Collected Stories (8 page)

 ***

The builders made an awful mess, as she knew they would, but when the job was finished, and of course the study had to be completely redecorated, the effect was certainly very impressive. The entire wall was covered with red wallpaper, and in the exact center was the door, now resplendent with polish, the brass knob and hinges gleaming like gold, giving the impression that behind must lie a gracious drawing room instead of an eighteen-inches-deep stationery cupboard. On either side hung a Rembrandt print, each one housed in a magnificent gilt frame, and over the door were two crossed sabers with shining brass hilts. William sat behind his desk, his face wearing the look of a man well satisfied with the world and all it contained.

“Wonderful,” he breathed, “absolutely marvelous.”

“Well, as long as you’re satisfied.” Rosemary frowned, and puckered her lips into an expression of faint distaste. “Frankly I’m not certain I like it.”

“What!” William scowled his displeasure. He liked people to share his enthusiasm. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It looks very nice and original,” Rosemary admitted, “but somehow...” she paused... “it’s rather creepy.”

“What utter rot.”

“Yes, I suppose it must sound that way, but I can’t help wondering what lies behind.”

“What lies...!” William stared at his wife with growing amazement. “You know what lies behind, an ordinary stationery cupboard.”

“Yes, I know, and you don’t have to shout at me. I keep telling myself it is only a door and behind is a shallow cupboard lined with shelves, but I can’t really believe it. I mean, cupboards don’t have grand doors like that, they have cheap ply-paneled ones covered with layers and layers of old paint, and they’re sort of humble. If they could talk, they’d say: ‘I’m a cupboard door, and I don’t pretend to be anything else.’ But that thing...” She jerked her head in the direction of the large door. “That wouldn’t say anything. Just stare at you and wait to be opened by a butler.”

“What an imagination,” William pointed to his typewriter, “you ought to be doing my job. But you’re right. I never thought about it. A door must take on the character of the room it guards, in the same way a face assumes the character of the brain behind it. Now...” He got up, walked round the desk, and moved over to the great gleaming door. “What kind of room do you suppose this once guarded?”

“A big one,” Rosemary said with conviction, “yes, I’d say a big room.”

“A reasonable deduction,” William nodded, “large door, large room. What else?”

“I think it must have been a beautiful room. Sinister maybe, cold, but beautiful. A big expanse of carpet, a great fireplace, high blue walls, a big window with an old-world garden beyond... blue velvet chairs. I think it would have been a room like that.”

“Could well be,” William nodded again, “a large drawing room that hardly changed with the years. There again, it might have been a picture gallery—anything. Tell you what, I’ll ring up Murray and find out what he can tell me.”

“A big room,” Rosemary murmured, more to herself than to her husband, “I’m certain it was a large drawing room. Certain.”

 ***

“Good morning, Mr. Seaton, what can I do for you?”

“About that door I bought,” William pressed the telephone receiver closer to his ear, “I wondered if you could tell me something about the house from where it came.”

“The house?” Murray sounded a little impatient. “Clavering Grange you mean. An old place down in Kent. The last owner, Sir James Sinclair, died recently and the chap who inherited—Hackett was his name—had no use for it, falling to pieces it was, so he sold the lot to a building contractor. We had the job of clearing the site. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, my wife and I wondered what sort of room went with such a fine door. I suppose you wouldn’t know?”

Murray chuckled. “Matter of fact I do. It came from the blue drawing-room. A great barn of a place with a ruddy great fireplace. Very grand in its day I’m sure, but was a bit of a mess when we came to drive our bulldozer through it. You know, damp, the paper peeling from the walls. Can’t tell you much else.”

“Well, thanks anyway. My wife was right, she thought it was a large drawing room, and strangely enough, she guessed it was blue.”

“You don’t say? What do you know about that? Must be psychic or something.”

“Probably something,” William laughed. “Well, thanks again. “Bye.”

“So,” William spoke aloud, “we have established a blue drawing-room should be behind you, but there isn’t, is there? Only a horrible little cupboard, so you had better get used to your reduced circumstances, and be mighty grateful you didn’t finish up as firewood.”

The door ignored him.

 ***

William often worked late into the night, finding the peace and quiet of the small hours conducive to creative thinking. Usually there was a feeling of serene contentment when he settled down in his old chair, heard the muted roar of a passing car, and let his brain churn out a steady flow of dialogue. But once the door was installed he found his attention was apt to wander to it, or rather to what had once lain behind it. The blue room. Grand old country houses seemed to go in for that kind of thing. Blue rooms, red rooms, yellow rooms. Presumably if one had a lot of rooms, it was as good a way as any to identify one from the other. Also, decorating must be greatly simplified. Blue walls, blue hangings, carpet, upholstery—William chuckled to himself—there was really no limit. Why not have blue flowers just outside the great window, or perhaps a little blue creeper that completely surrounded the window and in fact gently tapped the glass panes on a windy night. He must get old Jem to cut it back.

William sat upright, dropped his pen, and frowned. Who the blazes was old Jem? It was all very well having a powerful, cultivated imagination, but he must keep it under control. But still... He stared at the door thoughtfully; there was a certain rather eerie satisfaction in creating an imaginary world for the door to guard. William lay back in his chair and half closed his eyes. First of all the room; it must be reconstructed properly. You open the door, walk onto a thick, extremely beautiful, blue carpet, clearly made to measure, for it stretches from wainscoting to wainscoting, and in front of that great fireplace with its roaring log fire, is a dark blue rug. So much for the floor, now the furniture. Situated some six feet back from the fireplace is a settee, at least so William supposed it to be, for it had a high back and a round arm on each side, would seat possibly four people at one time, and was covered with blue brocade. Six matching chairs were placed around the room, and William sank down onto one. It was very comfortable. He examined the walls. Blue of course, but the covering appeared to be some kind of material, embossed with dark blue flowers, and there were several pictures in blue velvet-edged frames. Indeed this is a blue room. Or it was. Funny this obsession for blue. What kind of man had he been... or was? There was a portrait of him over the mantelpiece, painted when he was a young man; his face still clean, not yet scarred by lines of debauchery and evil, but the eyes... By God and all his saints, the eyes...

William got up and walked towards the fireplace; he could feel the heat of the fire; a log settled and sent a shower of sparks rocketing up the chimney. An oval face with the dark beauty of a fallen angel, long, black hair that curled down to his shoulders, lace collar, blue velvet doublet, the epitome of a Restoration gentleman. The dark, terrible eyes watched him, and William pulled his gaze away, then walked to the window. The garden was a place of beauty, close-clipped lawns, islands of flowers, trees beyond, farther still, blue-crested hills.

He turned and went over to the great desk; a quill-pen grew out of an ink-horn, a blue velvet-covered book lay upon the desk and his hand went down to open it, when...

Footsteps outside, just beyond the windows, slow, halting steps, punctuated by an occasional dragging sound, like a lame old man who is trying to overcome his handicap; drawing nearer, and the room was becoming colder. William shivered, then overcome by an unreasoning fear darted towards the door. He opened it, went out, closed it carefully behind him, then went over and sat down behind his desk.

He opened his eyes.

Five minutes passed. William got up, moved very slowly towards the door, turned the brass knob, then pulled. A cupboard, eighteen inches deep, filled with shelves on which nestled stacks of typing paper, carbons, ribbons, the familiar materials of his trade. He shut the door, then opened it again, finally closed it with a bang before returning to his desk.

He sat there for some time, then suddenly was seized by a fit of shivering that made his body shake like a dead leaf beaten by the wind. Gradually the spasm passed, leaving him weak, drenched with perspiration, but strangely at peace, like a man who has recently recovered from a brief, but serious illness. A dream, an illusion, or perhaps a rebellion on the part of an overworked imagination. What did it matter? It had been an experience, an exercise of the mind, and no writer worthy of his ink should be afraid of a journey into the unknown.

He watched the door for the rest of the night, and the door stared right back at him. Once he thought the handle began to turn, and he waited with breathless expectancy, but it must have been an illusion caused by his overstrained eyes, for the door remained closed.

The door became an obsession. His work was neglected, a bewildered agent telephoned at regular intervals, muttering dark threats about deadlines, broken contracts, and William tried to flog his brain back to its former production line, but to no avail. The door was always there, and with it the memory of a room; a study in blue, an anteroom to another age. “Next time,” he told himself, “I will go out through the great window, and walk across the garden and rediscover yesterday.”

He sat by the hour with closed eyes trying to re-create the dream, willing himself back into that armchair, gazing up at the portrait over the mantelpiece, but the 20th century remained obstinately present, and several times he fell asleep. Rosemary was becoming worried.

“What’s the matter? Are you ill?”

“No,” he barked the denial, his irritation growing each time the gentle inquiry was made. “Leave me alone. How am I to work?”

“But you’re not working,” she persisted, “neither are you eating. William, this must stop.”

“What?”

“You and that damned door.” She glared at the door. “I do not pretend to understand, but ever since that lump of old wood came into this house, you haven’t been the same man. It scares me. William, have it taken out, let’s burn it in the boiler.”

He laughed harshly and experienced a pang of fear at her suggestion, and saw the startled expression on Rosemary’s face.

“Don’t worry so much. The truth is I’ve run dry, writers do occasionally. It’s happened before and the old brain has always started ticking over once it was good and ready. But it makes me a bit irritable.”

“That’s all right,” she brightened up at once, “I don’t mind you being a bit testy, but you’re getting so thin. Are you sure that nothing else is bothering you?”

For a mad moment he toyed with the idea of telling her about the room, the dream, then instantly discarded it. She would not understand or believe, so he kissed her gently and said, “Absolutely nothing.”

“Then pack it in for a bit,” she pleaded, “and let me cook you a decent meal. One you will eat.”

It was suddenly very important she be pacified, her mind be put at rest.

“All right. I’ll give you a hand.”

He helped her in the kitchen, was surprised to hear himself making small talk, while all the time his mind, his very soul hungered for the blue room and the fear that lurked in the garden. For that was the truth, and the realization burst upon him like a blast of light. The terror inspired by approaching footsteps, the heart-stopping, exciting horror of wondering what would come in through the great French windows, the craving for a new experience, even if fulfillment meant madness or worse.

They ate in the kitchen, two young, beautiful people, as modem as Carnaby Street. He tall, lean, dark; she petite, blonde, blue-eyed. His dark, clever eyes watched her, and he smiled often.

That night they retired to bed early, and long after Rosemary had fallen asleep he lay thinking about the room behind the door.

“It does not exist,” he told himself, “maybe it did long ago, but not now. A bulldozer flattened the house, and only the blue room door remains. A flat piece of polished wood.”

There was comfort in that thought, and presently sleep closed his eyes with soft fingers, and for a while he was at rest.

 ***

The room had not altered, the log fire still spluttered, the chairs were in the same position as on his last visit, and the blue journal lay upon the desk. William found he was dressed in his pajamas and his feet were bare.

“I must have sleepwalked,” he whispered, “but now I am wide awake. This is not a dream.”

He walked over to the door, opened it and stared into the gloom; a few yards away the outline of his desk shimmered softly, the door of his study was open, beyond was darkness. William closed the door, crossed the blue carpet and flattened his nose against the French windows. Back in his own world it was night, out in the garden it was sunset; long shadows lay across the smooth lawn, the trees were giant sentinels rearing up against the evening sky, and although it all looked beautiful and peaceful, there was something eerie about the scene. Suddenly William knew why. Nothing moved. There were no birds, the leaves did not stir, the flowers stood upright; it was as though he were looking at a three-dimensional picture.

He shivered, then turned and walked over to the desk. The blue journal lay waiting, and he fingered the soft velvet cover before sitting down, then with a strange reluctance opened the book. Crisp parchment, about fifty pages he estimated, bound together; the first one was blank, serving as a fly-leaf. He turned it slowly, then read the clear, beautiful copperplate inscription:

AN EXPERIMENT IN DARKNESS

 BY

 SIR MICHAEL SINCLAIR, BART.