The Garden at No. 19/Chapter 19

HAD drawn little comfort from Marks, for I could not persuade myself that his  explanation,  that we were victims  of  illusion, was the true one. I could indeed believe that it was illusion when I was in the bustling city. It seemed incredible enough that under the vaults of the Bank was the seething  Abyss, full of malefic powers and principalities; human energy in action and the results of  human energy held the mind. But when I came, half-way down the Walden Road, into a  heavy air charged with horror and menace it  was a very different matter.

And the horror was spreading and deepening. By the end of the next week I entered its chill at the very beginning of the road. Of course I had come to look for it; and it may  have been that my fancy found what I looked  for. But I observed that whereas on my way from the station in the evening I had been used    to find half a dozen children, from the inhabited houses at the top of  it, playing up and  down the quiet cul-de-sac, I now never found  one. They were either in the main road or indoors. It seemed to me, too, that the women in those inhabited houses were oftener at the  windows, and that they looked at me as I passed  with eyes eloquent with a nervous questioning.

No. 19 itself was growing more and more intolerable with the deepening horror. Pamela was careful to get all her housework done early  in the day, to set her uncle's meals ready for  him, and get out of the house. When she went back at night, she raced along the hall and upstairs to her bedroom as hard as she could go.

In her bedroom she escaped from the horror. That room and the whole of my house, fortunately, but for no reason that we could hit on, remained free from its oppression.

And oh, the emptying of that rubbish into the dust-bin at night! How I loathed it! On the first two nights  I emptied the pail in the  dark. Then I bought a lantern and set it outside the back-door. That made it a little better;  I was quicker about it. But the horrible things  I felt lurking beyond the circle of its  light!

Naturally enough this horror was wearing on our nerves; but Pamela bore it with admirable  courage. Only on the Sunday night did she fail. We had cleared our minds of these fancies and terrors by a long day in the  country; so clear had we got them that when  we came into the Walden Road the horror  seemed to have lifted a little. I came with her to the door of No. 19; we bade one another  good-night and she opened the door.

"I'll shut it," I said. "You make your dash upstairs."

The light in the hall was low; she made a few swift steps down  it, turned, ran back to me,  and clutched my arm.

"The shadows! The shadows again!" she cried.

I looked over her head; and I saw that indeed the light in the hall was darkened by shapeless shadows.

I shut the door sharply. "What's to be done now? Has something  happened    to your uncle?" I said; and I rapped  at the window of his study.

We heard the reassuring sound of footsteps crossing the floor; Woodfell opened the window with a jerk and looked at us with an impatient frown on his face. The lights in the room were burning clear enough.

"The shadows have come back. The hall is  full of them," I said.

"Oh, those night-birds. They don't matter. For goodness' sake, don't you young people  interrupt me!" And he shut the window.

"He hasn't slept in his bed for a week. He's working—working—working," said Pamela.

"But what's to be done about you? You may  have  to  go  through those  dreadful  shadows all the way," I said.

Pamela shivered.

"I'd better come with you to the door of your room.  No; I have it! Why on earth  didn't we thing of it before?  You can go to  bed  without having to pass through these  horrors at all—along the gutter."

"Of course I can," said Pamela in a tone of great relief.

We went into No. 20, and talked for half an hour in my study. Then we went up to the top of the house, out of the window, and along  the gutter.

I helped her over the partition wall, and said, "Make sure that there are no shadows in your  room."

She climbed into the window; and presently she put out her head and said, "It's all right.  There are no shadows here, nor any horror,  Besides, I shouldn't be frightened of them now  that uncle says that they don't matter."

I was glad that she was at her ease; but I was not at ease myself. They might not be harmful to Woodfell with his powers, and yet  harm others less gifted.

After bringing in my breakfast next morning Mrs. Ringrose lingered, fidgeting about the room, straightening the curtains; then she said: "I know you'll think me a silly old woman, sir; but I can't stummick that garden at any price. I must dry my washing in the kitchen, sir."

"Send it all to the laundry," I said.

"No, no, sir. I couldn't bring myself to do that.  It's part of my work; and I'll do it.  But into that garden I cannot go; and that's a  fac'."

"Well, well, manage as best you can without going into it. It will grow all right again  soon."

"Thank you, sir," she said, and left me.

After breakfast Pamela came in to walk with me, as she often did, to the station.

"There are no shadows this morning, Heine dear. So you needn't worry about me at all  to-day.  They're only night-birds, as uncle  said," she said cheerfully.

"That's good hearing, at any rate," I said. "But I take it that the horror hasn't lifted."

"It's uncomfortable enough. But I shall soon be out of it and off to Kew," she said.

"You ought to go away. Marks advised me to get you away from No. 19 at once.  It's the  best thing to do."

"Oh, it would be nice!" she cried with a great sigh of relief at the thought. Then her face fell; and she added slowly. "But it's impossible. I can't leave uncle just now, Heine dear.  I can't indeed. No one would stay in the  house an hour.  I must look after him."

It was true. No one would stay in that house an hour. I could not bid her desert him.

Then the solution of this difficulty flashed on me:—

"Then we won't wait till the Autumn. We'll get married at once; and you can look  after him from this house. We'll get married  on the morning of the full moon. You will be  safe till then."

She protested a little, flushing, that it was  too soon; but presently she yielded; and so it  was decided.

That evening I tried to see Woodfell to tell him what we proposed to do; but he would not  see me, declaring  that he could not spare a  minute from his work. It fell therefore to Pamela to tell him; and she told him next morning when he came into his dining-room to eat  his breakfast.

He gave her but half an ear, and said quickly, "Yes, yes; do as you like. But don't bother  me about it."

But now that the matter was arranged I filled with a greater anxiety about Pamela than ever. I filled with a racking dread that the cup of my happiness should be dashed from my lips  even as I raised it to them.

I began to watch the garden of No. 19 at nights after Pamela had gone back into it  along the gutter. It was no wonder that, with my nerves thus on edge, that it should seem  to me full of strange sounds, that creatures  murmured and whispered to one another under  the sycamores. One night I could have sworn that I heard a snigger—snigger is the only  word for it— at the bottom of the garden. As  I watched, the belief grew and grew that the  cupola was the very center of the spreading  horror, that under it lay the mouth of the Abyss.

In my anxiety I turned to Marks for help. I went round to his rooms on my way home from the office one evening, and by good fortune  found him at home.

When I had told him of the deepening of the horror and the coming of the shadows, I said:  "I've come to see whether you can't make it  safer for us, for Miss Woodfell and myself.  We believe that the amulets you gave us have  proved potent.  Is there no way of making us  safe against the irruption of any of the greater  powers of the Abyss? These amulets may not  hold them in check.  Is there any way you  could make my house safe against them?"

Marks pondered for a couple of minutes; then he said, "We know nothing about the  principalities of the Abyss.  Once unloosed—of course I'm taking it that the Abyss is not  within us—there may be no holding them.  One can only try; and since I'm in part responsible, I'll do all I can.  But can't you get  away and get Miss Woodfell away, at any rate  for a time?"

"We're going to be married on the morning of the full moon; and we shall be out of the Walden Road that night," I said.

"That's good; that's good," said Marks with an air of relief.

"But couldn't you make my house immune in the meantime?  I should be awfully obliged  if you could. My feeling that the Abyss is  surging against a very frail barrier grows  stronger and stronger; and I'm afraid, very  much afraid for Miss Woodfell."

"Yes; yes; it's natural. I'll try my best. Where there is a process there is always a  counter-process.  And even if the counter-process should in itself be ineffectual, it will  give you and Miss Woodfell more confidence;  and that is always a gain."

"A thousand thanks," I said.

"I'll come round to-morrow afternoon, if that will suit you—at four o'clock."

"I'll leave the office at 3 and be there," I said.

"And I think it would be a good thing, if you and Miss Woodfell were to put those  amulets under your pillows at night, or better  still, if you were always to wear them.  There  is some way of sewing documents in oilskin bags  to wear them."

"I'll see to it," I said.

"Of course, I'm assuming in all this that the Abyss is outside us."

"Yes; I understand that," I said. "And I believe, or at any rate I nearly believe that it is.  Whether it is, or not, I want to be on the  safe side."

"There's no harm in that. And for my part, I believe that before the setting of the next  full moon, I shall know. Woodfell is going to  tighten his grip on our friends.  There will be  no more running away."

I thanked him and left him. It was raining when I left his rooms; and when I reached  home, I found that Pamela was in my study,  reading; for we had arranged that if it rained  she should not go to No. 19 for shelter, but at  once take refuge in my house. After dinner it was fine again; and we strolled to the High  Street and bought some oilskin, of which she  made two bags to hold the amulets. We arranged that she should come to meet Marks on the morrow.

Marks came at four o'clock; and I introduced him to Pamela. After we had talked awhile of the oppression of horror and menace which had fallen on the Walden Road, we went out  into the garden, all three of us, that he might  experience it in its full intensity. The oppression was heavy indeed, even in the bright sunshine. In spite of the three of us being in the garden together and talking—in hushed voices—I at any rate had the strongest sense of a  threatening horror in its air, and two or three  times my scalp prickled. Pamela held my arm, tightly; and once I saw Marks shiver: Marks  who should have been hardened, by many celebrations of the rite of the Abyss, to such a sensation.

"You feel it?" I said.

"I feel it. There is indeed a menace in the air," he said gravely.

"Surely no human minds working on ours could impose on them a sensation as strong as  this," I said.

"There are dreadful creatures about. Can't  you feel them?" said Pamela quickly.

"The human mind plays strange tricks on the human mind; and our friends who ran away  were horribly frightened," said Marks stoutly.

"Let's go in," said Pamela with a little shiver; and her face was rather white.

We walked quietly back into the house. I could have bolted into it; and I am not ashamed  to confess it.

I shut the door; and I shut the horror out.

"This is the odd thing, that this house should be free from the menace, that a mere  physical barrier like this door should shut it  out.

"The powers of the Abyss are not interested in this house, thank goodness," I said. "None the less I should be glad to have it fortified against them."

"Well, I've thought it over; and I am of the opinion that considering that this Lord of the Abyss seems to be inclined to manifest himself  in a physical form, it should be enough to fortify the paths of access to the house, the windows and the doors on the ground floor.  And  didn't you say that there is an access along  the gutter to the windows at the top?"

"Yes; in front," I said.

"Well, we will bar that, too. But besides,  I will make you an inner citadel, in the form  of a circle whose circumference no power of  darkness can cross—according, that is, to those  who spent their lives in the practice of the  occult art."

With that he set about his task, beginning with the door into the garden. Muttering an adjuration or a prayer, in a Latin I could not  follow, though I caught the words "Reges Abyssi" three times, and the names of the  Archangels, and accompanying the adjuration  with certain symbolic gestures, he drew with  chalk on the threshold three mystical figures,  one of which was the pentacle. The others I did not know.

"This chalk will not rub out easily," he said as he rose. "It is the chalk with which lithographers draw on their stones."

The figures are still on my thresholds,  fainter, but plain enough.

He went next to the front door, repeated the adjuration and drew again the figures; and in  my study, at the windows, he did the same. Then he went upstairs and fortified the windows of the two front rooms which give out on to  the gutter, the path to No. 19.

"I am of the opinion that that is sufficient," he said when he had done. "But in these matters it is foolish indeed to take any chances.  Where shall I draw the impregnable circle?"

We decided that my study was the best place since we could most easily escape from it into the road. We went down to it; I drew the carpet which covered the middle of it; and  after the same adjuration and gestures he  drew a circle ten feet across. He then drew lines which divided it into seven parts; and in  each part he drew mystical figures.

"There, in that you are safe. All the powers  of darkness may rage round that circle, but  they cannot cross its rim.  What is more the  influence of no human mind can pass into that  circle to influence yours."

He spoke gravely, even with solemnity; and for my part I believed that he had indeed made  us a citadel, either by some occult power or  by his will.

I thanked him, heartily; and he turned to Pamela and said.

"But lose no time getting into this house, Miss Woodfell.  If you are invaded by any  sudden,  inexplicable  terror,  lose  no  time  getting into this house and into this circle.  Use all your will to get out of your uncle's  house into this one."

"I will: I will indeed," said Pamela.

"Of course you would only be frightened, not harmed physically; but a severe fright is a   dangerous  thing.  Therefore lose no  time.  Don't let the terror get its full grip on you."

"I will be very quick," she said.

I asked him whether I could roll the carpet over the circle; and he said that it might well  be covered up during the daytime, but that it  would be wiser to have it uncovered, an instant  refuge, between sunset and cock-crow. It was a great relief to my anxiety about Pamela, in  spite of his firm belief that we were safe till  the night of the full moon, to have this safe  asylum ready to our need.

Marks dined. with us; and he talked little about the occult. Plainly he wished to divert Pamela's mind from the terrors that surrounded us. He did not know her steady courage. At ten o'clock she went to bed; and when I returned to him he congratulated me  on my good fortune in being about to marry  such a charming girl.

We talked for a while; then he said, "I should like to examine your garden again be  fore I go. I want to know how bad it is at  night."

I took him into the dining-room and opened the door into the garden. He stood on the   threshold for a couple of minutes; then he said  in a satisfied tone, "The oppression does not pass the signs."

He walked a few steps down the garden and stood still. I did not follow him; I had my fill of the oppression.

Presently he came hack quickly, with a troubled face:—

"It is bad—very bad," he said. "But of course it would be worse at night."

It seems to me that it is very likely to help spoil the celebration of the rites at the full  moon," I said. "If these timid friends of yours have to begin them in this horror, their  nerves will be all to pieces long before the  culmination of the rite; and they'll bolt again."

"The wine of the feast will strengthen them for one thing; and for another Woodfell will  have them in his grip," said Marks.