Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 (14 page)

 
          
If
he had been able to journey through time, what time was it he had seen here,
under the conditions that must be right for it? The immemorial past, before
ever there was a Claines? He had seen Old Thunder in that strange time. Or
might it be a distant future when the houses of Claines had been rubbed away
from their landscape, but when Old Thunder still showed there?

 
          
Possibilities
were infinite. Jakob Bohme had said that anything was possible, even the most
bizarre improbability. Thunstone yawned. He decided to leave his light on, as
he had advised Constance Bailey to leave hers on. He went sound asleep under
its glow.

 
          
If
he dreamed, he did not remember dreaming when he woke next morning. He turned
off the light and looked at his watch; it was halfpast seven, as it had been
when he had wakened the day before. The rain had gone; the sun was bright at
his window. He donned his robe and went out and to the bathroom door, but it
was locked and he could hear running water inside. He returned to his room,
filled and smoked a pipe, then sought the bathroom again. Now it was empty. He
showered quickly, brushed his teeth and shaved, and returned to his room to
dress.

 
          
Downstairs,
he found Mrs. Fothergill in her sitting room. She held a cigarette in her left
hand, its filter daubed with lipstick, and in her right she cuddled a cup.

 
          
“Have
a coffee with me, Mr. Thunstone
?
^,,
she
greeted him. “It's yet a few minutes to eight and our other guests aren't down
for breakfast." She set down her cup, lifted the pot from the side table
and filled another cup for him. Thanking her, he sat and sipped. Again he
reflected that Mrs. Fothergill, at least, provided good coffee in
England
.

 
          
“It's
turned out to be a lovely morning," she said. “Did that storm keep you
awake last night?"

           
“No, not much,” he replied. “I
turned in fairly early and slept straight through.”

 
          
“I'm
glad to hear you say so. My own rest was a good one, but poor Connie seems to
have had a restless night. She has such strange imaginings.”

 
          
Noise
of feet on the stairs, and a couple entered, then another. Mrs. Fothergill
twittered at them hospitably.

 
          
“Good
morning, good morning!” she cried. “Mr. and Mrs. Haring, and Mr. and Mrs.
Inscoe—”

 
          
Thunstone
was on his feet as Mrs. Fothergill made introductions. The Harings were
taffy-haired, pink-faced, spruce; they looked as though they might be blood
relatives instead of husband and wife. The Inscoes were older and wore American
sports clothes. Inscoe was bald in front and had immense silver-rimmed spectacles.
Mrs. Inscoe looked rather gaunt and intense, and wore her dull black hair in a
bushy bob. They asked polite questions. Thunstone told them that he lived in
New York
but had been in
Michigan
several times, had visited
Ypsilanti
. He mentioned two professors at
Eastern
Michigan
University
there, friends and correspondents of his,
but the Inscoes had never heard of either of them.

 
          
Breakfast
was served them by Constance Bailey, looking rather wan. She spoke in a tired
whisper to answer Mrs. Fothergill, and looked at Thunstone only a single time,
at once stealthily and admiringly.

 
          
Haring
enthusiastically praised what he ate, the fried egg, the toast and jelly, the
links of sausage. He declared that breakfast was a meal greatly esteemed in the
Netherlands
, and sought to explain a sort of pancake,
complete with bacon fried into it, which he called
spekpan- nekoken.
When Mrs. Fothergill displayed interest in this
dish, Mrs. Haring told her in accented detail the method of mixing and
preparing it. Mrs. Fothergill only blinked her eyes as she listened. Inscoe,
too, ate all that was served him, but his wife ate only the egg and toast
liberally jellied. To Thunstone she confided that she did not eat meat, and
added that the world’s great thinkers and planners practiced a like abstention.

 
          
Breakfast
over, the Inscoes hurried their luggage into the hired Datsun and went bustling
away—to
Bath
, Thunstone thought they said. The Harings
lingered and walked outside with Thunstone. From the yard they gazed up to
where, on Sweepside, two dogs showed where a pair of workers busied themselves
at redefining the outlines of Old Thunder.

 
          
“Now,
sir, that is an amazing grotesque,” declared Haring to Thunstone. “What might
it be called?”

 
          
“Its
name is Old Thunder, and each year at this time they dig its outline clear
again, to let the chalk show through,” said Thunstone. “Nobody knows how old
that image
is,
only that it seems to go back before
history.”

 
          
“Indeed
so? I feel an impulse to climb up there and see it at the closer quarters.”

 
          
“I’m
afraid that it's on jealously guarded private property,” Thunstone felt it
necessary to say. “The owner has posted signs to warn trespassers away, and he
has a harsh word for those who do come up without his say-so.”

 
          
“Ah?
Then I think we go somewhere else.
The Roman Wall, perhaps.
That is not forbidden to the public.”

 
          
The
Harings energetically loaded their bags into their car. Thunstone made his way
across
Trail
Street
and along past the shops that had become familiar to him. He went into
the post office to mail his letters and to buy a small pouch of smoking
tobacco. The postmistress called him by name and asked him how he was enjoying
his stay. It seemed to him that he was accepted in Claines.

 
          
Outside
the post office, he met Dymock, who pushed along his bicycle as usual.

 
          
“Good
morning, Mr. Thunstone,” Dymock greeted him. “If I may say so, I’m glad that
last night’s little matter turned out with no more trouble. Albert Porrask got
a lesson he’s needed for some little while. I made a report on the matter to
headquarters and was told to set it down as terminated.”

 
          
“It’s
terminated as far as I’m concerned,” nodded Thunstone. “Tell me, how did you
rest last night?”

 
          
“Rest last night?”
Dymock said after him.
“As
it so happens, not very well.
Late on, about half an hour to
midnight
, a big van stalled on
Trail Street
; it slewed around so as to block the way. I
was out there to see that it got back in action, and then I was wakeful and
walked here and there in the dark to wear myself out so I could sleep.”

 
          
"You
say you were in the dark. How did the town look to you?” "About as usual,”
said Dymock. "There was quite a shower of rain, and the clouds up there to
hide what would have been a fine moon.” "And all the houses were there as
usual?” asked Thunstone. "The whole
town as you know
it?”

           
Dymock smiled in his mustache.
"You’ve been talking to Connie Bailey, is that it? She told you her
imaginings?”

           
"Well,” said Thunstone,
"she has mentioned something.”

           
Dymock’s smile vanished. "I
could wish for her sake that she didn’t have those dreams or visions or
whatever they are. She worries Mrs. Fothergill, too. I can’t think that such
fancies are good for her.”

           
"Then you don’t believe in
them,” said Thunstone.

           
"My training is to believe in
facts, sir,” replied Dymock. "She thinks she sees these things at night,
but I know I don’t see them. And I’m concerned for her. I’ve never said so much
in the subject to anyone before, and I trust you not to repeat our conversation
to her.”

           
"Naturally I won’t. But let me
ask you, how do you explain dizziness on that bridge over Congdon Mire, and why
it’s apt to happen at the time of turning the Dream Rock?”

           
"I don’t explain it,” said
Dymock flatly. "That’s something that awaits explanation. Perhaps a
psychologist could help there, but I’m no psychologist, only a policeman. And
that can be quite a line of work.”

 
          
"I’m
sure of that,” said Thunstone.

           
They took leave of each other.
Thunstone headed on toward St. Jude’s. He saw David Gates on the lawn,
scratching with a hoe around some rose bushes. He turned in at the walk and
approached the curate.

 
          
"Ah,
Mr. Thunstone,” said Gates, straightening up, the hoe in his heavy hand.
"You see, I do my own gardening here.”

           
"Those roses are beautiful,”
said Thunstone. "I wouldn’t have bothered you, but questions keep rising
about this little hamlet of Claines.”

           
“Questions?”

           
“For one,” said Thunstone, “how did
you sleep last night?”
“Why, fairly well.
I lay for a
while and thought about a point or two in my sermon tomorrow, matters of
emphasis.”

           
“You lay in the dark?” asked
Thunstone.

           
“Naturally I did. I find that
thinking in the dark is often profitable.”

           
“And did you have any peculiar
sensations?” was Thunstone’s next question.

           
Gates laughed at that, quietly but
loftily. “You wonder if the approach of the turning of the Dream Stone affects
my imagination.
No, sir, not in the least.
I leave
that to one or two residents here subject to illusion, and I take it you’ve
talked to them.”

 
          
“I’ve
talked to Constance Bailey,” said Thunstone.

           
“Constance Bailey,” Gates said the
name after him. “Now, there’s an unhappy young woman who lets her fancies run
away with her. I’ve tried to reason with her, not very successfully. Once or
twice, I’ve wondered if she weren’t in the habit of taking some sort of harmful
drug. Frankly, Mr. Thunstone, I see nothing in her extravagances of talk, and
I’ve been glad that lately she hasn’t come to me with them.” “I must say that I
rather like her,” said Thunstone. “She works for Mrs. Fothergill, and she’s
helpful and mannerly. But another thing interests me. It’s about the stream
yonder, what’s called Congdon Mire.”

 
          
“That grimy flow?”
Gates turned to look eastward in the
direction of Congdon Mire. “I consider it a hazard to the health of this
locality. I wish it could be drained.”

 
          
“Did
you ever walk on the bridge there and feel
a dizziness
?”
“Ah, so you’ve heard that superstition too? No, I’ve never felt any such thing.
More imagination here and there, I should say, perhaps helped along by generous
potations at one or other of our pubs here.” “I felt
a
dizziness
there yesterday,” Thunstone told him. “I nearly fell in. And I
hope you’ll believe that I hadn’t been drinking. I hear that that sensation
comes at Congdon Mire at the time of the stone turning.”

           
“I deplore such superstitions,”
vowed Gates. “If you come to church tomorrow, you’ll hear me say so in no
uncertain terms.”

 
          
“I’ve
said that I’d be there, and look forward to your sermon.”

 
          
Gates
turned back to his roses, and Thunstone walked back again toward the center of
town.

 
          
As
he trudged along, a shout hailed him. It came from the yard of Chimney Pots.

 
          
Three
figures stood there. Close to
Trail Street
, Hob Sayle tinkered with a lawn mower.
Farther in on the grass stood Gram Ensley and Porrask, and Ensley waved
vigorously for Thunstone to cross over and join them.