Читать книгу Ghosts in the House: Tales of Terror by A. C. Benson and R. H. Benson - Hugh Lamb - Страница 8

When I came in from Mass into the refectory one morning, I found a layman breakfasting there with the Father Rector. We were introduced to one another, and I learned that Mr Percival was a barrister who had arrived from England that morning on a holiday and was to stay at S. Filippo for a fortnight.

I yield to none in my respect for the clergy; at the same time a layman feels occasionally something of a pariah among them: I suppose this is bound to be so; so I was pleased then to find another dog of my breed with whom I might consort, and even howl, if I so desired. I was pleased, too, with his appearance. He had that trim academic air that is characteristic of the Bar, in spite of his twenty-two hours journey; and was dressed in an excellently made grey suit. He was very slightly bald on his forehead, and had those sharp-cut mask-like features that mark a man as either lawyer, priest, or actor; he had besides delightful manners and even, white teeth. I do not think I could have suggested any improvements in person, behaviour, or costume.

By the time that my coffee had arrived, the Father Rector had run dry of conversation and I could see that he was relieved when I joined in.

In a few minutes I was telling Mr Percival about the symposium we had formed for the relating of preternatural adventures; and I presently asked him whether he had ever had any experience of the kind.

He shook his head.

‘I have not,’ he said in his virile voice; ‘my business takes my time.’

‘I wish you had been with us earlier,’ put in the Rector. ‘I think you would have been interested.’

‘I am sure of it,’ he said. ‘I remember once – but you know, Father, frankly I am something of a sceptic.’

‘You remember—?’ I suggested.

He smiled very pleasantly with eyes and mouth.

‘Yes, Mr Benson; I was once next door to such a story. A friend of mine saw something; but I was not with him at the moment.’

‘Well; we thought we had finished last night,’ I said, ‘but do you think you would be too tired to entertain us this evening?’

‘I shall be delighted to tell the story,’ he said easily. ‘But indeed I am a sceptic in this matter; I cannot dress it up.’

‘We want the naked fact,’ I said.

I went sight-seeing with him that day; and found him extremely intelligent and at the same time accurate. The two virtues do not run often together; and I felt confident that whatever he chose to tell us would be salient and true. I felt, too, that he would need few questions to draw him out; he would say what there was to be said unaided.

When we had taken our places that night, he began by again apologising for his attitude of mind.

‘I do not know, Reverend Fathers,’ he said, ‘what are your own theories in this matter; but it appears to me that if what seems to be preternatural can possibly be brought within the range of the natural, one is bound scientifically to treat it in that way. Now in this story of mine – for I will give you a few words of explanation first in order to prejudice your minds as much as possible – in this story the whole matter might be accounted for by the imagination. My friend who saw what he saw was under rather theatrical circumstances, and he is an Irishman. Besides that, he knew the history of the place in which he was; and he was quite alone. On the other hand, he has never had an experience of the kind before or since; he is perfectly truthful, and he saw what he saw in moderate daylight. I give you these facts first, and I think you would be perfectly justified in thinking they account for everything. As for my own theory, which is not quite that, I have no idea whether you will agree or disagree with it. I do not say that my judgment is the only sensible one, or anything offensive like that. I merely state what I feel I am bound to accept for the present.’

There was a murmur of assent. Then he crossed his legs, leaned back and began:

‘In my first summer after I was called to the Bar I went down South Wales for a holiday with another man who had been with me at Oxford. His name was Murphy: he is a J.P. now, in Ireland, I think. I cannot think why we went to South Wales; but there it is: we did.

‘We took the train to Cardiff; sent on our luggage up the Taff Valley to an inn of which I cannot remember the name; but it was close to where Lord Bute has a vineyard. Then we walked up to Llandaff, saw St Tylo’s tomb; and went on again to this village.

‘Next morning we thought we would look about us before going on; and we went out for a stroll. It was one of the most glorious mornings I ever remember, quite cloudless and very hot; and we went up through woods to get a breeze at the top of the hill.

‘We found that the whole place was full of iron mines, disused now, as the iron is richer further up the country; but I can tell you that they enormously improved the interest of the place. We found shaft after shaft, some protected and some not, but mostly overgrown with bushes, so we had to walk carefully. We had passed half-a-dozen, I should think, before the thought of going down one of them occurred to Murphy.

‘Well, we got down one at last; though I rather wished for a rope once or twice; and I think it was one of the most extraordinary sights I have ever seen. You know perhaps what the cave of a demon-king is like, in the first act of a pantomime. Well, it was like that. There was a kind of blue light that poured down the shafts, refracted from surface to surface; so that the sky was invisible. On all sides passages ran into total darkness; huge reddish rocks stood out fantastically everywhere in the pale light; there was a sound of water falling into a pool from a great height and presently, striking matches as we went, we came upon a couple of lakes of marvellously clear blue water through which we could see the heads of ladders emerging from other black holes of unknown depth below.

‘We found our way out after a while into what appeared to be the central hall of the mine. Here we saw plain daylight again, for there was an immense round opening at the top, from the edges of which curved away the sides of the shaft, forming a huge circular chamber.

‘Imagine the Albert Hall roofless; or better still, imagine Saint Peter’s with the top half of the dome removed. Of course it was far smaller; but it gave an impression of great size; and it could not have been less than two hundred feet from the edge, over which we saw the trees against the sky, to the tumbled dusty rocky floor where we stood.

‘I can only describe it as being like a great, burnt-out hell in the Inferno. Red dust lay everywhere, escape seemed impossible; and vast crags and galleries, with the mouths of passages showing high up, marked by iron bars and chains, jutted out here and there.

‘We amused ourselves here for some time, by climbing up the sides, calling to one another, for the whole place was full of echoes, rolling down stones from some of the upper ledges: but I nearly ended my days there.

‘I was standing on a path, about seventy feet up, leaning against the wall. It was a path along which feet must have gone a thousand times when the mine was in working order; and I was watching Murphy who was just emerging on to a platform opposite me, on the other side of the gulf.

‘I put my hand behind me to steady myself; and the next instant very nearly fell forward over the edge at the violent shock to my nerves given by a wood-pigeon who burst out of a hole, brushing my hand as he passed. I gripped on, however, and watched the bird soar out across space, and then up and out at the opening; and then I became aware that my knees were beginning to shake. So I stumbled along, and threw myself down on the little platform on to which the passage led.

‘I suppose I had been more startled than I knew; for I tripped as I went forward; and knocked my knee rather sharply on a stone. I felt for an instant quite sick with the pain on the top of jangling nerves; and lay there saying what I am afraid I ought not to have said.

‘Then Murphy came up when I called; and we made our way together through one of the sloping shafts; and came out on to the hillside among the trees.’

Mr Percival paused; his lips twitched a moment with amusement.

‘I am afraid I must recall my promise,’ he said. ‘I told you all this because I was anxious to give a reason for the feeling I had about the mine, and which I am bound to mention. I felt I never wanted to see the place again – yet in spite of what followed, I do not necessarily attribute my feelings to anything but the shock and the pain that I had had. You understand that?’

His bright eyes ran round our faces.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Monsignor sharply, ‘go on please, Mr Percival.’

‘Well then!’

The lawyer uncrossed his legs and replaced them the other way.

‘During lunch we told the landlady where we had been; and she begged us not to go there again. I told her that she might rest easy: my knee was beginning to swell. It was a wretched beginning to a walking tour.

‘It was not that, she said; but there had been a bad accident there. Four men had been killed there twenty years before by a fall of rock. That had been the last straw on the top of ill-success; and the mine had been abandoned.

‘We inquired as to the details; and it seemed that the accident had taken place in the central chamber locally called “The Cathedral”; and after a few more questions I understood.

‘“That was where you were, my friend,” I said to Murphy, “it was where you were when the bird flew out.”

‘He agreed with me; and presently when the woman was gone announced that he was going to the mine again to see the place. Well; I had no business to keep him dangling about. I couldn’t walk anywhere myself: so I advised him not to go on to that platform again; and presently he took a couple of candles from the sticks and went off. He promised to be back by four o’clock; and I settled down rather drearily to a pipe and some old magazines.

‘Naturally I fell sound asleep; it was a hot, drowsy afternoon and the magazines were dull. I awoke once or twice, and then slept again deeply.

‘I was awakened by the woman coming in to ask whether I would have tea; it was already five o’clock. I told her Yes. I was not in the least anxious about Murphy; he was a good climber, and therefore neither a coward nor a fool.

‘As tea came in I looked out of the window again, and saw him walking up to the path, covered with iron-dust, and a moment later I heard his step in the passage; and he came in.

‘Mrs What’s-her-name had gone out.

‘“Have you had a good time?” I asked.

‘He looked at me very oddly; and paused before he answered.

‘“Oh, yes,” he said; and put his cap and stick in a corner.

‘I knew Murphy.

‘“Well, why not?” I asked him, beginning to pour out tea.

‘He looked round at the door; then he sat down without noticing the cup I pushed across to him.

‘“My dear fellow,” he said. “I think I am going mad.”

‘Well; I forget what I said: but I understood that he was very much upset about something; and I suppose I said the proper kind of thing about his not being a qualified fool.

‘Then he told me his story.’

Mr Percival looked round at us again, still with that slight twitching of the lips that seemed to signify amusement.

‘Please remember—’ he began; and then broke off. ‘No – I won’t—

‘Well.

‘He had gone down the same shaft that we went down in the morning; and had spent a couple of hours exploring the passages. He had found an engine-room with tanks and rotten beams in it, and rusty chains. He had found some more lakes too, full of that extraordinary electric-blue water; he had disturbed a quantity of bats somewhere else. Then he had come out again into the central hall; and on looking at his watch had found it after four o’clock; so he thought he would climb up by the way we had come in the morning and go straight home.

‘It was as he climbed that his odd sensations began. As he went up, clinging with his hands, he became perfectly certain that he was being watched. He couldn’t turn round very well; but he looked up as he went to the opening overhead; but there was nothing there but the dead blue sky, and the trees very green against it, and the red rocks curving away on every side. It was extraordinarily quiet, he said, the pigeons had not come home from feeding, and he was out of hearing of the dripping water that I told you of.

‘Then he reached the platform and the opening of the path where I had had my fright in the morning; and turned round to look.

‘At first he saw nothing peculiar. The rocks up which he had come fell away at his feet down to the floor of the “Cathedral” and to the nettles with which he had stung his hands a minute or two before. He looked around at the galleries overhead and opposite; but there was nothing there.

‘Then he looked across at the platform where he had been in the morning and where the accident had taken place.

‘Let me tell you what this was like. It was about twenty yards in breadth, and ten deep; but lay irregular, and filled with tumbled rocks. It was a little below the level of his eyes, right across the gulf; and, in a straight line, would be about fifty or sixty yards away. It lay under the roof, rather retired, so that no light from the sky fell directly on to it; it would have been in complete twilight if it hadn’t been for a smaller shaft above it, which shot down a funnel of bluish light, exactly like a stage-effect. You see, Reverend Fathers, it was very theatrical altogether. That might account no doubt—’

Mr Percival broke off again, smiling.

‘I am always forgetting,’ he said. ‘Well, we must go back to Murphy. At first he saw nothing but the rocks, and the thick red dust, and the broken wall behind it. He was very honest, and told me that as he looked at it, he remembered distinctly what the landlady had told us at lunch. It was on that little stage that the tragedy had happened.

‘Then he became aware that something was moving among the rocks, and he became perfectly certain that people were looking at him; but it was too dusky to see very clearly at first. Whatever it was, was in the shadows at the back. He fixed his eyes on what was moving. Then this happened.’

The lawyer stopped again.

‘I will tell you the rest,’ he said, ‘in his own words, so far as I remember them.

‘“I was looking at this moving thing,” he said, “which seemed exactly of the red colour of the rocks, when it suddenly came out under the funnel of light; and I saw it was a man. He was in a rough suit, all iron-stained; with a rusty cap; and he had some kind of pick in his hand. He stopped first in the centre of the light, with his back turned to me, and stood there, looking. I cannot say that I was consciously frightened; I honestly do not know what I thought he was. I think that my whole mind was taken up in watching him.

‘“Then he turned round slowly, and I saw his face. Then I became aware that if he looked at me I should go into hysterics or something of the sort; and I crouched down as low as I could. But he didn’t look at me; he was attending to something else; and I could see his face quite clearly. He had a beard and moustache, rather ragged and rusty; he was rather pale, but not particularly: I judged him to be about thirty-five.” Of course,’ went on the lawyer, ‘Murphy didn’t tell it me quite as I am telling it to you. He stopped a good deal, he drank a sip of tea once or twice, and changed his feet about.

‘Well; he had seen this man’s face very clearly; and described it very clearly.

‘It was the expression that struck him most.

‘“It was rather an amused expression,” he said, “rather pathetic and rather tender; and he was looking interestedly about at everything – at the rocks above and beneath: he carried his pick easily in the crook of his arm. He looked exactly like a man whom I once saw visiting his home where he had lived as a child.” (Murphy was very particular about that, though I don’t believe he was right.) “He was smiling a little in his beard, and his eyes were half-shut. It was so pathetic that I nearly went into hysterics then and there,” said Murphy. “I wanted to stand up and explain that it was all right, but I knew he knew more than I did. I watched him, I should think for nearly five minutes, he went to and fro softly in the thick dust, looking here and there, sometimes in the shadow and sometimes out of it. I could not have moved for ten thousand pounds; and I could not take my eyes off him.

‘“Then just before the end, I did look away from him. I wanted to know if it was all real, and I looked at the rocks behind and the openings. Then I saw that there were other people there, at least there were things moving, of the colour of the rocks.

‘“I suppose I made some sound then; I was horribly frightened. At any rate, the man in the middle turned right round and faced me, and at that I sank down, with the sweat dripping from me, flat on my face, with my hands over my eyes.

‘“I thought of a hundred thousand things: of the inn, and you; and the walk we had had; and I prayed – well, I suppose I prayed. I wanted God to take me right out of this place. I wanted the rocks to open and let me through.”’

Mr Percival stopped. His voice shook with a tiny tremor. He cleared his throat.

‘Well, Reverend Fathers; Murphy got up at last, and looked about him; and of course, there was nothing there, but just the rocks and the dust, and the sky overhead. Then he came away home, the shortest way.’

It was a very abrupt ending; and a little sigh ran round the circle.

Monsignor struck a match noisily, and kindled his pipe again.

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ he said briskly.

Mr Percival cleared his throat again; but before he could speak Father Brent broke in.

‘Now that is just an instance of what I was saying, Monsignor, the night we began. May I ask if you really believe that those were the souls of the miners? Where’s the justice of it? What’s the point?’

Monsignor glanced at the lawyer.

‘Have you any theory, sir?’ he asked.

Mr Percival answered without lifting his eyes.

‘I think so,’ he said shortly, ‘but I don’t feel in the least dogmatic.’

Father Brent looked at him almost indignantly. ‘I should like to hear it,’ he said, ‘if you can square that—’

‘I do not square it,’ said the lawyer. ‘Personally I do not believe they were spirits at all.’

‘Oh?’

‘No. I do not; though I do not wish to be dogmatic. To my mind it seems far more likely that this is an instance of Mr Hudson’s theory – the American, you know. His idea is that all apparitions are no more than the result of violent emotions experienced during life. That about the pathetic expression is all nonsense, I believe.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Father Brent.

‘Well; these men, killed by the fall of the roof, probably went through a violent emotion. This would be heightened in some degree by their loneliness and isolation from the world. This kind of emotion, Mr Hudson suggests, has a power of saturating material surroundings and under certain circumstances, would once more, like a phonograph, give off an image of the agent. In this instance, too, the absence of other human visitors would give this materialised emotion a chance, so to speak, of surviving; there would be very few cross-currents to confuse it. And finally, Murphy was alone; his receptive faculties would be stimulated by that fact, and all that he saw, in my belief, was the psychical wave left by these men in dying.’

‘Oh! did you tell him so?’

‘I did not. Murphy is a violent man.’

I looked up at Monsignor and saw him nodding emphatically to himself.