The Unsettled Dust Read online

  I swallowed a little more, and then sat looking into the fire, as Blantyre had done. Before long, his breath seemed to be coming more easily.

  ‘Will you please tell me the story?’ I asked, still staring at the logs. ‘All within the four walls of the Fund, of course.’

  ‘You mean that I shan’t last long? That I ought to pass it on before I go?’

  ‘Of course not. I never thought of such a thing. After all, the Brakespear girls must know, and almost certainly, Elizabeth, and doubtless others.’

  ‘Not many others,’ said Blantyre. ‘Or only village tales. If the Fund has to have official knowledge of the story, it is my successor I should tell, but I don’t know who he’ll be and I daresay I shall never meet him, so I’m prepared to tell you. You’ve been staying in the house, I believe? Spending nights there?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And still am. All thanks to young Mr. Hand.’

  ‘There’s a good lad,’ said Blantyre unexpectedly. ‘It’s a bad thing for England that they’re not more like him.’

  ‘Who knows if you’re not right, but you can be glad you don’t have to work with him.’

  ‘Men of the best type are seldom easy to work with. Being easy to work with is a talent that often doesn’t call for any other talents in support of it.’

  I said nothing: again remembering Blantyre’s age. This time the gulf between the generations positively yawned at my feet.

  ‘If you’re called upon to live in the house,’ said Blantyre, ‘you’ve possibly a claim to the story. Not that I’ve heard of actual harm coming to anyone. Not physical harm, anyway. Only to Tony Tilbury, who was killed. But he was just run over.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ I said.

  ‘The one certain fact is that Tony Tilbury was run down and killed early one morning by a car which Agnes Brakespear was driving.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, feeling a little sick.

  ‘Olive Brakespear saw it happen from one of the windows. That’s another fact: at least, I suppose so. There is considerable doubt as to how far her account of the details can be relied on.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought it was an easy place to have an accident of that kind; especially with nothing else about.’

  ‘You’re not the only person to have thought that, and, in fact, if it hadn’t been for Olive’s evidence, Agnes would have been in serious trouble. A manslaughter charge, at least. Even murder, perhaps.’

  ‘Who was Tony Tilbury?’

  ‘He was a fine-looking young chap; descended from one of Queen Elizabeth’s admirals. I met him myself several times, when we were still in the old place. But then I think you may have seen for yourself what he looked like. If we understood one another just now. The thing was that Tilbury and Olive Brakespear were in love – very much in love, people say – and Agnes objected.’

  ‘You mean she was in love with him herself?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Blantyre. ‘That’s one of the many things that no one knows, or can be expected to know, unless one of the sisters speaks up, and I should say that’s pretty unlikely by this time. But there’s no doubt at all about the rows it all caused between them. There were plenty of people who were quite prepared, or said they were, to swear to having seen Agnes setting about Olive, and even threatening to kill her.’

  ‘That seems an unlikely thing to threaten before witnesses.’

  ‘It’s what people said. Whether they would really have taken an oath on it when it came to the point, is, needless to say, another matter. It never did come to a point of that kind, because Olive swore at the inquest that she had seen the whole thing from one of the windows and that the car had quite obviously got out of control. She swore that she saw Agnes struggling with it and doing all she could be expected to do. Even so, there were a lot of unanswered questions, when it had come to running down a solitary man in all that open space. And, apparently, Olive at one point half-admitted that she couldn’t really see, because of all the dust which the car had stirred up. Agnes made a big thing of the dust too, in her own evidence. She put a lot of the blame on it. In the end the Coroner gave Agnes the benefit of the doubt, and the jury brought in Accidental Death. I daresay the dust was pretty decisive, however you look at it. It can get into people’s eyes, like smoke. That’s not the only dusty verdict I’ve known to come from a coroner’s jury. Inquests often take place in. rather a rush, oddly enough; though I didn’t attend the one on Tony Tilbury.’

  ‘Why did people suppose he was standing about all by himself at that hour of a winter morning?’

  ‘It wasn’t winter,’ said Blantyre. ‘It was pretty near midsummer. Hence all the dust.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t realised.’ Blantyre waited for me to go on. ‘At Clamber there seems dust enough at any time. Even so, what was Tilbury doing?’

  ‘Agnes and Olive told a story about Tilbury sleeping badly and often going out in the early hours to walk about the park. I daresay it was more or less true. But what people said was something different. They said that on the morning in question, Tilbury was about to elope with Olive. A far-fetched thing to do, in all the circumstances, but the two of them were said to have been driven to it by Agnes’s behaviour. The idea seems to me to leave a lot of unanswered questions also. And I don’t know that there’s any real evidence for it at all. Tilbury’s own car – a racing sort of thing – was found in the background along the drive, but there was nothing very remarkable about that. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that the whole business, queer though it was, would have started so many tales, or at least kept the tales going for so long, had it not been for one or two other things.’

  ‘What were they?’ I asked.

  ‘In the first place, Olive had a complete breakdown after the inquest – or so, once again, it was said: I suppose one can’t be certain even of that. All that is certain is that she was missing for more than a year. And when she came back, she had changed. She had intended to be a professional pianist, as you possibly know: perhaps before she met Tony Tilbury. Even that was odd: the effect that Tilbury appears to have had on her. Tilbury was an agreeable young chap, and good-looking, of course, but perfectly ordinary, as far as I could ever see; and it was hard to imagine why a sensitive, artistic creature like Olive should be so gone on him in particular. Because I think she really was gone on him. I don’t think there’s much doubt about that. I’m told they behaved quite absurdly together, even in public. Anyway, when she came back, after more than a year, from wherever it had been, she’d given up music and gone nuts on riding; and not the usual sort of riding either, but endless treks all by herself. She still does it, or did, the last I heard. But you’ll probably know more about that than I do.’

  ‘Olive still plays the piano as well,’ I said. ‘Whenever Agnes lets her.’

  ‘I see,’ said Blantyre, looking me in the eye. ‘Well, there you are. I mean as to the relationship between them. You’ve summed it up from your own observation.’

  ‘I’d believe almost anything about their relationship. But what’s the next reason why people still talk?’

  ‘Do you have to ask? You’re not the only one to have seen things and heard things – or to have said they’ve seen and heard them. Not that I wish to reflect any doubt upon you personally, you understand.’

  ‘Elizabeth told me that no one sees anything more than once. At least, she said that no one sees what I now take to have been Tilbury’s figure more than once?’

  ‘Did she now? That’s a new superstition to me. But it follows a familiar line, of course, and when things like that are alive at all, they always grow. Also I haven’t been to Clamber for some time, though that’s probably something I shouldn’t admit. I just don’t like the place, and, between ourselves, I don’t go out much more than I can help in any case, unless it happens to be set fair weather.’

  ‘Elizabeth implied that people have seen him in many different rooms in the house.’

  ‘I suspect,’ replied Blantyre, ‘that
he’s just in the whole place, and that the people who see him, do so when they happen to be in the right mood. What exactly that means, I have no idea, but none of the theories that are supposed to explain these things, goes very far, as you may have noticed. “All telepathy”, people say, for example. What does it mean? Whether it’s true or not? It gets one almost no distance at all, though it may perhaps just be worth saying. I claim no more for what I have just suggested about Tony Tilbury at Clamber.’

  ‘And, from what you say, we know no more about what those three people were doing all up and about so early in the morning?’

  ‘Not a thing. Nor ever shall, in all probability. Of course the father had died years before. As a matter of fact, he killed himself: so much seems certain, though they succeeded in hushing it up, and I’ve never come upon so much as a rumour as to his reasons. The older people who knew him just say he always seemed depressed or always seemed aloof, or some such word. All in all, they’re not a lucky family. The mother went queer after her husband’s death, though she’s still alive.’

  ‘I was told in the Fund offices that she lived in the house.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Blantyre, smiling a little. ‘It’s the sort of thing that I should be notified about officially, wouldn’t you say? I suspect it’s another example of the growth that takes place in the absence of facts. Or have you heard the old thing screaming in the night above your head?’

  ‘Never,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, I hope you don’t. It’s not a pleasant sound, I assure you,’

  Blantyre spoke as if it were one with which he was thoroughly familiar.

  ‘And that reminds me.’ he went on. ‘I shouldn’t be frightened of Clamber, if I were you, or let it get me down. I mention this because that might be the tendency of some of the things I’ve said. I think it is quite unnecessary. It’s true that I don’t like the place, but it’s far more true that no one was ever hurt by a ghost yet, unless he made use of the ghost to hurt himself. Ghosts don’t hit you over the head: you do it yourself when you’re not thinking about it, and blame them for it because you can’t understand yourself. A homely illustration, but all the records confirm the truth of it. It’s only in fiction that there’s anything really dangerous. And of course old houses do tend to dust up when their families no longer own them: though that’s not a line of thought we are permitted to pursue. So now let me make you another cup of coffee.’

  Despite Blantyre’s reassurances, I was thereafter really afraid not only of Clamber Court, but of the two sisters as well. Fortunately, I had only four more nights to stay there; because my nights had become as forbidding as my days.

  Driving back from seeing Blantyre, I actually came upon Olive on her horse, visibly now a rather elderly animal, though once, I had no doubt, a nice roan. Despite all the references to riding, I had never seen her mounted before, probably because I had always before driven about the countryside either too early or too late. The horse was stepping out slowly towards me, along a very minor road. The reins were quite loose in Olive’s hand. There seemed little chance of the desperate galloping and charging that Agnes had implied was Olive’s manner of equitation; though I could well believe that Olive was entirely capable of such things, perhaps even longed for them. Possibly it was what once she did, but did no more. The weather was as bleak as ever, with a bitter wind getting up under a cold sky, but Olive wore a sand-coloured shirt, open at the neck, and so old that, when I came up with her, I saw little tears in it. When first I saw her, she was looking up at the great, almost white, heavens while the horse found his own way. There was no reason why she should have taken any notice of my car, nowadays one of so many in the lanes, had I not slowed almost to a stop, because of the horse and because it was Olive. She met my eyes through the windscreen, even smiled a little, and raised her left hand in greeting, like a female centaur. She made no sign of stopping or speaking, but rode slowly on. I watched her for a few seconds through my rear window: noticing the small tears in her shirt, noticing and admiring the straightness of her back, the sleekness of her hair, the perfection of her posture.

  Although I had stayed for a simple lunch with Blantyre, because he seemed lonely and pressed it upon me, and because it hardly seemed worth visiting the river for a short spell of failing light, I arrived back at Clamber Court much earlier than usual. Naturally, the grey Elizabeth looked surprised.

  ‘I’ve been visiting Mr. Blantyre, our local Representative,’ I said.

  It was an explanation that was unlikely to be well received, and Elizabeth’s surprise duly changed to hostility and suspicion.

  ‘Aren’t we doing what they want?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course you are. I was only passing the time of day with him.’

  But I cannot deny that, going along the familiar passage to my room, I felt very quavery. I even hesitated before opening my door. The room, however, was merely much lighter than it usually was when I came back to it.

  An indefensible thought struck me. For the first time, I was more or less alone in the house and it was still daylight. I resolved to look about, starting with the room next to my own. Or at least to try the door. It was better, I thought, to know than not to know.

  Still in my overcoat, I tiptoed back into the passage. There were little cold draughts, and I pushed back my own door as far as it would go. I did not want it to slam and bring upstairs the grey Elizabeth. I did not want it to make a noise of any kind or to shut me out.

  The door of the next room was locked. It was only to be expected. I did something even more indefensible. I removed the key from the lock of my own door and tried it in the lock of the next door. My thought was that when the house had been built, an operation of this kind would have had small chance of success, but that the 1910 contractor who had plainly made big changes, might well have installed new locks that were not merely standard but identical. I was right. The lock stuck a bit, but I made the key turn. I did not just peek in, but threw the door wide open, though, at the same time, I did it as quietly as I could.

  The room was entirely empty of furniture, but the air was charged with moving dust. It was almost as thick as the snow in those snowstorm glasses one used to buy from pedlars in Oxford Street. Moreover, it seemed to move in the same, slow, dreary swirl as moves the toy snow when the glass is reversed and the fall begins. There was a bitter wind outside the house, as I have said, and draughts inside it, but the room was fusty and stuffy, and I could not see how the March wind could explain everything.

  Not that it mattered: at least to begin with; for through the wheeling dust I could see that at the window of the empty room a figure stood with its back to me, looking out towards the park.

  It was Agnes, dressed in her day clothes; and I could see another key of the room lying on the window sill. She had locked herself in. I had been wrong in taking it for granted that at that hour she would every day be occupied with her committees and public works.

  So much time passed while I just gazed through the terrifying dust at Agnes’s motionless back that I really thought I might succeed in shutting the door and getting away. But exactly as I was nerving myself to move, and to move quietly, Agnes turned and looked at me.

  ‘I know it’s no longer our house, my sister’s and mine,’ she said, ‘but still you are our guest, Mr. Oxenhope, even if only in a sense.’

  ‘I apologise,’ I said. ‘I had no idea the room was not empty. I have been seeing Mr. Blantyre today. Unfortunately, he’s not very well, and there are one or two things I thought I should check on his behalf, before the house opens to the public.’

  ‘Of course it is what we expect and have become accustomed to. I am not complaining. What else would you like to see? The key of your room doesn’t open every door.’

  ‘I don’t think any of the other little items will involve keys,’ I replied, ‘though thank you very much. As for this room, I only wanted to make sure it was empty, because we should like to store a few things in it.’


  ‘There are other empty rooms in the house,’ said Agnes, ‘and I am sure we can spare this one.’

  ‘All the same, I do apologise again for not speaking to you first. It was simply that I had a little time on my hands, as today I haven’t visited the river.’

  ‘It is no longer our house,’ said Agnes, ‘so that, strictly speaking, there is no obligation on you to ask us about anything. Has Mr. Blantyre any criticisms of my housekeeping?’

  ‘None,’ I assured her. ‘We agreed that it is one of the best maintained of all the Fund’s many properties.’

  And, interestingly enough, the dust had by then ceased to swirl, though I am sure it still lay thick on the room floor, the floors of the other rooms, the passages, the stairs, the furniture, and all our hearts.

  THE HOUSES OF THE RUSSIANS

  One day, when the Blessed Seraphim was a child, his mother took him to the top of a bell-tower which was under construction. The child slipped and fell a hundred and fifty feet to the cobblestones below. His distracted mother rushed down expecting to see his mangled body, but, to her astonishment and joy, he was standing up apparently unhurt. Later in life he was several times in mortal danger and each time was saved by a miracle.

  PRINCE FELIX YOUSSOUPOFF

  ‘May I buy you a drink, sir?’ Dyson asked the old man politely. ‘You look as if you had seen a ghost.’

  The old man was indeed very pale and he clung a little to the bar, but he smiled slightly at Dyson’s way of putting it. ‘In my mind’s eye perhaps,’ he replied. ‘Thank you. May I make it a small whisky?’

  ‘I’d say it’s a miracle you’re here at all, let alone safe and sound,’ said the man behind the bar, who had been staring out of the window at the back, and had seen what had happened. ‘There’ve been many of our customers who weren’t. Most dangerous road in the west country that is now. There’s even been talk of closing the house before some lorry knocks into it and closes it for us.’