Within That Room! (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

PORTENT OF EVIL

Still feeling very much as though she had walked out of fairyland, and certainly feeling very travel stained and weary, Vera found herself alighting at the wayside station of Waylock Dean about eight o'clock in the evening. Fortunately the weather was still good. It was warm and windless with a soft June sky from which the daylight was commencing to fade.

Lugging her traveling case, Vera asked the stationmaster, “Any chance of a conveyance of some sort?”

“'Fraid not, miss. Joe knocks off at seven.”

“You don't mean to tell me there's only one conveyance?”

“Just the 'ack, miss, that's all. This ain't a big place.”

“You're telling me. But surely there's something? I'm tired. I've come all the way from Manchester today.”

The man considered. “It depends, sort of, on 'ow far you be wantin' to go.”

“To Sunny Acres, wherever that is.”

The man stared at her fixedly. “Sunny Acres? You're goin' there? You won't get nobody to take you, miss. An' I'm sorry for you.”

“Well, that's nice of you—and confoundedly helpful too, when my feet are too tired to carry me.”

“Nobody'll go within a mile of Sunny Acres, miss. It's got a ghost, it 'as!”

“Oh, nuts!” Vera said crossly, blowing a stray hair out of her eye. “I'd pay treble price to be taken there.”

“Sorry. But what a trim young woman like you wants in that hawful place I can't think.”

Shaking his head over mournful thoughts, he turned away. Vera looked after him angrily, and then went outside and along a flower-bordered path to the main street. It ran through the center of a disordered array of small houses and cottages mixed up with shops and a post-office. A small steeple marked the church; a white globe inscribed “Saddler's Arms” proclaimed the pub; and beyond there was nothing but a backdrop of meadows already melting into the soft mists of evening.

Vera sniffed, and put down her bag while she weighed things up. Presently the stationmaster approached her.

“Thinkin' better of it?” he asked affably. “There be a train back to London at 9:30. You'd best take it.”

“I'm going to Sunny Acres if it kills me!” Vera retorted. “Where is the confounded place, anyway? At least tell me that!”

“There!” He pointed and she found herself looking beyond the village to a ring of trees perhaps two miles away. The mists made the view uncertain.

“I don't see any house,” she said.

“The 'ouse be behind them trees, miss. But it ain't an 'ouse; it be a castle, an' it's 'idden away from the decent light o' day.”

Vera picked up her bag and began to walk along Waylock Dean's main street. Just at this moment her thoughts toward the departed Uncle Cyrus were not of the sweetest. She had been tramping with increasing weariness for ten minutes and had left the village behind when the honking of an ancient motor horn made her glance round. A small car was close behind her.

She moved to one side of the road, but to her surprise the car stopped a little way in front of her. When she caught up with it a sunburned young man in shirt sleeves, his riotous dark hair tumbling round his forehead, was looking out through the driving seat window.

“Want a lift?” he asked.

Vera measured him coldly, but she stopped all the same. Her eyes went over the incredibly ancient car.

“Do I look like that sort of a girl?” Vera asked.

“Frankly, you don't look like anything at all at the moment! Your face is dirty, your hair's straggling, your shoes and stockings are covered in dust—”

Vera elevated her nose, picked up her bag and began to limp on. She had hardly covered five yards before the young man had caught up to her. He was pretty tall, she noticed, and had merry blue eyes, which, with his dark hair, gave him a vaguely Irish appearance.

“Sorry,” he apologised. “I shouldn't have said that. But you do look all in. If you're willing to trust a young man with quite honest intentions I can help you on your way. I'm going through to Little Twiddleford, if the darn car will hold out. The name is Dick Wilmott, formerly of the R.A.F. At the moment I'm getting together a radio sales and repair connection.”

“In this one-eyed hole?”

“No. I have a small shop over in Godalming—but I give Bertha an airing most evenings to keep her battery charged. That's Bertha,” he added, nodding to the car. “She's lost her beauty and streamlining, I'm afraid, but you're welcome to ride in her.”

“Well, I like your line better than the awful stuff I was handed by the stationmaster here. I'm Vera Grantham—of Manchester.”

They shook hands frankly, then they both smiled at each other.

“Sir Galahad offers a new type of charger,” Dick Wilmott said, bowing low. “Which reminds me: I need a battery charger, too. Anyway, let me help you, madam.”

He took her bag and put it in the back of the car. The upholstering was bursting out, Vera noticed, and there were spare radio parts cluttering up the floor.

“Hmmm—four-seater!” she remarked dryly.

“Two and room for junk,” he corrected. “Allow me....”

He held the front side door open for her, gingerly, as though afraid it might drop off, and she sank down thankfully in the worn seat. On another moment he had scrambled in beside her and stretched long legs towards the clutch and accelerator pedals.

“Where to?” he inquired.

“That place up behind the trees there—Sunny Acres. And if you say ‘Poor girl', or something like, that I shan't blame you.”

“Why should I?” He started the noisy engine.

“Only that I'm apparently going with my life in my hands in visiting Sunny Acres. The place is supposed to be haunted.”

“Is it? I wouldn't know. As I told you, I belong to Godalming. One thing I will say, though—you look too nice a girl to be in a backwoods dump like this. Or maybe you've got relations at Sunny Acres?”

“No. I've just taken over the ownership.”

The car wobbled as Dick Wilmott nearly lost his grip on the steering wheel.

“You own it?”

“It was left to me,” Vera explained things briefly.

“So that's how it is? Well, jolly good luck to you. I'd be inclined to sell and get rid of the place. Go and live somewhere cheerful instead of trying to exist in a hole like this. Still, that's for you to decide. Hello, this looks like a road to the castle.”

He branched off on to a narrow side-road leading between hawthorn hedges, and up to massive wrought iron gates. On the stone pillars supporting them the words ‘Sunny Acres' had been chiselled—long ago. By this time weather had nearly eroded them.

Dick hopped out and opened the gates, then drove up the drive with its overhanging beech and elm trees to the portico outside the front door. To Vera, studying the place, there was an oppressive aspect about it. It was huge, thickly cloaked in ivy, and the battlements were obviously those of a castle. Even the rounded watchtowers with their slits of windows were there. The remainder of the windows seemed to be diamond-shaped and mullioned, some of them being stained glass.

“Not far from the Middle Ages,” Dick commented; then he stopped the car's noisy engine and climbed out to hammer on the massive front door with a griffin knocker. For some reason the reverberation sounded as if he had thumped the lid of a coffin.

Slowly Vera alighted, trying to make up her mind whether she liked the place or not. She tried to convince herself that it was the dying evening light that made everything so depressing, or maybe it was the overgrown trees, or perhaps her fatigue. But deep in her heart she knew it was none of these things. It was an elusive quality which she could only associate with—dread. Sunny Acres, despite its name, somehow crawled with a vague portent of evil.

Abruptly the door was opened and a woman gowned completely in black stood looking out. She was uncommonly tall for a woman, very white-skinned, with her dark, shining hair drawn into a trim bun at the back of her head. In a striking kind of way she was handsome, a strongly hooked nose creating a masculine aspect. Her features were impassive.

“Well?” she inquired, in a mellow if uncompromising voice.

“I'm Vera Grantham.”

This seemed to animate the woman at once.

“Oh, Miss Grantham—of course! I am sorry.”

“This is Mr. Wilmott,” Vera said. “He was good enough to give me a lift.”

“I see. Come in, won't you? I'll have my husband carry in your bag.”

“I'll do it,” Dick volunteered, and going back to the car he lifted out the suitcase and then followed Vera and the woman into the hall.

The hall was broad, square, and gloomy. There were two mullioned windows that permitted faded light to drift through the glint indifferently upon armory, and innumerable brass plaques. In the sombre distances a huge staircase loomed. The floor was apparently composed of granite, roughened on the surface, and practically covered with costly rugs and mats lying at various angles.

Instinctively Vera crossed her arms and gripped opposite shoulders. She gave a troubled little smile.

“Cold, isn't it?” she said.

“Central heating is not installed, Miss Grantham,” Mrs. Falworth explained calmly. “Naturally, a residence of this size does become chilly, even in summer, especially so late in the evening.”

“Well, having got you this far,” Dick Wilmott said, “I think I'll be off. Glad to have been able to help you.”

Vera looked at him with unintentional longing.

“You really have to go? You couldn't stay and have a little refreshment?”

“I'm afraid not. Thanks all the same. I simply must hop over to Little Twiddleford, and then I've got to get back to Godalming. I don't want to leave it too late in case that battery of mine dies on me when I light up. Glad to have met you.” He hesitated, and said: “You can always reach me at my shop in Gordon St., Godalming, or you can ring Godalming 72.”

He took Vera's slender hand in a broad palm and squeezed her fingers generously. Then, whistling to himself, he swung out through the front doorway and went down to his car. Vera stood listening with a sinking heart to the fading noise of his old wreck. When he had gone, Mrs. Falworth closed the front door and pushed across the heavy bolts.

“I do not think there will be any more callers tonight, Miss,” she said gravely, hovering black-gowned and impersonal in the now intensified shadows.

“No, I suppose not,” Vera said, making an effort to get a grip on herself. “I'd like to freshen up. I've been doing a good deal of traveling.”

“I am sure you have, miss. If you will come this way? I will have my husband bring up your bag afterward.”

Vera followed the tall figure across the hall and up the broad staircase. The steps were of polished stone with a carpet running down the center. Everything was massive. There were great stone pillars supporting the cupola that formed the hall ceiling; the doors of the lower rooms leading off the hall were all beaten oak and fitted with heavy copper hinges. And everything was so dreadfully cold that Vera hugged herself again.

They went along a wide corridor with doors leading off either side of it. A huge stained-glass window provided illumination. Being at a higher elevation the sun was casting its last rays through in an uncertain spectrum.

“This, Miss Grantham, is the east wing,” Mrs. Falworth said. “The west wing is not used.”

Vera said nothing. She felt rather like a new girl in a college as she followed the housekeeper to the third doorway on the left. It was opened for her and she stepped into a huge bedroom. It took her breath away for the moment. There was a vast fireplace and two windows of mullion pattern with ivy fringing their edges. There were rugs on the stone floor. The furniture was old, with a four-poster bed.

CHAPTER FOUR

ANOTHER WARNING

“This—is my room?” Vera asked, turning.

Mrs. Falworth inclined her dark head gravely.

“Yes, miss. I trust it meets with your approval?”

“Oh, yes—yes, surely. Only it's a bit—stuffy.”

“Stuffy, miss?”

“Well, old-fashioned. I prefer modern things. I'm a modern girl, you know, and I've learned to appreciate streamlining.”

Not a trace of expression showed on the housekeeper's Red Indian features, but she did condescend to gesture slightly.

“I am afraid that your uncle was not abreast of the times. He preferred antiques to modernity. Whatever changes you may wish to make I shall be happy to discuss with you later. Dinner will be served in the dining-hall at nine o'clock. Usually, it is at seven.”

Vera nodded slowly. “Thanks. Oh, where is there a bathroom in this wilderness?”

“There are three in this wing—down the corridor which branches to the left. They are all contained in what used to be an outlook tower. However, that door over there,” the housekeeper said indicating one in a corner of the bedroom, “opens into your private bathroom and dressing room. I think you will find everything in order.”

Mrs. Falworth seemed to think that she had done all that was needful, for she gave a slight inclination of the head and went out. Vera stood looking about her for a moment, then she pulled off her hat and coat and tossed them on the bed. Pondering, she began to walk round—until she caught sight of her dishevelled appearance in the mirror.

“Good heavens, Vera, is that you?” she asked her reflection.

Sitting down at the dressing table, she picked up the brush and comb and began her activities, pausing presently as there came a knock at the door. In response to her invitation to come in an elderly man entered—square-shouldered, gray-haired, with a crinkled face. He conveyed with him an air of heavy trouble—a definitely henpecked look. Carefully he set down Vera's suitcase at the foot of the bed.

“You'll be Mr. Falworth?” Vera asked him, smiling.

“That's right, miss, I am. Happy I am to welcome you, too, only—only I'd be much happier if you were leaving instead.”

“I suppose,” Vera said slowly, “you are not related to the old man down at the station? The one who takes the tickets?”

“Sam Hitchin? No, I'm not related, miss.”

“I just wondered because he said the same thing as you've just said—that I'd be better off going than coming. Some nonsense about this place being haunted.”

Old man Falworth looked troubled.

“That's just it, miss. It isn't nonsense—it's horribly true. A ghost does exist, and there is an evil presence throughout this whole house. It isn't my place to say too much, and I know my wife won't because she believes in the supernatural. I'm just a plain, honest man, miss, and I'm telling you—do not stay here.”

Vera hesitated, a question in the back of her mind. Then she shrugged it away, and picked up the brush and comb again.

“Ghosts don't worry me. And thanks for bringing my bag.”

“If you want me just pull one of the bell cords,” Falworth said, and went shuffling out.

Vera, from that moment, began turning things over in her mind. She meditated while she tied up her yellow tresses into a tight knob; she still meditated while she bathed in tepid water in the bathroom adjoining—and by the time she had changed her attire and restored her hair to its normal waves and curls her thoughts had ended in a blank wall.

Definitely, though, her interest was aroused. The bunkum of ghosts she did not credit for a moment—yet she could not rid herself of the sense of brooding horror the castle possessed. Her common sense told her that a phantom must have a logical explanation which she ought to discover; but her inner fears at being forced to solve the problem alone led her to ponder the advantages of selling the whole antique pile and netting a small fortune in consequence.

She was in a pensive mood as she made her way downstairs and, after some difficulty, found her way to the dining room. Like everything else it was huge—literally a baronial hall with the usual Gothic type of ceiling, two fireplaces—both empty—an enormous sideboard and an immense table laid for one.

Feeling very small and remote, she sat down and waited for the impassive Mrs. Falworth to go into action. And Mrs. Falworth did, first placing a bowl of steaming soup on the table.

“Bit dark in here, isn't it?” Vera murmured, tasting the soup and finding it excellent.

“I will light the lamps if you wish, miss.”

“Lamps? Great Scott!” Vera looked above her, and then about her. Over her head hung a wrought iron chandelier with three oil lamps. On the walls were similar lamps fitted into universal sockets.

“Usually I do not light them until the last spark of daylight has gone,” Mrs. Falworth explained. “Your uncle believed—as I do—that it is the twilight when this world and the next are almost in contact!”

Vera swallowed some soup so hastily that she burned her tongue. It snapped her out of her attitude of calm wonder.

“Mrs. Falworth,” she said, “I've no intention of sitting here in the dark for spooks or anything else! Turn the lamps on! I—I mean light them. And why on earth isn't there some electricity in the place?”

“Your uncle, miss, did not—“

“I know, he didn't approve! I was always told that he was a trifle eccentric; now I'm sure that he was plain crazy! Don't you realize that this is a modern age? Or didn't you ever hear of the war that was just fought?”

“Our communication with the outside world has certainly not been very extensive,” the housekeeper admitted. “We have no radio, no telephone, no car, no electric light—”

“And no hot water,” said Vera. “If it hadn't have been a summer evening I'd have frozen to death when I bathed just now.”

“I am sorry, miss. The water heater in the kitchen is not as efficient as it might be— You are enjoying your soup?”

“Yes,” Vera admitted. “You're a first-class cook.”

“I am so glad there is something which pleases you, miss.”

With this doubtful observation, Mrs. Falworth struck a match, and then lighted a long, waxed stick. Holding it like a torch, she went around the array of lamps and lighted them. An uncertain yellow glimmer set the shadows flickering as the daylight fled. But Vera was not too scared to enjoy her meal. Nor was there any fault to find with it. From beginning to end it was a masterpiece of cookery art.

“Now,” Vera said, when it was over, “I want a word with you, Mrs. Falworth....” She sat back in the hard chair and lit a cigarette. “I want to know why people shy away when this place is mentioned. What is the matter with it?”

“An evil power has had possession of it for a long time, miss. Such things no human can prevent.”

“You mean a poltergeist?”

“You might call it such miss, even though the exact definition of that term means a violent phantom—a smasher of furniture, and so forth.”

“Oh, then this one does not smash up the happy home, then?”

“Not altogether, no,” Mrs. Falworth stood quite still and hands clasped in front of her. “The phantom—the manifestation—is seen once a year, but the spirit of evil is here all the time.”

“Well,” Vera said, “I don't notice it—not particularly, anyway.”

“Not here, perhaps. It has its core in one of the upper rooms, but the influence it spreads can be detected anywhere. You will sense it—in time.”

“You and your husband have been here some years, and yet you haven't gone crazy? Or have you?” Vera added under her breath.

“For me, miss, the psychic world holds no terrors. I understand it fully. I know how to defy the power of evil and darkness—but I cannot say the same for my husband. He is worldly, so essentially mortal, and he is frightened.”

“Then why on earth does he stay here? He's got a mind of his own, hasn't he?”

“I have persuaded him. I feel—and I have brought him round to my way of thinking—that it is our duty to remain as servants to you, as we were servants to your uncle for ten years.”

“And what if I decided to sell the place?”

For a moment a gleam came into Mrs. Falworth's dark eyes.

“In that event we could leave, miss, with no sense of worry on our minds. If you would sell, it would relieve all three of us. I believe in all seriousness that this place is not fit for anybody to live in, especially an attractive young woman like you.”

“Why, does the ghost like blonde females?” Vera asked dryly.

“I did not mean it in that sense—rather, I meant that you have too many charms to waste them in a place like this. It is too gloomy and cheerless for a modern young lady.”

Vera said: “I don't expect to be here all the time. I am seeking a post in London as a commercial artist.”

“Forgive me mentioning it, miss, but do you think such a post would provide sufficient remuneration to keep this residence going?”

“Oh, it might. I presume the upkeep isn't terrific, and as I saw from the conveyance Mr. Thwaite had me sign this land is freehold, so there is no ground rent. No electricity to pay for, and paraffin isn't dear. There is only food to consider and the salaries of you and your husband. Yes, I might be able to keep it going for a while, anyway. In fact, I might even grow to like it. I'll be quite frank, I don't believe in this ghost rubbish.”

“I have spoken the truth, miss,” Mrs. Falworth answered coldly.

“All right—you have your views and I have mine.” Vera got to her feet decisively. “Now, how about a tour round the place? I want to see what I have inherited. And, by the way, what is your salary, and your husband's?”

“That matter hardly need concern you, madam. Your uncle, by his will, left both of us amply provided for—”

“Of course! The annuity.”

“Since we must live somewhere, we are prepared to stay here and give service in return for shelter.”

“Oh?” Vera raised her brows in surprise. “Well, that's very sporting of both of you. Make it all the easier for me to run the show.”

But inwardly she felt that there was something queer, somewhere, though at that moment she could not decide for the life of her what it was.... She spoke little thereafter as Mrs. Falworth, with a spluttering torch in hand, took her on a tour of inspection.