The Pan Book of Horror Stories

THE LIBRARY Hester Holland

The drive was punctuated at intervals by lodges and gates. These were opened by shadowy figures who emerged from their doors at the sound of the motor horn. Then they drove on through endless woods and pasture land. All very lovely in the daytime, thought Margaret, but on this winter night she only wanted to see a fire and a cup of tea. Margaret was essentially practical. Life had meant very little to her from an early age—finding jobs and trying to keep them in the face of ill health. It had always been a struggle to give people the value for their money and keep fit enough to do it.

After Dick had left her, things had seemed harder than ever. There had been the hope that some day they would get married. He had loved her once, and she still loved him. But that was all over, he would never come back any more. After six months of trying to forget him and typing in an underground office, she had broken down. The doctor whom she saw advised a complete rest. “Go home,” he said, “and loaf round.” Margaret laughed; she had no relations and nobody cared a button whether she died or not.

“Well,” he said, “if you have got to work, get some work in the country. Be out of doors all day.”

That was why she answered Lady Farrell’s advertisement. Her ladyship wanted a capable young lady to take charge of her country house whilst she was away. Margaret could hardly believe her good luck when she was engaged. Here was a chance to get out of town, so full of memories of Dick, and recuperate. It might even mean a permanent job.

Her ladyship explained that Witcombe Court was lonely. Though there was a full staff always there whether she was away or not. The house must not be neglected. She was very particular about Margaret’s family. Had she many relatives? Would they mind her going to a lonely place? When the girl said she had no relatives and was alone in the world, it seemed to please the old lady.

“Poor child!” she exclaimed, jumping up and taking the girl’s hand. “I’m sure you’ll suit me. I’m sure we shall like each other.”

She explained the reason of her visit abroad.

“I have to be away half the year for my health. And I must have a lady to look after things for me. The servants are all excellent, but of course a lady at the head of things makes so much difference. One thing I must insist upon, though it does not apply in your case, my dear. I do object to strangers being asked to the house in my absence.”

Lady Farrell was very old, with an ancestry which dated back to Saxon times and earlier. Dressed in a fashion which had been new in the ’seventies, she created a sensation in London whenever she appeared. Witcombe Court with its hundreds of acres had been guarded by her with the tenderness of a mother. She was the last of her race and the estate would be sold at her death. There had been reckless gambling by members of the family, who had sold parts of the estate to pay their debts. One of her forebears had despoiled the library of its collection of rare books and sold some historical furniture. There was a legend that the stone wolves mounting guard on the terrace howled when the treasures were taken away. Lady Farrell, incongruous in a West End hotel, spoke of these things as if someone had ill-treated a child.

“My ancestors behaved shamefully. They robbed the house which was defenceless against them. And to think I must die and leave it to be sold to someone who does not understand it. The thought is torture to me. That is why I go for treatment abroad. I must live as long as I can to protect it.”

Margaret’s duties would evidently be those of a watchdog. Yet Lady Farrell spoke of her large and efficient staff of servants which were kep her t on during absence and seemed an adequate bodyguard. The house must have constant service and constant attention. Margaret must see that there was no jarring note. The girl promised to be vigilant. She had a strong historical sense, though it had been thwarted in London offices. It would be pleasant to wander through rooms which had no recollections of Dick to haunt her; there were sure to be relics, swords, and flags of warriors who had fought against Norman and Yorkist and Roundhead. From earliest times Witcombe Court had been a regular buffer state for invading forces. And always there had been blood spilt in its name. The house expected sacrifices. Lives had been given for it. Margaret decided to read up all its history. It would be wonderful to live so near the past. But with the question of reading came the first disappointment. Lady Farrell was strict about certain things.

“Not yet, my dear,” she said, patting Margaret’s hand affectionately. “I quite realize how eager you will be to go into the library, but we must be ready.”

‘Ready for what?’ thought the girl. It must be that Lady Farrell did not trust her alone with the rare books. After all, she was a stranger. Great care must be taken to fall in with her employer’s ways. She wondered how the other secretaries had fared. There seemed to have been a lot of going and coming as far as they were concerned; perhaps they had got fed up with the country. Well, Witcombe Court might be lonely, but it was better than town, with those imaginary Dicks in every street. On the night of her arrival a silent-footed butler showed her into an immense drawing room. Here she found Lady Farrell sunk on a wide settee in front of a virile fire; the lavish tea and glowing heat of burning wood soon cheered Margaret. She began to feel happy. A tenderness woke in her heart for the fragile old lady who seemed lost in the vastness of her abode. The house was enormous, and was a quaint mixture of early and late architecture. The great hall was hung with flags and battered armour. The wide rooms adjoining were a museum of pathetic relics, telling of the struggle to keep invading foes at bay.

Oddly enough, though it gave the sensation of vastness, there was no atmosphere of peace. The girl noticed this at once. Entering the dark, lofty hall, she had been met by a breath of hostility which conveyed itself forcibly to her sensitive nature. It was as if the house did not want her. Resented the entrance of strangers. The walls which rose darkly around her held no friendliness. As she entered the hall she was conscious of an extraordinary sensation. It was like entering some enormous clock. There was a steady beat coming from a distance, like a pulse, far away certainly, but plain enough to hear. Margaret supposed some engine used for procuring light or water. She got used to this noise as one gets used to the beat of a pendulum, and for a while thought no more of it. But the feeling of hostility remained. This had been enhanced by the first glimpse of the house as the car turned into the drive. There had been no lights in the upper windows. The only illumination came from the porch. It gave the impression of two slit-like eyes. Red eyes gazing out at the night-bound park.

The effect was sinister. The heap of building crouched lumpily against the sky—a dark bulk waiting to spring. Her heart had given a queer, frightened start. It was like entering a living thing to go through that dim doorway. After a few days she put the feeling down to strangeness. She was not accustomed to such vast rooms. Neither was she used to such harmony. It was like a ritual. A competent, perfectly trained staff of servants vied with each other to make the house beautiful. They were obsessed by it. Margaret could see no work for a secretary. She spent the time with her employer making catalogues of portraits which could easily have been done by one of the footmen. It almost seemed as if Lady Farrell made work for her. There were tapestries shaken from obscure boxes, and laces washed and put away. She had no time to explore alone. Her employer showed her everything herself. The old lady displayed a reverent pride in her possessions; not for her pleasure, but for the house itself, the work went on. Flowers were heaped in the rooms. The servants walked softly so as not to disturb it.

A few days after Margaret’s arrival and the day before Lady Farrell was to leave, the girl was in the billiard room. With notebook and pencil she was busy cataloguing the portraits. Sir Walter Raleigh between the windows. Lady Catherine Grey over the fireplace. It was disagreeable being in the room alone. Somehow none of the picture faces seemed friendly. Her footsteps, as she crossed the parquet floor, sounded unnaturally loud. She had the sensation of being the undigested contents of a maw. An alien Thing waiting to be identified with the whole. That was what made her feel remote. The servants and Lady Farrell were in sympathy with the house. A body moving in accord. She alone was strange to it. Was this why she felt herself hated? But how could bricks and mortar hate her? She stood staring at the wall. The room was one of the few unpanelled in the house, and was painted the colour of elephant’s hide.

Suddenly, as if a wind had scudded in, a ripple ran along its surface. It was like the clipped skin of a horse trying to yet rid of a fly. Again and again it quivered from floor to ceiling. With a scream Margaret stumbled from the room. All she wanted to do was to get away. The house was alive. She knew it now. Waking in the early morning she fancied she heard it stirring, like a great beast, stretching and preparing to rise. Long before the servants were about, Margaret would lie and listen to that pulse which sounded through the rooms. A dull thud, thud, like a heart’s beat. She wanted to go, but her wish was greeted with tears.

“What, go and leave me now, just when I have got someone whom I can trust? I could not go away and leave no one in charge of the house. Stay, stay at least till I return.”

Margaret promised to do this, and the old lady was pathetically grateful.

“And you shall go to the library,” she whined. “You shall go to the library as soon as it is ready for you.”

After her departure the girl tried to engross herself in work. There was very little to do, and what she did seemed futile. The daily round of service which the house received was not in her province. Its requirements were carried out by a competent staff of priests and priestesses who ministered at its shrine. There was no cessation of this ministration now that the Pontiff had gone. Everything went like clockwork. The Catechumens and Acolytes, whom Margaret secretly called the between-maids and under-maids, showed the same zeal as their superiors. Day after day rooms were cleaned and polished. Beds aired, linen sorted, and silver burnished. Labour was sucked up as a plant takes in moisture. What was it all for? There was no one but herself to appreciate this neatness of the linen cupboard or the shine on the brasses. But the house rejected her as a worker. There was nothing to do. One day she discovered that Lady Farrell had left the key of the library with her.

“That’s the library key, miss,” the cook had said, when she had asked where it belonged.

“Oh, of course, Lady Farrell must have left it on the bunch by mistake.”

“Her ladyship always leaves the library key with the secretary,” said the cook, and watched Margaret out of the kitchen with a smile.

What trust, thought the girl. Had all the other secretaries kept faith as she intended to do, or had they just peeped. She had a longing to go into that library. It was as if someone was calling from there. The heart of the house, Lady Farrell had called it. Surely in its heart she would find the root of this animosity to herself. As the days passed, she found it easier to consider the house in the light of an idol, for directly she did this everything fell into place.

The labour was no longer futile if it kept the god alive. It was an idol that must be worshipped and ministered to. A very old god that had grown silent and vindictive with the years, watching with an increasingly jealous eye its hive of priests lest one of them should slacken in zeal. But it was her duty to propitiate it. She sought about for a position among its ministries that was not yet appropriated. With not much knowledge of an idol’s requirements, it was difficult to create the perfect circle of service necessary to its well-being. Exorcists, those were the cleaners, and I don’t clean—Acolytes, but I don’t wait on the butler. Lady Farrell was the High Priestess. Margaret was in the woods overlooking the house. It stood, a grey shape against the hill, its windows dull with sleep, a thin turret of smoke rising from each of its many chimneys. Today, by some mischance, she had unearthed a tie which she had once bought for Dick. She had not given it to him because people in torment don’t give away ties. It was just at the time of her discovery that he didn’t care any more. The woods had seemed the best place to try and forget in. And then she realized it was that loving she still kept in her heart which put her out of harmony with the house. She was not one with it. Had the other secretaries refused to merge themselves, and was that why they had left? Suddenly Margaret held out her arms.

“House,” she said aloud, “try not to hate me. Tell me what you would like me to be.”

With dropped arms she waited, fixing anxious eyes on the mountain of stone in front. A voice in her brain whispered:

“Sacrifice.”

A sacrifice, why had she not thought of that? The life of a normal idol was incomplete without it. All the endless tending of altar fires and the prayers, vain. And the victim must come from without. They did not offer up the priests. Did the house want her? Was it angry because she held away from it, fought against its demand for her? Did it want to crush her and make her its own, as those thirsty gods of the old days? But the surrender must come from her. The house was waiting. Margaret shivered. She felt afraid to go back through those heavy doors, or feel again that animosity, like a shield against her.

There was a step among the leaves. The gardeners had a tiresome way of creeping about with wheelbarrows disturbing the solitude. An old man was standing among the trees behind her. He was dressed in a black cassock-like garment, and his small, wrinkled face had the yellow texture of ivory. He raised a round black hat and showed a completely bald head. Margaret stood staring at him.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but could I come to the house and rest a little? I am so very tired.”

“Lady Farrell is away.”

“I know, but I am a great friend of hers. In fact, I am her chaplain. I am sure she would not mind.”

Well, if he was the chaplain, Lady Farrell could not object. It would be nice to have a chat with someone, she was so lonely.

“Come in,” she said, “I’ll ask them to give you some tea.”

“You are very kind, but I just wanted to rest; you see, I have been on my feet all day, on parish rounds. I thought I would look in here on my way home.”

“Yes, of course. I’m the secretary.”

“Lady Farrell told me you were coming. My name is Father Collard.”

They walked up the drive and on to the terrace. Father Collard stopped to admire the stone wolves which crouched each side of the steps.

“You know the legend about them?” He laid a thin yellow paw on one of the moss-grown heads.

“Oh yes, but there are a lot of legends about the house I should like to know.”

“You should read about them. Lady Farrell has a wonderful library.”

“I thought it was sold.”

“It was sold, but her ladyship bought nearly all the books back. She took the greatest trouble to advertise, and had to pay far more than the books were sold for originally.”

“She is devoted to the house.”

“We must all love what has been in our family for generations. There is no sacrifice we should not make for our own.” The man spoke with the ardour of fanaticism.

Margaret looked at him. She had a sudden doubt as to his sanity. They were in the lofty hall now, and she saw his pale eyes glitter with excitement as he looked round.

“The house has a lot of disciples.” She could not resist saying that. After all, it was only she and the other secretaries who had not fallen under its spell. He turned to her with a smile on his wizened little face.

“I can understand you not feeling the same as we do. You have only been here a short time. You have not felt its influence yet.”

“Oh, but I have,” began Margaret. Then she stopped. What would be the use of telling him about her fears and fancies? “I should like to know more about its history, but Lady Farrell does not wish strangers to go into hen library.”

“I am sure she would not mind your looking at one or two books. I should so like to show them to you.”

“Well, if you really think it would be all right, and you know their names.” Margaret subsided on one of the wide chairs in the drawing room; suddenly she felt extraordinarily tired. Her companion sat opposite. Without his hat he looked like a small black bottle with a round ivory stopper. She felt inclined to laugh, and wondered whether James the footman, who had come in to draw the curtains, noticed how odd the old priest was. The drawing room was not used in Lady Farrell’s absence, as Margaret preferred the smaller and sunnier breakfast room. However, with unabated service given to the house, the blinds were drawn, up every morning, a fire laid and lighted.

She asked James to bring tea. The old man was stilly talking of the books.

“There is one full of legends I should like to show you.”

“What sort of legends?”

But she knew it was not the stories she wanted to hear. They were an excuse to go into the library, and any excuse was enough. The fact that Lady Farrell had forbidden it did not matter any more. Something stronger than her will was compelling her. She did not know whether it was the old man’s voice or her brain which droned on about an oubliette in the upper regions which no one had ever found. A legend of a Royalist hidden in a secret room in Cromwell’s time.

“His pursuers murdered those who had the secret. He was not found till long after.”

“How horrible,” said Margaret.

There came a chuckle from the chair opposite. A pair of little bony hands were spread out in front of her face in a motion of supplication.

“Do go and fetch the books from the library.”

She wondered vaguely why he didn’t wear a proper clergyman’s collar and why he had never called before. Why, no one ever called at the house.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll get them.”

He told her their titles and exactly where they stood on the shelves. He seemed to know the room extraordinarily well. She was not sure whether the little black figure with the bald head had really asked her to go, or whether it was a voice in her brain.

The library was in the left wing of the house. At the end of a long stone passage. There were no other rooms near it. It was evident that the perpetual cleaning which went on all day stopped when this part of the house was reached. There was dust on the floor, and a litter of dead leaves had blown in from the garden. A low stone arch over the library door was festooned with cobwebs. The key moved smoothly and she turned the handle to face darkness. There were no windows. She relocked the door and went in search of a candle. James was carrying the tea tray across the hall, and she asked him to tell Father Collard she would join him in a moment.

“Very well, miss.”

He seemed anxious to be gone with his tray, so she took a silver candlestick from the hall table and went slowly back to the library. She stood just inside the door and looked round expectantly. What would she find besides books? As she stood there the door behind her clicked to, as if someone had pulled it from the outside, and Margaret turned quickly. She saw the door was made of shelves and that there was no trace of a handle on the inside wall. There was no way of getting out unless she discovered some spring.

“But I can knock on the door and they will let me out.”

Again she turned and faced the room, and the swaying light of the candle showed her something. It was a small room lined with books from floor to ceiling and furnished only with a few musty-looking chairs. In the centre of it was a table on which for some reason had been heaped a quantity of dead flowers. The slightest breath stirs dead leaves, and these moved continually. What was it which moved them? The girl became aware of a vibration, a beating in the room. The pulsing of a heart which she had heard for so long and not understood. Here was the house’s heart. She had entered its shrine, its inner life, its holy of holies. Beat, beat, beat. Her shadow, cast by the feeble light of the candle, trembled along the floor. Thin and long, it was sucked away into the room. It was filled with the smell of hay, and the breath of dying flowers and of incense, and another smell. The smell of decaying flesh. She was not alone. Against the wall, huddled in different positions of abandoned agony and death, were several figures. Figures of women in modern clothes, jerseys, hats, boots. Four in all. Sacrifices. The other secretaries left here to die. Imprisoned sacrifices to the house, whose heart-beats shook the dried flowers on the table. With a scream, Margaret flung herself against the lines of books which formed the door. Wildly, with clenched hands, she struck it. “Let me out—let me out!” But no one ever came to let her out.

They wrote to Lady Farrell and she returned at once. Father Collard was in the hall to meet her, and all the servants, even down to the kitchen-maid.

A service was held in the chapel, and Lady Farrell cried a little as she knelt before the altar.

“I never can bear to be here at the time,” she said weakly to her chaplain. “I know it has to be, but it upsets me so. The thought of those dear girls—”

“But, Lady Farrell—if the house requires them, you would not stint it—you would not stint it of sacrifice?”

“No!” exclaimed her ladyship, rising from her knees. “I don’t stint it. So long as I am alive we will give it life. I shall not fail it so long as I am alive.”

“You have given it lives,” whispered Father Collard, “and it is alive.”

Lady Farrell clasped her hands in worship.

“I will try to procure another secretary,” she murmured.