He did not know what he would not do did he see the man. And then one day, to his amazement, he received a telegram:
Passing through this way. May I stop with you Monday and Tuesday? – Giles Foster.
Fenwick could scarcely believe his eyes, and then – from curiosity, from cynical contempt, from some deeper, more mysterious motive that he dared not analyse – he had telegraphed – Come.
And here the man was. And he had come – would you believe it? – to ‘put things right’. He had heard from Hamlin Eddis that Fenwick was hurt with him, had some kind of grievance.
‘I didn’t like to feel that, old man, and so I thought I’d just stop by and have it out with you, see what the matter was, and put it right.’
Last night after supper Foster had tried to put it right. Eagerly, his eyes like a good dog’s who is asking for a bone that he knows he thoroughly deserves, he had held out his hand and asked Fenwick to ‘say what was up’.
Fenwick simply had said that nothing was up; Hamlin Eddis was a damned fool.
‘Oh, I’m glad to hear that!’ Foster had cried, springing up out of his chair and putting his hand on Fenwick’s shoulder. ‘I’m glad of that, old man. I couldn’t bear for us not to be friends. We’ve been friends so long.’
Lord! How Fenwick hated him at that moment!
II
‘What a jolly lot of books you have!’ Foster turned round and looked at Fenwick with eager, gratified eyes. ‘Every book here is interesting! I like your arrangement of them, too, and those open bookshelves – it always seems to me a shame to shut up books behind glass!’
Foster came forward and sat down quite close to his host. He even reached forward and laid his hand on his host’s knee. ‘Look here! I’m mentioning it for the last time – positively! But I do want to make quite certain. There is nothing wrong between us, is there, old man? I know you assured me last night, but I just want . . .’
Fenwick looked at him and, surveying him, felt suddenly an exquisite pleasure of hatred. He liked the touch of the man’s hand on his knee; he himself bent forward a little and, thinking how agreeable it would be to push Foster’s eyes in, deep, deep into his head, crunching them, smashing them to purple, leaving the empty, staring, bloody sockets, said:
‘Why, no. Of course not. I told you last night. What could there be?’
The hand gripped the knee a little more tightly.
‘I am so glad! That’s splendid! Splendid! I hope you won’t think me ridiculous, but I’ve always had an affection for you ever since I can remember. I’ve always wanted to know you better. I’ve admired your talent so greatly. That novel of yours – the – the – the one about the aloe – ’
‘The Bitter Aloe?’
‘Ah, yes, that was it. That was a splendid book. Pessimistic, of course, but still fine. It ought to have done better. I remember thinking so at the time.’
‘Yes, it ought to have done better.’
‘Your time will come, though. What I say is that good work always tells in the end.’
‘Yes, my time will come.’
The thin, piping voice went on:
‘Now, I’ve had more success than I deserved. Oh yes, I have. You can’t deny it. I’m not falsely modest. I mean it. I’ve got some talent, of course, but not so much as people say. And you! Why, you’ve got so much more than they acknowledge. You have, old man. You have indeed. Only – I do hope you’ll forgive my saying this – perhaps you haven’t advanced quite as you might have done. Living up here, shut away here, closed in by all these mountains, in this wet climate – always raining – why, you’re out of things! You don’t see people, don’t talk and discover what’s really going on. Why, look at me!’
Fenwick turned round and looked at him.
‘Now, I have half the year in London, where one gets the best of everything, best talk, best music, best plays; and then I’m three months abroad, Italy or Greece or somewhere, and then three months in the country. Now, that’s an ideal arrangement. You have everything that way.’
Italy or Greece or somewhere!
Something turned in Fenwick’s breast, grinding, grinding, grinding. How he had longed, oh, how passionately, for just one week in Greece, two days in Sicily! Sometimes he had thought that he might run to it, but when it had come to the actual
counting of the pennies . . . And how this fool, this fat-head, this self-satisfied, conceited, patronizing . . .
He got up, looking out at the golden sun.
‘What do you say to a walk?’ he suggested. ‘The sun will last for a good hour yet.’
III
As soon as the words were out of his lips he felt as though someone else had said them for him. He even turned half-round to see whether anyone else were there. Ever since Foster’s arrival on the evening before he had been conscious of this sensation. A walk? Why should he take Foster for a walk, show him his beloved country, point out those curves and lines and hollows, the broad silver shield of Ullswater, the cloudy purple hills hunched like blankets about the knees of some recumbent giant? Why? It was as though he had turned round to someone behind him and had said: ‘You have some further design in this.’
They started out. The road sank abruptly to the lake, then the path ran between trees at the water’s edge. Across the lake tones of bright yellow light, crocus-hued, rode upon the blue. The hills were dark.
The very way that Foster walked bespoke the man. He was always a little ahead of you, pushing his long, thin body along with little eager jerks, as though, did he not hurry, he would miss something that would be immensely to his advantage. He talked, throwing words over his shoulder to Fenwick as you throw crumbs of bread to a robin.
‘Of course I was pleased. Who would not be? After all, it’s a new prize. They’ve only been awarding it for a year or two, but it’s gratifying – really gratifying – to secure it. When I opened the envelope and found the cheque there – well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. You could, indeed. Of course, a hundred pounds isn’t much. But it’s the honour – ’
Whither were they going? Their destiny was as certain as though they had no free-will. Free-will? There is no free-will. All is Fate. Fenwick suddenly laughed aloud.
The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories Page 27
