‘You’re in here. It’s small, but you’re by yourself. And I’m next door to you.’
The candle threw their shadows, gigantically distorted, upon the sloping ceiling, and Susan thought, fantastically: ‘If I stay here, I shall grow the wrong shape, too.’
‘And the big attic’s the master’s place. You don’t have nothing to do with that. Much as your place or ours is worth to poke your nose round the door. He keeps it locked, anyway.’ The cook laughed, a hoarse, throaty chuckle. ‘Queer things he keeps in there, I must say. I’ve seen ’em – when he brings ’em downstairs, that is. He’s a funny one, is Mr Wispell. Well, you’d better get changed into your black, then I’ll take you to the mistress.’
Susan dressed hurriedly before the little, heart-shaped mirror with its old, greenish glass that seemed to absorb more of the candlelight than it reflected. She pulled aside the check window-curtain and looked out. It was almost night, but she contrived to make out that the attic looked over the garden at the side of the house. Beneath her lay the herbaceous border, and beyond that, the tall trees stood up like a wall. The room itself was comfortably furnished, though, as Mrs Jarrock had said, extremely small and twisted into a curious shape by the slanting flue of the great chimney, which ran up on the left-hand side and made a great elbow beside the bedhead. There was a minute fireplace cut into the chimney, but it had an unused look. Probably, thought Susan, it would smoke.
At the head of the stairs she hesitated, candle in hand. She was divided between a dread of solitude and a dread of what she was to meet below. She tiptoed down the attic stair and emerged upon the landing. As she did so, she saw the back of Jarrock flitting down the lower flight, and noticed that he had left the door of ‘Mr Alistair’s’ room open behind him. Urged by a curiosity powerful enough to overcome her uneasiness, she crept to the door and peeped in.
Facing her was an old-fashioned tester bed with dull green hangings; a shaded reading-lamp burned beside it on a small table. The man on the bed lay flat on his back with closed eyes; his face was yellow and transparent as wax, with pinched, sharp nostrils; one hand, thin as a claw, lay passive upon the green counterpane; the other was hidden in the shadows of the curtains. Certainly, if Jarrock had been speaking of Mr Alistair, he was right; this man was quiet enough now.
‘Poor gentleman,’ whispered Susan, ‘he’s passed away. And while the words were still on her lips a great bellow of laughter burst forth from somewhere on the floor below. It was monstrous, gargantuan, fantastic; it was an outrage upon the silent house. Susan started back, and the snuffer, jerking from the candlestick, leaped into the air and went ringing and rolling down the oak staircase to land with a brazen clang on the flags below.
Somewhere a door burst open and a loud voice, with a hint of that preposterous mirth still lurking in its depths, bawled out:
‘What’s that? What the devil’s that? Jarrock! Did you make that filthy noise?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Susan, advancing in some alarm to the stairhead. ‘It was my fault, sir. I shook the candlestick and the snuffer fell down. I am very sorry, sir.’
‘You?’ said the man. ‘Who the devil are you? Come down and let’s have a look at you. Oh!’ as Susan’s black dress and muslin apron came into his view at the turn of the stair, ‘the new housemaid, hey! That’s a pretty way to announce yourself. A damned good beginning! Don’t you do it again, that’s all. I won’t have noise, d’you understand? All the noise in this house is made by me. That’s my prerogative, if you know what the word means. Hey? Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir. I won’t let it happen again, sir.’
‘That’s right. And look here. If you’ve made a dent in those boards, d’you know what I’ll do? Hey? I’ll have the insides out of you, d’you hear?’ He jerked back his big, bearded head, and his great guffaw seemed to shake the old house like a gust of wind. ‘Come on, girl, I won’t eat you this time. Let’s see your face. Your legs are all right, anyway. I won’t have a housemaid with thick legs. Come in here and be vetted. Sidonia, here’s the new girl, chucking the furniture all over the place the minute she’s in the house. Did you hear it? Did you ever hear anything like it? Hey? Ha, ha!’
He pushed Susan in front of him into a sitting-room furnished in deep orange and rich blues and greens like a peacock’s tail, and with white walls that caught and flung back the yellow lamplight. The windows were closely shuttered and barred.
On a couch drawn up near the fire a girl was lying. She had a little, white, heart-shaped face, framed and almost drowned in a mass of heavy red hair, and on her long fingers were several old and heavy rings. At her husband’s boisterous entry she rose rather awkwardly and uncertainly.
‘Walter, dear, don’t shout so. My head aches, and you’ll frighten the poor girl. So you’re Susan. How are you? I hope you had a good journey. Are Mr and Mrs Jarrock looking after you?’
‘Yes, thank you, madam.’
‘Oh! then that’s all right.’ She looked a little helplessly at her husband, and then back to Susan. ‘I hope you’ll be a good girl, Susan.’
‘I shall try to give satisfaction, madam.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you will.’ She laughed, on a high, silver note like a bird’s call. ‘Mrs Jarrock will put you in the way of things. I hope you’ll be happy and stay with us.’ Her pretty, aimless laughter tinkled out again.
‘I hope Susan won’t disappear like the last one,’ said Mr Wispell. Susan caught a quick glance darted at him by his wife, but before she could decide whether it was one of fear or of warning, they were interrupted. A bell pealed sharply with a jangling of wires, and in the silence that followed the two Wispells stared uneasily at each other.
‘What the devil’s that?’ said Mr Wispell. ‘I only hope to heaven—’
Jarrock came in. He held a telegram in his hand. Wispell snatched it from him and tore it open. With an exclamation of distaste and alarm he handed it to his wife, who uttered a sharp cry.
‘Walter, we can’t! She mustn’t. Can’t we stop her?’
‘Don’t be a fool, Sidonia. How can we stop her?’
‘Yes, Walter. But don’t you understand? She’ll expect to find Helen here.’
‘Oh, lord!’ said Mr Wispell.
Susan went early to bed. Dinner had been a strained and melancholy meal. Mrs Wispell talked embarrassed nothings at intervals; Mr Wispell seemed sunk in a savage gloom, from which he only roused himself to bark at Susan for more potatoes or another slice of bread. Nor were things much better in the kitchen, for it seemed that a visitor was expected.
‘Motoring down from York,’ muttered Mrs Jarrock. ‘Goodness knows when they’ll get here. But that’s her all over. No consideration, and never had. I’m sorry for the mistress, that’s all.’
Jarrock’s distorted mouth twisted into a still more ghastly semblance of a grin.
‘Rich folks must have their way,’ he said. ‘Four years ago it was the same thing. A minute’s notice and woe betide if everything’s not right. But we’ll be ready for her, oh! we’ll be ready for her, you’ll see.’ He chuckled gently to himself.
Mrs Jarrock gave a curious, sly smile. ‘You’ll have to help me with the spare the room, Susan,’ she said.
Later, coming down into the scullery to fill a hot-water bottle, Susan found the Jarrocks in close confabulation beside the sink.
‘And see you make no noise about it,’ the cook was saying. ‘These girls have long tongues, and I wouldn’t trust—’
She turned and saw Susan.
‘If you’ve finished,’ she said, taking the bottle from her, ‘you’d best be off to bed. You’ve had a long journey.’
The words were softly spoken, but they had an undertone of command. Susan took up her candlestick from the kitchen. As she passed the scullery on her way upstairs, she heard the Jarrocks whispering together and noticed, just inside the back door, two spades standing, with an empty sack beside them. They had not been there before, and she wondered idly what Jarrock could be wanting with them.
She fell asleep quickly, for she was tired; but an hour or two later she woke with a start and a feeling that people were talking in the room. The rain had ceased, for through the window she could see a star shining, and the attic was lit by the diffused greyness of moonlight. Nobody was there, but the voices were no dream. She could hear their low rumble, close beside her head. She sat up and lit her candle; then slipped out of bed and crept across to the door.
The landing was empty; from the room next her own she could hear the deep and regular snoring of the cook. She came back and stood for a moment, puzzled. In the middle of the room she could hear nothing, but as she returned to the bed, she heard the voices again, smothered, as though the speakers were at the bottom of a well. Stooping, she put her ear to the empty fireplace. At once the voices became more distinct, and she realised that the great chimney was acting as a speaking-tube from the room below. Mr Wispell was talking. ‘. . . better be getting on with it . . . here at any time . . .’
‘The ground’s soft enough.’ That was Jarrock speaking. She lost a few words, and then:
‘. . . bury her four feet deep, because of the rose-trees.’
There came a silence. Then came the muffled echo of Mr Wispell’s great laugh; it rumbled with a goblin sound in the hollow chimney.
Susan crouched by the fireplace, feeling herself grow rigid with cold. The voices dropped to a subdued murmur. Then she heard a door shut and there was complete silence. She stretched her cramped limbs and stood a moment listening. Then, with fumbling haste she began to drag on her clothes. She must get out of this horrible house.
Suddenly a soft step sounded on the gravel beneath her window; it was followed by the chink of iron. Then a man’s voice said: ‘Here, between Betty Uprichard and Evelyn Thornton.’ There followed the thick sound of a spade driven into heavy soil.
Susan stole to the window and looked out. Down below, in the moonlight, Mr Wispell and Jarrock were digging, fast and feverishly, flinging up the soil about a shallow trench. A rose-tree was lifted and laid to one side, and as she watched them, the trench deepened and widened to a sinister shape.
She huddled on the last of her clothing, pulled on her coat and hat, sought for and found the handbag that held her money and set the door gently ajar. There was no sound but the deep snoring from the next-door room.
She picked up her suit-case, which she had not unpacked before tumbling into bed. She hesitated a moment; then, as swiftly and silently as she could, she tiptoed across the landing and down the steep stair. The words of Mr Wispell came back to her with sudden sinister import. ‘I hope she won’t disappear like the last one.’ Had the last one, also, seen that which she was not meant to see, and scuttled on trembling feet down the stair with its twisted black banisters? Or had she disappeared still more strangely, to lie forever four feet deep under the rose-trees? The old boards creaked beneath her weight; on the lower landing the door of Mr Alistair’s room stood ajar, and a faint light came from within it. Was he to be the tenant of the grave in the garden? Or was it meant for her, or for the visitor who was expected that night?
Her flickering candle-flame showed her the front door chained and bolted. With a caution and control inspired by sheer terror, she pulled back the complaining bolts, lowered the chain with her hand, so that it should not jangle against the door, and turned the heavy key. The garden lay still and sodden under the moonlight. Drawing the door very gently to behind her, she stood on the threshold, free. She took a deep breath and slipped down the path as silently as a shadow.
A few yards down the hill road she came to a clump of thick bushes. Inside this she thrust the suit-case. Then, relieved of its weight, she ran.
At four o’clock the next morning a young policeman was repeating a curious tale to the police-sergeant at Dedcaster.
‘The young woman is pretty badly frightened,’ he said, ‘but she tells her story straight enough. Do you think we ought to look into it?’
‘Sounds queerish,’ said the sergeant. ‘Maybe you’d better go and have a look. Wait a minute, I’ll come with you myself. They’re odd people, those Wispells. Man’s an artist, isn’t he? Loose-living gentry they are, as often as not. Get the car out, Blaycock; you can drive us.’
‘What the devil is all this?’ demanded Mr Wispell. He stood upright in the light of the police lantern, leaning upon his spade, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with an earthy hand. ‘Is that our girl you’ve got with you? What’s wrong with her? Hey? Thief, hey? If you’ve been bagging the silver, you young besom, it’ll be the worse for you.’
‘This young woman’s come to us with a queer tale, Mr Wispell,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’d like to know what you’re a–digging of here for.’
Mr Wispell laughed. ‘Of here for? What should I be digging of here for? Can’t I dig in my own garden without your damned interference?’
‘Now that won’t work, Mr Wispell. That’s a grave, that is. People don’t dig graves in their gardens in the middle of the night for fun. I want that there grave opened. What’ve you got inside it? Now, be careful.’
‘There’s nobody inside it at the moment,’ said Mr Wispell, ‘and I should be obliged if you’d make rather less noise. My wife’s in a delicate state of health, and my brother-in-law, who is an invalid with an injured spine, has had a very bad turn. We’ve had to keep him under morphia and we’ve only just got him off into a natural sleep. And now you come bellowing round—’