When they had gone I breathed for what seemed to the first time in minutes, and covered Diane with a sheet from the floor.
Diane recovered in time, but she was never quite as vital again. She was devastated when Hallam would have nothing more to do with her, and, ironically, blamed me for driving him away. Hallam, she said, had done everything he could to cure her “loss of energy” and my interference with the rites had offended him! We were never as close after that, which was a pity.
One bitter December night the following year, I made the short journey to the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead to see Coward’s The Vortex, which by only its second week had ensured a successful run in the West End, establishing once and for all the name of its already famous young author. I caught one of the last performances before the play left the confines of that “converted drill-hall” for the more salubrious setting of the Royalty. It seemed to me in my naiveté a tremendously powerful piece, and the wild response of the audience could not but have an unsettling effect on a ragged-arsed clerk a whole year older than the author whose hour of triumph he had just witnessed. I left the theater dizzy with fantasies of suddenly discovered talent and critical acclaim. It was with something of a shock that I glimpsed those two familiar faces in the buffeting crowd. Slipping behind a nearby stanchion, I paused to watch them.
Hallam was deep in conversation with a young couple, smiling the smile of one who has no need of dreams to sustain him. He was wearing immaculate evening dress, and a cloak thrown back at the shoulders to reveal the crimson lining; all very Mephistophelean. In fact, with his elegant appearance and those bloody gashes at the shoulders like torn wings, he looked every inch the fallen angel. Rose stood beside him, her arm linked so lightly with his that her gray leather glove barely compressed his sleeve. There was no clinging with her, no sacrifice of her independence for anything as human as love. Her tawny hair was drawn tightly back into an elaborate knot at the nape of her neck, displaying the fine, strong line of her jaw. She was engulfed in a mist of gray furs piled pillow deep behind her head and tucked snugly under her chin like a winter blanket. She stood apart, even in the crowd, sweeping the passersby with her cold, heartless expression. As I watched, her other, unseen companion must have whispered something, because she smiled that nasty secret smile. And I knew that somewhere they had found another victim and completed the dreadful process of reparation. This knowledge did not come from the smile of Rose Seaford as she scanned the crowd flocking home through the December darkness. It was the healthy bloom of her skin, and her eyes, no longer blank and dead, but ablaze with replenished inner fire.
THE OUTSIDER
by Rick Kennett
When the Earl of Woodthorpe cut down a gum tree in his Manor grounds and air-freighted it out to Australia, most people assumed his mind had thrown a rod. I knew otherwise.
I’d always thought of doing the rounds of the haunts of England, so when the Antarctic winds of June hit town I decided to do more than just think about it. Stowing my bike in cold storage, I packed a few necessities like The Gazetteer of British Ghosts, Poltergeists Over England, Haunted Britain and such like items—along with a few clothes—before grabbing the first big silver bird heading north into Summer.
I landed on my feet in London by finding a rent-a-bike place that had me thumping up the A 40 motorway toward Buckinghamshire on a 750 Norton that afternoon. Over the following week I toured sites of supernatural interest: hotels, cottages, stately homes, wishing wells. My camera clicked like a mad cicada, though never once getting a phantom in the view finder.
Undeterred, I continued my tour, and somewhere between Devon and Dorset I ran into the Earl of Woodthorpe—at about 90 KPH.
It was seven o’clock on a straight road. The sun was low in the west, and suddenly there was this long, silver car pulling out from a gateway to my right. There was no time for brakes, to throttle back, or to even have an articulate thought. The car’s bumper smacked my front wheel. The world twisted into a blur as the Norton and I went sprawling.
Shock’s a crazy place.
Somewhere in its shattered time sense a middle-aged woman said, “I’ll fetch a blanket,” as I lay bundled on a couch, shivering. “I… I swear, I didn’t see him, My Lord,” said a younger man’s voice as I lay facedown on the road.
There was the smell of leather upholstery.
The sound of tires.
The feeling of movement.
And somewhere in all of this the woman kept fluttering about, sounding apologetic, feeding me broth.
“Best call Dr. Rutherford, Mrs. Winton,” said a tall bloke with an aristocratic look.
“No, just let me rest,” I heard myself say. Nothing was broken or missing; and I hate fuss, especially when I’m dying, or think I am.
I remembered being partly ushered, partly led, partly helped along corridors lined with paintings, and up an oak staircase as a clock somewhere chimed eight.
I woke up in a bed the likes of which I’d only seen in period costume movies. The room, with its paneled walls, ornate ceiling, and heavy furniture of another time, had a beautiful view over the morning. Whoever owned this place had a backyard that wouldn’t stop. It was all lawns and trees and hedgerows, stone outbuildings, ponds, paths, hillocks and dips.
A knock on the door. A voice I’d heard before said, “Breakfast, Mr. Pine.”
Having already dressed, I opened the door to allow the broth pusher of the night before—Mrs. Winton—to enter with a clatter of cup, saucer, and tray, and with the welcome smell of bacon and eggs.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning, sir. How have you mended?”
“I’ll survive. Look, er… sorry if I asked this last night, but, ah, exactly where am I?”
“Woodthorpe Manor, sir. The country estate of the Seventeenth Earl of Woodthorpe.” She placed the tray on the table by the window with practiced neatness. “I hope you like orange juice.”
“Yes. Thank you. Is His Earlship about at the moment?”
“His Lordship,” Mrs. Winton replied without emphasis, “left for the Continent last night. He asked me to pass on his most sincere apologies—once again—and to assure you that all expenses in respect of your motorcycle will be met.”
I fumbled a chair out from the window table, feeling awkward under her eyes. “Where’s the bike now?”
“Keenen, the head gardener, has taken it to the village garage: Scudamore’s. They’ll have it mended in a couple of days, sir.” She hesitated, then added, “Until then you may stay here as His Lordship’s guest.”
I was going to say, “That’s nice of him,” but instead I said, “Are my bags here?”
“Still downstairs, sir. I’m afraid the one containing your books burst in the accident.”
“Hey?”
“Nothing to worry about, sir. Duncan, His Lordship’s chauffeur, picked them all up.”
“Good old Duncan,” I muttered.
I started in on my eggs, but barely had the yoke running when I felt her eyes again. I looked up and Mrs. Winton cleared her throat.
“Pardon me for asking, sir, but are you Australian?”
“Guilty. What gave me away? My accent or the jars of Vegemite in my other bag?”
Mrs. Winton said nothing, only stood there as if wanting to say more but not knowing how to start. I already felt out of place here, and this wasn’t helping. I tapped the cosy on the teapot. “Sit down and pour yourself a cuppa. I won’t tell His Earlship.”
I was half surprised when she did take the seat opposite, and totally surprised when she said, “Are you a psychical researcher?”