Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01

Manifestly
there is an
England
and, as Englishmen earnestly assure us, there always will be. And in
London
, in
Herbrand Street
, there is actually a public house called
the Friend at Hand, much praised and prized
by its numerous
clientele
. It may be further worthwhile to point out that various books
herein noticed, by Richard Leakey, Alexander Marshack, Anne Moberly and Eleanor
Jourdain, John Pfeiffer, Gene Stuart, and Ruth St. Leger-Gordon, also are real
and readable and may be found in the larger libraries.

But
no such community as Claines exists in
England
, or, so far as I can ascertain, anywhere
else in the known world. And the names, physical aspects, behaviors, and
motivations of men and women represented as present in the houses and streets
of Claines are wholly imaginary, though it is earnestly to be hoped that they
seem convincing.

Manly Wade Wellman
Chapel Hill,
North Carolina
, 1983

From realms of viewless spirits tears the
veil. And half reveals the unutterable tale . . .

Matthew
Gregory Lewis,
Tales of Tenor

CHAPTER
1

The motor bus from
London
, silver-gray with maroon
trim, purred westward across the broad concrete bridge.
Below crept a wide, murky stream. The
summer afternoon sunlight was golden. The bus slowed as it ran between two
sprawls of houses. At the right stood a compact little church of drab stone,
crowned with a steeple.
Beyond that, low store buildings to
the right, dwellings of various sizes to the left.
On the far side of
the leftward scatter of homes climbed a steep slope, grassy and tufted with
scrubby bushes. Flung upon it was a vast white figure like a squat, misshapen
man, made by digging the turf from the chalk beneath.

The
bus rolled into a paved parking lot in front of a squat brick structure that
bore a great square signboard labeled
the
moonraven.
Under the name was pictured a round disc of pale yellow, upon
which soared the lean black silhouette of a flying bird, like a shallow V. The
bus stopped next to two small cars.

“Here's
Claines, sir," said the driver, and John Thunstone rose from the front
seat at the left.

He
looked tall and massive in the aisle as he put big hands to the rack overhead
and hoisted down a big suitcase and a smaller one. He wore a finely fitted dark
jacket and striped trousers. On his well- combed dark head slanted a tweed hat.
A raincoat draped itself on his cliff like shoulder. Under one arm he tucked a
walking stick of blotched brown wood with a silver band several inches below
the curved handle. His serious face was square, with a streak of closely
trimmed mustache. His nose had a dint where once it had been broken.

“Thank
you," he said, tramping to the door and out.

“And thank you, sir,” said the
driver, levering the door shut again.

Thunstone
glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was a
quarter to three
. Then he stood and gazed up the slope
beyond the hamlet there to the south, at the grotesque white figure silhouetted
upon it. After a moment, he carried his suitcases to the door of the Moonraven,
shouldered it open and entered upon a floor of wide planks, and crossed to the
bar at the back. Sitting on a stool, he told a plump woman behind the bar, “A
half of bitter, please.”

“Ahf
of bitter, right you are, sir.”

She
filled a glass mug at a tap. Thunstone put a pound note on the bar and sipped
at his drink. “I hope to stay in Claines for a few days,” he said to the woman.

As
he spoke, he looked around the barroom. It was neatly paneled in buff-colored
wood, with rafters streaking the ceiling overhead. To one side was set a sort
of counter with shelves, on which were dishes and pans. Tables stood here and
there. Under the windows at the front were ranged trestles with benches. Half a
dozen customers communed with their drinks. Thunstone liked the look of the
place.

“Perhaps
you’re here on business, sir,” ventured the woman at the bar.

“Well,
more or less to visit, to look at things,” said Thunstone.
“Such
as that figure up on the hill beyond your town.”

“I
take it you’re American, sir. But here’s my husband, he can tell you more about
that there picture up in the chalk, what they call Old Thunder.”

A
customer had fetched his mug to the bar, and she went away to refill it. A man
in a tawny jacket had strolled to where Thunstone sat. This was a middle-sized,
middle-aged man, with a round, good- humored face.

“So
you’re interested in our little place here, sir?” he greeted Thunstone. “We
like it, though it’s small even for a village. More like what you’d call a
hamlet. Elwain Hawes is my name. I’m landlord of the Moonraven, Mr.—”

“Thunstone.”
They shook hands. “I’m more or less of an
antiquarian; I look into historic and prehistoric curiosities. I came here on
impulse because I heard in
London
about Claines and your figure on the hill. Mrs. Hawes said it's called
Old Thunder. What is it, anyway?”

“Ah, what indeed?
You may well ask, Mr. Thunstone. All that can be truly said is
,
it’s been there from before what can be remembered. It was
made up there, I daresay, by the old heathen folk long centuries back; maybe
they worshipped it after their manner. And each year this time, the people
clear away the turf to show it clear in outline. Parson—our curate, Mr. Gates
up at the church, St. Jude’s— he’s tried in his time to study it out. He just
might answer your questions.”

“I
plan to make a stay here for a few days,” Thunstone said again. “Do you have
accommodations here?”

“Regret
to say, Mr. Thunstone, we’re not fitted up for lodgings. What we get in here
is just the local folk and daytime travelers
. But right
across
Trail
Street
from us here, Mrs. Fothergill can give you bed and breakfast. I’ve been
told she does well by those who come to her. And here at the Moonraven, we do
people a lunch—buffet style—” He nodded toward the counter.
“Oo,
cold ham, cold beef, sausages, Scotch eggs, salads.
A goodish crowd most
noons
, lorry and van drivers like to stop, and
local residents. Likewise at dinnertime, what we call an ordinary for those as
are disposed to take it.
A cut off the joint and veg and so
on.
Plain, I’m afraid, but we think well cooked.”

“Plain
and well cooked,” said Thunstone after him, and smiled. “That sounds all right
to me, Mr. Hawes.”

He
finished the last of his bitter, picked up his change, and rose.

“All
right,” he said. “I’ll do as you suggest, go over to Mrs. Fothergill’s and see
if I can get a room there. And I’d like to come back here for more talk later.”

“Thank
you, sir. It’ll be a fair pleasure.”

Thunstone
took his cane, powerfully hoisted his suitcases, and walked out. He crossed the
parking lot and stopped at the edge of the paved street. Three or four cars
trundled past, then a dark red truck- and-trailer combination. A tall, spare
young policeman rode a bicycle along. Thunstone gazed across to a two-story
house, sturdily clap- boarded and painted white. Flowers grew along the
foundations. To one side rose a tree, so festooned with ivy that it was
unidentifiable as to species. A huge rectangle of a sign rose against a pillar
of the porch. Even at that distance, he could read the big letters plainly:

BED
&
BREAKFAST

MRS. ALMA FOTHERGILL, PROP.

He
waited for a moment when the traffic thinned out both ways, and carried his
luggage across. He mounted broad stone steps to the front door. It had a pane
of stained glass and a placard,
come in.

Thunstone
came in, to a narrow, shadowed hallway with a staircase mounting upward at the
left side. From the rear of the house, someone appeared. “Yes, sir?” said a
low, vibrating voice.

“I
was told I might get lodging here,” said Thunstone.

“Yes,
of course.” It was an upstanding woman with a lofty swirl of shiny fair hair.
She wore a figured blue frock, not fitted to her but softly draped to accent a
full, rich figure. She smiled. Her teeth were
white,
her wide lips were painted red, her round face pinkly made up. She was in her
forties as Thunstone guessed, and making the deliberate most of herself.

He
set down his suitcases and took off his hat. Fine streaks of gray showed in his
carefully parted black hair.

“Of
course,” she made a rather singing two words of it. “We can provide you with
bed and breakfast.” She seemed to be consciously affecting an educated accent.
“For how long will you stay?” she asked.

“I
can't exactly say, but I think for several days. I've just arrived in Claines.
What are your charges?”

She
told him the charges, and Thunstone said they were reasonable. “This way if you
please,” she said, and led him into the hall.

She
moved up the stairs lightly for so big a woman. She winnowed as she ascended.
The hall above was lighted by a window at the front.

“My
name is Mrs. Fothergill,” she told him.
“Mrs. Alma Fother- gill.
Here—” and she opened a darkly varnished door. “Might this suit you?”

The
room was perhaps twelve feet square, papered with a scramble of roses. Next to
its single window at the side of the house stood a bed with a massive wooden
headboard and a spread with the pale, puffy look of oatmeal porridge.
Above the bed hung a hooded electric light.
There was an
armchair, a small desk with a straight chair, a bureau and mirror, a stand that
held a glass carafe of water and a glass. Thunstone studied a framed oil
painting of two cows knee-deep in a tree-fringed pond.

“Do
you like that picture, Mr.—”

“Thunstone,”
he supplied.

“Yes,
Mr.
Thunstone, that
was painted by a cousin of mine.
Dear Osbert. And is the room satisfactory?”

“Yes,
indeed.” Thunstone set his suitcases at the foot of the bed, draped his
raincoat upon them, and tossed his hat on top. “I expect to be comfortable
here.”

She
smiled with her china-white teeth. “There's a bath at the far end of the
hall—hot and cold water and a shower. As of just now, you're our only guest,
though I get people going through—a good lot of backpackers hiking here and
there, for instance.
Such nice people.
Now, if you'll come down and sign the register.”

He
left his hat but brought his cane. Downstairs, she led him into a front parlor
with plants slung in pots at the windows and china dogs and ducks on the mantel
of the fireplace. A rolltop desk was there, with a yellow pencil upon it.
Against the wall stood a sideboard with an array of bottles.
Thunstone sat down and wrote his name and his
New York
address, then the address of his hotel on
Southampton Row in
London
. Mrs. Fothergill looked over his shoulder.

“An
American gentleman,” she said, in tones of approval. “Now and then I have
Americans here, and they're an interesting, attractive lot. You know,” and she
rolled her blue eyes a trifle, “I don't truly need to operate here for B-and-B.
I've a good lot laid by at interest— my dear husband's insurance, and Dad and
Mum left me something, too. But I like the company I get. I like best the ones
from foreign parts, such as you.
Like to talk with them.
Meet new people, hear of new customs, and so on.”

He
finished his writing. “Captain John Smith said something like that once.”

“Captain
John Smith? Oh, he was in
America
, I believe.”

“Yes. Now, let me pay for tonight
and tomorrow night for the present, and I'll see how much longer my stay will
last/’

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