Tarnhelm: The Best Supernatural Stories

by Hugh Ealpole

  ‘Take your time, Uncle. . . . Take your time. You’re in a bit of a hole.’

  Never before had the old man wanted anything so badly as to win this game. No, not when he had gone on his knees to Maria Bock in the restaurant in Heidelberg and implored her mercy; nor when, at the Wagner Festival in Munich, he had hoped that David Warrinder would be his friend.

  His long, long past life came together in the effort that now he summoned. His brain, as fine as ever it was, bit into the board. He could feel his heart leap and die, leap and die. He castled, a thing that he should have done before. Young Morgan’s knight leapt sideways with a little toss of his sunset-coloured head.

  ‘I must attack,’ Paul thought. He brought out his queen.’

  ‘Check,’ said Morgan with exultation and, his arrogance blinding him, had not seen that the checking knight had fallen into the path of his uncle’s bishop. With how quiet a gesture, but with what inner triumph, did Paul remove that knight.

  ‘Damn!’ said Morgan, ‘I never saw it!’

  And then Paul discovered his opportunity. By moving that pawn, sending forward a bishop, offering that pawn as a sacrifice, he had a chance of a mate. Morgan’s castled king was tied in—there was a chance. . . a chance. His brain reeled. If only Morgan were blind enough. He moved his pawn. Morgan threatened his king again. He sent his bishop forward. Morgan, intent on his own triumph, moved his knight. Paul offered his pawn. There was a pause and Morgan, almost sneeringly, took it.

  ‘Checkmate,’ said the old man.

  Mate in a dozen moves! A really marvellous victory—and he would never play chess again!

  ‘What about another?’ said young Morgan, who simply hated to be beaten.

  The old man looked at him maliciously.

  ‘No. I’m going to rest on my victory. I was afraid you’d see through that move of mine.’

  Morgan said: ‘You won’t work that on me a second time, Uncle Paul.’

  ‘No. I don’t believe I shall.’

  ‘Come on, have another.’

  ‘No. Allow me the satisfaction of telling everyone I’ve beaten you.’

  ‘Well, you don’t often. If it gives you any pleasure—’

  What a baby the boy was! The old man felt a sudden affection for him.

  ‘It’s very nice of you to come and play with an old man like me.’

  Morgan smiled.

  ‘I am fearfully busy. But I can always find time for a game.’

  ‘What are you busy about?’

  ‘Work. You know, Uncle, I’m going to be a damned fine lawyer. I feel it in my bones.’

  ‘I expect you are. I hope you’ll be a damned fine man too. There are so many lawyers.’

  It seemed to him fantastically that the shadow of a man was outlined against the wall. A long-faced, thin shadow, Death no doubt. A friendly fellow.

  ‘All right, Death. Make yourself comfortable. Give me another half-hour.’

  He looked at his nephew and thought of his assured self-confidence. Not so had it been with him! Of all the things that he now regretted, the time wasted in placating his fellow human beings was the heaviest. Not that he wished that he had been bad-mannered. He rated courtesy very high. But, when younger, he had credited his companions with more wisdom, more knowledge of the world, than himself. He saw now that they had all been as stupid as he. He had been sensitive to their criticism, but now he realised that, when they criticised him, they were defending themselves. The distinguishing mark between people was kindness of heart, generosity of spirit, not wisdom. And so he thought again of Minna Prinsep.

  ‘Be a good boy, Morgan, and run down and see whether there isn’t a parcel for me.’

  ‘All right—if you really won’t play another game.’

  The boy went out and the old man grinned at Death against the wall.

  ‘I beat him at chess. That’s grand.’

  He felt quite wonderfully cheerful. The room, and the house behind it, seemed filled with all the fun they’d had—and especially the Christmas parties. Ada had been good about those parties and, even into his very last year, the music and the dancing, the supper, the mistletoe, the holly, had all been rich with goodwill and friendliness. On this very last Christmas, Minna had thought only for him.

  ‘I think you ought to know,’ she had said, ‘that I never can thank you enough for all your goodness to me.’ She had spoken in her dry, rather sarcastic voice that frightened some people. She was terribly poor and terribly brave. He thought that sometimes she did not have enough to eat. And then, a month ago, he had found her looking at a catalogue. There was a dress that she coveted.

  ‘I’m no beauty, you know, but in that I might look quite attractive.’

  She had sighed and put the dress catalogue away. And the other day he had written to London for it. If only it would arrive this afternoon!

  ‘Do you think. . . ?’ he asked Death tentatively. But he knew that it was of no use to ask Death for anything. Death had his orders.

  So he settled himself comfortably in his chair and considered, without any fear or discomfort, this ebbing of his vitality. He had always considered the two possibilities—death under anaesthetic or dope of some sort—and death with himself fully conscious. The second of these would be surely most dreadful— the struggle not to die, not to surrender.

  On the contrary, the approach, as he was now experiencing it, was one of the most pleasant he had ever known. It was not only easy and practicable, but it seemed like a real going forward to some agreeable experience. Friends, in earlier days, had fetched him to take him away for the weekend.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he had called, ‘I will be with you in a minute.’ So now.

  ‘Wait a minute, Death. I’m nearly ready.’

  He noticed that Caesar had come very close to him and, once and again, shivered. Was he aware, as dogs are supposed to be aware, that Death was in the room? Never mind. The old dog would soon himself be gone. What a pleasant fancy that they might share together the Elysian fields!

  The door opened.

  ‘There is a parcel!’ Morgan cried. ‘Here it is!’

  ‘Let’s see it.’ The old man raised his thin hand, almost like talc against the firelight. ‘Give me those scissors. The large ones over by the window. . . . Here, you cut it. Open it for me.’

  ‘Why, it’s a dress!’

  Morgan examined it.

  ‘Nice stuff—but pretty severe. Mother likes bright colours.’

  ‘I know she does. No, this is for someone else.’

  ‘You dark horse! Giving dresses to the ladies!’

  The boy was at his most irritating, for behind his sentences was plainly the conviction that he was the most enchanting of young men, tender with the aged, humorous about sex, wise about women.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about ladies!’ the old man snapped at him. ‘Why, at your age, I knew already more than you’ll ever know.’ He winked at Death across the room, as much as to say: I know that in this last hour of mine I should be gentle, at peace with all men, unconscious of malice. . . . I’m afraid to the very last I shall be myself.’

  It annoyed him to see Morgan fingering the dress.

  ‘All right. . . . Leave it. There! on the table.’

  Then, as though to himself:

  ‘I wonder if Minna Prinsep will look in!’

  Morgan shouted with joy.

  ‘Minna! Why, of course, how stupid! Old Minna! That’s who the dress is for! Why didn’t I think of it?’

  ‘That’s enough! That’s enough! Leave me to myself now—that’s a good boy—I’ll have a nap before tea.’

  He felt a tenderness to the boy again. After all, this child was at the beginning of life’s experience, and he was at the end. How little, how very little he had to tell him! Be tolerant, realise yourself as a comic figure, expect no great things either of yourself or others, physical love does not last but spiritual love may, accept the inevitable egotism of all humans save the saints, take joy in lit
tle things, do not grieve overmuch for sins of the body, but fight like the devil against meannesses of the spirit—oh, what use would any of this be to Morgan? An old man’s platitudes, they would seem. No one ever learnt anything from the experience of others. He lay back, happy that he would never have to lay down the law about anything again.

  He remembered his indignation once, when, at a party, someone had said:

  ‘Constable! Milk-and-water English! Cows and mills and stormy skies! He might have been something of a painter if he hadn’t been English!’

  How Paul had exploded! How angry he had been, how his heart had hammered in his chest! Now, in retrospect, that scene was a little curl of grey smoke, a breath of air, a rolling beat of a vanishing drum! All angers, all tempestuous judgments, all dismays, betrayals, burning tears—all gone, all as though they had never been!

  The door opened and Minna Prinsep stood there. He gazed at her. She seemed for a moment another shadow against the wall, like Death. And then, he was so rapturously delighted. Yes, although vitality was ebbing from him fast, he could still feel rapture of the spirit.

  ‘Minna!’

  Her ugly, rather twisted face, illuminated by the beautiful generous eyes, smiled.

  ‘I looked in just to see how you were.’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right.’ He was growing weak. He motioned her rather feebly to his side. ‘Come over here.’

  She came across, moving in stiff awkward jerks her thin, angular body.

  ‘Are you all right? You look rather tired.’

  ‘Of course I am. I beat Morgan at chess this afternoon.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘I did. And in a dozen moves too. Look here—I’ve got something for you.’

  His hands, from which all strength seemed now to be departing, fingered about the tissue paper.

  ‘You take it from the box.’

  She lifted it out and held it up.

  ‘It’s for you. I sent for it from London. If it doesn’t quite fit, you can have it altered here.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s lovely.’ She held the stuff against her thin neck.

  ‘Perfect. You—you darling.’

  She let the dress drop, knelt down and kissed his forehead. He put his arm stiffly about her. They had forgotten the dress.

  ‘Why do you do these things for me?’

  Her voice broke. He thought she was going to cry.

  ‘No one else in all my life has been good to me as you have. I’ve never loved anyone so much—’

  ‘Nor have I. There is a love you know, Minna, deeper and deeper—not physical.’

  ‘Yes—ours will last for ever. It has made me believe in immortality.’

  His happiness was complete. As he lay there, his hand against her side, the house was suddenly filled with sound. The Christmas party. He was moving down the stairs. In his nostrils was the scent of burning candle-wax, sugar icing, the cold woody chill of mistletoe berries, the hot crackle of holly. Beyond the window were carol singers, and someone was taking the parcels from the tree. . . .

  He was hand in hand with Death, and Death’s grasp was warm and comforting.

  ‘Now this is perfect!’ he cried, and all the candles blazed and the coloured balls swung gallantly on the tree.

  Minna looked up into his face and gave a cry.

  Mr Huffam

  A Christmas Story

  I

  ONCE UPON a time (it doesn’t matter when it was except that it was long after the Great War) young Tubby Winsloe was in the act of crossing Piccadilly just below Hatchard’s bookshop. It was three days before Christmas and there had been a frost, a thaw, and then a frost again. The roads were treacherous, traffic nervous and irresponsible, while against the cliff-like indifference of brick and mortar a thin, faint snow was falling from a primrose-coloured sky. Soon it would be dusk and the lights would come out. Then things would be more cheerful.

  It would, however, take more than lights to restore Tubby’s cheerfulness. Rubicund of face and alarmingly stout of body for a youth of twenty-three, he had just then the spirit of a damp face-towel, for only a week ago Diana Lane-Fox had refused to consider for a moment the possibility of marrying him.

  ‘I like you, Tubby,’ she had said. ‘I think you have a kind heart. But marry you! You are useless, ignorant and greedy. You’re disgracefully fat, and your mother worships you.’

  He had not known, until Diana refused him, how bitterly alone he would find himself. He had money, friends, a fine roof above his head; he had seemed to himself popular wherever he went.

  ‘Why, there’s old Tubby!’ everyone had cried.

  It was true that he was fat, it was true that his mother adored him. He had not, until now, known that these were drawbacks. He had seemed to himself until a week ago the friend of all the world. Now he appeared a pariah.

  Diana’s refusal of him had been a dreadful shock. He had been quite sure that she would accept him. She had gone with him gladly to dances and the pictures. She had, it seemed, approved highly of his mother, Lady Winsloe, and his father, Sir Roderick Winsloe, Bart. She had partaken, again and again, of the Winsloe hospitality.

  All, it seemed to him, that was needed was for him to say the word. He could choose his time. Well, he had chosen his time—at the Herries dance last Wednesday evening. This was the result.

  He had expected to recover. His was naturally a buoyant nature. He told himself, again and again, that there were many other fish in the matrimonial sea. But it appeared that there were not. He wanted Diana and only Diana.

  He halted at the resting-place halfway across the street, and sighed so deeply that a lady with a little girl and a fierce-looking Chow dog looked at him severely, as though she would say:

  ‘Now this is Christmas-time—a gloomy period for all concerned. It is an unwarranted impertinence for anyone to make it yet more gloomy.’

  There was someone else clinging to this small fragment of security. A strange-looking man. His appearance was so unusual that Tubby forgot his own troubles in his instant curiosity. The first unusual thing about this man was that he had a beard. Beards were very seldom worn today. Then his clothes, although they were clean and neat, were most certainly old-fashioned. He was wearing a high sharp-pointed collar, a black stock with a jewelled tie-pin, and a most remarkable waistcoat, purple in colour, and covered with little red flowers. He was carrying a large, heavy-looking brown bag. His face was bronzed and he made Tubby think of a retired sea-captain.

  But the most remarkable thing of all about him was the impression that he gave of restless, driving energy. It was all that he could do to keep quiet. His strong, wiry figure seemed to burn with some secret fire. The traffic rushed madly past, but, at every moment when there appeared a brief interval between the cars and the omnibuses, this bearded gentleman with the bag made a little dance and once he struck the Chow with his bag and once nearly thrust the small child into the road.

  The moment came when, most unwisely, he darted forth. He was almost caught by an imperious, disdainful Rolls-Royce. The lady gave a little scream and Tubby caught his arm, held him, drew him back.

  ‘That nearly had you, sir!’ Tubby murmured, his hand still on his arm. The stranger smiled a most charming smile that shone from his eyes, his beard, his very hands.

  ‘I must thank you,’ he said, bowing with old-fashioned courtesy. ‘But damn it, as the little boy said to the grocer, “there’s no end to the dog”, as he saw the sausages coming from the sausage machine.’

  At this he laughed very heartily and Tubby had to laugh, too, although the remark did not seem to him very amusing.

  ‘The traffic’s very thick at Christmas-time,’ Tubby said. ‘Everyone doing their shopping, you know.’

  The stranger nodded.

  ‘Splendid time, Christmas!’ he said. ‘Best of the year!’

  ‘Oh, do you think so?’ said Tubby. ‘I doubt if you’ll find people to agree with you. It isn’t the thing to admire Christmas these day
s.’

  ‘Not the thing!’ said the stranger, amazed. ‘Why, what’s the matter?’

  This was a poser because so many things were the matter, from Unemployment to Diana. Tubby was saved for the moment from answering.

  ‘Now there’s a break,’ he said. ‘We can cross now.’ Cross they did, the stranger swinging his body as though at any instant he might spring right off the ground.

  ‘Which way are you going?’ Tubby asked. It astonished him afterwards when he looked back and remembered this question. It was not his way to make friends of strangers, his theory being that everyone was out to ‘do’ everyone, and in these days especially.

  ‘To tell you the truth I don’t quite know,’ the stranger said. ‘I’ve only just arrived.’

  ‘Where have you come from?’ asked Tubby.

  The stranger laughed.

  ‘I’ve been moving about for a long time. I’m always on the move. I’m considered a very restless man by my friends.’

  They were walking along very swiftly, for it was cold and the snow was falling fast now.

  ‘Tell me,’ said the stranger, ‘—about its being a bad time. What’s the matter?’

  What was the matter? What a question!

  Tubby murmured:

  ‘Why, everything’s the matter—unemployment—no trade— you know.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I’ve been away. I think everyone looks very jolly.’

  ‘I say, don’t you feel cold without an overcoat?’ Tubby asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ the stranger answered. ‘I’ll tell you when I did feel cold though. When I was a small boy I worked in a factory putting labels on to blacking-bottles. It was cold then. Never known such cold. Icicles would hang on the end of your nose!’

  ‘No!’ said Tubby.

  ‘They did, I assure you, and the blacking-bottles would be coated with ice!’

  By this time they had reached Berkeley Street. The Winsloe mansion was in Hill Street.