Herald of the Hidden (4 page)

We suffered no incident that night. I recollect waking abruptly about 3 am and blinking about me uncertainly, peering into the many shadowy corners of the curious structure. I have the hazy impression that I sensed the dark air swinging, or swirling in a way which became quite nauseating. But after that, I must have sunk back to sleep, for I remember nothing more. I naturally mentioned the dim echo of this unsettling sensation which remained with me, to Ralph Tyler. We agreed that it was far from empirical evidence, that I might merely have been in a dream-like daze, or I could have been influenced unconsciously by what I knew of the place. Notwithstanding these reservations, however, an unease lingered with me, and I felt the need to take a light walk in the fresh air of early morning. Ralph, of course, desired nothing better than to be left in peace to rummage through the lamentably neglected library of Langborough Hall; so this divergence of activities was agreed upon, and we arranged to meet up again for lunch around 1 pm.

When we did so, Ralph declined to comment upon his progress in the library, but indicated instead that I might like to accompany him down to the village.

‘Feudalism is not yet dead,’ he remarked. ‘I asked Mrs Arrowden if she knew of any aged inhabitant who might recall what the Folly was like before it became disused. In a matter of moments, she’d arranged for us to interview a couple of old estate workers. She seemed to regard it as preordained that they would agree to see us. Still, I suppose I should hardly complain.’

‘What are you hoping to find out?’ I enquired.

‘Just background,’ was his intentionally vague reply.

Our first call, to a gaunt, skeleton-like man of ninety, was not a success. He spoke at some length of his days ‘up at the Hall’, but we were unable to elicit any information about the old lodge. He had been an assistant gardener, in the era when the squire’s retinue had been quite vast, and had never been involved in the outlying grounds.

We next visited a low stone cottage just off the High Street, and were shown into a dim, shaded room. In a nook, hunched awkwardly in an easy chair of bright floral drapings, was an elderly woman whose crinkled face turned inquisitively towards us as we entered.

‘Visitors from the Hall, Gladys,’ painstakingly articulated her daughter, who now took care of her. ‘Two young gentlemen. Alright are you?’

Then, in an undertone to us:

‘She don’t always follow you clearly. You’ll have to be a bit patient.’

Our guide hovered uncertainly, then took her leave, advising us she would be in the next room if needed.

Ralph was at his most courteous, and for a while we passed mild conversation about the weather, the gardens, Mrs Arrowden, and the Hall, before he finally turned the talk casually around to the purpose of our call.

‘Did you know they’ve had the old Folly done up?’

Gladys Yelver nodded. ‘I heard so.’

‘Must be a long time since that’s been used at all.’

She mused over this statement. Then her eyes seemed to narrow, and she recalled:

‘Ah, it were closed down when they got rid of Jack Hartward.’

‘Who was Jack?’

‘Jack?’ She seemed surprised by our ignorance. ‘Why, he were the gamekeeper afore the last war. A good man. Allus fair and never give himself airs.’

‘But they got rid of him for all that?’ prompted Ralph, sympathetically.

‘Yes. Gave him notice. Threw him out his home and all. He were never the same after that. Folk said it killed him.’

‘What did he do?’

Mrs Yelver turned away from us for a few moments, as if considering whether to divulge any more of her story.

‘They
said
he liked his drink too much. Now I don’t say as how he didn’t have a drop or two when he wanted. It’s only natural. But it never affected him like they tried to make out. He weren’t a immoderate man.’ (This last expression was used with a proud emphasis.)

She paused again.

‘They put it about that he was so heavy in his drink that he saw things as weren’t there. Huh! It was reckoned they found him by the old game hut gabbling away a lot of nonsense about things trying to attack him. Drunk in his duty they said. He were put on the parish quick as you’d like. And then they said he’d let everything go to rack and ruin, and it all had to be closed up. But he was a good man, Jack. Knew his work. Like I said, fair but thorough. He might have gone a bit funny near the end, but that wasn’t drink. He were in a bad way, but not through licker.’

‘So the old Folly was a game hut then?’ asked Ralph, quietly.

She looked puzzled. ‘Why, yes. Ever since anyone knew, it was that.’

We took our leave shortly after, with profuse thanks and civilities, and made our way back to the Hall, taking a short cut through a wicket gate at one extremity of its grounds.

‘Well?’ I asked, as we strolled across the pastures.

‘Interesting,’ returned Ralph. ‘You will not be surprised to hear that I intend to spend a further night in the Folly—your attendance is optional of course.’

‘What are you expecting?’ I enquired cautiously, though I had a pretty good idea. Ralph merely grinned infuriatingly. He was perfectly aware, as ever, that despite my far from iron nerve, I could certainly not refrain from accompanying him in this fraught vigil.

As we struck across the ridges and hollows of the undulating terrain, our attention was caught by a slight rustling in a clump of long grass to our left. In a few strides we had drawn level, and pushed aside the straggling stalks, to reveal the quivering body of a rabbit, on its side, oddly contorted. Ralph bent to examine it, and its fright became even greater; there was agony in its staring eyes. Gently, he tried to pick it up, only to withdraw his hand with a moan of disgust; moist and warm redness stained his fingers, and his face became set and sullen. Very little additional examination was required to establish that the creature had been shot by one of the Hall’s marauding parties, but that the job had been botched, and the victim had managed to effect a temporary escape to sink down here, and drain away to oblivion. It was remotely possible that the wound was the work of some more instinctive predator, but by far the greater likelihood rested with an incompetent marksman. As we watched, the animal began to succumb with paroxysms of twitching, and life fled from it very shortly.

‘Is it worth our fee, then, to work for people who enjoy this kind of thing?’ I enquired, bitterly, after we had walked a little way in silence. Ralph stared straight ahead.

‘I have accepted her terms, and she must accept mine. I only said I would look into the cause of her “little difficulty”. I did not say I would deal with it. I shall keep my word—exactly so.’

‘Also,’ he added, as an afterthought, ‘There are one or two campaigning groups who would welcome what we shall charge her, I don’t doubt.’

**

As we waited, once again, in the lingering dusk which turned the eccentric angles of our accommodation into dim recesses, our conversation became desultory, and hardly masked an edge of expectancy, an unspoken tenseness which became more oppressive as the night drew in. Although we lolled at ease, and tried to assume a watchful but steady composure, I for one could not suppress feelings of some distaste for our involvement. This was not simply a premonition that we could be subjected to the phenomena which had driven guests from this lodge in great distress: I also did not see why we should undertake such a task for an individual whose mentality I despised. Only loyalty to my friend prevented me from relinquishing my part in the affair.

I was brooding along these lines, when I experienced again that sudden, surging movement in the darkness which had disturbed me the night before. I recalled the inexplicable sensation with a darting pang of nausea.

‘What’s that?’ I murmured inanely, without specifying the object of my attention. Then there came a dull undercurrent of rumbling, a bubbling drone which seemed to emanate from all the many corners. Both Ralph and I sat forward, nervously alert. Again, there was the dawning conviction that the air around us was pulsing, swirling, as if giving way to some intolerable pressure upon it. Minutes passed as we remained immersed in this disturbing process, and the atmosphere seemed to surge from all sides. In this state, I soon became uncertain of the reliability of my faculties, and every slightest twitch or shiver was enough to startle me into a streak of panic. Ralph’s face, too, was a picture of stern, troubled concentration.

Then from out of the walls swarmed the animals, faces agape in hatred, pink jaws and white teeth hideously exposed, crimson streaks on bedraggled fur. They seemed to explode from every nook of the Folly, writhing and lunging in a myriad of squirming, living streams. In seconds, they were upon us, and we were flailing madly at creatures whose only objective was our extinction. The air was filled with a cacophony of ear-rending shrieks which seared through my mind in a constant, dizzying barrage. Still, the tumult raged around me, a seething, enveloping masque of jerking, lurching beasts. My desperate efforts to fend them off yielded no tangible result, for they gripped and clung to my flesh and clothes in extreme numbers. And yet, I felt no physical pain; though their teeth and claws were ripping and gnawing at me, no blood was drawn or flesh pierced. It was sheer, brutal, mind-reeling shock which they induced. Quite apart from the abominable nausea caused by the disgusting, slithering presence of this endless horde, with no avenue of escape or hint of respite, and even aside from the screams and wails of our assailants, my nostrils were filled with the stagnant stench of animal skins, laced with a green sweetness, if I may so describe it, of putrescent decay. Cruder and riper there surged too the odour of opened blood. This most of all made me long to succumb. I gasped urgently for plain, cool, pleasant air, which did not contain the evil ingredients I was forced to inhale. And, sinking towards a blank daze, I believe I even found the thought of unconsciousness welcome. I sought and fumbled towards oblivion. Nothing will remain with as much clarity as this extraordinary equanimity and readiness to ‘go under’.

But at this nadir, as my gaze roved wildly, despairingly around the room, I saw above and, it seemed, beyond the cruel pageant we were undergoing, a huge, round, ludicrously grinning face. It hovered insubstantially for a few moments, and gentle tremors emanated from it, which shook the entire scene like absurd chortles. I was transfixed by this vision and stared at it in mute desperation, willing it to put an end to our suffering.

There was a distant shift in the mangled panorama around us, and the air itself, with all the raving, whirling creatures it contained, with all its jarring yells and suffocating smells, seemed to spin towards an ethereal funnel, and slowly, falteringly subside, drain away. We were left in a cold, brittle silence.

I tried to clutch at the walls for support: my limbs were tricked into clinging at empty space. I held my head and felt a chill sweat in every pore. I dimly focused on the taut, trance-like figure of Ralph Tyler. I uttered words, foolish, vague—‘What now?’ or ‘What can we do?’—which he cut short with a curt gesture.

He was staring with morbid concentration at the hovering face, and his lips were moving, so that he appeared to be speaking inaudibly at the bright, smiling mask above us. Once or twice he even moved his hands as if in emphasis, in the quick, unconscious way one does when talking. As moments passed, I became gratefully aware of a change in the atmosphere, even of a calmness and tranquillity. Still my friend conducted his silent conversation, till, at length, the eerie floating countenance seemed to glimmer, tremble hesitantly, and then gradually fade into paleness and vanish.

Ralph released an audible sigh, and his shoulders slumped as though relinquishing a burden. Fumbling in his jacket pocket, he took out his box of foreign cigarettes and lit one, drawing with evident relief upon it. I sagged into an armchair, leering in ridiculous contentment at the unexpected peace.

‘Is it all over?’ I murmured.

‘For us,’ replied Ralph, ‘Yes. Our work is done.’

I opened the door of the lodge and stood for some time, drinking in the pure, wood-tinged air, feeling a gentle breeze around me, and relishing the restful night silence. Steadily, I began to recover my self-possession, so badly harrowed by the extraordinary bestial horde. When I felt quite well, and reasonably reassured, I returned to my seat, glanced at Ralph Tyler, who was deep in his own thoughts, and asked:

‘Let’s hear about it then.’

‘Surely you want to get some sleep?’ suggested my friend, half-humorously.

‘I probably do,’ I concurred. ‘But I am unlikely to find any just yet.’

‘Oh, well, then . . .’ and he sank deep into his chair, legs outstretched, fingers resting against one another, a meditative expression upon his brow.

‘Where to begin? Well, this Folly was first constructed around 1770, as part of general landscaping of the grounds by one John Spellbow, who was in fashion at the time. There is a modern edition of his memoirs in the library, and a few pages dealing with Langborough Hall have been copiously pencilled, no doubt by a former occupant whose interest they aroused.

‘Much of it is standard fare—gushing tribute to the good taste of the patron, descriptions of the work he carried out. But one paragraph in particular was clearly what I needed. It ran something like:

During the course of my engagement at the Hall, I was privileged to make the acquaintance of a nephew of Lord de Capes, Master Toby Mangrave, whom, although he was lamentably afflicted by a certain indisposition of the mind, I found to be a lively
and
appreciative
companion. It was at his own request that I devised, sequestered within a wood, a “Temple of Animals”, or Menagerie, as symbolic of his love for our native fauna. I believe this to be unique among the annals of my profession.

‘This was clearly a reference to our lodge. The carvings of wild animals on the outside suggested as much anyway.

‘My next line of enquiry was what I might term the life and times of Toby Mangrave. If there is one subject which you can guarantee to find exhaustively chronicled in the collection of any ancient family seat in Britain, it is the genealogy and lineage of the title, its holders and scions. Langborough is no exception. Toby Mangrave was, it would appear, a little simple, and so was sent by his mother, married to a prominent public figure, to her brother here at the Hall, with the intention that he should dwindle his existence away in the harmless pursuit of the natural history which was his obsession, far from the eyes of metropolitan society, where he could be comfortably forgotten in a rural wilderness.