Our home was an old rather rambling house, obscured by trees, set back from a road that was little more than a lane. Branches met over the drive which, in summer, was dim as a cathedral aisle. A stream divided the terraced garden from a sloping orchard but—from a well-loved perch on the roof of the stables—I could see heavenly meadows and the dazzling gleam of a distant sunlit chalk-pit.
No other house was visible. Very rarely, you heard the far-away rattle of a lazy cart, but, usually, only the busy hum of a sunny day—until shadows claimed garden, orchard, stream.
The nearest town, which had the atmosphere of a village, was five miles away and the winding road leading to it passed widely separated houses, mellowing in the sunshine, then threaded the twilight of a wood, to emerge in the open blossoming countryside. Occasionally you met a carriage, or a slow-moving wagon piled high with hay, or a cluster of complaining sheep, but, usually, the white dusty road was deserted and the only sounds were the songs of darting birds, the pebbly tinkle of a stream, the melodious moving of summer boughs.
And then—the town! Miniature, bow-windowed shops; the market square; the old inn, whose open doors yawned content and hospitality. The smell of the wine-shop—with its sanded floor, its immense barrel in a corner and, on the counter, a little model of a wain yoked with oxen! And then—the ebon shadows on a white street; the impatient stamp of a horse tied to a post; red-faced farmers; loungers outside the public house! At the lower end, the road dipped between hop-fields but, at the top of the town, it branched sharply to the left and led to a vast view of the Weald of Kent, outstretched below, like paradise regained.
The walk to the town, and the town itself, held so many delights and discoveries that several weeks passed before I explored the road which ran in the opposite direction—the road that was little more than a lane.
The road in which I found the Empty House.
I remember every detail of the May morning on which I saw the Empty House for the first time. A languorous morning with static clouds in a celestial sky—flickering shadows—and drowsy silence, heralding heat.
When I reached the end of our drive, I turned to the left and walked down a narrow road which twisted so often that I could seldom see more than fifty yards ahead. For some little distance, domed chestnut trees created green obscurity, but this avenue ended abruptly and I emerged to find a small circular space on rising ground. Early sunshine flickered in blossoming orchards; kindled tremulous laburnum; flashed in dewy lilac. Gala hawthorns wooed the air: singing larks rose rapturously.
When I walked on, I found that the road dipped suddenly down into the twilight of interlacing trees, but, soon, I rounded a sudden bend—and there was the Empty House.
I stopped dead and stared at it.
No one could have lived there for years. The gates were rusty; the short drive was a chaos of nettles; tangled ivy half-hid an old two-storied house.
Several minutes passed, but I did not move. Here was desolation. The air seemed autumnal. This tragic house with its long-closed green shutters confronted the loveliness of spring with an eyeless stare. It had no part in the carnival of May. It remained remote, shrouded, sinister.
I tiptoed to the rusty gates, then peered at the rank garden—at a ruined sun-dial—at the tentacled creeper hiding the front door.
Who had lived here? Who had flung open those shutters to greet the day? Who had leaned over that sun-dial—picked flowers in the garden—stood in that lovely porch? Why had they gone? Where had they gone? Why had the place remained empty?
Affection for this abandoned house began to glow in me. Its desolation seemed more beautiful than the blatant beauty of spring. This old house with its mask-like shutters claimed me, and I knew that never—never—would I forget it. That, in the strangest way imaginable, I had not suddenly found it, I had returned to it.
I do not know how long I stood by those rusty gates, wondering when the last footfall had echoed in this place long sealed by silence, but, eventually, such passionate curiosity consumed me that I turned and hurried home, unaware of blossoming boughs and lyric birds, intent only to discover the history of those who had once lived in the Empty House.
I knew it would be useless to ask my parents, as we had come to Kent so recently, but Hilda had been born there. She would be able to tell me all I wanted to know.
I found her in the stables, playing with a puppy which I loved to distraction, but, now, I ignored it and poured out an almost incoherent account of my adventures, followed by a series of breathless questions.
“Who lived there, Hilda? What were they like? Why did they leave? When did they go? D’you think they’ll come back one day?”
She stared at me with wide-open blue eyes.
“What on earth do you want to know all that for?”
“Because I do. I love that old house. I love the people who lived there.”
“Love them! How can you love them when you’ve never seen ’em? You are a rum ’un and that’s a fact! If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
“But who were they?”
“How should I know? That house has been empty since before you were born. D’you think I’ve nothing better to do than run about trying to find out who used to live in all the empty houses?”
“But why is it empty? There isn’t another empty house for miles round.”
“Because it’s damp. You know how the road runs down to it. And there’s a big wood at the back. The whole place gives me the creeps. But you—like it!”
“I love it. And I love the people who used to live there. I believe they’ll come back. I can imagine the house when they were there—when the shutters were open and there were flowers in the garden and the sun-dial wasn’t broken. They must have been awfully nice people. They were happy in that house. I’m certain they were happy. Perhaps it’s good that no one else went to live there. Perhaps the house wouldn’t have liked it.”
“D’you know what’s the matter with you?”
“No. What?”
“You imagine too much. Never known anything like it! The things you think of! All afire with excitement just because you’ve seen an empty house!”
“I’m going to find out everything about it.”
She looked at me with a strange expression, then exclaimed:
“Don’t you do that! If you ask any one about it, they’ll only tell you a lot of lies.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what they do in these parts to boys who ask too many questions. Besides, they’ll have forgotten. Who cares about an empty house?”
“I do. I’ll never forget that house. Never!”
But Hilda was evidently determined to end the conversation, because she exclaimed:
“Bet I race you to the house!”
“Bet you won’t!”
A few days after this conversation, a remarkable event occurred and one which remained a mystery for many months: my father had a bed moved into my room and slept there every night. When I asked why, he said that he liked the view from the window—an explanation which I accepted as entirely adequate, especially as this new arrangement gave me great satisfaction. Sometimes he would read to me for an hour or two. He would fetch a book from his study—that study which housed many occult works, as I discovered years later—then he would read to me in a voice that a great actor might have envied. Sometimes he would stop to explain his understanding of what he had just read.
I sat up in bed, wide-eyed, enthralled.
I could think only of the Empty House.