The Garden at No. 19/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE R0ARING IN THE NIGHT
BY the time I had had a bath and changed into dry flannels I had grown rather ashamed of the extravagance of my emotions, though I was still aware that they had been quite beyond my controlling. All the way to the tennis club, at the tennis club, where I played very badly, and all that evening I pondered and debated the cause of my panic. I could not believe it groundless. The girl had cried out that there was something horrible in the garden; I had had an impression of a hideous, shapeless beast; my neighbor had seen it, or felt its presence, or he would not have set about driving it back to its lair, or to the Abyss by his adjuration. I could not have fancied it; at any rate I could not have fancied its loathsome, sickly smell, for Mrs. Ringrose had smelt it, too. There were also the flying sparrows and the rats.
What kind of a beast was it that filled human beings and animals with this unnerving terror, a terror independent of the understanding and the will? From what lair had it come! Whither had it gone? Was it dangerous or merely horrible? It must be dangerous, unspeakably malefic, to fill me with that panic terror. And what would happen if it came again when the man was out and the girl at home alone? It was a disquieting thought.
I tossed long on a sleepless pillow wrestling with these questions.
The next morning I awoke in a less confident state of mind. I was disposed to make more allowance for the flights of the imagination. It seemed to me that my impression of a hideous, shapeless beast might very well be a mere fancy. But even so, something must have given it to me; there had been something in the garden of No. 19, to inspire that horror into me. Of that I was sure. It clung to me still; all day the memory of it kept interfering with my work; and I came home that night realizing that I had a new interest in life, to discover the cause of that horror.
Now the function of an interest is to be gratified, as Aristotle might have put it; and it soon grew clear to me that if I did not set about gratifying this interest it would trouble me. I had no scruples about gratifying it; I had indeed a very good right to do so. My neighbor had thrust it into my life in a very disturbing fashion; and there was no impertinence in my curiosity. He had no right whatever to have creatures in his garden which inspired panic terror into me when I was reading quietly in my own. I had every right to protect myself against such an invasion. I made up my mind to do my best to solve the mystery and set my mind at rest.
I began to keep a watch on the garden of No. 19. In the morning after I had dressed, in the evening when I returned from the office, and at night before going to bed I went to the window of the top room at the back of my house and examined my neighbor's garden carefully. Sometimes at night I would watch it for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at a time. In the bottom of my heart I wanted to see a beast, a real beast no matter how hideous or loathsome, a beast that you could touch. It was that, the possibility that it was a beast of another world, an intangible horror, which harassed me.
But I saw nothing. The garden of No. 19 shimmered peacefully in the sunlight, or was very still, its silence unbroken by a rustle, in the moonlight. The escape of the beast from its cage, or its pen, or its lair, or from the Abyss had been an accident. It was an accident unlikely to happen again now that my neighbor had had his warning. My own garden remained quite pleasant to read in; no sense of horror troubled its air; no sickly stench poisoned it; the sparrows went their busy ways about it, unscared.
I would rather that it had not been so peaceful. If the horror had come again, I might have found some reasonable, comforting explanation of it. I would have cheerfully endured the horror to get rid of the haunting possibility of there existing an actual creature of the Abyss, needing a liturgical exorcism to drive it away.
It was some ten days later that I was awakened by a noise of roaring. I sat up in bed and found that it filled the air of the road. It was very hard to make out where it came from. I fancied that it came from the back of the house. It was a strange sound: I had never heard the like of it—a whirring roar, sinking now and again to a throbbing like the beat of wings, strong wings, then rising again to a monotonous, whirring roar.
Presently it struck me that there could only be one place in the Walden road from which a strange sound would come, and that was the garden of No. 19. I slipped out of bed and stood hesitating. I turned my watch-stand, which stood on the little table beside my bed on which I lay the book I am reading at night when I am too sleepy to read any more, and by the strong light of the full moon I saw that the hands pointed to three minutes past twelve. Then I opened the door; and the roar struck louder on my ears. It did come from the back of the house. It sounded very sinister and threatening; and the thought flashed on me that the beast might be about again. With a shiver I shut the door and slipped back into bed.
Two or three minutes later the roaring ceased suddenly. It almost seemed to stop with a jerk, if a sound could stop with a jerk. I lay trying to brace myself to go to the window at the top of the house to look down on the garden of No. 19. I failed; I could not bring myself to face the horror of the beast.
I lay awake for an hour, with straining ears. The roaring did not break out again; but once I thought I heard voices chanting.
Then I fell asleep and slept till morning. Of course, in the heartening daylight, I reproached myself for my lack of spirit in not trying to see what had roared in the garden of No. 19.
I dressed quickly and hurried down to my garden. In the morning sunlight it looked everything that a quiet suburban garden should be. But I had a feeling that I had come into an uncomfortable place. I put it down to my having expected to find something wrong with it—a mere fancy. But there were no sparrows in it, and the crumbs which Mrs. Ringrose had the night before scattered for them lay untouched. The air seemed uncommonly fragrant. I had a strong fancy that someone had been burning incense, but it might merely be the fragrance of some heavily scented flowers in the next garden. I tried for some time to find a peep-hole through the screen of leaves between my neighbor's garden and mine. All the while I had a dim feeling that I was in an uncomfortable place, there was a strange oppression in the air. When at last I came into breakfast the feeling of relief, of the lifting of the oppression as I came into the house was very distinct. It was odd.
When I came into the garden that evening on my return from the office the feeling of discomfort had gone from the air of the garden, and the sparrows had come back. After dinner, therefore, I brought out my easy chair and settled down in it to read.
I had been reading but a little while when I heard a rustling in the hedge of the garden of No. 19. I looked round quickly enough. Some one, or something, was climbing it. I jumped out of my chair, sniffing for the stench of the beast, prepared for some dreadful sight. Then the branches of a sycamore above the hedge parted and the charming face of my neighbor's niece appeared in their leafy frame.
My nerves had gone so tense that I gasped with relief, and we gazed at one another.
Then she said in a delightful tone of appeal, "Oh, Heine, can you climb?"
I was a little taken aback by the form of her address, but it made me smile.
"Climb?" I said. "What do you want me to climb?"
"Up in the top of this sycamore there is a piece of wood with a leather thong fastened to it. It broke and flew up there. "Would you please try to get it down for me? My uncle told me to climb up and get it. But how can I—with you there, too?"
I looked at the top of the sycamore, but could see nothing for its thick leaves.
"I can't see it," I said. "But if I can get into the lower branches, I've no doubt that I can get it."
"If you get a pair of steps like those I'm standing on, it would be easier," she suggested.
"That's a good idea," I said. "I'll get them."
When I came back with the steps she still stood on hers, and I paused to look at the charming picture. Then I set the steps up against the paling close to her.
"It's a long time since I climbed a tree," I said with a sigh. "But I dare say I have some of my old skill left. Where is this piece of wood exactly?"
"I think it must be lying right on the top and you'll have to get your head right out above the leaves to see it."
"Here goes, then," I said.
I set my foot on the lowest branch of the sycamore and began to push my way upwards. It was easy enough climbing, but very dirty; and I was glad that I was wearing flannels which could be washed. Presently I thrust out my head above the topmost branches, and lying on the broad leaves, not two feet from me, was the piece of wood with the leather thong. I took it up and looked at it carefully. It was a concave piece of wood about six inches long, smooth and polished inside and out. The leather thong was about a foot long, and old and frayed. Plainly it had broken off short. I wondered what on earth the thing could be used for.
"I've got it," I cried.
"Oh, thank you," she said.
I put it in my pocket and climbed down the tree. When I stood firmly on my steps, I handed her the piece of wood, and she thanked me again.
"What is it? What do you use it for?" I said, curious.
"I don't use it. It's my uncle's," she said smiling.
"Well, what does he use it for?"
"Oh, I daren't talk about uncle's doings," she said, and the smile faded from her face. "Why, if he thought I'd been talking about him he might beat me."
"Beat you?" I said incredulously.
"Well, when I first came to live with him—years ago—he told me that if ever I talked to anyone about any of his doings, he'd whip me and send me to bed for a fortnight. Oh, you don't know uncle—Heine."
There was a faint mischievous challenge in the tone in which she uttered the word "Heine."
"I don't think I want to know your uncle. If he's the kind of man who would do such a barbarous thing he would plainly be a painful acquaintance," I said, smiling. "But why do you call me Heine?"
"You ought to know why from your looking-glass. You're the very image of Heine," she said, smiling again.
"Am I now? Oddly enough I don't remember ever having seen a portrait of him; and I don't believe I've ever read a word of his writings." And I sat down on the top of the steps to talk more comfortably. Her charming face was only about four feet away, and I could study it as we talked.
"Why, he's delightful!" she cried with enthusiasm. "I wish I had never read a word of his work and had it all to read for the first time."
"Well, it seems that I have that treat in store. Do you read much?"
"Yes. I have nothing else to do—except the housework and the cooking."
"And your sewing," I added.
"Yes. I have been doing a lot of sewing lately. I'm making myself a new dress," she said proudly.
"I have indeed an accomplished neighbor," I said. "You read Heine and keep house and sew and cook."
"Oh, I only cook very simple things—vegetables and porridge and omelettes of different kinds. And it does take me a long time to make a new dress," she said with a sigh. "But what's your real name—besides the Heine it ought to be?"
"Plowden—John Plowden. What's yours?"
"Pamela Woodfell. But I think I shall call you Heine if you don't mind," she said thoughtfully. "It suits you better than 'Mr. Plowden.' It does really."
"I'm charmed to hear it."
Her child's frankness charmed me, too; and I was indeed delighted to perceive that she regarded this meeting as the beginning of an acquaintance.
There came a pause in our talk; then I said: "By the way, what was that beast in your garden on the afternoon of the Sunday before last?"
"Wasn't it horrible—worse than usual?" she said quickly with a little shiver. "I didn't see it, though; I only knew that something horrible was there. But we mustn't talk about it. That's uncle's business."
"Worse than usual? Do you mean to say that you continually have these—these visitants? Why, it gave me such a fright—such a sense of horror as I've never had in my life!" I cried.
"Oh, no; not continually. But I have seen—there have been—I've felt things sometimes—when uncle's friends have come—but he locks me in my bedroom now when they come at night—and I sleep in the front of the house," she said in quick confusion with a troubled air; and then she said earnestly, "But we mustn't talk about these things, we mustn't, really. They're uncle's business."
There was nothing to be gained by pressing her to tell me at the moment; I should only seal her lips.
"Well, of course, if you'd rather not—but it did give me a horrid fright," I said. "It came so suddenly—when I was sitting out here reading."
"Then you got more of it than I did. It must have been horrid," she said sympathetically.
"I can assure you it was."
She looked at me compassionately.
"And that roaring last night—that was rather terrifying," I said.
"Oh, that. There's no need to be terrified of that," she said quickly in a reassuring tone. Then she started and began to descend the steps. "Hush!" she said. "Uncle's moving about the house. There's no harm in my talking to you, of course; but he wouldn't like it. He'd be afraid of my telling you things." Her face was hidden behind the leafy screen. "Thank you for getting me that piece of wood. Good-by—Heine."
"Good-by—for the present," I said.