Transcript

Chapter X · Sinister House

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Chapter ten of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox recording is in the
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public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Chapter ten. By the time we
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were back in the gloomy house behind the hemlocks, it was seven o'clock.
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Annette at once told Giles that if he meant to stay and watch, she
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had better make a fire in the living room, and, without stopping to
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think how difficult it might be for him to help himself, thus we groped
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our way upstairs and into Julia's room. Julia was lonesome and very weak,
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but all was not abandoned in that house. The old servant downstairs in the
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kitchen was making a hot soup for Julia's supper, and Annette despatched me to
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fetch it. Upon returning with it to the chamber, I found that Annette
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had lighted a lamp by the bed, had smoothed out the pillows, and
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was talking quietly with her patient. The room was cold, of course,
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and still far from being cheerful, for the bright lamp was heavily shaded,
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and the gas flickered in the drafts. I had no sooner given the soup
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over to my wife than Julia asked for news of Eric, and I must
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tell her that I had yet to find him. At that she tried to
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get out of bed, but Annette restrained her. But you will find him,
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Pierre, she begged me. He must not be left alone. I
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am not sick. That is only my body, his mind, his spirit.
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He will not tell me I cannot help him, because, oh you
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know why, Pierre. But you, he cannot help you, Julia.
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All she said was together. She wasn't rambling, but she was terribly excited.
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I tried to convince her that it would be dangerous to her to bring
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him back to the house. She understood, but she had a secret faith
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of some sort in Eric's being able to save her, even though his mere
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presence in her room that night might deliver her to death at the hands of
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his familiars. She was of two minds. I promised to find Eric,
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but I did not promise to bring him back to the house, and I
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am not sure that she exacted that definitely out of me, Annette followed me
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out into the hall and whispered to me to stop in the kitchen for something
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to eat. Whether I felt hungry or not. Make Giles eat something too.
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She added, When I was half way downstairs, she leaned over from
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above to ask me where I should take Eric if I found him, to
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the Carraway club, I whispered back. She had since told me that she
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felt better to know that I should not bring him back to the house.
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She both believed and did not believe. If you don't find him, come
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back here, sure, she said, as she turned into the chamber.
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On my way to the kitchen, I glanced into the living room for Giles.
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There was no warmth or charm in the place. He had lit the
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gas and was sitting before the grate, in which a miserable, lightless fire
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was smoldering. We couldn't eat much, but we found some wine in the
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kitchen, and each drank a glassful. To tell the truth, I was
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glad to get away from my wife's cousin. He was depressed and sullen as
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well he might be. I don't know what it was kept him in the
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house unless he shared with the rest of us the feeling that something as usual
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was going to happen there. That night, I hunted high and low for
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Eric in the ford. I went mile after mile along every road I thought
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he could have taken and farther than I thought he could have progressed. I
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even went to the village of Stanton, but there I found the village store
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and the post office closed for the night, and the cross roads were deserted.
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I went to the caraway club, all dark and deserted. The caretaker
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looked at me as if I were Satan blowing in on the wind. He
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had not seen Eric. I told him I might be back later, and
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not to keep me waiting too long outside in the cold. Again and again,
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I stopped the car and called as loudly as I could across the fields
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that lay invisible in the darkness. Lonely, and when swept on either side
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of the road, I left the car and felt my way through paths along
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the edge of the cliffs, even down by the river bed, falling and
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hurting myself more than once. It was all of no avail. Near midnight,
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I returned to the house, chilled to the bone, disheartened and gloomy
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in my mind. I both hoped and feared to find Eric there, but
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he had not returned. Giles was still before the cold, smoldering fire in
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the living room, to which the gaslight gave no look of charm. Nothing,
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Giles told me, had happened in the house. Annette had not come
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downstairs. No sound came from above. The silence in the desolate room was
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depressing. I heard only the rattle of a dead branch against one of the
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windows now, and then the steady roar of the high wind and the chimney
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and about the house, and the continuous banging of that loosened and forgotten shudder.
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That thing, said, Giles, will drive me mad. I made
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a move to go out on the Verandah, no use, Pierre, I've
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been out there. You can't reach it from outside. Gotta get at it
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from inside through the bluebeard room, he groaned. Ah, Giles, I
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whispered, you too, begin to feel something in this house. I feel
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death and desolation about it. He muttered. I'm damn cold, and I
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can't make this fire burn. I made no move to help him. Let
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the cold and the bleakness get in their work on him. For my part,
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though I had yelled myself hoarse over all the countryside and had returned forlorn
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and tired, I felt the house was harmless. Warily, I sat on
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the sofa where the night before I had sat motionless with fear under the rose
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colored hanging in the hallway, yellowish and faded in the dingy gas light that
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fell on it. From the living room, I saw drafts of air pass
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like waves. I heard the roaring of the wind and the banging of that
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inaccessible shutter. I shivered with bodily cold, but I knew there was nothing
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in the house at present to fear. The very desolation made me feel safe.
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Somewhere a clock struck one Still, there was no sound from upstairs.
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Are we going to sit like this all night? Giles grumbled, Why don't
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you stretch out on this sofa and try to sleep. I can't sleep with
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that shudder banging. Cover your head with sofa pillows. He made no reply.
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The slow minutes dragged on. I would to heaven. I had some
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whiskey, he said, after a while. No use to hunt for it
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in this house. I had been surprised enough to find even wine. Eric
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never drank, never smoked, never swore, queer, queer, not like
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the rest of us. I fell to thinking about him. I concluded he
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was something of an ascetic, made human and vulnerable by the one great love
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in his life. Yet I had to grant that I felt in him a
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great tenderness towards everything ardent, visionary too. Some thing, some one had
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checked him, done him deep in all but mortal harm. Julia could heal,
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but she I turned up my coat collar and shoved my stiff hands deeper
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into my pockets. Julia must be sleeping. What should I say to her?
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If she woke and asked for her husband? How could I reassure her
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where was he? Had he fallen in the darkness and twisted his leg?
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The sound of the wind began to irritate me, and the banging of the
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shutter got on my nerves as it got on Giles's. What did Julia fear
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in that room? That she would not have it opened in those dreary minutes?
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If ever, my imagination, were it too wild, would have evoked
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evil and unearthly things might have pictured before me the dark, gruesome interior of
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that room, perhaps a suicide hanging from the ceiling, vague in the darkness,
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yet visibly swaying on the cord. It was never my imagination that found
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evil in the house. To night, there was not the faintest thrill,
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and that new nerve of mine the house was not as it had been.
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The evil was gone from it. The gentle sensitive master was lost in the
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night and had left his dwelling bleak, lonely but safe. If only the
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wind would rest for a while, and that nerve racking banging cease. I
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jumped up and began pacing the floor. Giles poked at the fire, a
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longing to speak with my way. Life grew stronger and stronger in me.
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If I could talk only five minutes with a net, the remainder of the
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night would pass more cheerfully. Had she heard me return in the car and
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had not called me, no, I had tried to make no noise.
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Maybe she was anxious about me. I started myself thinking that perhaps Eric's familiars
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had come back without him and had done mischief upstairs. No sound from up
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there for hours, not a step on the floor, not the creak of
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a door's opening, not the murmur of a voice. Maybe a neette was
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cold. I stood this as long as I could, and then I took
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off my boots and stole up the stairs. It was dark and drafty in
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the upper hallway. I went on tiptoe to the door of the room in
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which I knew. Julia lay and listened for some sound. Nothing. I
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started to go down again, but I couldn't. Annette, I whispered,
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Annette. I listened again, no response. Slowly and without a sound,
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I opened the door and looked into the chamber. In a big chair by
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the side of the bed, away from the door, sat my wife,
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bundled in her heavy coat. The bright light from the lamp streamed over her
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hands, which lay up turned upon the knitting in her lap. Her head
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had fallen back against the top of the chair in shadow. She was fast
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asleep. Julia lay fast asleep in the bed, turned on her side,
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away from a net, her cheek resting on both her hands. I could
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hardly see their breathing. There was little movement in the room. The fluttering
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of the gas flame, the curtains blowing in from the window, which was
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opened not more than an inch, the ruffling now and then of the triangular
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bit of sheet that hung over the edge of the bed. That was all.
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It was no use to wake them. I closed the door as quietly
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as I could, But as I did so, I had the feeling that
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I was closing it upon a scene set for a drama. Ready and waiting,
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but not to be disturbed until the acting should begin. And just then,
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for the first time in that long night, my nerve of horror shuddered
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within me. I was all but overcome with forebodings. I thought I heard
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a moan from the room of sleep, on which I had closed the door.
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I paused. I thought I heard a new, strange sound. It
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was the beating of my own heart. As I stole down stairs again like
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a murderer for stealth, the clock struck two. When I took my place
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again on the sofa, I felt the house was no longer safe. The
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banging of the shutter terrified me. I hid my face in my hands.
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Instantly, I thought A voice rang shatteringly loud in my ears, crying,
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we will kill her. To night, I sprang to my feet. In
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the doorway stood Eric. He looked as if something in the night had wrung
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the blood out of him. His hair was wild about his pale face.
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His clothes were all deranged and in some places torn. My first thought was
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to throw him out of the house, his own house. The murderous cry
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I had heard told me that his familiars had come back with him. I
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had no doubt they were already above in the chamber of RESTful sleep. They
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had yelled out on their way up the stairs. But as I looked at
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Eric, a mild gentleness in his face cast a spell over me and restrained
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me. He began to speak strange words in an extraordinarily subdued voice. I
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have been walking in the wind. Out of the whirlwind. A voice spake
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unto me, saying, the law of man cannot lay a finger upon thee.
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Nor hast thou sinned against the law of God. Inasmuch as thou wast
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patient in his sight, so will he care for thee. Yet though thou
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carriest thy burden to a secret part of the earth, and there bury it,
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it shall not be forgotten. Giles and I looked at him in silence.
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You can hardly imagine the effect of his words and his manner upon us.
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While he went on talking like a prophet from an ancient time, I
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caught no sense in his words, which veiled rather than made clear, something
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about his responsibilities under the justice laws of heaven, and about his wife Julia,
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who as a human companion, remained more dear to him than the purest
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bliss in sanctimony he could dream of, and he talked as if this style
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of expression were the most familiar and the most natural to him. At last,
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he must have read our bewilderment and our discomfiture in our eyes, which
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remained fastened upon his face. He broke off his rapt discourse, and,
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stepping quietly into the room, begged us to excuse his diffuseness, and ask
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us if we had been sleeping. I could not but wonder if the knight
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had changed him into a mild idiot. Damnation sleeping, cried the matter of
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fact, Giles. In this desolate house, listen that shudder's been banging without
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let up. How can a man sleep in such a racket? Eric recognized
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the sound and looked at me. Can you not fasten it? Pierre,
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no, eric I answered, walking out of the spell his words had cast
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over me, and eyeing him curiously. We can not reach it from the
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outside. Never mind the damned thing, Gild growled. Indeed, gentlemen,
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replied Eric, I would not have you disturbed. Thus, I regret that
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you have not been able to sleep, watching the house in my absence too,
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But I think we can fasten it. He went on, from the
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inside. Quietly, he fingered over the keys on a ring he had taken
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from his pocket. While he was doing so, I heard the dull sound
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of footfalls on the floor above my head. The planks creaked. My heart
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grew faint within me. But Eric went on quietly this key. Selecting a
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bright yale key that glistened even under the dingy gaslight, I found by chance
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to day it will, I feel sure, open the door for you,
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gentlemen, you know what door, I might say, the door to your
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repose. The whole house seemed to me full of secret horrors. I heard
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the sound of voices above me. Terror invaded me, and I took a
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step forward. Eric, misinterpreting my action, said courteously, no, not
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you nor I either, For as you know, I promised my wife Julia
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that while she is in the house, she is still here? Is she
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not? But you, mister Pharaoh. He walked over to Giles and gave
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him the keys. You, he went, unkindly and without a trace of
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emotion. Who are pleased to stir up the dead this night? They will
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come to you. Take the key, Do not be afraid. Let us
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go together and fasten the shutter. Then you will sleep soundly, and perhaps
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for a long time. I would I could sleep. A blast of wind
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swept through the room and nearly tore the straining, whistling blue gas flame from
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the burner. Very distinctly, I heard a moan from upstairs. Giles got
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up and accepted the key upon my word. He said, sleep or no
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sleep, we can have a look at that room. We all heard at
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that moment the sound of his stay Eric weeping. That said, Eric,
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simply is my wife Julia. She can not sleep at night when I am
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in the house. She needs you, Eric, I cried out. He
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looked at me in mild surprise. Oh no, he answered, gently,
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not me. Come, mister Pharaoh. We shall need a light. There
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is a lamp in the dining room. Come. They went away together.
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I had been perhaps three or four minutes alone, somehow unable to move,
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when I heard the rapid stamping of a foot on the floor of the room
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above me. I rushed to the stairway. Just as I reached the top,
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a neett flung open the door of Julia's chamber and ran out into the
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hall, crying loudly, help Pierre, come quick. Together we pushed back
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into the room where the scene had been made ready the acting had begun.
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Julia lay rigid on the bed, her head bent back as if a heavy
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hand were at her throat. With her arms, she kept up a weak
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movement, as if she were trying to repel something from before her face.
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Her gasping for breath was frightful to hear. Annette went to one side of
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the bed, I to the other. I could see that Julia's eyes were
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half opened, but they were glazed. Annette tried to lift her in hopes
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that would ease her struggle for breath, but it did no good. We
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were powerless to help or relieve. Go for the doctor quick, Annette called
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to me in anguish. As I started to go, Julia began trying to
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speak. I leaned over her and put my head close to her lips.
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I felt awful things crawling on my face, like the feet of giant moths.
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What is it, Julia? I sobbed. She made a sound as
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of words, but I could not catch her meaning. She is trying to
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say something about a room. Annette whispered, she has been trying to say
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it for a long time. Oh dear, what does the porch ow mean,
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go for the doctor, Pierre, go for the doctor. She is
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dying. She cannot live like this again. I started, but Julia wrestled
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and Annette's arms, and my wife called to me, fearing she could not
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hold her. Suddenly I guessed what Julia might mean by the room. I
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ran for the stairs. Half way down, something caught me from behind,
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round the neck and under the chin, so that I lost my balance and
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fell forward to the lower floor, hardly conscious of the sharp pain in my
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head and in my elbow. I struggled to my feet against something beating the
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air about me. Staggered on along the corridor and gained the dining room.
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The door to the forbidden room was open. I went in in the harsh
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light of the unshaded lamp Eric held. I saw vaguely that it was a
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large room, the largest in the house, and that the walls were paneled
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in wood. Eric was standing by the fireplace. Giles was kneeling by the
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wall, fingering something in one of the panels. Waving my arms round my
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head to keep off the things that were bent upon strangling me, I made
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my way towards the two men. I tried to call out to them,
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but my voice was stifled in my throat. Giles, still unconscious of my
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approach, said triumphantly, Ah, there it is, And just as I
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came up behind Eric, a long panel in the wall swung open like a
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door. We three men stood facing the full sized portrait of a woman.
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It was physically repulsive, morally odious. I looked at little but the face,
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the lidless, flat eyes, the cruel yet simpering malice. I recognized
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them. For a couple of seconds we stood without moving. Then Eric swung
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the lamp high above his shoulder and hurled it at the canvas. The chimney
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crashed. There was a spurt of brownish yellow flame, and as the instant
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darkness settled, a piercing scream behind us, and the dull sound of a
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body fallen to the floor. My eyes were at first blind in the sudden
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gloom, but I smelt the oily smoke of the extinguished lamp, and I
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heard, even above the roar of the wind, Eric's loud and rapid breathing,
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like the panting of a dog. In a moment or two, I
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felt him brush by me, and as I began to see again, I
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made him out kneeling beside a white figure on the floor, vague and hardly
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distinguishable, I knew it was Julia. He picked her up in his arms
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and carried her towards the dining room door. I followed them as closely as
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I could, anxious and full of fear, for Julia was moaning, and
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I knew that the as yet invisible powers of malice had left me to fasten
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themselves once more on her. Eric carried her along the hallway and started up
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the stairs. Annette, who had run down into the lower hallway, went
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up backwards ahead of him, trying to pull him forward, while I followed
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just below him and supporting him. When in the face of those malignant fiends
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that were opposing him, he all but fell back. I never knew whether
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he felt or saw them. He may have thought that Julia was struggling in
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his arms only in a delirium. He swayed from side to side, leaning
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now against the wall, now against the frail banister, which bent out perilously
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under his weight and threatened to give way. Sometimes he had to fight half
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a minute to gain a step. Though Annette was pulling him forward and I
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was bracing him from behind never have I been witness of such a struggle.
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The invisible odds were all but too much for us. It was like a
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man striving to swim against a powerful current. And how Eric, not a
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physically strong man, progressed against it, I cannot say. At the top
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of the stairs, he reeled and nearly fell, but Annette clutched him and
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managed to drag him into the chamber. He laid Julia down on the bed.
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She poor victim, was almost exhausted. She put her hands weakly to
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her throat, and her moans grew more feeble. A bright shaft of light
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from the lamp fell across the sheet over her breast. The gas flame flickered
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in the draft. I stood close beside Eric, looking down at her,
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while Annette, having found and folded a piece of paper, was fanning her
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as if that would make her breathing easier. They were doing their utmost to
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strangle her. As yet I had not seen them, but I had felt
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their hands. I knew they were at their devilish work. Julia's weaker and
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weaker movements were too eloquent for me to be in doubt, but she was
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losing strength. At last, she lay motionless in her bed. And then
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I thought I saw something, A spectral hand at her slender throat, A
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faint point of light, crossing and recrossing her breast, as swiftly as a
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spider weaves about its prey. Eric said, in a cold, strained voice,
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she is dying. And he threw himself on his knees beside the bed.
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No, Eric, God help you. She is being murdered by the
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evil that haunts you, I whispered, bending to his ear. Julia lay
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so still, I thought she was already gone. But no, at the
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doorway of death. She turned, opened her eyes and looked at her husband.
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She whispered, her lips hardly moving. I have loved you, I
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trust you. But the two fiends became incandescent. I saw them try to
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throw themselves upon her. They got in each other's way, but Julia,
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with the last strength she had, swept them as with her arm, sat
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up in bed and cried out in a loud voice, Eric, tell me
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who are they? You and I together we shall defeat them. Her strength
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was then exhausted, and she fell over against him. He clasped her head
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to his breast as if he would save her. Merely by enfolding her in
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his arms. But I saw the malignant toue lope round the head of the
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bed and try to tear her from him. Could he see them, I
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do not know, Though he raised his head as if to face them.
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I think his eyes were sightless. Hold A snart, he said, and
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his voice was full of the bitterest hatred. You will burn in hell for
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this. At last, a terrible burst of wind ripped out the gas,
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and in the darkened room the shapes of Holda and Morgan's snart glowed cold like
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phosphorus. They desisted from their murderous work. Cowled by his voice. They
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stood above him as he knelt by the bed with Julia in his arms,
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balked on the verge of retreat, motionless save for the flickering of their outlines.
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The cold that touched me from them was like the cold of ether on
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the skin. I heard Julia's faint voice. Who was that evil woman?
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Eric took a deep breath, held it an instant, then still, with
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his face upturned and his eyes like those of blind persons that look towards what
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they do not see, he said, she was my wife. They stepped
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back, from him. I know your wickedness. Hold a snart, you
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know my crime. I will lay both for judgment before my wife Julia.
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He half rose from his knees, lifting Julia with him, and shouted,
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get out of this cursed house. I know now that since a certain hour
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in the past, Eric had never feared them living. He did not fear
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them dead. But I for an awful minute, I held my breath.
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But they went away, as if caught in a whirlwind. The door slammed
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behind them. I heard a hideous shrill whistle in the hallway. I heard
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the crash of broken glass downstairs. A shriek of hatred died away in the
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night. Outside. The wind made only a low moan. The house and
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the room were silent. A clock struck three enden of Chapter ten.