The Heath Hover Mystery

Chapter Twelve

The Shadow in the Place

A fortnight had gone since Melian’s arrival at Heath Hover, and she had picked up to such an extent that both she and her uncle found it difficult to realise that she had been seriously ill at all. He took her for drives, always carefully wrapped up, and she had revelled in the beauties of the surrounding country, winter as it was – the wide vistas of field and wood, and the line of downs, sometimes near, sometimes far, stretching east and west as far as the eye could travel. But he absolutely refused, with a bracing sturdiness, to allow any practical incursions into the domain of archaeology.

“That will keep,” he declared. “Old stones spell damp. You’ve got to steer clear of that for some time to come.”

Then, as she got stronger, they had walked too, and the breezy, open uplands, contrasting with fragrant wood, did their share of the tonic. But this was not to last. A damp, muggy thaw set in, and the trees and hedges wept, the day through, under the unbroken murk of a wholly depressing sky; and you wanted very thick boots for underfoot purposes. Mervyn began to look anxiously at his charge.

“I’m afraid you’ll be getting awfully fed up with this, dear,” he said one morning, when the thin drizzle and the drip-drip from bare, leafless bough and twig seemed rather more depressing than ordinarily. “What can be done for you? Frankly I’m too poor to take you away to a more sunshiny climate – or I would, like a shot. For my part I’m used to this sort of thing, and it doesn’t ‘get upon’ me any. There was a time when it would have, but that time’s gone. But for you – why it’s devilish rough.”

Then Melian had reassured him – had abundantly reassured him. She didn’t find it heavy, she declared – not she. Why, on top of her experience of bearleading a brace of utterly uninteresting and unengaging children – and being at the beck and call of their detestable underbred mother, this was ideal. And she somehow or other managed to convey that her sense of the improvement was not merely a material one. Did they not get on splendidly together? Had they not any number of ideas in common – those they had not, only serving to create variety by giving rise to more or less spirited but always jocose arguments? Rough on her? Dull for her? It was nothing of the sort, she declared with unambiguous emphasis. And the fascination of the open country, even with the weeping woodlands and soggy, miry underfoot, was coming more and more over her, she further declared. And her uncle was hugely gratified, more so than he cared to realise. This bright young presence lightening his lonely existence from morn till night – how on earth would he be able to do without it again? Those long rambles, not by himself now, beset as they had been with uncheering thoughts of the past and a less cheering vista of the future; the now cosy snug evenings by his own fireside, with the after-dinner pipe, listening to the girl’s bright talk and entering into her ideas while the lamplight gleamed upon her golden head and animated eyes – and she herself made up such a picture sitting framed in the big armchair opposite – the little black fluffy kitten curled up on her lap. Of a truth life held something yet for him after all, if only this were going to last. But now he said:

“How about getting that nice girl you were chumming with – and she must be a nice girl from the way she wrote about you – down here to stop with you a bit, dear? Make a kind of relief from me, you know. Always stewed up from morning till night with an old fogey – the same old fogey at that – can’t be altogether lively.”

“Violet? She couldn’t come, if she wanted to ever so,” was the answer. “She’s entirely dependent on her job – and, as it was, her people cut up rusty if she chucked it for a day or two when I was ill. What beasts people are – aren’t they. Uncle Seward?”

“We shan’t quarrel on that question,” answered Mervyn, sending out a long puff of smoke, and meditatively watching it resolve itself into very perfect rings in mid air. “A very large proportion are, and that just the proportion which could best afford not to be. Doesn’t she ever get any time off then? Holidays?”

“She’ll get about four days off at Easter time. It would be jolly to get her down here then, poor old Violet. She does work, and she’s a good sort. It’s precious lucky I had her to go to when I did.”

“Precious lucky for me too.”

“Look here, Uncle Seward,” said the girl, gravely. “Don’t talk any more about old fogeys and it being heavy and slow for me, and all that. I don’t want to be disrespectful, but it’s – er – it’s bosh.”

Mervyn burst into a wholehearted laugh. The answer, and, above all, the look which accompanied it, the tone in which it was made, relieved him beyond measure.

“Is it? Very well, little one. We won’t talk any more – bosh. How’s that?”

“‘That’ is. So we won’t. Yes, we’ll get her down here at Easter,” – and then the girl broke off suddenly and looked graver still.

“Listen to me, Uncle Seward, and how I am running on,” she said. “Any one would think I had come here to live, instead of for a rest until I can find another job. And Easter is a long way off, and – ”

“And? What then?” he interrupted. “Of course you have come here to live. Do you think I’m going to let you go wasting your young life bearleading a lot of abominable brats while I’ve got a shack that’ll hold the two of us? Well, I’m not, then. How’s that?”

Melian looked embarrassed, and felt it.

“Uncle Seward,” she urged at last. “You said you were – poor – more than once. Well, is it likely I’m going to sponge on you for all time? It’s delightful to be here with you, while I’m picking up again, but – ”

“‘But’,” – and again he interrupted. “My dear child, I see through it all. You are going on the tack of the up-to-date girl, wanting to be independent. There’s a sort of grandiloquent, comforting smack about that good old word ‘independent,’ isn’t there? Well, you can be just as independent as you like here. You can take entire charge. You can order me about as you want to – I don’t say I shall obey, mind – but I shan’t complain. Well, if you go bearleading some woman’s cubs they won’t do the first, and they’ll do the last ad lib. Now then. Which is the lesser evil?”

Melian laughed outright. That was so exactly his brusque and to the point way of putting things. He went on, now very gently.

“I am getting an old man now, child, and I have led a very lonely life. In my old age it promises to be lonelier still. You are alone too. Is it mere chance that brings us together? But if you think you have a mission, may it not conceivably be one to look after the old instead of the young. So now – there you are.”

The voice was even, matter-of-fact sounding. But underlying it was a note of feeling – of real pathos.

“When I emphasised the fact of being poor,” the speaker went on, “I meant that I was in no position to indulge in luxuries, or outside jollification, like going abroad, for instance, to escape English winters, and so on. But you can see for yourself how this show is run, and that there’s plenty of everything and no stint, and what’s warm and snug and comfy for one is for two. That’s where the ‘poverty’ begins and ends.”

The girl got up and came over to him.

“Uncle Seward, I will stay with you as long as ever you want me,” she said gravely, placing her hands upon his shoulders.

“Hurrah! This old shack’s going to look up now,” he cried. “I’ll see if I can’t beat up some one young about the country side, to make things livelier for you, dear. And then, when it gets warmer and springlike, we’ll have such romps all over the country. Why these rotten old gargoyles with their noses rubbed off – you’ll soon know them all by heart, be able to write a book about them, and all that sort of thing. Can you ride a bicycle, child?”

“Rather, but – ”

“Oh well, I’ll get one for you. I’ve got mine stowed away. I never use it in winter, but at other times it’s handy forgetting about. Now we’ll have rare romps around together.”

She looked at him in something of astonishment. He was talking quite excitedly, quite loudly in fact, for him.

“Why, you’re scaring the poogie,” she cried, with a laugh. “Look. It has gone under the table.”

The little black kitten had dived under the table, and thence now began to emit a series of growls. Melian was puzzled.

“What’s the matter with it?” she said. “Oh, I suppose it hears another poogie out in front, and resents it. But it’s generally so placid, even then.”

But to Mervyn’s mind came an uncomfortable chill. He had known just such a demonstration before, but on one occasion only. And now it was behaving in exactly the same way. Its shrill growlings even increased. Melian dived into the shadow to coax it out, then reappeared, holding the tiny creature aloft.

“Poogie. What’s the matter with you?” she cried. “Be quiet now, and go seeps again.”

But though it curled itself on her lap, it showed no intention of going to sleep. Instead, it lifted its little fluffy head and growled again, though not so furiously as it had done when alone.

“I do believe it’s afraid of something,” said the girl, wonderingly. “It must be something outside. Look. It’s staring towards the window.”

Mervyn could not for the life of him account for it, but that a cold shiver was running through his whole being, there could be no doubt. His back was to the window, the blinds were down and there was no draught. But right under this window, and against the wall, was the couch upon which the dead man had fallen asleep – never to wake again. And in this direction the kitten was now staring – and growling; growling just as it had growled on that night of the opening of the door. And, more marvellous still, a feeling was upon him that he dare not look round, dare not turn his head and follow the little creature’s set, unquiet glance – and that in the thoroughly warmed and now cheerful room. But Melian’s voice and movement broke the spell.

“What is it, poogie,” she was saying, advancing to the window, and incidentally to the couch. “Another poogie outside or a dog – Oh, you little beast!”

She had broken off suddenly, dropping the kitten on to the table, under which it promptly dived and crouched, growling again. For it had grown perfectly frantic as she was carrying it to the window and had struck its claws into her hand, drawing blood.

Mervyn sprang to his feet.

“What? It has scratched you?” he cried, taking the long white hand and examining it concernedly.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” laughed the girl.

“Nothing or not, we’ll bathe it a bit,” he said, going over to the sideboard, and dashing some water into a tumbler. “Any sort of wound should be bathed at once, just in case there might be something left in it,” and he proceeded to perform that process then and there.

“Oh, it’s all safe,” laughed the girl. “Poor little poogie! I suppose it was scared over something and had to get away at any price. I’m dead cert, it didn’t mean it.”

“No – no,” assented Mervyn. “Cats are extraordinarily ‘nervy’ things. I believe they’ve a sight more imagination than they’re given credit for. It’s quite likely it was aware of something outside to which it had an objection, a stoat perhaps or even a badger. Now a dog would have barked the house down, but there’d have been no scare.”

“Of course. By the way, Uncle Seward, I wonder you don’t keep a dog or two. They are such jolly beasts to have – especially in a place like this.”

“I’ve tried it, and they’ve disappeared. They get into the coverts you know, and then – ! I don’t care to keep one always on a chain. It’s beastly rough luck on them.”

He had tried it, and the dogs had disappeared, even as he had said. They had done so, however, on their own initiative. But he did not tell her this.

Yet it struck him that she must instinctively have grasped – or been affected by – something of the “influence” which at times seemed to haunt the place. She, too, now kept looking towards the blind-drawn window, and that not in her natural way. So far he had guarded her from any rumours from outside as to its sinister repute; and, as we have said, had threatened the old couple with the last extremity if they should let go anything. And now, just as he was congratulating himself that she would settle down quite happily and contentedly, comes this untoward mysterious making towards upset. And now, all at once, she had grown quite grave, quite subdued.

“Uncle Seward,” she said, suddenly. “Do you remember what I said the night I arrived – that this place ought to be haunted?”

“Yes, dear, and I remember my answer – that every place not screechingly new, etc, etc, is supposed to be.”

“Well, is it?”

The directness of the question was a trifle staggering, coming just when it did.

“Well, I’ve been in it some months – all alone too, mind you,” he answered, “and I’ve never seen anything. All alone, mind,” he reiterated, “through long, dark winter evenings and nights. Of course, that poor chap coming to grief here so mysteriously, might give rise to all sorts of yarns among the yokels. But then, where is the house – built longer ago than last year – in which some one or other hasn’t died? No, child; you mustn’t bother your little gold head over such boshy ideas as that. And if you listen to all the old women of both sexes round the country side, why half of them are afraid to cross their village street after dark, unless some one invites them to the pub.”

She laughed; yet somehow or other her laugh did not ring quite spontaneous.

“Of course,” she said. “But – ”

“But – what?”

“Oh, nothing. As you say, it’s astonishing how one’s imagination can play the fool with one. Tell me, Uncle Seward, do you believe in that sort of thing?”

“What? In imagination? Of course I do.”

“No – no. I mean in places being haunted, and apparitions and all that?”

“No. Certainly not. The Christmas numbers have a great deal to answer for in that line. Surroundings, solitude, the state of your nerves – the weather, even – all do the rest. You can get yourself into a state which I believe theologians call ‘the dispositions’ – which done into plain English means that if you want to see a thing, you can, in the long run, bring yourself to see it – in imagination.”

“Only in imagination. You’re sure you mean that, Uncle Seward?”

“I should rather think I was sure. Go to bed now, child,” – she had lighted her candle – “and chuck out all that sort of disquieting bosh. Why, we are as jolly here together as we can be, and we are going to be ever so much jollier. So chuck these imaginings – by the way, just because the little poogie starts growling at nothing in particular. Eh? Sounds rather absurd doesn’t it?”

“It does rather,” she said, with a laugh as they bade each other good-night. But there was just a subtle something about her laugh, about her tone of voice, even about the expression of her eyes, that left her uncle in a state of vague uneasiness. Something must have occurred to alarm her; but then women were “skeery” creatures – especially where the imaginative element came in. But for all that he didn’t want even this to come in where Melian was concerned.

He sat on, after she had gone, sat on over the cosy fire, thinking. He could hear her footsteps overhead as she crossed and recrossed her room – could hear her sweet young voice trilling forth snatches of all sorts of melodies, and again he blessed the chance that had sent her here to him in his loneliness.

He lighted another pipe, and tilted a final “nightcap” out of the square bottle at his elbow. The little black kitten jumped lightly up on to his shoulder and rubbed its soft little woolly shape against his cheek, then dropped down on to his knees and sat purring.

What could have occurred to set up a scare in the child, he wondered? Something had – obviously – but he had purposely evaded pressing the point for fear of making it too important. Well, if it came to getting on her nerves, he would, by hook or by crook get her away – at any rate for a time. As a matter of hard fact he had grown attached to Heath Hover – strangely so – and he occupied it practically rent free, that was for the sheer keeping of it up; and this was a consideration. Also he enjoyed a fair modicum of sport – likewise free. But if it were to come to making a choice between this and his niece – why by now he knew that there would be no sort of difficulty in deciding.

He dropped more and more into the dreamy – and rather contented – stage. He was looking forward to a very pleasurable time before him when the year should grow and mellow into glorious spring and golden summer. The sound of footsteps overhead had ceased now, and that for some time. She was asleep, and had forgotten her uncanny imaginings. He found himself looking forward to the morrow when she would be with him again – her sweet, quick, animated face, and the golden hair shining in the sunlight.