Herald of the Hidden (20 page)

And yet—though this is an honourable state of affairs—it seems to lack something of the savour of the days of decay, and the twilight game when we were sustained a little by the watchful presence of a youthful former captain.

Woken by Candlelight

They were like the impossible spires in some mad architect’s visionary drawing. Tall, slender, burnished, gracefully shaped, their lightness and litheness such that they seemed to partake of the very air, they made a quite perfect pair of adornments for his otherwise rather sober room. And the candles they held, long purple tapers, were almost as splendid, their brooding hue lending dignity to the curiously contrived ornamental holders.

When he had seen them, standing amongst bric-a-brac and extravagant curios in Gray’s Antiques, just off the High Street, their almost pathetic elegance had lingered in his thoughts for a few days. The urge to make them his own battled with the sceptic in him—wouldn’t they look incongruous, pretentious even, in a shabby bed-sitting room of a red brick 1930s terraced villa? And then there was the financial angle—temporary jobs in book restoration and archival conservation provided necessities and a little extra—there were no funds to squander on whimsical decadence!

But it would do no harm, so he persuaded himself, to go in and ask about them, to take a closer look and casually establish their price. The proprietor, gazing at him shrewdly, had at first named a sum which was, though he surely could not know it, approximately one third of his weekly earnings. He had sighed and begun to shake his head; and at this point the owner had quickly amended the price ‘as I can see you care for them, and that is always so important with a client’—and then, after a delicious pause of anticipation, he had yielded to temptation and assented to the revised proposal.

Only romantics and mystics light candles nowadays. The omniscient glare of electric illumination reaches everywhere. It was with a certain self-consciousness, therefore, that he had struck a match and watched the feeble glow catch and quiver on each of the high wands of deep, crafted wax. But it certainly seemed as if a restfulness descended on the room—for almost the first time he felt a sense of affection for the threadbare fittings and battered furniture, as their inadequacies were softened by the gentle light and pools of shadow.

He crouched on the hearthrug, meditatively savouring the unfamiliar, twilight atmosphere, for many moments. The green curtains on the only window, which looked out onto a barren yard, were left undrawn, and it almost seemed as if the influence of the two candles stole out into the night air, for the sounds of the town, passing vehicles, neighbours, were hushed and subdued, as though from a great distance.

At length, when the darkness had become so dense that he sat within the only sanctuary of light in an otherwise sepulchral gloom, there came the realisation that the reverie must end. It was with a resigned reluctance that he got to his feet, and clicked the switch of a table lamp. Shrouded as the bulb was in a peaked canopy, yet still it burst upon the scene with an intrusive glare. He saw the room in its harsh solidity with a mental jolt, and, becoming suddenly brisk, closed the curtains, tidied a few items, and prepared for bed.

He approached the wooden chest where the candles towered like bizarre beacons guarding a land of dreams. He was very contented with this uncharacteristic acquisition. Craning forward towards one, he blew gently at the little peak of flame. It swayed, but it did not go out. He puffed with more vigour. It flickered, but it still burnt on. He tried a sustained blast from his pale, puckered lips. It writhed—but it righted itself again. He became irritated, and turned his attention to the companion piece. Exactly the same process occurred. It was very frustrating. With an impatient sigh, he dampened the tips of his thumb and forefinger and pinched the wick of each one, first fleetingly, then with sustained pressure, so that his flesh was singed and sore. The flames gleamed undaunted. Several further attempts to suppress the leaves of fire were equally ineffectual.

Starve them of air, he thought: in the old days they had snuffers like hollow bells on the end of brass rods. A beaker would do the trick. He lowered an oat-coloured earthenware mug over one of the offending candles. The pale glaze was lit by a curious glow and seemed to throw back echoes of fire from within its dull substance. He experimented with other containers, to no effect. Each adopted the candle’s glow as if they had been made to sustain it and preserve it, as if they were lantern-cases indeed.

He grew more and more perplexed and angry. In an excess of rising temper, he thrust the flat of his hand down hard on to one of the flames. It sank with the impact, then burst up again, scorching his palm, and inflicting a tender stain, a stigmata on the
flesh.
Instinctively, he struck out, wobbling the purple candle and upsetting the fine balance of its slender holder. It toppled and plunged to the floor. Fear of fire flared in his mind, and he dropped
down
to retrieve the fallen idol, hastily. The candlestick lay on its side, but the wick had been somehow bent, and the little flame danced safely above the rug, undiminished.

This incident brought a new calmness to him. A feeling of wonder
at
the
impossible
phenomenon
he
was
witnessing
replaced the former annoyance. Anyway, it was getting late, and he found himself rather weary. He resolved to leave the problem until the morning. Matters might be clearer in the cool light of day, and after a good rest. The candles would do no harm provided
they
were
steady
in
their holders and in free space away from any fabric. They might even gutter gently down during the night.

Before finally retiring, after extinguishing the table lamp, he had one final effort at blowing out the candles. Gathering all the air from his lungs, he exhaled with mock desperation, trying to prevent the laughter which also welled up inside at such a grotesque scene. The golden tongues of fire leapt and cavorted under his breath, throwing strange, swaying shadows upon the walls and ceiling, so it seemed as if the very substance of the dull room was dissolved, and swirled and swung around the fixed points of the candles. Shrugging, he gave up the unequal struggle against so persistent and yet intangible an adversary, and crossed the room to bed.

He must have lain awake for quite some time. He was unused to the ethereal half-light shed by the candles. His gaze kept wandering around the room, drinking in the interplay between wan, wavering glow, and dense pits and strands of shadow. Whenever he closed his eyes and tried to turn aside, it would not be long before a gust of air, a scarcely audible sputtering, a spiral of slight smoke, or a sense of movement, disturbed him into surveying the scene once again, to ensure all was in order. Finally, though, his consciousness began to fade into an uneasy slumber, full of vivid, incoherent images, tumbling one after another, some unsettling, some comforting, but all snatched away before they could assume a tangible, recognisable form. From this rapid pageant he was torn with a physical start, and stared around wildly. Surely he had been touched gently on the shoulder? The merest contact of another’s form, it seemed to him, had raised him from that strange sleep. But there was nothing, no-one. Only a solemn silence reigned. And yet . . . the sensation would not go away. If not a tactile encounter, what, then, had roused him? The candle-peaks were shuddering a little, transforming the darkness once again into a swirling mass of mingled radiance and gloom, giving too that deceptive sense of perpetual movement. Curious shapes could be glimpsed rising from the shadows, and there came to him the eccentric idea that the candles were being manipulated to cause just such an effect. Why, with only a little exercise of the imagination, he could make out, as the flames flickered and danced, towers, pyramids, domes, odd slanting steeples: and, there, in the farthest cornice of the ceiling, a profile, an axe-shaped head of glimmering intensity.

He pulled himself up sharply, scornfully. These notions were just not rational, and they were preventing him from getting much-needed sleep. He must not succumb to such dreamy delusions. He rose, and brusquely switched on the table lamp, casting all of the singular silhouettes into the oblivion of hard white undiluted light.

A coffee would restore his calm. He busied himself in preparing this. As he held the kettle under the tap, the burst of water suggested an obvious solution to the problem of the ever-burning candles. Of course! With grim satisfaction, he filled a cup to the brim, strode over to the old bureau, and dashed a good dose over both candles. There was a sizzling, and an acrid stench. He poured more. The water flowed in gleaming rivulets down the purple pillars, mingling with the petrified tears of wax, bringing a sombre sheen to the silver holders themselves, collecting in still pools at their base—pools in which there moved the shallow reflection of two taut points of flame.

His arms dropped, and he took a pace or two back. Where the water had been tilted, translucent beads clung to the fire, glistening in the bright yellow. The liquid that had not run harmlessly on had been assumed into the rejoicing flames, and lingered now in their glow, burning droplets of pure unearthly light. He could only stare.

And, as he looked into each of the impossible beads in turn, the fused unity of fire and water, he thought he saw a figure depicted in every one, gazing up and out at him, as if from some inverse mirror. The hatchet-shaped head and awkward hands loomed large, but the image tapered down beyond.

The first streaks of a slow dawn had tinted the skyline before the last of the crystals of fiery water finally subsumed themselves within the glow. He crept to bed and slept deeply for a few hours. The ritual of early morning preparations, dressing, breakfast, followed in a subdued manner. When he noticed that the candles had gone out, it did not seem a matter of great surprise. Even, there began to trickle an element of doubt. But he put off all judgement and deliberation, as if trying to preserve the impressions intact and untainted by later considerations. The procedure ahead was plain anyway.

He first went thoughtfully into the High Street, and drew out a considerable portion of his savings, which were not in any case all that great. Then he visited the antiques shop once more.

‘No, I’m sorry, that would be betraying a confidence, sir,’ the proprietor
began.
‘We are here as an intermediary between seller and buyer,’ he added philosophically, ‘and never the twain shall meet, so to speak. Ha ha.

‘No, not even if you were to offer me . . . ah, ah, humm . . . well, that’s most thoughtful, yes, very kind, well look here, I keep all my records in this red book, and like I say I can’t divulge a client’s personal details, but, you know, I’m very careless, I do leave things lying around. . . .’

The proprietor became quite arch, and peered at him over his spectacles, fingering the notes in his hand.

When the shopkeeper retreated to the back of the shop, leaving him to ‘browse’, he took the cue, consulted the secret document, and found what he wanted to know.

A stout, middle-aged woman, brown hair tied in a bun, answered the door.

‘Oh, you got those candlesticks did you?’ she said, after he’d explained his call. ‘Well, what of it?’

Further elucidation followed.

‘Belonged to a lodger,’ was the next reply, ‘he’s no need of ’em now.’

‘Did he leave anything else?’ he asked, trying to present an air of only casual interest.

‘He left debts,’ remarked the other, abruptly, ‘and mostly to me: rent; a loan; damage to the room. There’s paint and inks all over the place, can’t be got off easily. Tenants won’t settle for it. Means a lot of weeks’ lost custom. And there was blood too . . . course I don’t blame him for that, but it’s a fact. It don’t come out easily either.’

‘I will see what I can do to recompense you,’ he returned coldly, ‘but I meant did he leave papers, possessions?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’ve been asked to see to everything,’ (and that had its own truth, he thought to himself).

If the older woman noticed the vagueness of this remark, she did not betray the fact. Perhaps the prospect of some payment was a persuasive element.

‘Well, you’re not the first. Some London fellow came here looking for stuff. Said he had a professional interest.’

‘Did you give him everything, then?’

‘Oh no. No no no. I told him about the debts, like I’ve told you, and he grew less interested. In fact he positively denied any real involvement. He went away pretty briskly and he hasn’t been back since.’

‘So, may I see what there is?’

There was a pause.

‘I got rid of some of it, I had to,’ she said, defensively, ‘I’ve a living to make you know. . . .’

‘Look . . .’

With a sudden certainty, he knew what the course of action must be.

‘I will rent the room he had and I will try to pay you back what he owed. It will have to be gradually, but that’s the best you can expect. Now, let me see what’s left.’

The landlady murmured a grudging assent, and led him up two flights of stairs. She selected a key from a large bunch and opened up a corner room. He entered, tensely, expectantly. It was a bare, square cell-like place, sparsely furnished, not dissimilar to his own. Strange stains flecked the patches of uncovered floorboard, walls, woodwork—splashes of dark ink, some more vivid colours, and a few red-brown blots.

Near the window were two large boxes stacked with a jumble of items. The portly woman cleared her throat.