Appleby's End (9 page)

The tops of the pine-trees, snow powdered, faded uncertainly into the heavens. But each tree cast a dark cone of shadow across the path. And this – the fact that it was the shadow rather than the substance that had outline and definition – imparted something eerie and problematical to the scene.

Appleby looked curiously at Judith. “A shout is likely enough. I thought I saw those moving lights again only a couple of minutes ago. How far are we from your home now?”

“Not more than a mile. So if there are shouts and lights it may just be fuss over Heyhoe and Spot and the others. But I suppose
they
are quite likely to have got going a fuss about us. Luke would have all sorts of plans ready in no time for finding the bodies, and getting a cart to bring them in. All that's just his line. All the same, what I thought I heard–” Judith listened again and then shook her head. “If they are hunting,” she said, “let's dodge them. We'll turn into the wood at the bottom of this hill and take the bridle-path. That brings us straight into the stables. What was I telling you?”

“What the trouble was.”

“Yes, of course. The trouble about the doings of Ranulph's ghost is this: they're so ineffective that it would take an expert in Ranulph to know there were any doings at all.” Suddenly Judith's accent had become wholehearted and decided. “That's the bother. Ranulph's ghost squeaks and gibbers for all it's worth. But nobody hears, because the world is too much occupied with all sorts of loud noises of its own.” And Judith as she gave this obscure explanation kicked at the snow in front of her.

“But ghosts nearly always are ineffective. Not story-book ghosts, but scientific ghosts – the kind real people really persuade themselves they've seen. Ineffectiveness is their hallmark.” Appleby spoke absently; the country dropped away on their left, and was widely visible under a moon over which small clouds were drifting; as he gazed across it he could have imagined that it was itself peopled by ineffective but gigantic spectres – so strange was the procession of faint cloud-shadows over the snow. “I should be most surprised to hear that Ranulph's ghost had effected anything really startling. By the way, are
you
a Ranulph expert?”

“I've done what we told the blind man we'd done then: read him all through. There's something rather fascinating about the extreme badness of Ranulph's prose. Facetious and polysyllabic – and clearly he thought it just the cat's whiskers. An awful warning, I should say, to cultivated persons who believe themselves to have a talent for writing in a popular and condescending way. And yet he was in fact very widely read – for his matter, I suppose. And I believe you've hit on the truth of that. His stories are just like the rubbishing adventures one sometimes invents for oneself when bored. Though with the erotic bits left out – or just hinted in a sentence of uncharacteristic spareness and restraint.”

Appleby laughed. “His great-niece – isn't that what you are? – has rather a nice sense of words herself. But they keep on leading her away from the point. I think you said that Ranulph went in for the supernatural in his tales?”

“Quite a lot – but in the stupid way in which it always turns out to be a mistake. Grandfather's ghost is universally believed to stalk about the cellarage, and then in the last chapter it turns out to be one of the footmen stealing port. Fancy having a big, devoted public and getting away with that.”

“Just fancy. But the question seems to be: what is Ranulph – or his ghost – getting away with now?” Appleby looked soberly at Judith. “Are you suggesting that the ghost tries to arrange things so that some of his hoary old stories start coming true – forty years on?”

“Something like that. And here's an example. There's a story of Ranulph's called
The Coach of Cacus
. As you're fond of quoting Latin, you'll remember that Cacus–”

“Was the son of Vulcan, and a cattle-thief. He confused people of my profession who might be around by hauling cattle about backwards by their tails.”

“Quite so. And this was just one of Ranulph's stupider, pot-boiling stories, which appeared first in something called the
Household Magazine
in 1887, and later in the second series of his
Tales: Chiefly Imaginative or Grotesque.”

“Good lord!”

“Everard's title, actually; those two volumes were posthumously collected, and he's literary executor. A bit of a flop, I think they were, for Ranulph's public died before him. Anyway, this yarn is about a coachman who got away with something nasty by harnessing his horse head-first into the shafts and making it back away through the snow or mud or something. Tracks appearing to lead in the wrong direction and throwing people off the scent. Cacus-business, in fact. What do you think of that?”

“Singularly little, I'm afraid. The carriage wouldn't go straight, and anyone knowing horses would only have to glance at the tracks–”

“This is where we turn off.” Judith had stopped and now pointed to a stile on the farther side of the snow-filled ditch. Beyond was a narrow ribbon of path, gleaming white, which disappeared through a plantation of young, thickly planted pines. “Not our land,” she said. “But the owner doesn't mind. Dreadful that he should plant this stuff instead of real trees. Soon the whole countryside will be looking like some ghastly bit of Scotland. Or Alaska, in weather like this.” Judith shook her head darkly over this squirearchal sentiment, and was for a moment very much a child repeating the wisdom of her elders. “Come on. There are several dips that are sure to be full of drifted snow. But it's a short cut and we'll dodge the anxious searchers. Or shall we?”

Even as they negotiated a narrow plank over the ditch there had come an unmistakable shout from somewhere ahead, and this was answered by another shout from further away. “Dr Livingstone,” Appleby said as he helped Judith over the stile, “before Stanley appears through the jungle and discovers us, perhaps you could–”

“It happened to Heyhoe.”

“
Heyhoe
?”

“Last winter. In snow just like this. He'd gone into the local pub one night when he was supposed to be doing something else. He left Spot and his cart outside. And when he came out the brute was harnessed in the wrong way round, just as in
The Coach of Cacus
. The ghost of Ranulph you see, amusing himself by playing variations on his own old story. And Heyhoe was so tight – the disgusting old man! – that he couldn't make out what had happened. So he tried to drive through the village –
damn!
”

Judith had abruptly plunged knee-deep in soft snow. It was clear that they were confronted with the first of the dips. Appleby hauled her out and they struggled to the farther side. “Nothing like keeping up the evening's fun to the very end,” he said. “But your ghost story disappoints me. Very evidently the thing was a practical joke by someone who knew Ranulph's Cacus yarn. Your brother, most likely. I have a notion that the idea of Heyhoe's trying to drive the preposterous Spot home would appeal to him.”

“It appealed to him enormously. But Mark didn't do it, all the same. He's not much of a Ranulph fan and he didn't even know
The Coach of Cacus
.”

“Sure?”

“Quite sure. Mark and I have an agreement not to tell lies to each other. It's extraordinarily convenient.”

“No doubt.” Not far away, it seemed to Appleby, there were voices; and once, most certainly, a lantern had glimmered through the trees. The long
tête-à-tête –
or better, perhaps,
pas-à-deux
– with Judith Raven was about to come to an end. “No doubt – though you might find it less convenient if you had to extend it to other people. But just who played the joke doesn't much matter. Perhaps it was your cousin Everard, relaxing after the aridities of the
New Millennium
. Or your cousin Luke, relaxing from I'm not sure what.”

“Luke is much possessed with death.”

“I might have guessed it was that. Or perhaps the visually intimidating but mildly spoken Robert–”

“Of course it was a joke. And, by itself, tolerably funny, no doubt. But the point is that it's only one of a number of incidents. I think that's the word. Incidents not funny, usually slightly sinister, but always extremely…ineffective. The horse-business has been much the most noticeable. And they've all hitched on to the Ranulph
opera
.”

“I see.” There were voices nearer now, and Appleby gazed ahead. The moon was unobscured and brilliant; the narrow path through the silent, dark pines was a spotless ribbon of dead white, leading them almost hypnotically on; immediately before them it appeared to slope downwards gently and then curve round to the left. “I see. But, even if ineffective, these incidents seem to have been on your mind. And you call them sinister. There's really something about them that upsets or scares you?”

“Scares me? Rubbish!” Judith Raven tossed her head contemptuously as they swung round the bend in the path. “That blind-man affair years ago may have scared me. But I was a kid then. Now–” Judith's voice died into a queer gasp; she swayed and her knees crumpled beneath her; and Appleby caught her as she fell. He glanced ahead, where he had seen her stare, transfixed. There, dead in their path, ghastly on its carpet of moon-drenched snow, its eyes wide and glaring, lay – impossible to mistake – Heyhoe's head. For a moment Appleby too felt dizzy. There were lights, voices about them, and men running forward, heavy-footed and panting, from among the pines.

 

 

Miss Clarissa Raven poured coffee from battered but beautiful Queen Anne silver. “A great loss,” she said. “Sugar, Mr Appleby? For Spot, that is to say.”

“Dead?” said Mark Raven. He leant across the vast table, fork in hand, and secured a slice of ham with something of the controlled violence of a man who harpoons a whale. “Heyhoe dead? Hell.”

“Hell?” Luke Raven, who had satisfied his appetite, was standing before the great carved fireplace within which a large green log reluctantly smouldered. “This place is too cold for hell.” Luke's domestic conversation, it was already apparent, largely consisted of the gloomier utterances of the poets. “Hell is murky,” said Luke Raven – inconsequently but with considerable rhetorical effect. He folded his arms across his chest and glowered at his kinsfolk as if through some mephitic mist.

“Plenty of coffee.” Miss Clarissa's voice, although intended to be matter-of-fact merely, held hints both of triumph and surprise. She sat at the head of the table and her silver hair and pale complexion merged themselves with the jugs and basins. “Rainbird always rises to an occasion. I'm very glad it wasn't Rainbird. Rainbird!”

“Yes, marm.” Rainbird was a battered old person in a boiled shirt, much like a butler in a whisky advertisement who has been left for a long time out in the wet. “Yes, marm,” said Rainbird.

“I'm glad it wasn't you. Disorganisation inside the house is much more trying than outside.”

“Thank you, marm.”

“Spot will feel it very much – and, indeed, it will be most inconvenient. Consider the funeral. There is
only
Spot. And Spot is so old that really only Heyhoe could manage him. So it would appear–”

“That Heyhoe should have stayed alive long enough to drive to his own obsequies.” Mark Raven laughed vigorously as he offered this witticism. But his eyes, Appleby noticed, seldom left the face of his sister Judith, who sat silent and pale before an unbroached boiled egg.

Clarissa frowned. “I was about to say that it would appear necessary to send to Yatter for one of those hearse things. With plate-glass all round and a mute perched at each corner.”

“Hardly at each corner.” Everard Raven, who had been sitting in what appeared to be mild stupefaction, was stirred to speech. “Possibly on the box–”

“Look here,” Mark interrupted suddenly and seriously. “Is there something
queer
about Heyhoe's death? I don't like the feel of all this a bit. I didn't like the manner of the people who brought him back. What's it all about?”

Judith spoke for the first time. “His head,” she said; “his head was lying on the snow.” She stared in front of her. “On the snow,” she repeated in an expressionless voice.

“No, no.” Robert Raven, scowling ferociously, put down his coffee cup and walked round the table. “You've got it wrong, my dear.” He put a hand gently on Judith's shoulder. “The poor old chap's body's up there in his room. And his head's on his shoulders, all right. And it always was, if you ask me. Pretty shrewd was old Heyhoe, don't you think?”

Judith stirred and shivered; then, wanly, she smiled. “Am I being a fool?” she asked. “Did I just see things? We came round a corner and I thought I saw–”

“Snowdrift.” Robert picked up an egg-spoon and took the top off Judith's egg. “Big dips in that bridle-path. He was buried up to the neck in snow – and quite dead when you saw him. Naturally it gave you a bit of a turn. Particularly after your odd wanderings – not to speak of sailings. Mr Appleby carried you home. Do you know that you had straws in your hair? Just as if you were a distraught heroine.”

Suddenly Judith laughed. “Oh, Robert, it was hay! Mr Appleby and I had been tumbling in the hay.”

“Tumbling in the hay?” Clarissa looked placidly surprised. “Was not that rather unseasonable, child?” She turned a misdoubting eye on Appleby. “And, indeed, rather–”

“Clarissa,” said Everard hastily, “the events of the evening are still distinctly confused. But we are extremely grateful to our guest for having looked after Judith so well. And now I think it would be wise if we all went to bed. There is no denying that a certain amount of awkwardness awaits us in the morning. So a good night's sleep will be just the thing.”