The Haunted Storm (7 page)

Harry Locke, for his part, was pleased to get his letter, and worried only that Matthew would be bored. He lived alone, looked after by a woman called Mrs. Parrish, who lived on the farm next door with her husband and elder son, Peter. The farm itself belonged to Harry, and the Parrishes worked it for him; but as they belonged to Harry’s chapel, and were as devout as he was, the relation between them was much closer than that between landlord and tenant. Matthew knew them well, and liked them. He had stayed many times in the village as a child.

He arranged to come down on a Friday afternoon and arrive at his uncle’s in the evening. But as the evening went by and there was no sign of him, Harry began to wonder where he could be. He expected the telephone to ring, but the evening grew late and it stayed silent; and eventually he went to bed, hoping that Matthew was safe.

It was nearly half past eleven on Saturday morning when he turned up. Harry was shocked by his appearance; he looked ill, pale and thin, and he kept glancing nervously around almost as if he were guilty of something.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, uncle Harry,” were his first words.

“I got off the train last night – yesterday evening – and I felt my headache coming on; I could hardly move, I had to go to a hotel and go to sleep straight away – I’m sorry, I should have tried to ring you.”

“Never mind that, that’s all right,” said Harry. “But how are you, son? You don’t look too good now. D’you want to lie down?”

“Oh, no! No, I’m better now. They go as suddenly as they come, these headaches; I’m fine now.”

But Harry was not happy about it. He had never seen Matthew so jumpy before. Whereas in his childhood he had been quite happy sitting alone with a book for hours on end, now he could not sit still for a minute; he would get up and walk about, chatting loudly and rather hysterically about nothing at all – about his father and mother – about the weather; Harry was bewildered. Over lunch, which they had with the Parrishes, Matthew was subdued and quiet; but as they walked in Harry’s garden in the afternoon, the old man had a glimpse of what was on Matthew’s mind.

“Uncle Harry,” Matthew began, “what would you do if you began to be obsessed by something? Would you think it was the devil possessing you? Don’t you think God could possess you too? I don’t mean drive you mad – or rather, yes, I do mean drive you mad. Could God drive a man mad?”

“No,” said Harry slowly. “The man would have to be upset first for the idea of God to send him mad. But, you know, it might not be God. It might be the devil after all. He can take a thousand shapes and forms, and if the man didn’t know what God was like, the devil could easily fox him and turn his mind astray by pretending to be God. He could do that, I reckon. Why d’you think it’s God, though?”

Matthew shrugged.

“It’s either God or it’s nothing at all. You know what psychiatrists would say – what any clever person would say – it’s just imagination. Imagination’s their god – they think it has wonderful powers – they’re just like savages who think that if they hear thunder, it’s because the gods are angry with them; and if anything’s wrong with your mind, it’s just imagination. Or it’s some complex or other, or an imbalance in the chemicals in your body. They don’t really understand it, so they’re superstitious about it. But the imagination really doesn’t have a tenth of the power they think it has. It’s a poor shabby thing and it can’t even cope with everyday things like – oh, like feeling bored; you can’t even imagine you’re not bored, it’s as weak as that. And you certainly can’t imagine God. No, I know it’s God there, haunting me. But He doesn’t believe in me.”

He stopped talking, and they walked on a few paces. It struck him suddenly that he was using Harry in just the same way that he himself had been used, on the beach; and as he remembered her face, the desire to see her again was so strong that he felt his chest tighten with longing. He wanted to say a hundred things at once, to go back to the beginning of his conversation with Harry and go over it again; he wanted to tell Harry about her; he wanted to talk to her, herself, talk furiously, talk without ceasing; he wanted to clarify, clarify, clarify, down to the roots of the world and the hidden corners of his heart, and learn once and for all what was the truth.

And there was not a thing he could do about it; he could only go on, further into confusion, He wondered if he would die like this, with unintended lies upon his lips, protesting his false innocence.

“I understand,” said Harry.

“But – there’s something else. Six months ago I met a girl – no; that doesn’t matter, I don’t mean that.”

He paused for a few seconds and tried to collect his thoughts.

“Go on,” said Harry.

“No; I get carried away by words. There, you see! I said, ‘six months ago I met a girl’ – that’s wrong, it’s a lie, although six months ago I
did
meet a girl – and fell in love with her – it’s not her that’s described in that sentence, though, I can’t describe her at all. The trouble is, I don’t know her name. So describing her – or saying anything at all about her – won’t be true. I can say it, I can tell in detail what we did, but there’s God inside me who’ll listen to what I’m saying, quite indifferently, because I might just as well be saying something else. No; not God, I mean, me, my central part. She – I can’t get at her, if you see what I mean, because I don’t know her name; oh, a thousand things besides her name, but that’s the most important. Perhaps that’s why I can’t get at God either; perhaps God isn’t His name. Perhaps you’re right, it’s the devil.”

He sank into silence. Harry did not make the mistake of thinking that Matthew’s last words indicated that he really thought Harry was right about it. He recognised that Matthew’s argument was coming round on itself, biting its own tail, not because of anything he had said but because Matthew was talking out of panic, using words without feeling their weight beforehand, so to speak. Matthew seemed to be thinking the same, because after a minute he spoke again. “I ought not to talk at all, I ought to keep quiet about it,” was all he said.

They walked up and down for a while, with only the song of the birds and the occasional sound of a car in the distance breaking into the drowsy silence. The garden was not large, but it was beautifully kept, and Matthew was aware of a strange, indifferent, meditative air of harmony which filled it, even though he was so disturbed himself at the moment. The same feeling emanated from his uncle. Harry was not particularly striking to look at; he was powerfully built, and still very strong in spite of his age, but there was nothing else remarkable about his appearance. His hair was thick and grey, and his eyes mild and brown. Nevertheless, it was an arresting face, because of something indefinable in the expression – the set of the eyes – the hint of a smile about the mouth; it had a quality of absolute stillness about it. You felt that if he were to sit down in the garden, the birds would come and play around him, perching on his shoulders and arms and legs with no fear at all, and that even if he were to move suddenly they would only flutter their wings and adjust their balance and settle down again. This was why Matthew felt able to talk quite unselfconsciously, whereas if he had been talking to anyone else he would have been tied in knots of embarrassment, cursing himself.

He wondered for a moment if Harry had even heard what he’d been saying. He’d hardly said anything in reply. But why should he expect a reply? It was enough to be able to talk, wasn’t it? No, he thought, it wasn’t. Perhaps the answers, if there were any, wouldn’t come from Harry at all, but from some other source as far removed from the world and all that he knew as that other sun was, that shone so mysteriously on the world for a while and then vanished again.

Suddenly both of them looked up and over to the farm. There was a cry; it was muffled, and Matthew wasn’t sure if he’d heard it at all, but for some occult reason a spasm of alarm took hold of both of them. They heard a door slam, and the sound of hurrying footsteps, which only a few seconds later got louder and crunched on the gravel beside the house. They saw, as she came into the garden, that it was Mrs. Parrish.

She was nearly running; and she looked so frightened that it was almost comic at first, and Matthew had to be careful not to smile as she hurried breathlessly up to them and nearly tripped on the edge of the grass. But her face was white.

“Oh! Mr. Locke! “ she said, and paused for breath, looking swiftly at Matthew; she didn’t seem to recognise him, but looked straight through him, he thought, in fear – “Poor little Jenny Andrews – she’s dead – Peter found her in the wood – she’s dead – she’s been murdered!”

Matthew’s heart leapt; he looked at his uncle, and then back at Mrs. Parrish, who stood trembling in front of them with one hand on her breast, as if she were swearing to the truth of what she said. There was panic in her face.

No-one said anything for a second; and then Harry said “You’d better ring for the police, and I’ll go over to the farm. Matthew knows where the telephone is.”

He set off along the path. Matthew, dazed, said to her “Yes, yes – well, of course, you know where the phone is, too;” and ran to the back door of the house, and let her in. They hurried into the hall, and Matthew wondered why his uncle had made him stay behind. Mrs. Parrish was talking nervously.

“It was in the seven-acre field, down the end where it borders the wood, you know the place; Peter was down there looking at the fence and he said there she was, poor lamb; he had to carry her all the way back to the farm, and then he realised he shouldn’t have done, of course; oh, I don’t know who’s going to tell poor Mrs. Andrews…”

“There, sit down,” Matthew said automatically, pulling a chair out from beside the hall table. “What’s the number? Is it 999?”

She sat down and dialled the number. “Hullo? Emergency – police it is – and ambulance – at South End Farm, Barton – yes – Barton 685, this is – there’s been a murder…”

Matthew leant against the wall, and then had to sit down on the stairs. Where, in heaven’s name, did this come in? He tried to picture the body of a girl – how old could she be, he wondered? Perhaps she was only a child; and he tried to imagine her body, flung down casually near a clump of trees at the edge of a field, discarded, and the murderer turning away in loathing. When had it happened? In day light, perhaps – in the cold dawn – that was horrible –

Mrs. Parrish finished speaking, and put the telephone down.

“Poor Mrs. Andrews – I wonder if I’d better ring her up – oh, it’s awful – no; I couldn’t tell her on the telephone, I couldn’t; I’ll have to go round straight away, before the police get here.”

She was still greatly agitated; but it was only just beginning to sink in to Matthew.

“Who’s the girl?” he said. “How old was she?”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Parrish; and as she spoke she began to cry, “she was only eleven, the poor little thing; oh, I can’t believe it. When Peter came into the kitchen, I didn’t know what it was he’d come back for, he’d only been gone half an hour or so; and ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘be careful, listen, don’t be upset, I’ve found Jenny Andrews and she’s dead;’ and he was shaken, I could tell that, and he went on ‘I’ve taken her and laid her in the dairy, now go and find Mr. Locke and ask him to ring the police and the doctor.’ I didn’t know what he could be talking about, Jenny Andrews dead, what’s he mean, I thought, but then he sat down and sort of groaned and put his face in his hands and said ‘Now I’ve done it wrong! I should have left her, mum, now they won’t find any clues! I’ve messed it all up, I should have left her there.’ and then I saw he must be telling the truth. Mr. Parrish is out on the tractor; he doesn’t know about it; oh Lord, it’s too horrible.”

“Christ,” said Matthew in a whisper. “How was she killed? Do you know how long she’d been there?”

“She’d been strangled; oh, the brute, he must be mad. Peter said she was stiff and her clothes were all wet. She must have been there all night, and her mother wondering where she was – now she’ll have to hear this, on top of it – oh, it’s just wickedness, it’s pure wickedness!”

Matthew was silent. He stared at the wallpaper without seeing it. “Now then,” he thought, “this is another gulf opening – this is the world moving again – it’s like the girl on the beach – I don’t move as fast as I thought; I don’t move at all, it’s the world that moves, it strides like a giant and I can’t keep up with it…”

But in fact his mind was racing, darting here and there over the whole image of murder. It shocked him like thunder; and like thunder it was a natural phenomenon, perhaps; it came out of a clear sky, and demonstrated contemptuously how deep in sleep he was. It spoke too loudly to be human.

After a second or two Mrs. Parrish had recovered a little. She stood up and smoothed her hands over her skirt. “Oh dear, I’m all trembling; look at my hands. I’d better go and see what they’re doing over there, then I’ll go to Mrs. Andrews’; the police’ll be here in a minute, I suppose…”

“Can I do anything, Mrs. Parrish?” said Matthew, feeling that he ought to say something, “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do, really – I don’t want to get in the way. There’ll be so much going on in a minute.”

She went across to the window beside the front door that overlooked the drive and the entrance to the farm, and leant forward to look out, resting her hands on the window sill.

“No; I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think you’d better get in the way, Matthew, because the police’ll have lots to do; I should just stay here, if I was you.”

Whenever his emotions were excited, as they were now, he found himself experiencing a curious kind of over sensitivity; he responded in the most extravagant way to the most minute stimuli. It amounted almost to clairvoyance. He was aware of every smallest degree of feeling in Mrs. Parrish, and even felt a momentary flare of lust for her thickset body, because unconsciously she had put her weight on one hip and bent the other leg in a way that gave her an unusual lightness and grace. As soon as she turned round, of course, the spell would be broken, but he was astonished by the strength of it, while it lasted. Perhaps the murderer had seen the girl like that, and been unable to resist – it would only take a moment… But the words she had just spoken would have protected her, because Matthew had been hurt by them, feeling them to be a harsh rebuke to his presumptuous desire to interfere. Consequently he sat absolutely still, hiding his feelings but still being aware of every tiniest gradation of the light around her body, every variation in the emotional atmosphere between them. He could even smell her, among the other smells of furniture-polish, of cooking oil, of soap, of flowers through the open window; he caught the warm smell of her flesh, not entirely clean, but certainly not dirty. And he heard quite distinctly, over and apart from the flooding of his own blood, the rush and pull of the tides of hers, and felt her heart above him like the moon.