Tarnhelm: The Best Supernatural Stories Read online

  Three days after Ada Abbott’s collapse there arrived her aunt and her uncle, Mr and Mrs Edwards. Mr Edwards was a large red-faced man with a hearty manner and a bright waistcoat. He looked like a publican. Mrs Edwards was a thin sharp-nosed woman with a bass voice. She was very, very thin, and wore a large old-fashioned brooch on her flat but emotional chest. They sat side by side on the sofa and explained that they had come to enquire after Ada, their favourite niece. Mrs Edwards cried, Mr Edwards was friendly and familiar. Unfortunately Mrs Weston and a friend came and called just then. They did not stay very long. They were frankly amazed at the Edwards couple and deeply startled by Henry Abbott’s familiarity. Sonia Herries could see that they drew the very worst conclusions.

  A week later Ada Abbott was still in bed in the upstairs room. It seemed to be impossible to move her. The Edwardses were constant visitors. On one occasion they brought Mr and Mrs Harper and their girl Agnes. They were profusely apologetic, but Miss Herries would understand that ‘with the interest they took in Ada it was impossible to stay passive’. They all crowded into the spare bedroom and gazed at the pale figure with the closed eyes sympathetically.

  Then two things happened together. Rose gave notice and Mrs Weston came and had a frank talk with her friend. She began with that most sinister opening: ‘I think you ought to know, dear, what everyone is saying—’ What everyone was saying was that Sonia Herries was living with a young ruffian from the streets, young enough to be her son.

  ‘You must get rid of them all and at once,’ said Mrs Weston, ‘or you won’t have a friend left in London, darling.’

  Left to herself, Sonia Herries did what she had not done for years, she burst into tears. What had happened to her? Not only had her will and determination gone but she felt most unwell. Her heart was bad again; she could not sleep; the house, too, was tumbling to pieces. There was dust over everything. How was she ever to replace Rose? She was living in some horrible nightmare. This dreadful handsome young man seemed to have some authority over her. Yet he did not threaten her. All he did was to smile. Nor was she in the very least in love with him. This must come to an end or she would be lost.

  Two days later, at tea-time, her opportunity arrived. Mr and Mrs Edwards had called to see how Ada was; Ada was downstairs at last, very weak and pale. Henry Abbott was there, also the baby. Sonia Herries, although she was feeling dreadfully unwell, addressed them all with vigour. She especially addressed the sharp-nosed Mrs Edwards.

  ‘You must understand,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be unkind, but I have my own life to consider. I am a very busy woman, and this has all been forced on me. I don’t want to seem brutal. I’m glad to have been of some assistance to you, but I think Mrs Abbott is well enough to go home now—and I wish you all good night.’

  ‘I am sure,’ said Mrs Edwards, looking up at her from the sofa, ‘that you’ve been kindness itself, Miss Herries. Ada recognises it, I’m sure. But to move her now would be to kill her, that’s all. Any movement and she’ll drop at your feet.’

  ‘We have nowhere to go,’ said Henry Abbott.

  ‘But Mrs Edwards—’ began Miss Herries, her anger rising.

  ‘We have only two rooms,’ said Mrs Edwards quietly. ‘I’m sorry, but just now, what with my husband coughing all night—’

  ‘Oh, but this is monstrous!’ Miss Herries cried. ‘I have had enough of this. I have been generous to a degree—’

  ‘What about my pay,’ said Henry, ‘for all these weeks?’

  ‘Pay! Why, of course—’ Miss Herries began. Then she stopped. She realised several things. She realised that she was alone in the house, the cook having departed that afternoon. She realised that none of them had moved. She realised that her ‘things’—the Sickert, the Utrillo, the sofa—were alive with apprehension. She was fearfully frightened of their silence, their immobility. She moved towards her desk, and her heart turned, squeezed itself dry, shot through her body the most dreadful agony.

  ‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘In the drawer—the little green bottle— oh, quick! Please, please!’

  The last thing of which she was aware was the quiet handsome features of Henry Abbott bending over her.

  When, a week later, Mrs Weston called, the girl, Ada Abbott, opened the door to her.

  ‘I came to enquire for Miss Herries,’ she said. I haven’t seen her about. I have telephoned several times and received no answer.’

  ‘Miss Herries is very ill.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Can I not see her?’

  Ada Abbott’s quiet gentle tones were reassuring her. ‘The doctor does not wish her to see anyone at present. May I have your address? I will let you know as soon as she is well enough.’

  Mrs Weston went away. She recounted the event. ‘Poor Sonia, she’s pretty bad. They seem to be looking after her. As soon as she’s better we’ll go and see her.’

  The London life moves swiftly. Sonia Herries had never been of very great importance to anyone. Herries relations enquired. They received a very polite note assuring them that so soon as she was better—

  Sonia Herries was in bed, but not in her own room. She was in the little attic bedroom but lately occupied by Rose the maid. She lay at first in a strange apathy. She was ill. She slept and woke and slept again. Ada Abbott, sometimes Mrs Edwards, sometimes a woman she did not know, attended to her. They were all very kind. Did she need a doctor? No, of course she did not need a doctor, they assured her. They would see that she had everything that she wanted.

  Then life began to flow back into her. Why was she in this room? Where were her friends? What was this horrible food that they were bringing her? What were they doing here, these women?

  She had a terrible scene with Ada Abbott. She tried to get out of bed. The girl restrained her—and easily, for all the strength seemed to have gone from her bones. She protested, she was as furious as her weakness allowed her, then she cried. She cried most bitterly. Next day she was alone and she crawled out of bed; the door was locked; she beat on it. There was no sound but her beating. Her heart was beginning again that terrible strangled throb. She crept back into bed. She lay there, weakly, feebly crying. When Ada arrived with some bread, some soup, some water, she demanded that the door should be unlocked, that she should get up, have her bath, come downstairs to her own room.

  ‘You are not well enough,’ Ada said gently.

  ‘Of course I am well enough. When I get out I will have you put in prison for this—’

  ‘Please don’t get excited. It is so bad for your heart.’

  Mrs Edwards and Ada washed her. She had not enough to eat. She was always hungry.

  Summer had come. Mrs Weston went to Etretat. Everyone was out of town.

  ‘What’s happened to Sonia Herries?’ Mabel Newmark wrote to Agatha Benson. ‘I haven’t seen her for ages. . . .’

  But no one had time to enquire. There were so many things to do. Sonia was a good sort, but she had been nobody’s business. . . .

  Once Henry Abbott paid her a visit. ‘I am so sorry that you are not better,’ he said smiling. ‘We are doing everything we can for you. It is lucky we were around when you were so ill. You had better sign these papers. Someone must look after your affairs until you are better. You will be downstairs in a week or two.’

  Looking at him with wide-open terrified eyes, Sonia Herries signed the papers.

  The first rains of autumn lashed the streets. In the sitting-room the gramophone was turned on. Ada and young Mr Jackson, Maggie Trent and stout Harry Bennett were dancing. All the furniture was flung against the walls. Mr Edwards drank his beer; Mrs Edwards was toasting her toes before the fire.

  Henry Abbott came in. He had just sold the Utrillo. His arrival was greeted with cheers.

  He took the silver mask from the wall and went upstairs. He climbed to the top of the house, entered, switched on the naked light.

  ‘Oh! Who—What—?’ A voice of terror came from the bed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ h
e said soothingly. ‘Ada will be bringing your tea in a minute.’

  He had a hammer and nail and hung the silver mask on the speckled, mottled wall-paper where Miss Herries could see it.

  ‘I know you’re fond of it,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d like it to look at.’

  She made no reply. She only stared.

  ‘You’ll want something to look at,’ he went on. ‘You’re too ill, I’m afraid, ever to leave this room again. So it’ll be nice for you. Something to look at.’

  He went out, gently closing the door behind him.

  The Staircase

  IT DOESN’T matter in the least where this old house is. There were once many houses like it. Now there are very few.

  It was born in 1540 (you can see the date of its birth over the lintel of the porch, cut into the stone). It is E-shaped with central porch and wings at each end. Its stone is now, in its present age, weathered to a beautiful colour of pearl-grey, purple-shadowed. This stone makes the house seem old, but it is not old; its heart and veins are strong and vigorous, only its clothes now are shabby.

  It is a small house as Tudor manor-houses go, but its masonry is very solid, and it was created by a spirit who cared that it should have every grace of proportion and strength. The wings have angle buttresses, and the porch rises to twisted terminals; there are twisted terminals with cupola tops also upon the gables, and the chimneys too are twisted. The mullioned windows have arched heads, and the porch has a Tudor arch. The arch is an entrance to a little quadrangle, and there are rooms above and gables on either side. Here and there is rich carving very fancifully designed.

  It is set upon a little hill, and the lawn runs down to a small formal garden with box-hedges mounted by animals fancifully cut, a sundial, a little stone temple. Fields spread on either side of it and are bordered completely by a green tangled wood. The trees climb skywards on every side, but they are not too close about the house. They are too friendly to it to hurt it in any way. Over the arched porch a very amiable gargoyle hangs his head. He has one eye closed and a protruding chin from which the rain drips on a wet day, and in the winter icicles hang from it.

  All the country about the house is very English, and the villages have names like Croxton, Little Pudding, Big Pudding, Engleheart and Applewain. A stream runs at the end of the lower field, runs through the wood, under the road, by other fields, so far as Bonnet where it becomes a river and broadens under bridges at Peckwit, the country town.

  The house is called Candil Place and is very proud of its name. Its history for the last hundred years has been very private and personal. No one save myself and the house knows the real crises of its history, just as no one knows the real crisis of your history save yourself. You have doubtless been often surprised that neighbours think that such and such events have been the dramatic changing moments in your life—as when you lost your wife or your money or had scarlet fever—when in reality it was the blowing of a window curtain, the buying of a ship in silver, or the cry of a child on the stair.

  So it has been with this house which has had its heart wrung by the breaking of a bough in the wind, a spark flying from the chimney, or a mouse scratching in the wainscot. From its birth it has had its own pride, its own reserve, its own consequence. Everything that has happened in it, every person who has come to it or gone from it, every song that has been sung in it, every oath sworn in it, every shout, every cry, every prayer, every yawn has found a place in its history.

  Its heart has been always kindly, hospitable, generous; it has had as many intentions as we have all had, towards noble ends and fine charities. But life is not so easy as that.

  Its first days were full of light and colour. Of course it was always a small house; Sir Mortimer Candil, who helped to create it, loved it, and the house gave him its heart. The house knew that he did for it what he could with his means; the house suffered with him when his first wife died of the plague, rejoiced with him when he married again so beautiful a lady, suffered with him once more when the beautiful lady ran away to Spain with a rascal.

  There is a little room, the Priest’s Room, where Sir Mortimer shut himself in and cried, one long summer day, his heart away. When he came out of there he had no heart any more, and the house, the only witness of that scene, put its arms about him, loved him more dearly than it had ever done, and mourned him most bitterly when he died.

  The house after that had a very especial tenderness for the Priest’s Room, which was first hung with green tapestry, and then had dark panelling, and then was whitewashed, and then had a Morris wallpaper, and then discovered its dark panelling again, changing its clothes but never forgetting anything.

  But the house was never a sentimental weakling. It was rather ironic in spirit because of the human nature that it saw and the vanity of all human wishes.

  As to this business of human wishes and desires, the house has never understood them, having a longer vision and a quieter, more tranquil heart. After the experience that it has had of these strange, pathetic, obstinate, impulsive, short-sighted beings it has decided, perhaps, that they are bent on self-ruin and seem to wish for that.

  This has given the house an air of rather chuckling tenderness.

  Considering such oddities, its chin in its hand and the wood gathering round to listen, whether there should be anything worth listening to (for the house when it likes is a good storyteller), the eye of its mind goes back to a number of puzzling incidents and, most puzzling of all, to the story of Edmund Candil and his lady Dorothy, the events of a close summer evening in 1815, the very day that the house and its inhabitants had the news of Waterloo.

  Sir Edmund Candil was a very restless, travelling gentleman, and all the trouble began with that.

  The house could never understand what pleasure he found in all these tiresome foreign tours that he prosecuted when there was the lovely English country for him to spend his days in. His wife Dorothy could not understand this either.

  There was a kind of fated air about them from the moment of their marriage. The house noticed it on their very wedding-day, and the Priest’s Room murmured to the Parlour: ‘Here’s an odd pair!’ and the Staircase whispered to the little dark Hall with the family pictures: ‘This doesn’t look too well,’ and the Powder-Closet repeated to the Yellow Bedroom: ‘No, this doesn’t look well at all.’

  They had, of course, all known Edmund from his birth. He was a swarthy, broad-shouldered baby, unusually long in the leg, and from the very beginning he was known for his tender heart and his obstinate will. These two qualities made him very silent. His tender heart caused him to be afraid of giving himself away, his obstinate will made him close his mouth and jut out his chin so that nobody could possibly say that his resolve showed signs of weakening.

  He had a sister Henrietta, who was the cause of all the later trouble. The house never from the beginning liked Henrietta. It considered that always she had been of a sly, mean, greedy disposition. There is nothing like a house for discovering whether people are mean or greedy. Chests of drawers, open fireplaces, chairs and tables, staircases and powder-closets, these are the wise recipients of impressions whose confidence and knowledge you can shake neither by lies nor arrogances.

  The house was willing to grant that Henrietta loved her brother, but in a mean, grasping, greedy manner, and jealousy was her other name.

  They were children of a late marriage and their parents died of the smallpox when Edmund was nineteen and Henrietta twenty-one. After that Henrietta ruled the house because Edmund was scarcely ever there, and the house disliked exceedingly her rule. This house was, as I have said, a loyal and faithful friend and servant of the Candil family. Some houses are always hostile to their owners, having a great unreasoning pride of their own and considering the persons who inhabit them altogether unworthy of their good fortune. But partly for the sake of Sir Mortimer, who had created and loved it, and partly because it was by nature kindly, and partly because it always hoped for the best, the ho
use had always chosen only the finest traits in the Candil character and refused to look at any other.

  But, if there is one thing that a house resents, it is to be shabbily and meanly treated. When a carpet is worn, a window rattling in the breeze, a pipe in rebellion, a chair on the wobble, the house does everything towards drawing the attention of its master. This house had been always wonderfully considerate of expense and the costliness of all repair. It knew that its masters were not men of great wealth and must go warily with their purposes, but, until Henrietta, the Candils had been generous within their powers. They had had a pride in the house which made them glad to be generous. Henrietta had no such pride. She persisted in what she called an ‘adequate economy’, declaring that it was her duty to her brother who drove her, but as the house (who was never deceived about anything) very well knew, this so-called ‘economy’ became her god and to save money her sensual passion.

  She grew into a long bony woman with a faint moustache on her upper lip and a strange, heavy, flat-footed way of walking. The Staircase, a little conceited perhaps because of its lovely banisters that were as delicate as lace, hated her tread and declared that she was so common that she could not be a Candil. Several times the Staircase tripped her up out of sheer maliciousness. The Store-room hated her more than did any other part of the house. Every morning she was there, skimping and cheese-paring, making this last and doing without that, wondering whether this were not too expensive and that too ‘outrageous’. Of course her maidservants would not stay with her. She found it cheapest to engage little charity-girls, and when she had them she starved them. It is true that she also starved herself, but that was no virtue; the house would see the little charity-girls crying from sheer hunger in their beds, and its heart would ache for them.