The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories

THE ISLAND OF REGRETS By Elizabeth Walter

The Coq D'or, a modest hostelry with an excellent cuisine some twenty-five kilometres east of Quimper, is not crowded in the last week of September; it is too near the end of the year. At the beginning of October the shutters go up for the winter and the proprietor and his wife (who does the cooking) hibernate. The previous week is thus a preparation for this withdrawal; an invisible dust sheet lies everywhere. Not but what they are still exceedingly hospitable — business is business, after all — but only those visitors who think it smart to be out of season brave their welcome, or perhaps a casual traveller passing through.

Peter Quint and his fiancee, Dora Matthews, belonged in both categories. They had deliberately chosen the end of September for their holidays, and they were motoring in Normandy and Brittany. From Dieppe they had come slowly southwards; Lorient had been their farthest south-east call and they were on their way back via Quimper to St Malo when they stopped at the Coq d'Or.

It had been Peter's idea to holiday in late September and to choose the Atlantic coast of France. Dora, who was still too recently engaged to feel it wise to assert independence, had contentedly acquiesced. It was the first holiday since their engagement had been announced to their surprised small world. They were spending if in getting better acquainted. Such was their relationship.

Their worlds, though surprised, were enthusiastically in favour of their marriage. 'Dora,' said Peter's friends, 'is just the girl for him. Sound, sensible, intelligent, yet not bad-looking — the perfect counter-weight to Peter's intellect and nerves.' Tn Peter,' said Dora's world — that is to say, Dora's mother — 'Dora has found a man who needs her love. She can devote herself to him without reservation. It's already obvious how much he owes to her.'

Dora's devotion, which had begun before the engagement (and there were some who said that Dora had proposed), was not so much a dreamy-eyed hero-worship as a determination to influence and mould. She recognised — how could she fail to — the superiority of her fiance's brain, but a position in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries did not seem to her to accord with Peter's worth. Had his opinion been asked, Peter would no doubt have agreed with her, but Dora, beginning as she meant to go on, did not canvass his views on this or any other matter. It would never have occurred to either of them that she might be wrong.

Since coming down from Oxford with a First in Classics, Peter had pursued a decidedly deviating course. A brief acquaintance with the schoolboy recipients of his learning had convinced him (and the staff) that teaching was not for him. An even briefer foray into the management trainee jungle had resulted in an equally rapid retreat. In desperation he sat the Civil Service Examination, and had ended behind a desk in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. This employment, though not arduous was uncongenial, neither Ag. nor Fish, being much concerned with Higher Things. During the previous winter Peter had suffered a mild nervous breakdown. This was politely credited to overwork.

It was while recovering from it that he had first met Dora Matthews, staying with her widowed mother in the same seaside private hotel. The boarders — no one but the management could have thought of them as residents — were all more or less under Dora's spell. She was young and they, poor dears, were ageing; she was nimbler on her feet than they. This naturally made it difficult to avoid her ministrations; only the spryest and the fiercest got away. The pale young man who appeared among them on Maundy Thursday evening was at once a scapegoat and an answer to prayer. One and all, the boarders conspired to throw the young people together. Never was matchmaking more co-operatively carried out. Not surprisingly, Peter saw a good deal of Dora. Three weeks after he returned to London, their engagement was announced.

Dora was all for hurrying on the wedding, but Peter proved unexpectedly firm. Some instinct of self-preservation warned him that he would be surrendering body and soul. About the body he was not so troubled, being sexually repressed and confused. But the soul — the soul was an entirely different matter; he wanted for a while longer to be able to call it his own.

It was with the intention of deflecting Dora that he had proposed this holiday abroad, alleging that they did not yet know each other as a prospective married couple should. At the back of his mind he half hoped that Dora would raise objections which would enable him to break the engagement off; but as a less naive man might have expected, she was only too ready to agree. Peter owned a 1961 Ford Zephyr and both he and Dora could drive. A motoring holiday seemed to offer the ideal of leisurely progress and enforced proximity.

Thus they drove one evening from Lorient to Quimper and put up at the Coq d'Or. The weather, which had been bad throughout the holiday, had excelled itself and the rain was streaming down. The equinoctial gales had set in punctually that autumn. Too often the landscape was obscured by trailing clouds and ropes of rain. As for the seascape, it boiled and thundered and spurted, and the spray and sea-mist hung above it like steam.

In the bar, while the proprietor's wife was cooking their dinner, Peter enquired about the sights of Keroualhac. He was not surprised to learn that they were virtually standard: a savage and magnificent coastline, and a chapel dedicated to some local Breton saint. The proprietor seemed to feel that no apology was needed; it was not for these that people came to Keroualhac. But he was a good-hearted host and set out to entertain the. lady, whose French was so much better than the man's. Peter, struggling to follow a language with which he was not perfectly familiar, was astonished to hear Dora ask:

'What is that island off the coast that you can see from the hill above the village?'

'That, madame, is the He des Regrets.'

'The lie des Regrets. Did you hear that, Peter? The place is called the Island of Regrets.'

'What are you talking about? What island? I never saw one.'

'You were driving, dear. You had your eyes on the road.'

'And the weather, monsieur, would have prevented you from seeing it. It is astonishing that it was visible to madame.'

'I saw it only for a moment,' Dora informed him. 'There was a lull in the squall, the mist lifted, and it was there. It looked so near I wanted to put out my hand and touch it. Like a child's toy left floating by the beach.'

'The distance is deceptive,' the proprietor said darkly, 'and the tide-rip has been the death of many a boat. At certain times it is as though all the waters of the Channel were being funnelled through one narrow rocky slit.'

'The kind of place one would regret trying to get to,' Peter murmured. 'No wonder it's called the Island of Regrets.'

'No, monsieur, that is not the reason for its title. The island is a magic place. You understand?'

'You mean there are superstitions about it,' Dora corrected.

The proprietor frowned. 'As you prefer, madame. We Bretons say it is a magic island. It grants the first wish you make when you first set foot there, but grants it in such a way that you will wish it had not been granted. This is why it is called the Island of Regrets.'

'How quaint,' Dora said. 'I do love peasant superstitions. Does anyone live on it?'

'A boat calls once a week,' the proprietor said with some ambiguity. 'Weather permitting, that is.'

'The weather doesn't permit much at present, does it?' Peter said glumly, looking at the lashing rain.

'Courage, monsieur. With us, there is no telling. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are different days. The weather of one day bears no relation to that of another. Tomorrow may be a beautiful day.'

'If it is,' Dora said, 'I vote we go to the island.'

'Impossible, madame. It would be dangerous to go alone, and none of our local boatmen will take you. They say the island is an unlucky place.'

'Why? You've only got to make sure your first wish is something innocuous.'

'No, the superstition, as you call it, is more complex than that. They say that the island-dwellers — the unseen dwellers — do not wish to have their privacy disfurbed. Any violation of their territory is punished. Any theft, however small, will mean your death. Three years ago a boy landed there and ate some blackberries. He died, madame. Here in Keroualhac he died that very night. You can go and see his gravestone in the churchyard.'

Dora smiled. 'I'll believe you without that. But don't you think there's a rational explanation? He probably ate poisonous berries by mistake.'

'That is what the doctor said, madame. But not a soul in Keroualhac believes it. Poisonous berries do not look like blackberries. A local lad would not make such a mistake. It is more likely that the island-dwellers were angry at his stealing and punished him according to their law.'

'Who are these island-dwellers?' Peter asked curiously.

The proprietor spread his hands and shook his head. 'In Brittany, monsieur, we have many legends. We are an old race and I think our forebears are never truly dead. For myself, I prefer not to enquire too closely into the nature of the island-dwellers and I prefer to keep my distance from the lie des Regrets. If you are wise, monsieur and madame, you will also. And now my wife is calling. Dinner is served.'

The proprietor proved a good prophet. The next day was a perfect autumn day. Peter, descending in the morning, found Dora studying a large map in the hall.

'We shall be able to go to the island,' she informed him. 'There's an excellent landing-place just here.' Her finger indicated a point on the north-east tip of the island, where Peter judged the channel to be not more than half a mile wide.

Ts it safe?' he asked uneasily, recalling the proprietor's words about 'a narrow, rocky slit'.

'Perfectly,' Dora assured him. 'The tide is on the turn now. By the time we've had breakfast the danger will be over. It's only when the water builds up to a certain level that the funnelling effect is produced. As you see, I've been making some enquiries. There's nothing to worry about.'

'I don't want to go,' Peter said firmly.

'Nonsense, darling,' said Dora, who did. 'If you don't believe me, go and talk to the boatmen. It isn't the tide-rip that puts them off.'

It was not the tide-rip that put Peter off, either. Dora suspected this.

'Of course,' she went on, 'if you're superstitious. ' Her tone implied that superstition was beneath contempt.

'I just don't see any point in going there,' Peter muttered.

'It looks enchanting,' Dora contradicted. 'If we miss this chance it will certainly be the Island of Regrets.'

Peter said no more and they set off after breakfast. He half hoped it might be impossible to hire a boat, but this hope was balanced by the fear that Dora would already have arranged this. He was beginning to know his fiancee pretty well.

Overnight the world had been washed free of impurity; all colours had a clean and shining look. The sky was limpid blue and cloudless, a paler reflection of the colour of the sea. Autumnal tints set off a lingering summer greenness. Around the cliffs the breakers crumbled into foam. The island did indeed look to be within touching distance — a plaything that had been idly cast away.

The houses of the village, narrow and flat-fronted, led down to the jetty and the shore, where the mass of tumbled boulders and rock formations bore witness to the fury of past storms. Trails of ribbon-weed glistened in the sunlight, twined with great branches of bladder-wrack. On the hard several boats were drawn up for inspection and a net was being repaired.

The short cut to the harbour lies through the churchyard, where on the sheltered north and east sides of the grey stone building the dead of Keroualhac sleep. Plain headstones and occasional crosses give briefly the names and dates of the dead. The grass is scythed every summer; some of the older headstones lean. As Peter and Dora hurried down the pathway, a figure straightened up among the stones. He was standing in the remotest corner of the churchyard, where the herbage was drenched with rain. He had hitched his soutane up above his ankles in an effort to keep it dry, and he held half concealed behind him a branch of mountain ash with orange berries like beads.

Uncertain whether to speak, Peter hesitated, but Dora was already calling out 'Bonjour.' The cure came apologetically towards them, picking his way as delicately as a cat. He was wearing socks of stout, inelegant home knitting. Peter noticed that his shoes were down at heel.

'What a wonderful morning,' Dora greeted him. She prided herself on being at ease with the Church. 'We are going to the lie des Regrets. Give us your blessing. Your people are all too scared to come.'

'You have my blessing, certainly,' the curd responded, 'but if you are going there, you are clearly not afraid. I wish you a pleasant day and continued good weather.' He made as if to turn away.

'Oh,' Dora cried, catching sight of the rowanberries, 'what a beautiful branch. Is this to decorate the church?'

The cure shuddered and held it further from him. 'It would not be suitable,' he replied.

'Really?' Dora was politely unbelieving. 'It would look so lovely in a vase. Would you like me to arrange it for you? I'm considered rather good at doing flowers.'

'You are very kind, madame, but I must not trouble you.'

Some memory stirred faintly in Peter's mind. 'Mountain ash — isn't that a talisman against evil magic?'

The cure admitted: 'There are those who believe it to be so.'

Dora, momentarily excluded from the conversation, had not been wasting her time. 'There are no mountain ash trees in the churchyard,' she cried archly. 'Mon pere, where did you get it from?'

The cur£ twirled the branch unhappily: 'Among the Bretons, the old beliefs die hard. They are faithful children of the Church, madame — never doubt it — but they cling still to certain relics of their past. It can happen that a person dies in such circumstances that these superstitious beliefs come into play. In such cases a talisman may be placed on his tombstone so that his evil spirit shall not walk.'

Tn the twentieth century!' Dora exclaimed in mock consternation.

'We are less advanced than you suppose, madame.'

'I never heard of anything so absolutely archaic. Do they really believe that evil spirits walk?'

'Whose grave was it?' Peter asked with growing foreboding.

'A young man, monsieur. You would not know his name. He died three years ago from eating poisonous berries.'

'Which he found on the lie des Regrets?'

The cure looked obstinate and unhappy. 'As you say, monsieur, he found them on the lie. There were those who said he should not be given Christian burial, but with God's help I managed to prevail.'

Only just, Peter thought, glancing at the decrepit corner from which the cure had come. 'May he rest in peace,' he said.

'Amen.' The cure crossed himself. 'Au revoir, monsieur., madame…'

'This place is extraordinary,' Dora said before he was out of earshot. 'Even the priest is afraid. And the proprietor last night more than half believed what he was saying. I'm so glad we didn't miss this,'

Peter's fears about the boat were justified when they reached the harbour; Dora had one already laid on.

'I had to pay the earth,' she confessed, 'but I know it's going to be worth it. It'll make a wonderful story to tell when we get home.'

Peter stowed away the picnic-basket and the camera, which Dora had insisted they should bring. His fiancee irritated him this morning, though there was nothing new in this. Sometimes he even wondered if he would have continued with the engagement if everyone else had not been so sure she was the girl for him. They declared her sensible when she seemed to him merely insensitive. More and more he was reminded that 'fools rush in. ' But it was not in Peter's nature to struggle hard and long against anything. Dora sensed this, and it had given her the upper hand. They were going to the Island of Regrets because Dora wished it; Peter automatically wished the same.

Their boat had an outboard motor which left a faint blue haze as they put-put-putted away.* From the jetty the net-menders watched them, and the gulls screamed in the perennial excitement they display whenever a boat, however small, puts out to sea. Dora was at the tiller (she had claimed to know the channel) and Peter noticed with surprise the way she was hugging the shore. She seemed intent on putting the maximum distance between them and the harbour before setting course for the island in the bay. At last, just before they were out of sight behind a headland, she swung the little boat around, and, opening up the throttle to its limits, made straight for the lie des Regrets.

At once, angry shouts arose from the shore behind them. Looking back, Peter saw that every man was on his feet. They were gesticulating — beckoning and pointing. One man — the owner? — even shook his fist in the air.

'Are you sure this is the course they gave you?' Peter asked Dora. 'They don't seem to like it very much.'

'They don't like our going to the island,' Dora said calmly. 'But we've got too good a start for them to be able to intercept.'

'Why didn't they make a fuss when you hired the boat?' Peter queried. 'They must have known what you were going to do.'

'They may not have asked or they misunderstood when I told them. Besides, I did not let them know we were coming here. I told them I wanted a boat to go around the headland to the next bay.'

'You lied to them,' Peter said.

'Only because I had to, Peter darling. They wouldn't have hired me the boat if I'd told the truth. In a sense you can say that their own superstition brought it on them.'

'The superstition, as you call it, is very real to them.'

'More fools they. It's about time they learned to live without it.'

'They could no more do that than get by without the air they breathe.'

'Unhealthy air,' Dora said, breathing it in in lungfuls, while the wind and spray brought colour to her cheeks.

Ahead of them lay the sheltered, smiling inlet which Dora's finger had marked on the map. A wooden jetty, its planking decayed and rotten, was the only intimation that the He des Regrets had life. Dora switched off the outboard motor and the engine coughed. It was time to wade through the shallows.

Reluctantly Peter stood up.

'Don't make such a mountain out of it, darling,' Dora said sweetly. 'You'll have to carry me across the threshold next.'

Oh God, Peter thought, swinging a leg over the side of the boat, which rocked alarmingly, I wish I didn't have to marry this girl.

And immediately his foot touched bottom. He had made his first wish, the wish which would be granted by the He des Regrets.

By the time he had waded ashore, carrying Dora, Peter's momentary forboding had gone. In no circumstances could he imagine that he would regret the engagement's being broken. He might even break it himself. Only — she was the ideal wife for him — everyone said so. Surely so many people could not be wrong? There would be such explanations and recriminations. Any doubt he felt would be dismissed as pre-nuptial nerves. On the other hand, if the engagement could be broken by Dora or some force outside his control, he could accept it as the working of fate or fortune, and (after a decent interval) rejoice. The Island of Regrets might be renamed the Isle of Gratitude. He set Dora down on it with a jar.

'What a darling place!' she exclaimed over-loudly. 'I do wish I could believe in magic, like you.'

'I hope that isn't your first wish,' Peter said sourly.

Dora favoured him with her most indulgent smile. 'Darling Peter, you really believe in it, don't you? Now, stand still. I'm going to take your photograph. You look so sweet, standing there on the edge of the water.' She was adjusting the camera as she spoke.

Dora was an excellent photographer. She had an instinctive eye for composition and pose. Peter, normally slight and insignificant, looked a colossus against the empty space of sky and sea. Not that this gave him any satisfaction, as he stood there twisting his face into a smile. He would have given anything to turn and leave the island, but Dora was already summoning him to come on.

In a sense he did not blame her for advancing, for the island looked inviting and serene. From the sandy bay with its high-water mark of shells and pebbles, a track led inland, following the course of a stream. On each side of the bay the cliffs rose sheer and craggy, the ledges occupied by rock pigeons, gulls and terns. At the top of the slope where beach and scrub-grass intermingled, someone had built a clumsy cache for the stores which were brought once a week by the boat from the mainland; it was a further sign that not all the dwellers on the island were 'unseen'.

The path and the stream kept pace along a grass-grown valley. The slope of the land was getting steeper all the way. Looking back, Peter was surprised to see how great was the distance they had covered. The island had the power, it seemed, of suspending time. Then he glanced at his watch and at the sun approaching its zenith; the sense of timelessness was apparent rather than real. They had been walking a good half-hour and he had not noticed, so engrossed was he by the unfolding scene.

Despite the lateness of the season, there were wild flowers in profusion everywhere. From low-growing thickets of gorse and bramble the yellow-hammers were demanding bread-and-no-cheese. The blackberries, Peter noticed, were ripe and luscious; they looked more like clusters of jewels than fruit. It was easy to understand that a local boy might fill his stomach and his pockets. Happily, Dora did not like blackberries. He doubted even if she had noticed their existence; she was so intent on taking photographs.

At the top of the slope the grass gave place to woodland — deciduous trees in shades of autumn gold. On a Breton island trees are hardly to be expected. Peter said as much to Dora, who did not reply. The explanation was perfectly simple, as Peter was very soon able to see, for the centre of the island was a depression like a deep saucer, protected on all sides from the almost ceaseless wind.

The track — path was too grandiose a word to describe it — began once more to descend. In the bottom of the saucer a house hugged a cloak of conifers so tightly around it that only a chimney showed. Perhaps the house would be ruined and desolate, given over to martins and bats. Overhead the pine-trees merged, making the path darker; underfoot the pine-needles carpeted the ground.

'Aren't you glad we came?' Dora called out to him.

This time it was Peter's turn not to reply.

In not-quite-mock anger, Dora pelted him with fir-cones, one of which hit him in the eye. Peter cried out in mingled pain and protest. Dora was instantly at his side.

'Did the nasty little fir-cone hit him, and did his horrid Dora throw it, then! Never mind, Dora will kiss it better.' This she proceeded to do. Peter remained unresponsive. She flung away from him in a pet.

'I can't think what's the matter with you this morning. Are you sulking because you didn't want to come? Really, Peter, you behave no better than a baby. For heaven's sake be a sport and come along.'

She marched off briskly, leaving Peter to follow, which foe did, albeit with resentment in his heart. Neither of theih noticed that one of the little fir-cones had lodged in the outside pocket of her bag.

The path through the pines led ever more steeply downwards. They had left the sunlight behind. The pine-needles underfoot muffled their footsteps. There was something sinister about this absence of sun and sound. Small flies darted about under the pine-trees. A clump of scarlet, white-spotted toadstools made Dora exclaim: 'Look, Peter, there's your magic — fairy houses.'

'Deadly poisonous/ Peter remarked.

The more he penetrated this wood, the more he wanted to get out of it, but Dora boldly led him further in. No wisp of smoke came from the chimneys showing above the tree-tops. The path itself had a little-frequented air.

'Do you suppose anyone lives in the house?' Dora asked him.

'No,' Peter said, not wanting to believe.

Almost before they knew it, the house was upon them. A sudden twist in the path and there it stood. Grey stone, foursquare, its windows protected by closed shutters, it had a desolate and unresponsive look. Yet the front door swung open on its hinges; the ubiquitous pine-needles had drifted into the hall. They had also blocked the guttering and the drain-pipes. After the autumn rains damp patches showed on the wall.

All around the trees formed an elliptical clearing, the longer part of which lay directly behind the house. A rusty door-bell, its chain bracketed to the wall to discourage visitors, reverberated when Dora pulled it with unexpected sonority through the house.

'Suppose someone answers?' Peter said with apprehension.

'Nonsense, darling, the place is absolutely dead.'

It certainly seemed so; no hesitant footsteps or creaking shutter, no voice sharply demanding 'Who's there?' Nevertheless, remembering the cache for foodstuffs and the boat's once-weekly call, Peter's uneasiness mounted. No one had described the island as uninhabited, though they had seen no sign of life between the house and the shore.

Dora, untroubled by these considerations, pushed idly at the swinging front-door. It opened inwards with a sudden shrill whine from the hinges, spilling a drift of pine-needles to the floor.

'Why, the place is furnished!' Dora said, startled for the first time out of her phlegmatic calm. 'What a shame to let it go to rack and ruin.' She was tcha-tcha-ing and inspecting as she spoke.

Peter wondered what the owners would say to two inquisitive foreigners if they found them poking round in their hall; but he was bound to agree with Dora that it was a shame to see objects of beauty and value sinking through neglect into a state of disrepair.

Dora pushed open the door to the drawing-room. It revealed the same melancholy scene. The silk upholstery was split and rotten, the carpet dim under dust. At the windows hung what had once been curtains. Cobwebs trailed and floated on the walls, massing around mirrors and pictures and festooning the chandelier. It might have been the Sleeping Beauty's palace, except that there is nothing fairy-tale about filth.

'The whole place wants burning,' Dora stated, sneezing as the dust got into her throat.

'You don't want to go upstairs?' Peter asked her.

She missed the irony of his tone. 'I want to get out,' she said abruptly. And walked through toward the back door.

This gave on to the long and narrowing garden, whose greatest width was just below the house. It was entirely filled with a rank weed too coarse even to be couch-grass, which had submerged the outline of flower-beds and overrun even the terrace's stones. Unlike the flowers on the island, the weed had faded; its leaves were colourless, deepening to brown. It lay unstirred by the wind within its prison-enclave of pine-trees, for all the world like some malignant, stagnant pond.

And in the middle of it a man was standing, with his head sunk low upon his chest. He stood with his back to the house, and his hands thrust deep in his pockets. His long white beard and hair and old-fashioned garments made him look like Rip van Winkle sleeping on his feet.

'Why doesn't he speak to us?' Dora whispered.

'Perhaps he hasn't heard us,' Peter replied. He knew in his heart that this was not the answer, but he obligingly called out 'Good day.'

'Bonjour,' Dora added for good measure.

The figure neither moved nor spoke.

'He must be deaf,' Dora concluded.

'Or dead,' Peter added, half to himself.

Dora's literal-mindedness came to her rescue.

'He can't be dead, dear. He's standing up.'

'So he is,' Peter said. 'I hadn't noticed.'

She gave him a glance of dislike. 'Aren't you going to do anything about him?' she demanded. 'Find out who he is or ask him if there's anything he wants.'

'Comment allez-vous?' Peter dutifully shouted, aware of its incongruous sound.

The man might have been a statue for all the signs he showed of responding.

'Go up to him,' Dora said.

"What for? We have nothing we can give him. Remember we're trespassers here.'

'Then I'll go,' said Dora determinedly. She began to move forward as she spoke.

'Wait,' Peter commanded. 'You're too sudden. You'll give him too much of a shock.'

He began to edge cautiously around the garden. Dora did the same on the far side. Still the old man stood with his head bowed, like a statue. They tried French and English, even German; he did not look up. They were near enough now to see that his clothes were tattered, his hair and beard were matted and unkempt. His face, though grimed with dirt, had a strange, unhealthy pallor — maggot-white, Peter thought to himself. Even Dora's exuberance had subsided. For once she was not taking the lead. Peter stepped forward and laid a reluctant hand on the greasy shoulder.

'Can we do anything to help?' he asked awkwardly. 'Is there anything ypu need?'

At his touch the figure came to life convulsively, broke free of his grasp and raised its elf-locked head. The eyes, scarlet-rimmed, the lower lids drooping like a bloodhound's, lit up as they contemplated him. The voice was cracked and produced with difficulty, wheezing, as though, like the furniture, it had been neglected to the point of disrepair. His laughter when it came was a shrill cascade of cackles — harsh but not resonant in that oppressive air.

'Come at last, he has, the new tenant,' he cried between his peals of hideous mirth. I could feel it in my bones that you were coming. I've been waiting for you since yesterday.'

Peter backed away from the madman. 'You're mistaken. I don't live here.'

The madman's laugh rose, screeching and unearthly. 'Don't try to deny it, my dear sir. This commodious residence is never left untenanted. It wouldn't be good for it, you know. I've been wondering who would replace me when I gave up my tenancy, because this winter, I'm afraid I shall really have to

go.'

He put out a claw with black-rimmed finger-nails.

With a cry of fear Peter plunged back toward the path. Dora was already running as if the devils of Hell were behind her, but the madman made no attempt to pursue. He simply went on standing there, and laughing. The sound was audible all the way to the shore.

'The new tenant! The new tenant's coming. They're going to let me give up the keys at last. And the new tenant doesn't think he's going to like it. But he'll get used to it. It's a life-tenancy, ha-ha-ha!'

Peter and Dora were received in Keroualhac with the same silence that they had preserved almost unbroken in the boat. They were both considerably shaken by their encounter with the madman, but neither was willing to admit as much, Peter because he feared to arouse Dora's derision, Dora because she was bewildered by herself. She was still far from accepting the Bretons' view of the island, but the effect it had on one was certainly very odd. During their flight to the shore she had known sheer unreasoning terror — a phenomenon which had not disturbed her rational mind before. Now, in the sunlight, and with a fresh sea-breeze blowing, she was exceedingly ashamed of this lapse. What was she to say if people asked about the trip to the island? Should she admit her fear, or make light of it, laugh it off? And what would Peter reply if questioned? But there was no need for Peter to speak. His white, set face was an announcement that all had not gone smoothly, even without the nerve twitching in his cheek.

As it happened, Dora need not have worried. No one was anxious to ask. The men on the quayside withdrew when they saw them coming and contented themselves with a long, unfriendly stare. They made no pretence of continuing with their occupations of mending nets or applying a lick of paint. They simply stood there in their uniform seamen's jerseys, dark trousers and sea-boots, and looked on with a hostile yet pitying air. Even the owner of the boat did not come forward. When Dora approached him, he promptly turned his back. Not even Dora was proof against such a demonstration.

TIow stupid they are,' she observed as she turned away.

Her remark was audible, but they remained impassive.

'You've annoyed them,' Peter said. He longed to dissociate himself entirely from Dora's actions, but this was the most he could do.

'I like that! What have I done that you haven't?'

Peter forbore to explain.

'They're like savages,' Dora continued, unabated. Tt's as if we had broken a taboo.'

'Let's hope they won't turn hostile as savages.'

'Darling, this is Europe, for heaven's sake.'

'And the twentieth century,' Peter added.

Dora saw no connection between the two.

The street from the harbour was silent and deserted. The whole village knew they had been to the Island of Regrets. Children at play were called sharply into the houses; loiterers were seized and cuffed by the maternal hand. Conversations across the street were abruptly ended; the evening rang with the slamming of front doors. Only in the churchyard did the visitors encounter unimpaired indifference, the dead of Keroualhac having no cause for fear.

'Unfriendly lot,' Dora said, referring to the living. 'I shan't be sorry to get back to our hotel.'

'If it still is our hotel,' Peter muttered.

Dora looked at him. 'What do you mean?'

'With feeling running this high, we'll be lucky if they keep us.'

'Of course they'll keep us. We've booked in till tomorrow.

If not, I shall certainly complain. To the French National Tourist Office, and to Michelin and Baedeker and the Guides Bleus and anyone else you care to name.'

Tm sure you will,' Peter said hastily, 'but it won't solve the problem of tonight.'

'There may not be a problem. Stop fretting,' Dora commanded, her voice sharper because she was ill at ease.

However, she was right, as usual. She would be, Peter thought. At the Coq d'Or the proprietor had seen them coming. He came forward to greet them as they arrived.

'Bonsoir, madame. monsieur. You have made your expedition? The whole village can talk of nothing else. It is not every day there is a visit to the island. I hope at least that you have no regrets?'

'None at all,' Dora told him very firmly.

Peter allowed it to seem that she was speaking for them both.

'You see?' she said when they were alone together. 'The proprietor made no difficulties. Hotel people are civilised and cosmopolitan. They have to be — it's part of their stock in trade. It just underlines the difference between them and these ignorant peasants. The proprietor isn't afraid to speak to us.'

Nevertheless, it seemed to Peter that the proprietor was troubled. He had lost the easy manner of last night. He was politer than ever, even deferential, but there was a certain reserve in what he said. He kept his distance as though there was a physical barrier between them. At the bar, he did not join them for a drink. Instead, he stayed firmly behind the counter; it was as if he had walled himself in. He kept himself busy rearranging bottles and polishing glasses. There was no one else in the room.

It was Dora, of course, who opened the conversation.

'Who lives on the Island of Regrets?'

'No one, madame.'

'But someone does. We met him. We both saw him. Unless you're going to say he was a ghost?'

'No, madame, there are no ghosts on the island.'

'So he's a living person?'

The proprietor looked away.

'Isn't he?' Dora pursued. 'After all, the boat calls with provisions. He must be as alive as you.'

This time the proprietor faced her. 'You have met this person, you say?'

Dora nodded.

'Then you will know that he is a madman. There is always a madman on the lie des Regrets.'

'How do you mean — there is always a madman?'

It may sound strange, monsieur, but it is so.'

'But who sends them there? Where do they come from?'

'That monsieur, we do not know.'

'It's fantastic,' Dora burst out. 'Such callousness, such indifference.'

The proprietor was polishing a glass. 'Every community has its share of such poor creatures,' he said softly, 'and always they must be put away. They are dangerous to themselves and to others. The incurables, as one might say — although beasts in cages would be a better description, since they must always be behind bars; and what bars could be more effective than to be cast away on the lie des Regrets without a boat?'

'You mean they are left there to die?' Dora asked in horror.

'No, madame, our madmen live for many years. They are amply supplied with provisions. By tradition, the whole village contributes. And when one goes, another is always forthcoming — no one knows from where. One day the whisper spreads through the village: "There's a new madman on the lie des Regrets."'

'And you send out a welcoming committee?'

'Monsieur will have his little joke.' The proprietor was re-polishing the glasses. 'You must pardon that I am soaffaire. We hear tonight that a big coach party is corning and every bed will be in use. It does not happen often,' he continued, as if aware of the thinness of the excuse, 'but when it does, we are naturally very busy, since every room must be turned out.'

Complete stillness reigned in the hotel; the bustle of room-turning-out was evidently over. The excuse was so patently transparent that Peter was tempted to smile. The proprietor, while aware of his duties as a hotelier, was making sure they did not stay beyond tonight. Not only was some dreadful fate expected to overtake them, but they were regarded as bringers of bad luck. The whole of Keroualhac ached to be without them, and they would never be welcomed back. This was therefore their last chance to probe the mystery surrounding the lie des Regrets.

'What about that house on the island?' Peter demanded. 'That could do with a bit of turning out.'

It was the proprietor's turn to show a gleam of humour. 'Madmen are not good housewives, as a rule.'

'You're telling me,' Dora broke in. 'The place is filthy. How long has it been left to rot like that?'

'Since the owner built it,' the proprietor answered. 'He was another one who would not heed.' He looked at them over the glass he was polishing for the third time. 'Everyone told him that the He des Regrets was dangerous, but he did not choose to believe. He visited it, declared it to his liking, and decided to build a summer retreat. He had ample time to reflect upon our warnings during the years that he spent upon the He. He was rash enough to wish when he first set foot there that he might pass the rest of his life in this idyllic spot. As usual, his wish was granted and as usual it became a source of regret.'

'What happened?' Dora demanded.

'His wife died first of all. She was being rowed across from the mainland by a boatman who had lived here all his life. Inexplicably, he misjudged the crossing. They were caught in the tide-rip and drowned.

'As if this were not sufficient sorrow, his daughter was taken from him that same year. One wing of the house was not yet completed. The child was playing there when a wall collapsed.

'Instead of leaving the scene of his bereavement, our island dweller shut himself up in the house. He grew melancholy, neglected his financial enterprises; he made business trips to Paris less and less. He was a director of many companies, prosperous but not solid, except in build. The Stavisky scandal broke over him like a thunderstorm, for which he was completely unprepared. In a week his shares, like those of so many others, tumbled; his frantic speculations on the Bourse all failed. He returned to the island broken in mind and body. Within a week it was apparent he was mad. His servants in terror sought refuge on the mainland. He was left alone on his island. For fifteen years he lived there. When he died, another madman took his place.'

I don't understand —' Dora was beginning.

'No one understands, madame. One afternoon the boat-crew, unloading provisions, were hailed by a different man. No one knew where he had come from. To this day we do not know his name. He was succeeded by another, and another. The one you saw must be at least the sixth. Nor do we know how they get to the island in the first place, since no boatman has ever taken one across, but you have shown us, madame, that it is possible to hire or steal conveyance, and our madmen, who do not lack cunning, could easily have done as much.'

'But how do they know when to go there?'

'How does the swallow know when to journey south? There are things, monsieur, that science does not answer. And now, my wife calls that your sole is cooked.'

The proprietor came out from behind the bar-counter, not without a certain hesitation, Peter thought. And as he served the food and poured the wine, Peter noticed that the proprietor kept as much distance as he could, between himself and his guests. Nor did the proprietor's wife issue forth after supper to receive their compliments on her cuisine, and the little chambermaid, seeing Dora coming, crossed herself and took to her heels. It was as though the whole village feared that disaster was going to strike them, some sudden death-in-agony in the night. Like the boy who had so rashly eaten blackberries on the island, and now lay in the churchyard with a twig of mountain ash on his grave. In this climate it was easy to see how superstition became established. The will to perceive causality was already there.

Next morning, when they came down safe and well to breakfast, Peter detected a slight disappointment in the air, mingled with relief that they were going and could therefore bring down no wrath on Keroualhac. Not a soul was to be seen and

yet all eyes were upon them as the proprietor himself saw them

off in the direction of Brest and St Malo.

During the next six months their recollection of the island faded as preparations for the wedding got under way. For Peter's sake, Mrs Matthews had determined to speed things up; long engagements were bad for the nerves, she said.

Peter was indeed in a state of considerable nervous tension, but not for the reasons that his future mother-in-law supposed. The impending union weighed heavily upon his spirit. He wished it were over, or else that it need never take place. But when he voiced his doubts to Dora she became tearful — an act in which long practice had made her adept — and rushed to confide in her mother, who discovered that April was a better month than June. Peter suffered her sympathetic understanding with outward gratitude and inward rage. He displayed the same stoic self-control when enduring the banter of his colleagues at the Ministry of Ag. and Fish. He had little time to reflect — or, when he did, to ponder — on the events on the lie des Regrets. As for Dora, the island would have passed out of her memory completely had it not been for the vexing business of the snaps.

Every one of the snapshots she had taken on the island came out blank. The chemist's assistant talked knowingly about a faulty shutter, but the camera, when examined, was all right. Nor was Dora a tyro photographer, unused to light-readings and the like, or one who forgot to wind the film after each exposure or failed to take it out of the camera with care. The chemist's assistant maintained that he had not been negligent; he and Dora united in blaming the film; but the manufacturers, to whom Dora complained energetically, replied after six weeks that it was not their fault. The film had been tested in their laboratories and had emerged with flying colours. No other in that batch had been reported faulty and they could therefore accept no liability. They added, in what read like an afterthought, that the film appeared to have been exposed to strong white light. Dora crumpled the letter angrily when she received it and refused to have the matter mentioned any more.

Three weeks before the wedding, which was at Easter, Dora went down with a cold, caught while preening in her wedding-dress in an unheated bedroom before the only full-length mirror in the house. The cold made her feel heavy and miserable; her temperature began to rise. Despite a couple of days in bed and endless aspirins, the indisposition failed to respond.

The doctor, when he came (rushed off his feet by a measles epidemic), was not unduly alarmed 6y Dora's case. He satisfied himself that she had not got pneumonia, and departed, leaving a prescription behind. Peter fetched the prescription from the chemist — the same chemist who had developed the photographs — and was served by the same assistant, a small black-bearded young man. Peter thought he glanced at him accusingly as the white-wrapped sealed package changed hands, but he dismissed this as due to his imagination; it was not his fault that Dora was ill.

And ill she was. No one could accuse her of malingering. Her temperature had continued to rise. At ioi° it was not dangerous, but it steadfastly refused to come down. Dora herself seemed fretful and restless, suffering now here, now there. So many of her organs seemed in turn to be affected that it was tempting to seek some psychosomatic cause. The doctor called again, looked baffled and remained cheerful, though there was no doubt his patient had lost a lot of weight. A BCG test for TB proved negative. Even so, the doctor's cheerfulness did not fade. Dora, he assured her mother and her fiance, was one of the healthiest young women he knew, and as usual when the healthy succumbed to illness, they were apt to worry and make recovery slow. He had no doubt that Dora's disease was due to a virus — exactly which he was not prepared to say. The viruses, like the Joneses, were so numerous as to defy classification; from uniformity came diversity. He suggested that Dora should go into hospital for observation and admitted that the wedding might have to be put off.

Dora wept when the suggestion was put to her. She had made up her mind to be an Easter bride. Her mother and the doctor tried to soothe her. Peter felt guiltily that he ought to do the same, but his half-hearted attempts were so unsuccessful that Mrs Matthews ordered him from the room. On the landing he paced up and down uncertainly, a prey to the conflict of his thoughts.

Dora did not improve in hospital; instead she grew steadily worse. Wasted, feverish and hollow-cheeked, she was scarcely recognisable. The wedding was indefinitely postponed.

It was while Peter was visiting her that she dropped her bombshell. She put her burning hand in his and said: 'Darling, I'm not getting better — I'm not going to. It's because we went to that wretched lie des Regrets.'

'Nonsense, Dora,' Peter said sharply. 'What are you talking about?'

'I don't know.' Her eyes filled with tears — of weakness this time. 'It's just the way I feel about it all.'

'Sick fancies,' Peter said with attempted heartiness. 'You'll be as right as rain very soon.'

'But they don't even know what's the matter with me. A virus disease can mean anything.'

'Or nothing,' Peter tried to reassure her. 'You mustn't upset yourself like this.'

'No,' Dora agreed with unaccustomed meekness. 'Only I keep thinking about that wish.'

'What wish?' Peter demanded.

'The wish that I made on the island — that I might believe in magic. Like you.'

Peter also had expressed a wish on the island, though he preferred not to think about it now.

'I don't see any connection between your wish and your illness,' he objected.

'But there is.' Dora lowered her head in confusion. 'I believe in magic now.'

The icy fingers on Peter's spine made him shiver. Without conviction, he said: 'You're being a bit extreme, like all converts. This could be coincidence.'

'No.' Dora shook her head with something of her old vigour. 'I've never been ill like this. It's like that boy who ate blackberries on the island, except that his was mercifully quick.'

'And you're not dying,' Peter said with what cheerfulness he could muster. 'And you didn't have anything to eat. Or did you?' he asked, alarmed by Dora's silence.

'No, Peter, I ate nothing.'

And then it all came out in a torrent of self-justification. She had taken something from the Island of Regrets. 'Only a fir-cone, Peter, like the ones I was pelting you with. And I never intended taking it. It must have fallen into my bag. I didn't find it until two nights later in the hotel at St Malo, and then I said nothing to you.'

'What did you do with it, then?'

'Nothing, darling. I brought it home and put it in a drawer.'

'You mean you've still got it?' Peter demanded with sudden excitement.

'Yes. It's in the top drawer of my desk. Unless Mummy's tidied it away,' Dora added. 'She does sometimes. But it was there before I fell ill — I saw it. It's opened a bit but it's otherwise perfectly preserved.'

Peter stood up. 'In that case, we must return it.'

'Do you think that will do any good?'

'It won't do any harm, and your doctors are not being successful. Restoring the fir-cone is your only chance.'

'But there's no postal service to the island. And no one from Keroualhac would go.'

'If you like, I'll take it,' Peter offered.

Dora made objections, but allowed them to be overruled. She gave him instructions where to find the fir-cone, and Peter went at once to her house. Mrs Matthews looked startled and not too pleased to see him, but she held the door open none the less.

'What is it? Is Dora worse?' she demanded as soon as Peter had stepped into the hall.

Peter shook his head and explained his mission: Dora wanted something from her desk.

'Why didn't she ask me to bring it?' her mother protested.

'She only thought of it just now.'

'It must be very urgent if it couldn't wait till tomorrow.'

'Itis urgent,' Peter assured her. 'It's a matter of life and death.'

She followed him reluctantly to Dora's bedroom, where the desk was kept unlocked. It was a walnut Queen-Anne-style model with small drawers that pulled out sideways, but there was no fir-cone in any of them. Peter began to poke about among the papers stuffed into pigeonholes above the writing flap.

Mrs Matthews watched him in silence, like a professional burglar assessing an amateur's attempts. I I knew what you were looking for..she suggested.

'I'm looking for a fir-cone,' Peter said.

'A fir-cone!' Mrs Matthews's voice was remarkably like her daughter's. 'You're not going to tell me that Dora sent you here to pick up that?'

It has sentimental associations,' Peter said lamely.

'A fir-cone, indeed! I can tell you, you won't find that.'

'You mean you know where it is?' Peter asked hopefully.

'I put it in the dustbin last week.'

'What!' Peter spun round, leaving the desk-drawers gaping. 'What in heaven's name possessed you to do that?'

'I take it I may act as I wish in my own home,' Mrs Matthews reproved him. 'Dora is my daughter, after all.'

'That doesn't give you the right to dispose of her belongings. Couldn't you have waited till she was dead?'

'Peter!'

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Forgive me.'

'My poor boy, you're thoroughly overwrought.' Such demented distress was so flattering to Dora that Mrs Matthews was prepared to be generous in return.

But Peter ignored her generosity. 'Which day does your dustman call?'

'Tuesday morning,' Mrs Matthews answered.

'Then there's just a chance that the fir-cone is still there.'

He was already on his way to the kitchen when Dora's mother succeeded in catching his arm. 'Peter, listen. I know you hate to disappoint her, but there's no point in turning my dustbin upside down. The fir-cone won't be any use if you find it. It was mouldy. Rotten to the core.'

With a cry, Peter broke away from her. 'Are you certain?'

'Of course I am. That's why I threw it away. You don't really think I'd dispose of Dora's things for no reason?'

'But she told me the fir-cone was all right.'

'I expect she hadn't looked at it lately.'

The sweat was standing out on Peter's brow. 'I've got to have it,' he cried. 'Oh God, I've got to have it.'

He made a dive toward the kitchen-door. There was a clatter as the dustbin was up-ended. The refuse rolled in all directions over the yard. Mrs Matthews watched with mingled alarm and horror as Peter, unheeding, flung himself on his knees among the cinders, tin cans, withered flowers, empty bottles and rotting cabbage-leaves.

Even so, he almost missed the fir-cone, which had rolled as if trying to escape. Then he spied it and rose, stained but triumphant.

Dora's mother looked at him pityingly. 'You see? It's exactly as I told you — not worth keeping. Dora won't want to have it now. In fact, I doubt if the hospital would allow it. It's not a very hygienic souvenir.'

Something about the fir-cone's soft, rotting substance made Peter's gorge rise until he wanted to retch. He fought down the nausea with an effort. It was as though his fingers had touched decaying flesh.

He put it in his pocket and turned to Dora's mother. 'I'll take it back,' he said in a hollow-sounding voice.

'I should leave it till the morning,' she said gently. 'They won't let you see Dora now.'

'No, no. I don't mean to Dora. I mean I'm taking it to the lie des Regrets.'

To Peter, that evening was the beginning of a nightmare. It proved impossible to book a seat on a plane. The Easter holiday rush had already started and there was nothing for it but to travel by boat and train. But he had already missed the night boat from Southampton and he could not afford another twenty-four hours' delay. The fir-cone in his pocket seemed to be mouldering faster. Eventually he settled for the crossing Newhaven-Dieppe. From Dieppe he could travel crosscountry to Quimper, and from Quimper by bus to K6roual-hac. He did not know how he would cross from there to the island, but trusted that he would find some means of accomplishing this last lap. He would beg, buy, borrow, even steal a boat if need be. Desperation would show him the way. The fircone had to be returned if Dora's death were not to be on his conscience, for had he not wished that their marriage might never take place? Admittedly he had not wished that any disaster should befall Dora and nothing had been further from his thoughts; but it was the way of the lie des Regrets to grant a wish and cause one to regret its granting — as Dora regretted being ill.

At the thought of that mysterious malady, Peter's scalp prickled. Dora, like the fir-cone, was rapidly wasting away. Unless he could return it in time, he knew too well what would happen. And now, when he most needed speed, he encountered only adversity and delay.

The Channel was rough and the boat was an hour late on the crossing, which meant he had missed his connection with the fast train. At St Malo a porter gave him wrong information and allowed his train to pull out under his nose. The excited Englishman in a stained suit, unshaven, untidy, speaking unintelligible French, was an object of mirth rather than of pity to this Breton, who, when he understood the purport of his questions, amused himself with over-literal replies. No, there were no more trains until tomorrow. The last bus? That had left an hour ago. There would not be another till Saturday. A daily service?Bien sur there was a daily service, but it did not run on the Friday before Easter, of course. Yes, monsieur could hire a car if he preferred it, and no, the garage was not open this afternoon. And who had said anything about there being no means of getting to Quimper? Monsieur had been asking about getting theredirect. But if he took a bus to La Rocaille and there changed to another bus, he could be in Quimper by half past four tonight. Only the bus for La Rocaille was on the point of departure; one would telephone and ask it to wait..

It was when he was on the bus and had got his breath back that Peter first saw the Face. Small and malignant, it leered at him from a peasant-woman's market-basket and seemed to require some leer or gesture in return. Its expression was one of malicious satisfaction, as though it were pleased that the journey was late and slow. Yet when Peter moved his head in an effort to escape its triumph and looked again at the basket, it was no longer there.

Thereafter it played hide-and-seek with him among the passengers; it peered at him from over the shoulder of the man in front; it grimaced at him from the crook of a woman's arm hung with parcels; where two children put their heads together and whispered, it made an evil and, to all but Peter, invisible third.

It vanished each time he moved abruptly on the narrow seat, to the discomfort of his neighbour who glared at him with such intense ferocity that Peter felt impelled to explain.

'II y a quelquechose dans le panier de cette dame-la/ he murmured.

'Et vous, vous avez quelquechose dans le cuV

Between dread of seeing the Face and mortification, Peter did not know which way to look. No one else seemed to have perceived this grotesque, non-fare-paying passenger. Peter began to wonder if he was imagining things; he had slept very little on the crossing. And then the Face put out its tongue at him.

Quick as lightning, Peter returned the compliment, only to meet the horrified then angry gaze of the woman opposite. She gave a small, involuntary scream. Peter's neighbour cautioned him to mind his manners. Any trouble and they would put him off the bus, him and his remarks about 'something in her market-basket'. Just let him try anything with Madame Blanche, that was all.

In vain Peter protested that his gesture was not intended for the lady. The whole bus looked at him with pity and scorn. 'Mais voyons V his self-appointed gaoler-neighbour expostulated, 'there is only Madame Blanche who sits there. Therefore you intended to insult her. Whom else could you have intended

to insult?' And the other passengers joined with the Face in

looking at him accusingly all the way to La Rocaille.

The second bus was waiting in the town square. It appeared incredibly old. The windows did not fit, and they bumped and rattled as the bus threaded its way over La Rocaille's cobblestones. The woman with the market-basket was no longer with them, but as he turned to look at the landscape, Peter saw with a shudder of fear that the Face still was. Only now it had been joined by other Faces. There was a whole row of them above the electric lights. They grinned and gibbered, put out their tongues and made long noses, leered and winked at him in an obscene, revolting way. He passed a hand across his eyes, and found it wet with perspiration. The sweat was standing out in beads upon his brow.

'Stop the bus and let me off,' he commanded.

Someone behind asked if he felt all right.

'Yes. No. I want to get off,' Peter repeated.

Impossible, the bus was late already, he was told. There was no time to wait for someone to puke by the roadside. From somewhere his fellow passengers produced a stout brown paper bag.

'But I don't feel sick!' Peter protested emphatically.

'You wanted to stop the bus.'

'Only so that I could get out and walk a little. Away from those Faces up there.'

He jerked his head in the direction of the light-bulbs, three of which had failed to come on. His fellow passengers followed the gesture blankly. It was evident they saw nothing there. One or two of them tapped their foreheads significantly. The woman behind Peter ostentatiously moved away. Only his gaoler-neighbour seemed unaffected. Peter wondered if he could see the Faces too. He concentrated on staring out of the window at the countryside, still desolate after a late cold spring, while the row of faces looked down with their air of malicious triumph, whose cause he was to discover soon enough.

A few miles from Quimper the bus stopped with a particularly bone-shaking rattle, and the driver-conductor got down. He walked, bandy-legged but purposeful, towards the radiator, unscrewed the cap and let off a head of steam. 'Encore une foise,' Peter heard the other passengers whispering all around him. It was evidently not a rare event. The driver leaned negligently against the bonnet, while clouds of steam rose into the evening air. From somewhere he had produced a can of water; he had also produced a cigarette. The passengers inside were likewise furnished. Everyone seem°d prepared for a wait. And through the window Peter could catch a glimpse of the sea in the distance, sullen and heaving, and the tide was coming in.

In another hour the tide would make the channel between Keroualhac and the island impassable. And after that, darkness would descend and he would be subject to another night's delay. In vain Peter tapped his feet and fidgeted with impatience, drumming his fingers on the rattling window-pane. Through it he could see the line of white which broke against a headland, and watch its progress, whipped by the wind, along the shore. If he looked inwards, he could see the mocking Faces, whose mockery was reserved for him alone. One of them in particular had descended from the ceiling and hovered a little way to the left of him in the air. The tongue ran over the lips in anticipation as they pursed themselves, ready to spit…

With a cry, Peter struck out at this monstrosity, an ill-aimed buffet which caught his gaoler-neighbour's lighted cigarette, knocking the glowing stub among the other passengers in an avalanche of swearing and stamping it out.

'Can't you save your tricks until you're back among the inmates?' the angry victim exclaimed. I could report you to the gendarmes for this one. You a pyromaniac, or what?'

I beg your pardon,' Peter murmured in English.

'English, hein? We know that the English are mad. But, sacre nom! why can't you go mad on your side of the Channel? Don't you know that's what the English Channel's for?'

Peter's answer (if he made one) was lost in the revving of the engine. The bus, recuperated, moved off with a spine-jarring jerk. Through the window he could see that the line of

white around the headland had devoured a good deal more of

the shore.

At Keroualhac he was one of the first passengers to alight. The bus had stopped outside the Coq d'Or, which, as yet not open for the summer, presented a shuttered, cloistered front to the main street. Pausing only to note this inhospitable welcome, Peter sought the short cut to the harbour through the churchyard. Here there was no lack of hospitality. An open grave, boarded over, yawned near the path. The Faces, whom Peter had temporarily forgotten, peered at him round the corner of the church. In his pocket, where his hand stole now and then for reassurance, the fir-cone seemed deliquescent to his touch.

As he came out of the churchyard into the harbour, he became aware for the first time of the baying of the sea. It kept up a continuous worrying of the weed-covered rocks and the sea-wall, like hounds who have cornered a beast and are holding him at bay. The few boats drawn up on the hard were beached in safety. The fishing fleet had not left the port today. The only sign of life was a dinghy chugging its way across the harbour, piloted by an oil-skinned and sou'westered man.

Peter leaned against the harbour wall and feigned interest in the water, watching the man out of the corner of his eye. There was no other boat he could use to reach the island, and his chances of hiring it seemed small. No boatman would venture outside the harbour, let alone entrust the boat to someone else, for within the next half-hour the tide-rip would block the channel to the island; it was already dangerous to attempt to cross.

The man in oilskins seemed unaware of Peter's presence. He made fast the dinghy to a ring in the harbour wall and scaled the iron ladder from the water, leaving his boat bobbing below. He had stripped off his heavy oilskins for ease of movement and he wore the usual seaman's jersey underneath. A local fisherman, Peter thought — perhaps one of those who had been hostile when he and Dora returned from visiting the lie des Regrets.

As the man approached Peter, he stared curiously. It was too early in the year for visitors.

Peter, feeling that some remark was called for, could think only of inanities.

'A bad day,' he volunteered with a glance towards the fishing fleet in harbour.

'Not unusual at this time of year?'

The fisherman was passing without so much as a second glance in his direction when Peter remarked: 'Not much activity here today.'

'Ah, monsieur, you come at a time of sorrow. We mourn the death of one of our best-loved men. I knew him all my life. He was like a brother. And now he is drowned, God rest him, and to be buried in the morning. It is sad when a man must carry his best friend to the grave.'

'The storm must have been a very bad one.'

'He was not drowned in the storm. He was drowned here in the harbour in calm water by that boat of his on which there was a curse. We urged him to get rid of her, but he was stubborn. He laughed at us for believing in bad luck. But last night the boat, a dinghy like mine with an outboard motor, capsized near the harbour mouth. The motor struck Yves on the head as he went under. He was dead by the time we got him out. In all my days I have never known a dinghy capsize like that one. There was no reason for it, except that the thing was accursed.'

'What do you mean?' Peter asked uneasily.

'A stranger would not understand, monsieur.'

'No,' Peter insisted, 'please explain. I am interested.'

'It has to do with the island in the bay, the lie des Regrets, as we call it. The place is unlucky; no one from Keroualhac will go there, Yves no more than the rest. But last summer a young English couple of more than usual stupidity helped themselves to Yves's boat, which thus spent some hours on the island. The boat has been accursed ever since.'

'And the couple? What happened to the English couple?' Peter tried to keep the urgency out of his voice.

I don't know, but I hope they have not gone unpunished. Since they have caused a death, they deserve to atone.'

'No!' Peter cried, and was astonished at his own vehemence. 'One of them has atoned enough. She lies sick of an illness that has defeated all her doctors, and unless I can reach the island tonight she will die.'

'It would be madness to try to reach the island,' the fisherman warned him. 'Apart from ill-luck, the tide is almost at its height.' He had already stepped between Peter and the seawall, as if to protect his boat.

'I will pay you good money to hire your dinghy,' Peter promised.

'Think I'd ever see my boat again in this sea? Or that I'd ever want to after she'd been to the island? No, monsieur, there's not a man in Keroualhac will help you in getting there.'

'In that case I shall have to help myself,' Peter retorted.

Tt's suicide,' the fisherman warned him grimly.

Peter's hand closed round the fir-cone as he thought of Dora. 'It will be more like murder if I don't.'

The man looked at him strangely, without blinking, and Peter recognised suddenly and with blinding clarity that here was the original of the Face. The lips were not pursed now to spit forth contumely; the expression seemed rather to be one of malicious glee. As Peter watched, the mouth began to stretch and widen until the lips were taut and distorted as an extended rubber band. The eyes, which were narrow and near together, seemed almost to be buried in the flesh. With a cry of horror, Peter lunged at the mask before him and heard rather than felt his knuckles connect with bone. He had no clear idea of what it was he was destroying; he knew only that destroy he must.

The fisherman went down like a ninepin. Peter, not normally a fighter, was suddenly shocked and appalled. His first instinct was to offer aid and explanation. His second to make for the boat. The second won, for already the fisherman was dazedly stirring. Then, as he saw Peter disappearing over the iron ladder, he gave a great shout atad began to struggle to his feet. Peter's fingers wrestied clumsily with the moorings. He cast off the rope just in time. As the fisherman's head appeared over the sea-wall, the boat began to glide away. The fisherman yelled something unintelligible and minatory. Peter stood up, his movement rocking the boat. He fumbled in his breastpocket and produced his wallet, still stuffed with worn thousand-franc notes.

'Here!' he shouted, as a sea-gull screamed in derision. I don't want to steal your boat.' And* he hurled the wallet with all his might towards the quayside, where it landed with a satisfying thump.

The fisherman, whose face seemed to have reverted to a normal Breton peasant's, gazed from Peter to the wallet, but made no attempt to pick the latter up. Then, with a shrug of massive resignation and a glance all around the empty wastes of the sea, he made off as fast as sea-booted legs would carry him. He crossed himself before he turned away.

Outside the harbour the waves began in earnest. The seabed seemed to be tilting this way and that. The waves did not break, but slid smoothly towards the coastline, intent on trying to vanquish its battered rock. Sea and land were locked in a sempiternal struggle in which countless vessels had been sacrificed to no effect. It seemed too much to hope that a dinghy might survive it, but to Peter's relief it did. After he had got used to the long glide over the surface of a shoreward-mounting swell and the heart-stopping moment at its conclusion when another wave reared up ahead, he began to realize that the dinghy (for the moment) could take it better perhaps than a bigger boat. He calculated the distance to the island. He might yet do it in time.

But the wind and water were against him. His progress was maddeningly slow. The tide, frothing in the channel, had made the water-level dangerously high. Without warning, the sea began to boil all around him, the wind and waves contending with the tide. The water, compressed into swirling eddies, began to race with the speed of an express train. The dinghy, almost on the shoreward side of safety, was borne broadside, parallel to the isle. In vain Peter struggled to turn her bows into the tide-rip. She heeled over, righted herself, heeled over, further over, and overturned. Peter had a glimpse of her, carried keel upwards towards the jagged rocks at the island's harbour mouth. Then the sea propelled him in the same direction, and he struggled desperately to keep himself afloat.

The wave which flung him finally shorewards was one of the largest yet to break. The impact knocked all the breath out of his body, but at least he fell on sand. The sand was smooth, sliding treacherously beneath his fingers, until he realised he was caught in the undertow. Panting, heaving, straining to gain some purchase, his scrabbling fingers encountered a furrowed slab of rock. His hands were so numb that he could scarcely distinguish rock and fingers. Sea-water streaming down his face left him choking and half-blind. And then another drenching wave broke over him, and again he had to fight the undertow.

This time, by an effort he had believed beyond him, he dragged himself beyond the ocean's clawing reach. Spewing sea-water and retching his heart out, he lay prone and shivering among rock pools and seaweed, too terrified and exhausted even to think.

It was the cold that brought him to his senses. He was cold within and without. But surprisingly, his legs responded to his summons. Dizzily, staggering with the effort, he forced himself to his feet. There was blood on his hands and on his forehead where he had cut himself upon the rocks. His trousers flapped sodden and heavy about him. In the maelstrom his shoes had been sucked off. Behind him was a waste of whirling water, racing like a river in flood. Before him lay the now sharply remembered horrors he had encountered on the Island of Regrets.

At least, Peter thought, wringing the water from his garments, I have not made a wish this time. And that thought reminded him of the fir-cone. Suppose, in that wild sea, it had been washed away? But no! It was safely there in an inner pocket, no more pulpy than everything else he possessed. He beat his arms to restore some vestige of circulation, and set off inland towards the wood.

The path by the stream was spiked with reeds and marshy, with a green-tinged, evil-smelling ooze. His feet sank in above the ankles, his trouser-legs became solid with the slime. The stream which had babbled so delightfully now ran silent, swollen into flood. From the bushes no birds sang, despite the season. The light was beginning to fail.

In the pinewood it was darker still and more silent. A curious stillness prevailed. Peter almost preferred the desolation of bare branches to the pine-trees' sinister, everlasting life. He found the tree without difficulty from which the fir-cone had come. Other fir-cones lay on the damp, decaying needles. Reverently he laid his down. Its mildewed, water-logged appearance made it easy to recognise, yet when he looked a moment later, it had vanished clean away.

At once there was laughter all around him, thin, shrill laughter which had a spiteful ring. At first he thought it was the madman, but it lacked the raucous cackling of his cries. Besides, this was not one laugh but many. A chorus of malice echoed among the trees. And then he saw the Faces all around him, peering from behind tree-trunks, in the branches, even in the air at the level of his eyes.

Awkwardly in his bare feet and sea-sodden garments, Peter began to run. He ran downhill because it was the way he was facing, and also because a house was at least somewhere to go. The tenant might be mad — that did not matter. He was a fellow human-being after all. Anything was better than the company of the unseen dwellers on the island. Almost sobbing with relief, Peter pounded the solid oak of the front door.

It swung inwards, and he saw at a glance that nothing was different, except that the place was damper and exuded a musty smell. In the drawing-room some plaster had fallen from the ceiling and a strip of wallpaper was peeling from the wall. The whole house was even more silent than he remembered and had a curiously dank and vault-like chill. Or was it merely that he was soaked to the skin and shaken by rigors in every member? In the hope of attracting his weird host's attention, he pulled long and violently at the bell.

Silence. And after silence, more silence, welling in the dark on the heels of retreating light. In the hope that the madman might have kindled a fire, Peter made his way to the kitchen, but a glance at the ashes in the grate snuffed out his hopes. On a shelf stood several tins of food, unopened, but here also the dust lay thick. A plate in the sink contained some rock-hard unidentifiable substance which might have been edible once.

Peter peered out into the garden. The brown grass had been beaten to the ground by the fury of the winter storms that swept over the island. Of the madman there was no sign. Peter consoled himself by reflecting that the man might have been removed to a lunatic asylum on the mainland, though he knew in his heart this was not true. He shouted once or twice, but the only answer was silence. Not even an echo gave back his halloo.

Frightened more and more by this atmosphere of lurking evil, Peter made his way up the stairs. They groaned as though deploring his passage, which left a trail of water everywhere. The first bedroom he came to was empty, bare even of furniture. Two others, shrouded in cobwebs, opened off a corridor. At the far end was another doorway, masked by a moth-eaten portiere. It crumbled and tore in Peter's fingers as he pulled it to one side and went in — and came face to face with the madman, propped up in a foully disordered bed. It took several seconds for him to realise that the staring eyes were sightless and that the madman, in fact, was dead.

The shock stopped his breath for a moment. When he exhaled, it was with a hoarse, choking scream. He turned and blundered blindly down the corridor, away from the hideous sight. But at the turn of the stairs a further shock awaited him. Confronting him was the madman's ghost. Wild-eyed, white hair disordered, the pallid face streaked with grime, the lips drawn back into a taut, tetanic rictus, the creature stood awaiting him. Peter threw up his hands in horror and the madman raised his arms to draw him in. There was a magnetism about his red-rimmed eyeballs. Against his will, Peter found himself advancing to'wards the outstretched arms. His own hands were outstretched to defend himself against the horror which left him powerless in every limb. Yet his legs continued to bear him forward and the madman to hold out his arms.

Peter knew that the creature's touch would be icy, but he was not prepared for quite such burning cold. Involuntarily his hand withdrew from the contact, and the madman's arms fell to his sides. For an instant the two men confronted each other. Then Peter Quint began to laugh. _%His mirror image joined him in insane peals of grim amusement. 'The new tenant, ha-ha-ha!'

Whether Peter had always been mentally unstable, or whether the shock of Dora's death sent him over the edge, has been hotly debated by his and her relations, but neither Peter nor Dora care. Both in their different ways are past all caring — Dora in the tomb and Peter in a home, where his relations expeditiously placed him as soon as his condition became known. The proprietor of the Coq d'Or will tell their story with very little prompting from his guests, who find it makes an excellent aperitif. There is a new madman on the Island of Regrets.