Clay (3 page)

I told Cassandra that I wanted time to observe her father more closely, and she seemed greatly relieved to know that I would consider the old man’s case. For myself, I confess I could not have done otherwise. Despite the malignant shadow that shrouded Heath House in ageless mystery, I knew that I would come back again and again, not only because I was curious about the singular aspects that accompanied Heath’s apparent twilight madness, but because, as I left her that night, Cassandra held out her hand, and I took it in mine. It was a simple, friendly gesture, and we both smiled. From that moment on, I was completely, irrevocably in love with Cassandra Heath.

Looking backward, it seems to me that our brief moment of happiness was like some minor miracle, rising as it did through a choking miasma of brooding evil to touch, if only for an instant, a clean, sunlit world known only to lovers. Somehow, we managed to transcend the haunting omnipresent ghost of Lazarus Heath’s illness. It is true that the old man returned to normalcy during that final fortnight of his troubled existence, and for a time Cassandra could forget the strange enigma of her father’s insane babblings, and those sudden, inexplicable disappearances. Being a medical man, however, I never really forgot. Often, during those last two weeks, I talked with Lazarus Heath; he submitted to questioning and examination quite calmly. As to the peculiar condition of his skin, and the odd lines on his throat, he professed ignorance, and the once or twice I mentioned Zoth Syra, he went gloomily reticent on me. He said the name meant nothing to him, yet never before or since have I seen a man so patently weighted down by some blasphemous, heart-gnawing secret, as was Lazarus Heath. He ate little and spent his days and nights slumped in a crotchety chair, staring into the bluish mist of the small cove beyond Heath House.

Cassandra needed forgetfulness; as much as I could, I got her away from the sullen loneliness of the antediluvian manse at land’s end. With the passage of days, she relaxed and became her own charming self, a side of her nature to which, I think, even she might have been a stranger. For the foul legends that trailed after Lazarus Heath had cut his daughter off from companionship and the clear, untarnished joys of the extrovert.

*

We spent the long sunny days together on the beach; Cassandra was like an imprisoned nymph suddenly set free. She swam with the grace of one born to the water, and ran the length of arid sand with the lightness of a child, her wonderful hair flowing wildly in the sea breeze. A man cannot see such youth and beauty and remain untouched. My Cassandra had not only these; too, there was an air of quiet wisdom about her, that was somehow wistful and sad. She was prodigiously well-read, and told me her father had educated her. Sometimes she spoke of long, lonely childhood years, when she lived only in the pages of the countless books in Lazarus Heath’s library.

I had seen that small, book-cluttered room with its musty, rich bindings; the old man spent much time there. It is strange how so comfortable and common-place a nook could shelter such a vile, inhuman secret through the years. Had I learned that secret sooner, Cassandra would be alive today.

3

Lazarus Heath died the night I proposed to his daughter. Up to that time he had improved fairly well; until, at moments, watching the new vivacity that had touched Cassandra, he seemed almost normally pleased. I believe the old man conceived a liking for me; because I had given Cassie something; I had given her my friendship and my love, and his awful legend had not frightened them away.

The night I asked Cassandra to marry me, it was balmy and quiet, and we had been walking along Kalesmouth Strand, watching the silver ribbons of the moon on the Atlantic. I remember, I halted rather abruptly, mumbling that I had something “to ask her,” and then Cassandra smiled and kissed me. Her lips were warm and full of promise.

“The answer is ‘yes,’ darling,” she murmured.

We laughed, then, a soft, rich laughter whose gentle, love-haunted echoes I shall never forget. Clinging together we ran along the moonlit sand. That day, a last leaf of Indian Summer had fluttered across the peninsula, and a wintry sea was already lapping hungrily at the land. Cassie chattered brightly about how happy her father would be for us, but somehow, as we neared the sepulchral tenebrosity of Heath House, a hollowness crept into her laughter. It was as though she already sensed the horrible discovery that lay before us.

There was no answer when Cassandra called out in the hollow well of the foyer. We began our search for Lazarus Heath calmly enough, but, now, the laughter had gone altogether. He was not in the dusty sanctuary of his library; the linen of his tremendous oaken bed flapped in the wind that brushed through casements thrown wide to the rapidly chilling night. The look of utter terror in Cassandra’s eyes told me we were reasoning along the same lines.

It did not take long to reach the strange little cove in the shadow of Heath House. A cold, dream-like quality saturated every corner of that miniature beach, hid from sight on all sides save the East, where the predatory mutter of the sea seemed dangerously near. But you can awaken from the insanity of a dream; there was no such escape from the terrible reality of that night.

At the center of the cove, edging into the water, stood four weirdly hewn pillars, placed so that each made the corner of a crude square; in the moonglow they had the aspect of sinister mediaeval altars of sacrifice, reared to noxious, unnameable gods. Sprawled at the center of the evil square, face-down in a foot of lapping sea-water, lay the lifeless body of Lazarus Heath.

I cannot rightly remember how I got the brine-tangled corpse into the house. There is a searing picture of Cassandra’s face, frozen with sick grief; and another, of myself, alone in that fetid bed-chamber, performing an autopsy, listening to Cassie’s distant, pitiful sobs the whole time. That night, I got down on my knees and prayed to God that the things I had discovered could not be so. Yet, I had seen with my own eyes the increased scaliness of Heath’s face, the horrible enlargement of his eyes. I knew that my first guess had been wrong; Lazarus Heath had not drowned. For those hellish lines on his throat had become long, oozing slits, like nothing but the slobbering gills of a tremendous fish! I had a sick feeling that Heath’s weird mumblings might not have been the gibberish of a madman, but the delirium of one who had learned things no mortal was ever meant to know.

We buried him in a sealed pine casket. If the morticians from the mainland noted the strange condition of the corpse, they gave no sign. With them it was a business; Death had myriad forms, each as cold and unquestionable as the last. With Cassandra, however, I had to be more careful. I knew the terrible effect that nauseous, bloated visage would have upon her. I told her the autopsy had been rather disfiguring, that it would be better if she did not see her father. She obeyed with the simple acquiescence of a child who is lost and lonely, and in need of guidance. Once, she roused from a cold, apathetic state of shock to tell me that Heath had always wanted to be buried in the cove. It rained on the day of interment; icy needles pelted forlornly on the unpainted wood, as two uneasy negroes lowered Lazarus Heath to his final rest. A timid mainland pastor intoned the Lord’s Prayer in a sad, squeaky voice. That night, there was nothing but the rain, and the horrible stillness of forsaken Heath House. Sparse flowers wilted on the fresh clay mound in the cove; a clammy tide fingered slowly in, lapping at the edge of Lazarus Heath’s grave.

*

I had to get Cassandra away; watching pent-up doubt and fear turn her lovely face into an expressionless mask, I knew she must be freed of the cloak of black uncertainty that enveloped Heath House. We talked through most of that rain-washed lonely night, and for the first time in my medical career, I told a lie. Could I have seen the sick terror in her eyes, and spoken words that might turn that fear into madness?

When I performed that autopsy, I found no cause for Lazarus Heath’s death. There was no water in his lungs; every organ was in excellent condition. But, I told Cassie that the old man died of a heart attack. I told her I was certain that her father had been perfectly sane. Even as I spoke, new color flushed her cheeks; an expression of indescribable relief lit ebony eyes. Cassandra could not know that the old man’s sanity was more to be feared than his insanity. An unstable brain could answer for wild babblings, for ungodly melodies, but what could account for the terrible concreteness of that scaly, fishlike corpse? Wrack my brain as I did, I could find no explanation in the accepted medical sense; and, I dared not go beyond that, into the malevolent lore of forgotten ages, to discover what blasphemous horror had destroyed Lazarus Heath. I preferred to try to forget—to go on with Cassandra, covering this nightmare with endless moments of normal, happy living.

Many times during the next few months, I thought I had succeeded. A week after the solitary funeral on Kalesmouth Strand, Cassie and I were married by a pleasant, apoplectic justice-of-the- peace. We had our wedding supper in the quiet luxury of one of the better hotels, and for the first time since her father’s death, Cassandra smiled. The city proved to be good for her. Deliberately, I made those early days a scintillating round of gaiety. I introduced Cassie to the bright lights and the brassy, arrogant joys of city life. We were exquisitely happy Her laughter was a wonderful, warm pool of summer sun, swirling briefly in that winter city, and then, suddenly, freezing over.

I cannot recall just when I first noticed the difference in Cassandra. Perhaps I had been too happy myself to realize what was happening to her. The breezy tinsel of the city had sparkled very brightly for Cassie, but, it had burned itself out in the effort. After a time, it lost its fascination. In the beginning, I tried to tell myself that I was imagining things, but, gradually, I felt the happy freedom slipping away from us. Cassandra’s smiles grew scarcer by the day; there was an infinitely sad far-away look that kept stealing into her eyes at the most unexpected moments. I began to imagine that she had grown pale. I watched her more closely than ever. An end of it came one evening late in August.

I found Cassandra alone on the night-cooled terrace of our apartment, staring Eastward across the summer-choked city. When I touched her shoulders she gave a little start, then smiled sadly.

“Can you smell it, darling?” she murmured wistfully, after a moment.

“What?”

“The sea...

In that moment, I think I had a sudden vision of the scabrous puffed face I had fought desperately to forget, and, floating evilly in the night air, I sensed a wisp of the decayed effluvia of Heath House. I struggled to keep my voice steady.

“What’re you getting at, Cassie?”

Cassandra smiled again.

“Can’t fool my doctor, can I?” Her voice was soft. “Darling.... Would you mind terribly if we went back... to Kalesmouth... the Heath House?”

Strangely enough, all I felt for an instant was a sensation of relief. I had been waiting for that question all along; I was almost glad the waiting was over. I took Cassandra into my arms and kissed the tip of her nose. I wanted to sound careless and bright. I told her, if she really wanted to go back, there was nothing I would like better. Cassie smiled, nestling her head against my shoulder. As we stood there, looking into the darkness above the winking lights of the buildings, a cold shudder ran through me. I wanted to say it was wrong; we couldn’t go back. I said nothing. Quietly, hypnotic and shrill, a familiar, odious threnody chortled inland from the distant Atlantic. “... lovers all to the Goddess of the Green and Swirling Void.... Come away, to Zoth Syra! Come away!” I wondered if Cassandra could hear it. I prayed that she couldn’t.

I am not certain of what I expected upon our return to Heath House. I could not forget the puling, nauseous horrors we had left behind; the stench of a scaly corpse seemed never to leave my nostrils. I remember my hands sweating on the wheel as I tooled our car across the long bridge that connected Kalesmouth Strand with the mainland; early-morning fog seemed to close in behind us, shutting us off from reality. The baleful finger of the solitary macadam road that led to Heath House pointed with terrible certainty to the steely expanse of the sea.

However, the change in Cassandra heartened me, dispelling somewhat my uneasy premonitions. Already, her complexion had returned to its former warmth and beauty; her laughter rippled softly at some weak joke I had made, and the ebony cloak of her hair was rich and alive in the sea breeze. Our homecoming was much more pleasant and prosaic than I had dared hope it would be; it gave no trembling portent of the icy, sea-brined evil that was to stalk our future hours in the malevolent house. Only the sea chuckled expectantly in the lonely cove near Lazarus Heath’s tomb.

It is impossible to trace the stages by which I became jealous of Heath House; there was something subtle and cruel about the change that overtook me after the first days and nights on the barren point of land that meant so much to Cassandra. At the start, I managed to convince myself that I was happy—happy because Cassie seemed to be so, for the first time in months. I even felt something like an uneasy affection for the old place, because it made Cassandra what I wanted her to be—full of a rich, wild life, touched with the mysterious charm that had first attracted me.

We began to refurnish and remodel the house; the mundane clang of workmen’s saws and hammers, the earthly smell of turpentine and white lead, seemed to breathe a freshness into the foul, antiquated halls and chambers. I told myself it was just another charming old house where people could be happy if only they tried hard enough; but, all the time, a new whispering voice within me, clamored for attention. I knew I was losing Cassandra to a past of which I had not been a part; Heath House was reclaiming her.

Cassandra herself seemed to notice no change in our relationship; she was gentle and full of a soft tenderness toward me, and still, I had the terrible feeling that a barrier was rising between us, day by day, second by second. Cassie took to a habit that roused uneasy memories in me; any hour of the day or night, she would be seized by an urge to walk quickly, unseeing, along the lashing edge of the sea. They were not the leisurely wanderings we had known in the past; it was as though Cassandra were trying to get somewhere, trying, unconsciously, to reach something.