The Broken Hours: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft (10 page)

I will need a key,
she stressed again, leading me to the door.
What is it with these locks, anyway?
she said, lifting the one on the inside—a twin to the one outside—with the tips of her fingers and letting it thunk loudly.

I suppose you would have to ask your friend … ?

Helen.

Yes.

She isn’t really a friend.

You said that. As to the locks, I can assure you they aren’t necessary.

At the door, she looked pointedly at the key in my hand. What else was I to do? I hesitated, then held it out. But when she grasped it with her polished fingertips, I did not let go. I was seized with anxiety, the enormity of what I’d done. And then, to hand my key over, just like that—might I not need it myself? Might it give her access to the upper apartments? Might … ?

Her eyes flickered alarm again, or I thought they did, and I laughed uneasily, as though I’d hung on merely for a lark, and let go. So she would not see my embarrassment, I bent quickly to the sack of purchases I’d left in the foyer. Her travelling case sat there, next to her umbrella which lolled still, as if rocked by some phantom movement.

I picked it up along with the groceries and collapsed it for her with a winged sound.

Bad luck, you know,
I said lightly.

She seemed not to know what I was talking about.

You’ve been to the shops
, she said.

Just a few things.

Perhaps the next time you’re going out …

Yes?

She looked at me meaningfully.

Would you like something picked up?
I ventured.

I thought
, she said,
I might join you. You can show me the neighbourhood. If it’s no bother.

What about Helen?

Oh, Helen,
she said waving her hand.
But if it’s a bother …

Not at all. Well
, I said then, awkwardly, taking my leave.
Welcome.

When I looked back from the landing, she was still standing in the doorway, watching me. She smiled a little, or I thought she did, lit as she was from behind, her face all in shadow.

I returned to my attic room in haste, my shoes banging on the old stairs. I felt terribly uneasy, aghast really, at what I had done below, the things I had said. I had the slight beginnings of a headache and I intended to dig out an old bottle of aspirin I was sure I still had in my valise. But when I opened the chipped door to my room, I paused.

I had the distinct sense of someone having just been there. I crossed from the door to the windows, and then to the bed and back again, like a hound. It was nothing I could put my finger on, nothing out of place, nothing like my valise standing open where it had been closed, only that eerie sense one has of entering a room which another has just vacated.

I left Miss Kush’s money on the hall table for my employer, along with a note about the new tenant. I was no thief.

All right, I took only what I felt was owed me, promised me, as an advance. But no more. It was a small amount, very little, and I tucked it into an envelope to send to Jane.

I left that in the note as well, not about Jane, of course, but that I’d taken the few dollars. I was not so dishonest as all that.

I spent the remainder of the morning typing “business” correspondence—letters to fans and publishers and other writers—and I planned to give the afternoon over to work on the book of grammar, the ghostwriting project upon which I’d made no progress. In the evening, I would type his horror story.

It occurred to me only then the perversity of such a schedule, working on the horror story in the dark hours before going to sleep. Given my bad dreams and my general uneasiness since arriving at Number Sixty-Six, my own growing inclination to see, to feel, darkness everywhere, I determined to restructure my days. The grammar book, indeed, was dreary business, and sure to put me into a dreamless sleep.

I began another letter to Jane, enclosing the money and assuring her more would soon follow. Beyond that, I had little to write and I found myself staring at the page, so I signed off and sealed the envelope and put it aside. I picked up the chunk of gravestone and sat turning it, staring out at the glittering city. The dormer light there blinked on and off, on and off. I was becoming quite accustomed to it. I thought I must venture out when the weather was warmer and find out just what sort of building it was. I recalled then, with a ripple of remorse, the letter for my employer’s mother. I had forgotten all about it. I stood, riffling through the papers on my untidy desk and finally plucking the letter from beneath a stack, intending to head straight out, but then the pages of the grammar book caught my eye, waiting there. I looked again at the directions he’d given me to his mother’s. It appeared to be no short distance and I was feeling fatigued from my morning’s outing. What was half a day more? I considered whether Miss Kush might enjoy such a walk as well.

I wondered how she was settling in to her green apartment below. In spite of my poor judgment, my foolish actions, I was very glad, indeed, to have her there, Helen or no. And who was this Helen, after all? Certainly I’d seen no signs of anyone else at Sixty-Six. The presence of others was quite welcome, though, and I felt I would sleep easier that night.

Still, I promised myself I would set Miss Kush straight about the situation at the earliest opportunity.

She was quite beautiful. I don’t believe I mentioned that.

2

Miss Kush was leaning against the balustrade on the landing the next morning as I went down to the postbox with my letter for Jane. Hands clasped before her, ankles crossed, she appeared to have been waiting some time.

She smiled up at me, her lips a shocking, glossy shade of red. The pale skin of her hands and throat luminous in the half-light.

Well, Mr. Crandle
, she called,
have you come to keep your promise after all?

My determination of the previous day to come clean about my foolish pretences flitted back to me and I paused on the stairs. Had I been so transparent, after all?

Miss Kush?

Miss Kush,
she said,
sounds like some frumpy governess. Flossie. I insist.

You are hardly.
I cleared my throat.
Please, call me Arthor.

I intend to. And I can see by your face you’ve quite forgotten your promise of taking me out to the shops.

Indeed, I had.

On the contrary,
I said, slipping Jane’s letter into my pocket.
Here I am.

She smiled archly as I descended to the landing but said nothing.

When I reached her there, the hair all up my arms stood on end and I ushered her quickly before me down the stairs. When I looked back from the foyer, of course, there was nothing.

Arthor?
Flossie said, giving me a funny look.

Just wondering if I’d forgotten anything
, I said. And smiled. But, having said it, I realized that in fact I had forgotten something: the letter for my employer’s mother. I had intended to go straight out with it after breakfast. Well, after lunch, then. And I would invite Flossie to accompany me. A pleasant thought. It was astonishing how greatly her presence had lightened the atmosphere of Sixty-Six.

The pale sky was clear and bright, and the air felt sharp and fine against my face as we stepped out, blinking, into the shining courtyard. I slipped Jane’s letter discreetly into the red enamelled postbox. Flossie was watching me but pretending not to. I gestured for her to precede me into the lane and she smiled. The previous night’s rain lit the trees spectacularly, the bare limbs flaring and glistening as the breeze stirred them.

It’s like Christmas
, Flossie said as we passed beneath.

I turned up the collar of my overcoat.

It’s certainly cold enough
.

At the end of the lane, we stepped out onto the street and into the violet shadows of the John Hay Library. Flossie wore the same pale blue velvet cloak in which I’d first seen her, with a matching hat and gloves, and had thrown, in addition, a silvery fur about her neck. Her nose was very pink in the cold air and, between this and the fur, she gave the impression of a friendly little rabbit.

Such a lovely morning
, she said,
such a lovely street, and then there’s that.

What,
I said, following her gaze,
the library?

So cold
, she said. And shivered.

A mausoleum of books, I suppose.
I felt rather pleased with the sound of it.

It isn’t very welcoming.

Rather dignified, though.

If you like that sort of thing. I prefer a bit of romance myself.

In a university library? Glass doors onto long verandahs? Gauze curtains stirring in the breeze? Wisteria?

And why not? A girl likes to be seduced by the building as well as the books.

She shot me a glance, expecting some particular sort of response, obviously.

Settling in all right?
I asked instead.

Right enough. Only …

Yes?

Vexing that Helen hasn’t turned up yet.

Hasn’t she?

Flossie shrugged.
I suppose she’s away.

Traveller, is she?

I don’t really know. Anyway, I’m sure she’ll turn up soon enough. In the meantime, it’s nice to …

Nice to?

I was going to say, it’s nice to have the place to myself. But I would have been lying.

Would you have?

I hate to be alone. I can’t bear it, really.

She said it lightly, but something in her tone had changed. A certain thoughtfulness settled over her.

We walked on in silence, out of the violet shadows and into the drunken April sunlight, descending. The antique city spread out before us, its black domes and steeples and great trees still dead with winter, the river a slow unwinding of light, and beyond it the bay, stretched out shining like a foil sheet. Flossie’s pretty blue heels clicked against the cobblestones in a pleasant way and she chattered on as we wound our way down toward the commercial district. The houses began to give way to shops, and then the automobiles came steadily and the sidewalks buzzed with bundled housewives, toting their woollened young, gathering foodstuffs with an irritable, hungry, distracted air, as if just emerged from hibernation; scrubbed businessmen tapping spoons against coffee cups in café windows or shouldering past us, frowning importantly, overcoats thrown across their arms as if the cold could have nothing to do with them. Everywhere was movement, an air of things happening, important or ordinary. Only the rhinestoned salesgirls waited motionless in shop doorways, glittering sleepily, already checking the clocks.