It was far worse than the presence of a ghost or a supernatural
phenomenon. A White Lady or an immured nun or chained monk would have
afforded welcome relief. We could have slept peacefully amid spectral
rattles and death-warnings. But the menace hanging over the house
seemed to combine the terrors of the earthly and the unearthly. The
firebug that flieth by day giveth no warning, and, whatever was the
cause of the incendiarism, there was no comfort in the night. The house
party continued to its appointed end rather like a comic funeral, at
which the skeleton sat at every feast and lurked in every cupboard. At
night the house was watched by night-watchmen with instructions to fire
upon anybody attempting to fire the house. And all the while out of
doors the beautiful spring was bursting into moist melody. As for the
landscape, it was red, red earth all the way, with jerks of blue sea
over the hills and far away. The hedges burst into flowerage. Devon is
the only county rhymed with Heaven, but it has Paradisal parallels.
It seemed incongruous to see Nature so happy and busy, spinning the
loves of flowers and birds, while within the walls of the old house the
lords of creation sat in moody and suspicious silence. I must admit
that it was one of the most exciting weeks of my life, and certainly
I would never have missed the experiences: the uncanny supernatural
sensations, the actual personal knowledge of a fire and the study
of human psychology reacting to strain. On the whole everybody had
improved as human beings. People ceased to be boring or selfish.
Everybody became anxious to protect or reassure everybody else. The
common fear made us all friends, and we felt we would have something
to talk to each other about, whenever we met, for the rest of our
lives. The only person who seemed to show not the least change was Lady
Pawkins. Her time-table was totally unaffected by what had happened.
She still rose at an earlier hour than her servants and prayed in
her Oratory. On Sundays and Feast days she remained praying most of
the day. Even on weekdays she read the whole Office of the Church to
herself. She ordered the meals, and though she left the entertainment
to her cheery and collapsible mother-in-law, her personality none the
less penetrated the whole house. I was never more conscious of it than
at each outbreak of fire. Guests and detectives seemed to look upon
her as a phantom and of no importance in the search for the mystery,
and yet I reiterate the extraordinary impression I had received in the
subconscious part of my soul that she was somewhere at the origin of
all this trouble.
At last Saturday dawned and the visit was over for guests, who had
been struggling between an intense desire to depart and the thrill of
remaining. Most of them had recovered their balance at the prospect of
going. There were three extra detectives by the end of the week and
the very meals we ate were cooked under Scotland Yard supervision.
The Americans were drawing plans of the central heating system, which
would be necessary before they paid a second visit. We had long given
up trying to affix the deed to any particular person. It was all too
complicated.
But two things happened that Saturday morning, which I have not
disclosed until to-day. The Benedictine chaplain arrived as usual
and, after hearing the news of the week from Sir Petronille, made
his way into the Chapel where he was joined by Lady Pawkins. As he
descended the stairs an hour later, the tension precipitated us into
conversation. He talked about the untoward occurrences and the ladies
of the family with the simplest gravity. He spoke with the kindest
benevolence and pity of the Dowager: “She put up such a strong fight.
But the holy have no peace in this house. She is at peace since she
ceased struggling with all her body and soul. Not so Lady Pawkins.” As
he spoke, I had the curious feeling in my mind that he had no doubt
either as to the source of the fires. When I described the horror of
the igniting tapestry to him, he was tremendously interested and asked
me to show him the exact place. The tapestry had not been put away and
still hung in the drawing-room with an ugly scar upon the Virgin’s
arm. He was really excited beyond measure when he saw the mark of the
flame, and I heard him muttering to himself: “Poor lady, poor lady!
How could she bear it?” Then he flung himself on his knees and began
to pray. I made allowance for his nerves and for his deep affection
for the Pawkins family and began re-examining the tapestry. I noticed
for the first time that the fire had been confined to the imagery of
the Blessed Virgin and to her arms alone. The Holy Child and the Magi
had not been touched. Something in the thread had kept the flame to
the same section of colour in the web. The good monk was very much
moved, and remained some time on his knees. I suppose he thought that
there was something sacrilegious in even the singeing of the Virgin’s
likeness.
An hour later I went to the Oratory to say good-bye to Lady Pawkins.
She was there immersed in prayer and it was some time before she
noticed me. Rising from her knees, she came slowly towards me and held
out her right hand with a quiet smile as though to apologise for all
that had happened during my stay. As she raised her arm I caught sight
of her skin under the hanging sleeve and my eyes froze to it. It was
burnt and charred to the bone! God! I was glad to get out of that house.
* * * * *
Then I was right, and she was in some mystical and appalling way at
the source of all that had happened; and the monk knew. Yes! I was
sure that he knew, and now I realised why he had fallen to prayer
before the burnt picture of the Virgin in the tapestry. Everything
began to fit itself together in my mind. The Dowager’s strange words
about herself and her daughter-in-law, coupled with those of the
monk--what was it that they meant? How was it that the poor drunken
Dowager had fought against it with all her might and soul, but that
the evil had been too strong for her, and why, since she had given up
struggling, had she been at peace? Could it be that though the old lady
had collapsed under demoniacal assault and let herself take to drink,
there was some mystical and tremendous excuse for her weakness, that in
the atmosphere of that house there was a power which would not permit
people to live quiet, ordinary, sober lives? That women who married
into the family found themselves attacked by an influence which gave
them no rest, which actually forced holy people into evil habits? Was
I right in guessing that the only chance a woman had in that house was
the overwhelming and simple practice of mediæval Sanctity, the gifts
of prayer, holiness and atonement carried to an heroic degree? Such a
woman was given the chance of becoming saintly or sodden--there was no
middle course.
So I guessed, but I never returned to confirm my guess. You can only
imagine my feelings a year later when I took up a newspaper and read
that the country residence of Sir Petronille Pawkins had been burnt to
the ground and that everybody had been saved in the house except Lady
Pawkins, who was believed to have returned to the Chapel to save the
holy vessels. I suppose she would not yield--more power to her burnt
elbows! But she must have gone to Heaven in a fiery chariot.
CANNES
Recently the most extraordinary and unexpected adventure has befallen
me, which I am anxious to preserve in the form of a Short Story.
It concerns a railway accident which occurred while I was travelling
through France to the Riviera. I ought to have been on the crashing
train and for some strange reason I was not. The reason is really
strange and remains to this day unexplained. But I have devised a
possible clue to the fantastic or psychical forces which were in play
and which prevented me being immolated in the catastrophe. There will
appear a climax if I tell my story rightly, but I am still waiting for
the _dénouement_. Roughly, this is the outline. I was summoned to an
aunt’s sick-bed at Cannes and had no time to book a berth in advance. I
attempted to travel in the restaurant car of an express. Friends left
me at the station. Witnesses in Paris knew that I was leaving that
night and, if possible, by that train. They read of the train’s crash
in the papers the next morning. My name was not in the casualty list
simply because I was not travelling in the train. I had deliberately
changed trains for a strange reason.
This is too bad for a start, for I have been very carefully trained in
the Pelman school of literature, and have subscribed to an expensive
course in the Finsbury School of Practical Journalism, and have had
several Short Stories corrected by a doddering ex-member of Parliament,
by the writer of social snips in a Methodist weekly, and an utterly
futile and yellowish novelist whose very decadence has decayed. I
should have remembered that it is necessary to give no hint of a Short
Story’s end, if the attention of trained readers is to be kept, and
that the catastrophe should be concealed till the practised palate of
the epicurean magazine-taster is prepared to assimilate it. But now I
have revealed the whole skeleton outline of my Story in one nutshell
paragraph. It is too bad, for the whole fact and even the mystery,
such as it is, leaks out of those first sentences, and I shall have to
continue with Pelmanic padding to the obvious end. However, perhaps I
shall get this Story into next year’s “Collection of the Worst Stories
of the Twelve-month,” which I believe are industrially collected into
an annual by two Chicago professors of belles-lettres and added to that
invaluable transatlantic series “What Not To Read.”
But I have a Story to tell, and with the help of a little volume
entitled “Short Story Writing for Profit,” by Michael Joseph, which has
fallen into my hands, I shall essay to tell it. His entertaining little
plan informs me that the theory of the Short Story may be likened to
the shape of a triangle--a long base, one long side, and a short drop.
I must keep this in mind, especially as my story conveys an illusion of
the human triangle. Let me at least preserve that triangular form which
is essential to the modern Short Story.
[Illustration]
I therefore set out to draw _A--C_, _Base of characters_, as per plan,
with _A--B_, _Incidents leading to the Catastrophe_, and _C--B_ the
_Climax_, with _B_ for _Catastrophe_. I have a feeling that with such
clear indications I cannot fail. My real difficulty is that I have
to adapt a true story to the Procrustean bed of fiction. I learn I
have got to provide a Title (done), an Opening (I am opening as I
write), the Body of the Story, and the Catastrophe upon Climax, and if
possible, but this is not essential, a _dénouement_.
The Opening is in the Gare de Lyon, which I reach about half-past seven
on a Sunday night on my way to the Riviera. I am not travelling for
pleasure, but in response to a summons to fetch my dear and favourite
aunt, who has been very fashionably ill at Cannes in company with
some of the best-known names in English Provincial Society. This year
anybody who counts in Leeds would cease to count in Leeds had they not
been numbered on a Riviera hotel register. The _salons_ of Liverpool,
the wit of Glasgow, and the beauty of Hull, Halifax and Huddersfield
have been emptied along the Garden of the Riviera like a rich manure.
Even poor old London, which since the war has been outmonied and
outclassed by the manufacturing cities of the North, contributed its
little quota of idle poor. My dear aunt went for her health, and I went
because I am in her Will. I had got as far as the Gare de Lyon in my
Story.
I do not feel like filling out _A--C_ with characterisations of either
my aunt or myself, so I will proceed to _A--B_ (Incidents leading to
the Catastrophe). The first incident lies in the fact that I can never
pass through the Gare de Lyon without a very vivid thought passing
through my mind. Thirty years ago (this dislocation of time is against
all the Short Story rules, but it is essential), this aunt of mine
stood in the Gare de Lyon and suddenly she saw a man running across
the platform, followed by another. He had the misfortune to trip and
fall, whereupon, to her horror, the other drew a revolver and shot him
not once, but many times, until the police removed him and his victim.
It was a crime of passion committed by a jealous husband on his wife’s
lover. As everything had been done on all sides of the triangle, nobody
had anything to say, and the drama was soon forgotten in the thousand
and ten more dramatic incidents of the Paris phantasmagoria. But my
aunt never forgot, and years later, when I was a small boy in Paris,
she showed me the scene of the murder and recounted the details. It
was the only murder she had ever seen, and the only one I had heard at
first hand, so it remained in my mind as fresh as blood. Every time I
crossed the Gare de Lyon, travelling South, it returned to my memory
with renewed force. And though I was in a special hurry, and in a state
of real agitation owing to the telegrams I had received from Cannes,
I halted at the fatal spot and remembered, as it were throwing myself
back in time and out of circumstantial focus. I enjoyed the curious
feeling that possibly I was the only person alive who knew exactly
what had happened there on that tragic day. It was part of my personal
tradition.
This murder is an Incident, not the Catastrophe in my story, which
I am still labouring to tell with such sanity and sincerity as my
reader will allow me. Friends in Paris sent me in their car to catch
the 8.10 _Rapide_. I had not reserved a sleeping place because the
train accommodation was filled for weeks in advance. I gave a voluble
porter ten francs, and explained that it was a case of necessity and
that I must reach Cannes the next day, as my aunt was ill; that I was
prepared to travel in the restaurant car the whole way, or even in
the baggage van. I only carried hand luggage, and while the porter
was making my arrangements I walked down the platform to loosen my
leg joints before what promised to be a night of cramp. The porter
rejoined me beaming, and assured me that he had arranged everything
by himself, that my bag was in the restaurant and that I would find
a seat in the corridor, when I suddenly noticed a passenger on the
platform far more hurried and agitated than I was. She walked up the
train, peering with quick movements of her neck into every carriage,
but in vain. Then she remained standing at one of the wrought-iron
pillars that sustain the roof, looking like the veritable picture of
despair. The train was late going out (half an hour of delay, the
porter told me), so I felt tempted to walk past her, and to my surprise
found her large, glassy eyes fixed full upon mine. I continued ten
yards and swung round. She was still there, and her eyes were still
riveting mine. I passed her not twice but half a dozen times, and each
time her eyes fixed, absorbed, hypnotised and terrified me. They were
not the eyes of a woman, who queries and accosts men in streets and
railway stations, the glittering and questingly plunderous eyes, nor
the brilliantly attractive orbs of the adventuress. Nor were they the
eyes of the widow and the mourner, those gushing fountains of violet
salts and pathetic brine. Tragic they were and haunting, restless and
insatiable, searchful and despairing. I felt quite unable to take my
place in the train, and continued walking up and down the platform,
and each time I received her eyes full into mine. It was naturally
not for me to speak, but I gave her every chance, and emboldened by
her piercing glance which shot pity, fear, pain, peril, I bent my
head towards her until our eyes cannot have been more than six inches
apart. Then I heard her saying simply, “_Changez! il faut changer de
train. Dites lui de changer de train._” I was so troubled that I could
make no reply. I passed her once again, and she said again, “_Il faut
changer de train._” When I looked back she had disappeared, and the
signal was being made for the train to start. But her eyes had not gone
out of mine, and I could still know them anywhere if ever I saw them
again. They were wonderful and wistful eyes, and a little terrible.
They never blinked or flinched or flickered. But what struck me most,
apart from their undeviating stare of agony and terror, was that they
were perfectly dry--the dry stare of the dead. I felt their presence
even more after their owner had disappeared into the rush and crush
of the station. I no longer felt like a real person, but as though I
were watching myself in a dream, and I did the absurd sort of things
that one does in dreams. I obeyed her entreaty to change trains without
questioning whether it was intended for me. I snatched my bag and
threw myself upon my surprised porter. He thought I had decided not
to travel at all, and could not understand me when I gave him another
ten francs and asked him to find me another train, presumably in the
same direction! There was a slow train in the parallel siding already
crowded and almost overfilled. Before he had found me a fresh seat,
the _Rapide_ was passing out of the station. I turned and watched
the slow, soundless egress of the train I should have occupied. I
did feel a fool, but again the dream-sense overcame me, and I looked
with a curious intense feeling into every face I could sight in the
disappearing carriages. One man was looking out of the window. Was he
the object of that woman’s wild search and agony? Another was preparing
to undress. Groups were settling down for the night. The restaurant car
was empty, but the white-capped _chef_ was busy in his tiny kitchen.
It all passed through my sense of vision like a phantom. The porter
touched me on the shoulder and led me to the slow train. He treated me
as one distracted but harmless. He placed me in a tight compartment
with six others, and committed me to their charge. I remained sitting
bolt upright for eighteen hours, past Dijon and Lyons; past Avignon,
where the rose of dawn met us; past Arles to Marseilles, where our
engine breasted the breeze of the Mediterranean and snorted with new
breath into Toulon and along the Amethyst Coast to Cannes.
At Cannes I felt as though I were awaking from a dream. I struggled
towards the hotel, where my convalescent aunt had been hanging
irresolute between life and death, and was now sufficiently well to
decide between two exquisite hats--one from Paris and another bought
in Cannes. Fortunately a friend in need had nursed her through the
crisis of pneumonia, and recovery was now a question of days. It was
Martha MacArthur, one of the world’s delectables. At my aunt’s bedside
I apologised for missing the _Rapide_ and arriving so late. Martha
started. “Missed it? Why, the _Rapide_ crashed last night, with great
loss of life!” As my aunt had just escaped from the jaws of germigerous
death, it was perhaps not the moment to acquaint her with my even more
astounding survival, but I felt an overwhelming desire to ask Martha
why I was alive. Mr. Joseph, in his “Short Story Writing for Profit”
remarks on page 118 that “certain names have a strong suggestion of
character about them. Martha suggests the dutiful housewife; Dolly,
Betty or Kitty the rather frivolous young lady.” According to the
rules I should have never introduced the name of Martha into this
Story, especially as Martha presented the very opposite of the dutiful
housewife as she slung me in her Rolls-Royce through the narrow streets
of Cannes, leaving perilously minute margins between her wheels and
trembling human obstacles. But Martha is one of the protected. Her golf
is Paradisal, her card play diabolical--I can speak from experience.
On our way to the Casino at Cannes--which is the great caravanserai
of the loose, losing and lost, I ventured at last to ask her why I
was alive. She took it as a reflection on her driving! Before I could
tell her my Story, we had entered the great Casino--which seems built
of dissected strata of coloured ice-cream; with great plate-windows
framing pictures of the Mediterranean, and electric chandeliers hanging
over potted palm trees like bunches of horrible glassy dates--and under
an enormous Chinese black and white lantern I unfolded my tale. It was
so strange, telling a ghostly yarn in that heated atmosphere to Martha,
who sat like a frond of Swiss edelweiss, cool and white and natural
in that huge orchidaceous hot-house, where monstrous flowers of the
Venus Fly Trap variety swayed to and fro in the scented air, seeking
whom they might conveniently suck--those flowers to whom champagne and
shampoo mean more than the daily dews and brushing breeze of heaven.
For a moment I imbibed my surroundings. I felt brought down to the real
earth; and a drink-soaked and perfumed earth. There was nothing ghostly
or dreamy within those walls. I told my weird yarn against a strongly
contrasting background.
Martha said nothing beyond tossing her multiwaved head of newly-hatched
canary fluff into the air. I asked her again, at the end as at the
beginning of my Story, why I was alive. Martha accepted and considered
my story. Then she said that I must have been attuned to see what
was probably invisible to others in the station. Had I ever seen the
face in the vision before? she asked. No! Did it seek to attract any
beside myself? I could not say. Possibly, in spite of the individual
fascination it concentrated on myself. Did I look for the face on
the train I took? Yes, I searched the train at Marseilles and again
at Cannes, but I had seen nothing. Martha’s little oval face became
Buddhistic with wisdom, and she said: “There must be a reason. There
must be a hidden law. Rhythm is the secret law of life. My golf is
rhythm. My dancing is rhythm. That’s why I won’t dance with you. My
card play is rhythm. That’s why you can’t play with me. My Rolls-Royce
is rhythm.” I shivered at this particular memory. “You must have been
in spirit-rhythm with some soul trying to communicate with another
passenger, perhaps the wife of one of those killed or injured, or the
mother. A psychological communication cord was pulled. That was all.”
I felt that I had been very lucky in noticing that cord being pulled.
I grew calmer and less exalted. The tables in the Casino were filling
with visitors. All the unmentionable and all the most-mentioned people
were crowding and jostling together. An Indian Prince entered with
his white wife, followed by her white lover, which looked like one of
Buchanan’s artistic “Black and White” Whisky advertisements. A lady
suddenly became lit with the vapours of wine, and began clapping a
broad-backed English Peer between his startled shoulders. Almost at the
next table to Martha was Monsieur Lazarus (of Paris). It was almost a
Scriptural touch. All the lights of Leeds and the bloods of Birmingham
were marshalling in that delightful atmosphere where baccarat is not
a sin and Sin itself is but a baccarat. English people had thrown off
their national hypocrisy for once. The doors revolved, and I noticed
Mrs. Grundy herself enter in company with a courtesan to whom she
had kindly given a lift, and who was gracefully lighting a cigarette
for her in return. They were all there--the _demi-mondaines_, the
half-world watching for gentlemen half-seas over to rifle. They were of
all sizes, from the Brighton flapper to the Double Dutch. But they gave
Leeds and Birmingham something appreciable to see and speak about and
even to handle.