Look to the Lady (19 page)

Peck's cottage was one of those picturesque, insanitary thatched lath-and-plaster dwellings which stir admiration and envy in the hearts of all those who do not have to live in them. The thatch was moss-covered, and the whole building almost obscured by the high grass and overgrown bushes with which it was surrounded. A weed-grown brick path led up to the front door which stood open, revealing an old man in a battered felt hat seated on a low wooden chair beside an atrocious loud-speaker, which was at this moment murmuring a nasal reproduction of the advertising gramophone music from Radio Paris.

The old man cocked an eye at their approach, and rising with evident regret, switched off the instrument. Mr Peck senior was by no means an unhandsome old man, with a skin like red sandstone and a rugged toothless face, on the lower promontory of which he had raised a very fine tuft of bristly white hair. He was dressed in an odd assortment of garments, chiefly conspicuous among which were a pair of well-patched white canvas trousers and a red and green knitted waistcoat, obviously designed for a much larger man. His knuckles were swollen with rheumatism, and the backs of his hands were almost as furry as bears' paws.

‘Old Man 'Possum,' said Mr Campion,
sotto voce.

‘Be quiet,' said Penny reprovingly, and went forward to greet her friend. He touched his hat to her solemnly. ‘Mornin', miss,' he said.

‘Good morning,' replied Penny politely but inaccurately. ‘Is your son anywhere about?'

Mr Peck glanced over his shoulder. ‘Perce!' he bellowed. ‘Gentry be 'ere.'

‘I'm now comin',' a voice replied from the depths of the cottage, and the next moment a tall, loose-limbed young countryman appeared from an inner doorway. He was in shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, and was collarless. Smiling and unembarrassed, he indicated the seats in the cottage porch.

‘If you don't mind settin' there, sirs,' he said, ‘I'll get Miss Penny a chair.'

They sat down, and instantly the little gathering took on the air of a conspiracy. Young Perce hovered behind his father's chair, his quick brown eyes watching their visitors, waiting for them to come to the object of their call.

‘My j'ints be bad,' Mr Peck senior put forward as an opening gambit.

‘I'll send you down some of cook's liniment,' Penny offered.

‘Huh,' said Mr Peck, without pleasure or reproach.

‘Don't take no notice on 'im,' said Percy, reddening for his father's delinquencies. ‘ 'E's as right as ever 'e was, ain't yer, Father?'

‘No I ain't,' returned his father uncompromisingly, and added irrelevantly, ‘I 'ear that were a quiet buryin'. Yer aunt was pison to some on us. Still, I 'ont speak ill o' the dead.'

A violent kick at the back of his chair almost upset him, and he sat quiet, mumbling, his lips together. His two subjects of conversation having been turned down, he was inclined to let people speak for themselves.

The formalities of the call being over, it was Penny who broached the all-important matter in hand.

‘Percy,' she said, ‘I want you to take Mr Campion and Professor Cairey down to Pharisees' Clearing tonight. They think there's – there's an animal there that wants snaring. Do you understand? You wouldn't be afraid, would you?'

‘No, miss. I shouldn't be scared.' The boy spoke readily enough, but a shadow had passed over his face.

His father grunted. ‘That ain't no animal, miss,' he said. ‘That's a spirit, like I told Master Cairey.'

His tone was so matter-of-fact that Mr Campion shot an inquiring glance at him. The Professor spoke hastily.

‘Of course, we won't want any tales told about this, Peck, you understand?'

The boy laughed. ‘Us don't talk, sir,' he said. ‘Was you thinkin' of trappin' that, now, or do you want to shoot ut?'

‘Oh, trap it certainly,' said the Professor firmly.

Penny looked up.

‘Percy,' she said, ‘do you remember when Val and I were kids we helped you and young Finch to catch an old ram that had gone wild down in Happy Valley?'

‘That was with a stack net, warn't ut?' The idea evidently appealed to Mr Peck junior. ‘Yes, us could do that. Allowin' that's real,' he added, practically.

‘You 'on't catch nothin',' observed his father, accepting a fill of tobacco gratefully from the Professor's pouch. ‘That's a spirit. You'll drop a net, and that'll go right through ut, like that was water. You can make fules of yourselves ef you like: that ain't nothin' to me. Oi won't hurt.'

‘Look here,' said Mr Campion, breaking into the conversation for the first time. ‘Is the ghost in Pharisees' Clearing a new affair or has it been going on for some time?'

The elder Peck considered. ‘There's allus been summat strange down there,' he said. ‘It ain't been reg'lar. Off and on, as you might say. I mind when I was a boy the whole village were quaggly about ut. Then that died down. Then about five years agoo someone seen un, and there ain't no one been there of a night time sence. I reckon that's a spirit.'

Penny looked at the younger man. ‘What do you think about it?' she said.

‘I don't know, miss.' The boy was puzzled. ‘I never rightly thought on ut. That never interfered with me. But I never were there at night. That's a mystery, that's what that is. Still,' he added cheerfully, ‘I ain't afraid of ut. I fixed up that wireless for the old 'un and if I can rule that I can rule any ghost. Seems like that's magic,' he observed naively, indicating the mass of crazy looking machinery behind the old man's chair.

The Professor rose. ‘Then you'll be down at Tye Hall at about eleven-thirty, with a stack net?' he said.

Mr Peck junior touched an imaginary hat. ‘I will, sir.'

‘I 'on't,' said his father complacently. ‘I'll be harkening to a band then from Germany; they don't be so set on the Sabbath as we are 'ere, the 'eathens. And if you're wise,' he added with sudden vigour, ‘you'll stay in yer beds, same as I do. There be more goes on at night than us thinks on. You stay out of ut, miss. That ain't no wild sheep down in Pharisees. And whatever comes on ut,' he concluded solemnly, ‘it won't be no good.'

‘I'll be there,' said his son, escorting them down the path. As they turned into the field the strains of the Soldiers' Chorus came floating to them across the tangled garden.

—

‘I
F THAT
owl cries again I shall have hysterics,' said Beth nervously.

There were all four of them, the two girls, Professor Cairey and Mr Campion, seated in the candle-lit library at Tye Hall, waiting for half-past eleven and the arrival of young Perce with his stack net. Mrs Cairey had retired, but nothing the Professor or Mr Campion could say would persuade the two girls to follow her example.

Earlier in the evening Campion had been pleasantly fatuous, but now, as the actual moment approached, even he seemed to have become sobered by the eeriness of the occasion. The Professor was the virtual leader of the party. His boyish enthusiasm of earlier in the day had given place to a brisk, commanding mood, and he prepared for the expedition in a business-like manner.

‘Torch, travelling rug, and a hip flask,' he said, setting them on the table. ‘I shouldn't take a gun in case you're tempted to loose off. I wish you two girls would go to bed and keep out of it.'

‘Nonsense,' said Beth stoutly. ‘We're going to hold the fort for you. Whether you see a ghost or not you'll be glad of something hot when you come in.'

Mr Campion, who had been standing in the window, turned. ‘We shall have a little moon,' he said. ‘I wish I knew what you were getting at, Professor. Am I to expect a wailing manacled figure, or are chains distinctly
passé
?'

The Professor shook his head. ‘I'm not going to make guesses,' he said, ‘in case my hunch is absolutely wrong. However, the girls will be all right up here. There won't be any clutching hands or spooks blowing out the candles. It's extraordinary how these old houses do creak at night, though,' he observed involuntarily.

Beth perched herself on the arm of Penny's chair. ‘We shall hold each other's hands till you come back,' she said. ‘It's hot tonight, isn't it?'

As soon as she had spoken, the oppressive warmth of the night seemed to become almost unbearable. It was a breathless evening, and the garden outside was uncannily silent, so that when an owl screamed it sounded almost as if the terrifying noise were in the room.

Long awkward silences fell on the company as they waited, and even the most casual sentence seemed jerky and nervous.

A sharp tap on the window startled them violently, and it was only when a husky Suffolk voice outside remarked confidentially: ‘I be 'ere, sir,' that they realized that the party was complete.

Next moment Mr Peck junior's head and shoulders appeared in the open half of the casement. He looked a little distrait himself, and his grin was inclined to be sheepish. He had paid special attention to his coiffure in honour of going ghost hunting with the gentry, with the result that his brown curling locks were brushed up to a stupendous quiff on the top of his head, which gave him the startling appearance of having his hair standing on end with fright.

‘I see a light, so I come 'ere, sir,' he said. ‘Not wishin' to startle the maids, like. Am I right for time?'

It was evident that he was endeavouring to appear as calm as though the trip were the most usual one in the world. The Professor hastily gathered his things together.

‘We'll go out by the side door,' he said to Campion. ‘Wait there a minute, will you, Peck? We'll come round to you.'

‘Good luck,' said Penny.

Mr Campion followed the alert and still youthful Professor out into the stone-flagged corridor and down to the half-glass garden door. They stepped out on to a soft lawn and the Professor led the way round to the side of the house, where young Peck's gaunt figure stood silhouetted against the window. As they approached, something stirred in the darkness at their feet.

‘'Tis Neb, sir,' said Peck in reply to the Professor's muttered exclamation. ‘My owd dog. I reckoned I'd bring 'un with me. For company, like. He'll be as quiet as a meece, won't you, boy?' The last words were addressed to the dog, as he stooped and patted a shape that was rapidly becoming visible as their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Neb turned out to be a large, lank creature with a huge head, no tail, and ears like a calf. He moved like a shadow behind his master, being trained with that astonishing excellence that is often regarded with suspicion in those parts of the country where men preserve game.

‘Have you got the net?' said Mr Campion as they crossed the grass and made for the footpath to the coppice.

‘'Ere it be, sir. 'Tis a piece of an old 'un. I reckoned we couldn't manage a whole heavy 'un.' He half-turned, showing a large and heavy roll of stout interlaced cords which he carried slung over his shoulder. ‘I brought a hurricane with me, too,' he added, turning to the Professor, ‘but I didn't light 'un by the house.'

‘You can leave that,' said the Professor. ‘I've got a torch.'

Mr Peck clung to his lantern.

‘I reckon I'll keep that, if you don't mind, sir,' he said.

As they went through the darkness, the heavy silence closed in upon them, broken only by the rustle of their own feet in the grass.

Presently young Peck detailed his idea of their procedure.

‘Since you left the trappin' of ut to me, sirs,' he ventured, ‘I thought maybe you'd like to know how I be settin' out. I reckoned I'd find a good tree with a branch stickin' out on ut, and I'd set on that with the net, and when the thing come beneath then I'd drop that over ut.'

The simplicity of this plan seemed to fill the young man with pride and delight. Mr Campion and the Professor were hardly so struck by it.

‘Suppose it doesn't come under your tree?' said Mr Campion.

But the younger Peck was prepared for this emergency. ‘I doubt not that will, sir,' he said. He paused, and after a moment or two of consideration volunteered an enlightening remark. ‘That chases people, sir. I was talking to the old 'un, tea-time. 'E told I that, and I thought ut out that if I was up the tree, sir, you could sort of lead that under I. Of course,' he went on cheerfully, ‘us can't tell if that'll be there, can us?'

Mr Campion chuckled. ‘I see,' he said. ‘We're the bait and the poor fish too.'

Mr Peck shook with silent mirth at this sally. ‘That's so, sir,' he whispered. ‘Now, if you don't mind, us'll keep quiet. I'll go first, if you please.'

He slipped in front of them, treading silently as a cat, and behind him the great mongrel picked his way furtively. For some time they plodded on in silence. Mr Campion had removed his spectacles, a habit of his when action was indicated. The heat had become almost unbearable. There was only a waning moon visible, although the stars shone brightly enough.

The belt of trees which they were rapidly approaching was ink black and curiously uninviting, and the little Belgian owls with which that part of the country is infested hooted dismally from time to time. They followed the path and entered the Professor's wood, which corresponded to the larger one belonging to the Tower on the opposite side of the clearing, and through which Penny had conducted Mr Campion on the morning of Lady Pethwick's death only a week before.

Young Peck straightened himself and pushed on doggedly as the branches over his head rendered his path almost completely black. Suddenly Neb began to snuffle, his great head bowed to his master's heels. Presently he stopped dead and emitted a suppressed whinnying sound which brought the youth to a standstill.