Читать книгу The Dark Gateway: A Novel of Horror - John Burke - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

She awoke in the cold, dim light of morning. The temperature had, she knew at once, fallen below freezing point during the night, but she was conscious of perspiration damp on her forehead. There had been a dream.… Still on the borderland of sleep, she tried to look back into the country she had left, to catch a glimpse of what had frightened her, but the memory was fading, leaving only a feeling of horror dragging at her mind, like the ebbing tide sucking at the shore.

She turned over to look at the window, and saw that the slope of the hill rising to the castle was still white with snow. The ruins themselves were partly submerged in the whiteness, but here and there a black and twisted fang thrust up towards the flushed sky.

The dream—she remembered suddenly—a remembrance like an echo that hollowly sounded once and faded quickly—had been about the castle. The ruins of the old Welsh stronghold, so familiar a sight from any of the windows at the back of the farmhouse, had in some way been bound up with her terror. It was useless trying to recall the details: dreams that were vivid and possessive during the night hours lingered only as uneasy sensations when daylight came, sensations that soon died away. In any case, she preferred to forget. It would be better. Without knowing exactly what it was that had troubled her, she hoped fervently that it would not come again.

The whole thing had been Simon’s fault. He had been talking so wildly and irrationally the previous evening, with an almost fanatical gleam in his eye. She could still hear ringing in her ears the words that had given rise to her nightmare.

“If you let this man come down and stay here, there’ll be great harm done. I’m not crazy: I’m serious. You must believe me. I can’t tell you the whole story right now, but you must listen to me, believe me.… This house is more than just a house. And those ruins—that’s where the gateway is, and it ought not to be opened yet. This isn’t the time.…”

When they asked him what he was talking about, and tried to make sense out of his ramblings, he repeated grimly: “The time hasn’t come. It’ll be too risky. You mustn’t let him take the risk; you mustn’t let that man stay here.”

Later, he had talked in a more level tone, but the fact that he was unable or unwilling to name what it was that he feared did not help to make his meaning any clearer. Whatever it may have been that prompted his insistence on the necessity for keeping Mr. Jonathan away, his words had certainly had unpleasant consequences for Nora.

She got out of bed, shivering as her feet touched the carpet, and unwilling to move out on to the cold boards that intervened between the edge of the carpet and her dressing-table. Mother was already up: the usual bumping noises were rising from the kitchen, and by the time Nora was ready to go downstairs she heard the rasp and scrape of ashes being shovelled into a bucket.

The kitchen was cold when she went in, and her feet rang on the stone floor. Until the fire took hold, the room seemed strangely empty, and she kept herself warm by following a well-established routine of early morning tasks, scarcely exchanging a word with her mother. They worked with their mouths shut, as though to keep out the probing, unrelenting chill of the atmosphere. In the fireplace, unenthusiastic tongues of flame licked tentatively around the wood.

“What a bitter morning,” said Nora. She was still upset by her dream, and felt irritable. “If only we could lie in bed until it got warm, and get up when we felt like it!”

“In that case we’d lie there all day,” said her mother. “It won’t get much warmer today.” She swung the huge kettle towards the tap. “I expect we’ll have more snow.”

Nora groaned. There were times when she hated the sight and smell of this kitchen, all the jobs that had to be done there, and the knowledge that outside was the farmyard, soon to be trampled into brown slush as the day’s work went on. To escape from all this.…

She noticed that the lamp was still burning, and turned it out.

Her mother said: “Best give your father a shout. We’re late this morning.”

Nora went upstairs and knocked on the doors of her father’s and brother’s rooms. When she came down, the kitchen seemed warmer and more cheerful.

“You were very rude to Simon last night,” said her mother suddenly.

“Rude, was I? It was all I could do to sit and listen to him talking so much nonsense. He goes on and on for so long, but you never get any idea of what he’s supposed to be talking about.”

“He’s a nice boy. You used to like him.”

“Just because I used to like him doesn’t mean that—oh, Mum, you know he’s impossible. All he ever thinks of is the castle and those books. Honestly, I can’t even look up the hill now without thinking of all the stuff he talks about—and last night I was dreaming about it.”

“Perhaps he does read too much,” her mother conceded. “Too much studyin’ all the time.”

“It’s all he comes here for,” said Nora. “Those awful books…I wish Dad would stop him coming.”

“Your dad said he should come whenever he wanted to, isn’t it? He used to come in to read those books before you were ever interested in him.”

She smiled. The truth of this remark was no comfort to Nora. She warmed her hands by the swelling fire, then went into the parlour and stood aggressively in front of the bookcase. It looked very imposing, with its orderly shelves of beautifully-bound volumes—volumes that no one would want to read, she thought angrily, except Simon. She wondered what queer kink in his mind made him interested in these dull things. Many were in French or Latin, and one or two in languages she did not recognise. The few in English had seemed promising at first: she had been fascinated by the strange illustrations, and the detailed accounts of witchcraft trials and strange practices in remote parts of the country in days long past had looked exciting…at first. But when Nora had settled down to read any of the books, she found that she became sleepy. The words failed to mean anything. It was as though they pushed her gently away and settled back in their places to await another, more understanding reader. Perhaps there were terrible things to be discovered, if one read on far enough. But that was Simon again, putting ideas into her head. Nora wished her father would get rid of the books.

Her reflection moved gently and ethereally in the glass, wavering like a ghost over the books. There was no colour in it: the dark hair that blazed defiant auburn when the light caught it was nothing now but a darker shadow, and for once her features looked pale and elusive; Nora had always been glad that her eyebrows did not look as pale and thin as the eyebrows of so many red-haired people seem, and that her skin did not freckle easily—except, she admitted unwillingly, in the corners of her eyes and sporadically down the sides of her nose. The solemn wraith in the glass stared back at her. Overhead, she could hear the sound of her brother moving reluctantly about. She gave the bookcase one last venomous glare, seeing her grimacing reflection and realising how silly she was being. She went back into the kitchen. The kettle was beginning to sing.

“Why don’t we get rid of those old books?” she said after a few minutes.

Her mother, leaning over the fire, said: “Where would we get rid of them?”

“Burn them.”

“Your dad would never let us burn them. He says they’re worth a lot of money. He wants us to keep them until he knows what they are worth.”

“If anything.”

“Simon’s found them interesting enough.” She smiled as she spooned tea into the pot. “Is that why—?”

“No, mother, it’s not. I just think it’s silly to clutter up the house with old books. We ought to sell them, or give them to the chapel for the next jumble sale.”

“I don’t think they’d be right for chapel jumble sale,” said her mother dryly.

“Well, why not try and find out what they’re worth? I think Dad just likes to sit and watch the lamplight on the bindings.”

Her mother shrugged. For some reason her husband was attracted to the books that the previous owner had left behind, though she had never seen him reading one. Men had whims: Rhys Morris had plenty of them, and you could do nothing but accept them.

“If he wants to find out, he’ll do it in his own good time. Someday—”

“Someday!”

Nora could have choked with disgust. It was always the same. Someday. Someday, someone will mend the front gate, swinging loose on one hinge; someday, someone will see about the hot water system, that has always been queer. Someday…it was the old story.

She heard her father coming downstairs. She said: “Nothing ever gets done in this house.”

“A fine mood you’re in this morning, my girl.”

Nora picked up a cup of tea that had been poured out. She walked over to the small side window, looking down the slope. The narrow lane up to the farm was stifled with snow.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a bad night, and I feel awful. Mother, don’t you ever feel that this house is getting you down?”

Her father came in. A cheerful man at most times, he was taciturn and remote in the mornings. He would not waste a word, and there would be no murmur of his deep, characteristic chuckle until breakfast-time. He peered into a cup, added more sugar without tasting the tea, and sat down with a sigh by the table.

Nora stayed by the window, staring out until her eyes ached. To get away from this house; to go somewhere and see things. But what? This was the sort of place from which you did not break away. She knew the girls of her own age in the district, nearly all farmers’ daughters, tied down until old age: even those who married usually married farmers, and life was still the same, and there was another family in the district, and the same routine to go through in the house—on and on and on.

She knew that her mother was looking at her. Turning from the window, she said with forced casualness:

“I wonder why Mr. Jonathan wants to come down now? We don’t usually get visitors at this time of year.”

Her father got up and opened the door, admitting a knife-edged gust of cold air.

“Better get the buckets from the dairy,” he said gruffly.

Nora put her cup back on the table and went into the dairy, the clean, sterilised smell annoying her by its very familiarity. This was all part of it. On her way back through the kitchen she could not resist glancing once more towards the small window. Her mother said gently:

“No silly ideas, Nora fach. And it’s no good lookin’ out yet: he won’t be here till this afternoon.”