Читать книгу Unlawful Occasions - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 8

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When coffee had been served and Thompson the elderly parlourmaid had closed the door behind her, Morgan began a long, boastful yarn about an encounter with brigands in the Balkans. He had, Sarah noticed, one trait at least in common with his twin, the faculty for entangling the simplest narrative in a mass of irrelevant and uninteresting detail. Wilson’s spooks and Morgan’s bandits were alike in this, that no one could possibly get up any interest in their doings. Even Joanna’s attention appeared to wander. Her eyes strayed to the small baize-covered table on which, as always, paper and pencil, and a planchette board lay in readiness. When Morgan burst out laughing she turned a pleading look upon him.

“If only you were not such an unbeliever. You know, I’ve always felt that you would be wonderfully successful, and just now it would be especially interesting, because I have been having some really wonderful communications—no, don’t laugh—if you would only just try for yourself. His name is Nat Garland—short for Nathaniel. A smuggler, Morgan, and he passed over just before the battle of Waterloo. That does bring it so home to one, doesn’t it?” She clasped her hands about his arm and stood looking up into his face, her eyes fever-bright.

Sarah thought that he was rather startled. He said,

“Hullo! What’s all this about smugglers? You’ll be getting yourself run in if you don’t take care.”

“Oh, no!” Joanna’s voice went high and sharp. “Oh, Morgan—if you would! They told us about him down at Ryland Bay—a most charming little inn. And that night I had an experience—but I won’t tell you about it in case you might scoff, and I don’t think I could bear it—I really don’t. And then when we came back here he began to come through—automatic writing, you know—most, most enthralling, but just a little bit disconnected, so I thought perhaps some other method. And if you and I and Sarah were to sit together and try with planchette, I do believe we should get results. Oh, Morgan—if you would!”

He stood looking down at her with a comical, half-laughing face.

“Well, well, well—what a to-do! Why, Jo, you needn’t look at me like that. Bring out your hocus-pocus and we’ll have a stab at it. But I warn you I’m no good. Wilson—now I expect Wilson’s a dab at all this jiggery-pokery.”

Joanna was all smiles.

“Oh, no, he despises it, and the pencil won’t write at all when he is in the room. But you—oh, I have always felt that you would be marvellous! Sarah dear, you will join us, won’t you?”

When they were seated round the table, Morgan looked doubtfully at the little heart-shaped board.

“What do we do with it?”

“Put our hands on it. No, no, only the finger-tips. And you mustn’t push or guide it at all—just sit quite still and wait to see what happens.”

He frowned.

“What does happen—what does it do?”

“Sometimes nothing at all. But you see, it runs on wheels and there is a pencil underneath. It writes if there’s a message coming through.”

Sarah sat back in her chair.

“Do you know, I think I’ll just watch. It’s really only meant for two people.”

She had all at once a great distaste for the whole thing. Their hands would be so close together. She could imagine Morgan taking advantage of that. “A cockroach,” she thought—“that’s what he is—cockroach to Wilson’s ant. Revolting!”

Rather to her surprise, neither of the Cattermoles made any demur. They leaned towards each other across the green-topped table, Joanna brittle and eager, Morgan uneasy. His boisterous joviality seemed to have fallen away. He took a hand from the board to fumble for a handkerchief and wipe a shiny forehead.

“It gives me the jitters,” he said. “Sure it doesn’t bite, Jo?”

“Morgan—dear!” She pulled his hand back to the board. “Now keep perfectly still, and remember not to press, or push, or anything like that. Just keep still and relax, and wait to see if a message comes through.”

Silence fell upon the room. Sarah, her chair pushed back, watched it and them—an L-shaped London room with two tall windows looking to the street and one to a narrow strip of ground behind. All three were curtained with a velvet so dark that only the line of the folds disclosed a shade of sombre green. The carpet stretched drearily from wall to wall with an endless pattern of blue and green and brown, all the colours dimmed and lost in a general effect of gloom. As in every other room in the house, there was too much furniture. Chairs, couches, small occasional tables, jostled one another for floor space. Pictures and engravings crowded together upon the walls. A profusion of small ornaments littered every table. An entire tea-set was displayed upon the mantelpiece. A dismal room, made more dismal by the new chair-covers of which Miss Joanna was so proud. Sarah shuddered as she looked at them. Joanna must have searched London to find anything so ugly, and as she said, the stuff would never wear out—a mustard and brown damask, practically indestructible.

Her focus narrowed to the faces of the two at the table—Morgan’s still half scared, Joanna’s vacant. She looked down at the hands stretched out to the heart-shaped board. Startlingly alike, those two pairs of hands—and so like Wilson’s too. Unexpected for Morgan to share those thin, nervous hands which belonged of right to Wilson and Joanna. His should have been coarser—stronger—blunt-fingered and insensitive.

Just as she thought that, the board began to move. She leaned forward, watching intently. It was hardly a movement. There was a quivering. She thought,

“One of them is pushing it——” and then, “No—it’s pushing them.” And even as the words came into her mind, the thing really was moving, with the up and down, to and fro motion of a clumsily handled pencil. The hands went with it—they did not appear to guide it. The pencil attachment ran off the edge of the paper and stopped. Morgan Cattermole dropped his hands from the board as if they found it hot.

“Look here, I don’t like this. But you were pushing it, Jo—you were, weren’t you?”

She looked up, flustered and scandalized.

“Oh, no—of course not! Morgan, dear—that would be cheating!”

“You didn’t push it? Honest injun?”

“Oh, no.”

“Well, that’s a queer start. If it was anyone else, I’d say you were having me on.”

The tears came into Joanna’s eyes. She flushed painfully.

“Morgan—dear!”

He laughed and patted her hand.

“Don’t be silly, old dear. You’re O.K.—I know that. I only said if it was anyone else.”

For the first time Sarah came somewhere near liking him, or at any rate to understanding why Joanna liked him. They really did seem fond of one another.

He laughed now and picked up the sheet of paper with its trail of scrawled writing.

“Here—let’s see what we’ve got. String of rubbish it looks like to me—a, b—ab ... b, a—ba ... like a kid’s spelling-book.... Hullo, here’s a word—‘bark’. Does your smuggler keep a dog, Jo? ‘Bark—beach—tar—boots—sand——’ And that’s where we ran off the paper. It doesn’t turn a corner very pretty. Here, let’s have another go and take the long way of the paper.”

Joanna beamed.

“I knew you would be interested once you made a start! You see, he’s just trying to get through—that’s what makes it rather disjointed. But if we persevere he may come right through, and that would be so marvellous. And bark wouldn’t be anything to do with a dog, dear. It’s just one of those old-fashioned words for a boat—the mariner’s barque, you know.”

The board was set again. This time the movement started at once. With no preliminary tremor, it seemed to run away, reaching the paper’s edge almost as quickly as if the pencil had been driven by a practised hand.

Sarah watched, not the hands, but the faces. Joanna’s blank—eyes fixed, lips parted. Morgan’s interested now, but with a strange look of uneasiness. She thought, “He’s like a schoolboy doing something he knows he oughtn’t to—and rather enjoying it.”

The board stopped. He picked up the paper and read from it:

“ ‘Night—dark—fog—case—night—fog——’ ”

Joanna woke up.

“Oh, that’s quite new! He’s trying to tell us about landing the cases of rum—only he’s always called them kegs before. And the fog is new. Do, pray, let us go on!”

Sarah became aware that her feet were cold—icy cold. How wretchedly silly—dark—fog—case.... For a moment she was back in the cold, narrow waiting-room listening to Miss Emily Case whilst the fog thickened the blank window-panes and a man’s footsteps went to and fro outside in the dark. Fog—dark—case—and even as the words were in her thought, Morgan Cattermole had picked up the paper again and was reading them aloud:

“ ‘Fog—dark—case——’ Hullo! Oh, he’s repeating himself.... No—here’s something new: ‘Where is it——’ And he’s written it twice, only it’s slipped off the edge a bit at the end. Come on—he’s getting going now. What is it, Bogey? Speak up—we’re all attention!”

The finger-tips came down on the planchette again. Joanna’s trembled slightly, but the movement gave no impetus to the board. It was not until the tremor died that motion began. There was a jerk, a smooth rhythm, another jerk, and so on while the paper lasted.

Sarah found herself watching with strained attention. And yet it was all nonsense—it must be all nonsense. She didn’t believe a word of it. Joanna’s mind was running on her smuggler. She wouldn’t consciously cheat, but somehow these words which called up pictures of a dark beach—a landing in the fog—somehow these were transmitted to the paper. She didn’t know how it was done. She only knew that it must be something like that. Anything else was ludicrous—out of all bounds of possibility.

Morgan pulled his hands away. There was still that effect of a recoil. He read again:

“ ‘Fog—dark——’ A bit of a harper, isn’t he? ... ‘Emily—where is it——’ ”

Sarah’s heart knocked so hard against her side that it frightened her. Emily—it wasn’t possible. She leaned back and felt the hair damp against her temples. There was an icy chill somewhere. Was it in the room, or in the empty places of thought? She didn’t know. She heard Morgan say, “Getting a bit mixed, aren’t you, Bogey? Who’s Emily? And what’s the betting the last thing ought to read, ‘Where is she——’? ‘Emily—where is it——’ don’t make sense to me. Let’s have another go and see what we get this time.”

Joanna put up a hand to her light, floating hair.

“I don’t know——” she said in an uncertain voice. “I’m tired. He’s not coming through very well.”

“Jealous because he’s got a lady friend! That’s it—isn’t it, Miss Sarah?” His eyes ran over her with a sly smile in them. Then he turned back to the board. “Come on, old dear—open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what Bogey’ll send you.”

Joanna’s fingers shook a little as she placed them on the board. Then, as before, her face took on its blank look. Morgan leaned forward, laughing.

“Come on—get a move on! Jibbing, are you? Wait till you hear me crack my whip! Off with you! Yoicks! Tally ho!”

The board did not move. Sarah felt her pulses steadying. Actually, a little surprise crept upon her. The board had moved so immediately and so freely that she found she was expecting it to move again, to go on moving. Now it did not move at all. It was as dead as a telephone with a cut wire. It was as dead as Emily Case. The sweat came to her temples again. What a horrible thought to have! She heard Morgan Cattermole exclaim impatiently,

“Well, I’m not going to sit here all night waiting for your darned smuggler, old girl. Let’s have out the cards and rook Miss Sarah at cut-throat.”