Randalls Round (9 page)

Foster found the parchment so interesting that he was anxious to see it more clearly. He peered at it closely for a minute, and then decided to go into the presbytery for a light. He had some difficulty with the old-fashioned oil lamp; but when he finally got it burning he thought that the document fully repaid his trouble. He became so absorbed that it was not for some minutes that he realised that it was growing very dark and that Maddox had not yet come in. He felt quite disproportionately anxious as he hurried out to the tiny overgrown churchyard.

He was startled into something very like panic when he found no one there. Without reason, he knew that there was something horribly wrong and, blindly obeying the same instinct, he rushed out of the tiny enclosure and ran at his top speed down to the beach. He knew that he would find whatever there was to find on that lonely reach that was pictured on the old wall.

There was a faint glimmer of daylight still – enough to confuse the light until Foster, half distraught with a nameless fear, could hardly tell substance from shadow. But once he thought he saw ahead of him two figures – one a man’s, and the other a tall wavering shape almost indistinguishable in the gloom.

The sand dragged at his feet till they felt like lead. He struggled on, his breath coming in gasps that tore his lungs. Then, at last, the sand gave way to coarse grass and then to a stretch of salt marshland, where the mud oozed up over his shoes and water came lapping about his ankles. Open pools lay here and there, and he saw, as he struggled and tore his feet from the viscous slime, horrible creatures like toads or thick, squat fish, moving heavily in the watery ooze.

The light had almost gone as he reached the line of beach he knew, and for one terrible moment he thought he was too late. There was the pile of stones; beneath them lay a huddled black mass. Something – was it a shadow? – wavered, tall and vague, above the heap, and before it squatted a shape that turned Foster cold – something thick, lumpish, like an enormous toad…

He screamed as he dragged his feet from the loathsome mud that clooped and gulped under him – screamed aloud for help…

Then suddenly he heard a voice – a human voice.

“In nomine Dei Omnipotenti
…” it cried.

Foster made one stupendous effort, and fell forward on his knees. The blood sang in his ears, but through the hammering of his pulse he heard a sound like the howling of a dog dying away in the distance.

“It was by the providence of the good God that I was there,” said Father Vetier afterwards. I do not often come by the shore – we of Kerouac, monsieur, we do not like the shore after it is dusk. But it was late, and the road by the shore is quicker. Indeed I think the good saints led me… But if my fear had been stronger so that I had not gone that way – and it was very strong, monsieur – I do not think that your friend would be living now.”

“Nor do I,” said Foster soberly. “My God, Father, it – it was nearly over.
Sacrificium hominum,
that beastly paper said… I-I saw the loathsome thing waiting… He was lying in front of that hellish altar or whatever it was… Why, Father? Why did it have that power over him?”

“I think it was that he read the – the invocation – aloud,” said the curé slowly. “He called it, do you see, monsieur – he said the words. What he saw at first is – is often seen. We are used to it, we of Kerouac. We call it
Celui-là.
But it is, I believe, only a servant of – that other…”

“Well,” said Foster soberly, “you’re a brave man, Padre. I wouldn’t spend an hour here if I could help it. As soon as poor Maddox can travel I’m going home with him. As to living here alone-!”

“And you are right to go,” said Father Vétier, gravely. “But for me

– no, monsieur. It is my post, do you see. And one prays, monsieur

– one prays always.”

“You all agree, then?” asked Massingham, looking round at his guests.

“Quite, quite,” said young Grindley of Brasenose.

“I am ready to fall in,” said the Parson.

Vernon merely grunted. Really, after a dinner like that, it was a beastly shame to chatter.

“I’ll do it, of course,” said Reece, the tubby little curate whom Massingham had invited more out of cussedness than anything.

“All right, then. Mind, I don’t guarantee that there is a ghost. I’m only going on local gossip and the fact that it’s so damned hard to get any servants. And the house-agents, of course.”

“You don’t mean to say that
they
admit there’s a ghost?” asked Ladislaw.

“No,” grinned Massingham; “I’m going by what they didn’t say… By the way, are you coming in, Mac?”

Ladislaw flushed.

“I – of course I will, if that’s part of the bargain,” he said a little doubtfully.

“My dear chap,” drawled Grindley, “surely – I mean, I know people who think there’s something in it and that, but
surely
– ?”

“I don’t know,” blurted Ladislaw. “Oh well, of course no one believes in the white-sheet-and-clanking-chains ghost; but – no, perhaps there aren’t any in England,” he ended abruptly.

They shouted with laughter. Ladislaw had in him the blood of generations of Highlanders, fanatical in their isolation and pride. Ladislaw grinned shamefacedly. He knew – well, perhaps he knew more than the others.

“Well, since we’re all agreed,” said Massingham briskly, “the next thing to do is to draw lots as to the order we go in. And look here,” he added, reddening a little, “if anyone feels, when it comes to the point, that – that he’d rather drop it, you know, we’d – well, nobody’d think the worse of him.” He looked round a little shamefacedly. “I don’t want any nervous wrecks on my conscience,” he added with a half-laugh.

Everybody smiled in his own individual fashion – Grindley just a trite superior, Ladislaw sympathetic, the Parson very kind and indulgent, Vernon bored, and Reece with the spontaneity of a child. Massingham, his duty done, looked relieved.

“Let’s draw, then,” he said. “I’ll put all our names in this” – he tipped out the cigars from the box – “and numbers from one to – let’s see – six, in this.” He took a clean tumbler off the tray. Then he drew out his pocket-book and tore out two leaves which he again tore, each into six pieces. On one set he wrote numbers, on the other names. Then, folding up the scraps, he dropped one set into the box and the other into the tumbler.

“Now, let’s see – Reece, you’re the most transparently honest. You draw.”

Reece jogged his chair up, his face beaming like a small boy at a conjuring show.

“What do I do?” he asked eagerly.

“You take one paper out of the box and another out of the glass and open them.”

Reece obeyed.

“Amory,” he said, opening one – “three.”

The Parson smiled, still indulgent. “So two of you experience the ghost before I do,” he said.

Reece went on with the drawing.

“Ladislaw – four,” he said. “Grindley – one.”

“Good old Grindley!” “Do down the spook, Grinders!” “Leave some for me!” vociferated the crowd, now thoroughly aroused.

“Reece – six. Uh, I did hope I’d be fairly early! Never mind. Vernon – two. Massingham – five. That’s all.” Reece beamed round on the company, polishing his circular steel-rimmed spectacles, rosy with excitement.

“Then I take it the order is Grindley, Vernon, myself, Ladislaw, Massingham, Reece,” said the Parson. “Upon my word, I hope something will come of it. I rather envy you, Grindley – and you, Reece.” Then he drew Reece a little aside. “I mean to exorcise anything I see,” he said in a low voice. “Did you think of doing that? I’m quite willing to come last if – if the others really want to find out if they can see anything.”

“Just as you like,” said Reece. “But won’t your exorcism have a better chance of proof if you try it on somewhere in the middle? I mean, say Grindley and Vernon – er – see something, and Ladislaw and Massingham and I don’t–”

“Yes, you’re right,” said Amory, with more animation than usual. “It’s best as it is. It’s a clearer proof of the truth. Yes, Reece, you’re quite right. Thank you.”

His eyes had a curious gleam – the light of the fanatic, eager, bright and hard – in them.

“Lord! I pity the poor ghost when Amory once gets going,” said Vernon with a short laugh. “I shouldn’t like to be up against you when you were really mad, old man.”

“Oh, come!” said Amory, flushing a little, with a rather shamefaced laugh. “It’s only when I’m sure that I’m face to face with something really evil that I get angry. Then, I admit, I’m – er –”

“Implacable,” put in Grindley. “It’s most extraordinary,” he went on, “how people seem to take a pride in certain of their – well, faults. Look at Massingham, now: he’s got an absolute devil of a temper – I wouldn’t answer for the safety of anyone who roused him – but I don’t mind betting that he’ll not only own to it, but be quite proud of it.”

“Eh, What’s that?” asked Massingham from the sideboard. “What’s that about me?”

“Isn’t it true that you’re rather hot-tempered?” drawled Grindley.

“Got a brute of a temper,” answered Massingham cheerfully.

“‘Fact, when I do get going, I absolutely see red.” He turned back to the syphon.

Grindley smiled faintly.

“I believe anger and pride are deadly sins, aren’t they, Amory? – and no one minds owning to ’em; in fact, most people rather like being accused of ’em. But if I were to say that Vernon was a greedy sensualist, or that you, Amory, were the most damnably narrow, uncharitable brute I’d ever met, you’d be quite annoyed. Here’s an example, now,” went on the youthful moralist. “You know that pretty maid Lily who used to wait at dinner? What’s become of her?”

“Left,” growled Massingham. “She – er – well,
you
know. Pity, too, for I don’t think she was a real bad ’un. Pretty girls don’t stand much chance in country villages.”

“Exactly,” said Grindley. “It wasn’t, probably, her fault at all, if you can call it a fault to follow the dictates of Nature; yet she gets kicked downhill by the likes of us.”

“Really, Grindley,” said Amory, his thin face pale, “I know its the fashion to be cynical about these things, but I consider it most immoral to take any but the strongest views on such a subject. If I had my way I should so deal with these cases as to prevent effectually their ever occurring again.”

“Oh, come now, Amory!” broke in Vernon. “The cart-tail and whipping-post, eh? Damn it all, man, it’s nature! Why, even in the Bible isn’t there a woman – a real bad lot, too – who – er – got let off, don’t you know?”

“If you mean the eighth chapter of St. John’s Gospel,” said Amory coldly, “most critics agree that it’s not authentic. I believe the Romans admit it to be an interpolation. And in any case, there was no condoning of the crime: the woman was told to ’sin no more,’ not that it was ’natural’ and therefore not worthy of blame.”

“Oh, well,” yawned Vernon, “we all know that it’s you Christians who go in for whips and tortures and burnings alive. Poor degraded sensualists like myself believe in the motto ’Live and let live.’ ”

Amory opened his mouth for an indignant reply, but Massingham cut in.

“I suppose we all show up on a question of that kind,” he said, philosophically. “Amory’d do anything – anything at all – to punish transgressors – eh, Amory?”

The Parson nodded. “Old Vernon says ’Let ’em, if they want to. It don’t hurt anyone else.’ (Please stop me if I’m misjudging anyone.) Grindley says ’It’s below me, of course, vulgar and that: but I believe it’s natural, like over-eating or getting drunk.’ I – well, I dislike the whole thing thoroughly, but I can’t help thinking it’s a necessary evil. As for Ladislaw, I don’t believe he even knows it exists, or if he does he’s so disgusted he shuts it out of his existence. Reece – I’m blessed if I know what Reece thinks.”

“I think,” said Reece, very pink and hot, and stammering in his confusion, “that it’s a horrible thing, like d-deformity, that we are responsible for, just as we are for c-consumption or drink. It’s b-beastly, but it’s our f-fault, and we’ve got to s-stop it. And I’m af- fraid I don’t quite agree with you, Amory, that p-punishment stops it. It’s d-decency in people’s lives that
p-prevents
it. And we’ve got to see that they have a chance to – well, to live c-clean. I say, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to jaw like that.”

He collapsed into a deep armchair.

Grindley yawned.

“I’d no idea I’d uncork such deep vials of emotion and opinion,” he said in his most irritating voice. “Shall we chuck it?” He lit a cigarette. “By-the-way, Masser, I suppose the – er – experiment begins tonight?”

“Just as you like,” said Massingham. “It’s your look-out, since you’re the first on the list.”

“Oh, well, I’ll begin at once,” said Grindley, rising. “I only hope they’ve made me up a decent bed. I believe that’s really why people can’t sleep in haunted rooms – maids won’t take any trouble with the beds. Goodnight, you men.”

“ ’Night, old chap.” “Mind you have a good yarn for us tomorrow night.” “Don’t sleep right through the show, lazy swine.” “Call out if you’re frightened.”

And so young Oxford went up to encounter the spirits of all time.