Herald of the Hidden (16 page)

James Ethelred, who had been grimacing and sighing picturesquely throughout this narrative, now spluttered out:

‘A Ja—a Jap—a Japanese dragon?’

‘Quite so,’ confirmed Ralph, pocketing the cheque he had thoughtfully appropriated from the developer soon after our emergence from the garden. ‘Symbolically, you understand.’

‘But—but that’s no good at all. I wanted a good old traditional English ghost. A knight or a cavalier or a lady in distress. I can’t get Japanese tourists over here and serve them up their own dishes. . . .’

‘But what could be more typically English?’ enquired Ralph, innocently. ‘For years we’ve been plundering the cultures of any nation that takes our fancy. We thrive on the exotic.’

‘No, no, no,’ insisted Ethelred, ‘It won’t do at all.’

‘Well,’ continued Ralph, ‘I really do advise you to replace that obelisk as soon as possible. And I would be wary about disturbing anything else in the garden. But does this mean I don’t get to be your folklore consultant?’

His erstwhile client emitted a snort, rose with a glowering expression, and slammed the door behind him.

‘Rather a passable impression of a Great White Dragon,’ observed Ralph. ‘A pity another obelisk wasn’t to hand.’

The Almanac

Ralph
Tyler
would
never
claim
that
each of his cases was successfully resolved. The strange terrain in which he worked would often leave some room for doubt. He did what he could: sometimes, he was not sure it was enough. There was too much to contend with. And Windfall, the house of Balthazar Amroth, was peculiar enough even without the inexplicable apparitions that brought it to my friend’s attention.

His help had been requested by Mr Thomas Runciman, a trustee of Amroth’s estate, for the old man had no known next of kin. He had devoted his days to
—
well, days
—
as Ralph’s visitor explained.

‘It was Mr Amroth’s aim to compile the vastest almanac of all England. While he himself slept and ate in the most Spartan quarters at the back of the house, he had devoted one room each, in the better part of his house, to chronicles of the four seasons. These contained desks with long, flat drawers, like those used for storing maps. Inside, there was a stack of the largest sheets of paper it was possible to obtain. And there was one
of
these
for
each day of the three months he had allocated to each season. Upon these vast notepapers, Mr Amroth recorded everything known to have happened on that day. You know how a pocket diary will have a brief entry to tell you this is the sixth Sunday after Septuagesima, or the date of the St Leger, and so
on?
Some of
the information is more useful than others. Well, that was not enough for Mr Amroth: he filled the giant leaf for the day with every possible sort of entry—about obscure saints, prodigies, ancient events, the anniversaries of the once-eminent, folk customs, weather lore . . .’

‘An obsession, then,’ said Ralph, ‘though it sounds quite harmless.’

‘Indeed. Though he was very meticulous about the whole matter. February 29th, for example, had a sheet exactly one quarter the size of all the others.

Ralph nodded, and busied himself lighting a cigarette.

‘I suppose I was one of his nearest neighbours, though I am a good half a mile from him. We are up on the ironstone ridge, you know. There are fine views, but it is a playground for gales, and so there are not many settlements. Well, I used to call in on him once in a while—perhaps every two weeks or so. He always received me amiably and, because of my own background as a local historian, we would often talk of days gone by. And yet I could tell that he would really prefer to be at his work: he was always disconsolate when drawn away from it. And so I never stayed for very long, and can hardly say that I knew him much at all. Towards the end, he became very concerned about the fate of his great pages of the days, and asked me to do all I could to preserve them. I was torn, to be frank. On the one hand, I could see why he did not want it all wasted. But on the other, I could not see what use it could be to anyone else, except a very few scholars, and thought it more likely people would be attracted by his eccentricity rather than the work itself. It was no good saying any of that to him, though, however gently. To him, his house of days was a study of signal importance.

‘Well now, let me get on with the reason why I have come to you. I was in Amroth’s house a few days ago. It was early evening, and dusk was just settling in. I had gone, as it were, from Summer to Autumn—you can’t help thinking of his rooms in that way—and the Autumn room was dim, as I had not yet put on the lamp.’

Mr Runciman paused. He was a dark, round-shouldered, quite portly man, and blinked a good deal, so that the effect was rather like conversing with a garden mole. His eyes stammered now.

‘As I entered, one of the great sheets of his paper rose up from the desk and crackled in the air. I could not see any reason why it would do that, and it gave me quite a scare. After a few brief moments, when it was like watching—well, a white fire—it subsided, and drifted down again to the desk. I stared at it, in case it was going to resume its antics. But it didn’t.’

‘Which date?’ asked Ralph.

‘Let me see, now. This was last Tuesday, so, hum, hum, the 18th?’

‘Helpful,’ said Ralph. ‘But I meant which date was on the sheet?’

‘Oh, I see. Ah, it was not one of the dates. They were all securely within their drawers. It was a blank piece of the same sort of paper.

‘Naturally, I thought it must be a strong draught blowing in. I checked the windows were fastened, and ran my hand over the frames. There was a very slight coldness, but you could hardly say much air was getting in—there simply was not enough there to seize such a size of sheet and throw it into the air. Still, stray gusts can suddenly blow through, and so I put it down to that. And if that had been all that had happened, of course I would not have bothered you. But in fact the same thing has now happened twice more. And here is what unsettles me most. On the second occasion, the paper had found its way into the Winter room. It was upon the map-desk top there, in just the same way as before: and yet in a different room. Now, I had not moved it, and I have not appointed a caretaker yet, so I knew no-one had been in, since I was there. Even so, I might, I just might have put this down to mis-remembering, had it not been for the third occasion. And then, of course, it was in the Spring room—in, as you can see, the sequence of the seasons. I went in, there was a flurry above the desk, and the white paper rose up again, and flailed in the air. I watched it quite horrified. I could not make any sense of it. I must have stood there, simply staring, for some minutes, before it sort of flapped back again. It struck me that it was a bit like a bird trying to get out of a cage, beating its wings wildly, before failing from exhaustion.’

Runciman stopped, and drew a heavy sigh. It was clear the telling of the scene had revived its perplexity for him.

‘Once again, I looked at the casements. There was a wind outside, true. But not that strong, and little enough of it was coming through. The fittings were quite sound. Nor was there any draught from the corridor, and the room had no chimney. I was thorough. You see?’

Ralph Tyler nodded, and stubbed out his cigarette. He was thoughtful for a few moments.

‘A few more facts please. Balthazar Amroth lived quite alone?’

‘Yes. A firm sent somebody in every now and then to clean—he would call them. Not often—he hated the disruption. It was hardly ever the same person twice. Otherwise, he looked after himself. Very meagrely.’

‘How long had he lived there?’

‘Oh, many years. I couldn’t say exactly how many. He was quite over eighty though.’

‘And do you know anything about his earlier background?’

‘Very little. He never spoke of an occupation. He was educated, though, clearly, and had once published in things like
Notes & Queries
, and
The Amateur
—a long time ago, though. Probably at the start of his private studies. He had a little family money—which I think gave the name to his house, it was bought with his “windfall”, though not much is left now.’

‘Where did he get his paper from?’

‘Oh, he had a store of it, bought long ago, in the days of imperial quarto and so on.’

Ralph nodded, and drummed his fingers for a while.

‘Your friend—your acquaintance—was he at all anxious during his last days?’

Mr Runciman considered. ‘Well, he was always an apprehensive sort. Apprehensive, chiefly, though, that he would not be left alone with all his papers and books—his work. I don’t think I noted any special worry in him the last time I saw him: and that was about a week before his passing. He was well advanced in years, of course.’

‘Can you remember the details of any of your last conversations with him?’

‘Well now, let me think. We spoke of one or two days where he had fewer entries than most, and tried to think of what else could have happened then. He urged me again to take care of his work. Oh, and I loaned him a few books that might have the odd calendrical fact nestled away—a collection of Westmorland ballads, a country diary by a Devonshire squire, and a bookseller’s catalogue from Edwardian times.’

‘Thank you. If you could remember those days, and let me have the exact titles of the books, that may help.’

‘Yes, of course. They might be relevant?’

Ralph shrugged.

We made arrangements to stay at Amroth’s house in a few days, after Ralph had had the opportunity for his usual research in the county library. Windfall was in the uplands to the far west of the county. There were two buses a day to the nearest stop, and we took the earliest there, on a damp, yellowing day, and walked along the lonely road upon the high escarpment. The wind hooted in the dank and haggard trees. Ahead, after about twenty minutes of brisk walking, we saw the steep grey slope of a roof rising among stark, sombre firs.

The house was cold: we had expected that; after all, it had been largely empty for some weeks; empty, anyway, of human company. But there was a keen edge to the chill in the rooms that seemed more than simply absence of warmth. Something—perhaps the walls, the desks, the books, or the soul of the house —was mourning. It was as if each room contained a pang of regret.

The new custodian of the place, Mr Runciman, had not described in detail the rooms of the seasons, which must have become so familiar to him. They indeed each contained the sloping map desks he had mentioned, and there were also tall bookcases, some with rounded apertures like portholes, where rolled-up charts were placed. But each was also hued, in all the paintwork and wallpapers and fabrics, with colours that hinted at the apt season, principally green for Spring, gold for Summer, deep reds and browns for Autumn, and whites and icy blues for Winter. The effect ought to have been delightful, and yet it was not. After we had been in a room for a time, the shades seemed to clamour at us, to demand attention.

I found them oppressive. We did not, however, at first encounter the blank sheet that had risen up in Runciman’s sight: but we were still glad to retreat to the fustian sparseness of the accommodation at the back of the house, where Amroth had lived so austerely. A primitive kitchen gave us the means to make ourselves a simple meal.

Afterwards, Ralph busied himself in consulting some of the books in the house, examining them with particular care on the shelves. I wandered, a little aimlessly, into the rooms of the seasons. In the deep glow of the Autumn room, I felt that the walls had captured all too well the tints of bright decay. I looked for a way to turn my attention elsewhere. Curious, I slid out one of the map drawers, and looked at the top sheet. It was headed by the day of the year, and beneath was a set of ruled boxes in fine lines. There were columns of handwritten entries in every one. Amroth’s script (as I supposed it must be) was delicate, almost hesitant, so that each letter was like a small spider. I looked at some of the entries, as far as I could make them out.

On this day usually the wild geese arrive in numbers at Spurn, on the east coast.

A game of Winter cricket, in overcoats, is played at Enderby.

Sometimes said to be the last day for the fall of chestnuts.

Children in Inchcombe eat ‘frost sweets’, coated with sparkling sugar.

The reputed date of birth of St Verron, who may be mythical.

There was, I admit, a certain fascination with this accumulation of commemorations, some distinctly speculative. Each opened up a vista to a distant image: the slow grey arrows of the geese in the drawn sky; the huddled fielders on a wan afternoon; the spiked green shells on the leaf-strewn ground; the crackled white treacle, glinting in a paper bag; the dim form of a Cornish (was it?) holy man, stepping from a coracle. And there were doubtless countless other terse pictures captured in his vast lists. I could see how Amroth’s mighty almanac could seem almost like an epic poem. Yet as I gazed once more at the little ink inscriptions, the impression of concision, of control, was vitiated by another sense, stealing over me, of futility. Each phrase was like a faded blue flower, preserved and put away, long forgotten.

I went to find Ralph. He was in the back of the house, perched on Amroth’s narrow trestle bed, looking thoughtfully at a book. He closed this as I approached. We toured what little else there was of the house: most of the upper rooms were given over to lumber, to great castellated piles of learned journals, and to more books. The staleness of old, musty paper soiled the air. After a while, we returned downstairs, and went to the makeshift beds we’d devised in the bare rooms at the back.

The window of the little cell I occupied gave out onto a gnarled orchard. I could see in the parchment light of a withered moon the brittle-boughed, silvered antlers of very ancient apple trees, crusted with lichen, and all caught and carved by the east wind that swooped from the far fen. The last leaves whispered.

I had slept a few fitful hours when some change in the register of the sounds I had heard must have stirred me. I woke slowly, and listened. There was a sharp rippling, cracking noise. It was different to the irregular rattle of the thinner branches in the apple trees, whipping against each other. And certainly it sounded nearer. I lay for a while trying to convince myself that it was just some other impact of the wind on the orchard. But I knew it was not that. Indeed, I think I had half an inkling already of what it might be, though I tried to push the thought to the back of my mind. Fighting some reluctance, I rose, dressed hurriedly, and went to the door. The passageway outside was in darkness: the snapping sound was much louder. I made my way cautiously along, towards the doors of the rooms of the days. I was not sure if I could make myself turn the handle and enter any of them. A figure loomed ahead—and I was relieved to see that Ralph had already responded to the insistent crackling too.