Short Stories 1927-1956 (89 page)

‘Perhaps,’ said Dugdale, pausing, saw in hand, ‘perhaps it’s delicate merchandise, eh, and needs fresh air.’

‘Perhaps it is not,’ said I, unaccountably vexed at his halting speech.

He seemed to expect no different answer and again set busily to work. The pipe vibrated at his vigour, dealing me little shocks and numbing my fingers. At last the chest was free, we tapped it with our fingers. We scraped off flakes of mould and rust with our nails. I knelt and put my eye to the end of the pipe. Dugdale pushed me aside and did likewise.

I am assured that passing in his brain was a sequence of ideas exactly similar to my own. We nursed our excitement, we conceived the wildest fantasies, we brought forth litters of surmises. Perhaps just the shadow of apprehension lurked about us. Possibly a familiar spirit may have tapped our shoulders.

Then, at the same instant we both began to pull and push vigorously at the chest; but, in such a confined space (for the hole was ragged and
unequal
) its weight was too great for our strength.

‘A rope,’ said Dugdale, ‘let’s go together again. Two “old boys” in the plot.’ He laughed hypocritically.

‘Certainly,’ said I, amused at his suspicions and wiles.

Again we stepped away to the tool-shed, and returned with a coil of rope. The pick being used as a lever, we were soon able to haul the chest out of its hole.

‘Duty first,’ said Dugdale, shovelling the loose earth into the cavity. I imitated him. And over the place of the disturbance we planted the dying rose bush, already hanging drooping leaves.

‘Jenkinson’s eyes are not microscopes, but he’s damned inquisitive.’

Jenkinson, incidentally, was an old gentleman who lived in the house next to Dugdale. One who having no currants in his own bun must needs pick and steal his neighbour’s! But he is dumb in the grave now, and out of
hearing
of any cavilling tongue.

Dugdale swore, but a man would be a saint or a fool who could refrain from swearing under the circumstance. Even I displayed blasphemous knowledge and was not ashamed.

Dugdale took one end and I the other side of the chest. Together we carried it with immense difficulty (for the thing was prodigously weighty) to the study. We cleared away all the furniture to the sides of the room. We placed the chest in the middle of the floor so that we might gloat upon it at our ease. With the fire-shovel, for we had neglected to bring the spade,
Dugdale
scraped away mould and rust and upon the top of the chest appeared three letters, initial to a word, I conjectured, which originally ran the whole
width of the side, but the greater part of which had been rendered illegible by the action of the soil. ‘A - B - O’ were the letters.

‘I have no idea,’ said Dugdale peering at this barely perceptible record. ‘I have no idea,’ I echoed vaguely.

And would to God we had forthwith carried the chest unopened to the garden and buried it deeper than deep!

‘Let us open it,’ said I, after arduous examination of the inscription.

The fire flames glittered upon dear old Dugdale’s glasses. He was a chilly man and at a suggestion of east wind would have a fire set blazing. The room was snug and cosy. I remember the carved figure of a Chinese god grinning at me in a very palpable manner as I handed Dugdale his chisel. (May he forgive me!) The intense silence was ominous. In a cranny at the lid of the chest he inserted the tool. He looked at me queerly; at the second jerk the steel snapped.

‘Dugdale,’ said I, eyeing the Chinese god, ‘let’s leave well alone.’

‘Eh,’ said he in an unfamiliar voice.

‘Have nought to do with the thing.’

‘What, eh?’ said he sucking his finger, the nail of which he had broken in his digging. He hesitated an instant. ‘We must get another chisel,’ said he, laughing.

But somehow I cared for the laugh not at all. It was not the fair bleak laugh of Dugdale. He took my arm in his and for the third time we made our way to the tool-shed.

‘It’s fresh and sweet,’ said I sniffing the air of the garden. My eyes
beseeched
Dugdale.

‘Ay, so it is, it is,’ said he.

When he again set to work upon the chest he prised open the lid at the first effort. The scrap of broken steel rang upon the metal of the chest. A faint and unpleasant odour became perceptible. Dugdale remained in the position the sudden lift of the lid had given his body, his head bent slightly forward, over the open chest. I put one hand upon the side of the chest. My fingers touched a little cake of hard stuff. I looked into the chest. I took a step forward and looked in. Yellow cotton wool lined the leaden sides and was thrust into the interstices of the limbs of the creature which sat within. I will speak without emotion. I saw a flat malformed skull and meagre arms and shoulders clad in coarse fawn hair. I saw a face thrown back a little, bearing hideous and ungodly resemblance to the human face, its lids heavy blue and closely shut with coarse lashes and tangled eyebrows. This I saw, this the monstrous antiquity hid in the chest which Dugdale and I dug out of the garden. Only one glimpse I took at the thing, then Dugdale had
replaced
the lid, had sat down on the floor and was rocking to and fro with hands clasped over his knees.

I made my way to the window feeling stiff and sore with unaccustomed toil; I threw open the window and leaned far out into the scented air. The sweetness of the flowers eddied into the room. The night was very quiet. For many minutes so I stood counting a row of poplars at the far end of the garden. Then I returned to Dugdale.

‘It’s the end of the business,’ said I. ‘My gorge rises with despair of life. Swear it! my dear old Dugdale. I implore you to swear that this shall be the end of the business. We will go bury it now.’

‘I swear it, Pelluther. Pell! Pell!’ The bitterness of his childish cry is
venomous
even now. ‘But hear me old friend,’ he said. ‘I am too weak now. Come tomorrow at this time and we will bury it together.’

The chest stood in front of the fire. The metal was green with
verdigris
.

We went out of the room leaving the glittering candles to their watch, and in my presence Dugdale turned the key in the lock of the door. He walked with me to the church and there we parted company.

‘A damnable thing,’ said Dugdale, shaking my hand.

I wagged my head woefully.

The next day, being Wednesday, the charwomen invaded my house, as was customary upon that day, and to be free of the steam and the stench of soap I took my way to Kew. Throughout the day I wandered through the gardens striving to enjoy the luxuriance and the flowers.

In the first coolness of evening I turned my back upon the gorgeous west and made my way home again. I met the women red and flustered leaving the house.

‘Has anyone called?’ said I.

‘The butcher, sir,’ said Mrs Rodd.

‘Thank you,’ said I and entered my house.

Now in the twilight as I sat down at my own fireside, my surroundings recalled most vividly the scene of the night. I leaned heavily in my chair
feeling
faint and sick, and in so doing was much inconvenienced by some hard thing in the pocket of my jacket pressed to my side by the arm of the chair. I rummaged in my pocket and brought out the little cake of hard green
substance
which had been in the mouth of the chest. I suppose that my fingers had clutched it when they had come in contact with it the night before and unknowingly I had deposited it in my pocket.

Deeming it prudent to have care in the matter, I rose and locked up the stuff in my little medicine chest, which is hanged above the mantelpiece in the room which looks out upon the garden. For to analyse or examine the stuff I feared. This done I came again to my chair and composed myself to reading.

Supper had been prepared by the women and was set upon the table for
me in my study. It has been my custom since the death of my sister to dine at midday at my club.

True! I sat with the book upon my knee but all my thoughts were with Dugdale. A rectangular shape obtruded itself upon my retina and floated upon the white page. The hours dragged wearily. My head drooped and my chin tapped my chest. In fact I was dreaming, when I was awakened by a doubtful knock upon the front door. My senses were alert in an instant. The sound, just as though something were scraping the paint, was repeated.

I rose stealthily. A vague desire to flee out into the garden seized upon me.

The sound was repeated.

I went very slowly to the door. Again I climbed the chair. (I loved the little boy now.) But I could see nothing. I peeped through the keyhole but
something
obscured the opening upon the other side. A faint odour – unpleasant – was in the house. With desperation of terror I flung open the door. I
fancied
I heard the sound of panting. I fancied something brushing my arm; then I found myself staring down the hallway listening to the echo of the click of the latch of the door of the room which overlooks my garden. In this unseemly rhythm and this succession of words I write with intent. Thus my thoughts ran then; thus then I write now. Many years ago when I was a young man I was nearly burnt alive. I felt then an honest fear. This was a dim skulking horror of soul and an inhuman depravity. It is impossible for me to tell of my horrid strivings of brain. I staggered into my room; I sat down in my chair; I took my book upon my knee; I put my spectacles upon my nose; but all the time all my senses were dead save that of hearing.
Distinctly
I felt my ears move and twitch, with the help of some ancient muscle, I conjecture, long disused by humanity. And as I sat, my brain cried out with fear.

For ten minutes (I slowly counted each sounding ‘cluck’ of my clock) I sat so. At last my limbs began to quake, solitude was driving me to perilous ravines of thought. I crept with guilty tread into the garden. I climbed the fence which separates the next house from mine. This house, No.17, was inhabited by a caretaker, a rude uncouth fellow who used for his
living-room
only the kitchen, and who had tied all the bells together so that he might not be disturbed. He was a cad of a man. But for companionship I cried out.

I went to the garden door keeping my eyes fixedly turned away from the window. I hammered at the garden door of the house. I hammered again. A sullen footstep resounded in the empty place and the door was cautiously opened a few inches. A scared face looked out at me through the chink.

‘For God’s sake,’ said I, ‘come and sup with me. I have a leg of good meat, my dear fellow, come and sup with me.’

The door opened wider. Curiosity took the place of apprehension. ‘Say, Master, what is moving in the house?’ said the fellow. ‘Why is my ’ead all damp, and my ’ands a shiverin’. I tell you there’s a thing gone wrong in the place. I sits with my back to the wall and somebody steps quick and quiet on the other side. Why am I sick like so? I ask yer why?’

The man almost wept.

‘You silly fellow! May a sick man not pace his mansion. I will give you a five pound note to come and sit with me,’ said I. ‘Be neighbourly, my good fellow. I fear that a fit will overtake me. I am weak – the heat – epileptical too. Rats crowd in the walls, I often hear their tumult. Come, sup with me.’

The cad shook his villainous head sagely.

‘A five pound note – two,’ said I.

‘I was chaffin,’ said he, and returned into the house to fetch a poker.

We climbed the fence and crept like thieves towards the house. But not an inch beyond my door would the fellow come. I expostulated. He
blasphemed
. He stubbornly stuck to his purpose.

‘I don’t budge till I’ve “glimpsed” through that window,’ said he.

I argued and entreated; I doubled my bribe; I tapped him upon the shoulder and twitted him of cowardice; I performed a pirouette about him; I entreated him to sit with me.

‘I don’t budge till I’ve glimpsed through that window.’

I fetched a little ladder from the greenhouse which stands to the left of the house, and the caretaker carried it to the window, the ledge of which is about five feet from the ground. He climbed laboriously step by step, stretching his neck so as to see into the black room beyond, while I, simply to be near him, climbed behind him.

He had got halfway and was breathing loudly when suddenly a long arm, thin as its bone, clad in tawny hair, pallid in the dim starlight, pounced across the window and dragged the curtains together – an arm thin as its bone. The fellow above me groaned, threw up his hands and tumbled
head-long
off the ladder, bringing me to the ground in his fall.

For a moment I lay dazed; then, lifting my head from the soil and the sweet lilies I perceived him clambering over the fence in savage hurry. I
remember
that the dew glistened upon his boots as he flung his heels over the fence.

Presently I was upon my feet and pelting after him, but he was a younger man, and when I reached the door at the back of his house he had already bolted and barred it. To all my prayers and knockings he paid no attention. Notwithstanding, I feel certain that he sat listening upon the other side, for I discerned a hoarse breathing like the breathing of an asthmatic.

‘You have left the poker. I bring you the poker,’ I bellowed, but he made no answer.

Again I climbed the fence, now determined to leave the house free for the thing to roam and to ravage, nor to return till daylight was come. I crept quietly through the haunted place. As I passed the room, I distinguished a sound – like the sound of a humming top – of incessant gabble. I ran and opened the front door and just then, as I peered out upon the street, a
beggar
clothed in rags shuffled past the garden gate. I leapt down the steps.

‘Here my good man,’ said I speaking with difficulty for my tongue seemed stiff and glutinous.

He turned with an odd whine and shuffled towards me.

‘Are you hungry?’ said I. ‘Have you an appetite – just a stubborn
yearning
for a delicate snack of prime Welsh lamb?’