The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (56 page)

Then, suddenly, he began to ask questions. Were they to spend the whole holiday here? Well, she countered, until the work was finished, at least. And how long would that be? Couldn’t the chaps hurry a bit? She fenced with other questions. Wasn’t he happy here? Was he tired of the Fentons? She added, unwisely: “You needn’t spend so long here, you know. I can always come and meet you.”

He stared, and she stumbled on: “I mean, I don’t see much of you all day. I like to make our evenings seem long.”

A new worry came to prey upon her. Suppose Roger guessed that she was afraid of the house and susceptible to something uncanny about it; suppose he saw through her pathetic subterfuges to gain company; suppose he became frightened too. He was, after all, her child; he was very young, and already his life, she thought with self-reproach, was unnatural enough. He had a precocious knowledge of ways and means . . . and this ghastly holiday plan might result in some morbid complex which would remain with him for the rest of his childhood at the least. It was all her fault, too. Probably the whole thing was the fabric of an inflamed imagination.

Thinking like this through the long hours of daylight, she almost convinced herself, and just before dusk, instead of angling for Roger’s company on her evening round, she said – and the effort cost her dear – “I’ll just do the doors and windows before supper, dear. You go on reading.”

She sped round the house in a blind mad manner, as though the whole place was afire and she running to escape the flames. And nothing happened until she reached the drawing-room, which she had left till last because it was near the sitting-room, where Roger was reading. The tall wide windows were open to help the new paint to dry and to disperse the odour. She had a moment of her ever-ready self-reproach that she should be closing them so early. But as she rattled down the last window and stood on tiptoe to fasten the catch, she became aware, through all the smell of paint, of the fragrance of macassar oil, and in the same second, that cold clasp was all about her, holding her motionless, stopping her very blood. Her hands froze to the window-catch, her face froze in a grimace of terror, her heels stayed poised away from the floor and her involuntary cry of horror passed soundless through her stiff throat and ice-bound lips.

Roger’s heavy nailed shoes clinked on the stone floor of the hall and Roger’s voice, blessedly human, struck her frozen ears. “Shall I turn on the griller?”

The cold clasp melted; and as it did so Mrs. Amery heard the sigh again. It was no longer wistful. This time its frustration had a furious, exasperated note.

“You do look odd,” said Roger.

“I strained myself, I think, reaching to fasten the window.”

She was afraid to sleep. She lay with her mind going round in a circle, like a circus pony. She would not stay in the house another day; she would forfeit the twenty pounds and Mrs. Bigmore’s esteem and risk her job – for the headmistress’s displeasure would be far-reaching, she knew. And yet . . . and yet . . . it meant Roger’s schooling, and so much else – little things, down to the very football boots which she had promised him for next term. So, round and round, one decision after another, until the window grew grey with the blessed daylight, and courage came back and the twenty pounds regained its value and Mrs. Bigmore her importance; and for the hundredth time Mrs. Amery was sure that she was the victim of her own imagination, or still ill, or going mad like poor Great-aunt Vinny, and that therefore it was most important that she should try to make friends for Roger while she still could.

Half way through breakfast Roger, who had been uncommonly silent, said, rather crossly:

“I wish you’d speak if you must come into a chap’s room in the night.”

“I . . . I . . .” she said, setting down her cup with a jerk that spilled coffee into the saucer. “Oh . . . it was only that I turned cold myself and wondered whether you’d like your eiderdown pulled over.”

“I was all right till you came. But your hand was like ice and then I woke up and didn’t get warm again for ages. Why didn’t you pull it up when you were there?”

“You seemed warm enough.”

She was sick with a new fear. So now it was Roger who was threatened. And she could see the deadly, the truly awful, logic of that.

She thought: “Maybe I am mad . . . but he isn’t. And though I might be able to save him from my fear, I can’t save him from his own.”

She picked up the half-cup of coffee and drained it. Then she said, steadily, without emotion:

“Roger, would you like to go to Felixstowe after all, for the rest of the holiday?” There flashed into that inward eye which she would have been the last to call, with the poet, “the bliss of solitude”, the notices that spattered the shop windows, “Cook wanted”, “Waitresses required”. Surely there was something she could find.

The child’s brown face lightened and she realized suddenly that she had been missing that carefree look. But it dimmed again, and he said stubbornly:

“Not unless you come, too.”

“Oh, I meant us both. Would you like to get your things together while I go and send some telegrams?”

In the train, the feeling which had begun to assail her in the post-office reached an agonizing pitch. Remorse and self-contempt attacked her until she felt physically ill. She had thrown away a job, risked another, lost twenty pounds which she needed and was about to spend money which she hadn’t yet earned . . . and for what? Why? She was ready to answer, “Because I imagine things.” She looked at her son, sitting opposite, lost to the world in some schoolboy paper or other and thought, Poor Roger; his father is dead and his mother is mad.

Roger folded the paper. He studied his mother carefully for some seconds and then asked:

“I say, will you ever go back to that place . . . Bidstone I mean?”

“No. I shan’t go back.”

“Then I’ll tell you something. I don’t know whether you spotted it or not . . . but, gosh, there was something very queer there.”

“Queer, darling? In what way?”

“Well . . .” he paused, choosing his words. “Did you notice that I always got back pretty early? Did you notice I always sort of stuck close in the evening? I was sort of scared you’d guess why. Well, gosh, Mum, that place was spooky. I don’t mean spies or smugglers pretending to be spooks. This was a real one. Honest, Mum. I saw it. I was afraid you might, too.”

“No,” said Mrs. Amery truthfully, “I never saw anything.”

“Gosh, I’m glad of that. Say, that was why I sort of kept on about getting away, you know. I saw the thing dozens of times.”

“It’s imagination,” said Mrs. Amery, more from habit than from intention.

“This wasn’t. I saw him as plain as I’m seeing you. Old, he was, in a plum-coloured velvet coat and sort of tight long trousers. And a lot of hair and whiskers. I tell you, Mum, I didn’t like it at all.”

“I think . . .” said Mrs. Amery, feeling sick and dizzy, “I think you’d better try to forget about it, darling.”

“Forget it!” he exclaimed, aghast at such misunderstanding. “Forget it! I should think not. Why, think what a tale it’ll be to tell the chaps after Lights Out. Gosh, I’ll make their flesh creep. A real live ghost, seen with my very own eyes. Gosh, if you hadn’t been there, Mum, I’d have found out what he was looking for, buried treasure or a lost will or something. He had a kind of . . . well . . . more of a hungry look.”

“Roger,” said Mrs. Amery, “you’re making
my
flesh creep. I believe you’re making up the whole thing on purpose.”

And then she began to wonder – as was her wont – whether she was handling
this
affair properly.

House of the Hatchet

Robert Bloch

Daisy and I were enjoying one of our usual quarrels. It started over the insurance policy this time, but after we threshed that out we went into the regular routine. Both of us had our cues down perfectly.

“Why don’t you go out and get a job like other men instead of sitting around the house pounding a typewriter all day?”

“You knew I was a writer when I married you. If you were so hot to hitch up with a professional man you ought to have married that broken-down intern you ran around with. You’d know where he was all day; out practising surgery by dissecting hamburgers in that chili parlor down the street.”

“Oh, you needn’t be so sarcastic. At least George would do his best to be a good provider.”

“I’ll say he would. He provided me with a lot of laughs ever since I met him.”

“That’s the trouble with you – you and your superior attitude! Think you’re better than anybody else. Here we are, practically starving, and you have to pay instalments on a new car just to show it off to your movie friends. And on top of that you go and take out a big policy on me just to be able to brag about how you’re protecting your family. I wish I
had
married George – at least he’d bring home some of that hamburger to eat when he finished work. What do you expect me to live on, used carbon paper and old typewriter ribbons?”

“Well, how the devil can I help it if the stuff doesn’t sell? I figured on that contract deal but it fell through. You’re the one that’s always beefing about money – who do you think I am, the goose that laid the golden egg?”

“You’ve been laying plenty of eggs with those last stories you sent out.”

“Funny. Very funny. But I’m getting just a little tired of your second-act dialogue, Daisy.”

“So I’ve noticed. You’d like to change partners and dance, I suppose. Perhaps you’d rather exchange a little sparkling repartee with that Jeanne Corey. Oh, I’ve noticed the way you hung around her that night over at Ed’s place. You couldn’t have got much closer without turning into a corset.”

“Now listen, you leave Jeanne’s name out of this.”

“Oh, I’m supposed to leave Jeanne’s name out of it, eh? Your wife mustn’t take the name of your girlfriend in vain. Well, darling, I always knew you were a swift worker, but I didn’t think it had gone that far. Have you told her that she’s your inspiration yet?”

“Damn it, Daisy, why must you go twisting around everything I say—”

“Why don’t you insure her, too? Bigamy insurance – you could probably get a policy issued by Brigham Young.”

“Oh, turn it off, will you? A fine act to headline our anniversary, I must say.”

“Anniversary”

“Today’s May 18th, isn’t it?”

“May 18th—”

“Yeah. Here, shrew.”

“Why – honey, it’s a necklace—”

“Yeah. Just a little dividend on the bonds of matrimony.”

“Honey – you bought this for me? – with all our bills and—”

“Never mind that. And quit gasping in my ear, will you? You sound like Little Eva before they hoist her up with the ropes.”

“Darling, it’s so beautiful. Here.”

“Aw, Daisy. Now see what you’ve done. Made me forget where we left off quarreling. Oh, well.”

“Our anniversary. And to think I forgot!”

“Well, I didn’t. Daisy.”