Quincunx Page 4

  “No, Johnnie!” my mother exclaimed but I ran from the room.

  Bissett had left a burning candle on the hall-table to see us upstairs and I seized it and went into the parlour. Because the old part of the house was built so low, the parlour looked into an area — a dark little yard between the house and the road — so that although it was cozy enough in the winter when a fire was lighted and the curtains drawn, on summer days it had a mournful air. By the light of the candle I now examined the leather-bound case with its heavy silver clasps which I had never been able to look at before. Engraved upon a silver plate was a design that I recognised because I had often seen it on our cups and plates and on the silver cutlery: a rose with four petals. But here five of these roses were incorporated into a design in which four of them stood at each corner of a square with the fifth in the centre. There was also a line of writing beneath it and I vowed that very soon I would be able to read it. Not daring to delay too long, I laid the case on the sideboard among the breakfast things. When I came back into the sitting-room I found my mother and Bissett waiting for me sternly.

  “That was very naughty, Johnnie,” said my mother. “I don’t know what has got into you today. I was going to tell you something nice but now it will have to wait until you deserve to hear it.”

  And so, truly like a disgraced prisoner with nothing to say on his own behalf, I was handed over to my guard and led away.

  I had always dreaded the journey up the ancient staircase with the treads creaking behind us to my room in the older part of the house, and so even on this occasion, as soon as Bissett and I left the sitting-room I reached out for her hand.

  “Get along with you,” she said irritably, pushing my hand away. “If you’re old enough to worrit and fret your poor mamma so, you’re too old to need your nurse in the dark.”

  It wasn’t the darkness that terrified me but the mysterious shapes and shadows created by the flickerings of the candle as if it were summoning creatures of the night that scuttled out of sight as you moved towards them, like the huge spiders I saw only too often and which seemed to me to have more legs than could ever be required for any innocent purpose. I had particularly loathed them ever since Bissett had described to me how they fed on living creatures.

  “Why,” Bissett scolded, “for all your bold sauciness, I believe you’re affrighted of your own shadder.”

  Indignant at this charge, I hurried ahead and in a moment we gained my room which was at the end of a short dark passage that led from the landing. It was small and narrow with a floor that sloped steeply downwards towards the windows, while the low ceiling was sharply angled, because of the steeply-pitched roof, so that it, too, converged towards the end of the room where the window was. There was little space in the room for furniture, and apart from an ancient black press and a chair, there was only an old chest in which I kept my play-things. A threadbare Turkey-carpet covered the floor beside my bed, and on the walls were two framed prints that my mother had given me: a large coloured engraving of the Battle of Trafalgar — a mass of tattered sails and puffs of smoke — and above it a small mezzotint of my hero, Admiral Nelson.

  “Now no more of your nonsense. Hurry and get into bed,” Bissett scolded.

  “Where do you think that man is now?” I asked thoughtfully.

  Indignantly she replied: “I’m sure I don’t know, but I dare say miles from here, asleep in some ditch.”

  “How I should like to sleep in a ditch!”

  “Mebbe one day you will,” she said grimly. “And for sartin if you carry on as you have today. But I’ll wager he ain’t the only one abroad now. That gal won’t be home tonight, mark my words. Nor most probably in the morning nayther. Why your mither lets her get away with scamping her work … ! Well, ’tis not my place to say. But this is what comes of dealing with the ungodly. ’Tis no better than heathen, this parish, and as the Good Book says, evil communications corrupt.”

  Now, at last washed, and clad in my night-shirt, I prepared to clamber into bed. This was not easy for it was in a sort of ancient oaken box fitted into a recess by the door and was several feet above the level of the floor.

  “I’ll warrant your mamma ’ull not come up tonight when you’ve been so bad,” Bissett said as she tucked my bedclothes in.

  I didn’t believe this but naughtily I said: “Then will you tell me a story instead?”

  “You know very well I shall not. Stories are lies.”

  “But the Bible is full of stories,” I said.

  “That’s quite different, and well you know it.”

  “How is it different?”

  “You ask too many questions. Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies.”

  “Why should anyone lie?” I demanded. “And if you can tell me a lie then you can tell me a story as well since you’ve just said they’re the same thing.”

  “You’re a wise child, Master Johnnie,” Bissett said very gravely. “The devil makes use of such wit as yourn. There’s some things as can’t be argyed about. You know they’re true on account of God speaks ’em straight to your heart.”

  At that moment I heard my mother’s tread along the passage. I smiled triumphantly at my nurse and as my mother came in Bissett said: “You’re a deal too kind to him, ma’am. If you ask me, he wants a father’s hand.”

  My mother started and then said somewhat haughtily: “That will be all, Bissett.”

  My nurse moved to the door holding the candle: “Good night, Master Johnnie.”

  “Good night, Bissett,” I replied.

  With a glance at my mother she added: “Be sure and mind you say your prayers now.”

  I nodded and she left the room.

  When I was sure she was out of hearing I said: “May I hear a story, Mamma?”

  She read me a story every night and I loved the ritual of choosing as much as the story itself. My favourites were the ones that frightened me most — “The History of Jack the Giant-killer”, “The Children in the Wood”, “The Tale of Death and the Lady”, and “Chevy Chase”. Above all I loved The Arabian Nights as much for the strange words — Sooltans and Ufreets and Djinns — as for the fabulous world of the stories. There was one tale that had frightened me so much on the only occasion that my mother had read it that although I longed to hear it again, I had never dared to ask her for it.

  “No, Johnnie. You’ve been too naughty this evening.”

  “Oh please! I’m sorry about the letter-case.”

  “It wasn’t just that. Bissett’s right, I’m too indulgent with you. I’ll read you a story but to show you that I really am hurt, I’ll choose it and it shall be that one about a man who spies upon his wife and has a horrible surprise as a punishment for his curiosity, for curiosity is always punished, you know.”

  I nodded, not daring to speak, for this was the very story that had frightened me so much.

  My mother took down the book from the shelf over my bed and began to read the tale of Syed Naomaun who married a new wife who was very beautiful. But after a time he was struck by the fact that she ate only a grain of rice a day. He saw that she went out of the house almost every evening, and so one night he followed her. She walked out of the town and seemed to be passing the graveyard when he lost sight of her in the shadows of the trees. “So he crept forward and as he came closer,” my mother read on, “he saw that she was seated upon the wall beside a female goul and …”

  I could bear it no longer and, with a scream, I thrust my head under the bedclothes.

  “There, there, Johnnie,” said my mother, patting my head through the blankets. “It’s only a story. It didn’t really happen.”

  “Didn’t really happen?” I repeated as I emerged from beneath the blankets. “But it says so in the book!”

  “You’ll understand when you’re a little older.”

  “You always say that,” I protested. “It’s not fair.”

  She looked at me intently: “I’m sorry I was a little upset today, Johnnie,
but I’ve had some rather bad news. That letter was to say that Uncle Martin is unwell.”

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  She looked down: “Yes, there’s nothing else to worry about. Now, you will go straight to sleep, won’t you?”

  I nodded. She quickly kissed me, picked up the candle and stole from the chamber squeezing the door shut behind her. I strained to follow her light step making its way along the uncarpeted passage and down the stairs until it was out of hearing.

  Since it was a still, almost windless night and nothing was passing in the road, the only sound was the gentle rustling of the trees. After some time, from the borders of slumber, my ears caught the faint jingling of bells in the far distance, and then the hollow, echoing rumble of huge iron-hooped wheels labouring over the uneven metal of the road. That, I knew would be the carter whose waggon travelled overnight to Sutton Valancy. It clattered and rumbled past the house and I traced it into the distance along the road out of the village.

  Sleep was reclaiming me when suddenly I became aware of the low murmur of voices very near to the house. My first thought was that Sukey might have returned, but then I realized that they were men’s voices. I wondered if I dared to leave my warm safe bed and brave with my bare feet the spiders that might be lurking on the floor. I managed to place my feet on the ground and begin to cross the chamber. I started once at something that moved behind me, but it was only my own shadow crossing the light that came round the edges of the shutters. Because of the thickness of the wall, the window was set in a recess several feet deep and had a window-seat onto which I now clambered. Noiselessly I lifted the bar that secured the shutters and drew them back. The moonlight flooded in and by its aid I opened one of the casements and knelt to look out. I could see nothing that moved except, on the wide High-street before me, the shadow of clouds passing the face of the moon. The railings that separated the house from the carriageway caught my eye as they glinted in the bright moonlight, and then for a moment, as my gaze moved on, I was puzzled by something lying at the bottom of the area on my side of the building, before I recognised it as the ladder left by the men working on the roof.

  Raising my head I could just make out the chimneys of the houses opposite above the tops of the trees that lined the other side of the road. Our house stood on the outskirts of the village and the few houses here were set far apart from each other. I could see no lights in any of the other dwellings and it seemed to me that I might be the only person awake in the world. Suddenly a dog barked and the sound was so clear, though it obviously came from far away, that I realized that whoever had been out there must have gone or I would have heard their footsteps.

  At that moment I heard noises from within the house and recognised the sound of Bissett coming up to rest. Quickly I hurried back to bed, crept between the sheets and was soon asleep.

  CHAPTER 3

  I ran through a door and found myself climbing stairs. Round and round and up and up I went and all the time I could hear the sounds of my pursuer behind me. The staircase seemed to go on forever and as I ran my heart pounded and my legs laboured without seeming to be conveying me at all. I looked back and saw something advancing up the stairs just behind me with a strange smoothness of motion. It was a large, pale face that was hideously pitted as if by the smallpox and whose deep eye-sockets seemed to be staring sightlessly at me. There seemed to be no body supporting it but only a trailing black garment. As it grew closer the figure grew taller and taller so that now it was no longer beneath me but towering above me, its great arms spread out like the wings of a bird or the webs of a huge bat, and I knew that it was about to pounce.

  In my sleep I screamed, and then I found myself awake, my heart thumping, my forehead bathed in sweat, and the bedclothes scuffed up around me. Had I really screamed and called out? I seemed to have started no echoes for the room was still and peaceful in the moonlight which streamed through the open shutters. And then, as I looked at the window I saw a head framed within it. This must still be the dream and I must have only dreamed that I awoke, I thought, for no-one could reach up to this window. I couldn’t see the features, for the moonlight was coming from behind so that the face itself was in shadow, but the head was large and had a lot of hair which stuck out. But how could I be dreaming, for my eyes were open? Was I only dreaming that my eyes were open? Or was it that …

  “Keep quiet or I’ll tear off your arm and beat you to death with it!”

  I wanted to shout with relief for the voice was that of the tramper. So it was no dream that I was trapped in! I watched as he clambered through the window and came and stood over me: “Not a word to nobody that you knowed me or I’ll come back and cut your throat. I promise. And your precious mam’s too.”

  At that moment we both heard footsteps in the passage. With an oath the man went back to the window and swiftly climbed out. A moment later my mother was in the room, holding a candle and gazing at me in dismay. It all happened so quickly that I almost wondered if the stranger had been in my chamber at all.

  “What is it,” she asked. “What’s the matter, Johnnie?”

  I was about to speak when suddenly a face came round the edge of the door: gaunt, the features glaring, the hair rising strangely in silhouette. I screamed and my mother looked behind her in alarm.

  Bissett came in. I had never before seen her in her night-gown and with her hair in a net.

  “There was a man!” I cried.

  “What do you mean?” my mother asked in alarm.

  “He was here. I saw him at the w-window,” I managed to sob.

  “Oh Johnnie, that was a nightmare.”

  “I told you what it would lead to, ma’am,” said Bissett.

  “N-no,” I persisted. “He was really there.”

  “How could he be there?” said my mother mildly. “No-one could get up to the window without a ladder.”

  As she said this she faltered and I saw Bissett glance at her. While my mother stayed by my bed with the candle, my nurse quickly went across to the window and looked out.

  Without turning round she said gravely: “Aye, there’s that ladder up against the wall here sure enough.”

  My mother gave a cry and I noticed that one hand reached to grasp the slender box that hung from the key-chain that she must have snatched up when she left her bed. I wriggled aside to watch as Bissett clambered onto the window-seat and peered out. As she did so there was a loud crash which seemed to come from directly underneath us.

  “They’re coming at last!” my mother exclaimed in terror.

  She clung to me so tightly that she hurt me. As that moment there was a second blow louder than the first and accompanied by the sound of splintering wood.

  Bissett came back from the window and stood over us, a tall gaunt figure in her long night-gown. Her voice was oddly calm as she reported: “They’ve broke into the parlour, ma’am. I jist seen one of ’em getting through from the airey as I put my head out.”

  “Mercy!” cried my mother. “They’ve come to murder us.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” Bissett snapped.

  Still clinging to me, my mother began to weep, and to my amazement Bissett seized her by the shoulders and shook her fiercely: “Be silent,” she demanded. “We’re in no danger. Not less’n you cry out and draw their notice to us.”

  “You don’t understand,” moaned my mother. “They’ve come to kill us, me and Johnnie.”

  “They’re only thieves, ma’am. They seen the ladder and thought to break in easy.”

  “No, no! You’re wrong,” my mother cried. “You don’t understand. Go to the window and call for help.”

  “No, indeed,” said Bissett. “That would be dangerous.”

  “You must believe me,” exclaimed my mother. “They’ll have firearms and they’ll be on the way up here now.”

  Bissett crossed to the door, closed it, and then leant with her back against it.

  “Well, they won’t be able to get in if they try. But most l
ike they’re more frighted nor us and only want to get out.”

  “Then let me go and look,” I said, trying to pull myself free from my mother’s grip.

  “No, Johnnie,” exclaimed my mother anxiously, pressing me back into the bed.

  “Bide there,” said Bissett. “We’ll give ’em time to be gone. ’Tis safest that way.”

  We waited for what seemed an age, staring at each other in silence as we strained our ears for the slightest sound. With her arms still about me, I could feel that my mother was shivering, though it was a warm night. At last my keener hearing detected something: “Do you hear that?” I asked.

  Bissett cautiously made her way to the window and looked out: “There they go,” she exclaimed. “I’ve just seen one of ’em go up the road.”

  “Oh, thank heavens,” sighed my mother.

  Then we all started and stared at each other in dismay as footsteps approached down the passage. The door opened slowly and Mrs Belflower appeared, magnificent in a night-gown and night-cap and carrying a candle. She was pale with terror.

  She collapsed onto the bed and it was some minutes before she was able to tell us her story. Sleeping at the back of the house (and very heavily) she had not been woken by my cries, but she had heard sounds from downstairs and so had gone down.

  “When I got to the foot of the stairs,” she went on, “I could see someone at the door trying to pull back them bolts as sticks so bad. I hadn’t brung no candle but there was light enough for me to see: ’twas a man! A stranger.”

  “Oh you must have been terrified,” exclaimed my mother.

  “No, ma’am, for I didn’t think. I jist said: ‘Who are you and what are you a-doin’?’ And he said …” She glanced at me and said: “Well, nivver mind what he said. Then he just kind of girned and went on, cool as you like, pulling at them bolts. In a minute he had ’em free, and then he jist opened the door and made off.”

  “What did he look like?” asked my mother.

  However, she was unable to describe the man at all and even when my mother prompted her with a description of the tramper she could neither confirm nor deny that it might have been he. She was the only one of us, of course, who had not seen him that afternoon. Remembering the threat the man had made, I said nothing.