Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (12 page)

 
          
“Whatever
sort of damned
fool are
you making of yourself,
Porrask?” he demanded fearsomely.

 
          
“I
didn’t expect you’d know about this, sir,” said Porrask, very timid now.

 
          
“I
know all about you, everything you think and do, every instant,” Ensley
snapped, his face close to Porrask’s. “They aren’t going to arrest you, eh? All
right, come along with me. You’d better make yourself understand that I have a
special regard for Mr. Thunstone. Don’t ever threaten him again.”

 
          
The
two walked off together, Ensley talking rapidly, Porrask silent, his head
bowed.

 
          
“I’ll
just see you across to Mrs. Fothergill’s, Connie,” Dymock said, and Constance
Bailey smiled up at him, and they, too, went away together.

 
          
Thunstone
turned back to the door of the Moonraven, and Hawes came to his side. “I just
want to get my cane,” said Thunstone, “I left it at the table in here.”

 
          
“Let
me apologize for such a thing happening in any house of mine,” Hawes said, “and
I’m glad that all went as well as it did. If you’ll allow me to say so, you can
defend yourself proper.”

 
          
“I’ve
had to learn to do that,” said Thunstone.

           
“Sir, would you take a drink with
me, in my office?”

           
“I had a full pint of lager at
supper,” said Thunstone, “but, for the sake of good feeling, I’ll take perhaps
a half pint more.”

           
“I keep a very good article of
sherry,” Hawes told him. “I’d be pleased if you’d try it and say what you think
of it.”

           
“A small one, then,” said Thunstone.

           
They entered the Moonraven together.

 
          
Drops
of rain spattered on Thunstone as he left the Moonraven, cane in hand, and
hurried across Trail Street to Mrs. Fothergill’s house. Two cars stood in
front, small sedans, one recognizable as an English Ford. He opened the front
door and there was Mrs. Fothergill in the hall, a fluttering vision of flowered
frock and gleaming hair.

 
          
“Oh,
Mr. Thunstone!” she hailed him, as though proclaiming his title before royalty.
“Come in, come in, sir. Constance told me what happened, how fine it was in you
to defend her.”

 
          
“It
was nothing at all,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“No,
but it was, it was brilliant. We’ve two couples staying here tonight, and both
were at the Moonraven for dinner. They saw what happened. One couple—their
name’s
Haring
; they’re Dutch as I believe—were a bit
frightened. The others are named Inscoe; they’re Americans like you, from a
place called Ypsilanti. They were more amused than anything.” She rolled up her
eyes. “But both said you handled an unpleasant situation very well indeed.”

 
          
“I
always try to do my best, Mrs. Fothergill.”

 
          
“Come
into the drawing room here,” she babbled, a white hand on his arm. “Do come in,
why not? I can offer you a drink or something.” “Thank you, but no,” he smiled.
“There were whiskey and wine and brandy with Mr. Ensley at Chimney Pots, and at
dinner I had a pint of lager, and later a sherry over there with Mr. Hawes.
That’s a great plenty for me in one day, but thank you again.”

           
“But do come in and sit down a
moment,” she urged him. “
Constance
is in there; she wants so much to thank you again.” She fairly towed him along
by his arm and into the room where first he had paid for his accommodations.
Constance Bailey sat rather limply in a chair. Dymock bent beside her. His hand
was on the arm of the chair, close enough to her hand to take hold of it. He
straightened up as he saw Thunstone.

 
          
“If
you’ll be all right now, Connie, I’ll go my way,” he said. “I daresay I should
telephone some report of the matter to Gerrinsford, even though no charge is
laid.” He looked at Thunstone with frank admiration. “Sir, give me leave to
say, you were in the right place at the right time this evening.”

 
          
Away
he went. Mrs. Fothergill’s eyes followed him appreciatively.

 
          
“A
splendid young man, Constable Dymock,” she said. “He’ll rise in his service.
Connie, you could go farther and fare worse, you know.”

 
          
“Oh,
please, Mrs. Fothergill,” protested Constance Bailey, not unhappily.

 
          
“In
any case, he’s got a regard for you,” went on Mrs. Fothergill. “That’s perfectly
plain to see. But sit down with us, Mr. Thunstone, and you’d best change your
mind about that drink.”

 
          
“No,
thank you, ma’am,” said Thunstone as he found a chair. “But I’d like to ask a
question or two.”

 
          
“As
many as you wish. Connie, you’re still shaken, and you’ll have something, at
least.
Sit where you are; I’ll do the honors.”

 
          
Mrs.
Fothergill went to the sideboard and chose a bottle and two glasses. What she
prepared was what Thunstone had seen Constance Bailey take at the Moonraven,
gin and bitters. Carefully Mrs. Fothergill trickled drops from a tall flask
labeled ANGOSTURA into one glass, then the other, twirling each so that the
inside was filmed ruddily. Then she poured gin into the glasses, gave one to
Constance Bailey, and sat down with her own.

 
          
“Now,
sir,” she smiled at Thunstone, “questions, that was your word, I believe.”

 
          
“Forgive
me if I seem to be prying, but why should Porrask hold such a grudge against
Miss Bailey here?”

 
          
“Easily
answered, that,” said Mrs. Fothergill. “He’d wanted her to go out with him, and
when she said him no, he didn’t like that. He was even threatening to one or
two young men who came to see her.”

 
          
“Yes,”
contributed Constance Bailey. “He was a wild one, drinking deep and just
working at this odd job and that before he had his garage. And when he drank he
could be frightening—he can still be frightening. I didn't want to walk out
with him, and that made him mad. He cursed me."

 
          
She
drank rather deeply as she remembered.

 
          
“You
call yourself a witch; didn't you curse him back?" asked Thunstone.

 
          
She
shook her head and her fall of dark hair stirred. “I don’t curse people. I've
never gone into that kind of witchcraft."

 
          
“Albert
Porrask was angry with her," contributed Mrs. Fothergill.
“Angry and jealous.
Constance
hadn't been with me long, she was quite a
young thing, and I felt that I was more or less her guardian. Porrask came here
to the house to be ugly and bother her, and I showed him the door. He went
away—he had to—but he's kept his grudge against
Constance
."

 
          
“I
see," said Thunstone. “But he was mild enough tonight when Mr. Ensley
spoke to him."

 
          
“He'd
be mild to Mr. Ensley, right enough," said Mrs. Fothergill, sipping at her
glass. “It was Mr. Ensley backed him to start his garage and machine-repair
shop. As I hear it, Porrask had done some clever work with a car of Mr.
Ensley's, and Mr. Ensley was glad for it and lent him money—I don't know just
how much—so he could get into his own business. And Porrask has been pretty
average glad to do what Mr. Ensley says, ever since."

 
          
“He
was clearing the outlines on Old Thunder's image up on the slope this morning,
and seemed to take orders from Mr. Ensley," said Thunstone.

 
          
“Why
as to that, half the men in Claines do turns at shaping that figure each year
at this time," Mrs. Fothergill told him. “Even some who are church
members, attend St. Jude's, they're up there every time to do their part at it.
And Mr. Gates doesn't like it, not a trifle."

 
          
“I
gathered that Mr. Ensley is seriously interested in antiquities here,"
Thunstone said.

 
          
“Interested
is the word for him," Mrs. Fothergill agreed. “He was at me for a bit, to
tell him what I might know about the old history of Claines. But I didn't know
much; my people never told me much. He talked to Connie once, that once and no
more, though she knows a thing or two.”

           
“Mr. Ensley says I study the wrong
things,” said Constance Bailey in a dull, timid voice.

 
          
“All
this is interesting,” said Thunstone frankly. “I might even say, important.
Thank you, ladies, for talking to me.”

 
          
“Turnabout’s
fair play, and fair play’s a jewel,” said Mrs. Fothergill, with what she must
have meant for a winning smile. “Let me ask you a question in my turn. Just why
have you come here?”

 
          
“I
told you that when first we met; I’ve told several others since. I was curious
about things I’d heard in
London
about Old Thunder and the turning of the Dream Rock,” he replied.
Rising, he brought out his notecase. “I want to pay for a few more days here.
I’ve promised to attend church on Sunday, so I’ll pay you up through Monday
night.”

 
          
Mrs.
Fothergill thanked him for the money and entered the amount in her account
book. He went up to his room and turned on the light. Rain scrabbled at the
window pane, like tapping fingers. He went to the bathroom for a shower, donned
pajamas and light cloth slippers and his robe, and returned along the hall.
Behind another door he heard chattering voices; those would be more overnight
guests. In his room again, he sat at the desk and filled more pages of his
notebook with his observations of the evening.

 
          
Outside
the window, the last light ebbed away. It rained in earnest now; it strained
against the window, against the outer wall of the house. The ivy-cloaked tree
swayed and gestured with its branches. Thunstone remembered a line from an old
song, “The night wind waves its arms.” The night had its own life, gave its own
life to the world over which it ruled.

 
          
At
last he finished his account of the day’s events and set the notebook aside. He
felt better after his hot shower. It soothed his body after the day’s visit to
Chimney Pots, the climbing of Sweep- side, the strange moment of weakness at
the bridge over Congdon Mire, the scuffle with Porrask at the Moonraven. This
had been a fairly full day.

 
          
As
he pondered, there came a knock at the door, a knock so stealthy that he waited
a moment before stepping there and opening. In slid Constance Bailey, so
furtively that she seemed almost to tiptoe.

 
          
“I
feel that I just must talk to you, Mr. Thunstone,” she whispered. "It may
be wrong, my coming to your room this way, but there are some things I just
can't say in front of Mrs. Fothergill; she doesn't believe in things I know to
be true.”

 
          
"It's
all right for you to come,” he quickly reassured her. "Sit down and tell
me whatever it is you feel like telling.”

 
          
He
resumed his chair beside the desk. She perched in the armchair and clenched her
hands and crowded her feet close together.

 
          
"I
don't really know how to begin,” she almost bewailed.

 
          
"You
might begin by telling me about yourself, and how you happen to be in Claines,”
he invited.

 
          
"That
much won't take long.”

 
          
And
the story of her life, as she told it, was brief. She was not native to
Claines; she had been bom and brought up in
Liverpool
. Her parents were good to her, she said.
They had been kind and had put her to school, where she did well in her
classes. But when she was fifteen, they both had died. She had fallen into the
hands of a stem spinster aunt, who had found Constance Bailey a job as a shop
assistant in a place that sold china—hard work and fairly low pay. Mrs.
Fothergill, visiting in
Liverpool
,
had come into the shop, had fallen into conversation with Constance Bailey, had
liked her, and had invited her to come and live in Claines and help around the
house.

 
          
"She's
been truly wonderful to me,” said Constance Bailey. "The work isn't hard,
and she doesn't treat me like a servant, more like a friend. That was six years
ago I came, and I haven't been sorry for a moment.”

 
          
Six
years, said Thunstone to himself. Then she was only in her early twenties now.
"You haven't said anything about witchcraft,” he reminded.

 
          
"Oh,”
she said, "that started when I was quite little. I
learned
from my father's cousin—a man, a spiritist medium. That's how the craft is passed
along, from a man to a woman, and then from the woman to another man.”

           
"It’s the same way in the
American South,” said Thunstone. “So he taught you your art, you say. Wasn’t
there more to it than the teaching?
An initiation ceremony
with a coven, and a sort of a confirmation?”

 
          
“I
know what you mean,” she said. “No, a white witch doesn’t belong to a coven, a
band of witches with a chief devil, all that black- magic part. I’ve heard the
thing they do. The chief devil makes you put one hand under your feet, the
other on top of your head, and swears you that all between your hands belongs
to the ruler of hell.” She shrugged, or perhaps she shivered. “I’d never do
that, not for money. Nor go to their meetings, nor dance in their dances on a
sabbat.
Sabbat—that’s a blasphemy, on the name of the holy
Sabbath.”