The 3rd Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

THE VISITING STAR Robert Aickman

© Robert Aickman, 1966

The first time that Colvin, who had never been a frequent theatre-goer, ever heard of the great actress Arabella Rokeby, was when he was walking past the Hippodrome one night and Malnik, the Manager of the Tabard Players, invited him into his office.

Had Colvin not been awarded a Grant, remarkably insufficient for present prices, upon which to compose, collate, and generally scratch together a book upon the once thriving British industries of lead and plumbago mining, he would probably never have set eyes upon this bleak town. Tea was over (to-day it had been pilchard salad and chips); and Colvin had set out from the Emancipation Hotel, where he boarded, upon his regular evening walk. In fifteen or twenty minutes he would be beyond the gaslights, the granite setts, the nimbus of the pits. (Lead and plumbago mining had long been replaced by coal, as the town’s main industry.) There had been no one else for Tea and Mrs. Royd had made it clear that the trouble he was causing had not passed unnoticed.

Outside it was blowing as well as raining, so that Palmerston Street was almost deserted. The Hippodrome (called, when built, the Grand Opera House) stood at the corner of Palmerston Street and Aberdeen Place. Vast, ornate, the product of an unfulfilled aspiration that the town would increase in size and devotion to the Muses, it had been for years unused and forgotten. About it like rags, when Colvin first beheld it, had hung scraps of posters: “Harem Nights. Gay! Bright! ! Alluring! ! !” But a few weeks ago, the Hippodrome had reopened to admit The Tabard Players (“In Association With The Arts Council”); and, it was hoped, their audiences. The Tabard Players offered soberer joys: a new and respectable play each week, usually a light comedy or West End crook drama; but, on one occasion, “Everyman.” Malnik, their Manager, a youngish bald man, was an authority on the British Drama of the Nineteenth Century, upon which he had written an immense book, bursting with carefully verified detail. Colvin had met him one night in the Saloon Bar of the Emancipation Hotel; and, though neither knew anything of the other’s subject, they had exchanged cultural lifebelts in the ocean of apathy and incomprehensible interests which surrounded them. Malnik was lodging with the sad-faced Rector, who let rooms.

To-night, having seen the curtain up on Act I, Malnik had come outside for a breath of the wind. There was something he wanted to impart; and, as he regarded the drizzling and indifferent town, Colvin obligingly came into sight. In a moment, he was inside Malnik’s roomy but crumbling office.

“Look,” said Malnik.

He shuffled a heap of papers on his desk and handed Colvin a photograph. It was yellow, and torn at the edges. The subject was a wild-eyed young man with much dark curly hair and a blobby face. He was wearing a high stiff collar, and a bow like Chopin’s.

“John Nethers,” said Malnik. Then, when no light of rapture flashed from Colvin’s face, he said “Author of Cornelia.”

“Sorry,” said Colvin, shaking his head.

“John Nethers was the son of a chemist in this town. Some books say a miner, but that’s wrong. A chemist. He killed himself at twenty-two. But before that I’ve traced that he’d written at least six plays. Cornelia, which is the best of them, is one of the great plays of the nineteenth century.”

“Why did he kill himself?”

“It’s in his eyes. You can see it. Cornelia was produced in London with Arabella Rokeby. But never here. Never in the author’s own town. I’ve been into the whole thing closely. Now we’re going to do Cornelia for Christmas.”

“Won’t you lose money?” asked Colvin.

“We’re losing money all the time, old man. Of course we are. We may as well do something we shall be remembered by.”

Colvin nodded. He was beginning to see that Malnik’s life was a single-minded struggle for the British Drama of the Nineteenth Century and all that went with it.

“Besides I’m going to do As You Like It also. As a fill-up.” Malnik stooped and spoke close to Colvin’s ear as he sat in a bursting leather armchair, the size of a judge’s seat. “You see Arabella Rokeby’s coming.”

“But how long is it since——”

“Better not be too specific about that. They say it doesn’t matter with Arabella Rokeby. She can get away with it. Probably in fact she can’t. Not altogether. But all the same, think of it. Arabella Rokeby in Cornelia. In my theatre.”

Colvin thought of it.

“Have you ever seen her?”

“No, I haven’t. Of course she doesn’t play regularly nowadays. Only special engagements. But in this business one has to take a chance sometimes. And golly what a chance!”

“And she’s willing to come? I mean at Christmas,” Colvin added, not wishing to seem rude.

Malnik did seem slightly unsure. “I have a contract,” he said. Then he added: “She’ll love it when she gets here. After all: Cornelia! And she must know that the nineteenth century theatre is my subject.” He had seemed to be reassuring himself, but now he was glowing.

“But As You Like It?” said Colvin, who had played Touchstone at his preparatory school. “Surely she can’t manage Rosalind?”

“It was her great part. Happily you can play Rosalind at any age. Wish I could get old Ludlow to play Jacques. But he won’t.” Ludlow was the company’s veteran.

“Why not?”

“He played with Rokeby in the old days. I believe he’s afraid she’ll see he isn’t the Grand Old Man he should be. He’s a good chap, but proud. Of course he may have other reasons. You never know with Ludlow.”

The curtain was down on Act I.

Colvin took his leave and resumed his walk.

Shortly thereafter Colvin read about the Nethers Gala in the local evening paper (“this forgotten poet,” as the writer helpfully phrased it), and found confirmation that Miss Rokeby was indeed to grace it (“the former London star”). In the same issue of the paper appeared an editorial to the effect that widespread disappointment would be caused by the news that the Hippodrome would not be offering a pantomime at Christmas in accordance with the custom of the town and district.

“She can’t ’ardly stop ’ere, Mr. Colvin,” said Mrs. Royd, when Colvin, thinking to provide forewarning, showed her the news, as she lent a hand behind the Saloon Bar. “This isn’t the Cumberland. She’d get across the staff.”

“I believe she’s quite elderly,” said Colvin soothingly.

“If she’s elderly, she’ll want special attention, and that’s often just as bad.”

“After all, where she goes is mainly a problem for her, and perhaps Mr. Malnik.”

“Well, there’s nowhere else in town for her to stop, is there?” retorted Mrs. Royd with fire. “Not nowadays? She’ll just ’ave to make do. We did for theatricals in the old days. Midgets once. Whole troupe of ’em.”

“I’m sure you’ll make her very comfortable.”

“Can’t see what she wants to come at all for really. Not at Christmas.”

“Miss Rokeby needs no reason for her actions. What she does is sufficient in itself. You’ll understand that, dear lady, when you meet her.” The speaker was a very small man, apparently of advanced years, white-haired, and with a brown sharp face, like a Levantine. The Bar was full, and Colvin had not previously noticed him, although he was conspicuous enough, as he wore an overcoat with a fur collar and a scarf with a large black pin in the centre. “I wonder if I could beg a roof for a few nights,” he went on. “I assure you I’m no trouble at all.”

“There’s only Number Twelve A. It’s not very comfortable,” replied Mrs. Royd sharply.

“Of course you must leave room for Miss Rokeby.”

“Nine’s for her. Though I haven’t had a word from her.”

“I think she’ll need two rooms. She has a companion.”

“I can clear our Greta’s old room upstairs. If she’s a friend of yours, you might ask her to let me know when she’s coming.”

“Not a friend,” said the old man smiling. “But I follow her career.”

Mrs. Royd brought a big red book from under the Bar.

“What name, please?”

“Mr. Superbus,” said the little old man. He had yellow expressionless eyes.

“Will you register?”

Mr. Superbus produced a gold pen, long and fat. His writing was so curvilinear that it seemed purely decorative, like a design for ornamental ironwork. Colvin noticed that he paused slightly at the “Permanent Address” column, and then simply wrote (although it was difficult to be sure) what appeared to be “North Africa.”

“Will you come this way?” said Mrs. Royd, staring suspiciously at the newcomer’s scrollwork in the visitors’ book. Then, even more suspiciously, she added: “What about luggage?”

Mr. Superbus nodded gravely. “I placed two bags outside.”

“Let’s hope they’re still there. They’re rough in this town, you know.”

“I’m sure they’re still there,” said Mr. Superbus.

As he spoke the door opened suddenly and a customer almost fell into the Bar. “Sorry Mrs. Royd,” he said with a mildness which in the circumstances belied Mrs. Royd’s words. “There’s something on the step.”

“My fault, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Superbus. “I wonder—have you a porter?”

“The porter works evenings at the Hippodrome nowadays. Scene-shifting and that.”

“Perhaps I could help?” said Colvin.

On the step outside were what appeared to be two very large suitcases. When he tried to lift one of them, he understood what Mr. Superbus had meant. It was remarkably heavy. He held back the Bar door, letting in a cloud of cold air. “Give me a hand someone,” he said.

The customer who had almost fallen volunteered, and a short procession, led by Mrs. Royd, set off along the little dark passage to Number Twelve A. Colvin was disconcerted when he realised that Twelve A was the room at the end of the passage, which had no number on its door and had never, he thought, been occupied since his arrival; the room, in fact, next to his.

“Better leave these on the floor,” said Colvin, dismissing the rickety luggage stand.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Superbus, transferring a coin to the man who had almost fallen. He did it like a conjurer unpalming something.

“I’ll send Greta to make up the bed,” said Mrs. Royd. “Tea’s at six.”

“At six?” said Mr. Superbus, gently raising an eyebrow. “Tea?” Then, when Mrs. Royd and the man had gone, he clutched Colvin very hard on the upper part of his left arm. “Tell me,” inquired Mr. Superbus, “are you in love with Miss Rokeby? I overheard you defending her against the impertinence of our hostess.”

Colvin considered for a moment.

“Why not admit it?” said Mr. Superbus, gently raising the other eyebrow. He was still clutching Colvin’s arm much too hard.

“I’ve never set eyes on Miss Rokeby.”

Mr. Superbus let go. “Young people nowadays have no imagination,” he said with a whinny, like a wild goat.

Colvin was not surprised when Mr. Superbus did not appear at Tea (luncheon meat and chips that evening).

After Tea Colvin, instead of going for a walk, wrote to his Mother. But there was little to tell her, so that at the end of the letter he mentioned the arrival of Mr. Superbus. “There’s a sort of sweet blossomy smell about him like a meadow,” he ended. “I think he must use scent.”

When the letter was finished, Colvin started trying to construct tables of output from the lead and plumbago mines a century ago. The partitions between the bedrooms were thin, and he began to wonder about Mr. Superbus’s nocturnal habits.

He wondered from time to time until the time came for sleep; and wondered a bit also as he dressed the next morning and went to the bathroom to shave. For during the whole of this time no sound whatever had been heard from Number Twelve A, despite the thinness of the plywood partition; a circumstance which Colvin already thought curious when, during breakfast, he overheard Greta talking to Mrs. Royd in the kitchen. “I’m ever so sorry, Mrs. Royd. I forgot about it with the crowd in the Bar.” To which Mrs. Royd simply replied: “I wonder what ’e done about it. ’E could ’ardly make do without sheets or blankets, and this December. Why didn’t ’e ask?” And when Greta said “I suppose nothing ain’t happened to him?” Colvin put down his porridge spoon and unobtrusively joined the party which went to find out.

Mrs. Royd knocked several times upon the door of Number Twelve A, but there was no answer. When they opened the door, the bed was bare as Colvin had seen it the evening before, and there was no sign at all of Mr. Superbus except that his two big cases lay on the floor, one beside the other. “What’s he want to leave the window open like that for?” inquired Mrs. Royd. She shut it with a crash. “Someone will fall over those cases in the middle of the floor.” Colvin bent down to slide the heavy cases under the bed. But the pair of them now moved at a touch.

Colvin picked one case up and shook it slightly. It emitted a muffled flapping sound, like a bat in a box. Colvin nearly spoke, but stopped himself, and stowed the cases, end on, under the unmade bed in silence.

“Make up the room, Greta,” said Mrs. Royd. “It’s no use standing about.” Colvin gathered that it was not altogether unknown for visitors to the Emancipation Hotel to be missing from their rooms all night.

But there was a further little mystery. Later that day in the Bar, Colvin was accosted by the man who had helped to carry Mr. Superbus’s luggage.

“Look at that.” He displayed, rather furtively, something which lay in his hand.

It was a sovereign.

“He gave it me last night.”

“Can I see it?” It had been struck in Queen Victoria’s reign, but gleamed like new.

“What d’you make of that?” asked the man.

“Not much,” replied Colvin, returning the pretty piece. “But, now I come to think of it, you can make about forty-five shillings.”

When this incident took place, Colvin was on his way to spend three or four nights in another town where lead and plumbago mining had formerly been carried on, and where he needed to consult an invaluable collection of old records which had been presented to the Public Library at the time the principal mining company went bankrupt.

On his return he walked up the hill from the station through a thick mist, laden with coal dust and sticky smoke, and apparently in no way diminished by a bitter little wind, which chilled while hardly troubling to blow. There had been snow, and little archipelagoes of slush remained on the pavements, through which the immense boots of the miners crashed noisily. The male population wore heavy mufflers and were unusually silent. Many of the women wore shawls over their heads in the manner of their grandmothers.

Mrs. Royd was not in the Bar, and Colvin hurried through it to his old room, where he put on a thick sweater before descending to Tea. The only company consisted in two commercial travellers, sitting at the same table and eating through a heap of bread and margarine but saying nothing. Colvin wondered what had happened to Mr. Superbus.

Greta entered as usual with a pot of strong tea and a plate of bread and margarine.

“Good evening, Mr. Colvin. Enjoy your trip?”

“Yes thank you, Greta. What’s for Tea?”

“Haddock and chips.” She drew a deep breath. “Miss Rokeby’s come. . . . I don’t think she’ll care for haddock and chips, do you Mr. Colvin?” Colvin looked up in surprise. He saw that Greta was trembling. Then he noticed that she was wearing a thin black dress, instead of her customary casual attire.

Colvin smiled up at her. “I think you’d better put on something warm. It’s getting colder every minute.”

But at that moment the door opened and Miss Rokeby entered.

Greta stood quite still, shivering all over, and simply staring at her. Everything about Greta made it clear that this was Miss Rokeby. Otherwise the situation was of a kind which brought to Colvin’s mind the cliché about there being some mistake.

The woman who had come in was very small and slight. She had a triangular gazelle-like face, with very large dark eyes, and a mouth which went right across the lower tip of the triangle, making of her chin another, smaller triangle. She was dressed entirely in black, with a high-necked black silk sweater, and wore long black earrings. Her short dark hair was dressed like that of a faun; and her thin white hands hung straight by her side in a posture resembling some Indian statuettes which Colvin recalled but could not place.

Greta walked towards her, and drew back a chair. She placed Miss Rokeby with her back to Colvin.

“Thank you. What can I eat?” Colvin was undecided whether Miss Rokeby’s voice was high or low: it was like a bell beneath the ocean.

Greta was blushing. She stood, not looking at Miss Rokeby, but at the other side of the room, shivering and reddening. The tears began to pour down her cheeks in a cataract. She dragged at a chair, made an unintelligible sound, and ran into the kitchen. Miss Rokeby half turned in her seat, and stared after Greta. Colvin thought she looked quite as upset as Greta. Certainly she was very white. She might almost have been eighteen. . . .

“Please don’t mind. It’s nerves, I think.” Colvin realised that his own voice was far from steady, and that he was beginning to blush also, he hoped only slightly.

Miss Rokeby had risen to her feet and was holding on to the back of her chair.

“I didn’t say anything which could frighten her.”

It was necessary to come to the point, Colvin thought.

“Greta thinks the menu unworthy of the distinguished company.”

“What?” She turned and looked at Colvin. Then she smiled. “Is that it?” She sat down again. “What is it? Fish and chips?”

“Haddock. Yes.” Colvin smiled back, now full of confidence.

“Well. There it is.” Miss Rokeby made the prospect of haddock sound charming and gay. One of the commercial travellers offered to pour the other a fourth cup of tea. The odd little crisis was over.

But when Greta returned, her face seemed set and a trifle hostile. She had put on an ugly custard-coloured cardigan.

“It’s haddock and chips.”

Miss Rokeby merely inclined her head, still smiling charmingly.

Before Colvin had finished, Miss Rokeby, with whom further conversation had been made difficult by the fact that she had been seated with her back to him, and by the torpid watchfulness of the commercial travellers, rose, bade him “Good-evening,” and left.

Colvin had not meant to go out again that evening, but curiosity continued to rise in him, and in the end he decided to clear his thoughts by a short walk, taking in the Hippodrome. Outside it had become even colder; the fog was thicker, the streets emptier.

Colvin found that the entrance to the Hippodrome had been transformed. From frieze to floor, the walls were covered with large photographs. The photographs were not framed, but merely mounted on big sheets of pasteboard. They seemed to be all the same size. Colvin saw at once that they were all portraits of Miss Rokeby.

The entrance hall was filled with fog, but the lighting within had been greatly reinforced since Colvin’s last visit. To-night the effect was mistily dazzling. Colvin began to examine the photographs. They depicted Miss Rokeby in the widest variety of costume and make-up, although in no case was the name given of the play or character. In some Colvin could not see how he recognised her at all. In all she was alone. The number of the photographs, their uniformity of presentation, the bright swimming light, the emptiness of the place (for the Box Office had shut) combined to make Colvin feel that he was dreaming. He put his hands before his eyes, inflamed by the glare and the fog. When he looked again, it was as if all the Miss Rokebys had been so placed that their gaze converged upon the spot where he stood. He closed his eyes tightly and began to feel his way to the door and the dimness of the street outside. Then there was a flutter of applause behind him; the evening’s audience began to straggle out, grumbling at the weather; and Malnik was saying, “Hallo, old man. Nice to see you.”

Colvin gesticulated uncertainly. “Did she bring them all with her?”

“Not a bit of it, old man. Millie found them when she opened up.”

“Where did she find them?”

“Just lying on the floor. In two whacking great parcels. Rokeby’s agent, I suppose, though she appeared not to have one. Blessed if I know really. I myself could hardly shift one of the parcels, let alone two.”

Colvin felt rather frightened for a moment; but he only said: “How do you like her?”

“Tell you when she arrives.”

“She’s arrived.”

Malnik stared.

“Come back with me and see for yourself.”

Malnik seized Colvin’s elbow. “What’s she look like?”

“Might be any age.”

All the time Malnik was bidding Good night to patrons, trying to appease their indignation at being brought out on such a night.

Suddenly the lights went, leaving only a pilot. It illumined a photograph of Miss Rokeby holding a skull.

“Let’s go,” said Malnik. “Lock up, Frank, will you?”

“You’ll need a coat,” said Colvin.

“Lend me your coat, Frank.”

On the short cold walk to the Emancipation Hotel, Malnik said little. Colvin supposed that he was planning the encounter before him. Colvin did ask him whether he had ever heard of a Mr. Superbus, but he hadn’t.

Mrs. Royd was, it seemed, in a thoroughly bad temper. To Colvin it appeared that she had been drinking; and that she was one whom drink soured rather than mellowed. “I’ve got no one to send,” she snapped. “You can go up yourself, if you like. Mr. Colvin knows the way.” There was a roaring fire in the Bar, which after the cold outside seemed very overheated.

Outside Number Nine, Colvin paused before knocking. Immediately he was glad he had done so, because inside were voices speaking very softly. All the evening he had been remembering Mr. Superbus’s reference to a “companion.”

In dumb show he tried to convey the situation to Malnik, who peered at his efforts with a professional’s dismissal of the amateur. Then Malnik produced a pocket book, wrote in it, and tore out the page, which he thrust under Miss Rokeby’s door. Having done this, he prepared to return with Colvin to the Bar, and await a reply. Before they had lad taken three steps, however, the door was open, and Miss Rokeby was inviting them in.

To Colvin she said “We’ve met already,” though without inquiring his name.

Colvin felt gratified; and at least equally pleased when he saw that the fourth person in the room was a tall, frail looking girl with long fair hair drawn back into a tight bun. It was not the sort of companion he had surmised.

“This is Myrrha. We’re never apart.”

Myrrha smiled slightly, said nothing, and sat down again. Colvin thought she looked positively wasted. Doubtless by reason of the cold, she wore heavy tweeds, which went oddly with her air of fragility.

“How well do you know the play?” asked Malnik at the earliest possible moment.

“Well enough not to play in it.” Colvin saw Malnik turn grey. “Since you’ve got me here, I’ll play Rosalind. The rest was lies. Do you know,” she went on, addressing Colvin, “that this man tried to trick me. You’re not in the theatre, are you?”

Colvin, feeling embarrassed, smiled and shook his head.

“Cornelia’s a masterpiece,” said Malnik furiously. “Nethers was a genius.”

Miss Rokeby simply said “Was “very softly, and seated herself on the arm of Myrrha’s armchair, the only one in the room. It was set before the old fashioned gas fire.

“It’s announced. Everyone’s waiting for it. People are coming from London. They’re even coming from Cambridge.” Myrrha turned away her head from Malnik’s wrath.

“I was told—Another English Classic. Not an outpouring by Little Jack Nethers. I won’t do it.”

“As You Like It is only a fill-up. What more is it ever? Cornelia is the whole point of the Gala. Nethers was born in this town. Don’t you understand?”

Malnik was so much in earnest that Colvin felt sorry for him. But even Colvin doubted whether Malnik’s was the best way to deal with Miss Rokeby.

“Please play for me. Please.”

“Rosalind only.” Miss Rokeby was swinging her legs. They were young and lovely. There was more than one thing about this interview which Colvin did not care for.

“We’ll talk it over in my office to-morrow.” Colvin identified this as a customary admission of defeat.

“This is a horrid place, isn’t it?” said Miss Rokeby conversationally to Colvin.

“I’m used to it,” said Colvin smiling. “Mrs. Royd has her softer side.”

“She’s put poor Myrrha in a cupboard.”

Colvin remembered about Greta’s old room upstairs.

“Perhaps she’d like to change rooms with me? I’ve been away and haven’t even unpacked. It would be easy.”

“How kind you are! To that silly little girl! To me! And now to Myrrha! May I see?”

“Of course.”

Colvin took her into the passage. It seemed obvious that Myrrha would come also, but she did not. Apparently she left it to Miss Rokeby to dispose of her. Malnik sulked behind also.

Colvin opened the door of his room and switched on the light. Lying on his bed and looking very foolish was his copy of Bull’s “Graphite and Its Uses.” He glanced round for Miss Rokeby. Then for the second time that evening, he felt frightened.

Miss Rokeby was standing in the ill-lit passage, just outside his doorway. It was unpleasantly apparent that she was terrified. Formerly pale, she was now quite white. Her hands were clenched, and she was breathing unnaturally deeply. Her big eyes were half shut, and to Colvin it seemed that it was something she smelt which was frightening her. This impression was so strong that he sniffed the chilly air himself once or twice, unavailingly. Then he stepped forward, and his arms were around Miss Rokeby, who was palpably about to faint. Immediately Miss Rokeby was in his arms, such emotion swept through him as he had never before known. For what seemed a long moment, he was lost in the wonder of it. Then he was recalled by something which frightened him more than anything else, though for less reason. There was a sharp sound from Number Twelve A. Mr. Superbus must have returned.

Colvin supported Miss Rokeby back to Number Nine. Upon catching sight of her, Myrrha gave a small but jarring cry, and helped her on to the bed.

“It’s my heart,” said Miss Rokeby. “My absurd heart.”

Malnik now looked more black than grey. “Shall we send for a doctor?” he inquired, hardly troubling to mask the sarcasm.

Miss Rokeby shook her head once. It was the sibling gesture to her nod.

“Please don’t trouble about moving,” she said to Colvin.

Colvin, full of confusion, looked at Myrrha, who was being resourceful with smelling salts.

“Good night,” said Miss Rokeby, softly but firmly. And as Colvin followed Malnik out of the room, she touched his hand.

Colvin passed the night almost without sleep, which was another new experience for him. A conflict of feelings about Miss Rokeby, all of them strong, was one reason for insomnia; another was the sequence of sounds from Number Twelve A. Mr. Superbus seemed to spend the night in moving things about and talking to himself. At first it sounded as if he were rearranging all the furniture in his room. Then there was a period, which seemed to Colvin timeless, during which the only noise was of low and unintelligible muttering, by no means continuous, but broken by periods of silence, and then resumed as before just as Colvin was beginning to hope that all was over. Colvin wondered whether Mr. Superbus was saying his prayers. Ultimately the banging about recommenced. Presumably Mr. Superbus was still dissatisfied with the arrangement of the furniture; or perhaps was returning it to its original dispositions. Then Colvin heard the sash window thrown sharply open. He remembered the sound from the occasion when Mrs. Royd had sharply shut it. After that, silence continued. In the end Colvin turned on the light and looked at his watch. It had stopped.

At breakfast, Colvin asked when Mr. Superbus was expected down. “He doesn’t come down,” replied Greta. “They say he has all his meals out.”

Colvin understood that rehearsals began that day, but Malnik had always demurred at outsiders being present. Now, moreover, he felt that Colvin had seen him at an unfavourable moment, so that his cordiality was much abated. The next two weeks, in fact, were to Colvin heavy with anti-climax. He saw Miss Rokeby only at the evening meal, which, however, she was undeniably in process of converting from Tea into Dinner, by expending charm, will-power, and cash. Colvin participated in this improvement, as did even such few of the endless commercial travellers as wished to do so; and from time to time Miss Rokeby exchanged a few pleasant generalities with him, though she did not ask him to sit at her table, nor did he, being a shy man, dare to invite her. Myrrha never appeared at all; and when on one occasion Colvin referred to her interrogatively, Miss Rokeby simply said “She pines, poor lamb,” and plainly wished to say nothing more. Colvin remembered Myrrha’s wasted appearance, and concluded that she must be an invalid. He wondered if he should again offer to change rooms. After that single disturbed night, he had heard no more of Mr. Superbus. But from Mrs. Royd he had gathered that Mr. Superbus had settled for several weeks in advance. Indeed for the first time in years the Emancipation Hotel was doing good business.

It continued as cold as ever during all the time Miss Rokeby remained in the town; with repeated little snow storms every time the streets began to clear. The miners would stamp as they entered the Bar until they seemed likely to go through to the cellar beneath; and all the commercial travellers caught colds. The two local papers, morning and evening, continued their efforts to set people against Malnik’s now diminished Gala. When Cornelia was no longer offered, the two editors pointed out (erroneously, Colvin felt) that even now it was not too late for a pantomime; but Malnik seemed to have succeeded in persuading Miss Rokeby to reinforce As You Like It with a piece entitled A Scrap of Paper which Colvin had never heard of, but which an elderly citizen whom the papers always consulted upon matters theatrical, described as “very old fashioned.” Malnik cause further comment by proposing to open on Christmas Eve, when the unfailing tradition had been Boxing Night.

The final week of rehearsal was marred by an exceedingly distressing incident. It happened on the Tuesday. Coming in that morning from a cold visit to the Technical Institute Library, Colvin found in the stuffy little Saloon Bar a number of the Tabard Players. The Players usually patronised an establishment nearer to the Hippodrome; and the fact that the present occasion was out of the ordinary was emphasised by the demeanour of the group, who were clustered together and talking in low serious voices. Colvin knew none of the Players at all well, but the group looked so distraught that, partly from curiosity and partly from compassion, he ventured to inquire of one of them, a middle-aged actor named Shillitoe to whom Malnik had introduced him, what was the matter. After a short silence, the group seemed collectively to decide upon accepting Colvin among them, and all began to enlighten him in short strained bursts of over-eloquence. Some of the references were not wholly clear to Colvin, but the substance of the story was simple.

Colvin gathered that when the Tabard Players took possession of the Hippodrome, Malnik had been warned that the “grid” above the stage was undependable, and that scenery should not be “flown” from it. This restriction had caused grumbling, but had been complied with until during a rehearsal of A Scrap of Paper, the producer had rebelled and asked Malnik for authority to use the grid. Malnik had agreed; and two stage hands began gingerly to pull on some of the dusty lines which disappeared into the almost complete darkness far above. Before long one of them had cried out that there was “something up there already.” At these words, Colvin was told, everyone in the theatre fell silent. The stage hand went on paying out line, but the stage was so ample and the grid so high that an appreciable time passed before the object came slowly into view.

The narrators stopped, and there was a silence which Colvin felt must have been like the silence in the theatre. Then Shillitoe resumed: “It was poor old Ludlow’s body. He’d hanged himself right up under the grid. Eighty feet above the floor of the stage. Some time ago too. He wasn’t in the Christmas plays, you know, or in this week’s play. We all thought he’d gone home.”

Colvin learnt that the producer had fainted right away; and, upon tactful inquiry, that Miss Rokeby had fortunately not been called for that particular rehearsal.

On the first two Sundays after her arrival, Miss Rokeby had been no more in evidence than on any other day; but on the morning of the third Sunday Colvin was taking one of his resolute lonely walks across the windy fells which surrounded the town, when he saw her walking ahead of him through the snow. The snow lay only an inch or two deep upon the hillside ledge along which the path ran; and Colvin had been wondering for some time about the small footsteps which preceded him. It was the first time he had seen Miss Rokeby outside the Emancipation Hotel, but he had no doubt that it was she he saw, and his heart turned over at the sight. He hesitated; then walked faster, and soon had overtaken her. As he drew near, she stopped, turned, and faced him. Then, when she saw who it was, she seemed unsurprised. She wore a fur coat with a collar which reached almost to the tip of her nose; a fur hat; and elegant boots which laced to the knee.

“I’m glad to have a companion,” she said gravely, sending Colvin’s thoughts to her other odd companion. “I suppose you know all these paths well?”

“I come up here often to look for lead workings. I’m writing a dull book on lead and plumbago mining.”

“I don’t see any mines up here.” She looked round with an air of grave bewilderment.

“Lead mines aren’t like coal mines. They’re simply passages in hillsides.”

“What do you do when you find them?”

“I mark them on a large-scale map. Sometimes I go down them.”

“Don’t the miners object?”

“There are no miners.”

A shadow crossed her face.

“I mean not any longer. We don’t mine lead any more.”

“Don’t we? Why not?”

“That’s a complicated story.”

She nodded. “Will you take me down a mine?”

“I don’t think you’d like it. The passages are usually both narrow and low. One of the reasons why the industry’s come to an end is that people would no longer work in them. Besides, now the mines are disused, they’re often dangerous.”

She laughed. It was the first time he had ever heard her do so. “Come on.” She took hold of his arm. “Or aren’t there any mines on this particular hillside?” She looked as concerned as a child.

“There’s one about a hundred feet above our heads. But there’s nothing to see. Only darkness.”

“Only darkness,” cried Miss Rokeby. She implied that no reasonable person could want more. “But you don’t go down all these passages only to see darkness?”

“I take a flashlight.”

“Have you got it now?”

“Yes.” Colvin never went to the fells without it.

“Then that will look after you. Where’s the mine? Conduct me.”

They began to scramble together up the steep snow-covered slope. Colvin knew all the workings round here; and soon they were in the entry.

“You see,” said Colvin. “There’s not even room to stand, and a fat person couldn’t get in at all. You’ll ruin your coat.”

“I’m not a fat person.” There was a small excited patch in each of her cheeks. “But you’d better go first.”

Colvin knew that this particular working consisted simply in a long passage, following the vein of lead. He had been to the end of it more than once. He turned on his flashlight. “I assure you there’s nothing to see,” he said. And in he went.

Colvin perceived that Miss Rokeby seemed indeed to pass along the adit without even stooping or damaging her fur hat. She insisted on their going as far as possible, although near the end Colvin made a quite strenuous effort to persuade her to let them return.

“What’s that?” inquired Miss Rokeby when they had none the less reached the extremity of the passage.

“It’s a big fault in the limestone. A sort of cave. The miners chucked their debris down it.”

“Is it deep?”

“Some of these faults are supposed to be bottomless.”

She took the light from his hand, and, squatting down on the brink of the hole, flashed it round the depths below.

“Careful,” cried Colvin. “You’re on loose shale. It could easily slip.” He tried to drag her back. The only result was that she dropped the flashlight, which went tumbling down the great hole like a meteor, until after many seconds they heard a faint crash. They were in complete darkness.

“I’m sorry,” said Miss Rokeby’s voice. “But you did push me.”

Trying not to fall down the hole, Calvin began to grope his way back. Suddenly he had thought of Malnik, and the irresponsibility of the proceedings upon which he was engaged appalled him. He begged Miss Rokeby to go slowly, test every step, and mind her head; but her unconcern seemed complete. Colvin tripped and toiled along for an endless period of time, with Miss Rokeby always close behind him, calm, sure of foot, and unflagging. As far into the earth as this, it was both warm and stuffy. Colvin began to fear that bad air might overcome them, forced as they were to creep so laboriously and interminably. He broke out in heavy perspiration.

Suddenly he knew that he would have to stop. He could not even pretend that it was out of consideration for Miss Rokeby. He subsided upon the floor of the passage and she seated herself near him, oblivious of her costly clothes. The blackness was still complete.

“Don’t feel unworthy,” said Miss Rokeby softly. “And don’t feel frightened. There’s no need. We shall get out.”

Curiously enough, the more she said, the worse Colvin felt. The strange antecedents to this misadventure were with him; and, even more so, Miss Rokeby’s whole fantastic background. He had to force his spine against the stone wall of the passage if he were not to give way to panic utterly and leap up screaming. Normal speech was impossible.

“Is it me you are frightened of?” asked Miss Rokeby, with dreadful percipience.

Calvin was less than ever able to speak.

“Would you like to know more about me?”

Colvin was shaking his head in the dark.

“If you’ll promise not to tell anyone else.”

But, in fact, she was like a child, unable to contain her secret.

“I’m sure you won’t tell anyone else. . . . It’s my helper. He’s the queer one. Not me.”

Now that the truth was spoken Colvin felt a little better. “Yes,” he said in a low, shaken voice, “I know.”

“Oh, you know. . . . I don’t see him or,” she paused, “or encounter him, often for years at a time. Years.”

“But you encountered him the other night?”

He could feel her shoulder. “Yes . . . You’ve seen him?”

“Very briefly . . . How did you . . . encounter him first?”

“It was years ago. Have you any idea how many years?”

“I think so.”

Then she said something which Colvin never really understood; not even later, in his dreams of her. “You know I’m not here at all really. Myrrha’s me. That’s why she’s called Myrrha. That’s how I act.”

“How?” said Colvin. There was little else to say.

“My helper took my own personality out of me. Like taking a nerve out of a tooth. Myrrha’s my personality.”

“Do you mean your soul?” asked Colvin.

“Artists don’t have souls,” said Miss Rokeby. “Personality’s the word. . . . I’m anybody’s personality. Or everybody’s. And when I lost my personality, I stopped growing older. Of course I have to look after Myrrha, because if anything happened to Myrrha—well, you do see,” she concluded.

“But Myrrha looks as young as you do.”

“That’s what she looks.”

Colvin remembered Myrrha’s wasted face.

“But how can you live without a personality? Besides,” added Colvin, “you seem to me to have a very strong personality.”

“I have a mask for every occasion.”

It was only the utter blackness, Colvin felt, which made this impossible conversation possible.

“What do you do in exchange? I suppose you must repay your helper in some way?”

“I suppose I must. . . . I’ve never found out what way it is.”

“What else does your helper do for you?”

“He smooths my path. Rids me of people who want to hurt me. He rid me of little Jack Nethers. Jack was mad, you know. You can see it even in his photograph.”

“Did he rid you of this wretched man Ludlow?”

“I don’t know. You see I can’t remember Ludlow. I think he often rids me of people that I don’t know want to hurt me.”

Colvin considered.

“Can you be rid of him?”

“I’ve never really tried.”

“Don’t you want to be rid of him?”

“I don’t know. He frightens me terribly whenever I come near him, but otherwise . . . I don’t know . . . But for him I should never have been down a lead mine.”

“How many people know all this?” asked Colvin after a pause.

“Not many. I only told you because I wanted you to stop being frightened.”

As she spoke the passage was filled with a strange sound. Then they were illumined with icy December sunshine. Colvin perceived that they were almost at the entry to the working, and supposed that the portal must have been temporarily blocked by a miniature avalanche of melting snow. Even now there was, in fact, only a comparatively small hole, through which they would have to scramble.

“I told you we’d get out,” said Miss Rokeby. “Other people haven’t believed a word I said. But now you’ll believe me.”

Not the least strange thing was the matter of fact manner in which all the way back Miss Rokeby questioned Colvin about his researches into lead and plumbago mining, with occasionally, on the perimeter of their talk, flattering inquiries about himself; although equally strange, Colvin considered, was the matter of fact manner in which he answered her. Before they were back in the town he was wondering how much of what she had said in the darkness of the mine had been meant only figuratively; and after that he wondered whether Miss Rokeby had not used the circumstances to initiate an imaginative and ingenious boutade. After all, he reflected, she was an actress. Colvin’s hypothesis was, if anything, confirmed when at their parting she held his hand for a moment and said: “Remember! No one.”

But he resolved to question Mrs. Royd in a business-like way about Mr. Superbus. An opportunity arose when he encountered her after luncheon (at which Miss Rokeby had not made an appearance) reading The People before the fire in the Saloon Bar. The Bar had just closed, and it was, Mrs. Royd explained, the only warm spot in the house. In fact it was, as usual, hot as a kiln.

“Couldn’t say I’m sure,” replied Mrs. Royd to Colvin’s firm inquiry, and implying that it was neither her business nor his. “Anyway ’e’s gone. Went last Tuesday. Didn’t you notice, with ’im sleeping next to you?”

After the death of poor Ludlow (the almost inevitable verdict was suicide while of unsound mind), it was as if the papers felt embarrassed about continuing to carp at Malnik’s plans; and by the opening night the editors seemed ready to extend the Christmas spirit even to Shakespeare. Colvin had planned to spend Christmas with his Mother; but when he learned that Malnik’s first night was to be on Christmas Eve, had been unable to resist deferring his departure until after it, despite the perils of a long and intricate railway journey on Christmas Day. With Miss Rokeby, however, he now felt entirely unsure of himself.

On Christmas Eve the town seemed full of merriment. Colvin was surprised at the frankness of the general rejoicing. The shops, as is usual in industrial districts, had long been offsetting the general drabness with drifts of Christmas Cards and whirlpools of tinsel. Now every home seemed to be decorated and all the shops to be proclaiming bonus distributions and bumper share-outs. Even the queues which were a prominent feature of these celebrations looked more sanguine, Colvin noticed, when he stood in one of them for about half an hour in order to send Miss Rokeby some flowers, as he felt the occasion demanded. By the time he set out for the Hippodrome, the more domestically-minded citizens were everywhere quietly toiling at preparations for the morrow’s revels; but a wilder minority, rebellious or homeless, were inaugurating such a carouse at the Emancipation Hotel as really to startle the comparatively retiring Colvin. He suspected that some of the bibbers must be Irish.

Sleet was slowly descending as Colvin stepped out of the sweltering Bar in order to walk to the Hippodrome. A spot of it sailed gently into the back of his neck, chilling him in a moment. But, notwithstanding the weather, notwithstanding the claims of the season and the former attitude of the press, there was a crowd outside the Hippodrome such as Colvin had never previously seen there. To his great surprise some of the audience were in evening dress; many of them had expensive cars, and one party, it appeared, had come in a closed carriage with two flashing black horses. There was such a concourse at the doors that Colvin had to stand a long time in the slowly falling sleet before he was able to join the throng which forced its way, like icing on to a cake, between the countless glittering photographs of beautiful Miss Rokeby. The average age of the audience, Colvin observed, seemed very advanced, and especially of that section of it which was in evening dress. Elderly white haired men with large noses and carnations in their buttonholes spoke in eloquent Edwardian voices to the witch-like ladies on their arms, most of whom wore hothouse gardenias.

Inside, however, the huge and golden Hippodrome looked as it was intended to look when it was still named the Grand Opera House. From his gangway seat in the stalls Colvin looked backwards and upwards at the gilded satyrs and bacchantes who wantoned on the dress circle balustrade; and at the venerable and orchidaceous figures who peered above them. The small orchestra was frenziedly playing selections from L’Étoile du Nord. In the gallery distant figures, unable to find seats, were standing watchfully. Even the many boxes, little used and dusty, were filling up. Colvin could only speculate how this gratifying assembly had been collected. But then he was on his feet for the National Anthem, and the faded crimson and gold curtain, made deceivingly splendid by the footlights, was about to rise.

The play began, and then: “Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.”

Colvin realised that in his heart he had expected Miss Rokeby to be good, to be moving, to be lovely; but the revelation he now had was something he could never have expected because he could never have imagined it; and before the conclusion of Rosalind’s first scene in boy’s attire in the Forest, he was wholly and terribly bewitched.

No one coughed, no one rustled, no one moved. To Colvin it seemed as if Miss Rokeby’s magic had strangely enchanted the normally journeyman Tabard Players into miracles of judgment. Plainly her spell was on the audience also; so that when the lights came up for the interval, Colvin found that his eyes were streaming, and felt not chagrin, but pride.

The interval was an uproar. Even the bells of fire engines pounding through the wintry night outside could hardly be heard above the din. People spoke freely to unknown neighbours, groping to express forgotten emotions. “What a prelude to Christmas!” everyone said. Malnik was proved right in one thing.

During the second half, Colvin, failing of interest in Sir Oliver Martext’s scene, let his eyes wander round the auditorium. He noticed that the nearest Dress Circle box, previously unoccupied, appeared to be unoccupied no longer. A hand, which, being only just above him, he could see was gnarled and hirsute, was tightly gripping the box’s red velvet curtain. Later, in the scene between Silvius and Phebe (Miss Rokeby having come and gone meanwhile), the hand was still there, and still gripping tightly; as it was (after Rosalind’s big scene with Orlando) during the Forester’s song. At the beginning of Act V, there was a rush of feet down the gangway, and someone was crouching by Colvin’s seat. It was Greta. “Mr. Colvin! There’s been a fire. Miss Rokeby’s friend jumped out of the window. She’s terribly hurt. Will you tell Miss Rokeby?”

“The play’s nearly over,” said Colvin. “Wait for me at the back.” Greta withdrew whimpering.

After Rosalind’s Epilogue the tumult was millenial. Miss Rokeby, in Rosalind’s white dress, stood for many seconds not bowing but quite still and unsmiling, with her hands by her sides as Colvin had first seen her. Then as the curtain rose and revealed the rest of the company, she began slowly to walk backwards upstage. Doorkeepers and even stage-hands, spruced up for the purpose, began to bring armfuls upon armfuls of flowers, until there was a heap, a mountain of them in the centre of the stage, so high that it concealed Miss Rokeby’s small figure from the audience. Suddenly a bouquet flew through the air from the dress circle box. It landed at the very front of the heap. It was a hideous dusty laurel wreath, adorned with an immense and somewhat tasteless purple bow. The audience were yelling for Miss Rokeby like Dionysians; and the company, flagging from unaccustomed emotional expenditure, and plainly much scared, were looking for her; but in the end the Stage Manager had to lower the Safety Curtain and give orders that the house be cleared.

Back at the Emancipation Hotel, Colvin, although he had little title, asked to see the body.

“You wouldn’t never recognise her,” said Mrs. Royd. Colvin did not pursue the matter.

The snow, falling ever more thickly, had now hearsed the town in silence.

“She didn’t ’ave to do it,” wailed on Mrs. Royd. “The brigade had the flames under control. And to-morrow Christmas Day!”