THE FROZEN FLAMES
Merriton Towers had been called the loneliest spot in England by many
of the tourists who chanced to visit the Fen district, and it was no
misnomer. Nigel, having seen it some thirteen years before, found that
his memory had dimmed the true vision of the place considerably; that
where he had builded romance, romance was not. Where he had softened
harsh outlines, and peopled dark corridors with his own fancies, those
same outlines had taken on a grimness that he could hardly believe
possible, and the long, dark corridors of his mind's vision were longer
and darker and lonelier than he had ever imagined any spot could be.
It was a handsome place, no doubt, in its gaunt, gray, prisonlike way.
And, too, it had a moat and a miniature portcullis that rather tickled
his boyish fancy. The furnishings, however, had an appalling grimness
that took the very heart out of one. Chairs which seemed to have grown in
their places for centuries crowded the corners of hallway and stairs like
gigantic nightmares of their original prototypes. Monstrous curtains of
red brocade, grown purple with the years, seemed to hang from every
window and door crowding out the light and air. The carpets were thick
and dark and had lost all sign of pattern in the dull gloom of the
centuries.
It was, in fact, a house that would create ghosts. The atmosphere was
alive with that strange sensation of disembodied spirits which some
very old houses seem to possess. Narrow, slit-like windows in perfect
keeping with the architecture and the needs of the period in which it was
built--if not with modern ideas of hygiene and health--kept the rooms
dark and musty. When Nigel first entered the place through the great
front door thrown open by the solemn-faced butler, who he learned had
been kept on from his uncle's time, he felt as though he were entering
his own tomb. When the door shut he shuddered as the light and sunshine
vanished.
The first night he hardly slept a wink. His bed was a huge four-poster,
girt about with plush hangings like over-ripe plums, that shut him in as
though he were in some monstrous Victorian trinket box. A post creaked at
every turn he made in its downy softnesses, and being used to the light,
camp-like furniture of an Indian bungalow he got up, took an eiderdown
with him, and spent the rest of the hours upon a sofa drawn up beside an
open window.
"That people could live in such places!" he told himself, over and over
again. "No wonder my poor old uncle disappeared! Any self-respecting
Christian would. There'll be some slight alterations made in Merriton
Towers before I'm many days older, you can bet your life on that. Old
great-grandmother four-poster takes her _congé_ to-morrow morning. If
I must live here I'll sleep anyhow."
He settled himself back against the hard, horsehair sofa, and pulled up
the blind. The room was instantly filled with gray and lavender shadows,
while without the Fens stretched out in unbroken lines as though all the
rest of the world were made up of nothing else. Lonely? Merriton had
known the loneliness of Indian nights, far away from any signs of
civilization: the loneliness of the jungle when the air was so still that
the least sound was like the dropping of a bomb; the strange mystical
loneliness which comes to the only white man in a town of natives. But
all these were as nothing as compared to this. He could imagine a chap
committing suicide living in such a house. Sir Joseph Merriton had
disappeared five years before--and no wonder!
Merriton lay with his eyes upon the window, smoking a cigarette, and
surveyed the outlook before him with despairing eyes. What a future for
a chap in his early thirties to face! Not a sign of habitation anywhere,
not a vestige of it, save at the far edge of the Fens where a clump of
trees and thick shrubs told him that behind lay Withersby Hall. This,
intuition told him, was the home of Antoinette Brellier, the girl of the
train, of the wreck, and now of his dreams. Then his thoughts turned to
her. Gad! to bring a frail, delicate little butterfly to a place like
this was like trying to imprison a ray of sunshine in a leaden box!...
His eyes, rivetted upon where the clump of trees stood out against the
semi-darkness of the approaching dawn, saw of a sudden a light prick out
like a tiny flame, low down upon the very edge of the Fens. One light,
two, three, and then a very host of them flashed out, as though some
unseen hand had torn the heavens down and strewn their jewels broadcast
over the marshes. Instinctively he got to his feet. What on earth--? But
even as his lips formed the unspoken exclamation came yet another light
to join the others dancing and twinkling and flickering out there across
the gloomy marshlands.
What the dickens was it, anyhow? A sort of unearthly fireworks display,
or some new explosive experiment? The dancing flames got into his eyes
like bits of lighted thistledown blown here, there, and everywhere.
Merriton got to his feet and threw open another window bottom with a good
deal of effort, for the sashes were old and stiff. Then, clad only in his
silk pyjamas, and with the cigarette charring itself to a tiny column of
gray ash in one hand, he leaned far out over the sill and watched those
twinkling, dancing, maddening little star-flames, with the eyes of amazed
astonishment.
In a moment sleep had gone from his eyelids and he felt thoroughly awake.
Dashed if he wouldn't throw on a few clothes and investigate. The thing
was so strange, so incredible! He knew, well enough, from Borkins's (the
venerable butler) description earlier in the evening, that that part of
the marshes was uninhabited. Too low for stars the things were, for they
hung on the edges of the marsh grass like tiny lanterns swung there by
fairy hands. In such a house, in such a room, with the shadow of that
old four-poster winding its long fingers over him, Merriton began to
perspire. It was so devilish uncanny! He was a brave enough man in human
matters, but somehow these flames out there in the uninhabited stretch of
the marshes were surely caused by no human agency. Go and investigate he
would, this very minute! He drew in his head and brought the window down
with a bang that went sounding through the gaunt, deserted old house.
Hastily he began to dress, and even as he struggled into a pair of tweed
trousers came the sound of a soft knock upon his door, and he whipped
round as though he had been shot, his nerves all a-jingle from the very
atmosphere of the place.
"And who the devil are you?" he snapped out in an angry voice, all the
more angry since he was conscious of a slight trembling of the knees. The
door swung open a trifle and the pale face of Borkins appeared around it.
His eyes were wide with fright, his mouth hung open.
"Sir Nigel, sir. I 'eard a dreadful noise--like a pistol shot it was,
comin' from this room! Anythink the matter, sir?"
"Nothing, you ass!" broke out Merriton, fretfully, as the butler began
to show other parts of his anatomy round the corner of the door. "Come
in, or go out, which ever you please. But for the Lord's sake, do one
or the other! There's a beastly draught. The noise you heard was that
window which possibly hasn't been opened for a century or two, groaning
in pain at being forced into action again! Can't sleep in this beastly
room--haven't closed my eyes yet--and when I did get out of that
Victorian atrocity over there and take to the sofa by the window,
why, the first thing I saw were those flames flickering out across the
horizon like signal-fires, or _something_! I've been watching them for
the past twenty minutes and they've got on my nerves. I'm goin' out to
investigate."
Borkins gave a little exclamation of alarm and put one trembling hand
over his face. Merriton suddenly registered the fact as being a symptom
of the state of nerves which Merriton Towers was likely to reduce one.
Then Borkins shambled across the room and laid a timid hand upon
Merriton's arm.
"For Gawd's sake sir--_don't_!" he murmured in a shaken voice. "Those
lights, sir--if you knew the story! If you values your life at any price
at all don't go out, sir, and investigate them. _Don't!_ You're a dead
man in the morning if you do."
"What's that?" Merriton swung round and looked into the weak, rather
watery, blue eyes of his butler. "What the devil do you mean, Borkins,
talkin' a lot of rot? What _are_ those flames, anyway? And why in
heaven's name shouldn't I go out and investigate 'em if I want to? Who's
to stop me?"
"I, your lordship--if I ever 'as any influence with 'uman nature!"
returned Borkins, vehemently. "The story's common knowledge, Sir Nigel,
sir. Them there flames is supernatural. Frozen flames the villagers
calls 'em, because they don't seem to give out no 'eat. That part of the
Fens in unin'abited and there isn't a soul in the whole village as would
venture anywhere near it after dark."
"Why?"
"Because they never comes back, that's why, sir!" said Borkins. "'Tisn't
any old wives' tale neither. There's been cases by the score. Only a
matter of six months ago one of the boys from the mill, who was somewhat
the worse for liquor, said he was a-goin' ter see who it was wot made them
flames light up by theirselves, and--he never came back. And that same
night another flame was added to the number!"
"Whew! Bit of a tall story that, Borkins!" Nevertheless a cold chill
crept over Merriton's bones and he gave a forced, mirthless laugh.
"As true as the gospel, Sir Nigel!" said Borkins, solemnly. "That's what
always 'appens. Every time any one ventures that way--well, they're
a-soundin' their own death-knell, so to speak, and you kin see the new
light appear. But there's never no trace of the person that ventured out
across the Fens at evening time. He, or she--a girl tried it once, Lord
save 'er!--vanishes off the face of the earth as clean as though they'd
never been born. Gawd alone knows what it is that lives there, or what
them flames may be, but I tells you it's sheer death to attempt to see
for yourself, so long as night lasts. And in the morning--well, it's
gone, and there isn't a thing to be seen for the lookin'!"
"Merciful powers! What a peculiar thing!" Despite his mockery of the
supernatural, Merriton could not help but feel a sort of awe steal over
him, at the tale as told by Borkins in the eeriest hour of the whole
twenty-four--that which hangs between darkness and dawn. Should he go or
shouldn't he? He was a fool to believe the thing, and yet--He certainly
didn't want to die yet awhile, with Antoinette Brellier a mere handful of
yards away from him, and all the days his own to cultivate her
acquaintance in.
"You've fairly made my flesh creep with your beastly story!" he said, in
a rather high-pitched voice. "Might have reserved it until morning--after
my _début_ in this haunt of spirits, Borkins. Consider my nerves. India's
made a hash of 'em. Get back to bed, man, and don't worry over my
investigations. I swear I won't venture out, to-night at any rate.
Perhaps to-morrow I may have summoned up enough courage, but I've no
fancy for funerals yet awhile. So you can keep your pleasant little
reminiscences for another time, and I'll give you my word of honour that
I'll do nothing rash!"
Borkins gave a sigh of relief. He passed his hand over his forehead, and
his eyes--rather shifty, rather narrow, pale blue eyes which Merriton had
instinctively disliked (he couldn't tell why)--lightened suddenly.
"Thank Gawd for that, sir!" he said, solemnly. "You've relieved my
mind on that score. I've always thought--your poor uncle, Sir Joseph
Merriton--and those flames there might 'ave been the reason for his
disappearance, though of course--"
"What's that?" Merriton turned round and looked at him, his brow
furrowed, the whole personality of the man suddenly awake. "My uncle,
Borkins? How long have these--er--lights been seen hereabouts? I don't
remember them as a child."
"Oh, mostly always, I believe, sir; though they ain't been much noticed
before the last four years," replied Borkins. "I think--yes--come August
next. Four years--was the first time my attention was called to 'em."
Merriton's laugh held a note of relief.
"Then you needn't have worried. My uncle has been missing for a little
more than _five_ years, and that, therefore, when he did disappear the
flames obviously had nothing to do with it!"
Borkins's wrinkled, parchment-like cheeks went a dull, unhealthy red. He
opened his mouth to speak and then drew back again. Merriton gave him a
keen glance.
"Of course, how foolish of me. As you say, sir, impossible!" he stammered
out, bowing backward toward the door. "I'll be getting back to my bed
again, and leave you to finish your rest undisturbed. I'm sorry to 'ave
troubled you, I'm sure, sir, only I was afraid something 'ad 'appened."
"That's all right. Good-night," returned Merriton curtly, and turned the
key in the lock as the door closed. He stood for a moment thinking, his
eyes upon the winking, flickering points of light that seemed dimmer in
the fast growing light. "Now why did he make that bloomer about dates, I
wonder? Uncle's been gone five years--and Borkins knew it. He was here at
the time, and yet why did he suggest that old wives' tale as a possible
solution of the disappearance? Borkins, my lad, there's more behind those
watery blue eyes of yours than men may read. Hmm! ... Now I wonder why
the deuce he lied to me?"