OLD MAN'S BEARD

by H. R. Wakefield

  ‘ “Look here,” I said, going up to him and taking him by the shoulders, “tell me, Bob, is it quite hopeless?”

  ‘ “Of course it is, my dear Jack,” he replied, staring into my face, “perfectly bloody hopeless.”

  ‘And I felt it was so, and left him.

  ‘The next morning I received a package from him. It contained a note and a closed envelope. The note ran:

  ‘ “MY DEAR JACK,

  “Open the enclosed when I’m dead, and then you’ll understand. You have done everything you could.

  “Bob.”

  ‘A week later came the big frost. It froze night and day for a week, so that for the first time in ten years Hunton was safe for skating. It became so on Saturday afternoon, and a bunch of us arranged to go down there after dinner. The night was sparklingly clear. There was no moon, but the ice shone with a dim starlit glow. There were four car-loads of us altogether. We parked the cars by a little inlet sentinelled by bulrushes.

  After I had got my skating boots on and was staggering down towards the lake I saw a figure — a man’s — with his back towards me. To my considerable astonishment I saw it was Harriday. “Hallo, Bob,” I said.

  ‘He turned his head and looked at me intently yet aloofly for a moment and then began to walk out over the ice.

  ‘ “Well, if that’s how he feels, poor devil, I won’t butt in,” I thought to myself. I waited till the others were ready, and then we all began gingerly attempting to recover our skating balance.

  ‘Mine came speedily, and as I hadn’t quite liked the look of Bob I went off by myself to find him. I may say Hunton is a good two miles long. Presently the laughter and shouting of the others grew faint, and replacing them came the steady and rhythmic barking of a dog. I could find no trace of Bob and presently skated back to the others. “You haven’t seen anything of Bob, I suppose?” I asked.

  ‘ “Bob — is he down here?” asked someone.

  ‘Nobody had seen him, and after we had played about for half an hour or so we decided we’d had enough. I was last off the ice and, just as I was scrambling up the bank, there came a sharp strangled cry from down the lake. “That may be Bob,” I cried, and I turned and raced in the direction from whence I judged the sound had come. Out of practice though I was, I got a creditable “move on”. Suddenly I had a sense of most imminent danger and something dark raced towards me. I flung myself to one side and crashed full length on the ice. I was badly shaken and dazed, but I managed to stagger to my feet, and then I saw that the black patch was a hole in the ice about six feet square, and Bob’s cap was lying beside it.

  ‘Soon the rest of the men came up. Willy Rankin was the first to arrive.

  ‘ “Are you hurt, Jack?” he cried. “I heard you take the hell of a toss,” and then he stopped short and stared at the hole and Bob’s cap. “My God,” he said, “who made that?” I can still see the look of utter astonishment on his face.

  ‘ “It is rather a puzzle,” I replied, and then for the second time in my life I did a perfectly orthodox faint, but woke up soon after to find my face full of Willy’s best brandy, and presently Lillian took charge and drove me back home to iodine, arnica, bandages, sleep and a certain dream.’

  ‘What sort of dream?’ asked Brent.

  ‘The sort of dream one hopes to forget some day. The others, I learnt next morning, had roused the Aerodrome people, but there was really nothing to be done till the frost broke, which it began to do at noon. The thaw was as violent as the freeze-up and accompanied by sheets of rain, so that by Tuesday morning the men from the camp were at work with drags. I was with a couple of them in the big punt, and we had only been working about half an hour when suddenly the grapnel caught and we began to pull. And then suddenly I saw the back of Bob’s head flickering in the water just below me, and that it was forced back between his shoulders and that there was something white around his neck. And then I saw that something white was a circle formed by two small arms picked clean. As we began to tow them ashore I heard the steady persistent barking of a dog.’

  ‘My God,’ cried Brent. ‘That’s the hell of a dirty yarn. Got him round the neck had she? I hate that! Well, what about the hole? Who made it? How was it explained?’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ replied Lumley.

  ‘Well, what about that letter he sent you? He was dead. Did you open it?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘What was in it?’

  ‘Just a chart, in every respect but one identical with the one he showed me at the cottage. It varied in just this respect:

  “A”, “Where Brenda disappeared”, and

  “B”, “Where I was”,

  instead of being a hundred yards apart, were “monographed”, as it were, superimposed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Brent, ‘buy me a long, strong drink.’

  Nurse’s Tale

  ‘THANKS AWFULLY, NURSE; it’s just what I wanted. But now I’m ten you’ve got to tell me about that kid Layton. You promised you would.’

  ‘I don’t believe I ever promised.’

  ‘Yes, you did, you old fiend.’

  ‘You mustn’t use such expressions, Master Gilbert, they’re rude! You’re too old for your age, that’s what you are! And you read too many of those ghost books. That James, he gives me the creeps!’

  ‘Oh, I love them, Nurse; especially, “Oh, whistle and I’ll come to you”!’

  ‘That one about the bedclothes getting up and walking about, just when they’d made the bed, too? I can’t see why people want to think of such things.’

  ‘Well, I’m ten and you promised.’

  ‘And I hope you’ll behave like ten; it’s time you did. I daresay the other Marlborough boys will take you down a peg or two, when you get there.’

  ‘I shan’t funk them. And shut up, Nurse, and shoot the works!’

  ‘Wherever did you learn that vulgar saying?’

  ‘At the movies. Oh, go on!’

  ‘And give you dreams and get into trouble with your mamma. You’re such a pest! Well, I’ll tell you, but don’t blame me if you can’t sleep. Anyway, I know I shan’t have any peace till I do tell you. Now, sit still and don’t shuffle about.

  ‘It’s about twenty-five years since I first went to Layton Hall. Lady Layton died the night I arrived, poor dear, and the funeral and the christening took place within a few days of each other. His Lordship was terribly sad. He was a fine gentleman, every inch a lord. He was very tall, and handsome and quiet, and at first he didn’t seem to take to the baby — Jocelyn they named him — but then afterwards he could hardly keep his thoughts off him. At first I wondered why he seemed so watchful and anxious, but one day the head gardener told me there was a sort of mystery about the family. The story was that a long while ago — hundreds of years — they burnt a witch, at least I think she was a witch — some bad lot, anyway——’

  ‘But, Nurse, you don’t believe in witches, do you?’

  ‘I don’t believe either way, but where I was brought up plenty did. But, as I say, they burnt one of them, and her small boy too. And it seems he was near his sixth birthday, and this witch put a curse on the family — that was the talk, anyway — saying that no Layton’s eldest son would live to be six. And they never had done after that. So the place was always going to different parts of the family. And that was why his Lordship was so anxious about Master Jocelyn. He was a beautiful baby, and very good — too good, I used to think. For he hardly ever cried, not even when he was cutting his teeth, and healthy babies ought to cry. You used to cry till I could have choked you, you young limb, but then you were never good. Now, don’t pinch or I won’t tell you any more. Not that he was sickly, but he seemed to be thinking his own thoughts all the while. But the first time I found something really funny about him was when he was about nine months old. At Layton there is a long drive from the road to the Hall, twisting and hilly, and about half-way up there was a dip in it — a sort of valley. It was a lovely quiet spot, cut o
ff from everything, with fields on either side. It always used to give me the creeps a bit; I mean I wouldn’t have walked along there alone after dark if I could have helped it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded. I bet I’d have gone!’

  ‘Oh, you’re very brave and full of swank in the morning with people about. But you weren’t so brave in the cloisters at Norwich!’

  ‘Well, something began to tap on the other side of the big door just as I reached it; and I thought it was beginning to open. And there wasn’t anyone in the Cathedral. Anyway, I was partly pretending.’

  ‘Did you put chalk on your face? That was white enough. Now, don’t keep on interrupting. Well, as I said, it was just about Master Jocelyn’s ninth month that I found he was queer about that bit of drive. As we got near it he’d waken and sit up in his pram and keep his eyes fixed on the field on the left side — coming down, that is. And he wouldn’t lie down until we began to go up the hill on the other side, however much I tried to make him. And then the pucker left his little forehead and he’d lie back and go to sleep again. As he got older he seemed to get more and more interested in that bit of the drive, and when he learned to walk he always insisted on getting out and going into the field, and almost the first thing he ever said after he’d learned to talk was, “Pitty tees,” when he was out on the grass.’

  ‘But I thought you said it was just a field?’

  ‘So it was. There was a tree or two, but they was on the other side of the drive.’

  ‘Then——’

  ‘Now, Master Gilbert, don’t keep on stopping me in the middle. I’m just telling you what happened. And what happened was that Master Jocelyn always behaved as if there was trees. It used to worry me — it wasn’t natural — and I tried to get him past that dip, but he wouldn’t let me, and then I tried keeping him in the garden, but he wouldn’t let me do that either, but cried and made a fuss till I took him down the drive again. And it wasn’t so much that he seemed happy in the field as anxious to be there. And there was he in a wood all the time and me in a field. It seemed to me I ought to mention it to his Lordship. So I did, and for a moment he looked away from me, as if he was upset and not sure what to say. And then he said, “Have you tried to keep him away from there?” And I said I had, but that it wasn’t any use. And he said, “Well, then——” and he paused for a bit. “Well, then, let him play there, but don’t let him wander off by himself.” I was sorry I’d told him in a way, but I thought I ought to.’

  ‘What was the field like? Were there stumps of trees there? Had it been a wood?’

  ‘No, it was just an ordinary grass field.’

  ‘Did you see any birds or animals in it?’

  ‘No; why do you ask that?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘Well, it’s a fact I never saw bird or beast in that field except a dead rabbit once. The gardener picked it up and had a look at it, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with it, so he said it must have died of old age, and he threw it away. Master Jocelyn was always drawing pictures of a wood, and he was clever at it and made it look real. But he always drew the same one with a big tree in the middle. But he couldn’t seem to draw the big tree properly, but always made a red and black smudge around it. And it was a funny thing how he always made straight for the place where that big tree would have been if there had been a wood, and then he’d look up. And he used to pick his way along as if he was dodging trees, and following some sort of pathway. He talked very little and always seemed to be thinking his own thoughts. He grew up into the most lovely little boy. He learnt his lessons all right, but not as if he cared so much about them, though he was very quick and sharp about some things.’

  ‘When he was in the field, could he see you?’

  ‘What questions you ask! Well, I can’t be sure; he never looked at me or said a word. He just wandered about, and I got out of the way of speaking to him, though I always kept an eye on him.’

  ‘Did it put the wind up you?’

  ‘There you are with your vulgar talk! I always felt a bit uneasy, but I got used to it and didn’t bother as a rule. But sometimes when I got drowsy and day-dreaming I’d think for a second or two I was in a wood and hearing a sort of rustle of leaves, and get a feeling that someone was watching me; but then I’d come to myself and know I’d been imagining things. We lived a very quiet life, with just a break of six weeks every summer when we went to Bognor — the doctor said the air there was good for Master Jocelyn. He seemed to like the sea-side, though I couldn’t get him to make friends with other children. But he liked his bathe and sitting on the beach and watching the water. And he loved the boats.’

  ‘You don’t see any decent liners at Bognor, only dull old tramps. Deal’s the place.’

  ‘Oh, well, he wasn’t so particular, nor such a Johnny-Know-all as you. But I believe he was nearly always thinking of the wood. He used to try and draw it on the sand with a shell.

  ‘Things went on much the same till just after his fifth birthday, and then I felt more bothered about him, for I got the idea that he was seeing someone in the field.’

  ‘Why did you think that, Nurse?’

  ‘Now, wasn’t I just going to tell you, impatient? Well, mostly from the way he stared and looked about him. He seemed to be following something around — watching it. And as he didn’t look up or down I took it that it was something or someone about his own size. I asked him what it was, though I never liked to put questions about the field. He didn’t answer, but looked away from me. I felt it was a sort of secret of his and that I was left out of it.

  ‘His Lordship asked me now and again how I found him, and I had to say he was a queer little chap, though as good as gold. I still love him, the sweet angel!’

  ‘Better than me?’

  ‘Well, you’re not so bad, Master Gilbert, when you try to behave, which isn’t often. Now, stop rubbing your toes together, those shoes have got to last you.

  ‘I could see the master knew what I meant when I said “queer”. He looked as if there was nothing to be done. He used to spend an hour or two a day with Master Jocelyn, but I don’t believe they was quite easy together. The little boy was fond of him and liked sitting on his knee or lying back against his shoulder, but it was always the same story, he thought his own thoughts, and neither his father nor me came into them much of the time. And I think his Lordship knew that and felt badly about it; and I used to get the idea that he’d given up hope, though he’d hardly confess it to himself. Layton seemed to make him worried and he used to spend a lot of time in London. He looked ill and tired and restless. But when Master Jocelyn’s sixth birthday came near he stayed in the house, and, of course, I knew why. I kept the little boy near me night and day — it made me dream and sleep badly, for I had a feeling that the trouble was coming.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘Well, haven’t I told you about the curse and what always happened?’

  ‘Yes, but——’

  ‘Now, then, you’re interrupting again. I just felt that I’d got to see that Master Jocelyn had someone on his side and fighting for him and that it wouldn’t be my fault if the curse worked again. As the birthday drew near, his Lordship was like a cat on hot bricks, and I could have screamed sometimes, my nerves were so on edge. His birthday was on March 21st. During the week before we’d been in the field every day and I’d watched him like a knife. March 20th was a very wild and windy day and Master Jocelyn seemed restless and broody, but all the same, when we went out in the afternoon I felt the worst was over, for what could happen between then and midnight? It was very dark for that time of year. Now, I don’t know how to explain it, but as soon as we’d gone into the field everything seemed strange, as if it was a wood, and I thought I heard the trees fighting with the wind, and for a bit I forgot Master Jocelyn, and I think I sat down and felt silly — as if I was someone else. And then suddenly I heard a shout and came to myself, and I couldn’t see Master Jocelyn. So I started
to run, and I remember twisting and dodging as if I was running through a wood, and I turned a corner, and there was Master Jocelyn lying on his face, just about where that big tree would have been. When I reached him it was just a field again and he stretched out on the grass. He was in a faint. I ran with him in my arms back to the house. As I got near, his Lordship came dashing out to meet me, and he took him from me without a word. I was so out of breath that I had to lie down on the lawn, and I thought my heart would burst. As soon as I could manage it, I got to the house. His Lordship was giving Master Jocelyn brandy in his study and the footman was rushing off on his bicycle for the doctor. And then his Lordship carried Master Jocelyn up to my bedroom, where he slept. He was dead white and his eyes was shut, but he couldn’t keep still. He kept twisting and throwing out his arms, and then he began to mutter — on and on and on — and presently he’d scream. When the doctor came he asked me what had happened, and I told him, but he never looked at the master. And then he pulled up Master Jocelyn’s sleeves, and I could see his little arms was burnt past the elbow. And the doctor said nothing, but got me to fetch bandages and vaseline, and we did all we could for the little boy. But nothing we did was any good. He kept twisting and shifting and throwing out his arms and always gave that scream. The doctor said he wasn’t really in pain, for he was quite unconscious. Just before twelve o’clock he cried out, “Mummie!” very loud three times — and died.

  ‘I can still remember how the wind was roaring, and how when he cried out the wind seemed to catch his cry and carry it far, far away.

  ‘They buried him three days later. The master kept himself shut up in his room all the time. The family had a vault in Layton Church, and the coffin was taken to it in a farm cart. The wind had gone by then and it was a queer, dark, close afternoon, not a bit like any March day I’ve ever seen. I remember I walked behind the cart with the master, though otherwise I’ve always been a bit hazy about that day. We had to go down the drive, for the church was just off the main road. Well, just as we reached the middle of that field something seemed to flash down from the sky and there was a great flame before my eyes. And I seemed to see Master Jocelyn jump down from the cart and start to run along the path through the wood. And I went after him. And it was a wood this time, and very dark. But ahead I could see a big red glare and, as I got near, flames above it. And they came from the same spot by the big tree. And all the time I could see Master Jocelyn running ahead of me. And then I turned a corner, and there was a great pile of flaming wood and I could hear it roaring. And I seemed to be running through a big crowd of people who made way for me. And Master Jocelyn ran straight into the fire and disappeared. Then, just as I reached the blaze I heard him scream and I saw his little arms flung above the flames. And I tried to reach up to him, but the flames came out at me — and the next thing I knew was waking up at the Klerkley Cottage Hospital and finding my arms all bandaged up and most of the hair burnt off my head. I didn’t understand what had happened for a day or two because they wouldn’t let me talk. But when I was better they told me I’d been struck by lightning and knocked down silly for three days, and that was really how I got the burns.’