THE TERRACES OF NIGHT Read online

  ‘As all love!’ he said bitterly.

  Then driven by a gust of utter despair, he caught her in his arms, and losing his head, begged her to stay, to love him even a little, not to send him away, with the desperate frenzy of a man who feels his last hold on life slipping from him.

  Dragging away, her face dark with anger, she flung an insulting word at him, and darting to the door so swiftly that I had barely time to slip aside, ran furiously down the echoing stairs.

  As she reached the foot the door of the studio was flung open, and Gilles Rousselier, his face racked with anger and thwarted passion, stood against the red light like a gaunt avenging shadow, and shouted after her . . . and his voice brought the seat of terror out in beads on my brow where I slunk against the wall of the passage.

  ‘Good night, fair Hélène! I accept your challenge. We shall see yet—what I can do!’

  * * * * *

  The slow days dragged on, and each one member of my little household was secretly keyed up to a pitch of acute excitement about Madame la Comtesse’s approaching wedding. In vain I cursed us all, myself, Louise, the children, for hysterical fools, yet it was useless. The atmosphere was electric, waiting on tiptoe, it seemed, for something, and every paper was diligently scanned for details of the bride’s trousseau, jewels, future life and so on. Too poor to buy a paper for himself, as a rule we lent ours to Monsieur Gilles, but on one excuse or the other Louise contrived now to avoid this, in the faint hope that he might thus cease to take an interest in his lost love’s forthcoming marriage. But to our surprise he did not even ask for it, made no comment—yet as the days passed by he grew whiter and whiter, and more lined and haggard, and indeed what wonder, for he seemed to live on air. It was a bitter winter, the snow lay piled along the gutters, yet the good food we sent him was left practically untasted, and in vain Louise lectured and reproached. He did not even seem to hear her, very often, and would listen absently, with his great hollow eyes, unblinking, fixed on hers, till she shivered and stopped, and at last would not talk to him any more.

  He went out one day, two days before the wedding, and returned with a parcel of small presents—a gay orange-coloured scarf for Louise, new shoes for Germaine and Alphonse, a pipe for me. Touched, we protested against such generosity—I shall never forget the wistful note in his voice as he replied.

  ‘Mes amis, you are perhaps the only true friends I ever had or shall have. Should I disappear from your lives I should like to think you had some small thing to remember me by. . . .’

  Nervously, I wondered whether he was hinting at suicide, and hoped not—it kills a place, does a suicide, an ordinary death is bad enough, and I have my living to make out of the Rue des Pins! Another thing I noted that disquieted me a little; his old trick of ‘staring’, as the children called it, seemed to have revived in full force.

  I would go in sometimes and find him sitting, staring into the fire, at a blank space in the wall, or into a small round crystal he had, with that oddly fixed gaze, and the tense atmosphere of the room would hit me like a blow and wake a most unpleasant unease within me, an unease that was not quite fear but that brought fear hovering in its wake. Once I ventured to put a hand on his shoulder, to break his strange ‘trance’, and when he turned his dazed heavy gaze upon me, I dared to beg him to leave these strange experiments, that they could lead to no good. He looked at me steadily, and his eyes were sombre caverns, dark and desolate, where no light moved any more.

  ‘Have no far, my good Jules.’ For once he forgot to speak the patois he usually adopted, and his voice was the voice of a seigneur, of a man accustomed to command. ‘It may be we shall part soon—so I tell you this, for your private ear alone. It is true that I am—experimenting; trying to revive, to strengthen an old power I once knew well, too well! Call it an unlawful power if you will—I stand today an outcast and a ruined man for the learning and practice of it, that is true. Yet for the sake of a woman I swore to renounce it, and for many years, till that evening at the Lampe Rouge, when wine made my reckless, I had not touched it. I had sworn never to open the book of that terrible lore again—that vow I renewed when my love Hélène came once more into my life; yet, since that vow was based upon her faith to me, and that faith is lost and broken, I stand absolved of my vow, and so, for the wreaking of my just revenge I open the book once more! Yet now I would read further, dare more than I have ever dared before, and I must practise, since the wheels of knowledge are rusted from long disuse. . . .’

  He was talking in riddles, but I dared not ask for explanations; I retreated, frightened, and left him, chin sunk on breast, gazing before him with sombre eyes. After that we left him to himself, too frightened to approach further.

  The wedding day dawned cold and frosty, and my Louise, driven by curiosity, dressing herself in her best, went forth to see what she could of the ceremony, bidding me keep watch warily on Monsieur Gilles, since like myself she dreaded what might befall.

  Yet there was no need. He did not go out, but remained seemingly asleep all day, and Louise had returned and recounted all the glories of the wedding, the bride in spotless ermine, the claret-coloured limousine against the piled snow, the fashionable guests in bright velvets and furs and jewels, chattering like a crowd of gorgeous magpies, long ere he woke. Indeed, it was fully eight o’clock at night when he called over the stairs to us to demand a meal.

  When Louise went in to lay the table she told me he did not look at her nor greet her as of old, but lay on his back on the bed once more, half dressed, smoking and staring at the ceiling, laughing low to himself from time to time—poor Louise, by now indeed, she was cold with fear of this strange dour man who had taken the place of the cheerful vagabond of old days, and after she had set the table with a good meal of stewed chicken, salad and cheese, she went off to evening mass to pray for him, poor soul.

  But as for me, I could not rest, and at last I went softly into a small closet beside the studio, a little room filled with boxes and carpets, broken chairs and old rubbish of all kinds—Monsieur knows the sort of place. This room had a tiny window looking into the studio, and here I hid myself, balanced perilously on a broken step-ladder, and my heart thumping, peered down on our mysterious guest.

  He had finished eating, and sat drinking his wine sombrely before the fire. As I looked he leaped suddenly to his feet, and facing the picture that looked down on him from above the chimney-piece, supreme in its supercilious beauty, spoke, loudly enough for me to hear even through the murky glass of my little peephole.

  ‘Well, my lady? I have judged rightly, I think! You should this hour be seated beside your new-made husband at the nuptial feast. . . .’ His face twisted horribly, sardonically, and I saw he was playing with the crystal ball, the firelight dancing on it in his long hand. ‘I wonder, would you scoff still did you know that in this pretty glass ball of mine I have watched your every step this day, from boudoir to church, from church to Mairie, from Mairie to hotel . . . that I have seen you, but now, take your place beside Gaston de Mouraye at the dinner-table?’

  Then he had not been sleeping after all! My back crept as I strained my ears to hear.

  He went on, tossing the gleaming ball idly in the firelight. ‘Yes . . . it is time! Look deep into his eyes, fair lady, preen your lovely self in the long mirrors, in your satin and lace, gloat on the flitter of ruby and diamond, taste the rich flavour of wine and food—for the last time! Unless . . . unless the Dark Powers fail me, you have looked your last on life tonight!’

  He had dropped on the last word into a chair facing the picture. From his nerveless hand the crystal ball fell and rolled into a corner, but he took no heed. Already his eyes were fixed, intent on the fair scornful face of the pictured lady. She looked, in the dancing light, almost as though she heard and answered his threat with a gesture of defiance, her narrow challenging face thrown haughtily back, one nonchalant hand on her hip, her ruddy hair a flame of colour in the dusk. The room fell silent, a silence so inten
se that the squeak and scuttle of the mice behind the old wainscot sounded loud in the stillness, and the siffle of falling snow on the sill outside sang ‘hush . . . hush?’ like a mother soothing her children to sleep.

  I grew colder and colder, not with the frost alone, since I was wrapped in warm clothes, but with a shivering inner terror that numbed my very soul as I sat and watched that motionless figure, still as a statue, staring, ever staring with great fixed eyes at the picture that looked so blankly back at him. . . .

  I sat and watched, with that terror gathering more and more within me, a fear that was a fear of something more entirely dreadful than anything that had ever before touched the fringe of my little humdrum life . . . for it seemed, gradually but certainly, there grew a Power in the room below! A Power that gathered and gathered, stronger every breathless moment, swifter and more swift, with a low tense vibration faintly like the humming, distant yet but just perceptible, of a great and awful dynamo; cold, strong beyond human understanding, and utterly relentless. . . .

  The shadows shifted and streamed like soft black chiffon veils before the red glow of the fire, sunk to heaped embers; filmed the dark huddled form of the man, crouched low in his chair, the only glint of life in him his burning eyes—and with the shadows there entered, velvet-footed, sinister, this Thing, this inexorable ancient Power, the Force that was to do Gilles Rousselier’s will. Dimly I felt it was in a way a blind thing, this Force! Less an actual Personality than a vague inchoate Power, obedient to this man’s will in a sense, yet far huger, more terrifying than even he could dream. The curious ‘humming’ sound grew and grew, yet I knew it was not with the actual ears I heard it, but with some inner sense that vibrated in response to it—then of a sudden I seemed to hear another sound. A distant crying voice, the voice of a woman, faint, windy, echoing . . . the voice of a woman in mortal terror!

  ‘Gilles, Gilles . . . for God’s sake, let me go!’

  Mother of God! My whole soul seemed to rise within me in one great shout of terror, and at that moment, glaring down into the darkened studio, I saw the man rise, swaying wildly on his feet, his eyes ablaze with triumph, stretching out furious arms to the picture . . . and lo, with an appalling crash it fell at his feet, and I, I knew no more!

  * * * * *

  You who live in the great world, Monsieur, doubtless know the rest. How the young and lovely Madame de Mouraye, the original of the ‘Portrait of Comtesse X’, died suddenly at dinner on the night of her wedding? It was whispered that there was a strange scene there as she died—that she rose of a sudden from her seat beside her new-made husband and staring before her as one who sees a ghost, shrieked suddenly ‘Gilles, Gilles, let me go!’ and fell suddenly across the silver and the shining glass—dead. . . .

  ‘She was delirious,’ they said, and I, I who heard so horribly that last wild call, said nothing. What could I say? Who would have believed my story, that I sat perched up there among the rugs and dusty boxes, and watched Gilles de Rochouart, in silence and shadows, deliberately kill the woman who had used him so wickedly? How could I, poor and simple and foolish, make the great doctors understand what I do not understand myself—how that poor fool, driven mad by love and passion, deliberately employed Something to wreak his vengeance, and at the very moment of his triumph died also himself, killed by the sheer force of that Power as it drew away again to the Place from whence it came? No, no, Monsieur! I held my tongue and they talked of ‘overstrain’ and ‘heart failure’, and all was well. . . . There was found a scrawled scrap of paper upon the table in the studio, directing that the picture be sent to M. de Mouraye, but he sent it back to No. 18, vowing he would have nothing from M. Rousselier . . . it seemed he knew by hearsay somewhat of our poor Gilles’ past life. So I kept the fair lady here, since nobody wanted her—partly, too, I keep it in memory of Monsieur Gilles, who, though he surely sinned deeply and terribly, yet was also greatly sinned against. And doubtless Our Lady of Sorrows will take that into account.

  May

  The Business Man’s Tale

  Nannory House

  I had known the Merediths, George and Lina, for a good many years—since, in fact, we had been students together at the Slade in our very early youth!—and despite the divergence of our paths in later life, George in the direction of writing, and I in the direction of business, we had never quite lost touch with each other. I was, therefore, unsurprised and more than a little delighted to see, lying on my breakfast table one sunny September morning, a large white envelope addressed to me in Lina’s sprawling hand. The note was headed ‘Nannory House’, and ran thus:

  Dear old Boy,

  If you’re not doing anything more amusing, do run down and look us up here. George had a lucky splash with ‘Lonely Lady’ so we made up our minds to do what we’ve always wanted to do—take a country house on a long lease, and settle down! We’ve only just moved in, and are still maidless, but I know you don’t mind roughing it_pack up your grip and come.

  ‘Nannory House’—‘Nannory House?’ Now where on earth had I heard that name? Some fleeting tag of memory worried me as I put down Lina’s note and opened the railway guide. Freyne, it seemed, was the nearest station, from which one drove, or hoped to, to Nannory, which was the name of the village also, it seemed, as well as the house. Evidently Nannory House was the Manor, as it were . . . as I put down the guide and turned to my cooling bacon and eggs, I started, suddenly remembering where I had heard that name before. The other day at the club, a member, Fred Junior, was talking to a stranger who was lunching with him; I was sitting at the next table, and caught the tail end of a sentence . . . it had stuck in my head, I suppose, because of the oddness of the name.

  ‘. . . at last! They had to leave the damn’ place. I assure you! Nannory House, near Freyne. . . .’

  I wondered, as, a few hours later, my modest suitcase packed with necessities, and my head with pleasurable anticipations, I was sitting in the leisurely ‘local’ that was all in the shape of trains that ran to Freyne, why the last tenants of Nannory House had ‘had to leave’. Full of friendly zeal, I resolved to inform George as soon as might be of the overheard remark, and to satisfy myself that my friends had not been duped into taking some place that drains or damp or draughts alike made unhealthy or depressing . . . but George’s beaming countenance and hefty handshake, as he greeted me on the tiny platform of Freyne, certainly set my mind at rest concerning his health, both mental and physical! And Lina? Lina, it seemed, was absolutely O.K.

  ‘She’d have come to meet you,’ George assured me, shouldering my bag with friendly energy, and leading the way to the tiny wicket-gate, ‘only she’s so anxious that you should see the place looking nice that she’s rushing about with flowers and vases and cushions and things, in an overall and gloves, all hot and excited. Amazing the way she adores this new place of ours!’

  In the dusty lane outside the station, a businesslike little ‘Whippet’ awaited us—the back of the car was already chock-a-block with various bundles, boxes and parcels, but George somehow found room for my suitcase amongst them, and in a few minutes we drew swiftly away into the sunshiny lanes.

  ‘You’ve to do a lot of your own catering, apparently?’ I joked, with a backward glance at the heap, which consisted mainly of tins of soup, jam, biscuits, and various foodstuffs. George frowned faintly and increased his speed.

  ‘As a matter of fact, that is the one catch about the place,’ he said. ‘Servants! Of course the agent never warned us it might be difficult to get servants locally—but Lina’s never had any difficulty before, as you know. Wherever we’ve been she’s always managed to scratch up a wench in a day or so, but the local wenches seem to have some odd superstitious dislike of the place.’

  I pounced on the hint at once, delighted.

  ‘I’ve got it—that’s what Fred must have meant, of course. Nannory House is haunted!’

  The car swerved a little, and I glanced at George, astonished. He was faintly flushed, and his
voice sounded irritated as he replied.

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish . . . ghosts are rot! We’ve never seen or heard a thing! Still, I admit that is the story—only how you can have heard of it before you came down here beats me.’

  I recited my story, and George listened as we drove along through the winding lanes sweet with the scent of sun-baked grass and clover. As I finished he nodded gloomily.

  ‘That ’ud be the Hannays he was talking about. They had the place before us—left after six months, and sub-let it to us through an agent, without giving any reason. They certainly let it go cheap . . . and it’s a beautiful old place. Look!’

  He slowed the car down on the crest of a rise, and I drew a quick breath of sudden appreciation. Before us the land dropped swiftly down and away into a shallow sunfilled valley; a small river ran meandering through the middle of it, beside the white ribbon of the road, and far off, half-way down the valley, half-buried in a straggling copse of trees, was a rambling old grey house, patient, waiting, in a green nest of trees, watching its straying young ones adventuring into the sun. Certainly, as I first saw it in the sunlight of that glorious September evening, Nannory House was beautiful, therefore I cannot explain why, after that first moment, it impressed me somehow unpleasantly. I got—let the psychics explain it, I cannot—swift but definite, the sense of a grim inflexible power, of some hidden menace. The mother bird, as it were, changed swiftly and horribly into a crouching beast awaiting its chance to spring . . . but there was no time to analyse impressions; George drove in the clutch and we dropped down the steep incline into the valley below like a stone slung from the hand of a child, and the rolling cloud of our dust lay on the still air behind us like a trail of smoke.