The Mammoth Book of Terror (37 page)

I had to ask the question. “Wouldn’t she be better off dead? That . . . that is nothing more than a slowly rotting corpse.”

Jenkins slowly turned his head and I stared into eyes that glittered with sullen, old man’s rage. His harsh voice seared my brain.

“How dare you suggest such a thing, sir? Her ladyship is very much alive – possibly more than you or I. There may be a slow decay, but it has been going on for a very long time. On
her good days she’s lively enough. That she is.”

A wave of excitement drove the repulsion, the body-numbing horror into temporary retirement – and I gasped:

“You mean that . . . she can hold an intelligent conversation?”

“When she so wishes. So mind your tongue, sir, and be respectful when you talk of her ladyship.” His anger went as quickly as it had come and he once again became the model servant,
the solicitous nurse, displaying a kind of coy tenderness that was slightly nauseating. He addressed the bundle of skin-wrapped bones.

“I will come back, my lady, in about an hour. In time to serve dinner. Just finish your little snooze.”

Having delivered this final instruction he again laid a finger on his lips, then began to tiptoe back towards the door, while I followed with my normal flat-footed steps. I could see no reason
for these elaborate anti-noise precautions; it was doubtful if the explosion of a ten ton bomb would awaken Caroline Fortescue before she was ready. Always supposing she ever woke at all.

We returned to Jenkins’s room, where I ventured to make a request that I had no reason to suppose would be granted.

“Would it be possible for me to stay here for a few days?”

Jenkins screwed up his face into an expression of deep concentration, before nodding slowly.

“I cannot believe her ladyship would object, sir. After all you have given your word not to reveal anything you see or hear during her lifetime. And to be frank, I will not be sorry to
have some company. Lately I’ve got into the habit of talking to myself: and that’s a bad sign.”

I hastened to express gratitude. “That’s very kind of you and I promise not to be a nuisance in any way. And of course, I’m quite willing to pay . . .”

He raised an admonishing forefinger. “That’s out of the question, sir. You are her ladyship’s guest. I will open up one of the smaller rooms and do my best to make you
comfortable. If you would care to sit with her ladyship for a few hours, I will be grateful.”

That was the entire purpose of the exercise, although how long I could stand that infernal stench was a matter for conjecture.

Jenkins insisted I share his dinner and I must say he did himself well. Roast lamb, succulent baked potatoes and Brussels sprouts, followed by an excellent college pudding. We also shared a
bottle of excellent claret, a smooth gentle vintage that sent a golden glow coursing through my veins and enabled me to view the grim prospect of spending several hours in that stinking room with
something akin to equanimity. Jenkins did not stop talking for the entire of the meal, his brain releasing little snippets of information, the importance of which did not register until long
afterwards.

“A sheltered life,” he said, sipping from his glass. “Never went out into the world. Private tutors, a select circle of friends that was never enlarged. As each one died, no
one came to replace them. His old lordship was the same. Content to vegetate here and between them they invented a wonderful country where all problems could be solved by arranging words in a
certain way. By the time she was a grown woman, she could no more face the real world, than pigs can fly. Do you follow me, sir?”

I nodded happily and refilled my glass.

“Absolutely. Another Emily Bronte.”

He smiled benignly. “I am glad to learn you are a well read gentleman, sir. But whereas Miss Bronte – a rather coarse writer in my opinion – portrayed Gondal in one novel, her
ladyship spread her kingdom over twelve. That’s what made them so successful. Readers without thinking much about it, recognized a familiar country. That place, sir, that we all dream about,
where we can control our destinies, correct awful mistakes by a mere effort of will.” He leaned across the table and stared at me with a strange intensity. “You must understand, sir. No
matter what you see or hear – you must understand. Understanding smothers fear.”

I tried to reassure him, although the effect of three glasses of that fine old wine was beginning to bemuse my senses.

“I understand. Shut up here for a lifetime, it stands to reason that the seed of genius would blossom into a flourishing flower.” I felt quite proud of this piece of imagery and
repeated the last two words. “Flourishing flower.”

“You have a mastery ofwords, sir,” Jenkins stated. “As befits a writing gentleman. But do you appreciate the situation? The gentlemen callers never made the grade, if I make
myself clear. The heroes in those books, sir, they always measured up to expectations. Any little faults could always be ironed out. Erased by a well-turned sentence, glossed over by a flow of
polished adjectives. The same could be said for the rest of us. Servants are only perfect in fiction and truly loving parents can only be found in well written books. Reality is studded with nasty
little rocks, fantasy is as smooth as a well mown lawn.”

“True.” I nodded. “You are a veritable well of profundity, Jenkins. But books are merely the depository of crystalised thoughts, while reality is a seething cauldron of
disgusting facts. He who faces facts goes mad; he who takes refuge in the twilight of fantasy is insane. You can’t win. What about another glass of claret?”

Jenkins rose rather unsteadily to his feet and suppressed a hiccup. “Thank you, sir, but it’s time for her ladyship’s dinner. Will you do me the honour of your
company?”

Her ladyship’s dinner consisted of warm milk and glucose and was served from a vessel with a long spout. This Jenkins carried, with suitable gravity, on a silver tray up the staircase and
into Lady Bramfield’s room. By now I was at a loss as to how to designate the bundle of skin wrapped bones that lay on the chaise longue: Lady Bramfield, Caroline Fortescue or that horrible
thing I would rather not look at. Jenkins appeared not to be bothered by any such doubts, for he bowed and announced:

“Dinner is served, my lady,” and placed spout to feeding hole. The immediate result was electrifying. Without actually waking up all that remained of Caroline Fortescue, writer of
genius, peer of Dickens, Thackeray, Hardy and Emily Bronte, took on a kind of grotesque life. Greedy, sucking, gasping life. What served for lips clamped round the spout, and I witnessed a sucking,
bubbling, body writhing absorption of nourishment. Although a lot seemed to me wasted as the white liquid dribbled down her ladyship’s chin and formed a little pool in the hollow below her
throat.

Jenkins kept dabbing her with a red handkerchief.

I watched Caroline Fortescue dine for perhaps a full minute before running out on to the landing, where I was violently sick on the doubtlessly priceless, but faded carpet.

I fell into an uneasy sleep in complete darkness and awoke in full moonlight. There were no curtains to the windows, for this was a room – according to Jenkins – that had not been
used for half a century. Every item of furniture stood out in stark relief; the massive mahogany wardrobes, their long mirrors slabs of blazing light; the dressing table that crouched like some
ill-shaped beast in the far corner; a tallboy that reared up against a side wall, creating an oblique shadow that tapered to a sharp point on the dust-infested carpet.

There was a complete absence of sound. It was as though the universe had yet to be born and my tiny atom of awareness was floating on an unlimited sea of nothing. The room, the furniture, even
the moon, were only reflections of what would be in some far off time. Then I was rocketed into the present. Sound was reborn.

Running footsteps in the corridor that lay beyond the closed door, accompanied by a trill of laughter. I did not move for a long while, trying to analyse the sounds. Swift, light foot treads,
girlish laughter. A running girl that laughed.

I climbed out of bed and put on a thick satin dressing gown that had been supplied by Jenkins, then – not without some trepidation – went out into the corridor. Here the moonlight
was only permitted entry through a solitary window situated at the far end; three quarters of the passage mocked a low wattage bulb that created a tiny oasis of yellow light in a desert of writhing
shadows. A long way off a door groaned the protest of oil starved hinges, suggesting that someone had pushed it stealthily open – and I, fired by that damnable curiosity that has reputedly
killed many cats, stepped fearfully forward – on naked feet – to investigate.

I came to the landing and looked down into the darkened hall. Not there. The lower part of the house slept the sleep of centuries. I turned left and roamed through the shadow congested bowels of
Bramfield Manor, seeking a rational explanation. Presently I was rewarded by seeing a wedge of light that sliced through an eternity of darkness and revealed a partly open door.

As I crept nearer I again heard that trill of girlish laughter, a sound that brought some measure of reassurance and a promise of an exciting adventure. Why should I be frightened of a girl,
even if she was mad enough to go running through an old, darkened house? When I reached the door I pushed it fully open and attempted to record the entire contents of the room in one swift
glance.

Sheet shrouded furniture basking in brilliant moonlight. Dust-carpeted floor, cobweb-festooned windows – and a young girl standing by a white marble fireplace.

She alone merited my entire attention. Tall for a girl, perhaps five foot nine, slender, attired in a flowing white dress, long black hair framing a pale oval face. A face that had a beauty that
one sometimes dreams about, but rarely sees. Large, dark blue eyes fringed by long lashes, a straight nose and a full-lipped mouth that was now parted in a mischievous smile. When she moved the
gown slid off one creamy shoulder – and the vision of virginal beauty was complete. Her voice was captivating, enhanced by a slight lilting tone.

“Hello, who are you?”

It took some little while for my voice to rediscover its normal function. “I might ask the same question. I’m a guest- well sort of. But unless old Jenkins has been singularly
remiss, you must be an intruder.”

She stopped in front of one window looking so young, appealing and unattainable in the moonlight. “I am – in a way. It’s fun to roam through old houses at night, don’t
you think? Chase your shadow by moonlight. Listen to the voices of those who were once and are no more. One has to be slightly mad to enjoy night running.”

“But where do you come from?” I asked.

She jerked her head back in a most enchanting fashion.

“Back there – in the woods. I live with my parents in a sweet little cottage. You must come and see us. In the daytime when the sun sends golden spears down through the whispering
leaves.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Nothing dies there, you know. How can if? Nature is eternal. Is and ever will be.”

Despite the ambiguity of her words, her demeanour was flirtatious, tantalizing as though she were deliberately trying to draw me into a meaningless, but purposeful argument. I said:

“You are most certainly mad. What would your parents say if they knew you were talking to a strange man in an old house?”

She giggled. “They’d have a fit. Mother in particular would take me to task most severely, but be most understanding afterwards. But when you meet them don’t mention where we
became acquainted. What the ear doesn’t hear, the heart won’t grieve over. Has anyone told you that you are very handsome?”

“No one,” I replied. “But I’m telling you that you are very beautiful.”

She nodded with evident satisfaction. “I’m so glad you think so. That means we’re both beautiful people. Wonderful. I don’t like ugly men. As for that matter I
don’t like ugly women either. I always say – if you have a face that frightens horses, then stay at home. My word, but you have a most wonderful smile!”

I bared my teeth into an even wider grin and wondered why I had not been long ago enraptured by my reflection in the shaving mirror. “You are a lovely liar. Now I must see you home. How
did you get in anyway?”

She shrugged. “Oh, there’s always an unlocked door, an unlatched window. But you can’t see me home because you’re not wearing shoes. But you may see me to the front
door.”

Side by side we went out into the dark passage, only it did not seem so dark anymore, then wended our way back to the landing, while she talked in that enchanting lilting tone that sent a
tingling tremor along my nerve grid and aroused sleeping memories of something that had happened long ago. In another lifetime.

“I think we’d better say we met in the lane and you had hurt your ankle and I tied it up for you with my handkerchief. And being a perfect gentleman – which of course you are
– you are calling to thank me for my kindness. That sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

“But it’s not true,” I protested.

“Nonsense. Truth is what the majority believe and the minority cannot disprove. A little while ago you said I was mad . . .”

“But delightfully so,” I interrupted.

“Of course. But surely you realise that madness is the sanity granted to the selected few. To really enjoy life you must turn the world upside down and not be in the least worried if
people are shocked at what you say and do. Do you think I’m a genius?”

I nodded gravely. “No doubt of it.”

“I think so too. That’s why I talk sideways and only those who have a sense of the ridiculous understand me. Have you a sense of the ridiculous?”

“Maybe. But I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

She looked up at me and her eyes glittered in the gloom.

“Think about it. You will.”

We descended the stairs and into the hall; I saw the front door was slightly ajar, allowing a sliver of moonlight to paint a stripe of silver light across the floor. When I opened the door to
its fullest extent and stood to one side, she went out on to the top step; became glimmering white and faintly disturbing. But her dazzling smile and above all that enchanting voice, succeeded in
reestablishing a measure of reassurance.