The Map of Time Collection, page 157
Wells stopped reading. He felt a growing queasiness in the pit of his stomach. Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence that, precisely that morning, the papers had borrowed a sentence from his novel as a title for an article, which also spoke of the very place they were going to on their outing? Much as he tried, Wells could not overlook this coincidence. Why, some of the terrifying events described had even occurred at Brook Manor, the first of the houses they were to visit! The locals swore they had seen a candle flame dancing like a wayward firefly from window to window in the supposedly deserted house, and a host of caretakers who had worked there had handed in their notice, they told the papers, unable to bear the continuous noise of voices, footsteps, and howls that echoed through the gloomy corridors of the mansion day and night.
And this was the house they would be visiting in a few hours’ time? thought Wells uneasily, not because of the rumored ghosts, which didn’t bother him much, but because of his disquiet at the hidden meaning he always read into every coincidence. Why had they published the article on that particular day and not the day before or after? Was this a mysterious warning? Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to visit the place where his tormented creation appeared to be concealed after stepping out of the pages in which Wells had imprisoned him . . . Wells tried to curb his feverish imagination and think rationally. Yes, he told himself, he objected to anyone blurring the line between his novels and reality—even as a joke. But however childish his misgivings might appear, they were understandable, for whenever that happened, his life was always affected in one way or another. After he wrote The Time Machine, the appearance of Murray’s Time Travel had given him a lot of headaches as well as an archenemy. Although, to be fair, the re-creation of the Martian invasion from his book The War of the Worlds had converted that same enemy into one of his closest friends. He found it difficult to imagine what a possible encounter with the invisible man of his novel might bestow on him. A new pet? Triplets?
But Wells had scarcely had time to laugh at his own joke when he heard the sound of horses’ hooves announcing the arrival of the carriage with the pompous “G” emblazoned on its side. Through the kitchen window, he saw Doyle step out of the coach and then watched with irritation as he helped Miss Jean Leckie down. That put him in a bad mood. Not that Wells had anything against the young woman, who possessed the kind of exquisite, ethereal beauty (hazel eyes, ash-blond hair, and slender, petite figure) found in the illustrations of fairies Doyle was so fond of. On the contrary, he admired her shrewd intelligence and her straightforward sense of humor, and both couples tried to meet up whenever they could, as this wasn’t the first time Doyle and Jean had been seen together in mixed company, although hitherto for the sake of appearances Jean had invariably been accompanied by her brother Malcolm or some female chaperone. But although Wells liked Jean, he couldn’t help considering her presence that morning a hindrance to his plans. He cursed Doyle under his breath for having invited her along, for he knew the author well enough to be aware that never in the presence of his lady friend would he allow anyone to tell him how he should treat the impertinent Montgomery Gilmore.
And the fact was Wells had not been mistaken. He had tried several times during the long journey to Dartmoor to bring the topic up but had failed miserably. Fortunately, Jane had managed to lighten things up by asking Doyle about the match he had played at Lord’s with the Marylebone Cricket Club a few days earlier, an epic game that was the talk of the town, and Doyle had launched into a blow-by-blow account of bats hitting balls according to some whimsical rules only he appeared to understand. To cap it all, they were moving so ludicrously slowly that Wells was expecting the slumbering figure of the coachman to fall off his perch at any moment.
Dejected, he ignored Doyle’s exploits and glanced out of the window. Although they were still driving through pretty countryside, and the road was flanked with green meadows dotted with neat thatched cottages, Wells could feel a sadness descending on the landscape: the moor announced its presence like a brewing storm. If he pressed his forehead against the glass, he could make out an ominous line of hills in the distance, silhouetted against a sky so dark it resembled a swamp. And that desolate, gloomy place was where they were headed . . . Wells was no longer in any doubt: it was going to be an awful day.
After half an hour of negotiating narrow lanes bordered with ever more sinister pines and oaks, the carriage reached the top of a small knoll and came wearily to a halt. Doyle finally broke off his interminable story, and they all looked out of the windows. The ground sloped away into a deep hollow, and the dreamlike moor stretched before them like a threadbare carpet, a barren, endless expanse with only three or four buildings several miles apart and dotted with clusters of reddish rock and the odd crooked tree bent by the prevailing wind. The moor was solitude in earthly form, so to speak. Death had laid down its mantle here and was roaming the world naked.
“Brook Manor,” the coachman said in a somber voice, pointing with his whip at the first of the houses.
As they made their way down to the mansion, a gloomy silence descended on them, broken only by the sound of the horses’ hooves and the creak of the carriage wheels as they contemplated the colossal shape of the house towering before them: an impressive mass of stone from which two identical crenellated towers rose up into the darkening sky. To the right, the desolate moor stretched out, marked in the distance by what looked like a tiny hamlet and a couple of farms. Wells remembered that they were only four or five miles from Dartmoor prison, renowned throughout the land for its harsh regime. Moments later, the carriage ground to a halt outside the mansion’s impressive wrought-iron gate, flecked with rust and flanked by two dilapidated stone pillars.
The travelers stepped out of the carriage to take a closer look and to stretch their legs, but no sooner had their feet touched the ground than an icy gust of wind forced them to wrap their cloaks and coats around them. They approached the bars, shivering, and nervously contemplated the tree-lined driveway that stretched beyond the gates, at the end of which, enveloped in mist, was the mansion. It seemed to pulsate imperceptibly, like some malevolent creature brought back to life by an evil spell. For a few moments, they all remained silent, clutching the bars of the gate as if that gloomy hole were threatening to suck out their very souls. The wind buffeted them, whipping their clothes before sweeping down the driveway, transforming the fallen leaves into a flock of demented crows.
“If the devil himself wanted to meddle in the affairs of men, he couldn’t wish for a more perfect setting,” sighed Wells.
“I couldn’t agree with you more!” Doyle boomed, turning toward him. “Admit it, George: in spite of all your skepticism, if a gruesome hound were to appear on that driveway and come charging toward us, baring its teeth, wouldn’t you think it came directly from hell?”
“I expect so . . .”
Wells scanned the driveway nervously and couldn’t help remembering the Norfolk legend of Black Shuck, the big hairy dog that killed people with its eyes. Murray would need to spend a fortune on electric lightbulbs before Wells agreed to set foot in that dreadful house.
“Forgive me for butting in,” said the coachman, who had climbed down off his perch and approached them quietly, “but I tell you, if I saw an evil dog running toward me, the last thing I’d care about is where it came from. I’d run like a man possessed by the devil and hide behind the nearest door.”
They all looked at the coachman, slightly puzzled.
“Don’t you like dogs?” Jean inquired politely.
The old man shook his head vigorously.
“You wouldn’t believe how much I detest them, Miss Leckie. I’m afraid that anyone who was bitten by one as a child can never trust the perfidious creatures again.”
“It is true that a lot of people have an aversion to them,” Jane butted in, smiling sympathetically at the coachman. “But you have to admit some breeds are absolutely adorable, and harmless.”
The old man gazed at her for a few seconds in silence, smiling with a strange tenderness.
He chuckled at last. “They all have teeth, Mrs. Wells.”
“You’re quite right,” replied Jane, joining in his laughter.
“It’s too cold out here!” Wells then muttered, annoyed by his wife’s apparent empathy with Murray’s coachman. All of a sudden, he wondered what the devil they were doing in the middle of that godforsaken moor, enduring that icy cold as they discussed with the old fellow his fear of dogs. “I think we’d better wait for Emma and Montgomery inside the carriage.”
The others agreed and, bundled up in their coats, walked toward the supposed shelter offered by the coach.
“I hate dogs and you hate the stairs at Edwin Hyde’s drapery, isn’t that so?” the coachman whispered to Wells as he walked past.
Wells looked at him in astonishment while he tried to recall when he had told the old man that the stairs he had fallen down as a youth were the ones in the draper’s at Southsea. The old fellow grinned to himself, pointing to the tiny scar on Wells’s chin. Just then, a loud din caused everyone to look over toward the brow of the hill. Gleaming through the mist, a peculiar-looking vehicle was rolling down the hill toward them at an alarming speed, announcing its arrival with a sort of bellow that echoed across the moor, vying with the howl of the wind.
16
THE SOUND OF THE DOOR creaking shut behind them echoed off the walls of the vast entrance hall for several minutes, and the small group that had dared disturb the silence of that place huddled even closer together. They glanced about uneasily, mesmerized by those walls steeped in a thousand gloomy winters and crammed with weapons and emblazoned shields. Murray, who had organized that expedition into the heart of darkness and therefore felt responsible for the mood of its members, decided to speak first.
“I plan to install a handful of Edison’s electric lightbulbs there, there, and there,” he said resolutely, pointing randomly into the murkiness. “I shall also get rid of all the shields and weapons and replace them with beautiful paintings.”
“Get rid of the weapons?” Doyle protested. “That would be madness, Gilmore. Why, this collection is worthy of a knight of old. Look at that mace, for example!” He pointed to one of the walls where a club with a big, rusty ball studded with spikes had been mounted. “The perfect weapon for use in man-to-man combat, every bit as noble as the sword, while clearly requiring less skill and more brute force. And what about that crossbow? I’d say it’s probably twelfth-century,” Doyle added, referring to a wooden device resting on the wall like a monstrous dragonfly. “Although the fact is I’ve always considered crossbows to be despicable weapons, allowing any oaf to kill from a safe distance a knight trained in the art of war. They are a test of marksmanship, not manliness. And terribly difficult to reload so that during a battle every crossbowman needed a shield bearer to protect him while he reloaded the damn thing.”
And Doyle instantly launched into a detailed description of how to load a crossbow, accompanying his lesson with a pantomime of the movements. Murray interrupted him before everybody started to yawn.
“I’m glad you find them so interesting, Doyle. But in my view all these weapons merely illustrate man’s ingenuity for dreaming up fresh ways to kill his fellow man, and I will get rid of them at the first opportunity,” he said, inventing scruples he did not possess, or at least not in his old life, Wells reflected, when he had doubtless been skilled at handling weapons. “We’ll hang up a few works by Leighton instead. What do you reckon, Emma?”
He took his betrothed by the arm and, without giving Doyle a chance to reply, began a tour of his recently acquired mansion while he chatted about the various improvements he was planning to make. The others had little choice but to tag along behind them. From the hallway, they passed into the main reception room, which seemed slightly more welcoming due to the enormous fireplace gaping in one corner and the tall stained-glass windows, which, despite the dull grey light filtering through them that day, promised rainbow colors when the sun shone. However, the smoke-blackened oak-beamed ceilings evoked the leaden skies that hung over the moor, and the dozens of deer heads mounted on the walls seemed to observe the passing group through glassy eyes tinged with death. Next, the group entered an enormous dining hall that offered no respite from the somber atmosphere pervading the house; on the contrary, it was a windowless, gloomy room that gave off a powerful smell of mustiness and despair. When Murray lit one of the few lamps there and placed it in the middle of the long central table, a feeble pool of light spilled from it onto the dusty wood. But it was enough for them to make out through the surrounding thicket of shadows a ring of pale phantoms spying on them. After the initial shock, Murray lifted the lamp and drew closer to one of the walls. A sigh of relief spread through the group as they realized that the ghostly faces belonged to a row of portraits, doubtless ancestors of the Cabell family. Regarded in descending order, these gentlemen, with their alternately stern or stoical expressions, exchanged dress coats for frock coats and prior to that the more sober tailcoats of the Regency era, illustrating the passage of time more entertainingly than rings on a tree ever did. Apart from the dozen portraits, there was a second door located just opposite the one they had come in through, as well as some rusty shields crossed with swords, a couple of faded tapestries depicting mythological scenes, and an enormous mirror that enclosed the whole room in an ornate gold frame.
“Heavens,” Doyle murmured, pointing toward the portraits, “I don’t think I’d be able to dine easily in their company.”
Ignoring Doyle’s commentary, Murray began pacing round the table, rubbing his hands together excitedly.
“Think how beautiful this room will look, Emma, when we, when we”—he glanced around, trying to imagine what refurbishments could miraculously embellish the room—“change it completely.”
She chuckled. “Why, I think it’s charming as it is, Monty. What is there to change? It’s perfect . . . If you don’t manage to sell the house, we could throw parties here. We could invite all the people we don’t like and make them sit in this dining room eating interminable meals, and at night, when they are asleep, we could drag chains along the corridors and let out bloodcurdling howls. That way we’d be sure they’d never accept another invitation, and we wouldn’t have to accept theirs either, assuming they ever invited us anywhere after such an experience.”
“Oh, that’s a brilliant idea, darling,” Murray said enthusiastically.
“Actually it would be rather good to have somewhere like that,” added Wells, who could think of dozens of people he would invite to such dinners.
“Very well, perhaps we’ll keep it just as it is,” Murray went on jovially. “On second thought, it could be put to other similar uses. We could even”—he grinned mischievously—“hire it out for séances.”
“Oh, no, Monty, not that again . . . ,” Emma began, suddenly growing serious.
“But, darling, feel the atmosphere!” Murray interrupted, signaling the room around them with feigned admiration. “I imagine this is what Mr. Doyle would call . . . what was it again? An atmosphere conducive to the power of suggestion.”
Doyle only scowled at Murray.
“Why, yes,” Murray said, spreading his arms, as though wanting to clasp all that darkness to him, “I think I’ve just found another perfect idea for a business. Any medium would happily pay whatever we asked to hold his séances here. With such a conducive atmosphere, he would scarcely need to employ his usual tricks—”
“That’s enough, Monty,” Emma cut in. “Arthur, I beg you to forgive us once more: we didn’t mean to offend you by mocking your beliefs; we were only teasing.” She looked sternly at Murray. “Isn’t that right, darling?”
“Of course, it was just teasing, Doyle,” Murray confirmed with a shrug.
“I appreciate your concern, Miss Harlow,” said Doyle, ignoring Murray and addressing his fiancée with a look of injured pride. “As I already said when we first met, I know how to enjoy a good joke.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” Emma replied, without clarifying either whether or not Murray’s remarks fell into that category. “Although, speaking of sinister atmospheres, it has to be said there is something very intimidating about this house.”
“Well, it doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest,” Murray declared.
“Oh, come now, Monty,” said Wells, who was praying Murray and Doyle weren’t going to get into another unpleasant argument, “you must admit the place gives you the shivers, regardless of whether we came here expecting that or not.”
“Well, I’d say the house is contaminated with energies beyond our understanding,” Doyle announced with an authoritative air, casting an eye slowly around the room. “I don’t think it is simply a matter of suggestion, George. We all perceive it, even if some of us daren’t admit it.”
“Who dares not admit it?” asked Murray.
“You, of course, darling,” Emma replied.
“Really? And what exactly is it I’m meant to perceive? That the souls of this jolly lot are watching us to make sure we don’t make fun of their whiskers?” Murray argued, pointing at the portraits.
“That’s not what I meant, darling,” replied Emma, maintaining her composure. “But, like Arthur, I, too, believe there is something in this house that our senses perceive without understanding. Maybe not the souls of the departed, or the idea we have of souls. But perhaps everything these people experienced”—she pointed at the portraits lining the walls, and pivoted slowly round—“what made them suffer, and what they loved, has somehow outlived them . . .” She walked over to the table and ran her finger gently along the back of one of the chairs while she went on dreamily. “Imagine all the scenes that have taken place in this dining room: the dinners, the family dramas, the news of war, the joyous tidings . . . Perhaps it is all still here, eternally taking place, somehow vibrating in the air, even though we neither hear nor see it, because our minds are only able to perceive the present . . . There could be places, like this, that are like backwaters in a river, places where the flow of time stagnates and experiences accumulate in layers over the centuries to form a unique, complex present, and that this . . . existential sedimentation, so to speak, is what we perceive. Perhaps the shiver you felt, George, was because at that very moment a butler walked through you carrying a tray of glasses”—at which Wells looked at Emma, startled, and took a discreet step to one side—“and you, Jane, right this minute, you might be standing in the sight line of two rivals who will fight a duel at dawn. And in this chair I am leaning against, perhaps a man is caressing his lover’s foot under the table, while she is writing their initials on the table with her finger”—and with this, Emma’s own slender forefinger traced in the dust an “M” and an “E.” Then Emma contemplated the two letters with a pensive smile, probably wondering whether a hundred years from then, when those letters were long gone, and she herself wasn’t even alive, some visitor would sense her making that gesture, until she realized they had all fallen silent. She looked up, her cheeks turning a delightful shade of pink. “Oh, please forgive my silly daydreams. I was born in a very young country, where the buildings have no memories, so that places like this seem completely magical to me . . .”
