The dark fantastic (21 page)

"How else can you explain the brutality of war," he demanded, "or the lust for power, or selfisliness, greed, or murder? Either there's a devil in the world or there's one in every human breast."

Once before she had heard him talk like this. It was on the occasion of their first meeting, when he had argued so earnestly over the use of the supernatural in Macbeth.

From devils it was a simple and natural progression to ghosts. In vain did Judith bring forth a copy of Mr. Fairchild's latest book as a hint that literary talk was to have been the order of the evening. The author himself waved her aside as though the book had been written by someone else. He had, he confessed, a keen interest in things metaphysical. Lucius Goff, emboldened by sympathy, promptly declared his belief in spirit communication. The editor jeered at him; Mrs. Barclay warned him that though the devil was orthodox, ghosts and spirit rappings were not. The argument grew so heated that even the elderberry wine which Richard brought in failed to cool it. In fact, the refreshment gave rise to fresh discussion, for Mr. Fairchild, as though reminded of something by the homemade beverage, asserted that since his sojourn in this community he had come into possession of some interesting data on the subject of poltergeists.

Mrs. Barclay demanded to know what polter—whatyoumay-call'ems might be.

The author explained that poltergeists were spirits of the dead returned to earth to wreak mischief. He had heard about a case in this very county, he said.

The Sentinel editor came down upon him with hallucinations, spectral illusions, and acute inebriation. But the writer stood his ground.

"I have it on the best authority. There was a wedding a short while back at which the wearing apparel of the guests disappeared and was later found scattered at impossible heights in the surrounding trees."

He went on describing in detail the Tomlinson charivari, obviously unaware that he was talking to the people involved.

"I understand that the bridegroom has given out that two distant cousins were playing a practical joke." The author smiled significantly. "Naturally he would prefer to believe that, since his first wife had been dead but six months."

The silence was acutely uncomfortable. But the speaker took it for rapt attention on the part of his listeners and went innocently on:

"Other queer things have happened in this house. Some photographs of the dead wife, which were locked in a strong chest within the house, were found in a shed some distance from the dwelling. Silver coins, also locked in the chest, were found between the pages of books."

Again his hearers suffered extreme embarrassment. The story of the photographs and the coin had reached Woodridge by way of Jesse Moffat, and a number of those present had assisted in its circulation.

The only person who seemed unembarrassed was Richard. "Who told you these stories, Mr. Fairchild?"

"I've heard them from any number of people."

"Did you learn the name of the family?"

"If I did it's slipped my mind. I've a wretched memory for names. But I've talked with creditable witnesses."

"And it's the general belief that these pranks are cases of supernatural phenomena?" Richard was smiling now.

"That's one theory. I prefer it to the other advanced by local gossips."

"What is that?"

"Some people have gone so far as to accuse a young girl in this household of witchcraft."

Richard's smile vanished. "I can assure you the wedding prank was a practical joke, to which the jokers have confessed. As for the displaced photographs and silver—I think your theory of the poltergeist is rather interesting."

John Barclay felt sorry for Judith. He guessed that the evening had not gone the way she had planned. She sat with her back to the light, resting her cheek on her hand, looking almost ill with fatigue and wretchedly pale. He sat down at the piano and launched into a medley of popular songs to dispel the embarrassment and gloom of the unfortunate discussion. He could not understand why Richard continued to pursue the unhappy theme with Mr. Fairchild. Every time the music diminuendoed their voices could be heard in animated debate.

Judith listened to John Barclay's music and wished he would play louder and drown the voices of the men. Her face was rigid with the effort of smiling. She was so stunned by the turn her party had taken that she was not even indignant. Tomorrow, after a night's sleep—if she was able to sleep—she would remember this talk and be able to weigh it; perhaps dismiss it. But just now she could feel nothing but fear. All this talk about ghosts was not as purposeless as it seemed. Richard was deliberately fostering it. He did not really believe that his dead wife's spirit was among them. Yet he was announcing to all present that he preferred that theory to even the slightest suspicion of Thorne. Could this be a subtle re-

minder to Judith that he knew of her guilt in the matter of the photographs; that she must either confess or admit the possibihty of Abigail's unquiet ghost?

When at last she looked at Richard she found his eyes fixed upon her with a curious expression which she could not fathom.

When the party broke up she went swiftly to her room as to a refuge. She was in bed when he came upstairs, the covers drawn over her eyes to shut out the light. It was he who undressed leisurely this night. He did not disturb her with talk, but he seemed in unusually good spirits, whistling softly as he moved about the room. When he had extinguished the light and climbed into bed, he unexpectedly gathered her into his arms. He was softly laughing.

"Richard!" She was thankful for the darkness as she clung to him.

She wanted to ask why he was so exuberant; whence came this strange buoyancy which had restored him to her arms; and then she preferred not to know. When he was like this nothing else mattered. She even forgot her nagging fear.

But she remembered it in the morning, when, waking tardily, she found him still lightsome and inclined to conversation.

'I'm glad you gave that party, Judith. It was quite a success. We must have that fellow Fairchild out again."

Heartened by daylight, she took the situation firmly in hand.

"People like that are amusing, but you should be careful, Richard, how you endorse his fantastic ideas. Mr. Fairchild is a writer, and writers are expected to be a little eccentric. But you are a solid citizen, a man of some importance in your community. You don't want to be quoted as saying you believe the ghost of your dead wife is playing pranks in this house."

"But I do." He was smiling, inscrutably innocent. "Hiding those photographs out in the shed—her own photographs, mind you—is exactly the sort of perverted jest Abigail would delight in."

It was seconds before Judith could speak.

"You don't believe any such thing, and it's too early in the morning to be funny."

"I'm not being funny. You know we agreed at the time that only two people could have accomplished it by natural means: you and Thorne. Of course it was neither of you, so it must have been accomplished by supernatural means." He had taken his stand. Apparently nothing could shake him from it.

"I'd advise you not to let your mother hear you voice such an opinion," said Judith, and sprang quickly out of bed before he could discover her trembling.

This was the beginning of a subtle change in their relationship. It was also the beginning of a change in the house at Timberley which in time was felt by all its inmates. At first it was felt by none but Judith, who queerly shrank from giving utterance to her forebodings. But when the talk at her party was reported—as it inevitably was, by young Will—Judith was astonished to discover that Richard's stand did not shock anyone, not even his mother. In this sternly orthodox household she sensed a feeling which she could not have defined but with which she was to grow more and more familiar. It spread from Millie's kitchen to the big room upstairs which the children shared with Miss Ann. That this feeling was unacknowledged, tacitly ignored, made it the more manifest.

Spring came early that year. By the first of April the lilacs were a green mist. Redbirds whistled from the cedar trees; catbirds called from the woods. Coming home from school, the children found violets and snowdrops blooming along their path. On the banks of Little Raccoon the redbud floated like a pillar of fire.

The young Tomlinsons, loitering one evening, saw a covered wagon cross the bridge and whooped joyously, for this was a sure sign of approaching summer. When they reached home they found, as anticipated, that the wagon had turned in at Timberley and its occupants—two brothers from Ohio named Cochran—were spending the night. This meant there would be tales of adventure and misadventure around the evening fire. Thorne, setting the table for supper, sang, "Oh! Susanna, don't you cry for me!" The sight of a covered wagon wakened nostalgic yearnings sometimes for the vagabond existence of the wayfarers.

It was during a lull in her crooning that she became aware of voices in the hall outside the dining-room door.

"I suggest, Richard, that we dispense with prayers tonight, since there are strangers among us."

"Why should we? We're not dispensing with supper."

"Don't be facetious, dear."

"I didn't mean to be. Hospitality is offering your home to your guest, isn't it? Timberley, without family prayers, is not the home of the Tomlinsons."

"For all you know, these Cochrans may not be Protestants."

"They are no less welcome to join us if they care to. If they don't, they can retire."

"All of which is most embarrassing."

"No more than a preference for white meat instead of dark."

His imperturbable calm seemed to irritate his companion, for her voice rose impatiently.

"Family worship is an outmoded custom. It belongs to the days of Puritanism, I'm trying to make of Timberley a cultured home, and this nightly exhibition of religion makes it seem like a backwoods farmhouse."

"What is it except a farmhouse?"

"It's not a backwoods cabin, at any rate. Though it might be, from some of its customs."

"Are you suggesting that prayers be discontinued—permanently?"

"Not immediately, of course, on your mother's account. But I do favor a gradual tapering off. That's why I suggest that you omit them this evening—when you've a very good excuse—then later drop to once or twice a week—and eventually stop altogether. How does that strike you?"

"It strikes me as curious that you never objected to prayers before we were married."

"I was a boarder in the house then; I had no voice in its management. But now I'm its mistress. I think my wishes should be respected."

There was no reply. The dining-room door was flung open, and Judith came in with high color and a look of exasperation. She demanded of Thorne, "What are you doing here?" and without waiting for the obvious answer took the silver from her hands and told her to go to the kitchen and help Millie. With only a swift glance at Richard, who had followed his wife into the room, Thorne obeyed. She could not tell from his remote expression whether Judith had won her point or not, but the possibility depressed her. Her knowledge of God (once confined to Pete McGraw's profanity) was now all mixed up with her feeling for her friend. That he could yield a principle to please his wife troubled her.

When bedtime came two people waited with sharp anxiety for Richard's decision in the matter. When he picked up the Bible as usual, inviting his transient guests to join in the family ritual if they so desired, excusing them if they did not (the Cochran brothers chose to remain), Judith caught a look from Thorne which, to her incensed imagination, seemed to sparkle with triumph.

Judith's face turned livid with anger. Her humiliation was twofold because Thorne had witnessed her defeat. She returned the girl's bright glance with a fixed hard stare that caused Thorne to retire to a remote corner and sit down in the shadow of the big clock.

As Judith watched Richard turning the leaves of the Bible,

looking for some favorite passage, she heard the clock begin to strike.

It was the strangest thing to Judith that no one seemed to react to the stroke of the clock. Richard looked up, as did everyone, but they looked at Judith, who had given a queer gasp. She muttered, "The clock!" and Richard glanced at the clock on the mantel which pointed to twenty minutes of nine. The hands of the big clock stood at half-past one. He nodded, "Yes, we're late," and went on turning the pages of the Bible. The clock struck again. The tone of the gong was deep and ominous. It fell chillingly on the ear like some dread warning.

It was not until the third stroke that startled looks began to appear in the fireside circle as faces turned toward Judith, who had made a strangling sound and put her hand to hei throat. Ann Tomlinson hushed a whimpering child. But Richard seemed quite unmoved.

He began to read, choosing the first line his eye fell upon, surely, or he never would have read that particular passage.

" 'Then Saul said unto his servants. Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.' "

He paused, frowning, as though that was not what he had intended to read. But when he started to change his selection Judith's voice arrested him:

"Go on, Richard. This is an appropriate time to read the story of a witch."

He looked about the room as though in search of someone. The candlelight did not penetrate the corner where Thorne sat in the shadow of the clock. Richard resumed his reading. He read the whole story of Saul consulting the witch of Endor and bringing the ghost of Samuel up from the grave to answer his questions. As long as the reading continued Judith counted the strokes of the clock.

Verse after verse Richard read: from the forecast of Saul's death at the hands of his enemies, to the panic of the poor frightened witch woman, who had killed her fatted calf for the king when she learned with whom she had been trafficking. To the end of the chapter Richard read, apparently oblivious of the striking clock. When his voice ceased, the clock stopped. Judith had counted one hundred and forty-four strokes.