Short Stories 1927-1956 (77 page)

The Quincunx

The Quincunx
*

On opening the door and in no good humour at so late and apparently timid a summons I fancied at first glance that the figure standing at the foot of the four garden steps was my old and precious friend Henry Beverley – unexpectedly back in England again. At the moment there was only
obscured
moonlight to see him by and he stood rather hummocked up and partly in shadow. If it hadn’t been Henry one might have supposed
this
visitor was the least bit apprehensive.

‘Bless my heart!’ I began – delight mingled with astonishment – then paused. For at that moment a thin straight shaft of moonlight had
penetrated
between the chimney stacks and shone clear into the face of a far less welcome visitor – Henry’s brother, Walter.

I knew he was living rather dangerously near, but had kept this knowledge to myself. And now in his miniature car, which even by moonlight I noticed would have been none the worse off for a dusting, he had not only routed me out, but was also almost supplicating me to spend the night with him – in a house which had, I heard with surprise, been left to him by an eccentric aunt, recently deceased – about two miles away.

Seldom can moonshine have flattered a more haggard face. Had he no sedatives? Sedatives or not, how could I refuse him? Besides, he was Henry’s
brother. So having slowly climbed the stairs again, with a lingering glance of regret at the book I had been reading, I extinguished my green
glass-shaded
lamp (the reflex effects of which may have given poor Walter an additional pallor) pushed myself into a great-coat, and jammed a hat on my head, and in a moment or so we were on our way, with a din resembling that of a van-load of empty biscuit-tins. I am something of a snob about cars, though I prefer them borrowed. It was monstrous to be shattering the silence of night with so fiendish a noise, all the blinds down and every house asleep. ‘On such a night …’ And as for poor Walter’s gear-changing – heaven help the hardiest of Army lorries!

‘Of course,’ he repeated, ‘it would be as easy as chalk to dismiss the whole affair as pure fancy. But that being so, how could it possibly have stood up to repeated rational experiment? Don’t think I really care a hoot concerning the “ghostly” side of this business. Not in the least. I am out for the definite, I am dog-tired, and I am all but beaten.’

Beaten, I thought to myself not without some little satisfaction. But beaten by what, by whom?

‘Beaten?’ I shouted through the din. We were turning a corner.

‘You see – for very good reasons I don’t doubt – my late old aunt could not do away with me. She found precious little indeed to please her in my complete side of the family – not even the saintly Henry. My own idea is that all along she had been in love with my father. And I, thank heaven, don’t take after
him.
There is a limit to imbecile unpracticality, and —’ he dragged at his hand-brake, having failed to notice earlier a cross-road immediately in front of us under a lamp-post.

‘She never intended me to inherit so much as a copper bed-warmer, or the leg of a chair. Irony was not her strong point – otherwise I think she might have bequeathed me her wheezy old harmonium. I always had Salvation Army leanings. But Fate was too quick for her, and the
house
came to
me
– to me, the least beloved of us all. At first merely out of curiosity, I decided to live in the place, but there’s living and living, and there’s deucedly little cash.’

‘But she must have …’ I began.

‘Of course she must have,’ he broke in. ‘Even an old misbegotten aunt-by-marriage can’t have lived on air. She
had
money; it was meant, I believe – she mistrusted lawyers – for my cousin Arthur and the rest. And’ – he accelerated – ‘I am as certain as instinct and common-sense can make me, that there are stocks, shares, documents, all sorts of riff-raff, and
possibly
private papers, hidden away somewhere in her own old house. Where she lived for donkeys’ years. Where I am trying to exist now.’ He shot me a rapid glance rather like an animal looking round.

‘In short, I am treasure-hunting; and there’s interference. That’s the
situation, naked and a bit ashamed of it. But the really odd thing is – she knows it.

‘Knows what?’

‘She knows I am after the loot,’ he answered, ‘and cannot rest in her grave. Wait till you have seen her face my dear feller, then scoff, if you can. She was a secretive old cat and she hated bipeds. Soured, I suppose. And she never stirred out of her frowsy seclusion for nearly twenty years. And
now
– her poor Arthur left gasping – she is fully aware of what her old enemy is at. Of every move I make. It’s a fight to – well, past “the death between us”. And
she
is winning.’

‘But my dear Beverley …’ I began.

‘My dear Rubbish,’ he said, squeezing my arm. ‘I am as sane as you are – only a little jarred and piqued. Besides I am not dragging you out at this time of night on evidence as vague as all that. I’ll give you positive proof.
Perhaps
you shall have some pickings!’

We came at length to a standstill before his antiquated inheritance. An ugly awkward house, it abutted sheer on to the pavement. A lamp shone palely on its walls, its few beautifully-proportioned windows; and it seemed, if possible, a little quieter behind its two bay-trees – more resigned to-night – than even its darkened neighbours were. We went in, and Beverley with a candle led the way down a long corridor.

‘The front room,’ he said, pointing back, ‘is the dining-room. There’s nothing there – simply the odour of fifty years of lavendered cocoon; fifty years of seed-cake and sherry. But even to sit on, there alone, munching one’s plebeian bread-and-cheese, is to become conscious – well, is to become
conscious.
In
here
,
though, is the mystery.’

We stood together in the doorway, peering beneath our candle into a
low-pitched
, silent, strangely attractive and old-fashioned parlour. Everything within it, from its tarnished cornice to its little old parrot-green beaded footstool, was the accumulated record of one mind, one curious, solitary human individuality. And it was as silent and unresponsive as a clam.

‘What a fascinating old lady!’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he answered in a low voice. ‘There she is!’

I turned in some confusion, but only to survey the oval painted portrait of Miss Lemieux herself. She was little, narrow, black-mittened,
straight-nosed
, becurled; and she encountered my eyes so keenly, darkly, tenaciously, that I began to sympathize with both antagonists.

‘Now this is the problem,’ he said, making a long nose at it, and turning his back on the picture. ‘I searched the house last week from garret to cellar and intend to begin again. The doubloons, the diamonds, the documents are here somewhere, and as R.L.S. said in another connection, If she’s Hide, then I’m Seek. On Sunday I came in here to have a think. I sat there, in that
little chair, by the window staring vacantly in front of me, when presently in some indescribable fashion I became aware that I was being stared
at.
’ He touched the picture hanging up on its nail behind him with the back of his head. ‘So we sat, she and I, for about ten solid minutes, I should think. Then I tired of it. I turned the old Sphinx to the wall again, and went out. A little after nine I came back. There wasn’t a whisper in the house. I had my supper, sat thinking again, and fell asleep. When I awoke, I was
shivering
cold.

‘I got up immediately, went out, shut the dining-room door with my face towards this one, went up a few stairs, my hand on the banister and then vaguely distinguished by the shadow that the door I had shut was ajar. I was certain I had shut it. I came back to investigate. And saw –
her.
’
He nodded towards the picture again. ‘I had left her as I supposed in disgrace, face to the wall: she had, it seemed, righted herself. But this may have been a
mistake
. So I deliberately took the old lady down from her ancestral nail and hid her peculiarly intent physiognomy in that cushion:

Then I locked windows, shutters and door and went to bed.’

He paused and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. ‘I dare say it sounds absurd,’ he said, ‘but next morning when I came down I dawdled about for at least half an hour before I felt impelled to open this door. The chair was empty. She was “up”!’

‘Any charwoman?’ I ventured.

‘On Tuesdays, Fridays and at the week-ends,’ he said.

‘You are
sure
of it?’ He looked vaguely at me, tired and protesting. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘last night’s was my fifth experiment.’

‘And you want me …?’

‘Just to stay here and keep awake.
I
can
’
t.
That’s all. Theorizing is
charming
– and easy. But the nights are short. You don’t appear to have a vestige of nerves. Tell me who is playing this odd trick on me! Mind you, I
know
already
.
Some
how it’s this old She who is responsible, who is manoeuvring. But how?’

I exchanged a long look with him – with the cold blue gaze in the tired pallid face; then glanced back at the portrait. Into those small, feminine, dauntless, ink-black eyes.

He turned away with a vague shrug of his shoulders. ‘Of course,’ he said coldly, ‘if you’d rather
not.
’

‘Go to bed, Beverley,’ I answered, ‘I’ll watch till morning … We are, you say, absolutely alone in this house?’

‘Physically, yes; absolutely alone. Apart from
that
old cat there is not so much as a mouse stirring.’

‘No rival heirs? No positive claimants?’

‘None,’ he said. ‘Though, of course … It’s only – my aunt.’ We stood in silence.

‘Well, good-night, then; but honestly I am rather sceptical.’

He raised his eyebrows, faintly smiled – something between derision and relief, lifted the portrait from the wall, carried it across the room, leaned it against the armchair in the corner. ‘There!’ he muttered. ‘Check! you old witch! … It’s very good of you. I’m sick of it. It has relieved me immensely. Good-night!’ He went out quickly, leaving the door ajar. I heard him go up the stairs, and presently another door, above, slammed.

I thought at first how few candles stood between me and darkness. It was now too late to look for more. Not, of course, that I felt any real alarm. Only a kind of curiosity – that might perhaps leap into something a little different when off its guard! I sat down and began meditating on Beverley, his nerves, his pretences, his venomous hatred of … well, what? Of a dozen things. But beneath all this I was gazing in imagination straight into the pictured eyes of a little old lady, already months in her grave.

The hours passed slowly. I changed from chair to chair – ‘t.e.g.’
gift-books
, albums of fading photographs, old picture magazines. I pored over some marvellously fine needlework, and a few enchanting little
watercolours
. My candle languished; its successor was kindled. I was already become cold, dull, sleepy and depressed, when in the extreme silence I heard the rustling of silk. Screening my candle with my hand, I sat far back into my old yellow damask sofa. Slow, shuffling footsteps were quietly drawing near. I fixed my eyes on the door. A pale light beyond it began stealing
inwards
, mingling with mine. Faint shadows zigzagged across the low ceiling. The door opened wider, stealthily, and a most extraordinary figure
discovered
itself, and paused on the threshold.

For an instant I hesitated, my heart thumping at my ribs; and then I recognized, beneath a fantastic disguise, no less tangible an interloper than Beverley himself. He was in his pyjamas; his feet were bare; but thrown over his shoulders was an immense old cashmere shawl that might have once graced Prince Albert’s Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. And his head was swathed in what seemed to be some preposterous eighteenth-century
night-gear
. The other hand outstretched, he was carrying his candlestick a few inches from his face, so that I could see his every feature with exquisite
distinctness
beneath his voluminous head-dress.

It was Beverley right enough – I noticed even a very faint likeness to his brother, Henry, unperceived till then. His pale eyes were wide and glassily
open. But behind this face, as from out of a mask – keen, wizened,
im mensely
absorbed – peered his little old enemy’s unmistakable visage, Miss Lemieux’s! He was in a profound sleep, there could be no doubt of that. So closely burned the flame to his entranced face I feared he would presently be setting himself on fire. He moved past me slowly with an odd jerky
constricted
gait, something like that of a very old lady. He was muttering, too, in an aggrieved queer far-away voice. Stooping with a sigh, he picked up the picture; returned across the room; drew up and mounted the
parrot-green
footstool, and groped for the nail in the wall not six inches above his head. At length he succeeded in finding it; sighed again and turned
meditatively
; his voice rising a little shrill, as if in altercation. Once more he passed me by unheeded and came to a standstill; for a moment, peering through curtains a few inches withdrawn, into the starry garden. Whether the odd consciousness within him was aware of
me
, I cannot say. Those
unspeculating
, window-like eyes turned themselves full on me crouched there in the yellow sofa. The voice fell to a whisper; I think that he hastened a little. He went out and closed the door, and I’d swear my candle solemnly ducked when his was gone!