The Haunted Woman Read online

  He made for the main staircase and raced up, three steps at a time. Without pausing on the landing, he immediately attacked the upper flight, and in less than a minute was groping his way through the black darkness of the upstairs corridor.

  He saw at once that the door of the East Room was standing open. Upon getting closer he saw something else. A man was lying, huddled and motionless, on the floor, near one of the walls. It required no flash of inspiration to guess that it was Judge-but what had happened to him? Was he asleep, fainting, or drunk?…He leapt over to him, and pulled his face round…then let go again in horror. The man was dead!…

  There was no doubt of the fact, and there was little doubt of the cause of death. The discoloured face told its own story-apoplexy!…To make quite sure, he tested the heart. After crouching for at least five minutes, with his hand on Judge's naked chest, he saw that it was hopeless to go on-there was not the faintest whisper of a heart-beat.

  He did whatever he thought was immediately necessary, then walked away and downstairs, to fetch assistance.

  The unexpected tragedy had put his own affair entirely out of his head. He had forgotten Isbel's connection with the house, and, for the moment, almost her very existence. He was too preoccupied with his immediate plans for action to see anything around him; otherwise, upon reaching the head of the main staircase, he would have at once perceived, straight ahead of him, Isbel herself, sitting in a chair near the other end of the hall. As it was, it was not until he was close upon her that he jumped back with a start…Her face was white, her eyes were closed, her clothing appeared to be wet and stained with mud, while her whole attitude was one of lassitude and exhaustion.

  "Isbel! What does this mean?…" He came on again until he nearly stood over her. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up with weary indifference, manifesting no surprise at his presence, nor, indeed, any emotion whatever.

  "How did you get here?" was all she asked.

  "Never mind me. How did you come to be in this house?"

  "I fainted outside, and came in to sit down, before going home."

  "Outside? But what were you doing outside? What are you doing in this part of the world at all?"

  It was several seconds before she answered.

  "Don't be hard on me, Marshall, I can't explain now…I have a confession to make-but not now."

  He whipped the anonymous letter out of his pocket-case, and handed it to her. "Will you read that?"

  She did so, while he watched her closely; his heart sank, as he saw that she showed neither astonishment nor indignation. She read it through twice, quite apathetically, and then passed it back without a word.

  "Well?…" demanded Marshall.

  "I know who wrote that. Is that what you want?"

  "Never mind who wrote it. Is it true?"

  "Perhaps it isn't true; but it was written in good faith. I meant to come here this morning with Mr. Judge, but he disappointed me."

  "I see…May I ask why…?"-but he was unable to finish.

  "Why, I wished to be here with him?…" She smiled bitterly. "Please don't press me to give explanation which you won't receive."

  There was dead silence.

  "Then you haven't seen him to-day?" asked Marshall.

  "I can't say-I don't know. I don't know whom I've seen, and whom I haven't seen. I have fainted. I don't know anything."

  "So perhaps you don't know where he is at this moment?"

  "That I'll swear to, Marshall. I've only just this minute entered the house for the first time."

  "Then I'll tell you. He's upstairs in the East Room"…He looked at her, to see if she were as ignorant of the tragedy as her words and manner professed, but she did not even appear interested.

  "Dead," he added, suddenly and brutally.

  Isbel half-rose from her eat, and turned such a greenish colour that he thought she was about to swoon again, but he did not go to her assistance. She recovered herself by an effort.

  "Have you killed him?" she demanded quietly.

  "I have not. I don't believe in private assassinations. He has had some sort of fit-and now I'm off to tell Priday and fetch a doctor…We had better resume this very interesting conversation later. And if I may venture to offer a suggestion-there will probably be an inquest, and, if you have no special desire to appear among the witnesses, it would be as well for you to lose no time in getting clear of the premises. Does anyone know you're here, barring Judge himself?"

  "No."

  "Then how did you get in?"

  "By another gate."

  "Well, take my advice, and go out the same way. Can you find your way on to the main Steyning road?"

  "I expect so."

  "Then walk on, and I'll pick you up in the car further on. I've got to fetch a doctor, so you'll be there as son as I shall…Go now-don't waste time."

  Isbel remained sitting.

  "Marshall!…"

  "What is it?"

  "How long has he been dead?"

  "Priday says he's only been in the house half an hour. That was fifteen minutes ago, perhaps. He can't have been dead long. Why?"

  "Because I feel as if something has snapped inside me since I feel down in that faint. It must have been at the same time…Do you think it strange that I don't express a wish to go up and see him?"

  "I'm exceedingly sorry, Isbel, but I can't enter into your wishes of feelings. Of course, there's not the slightest need for you to go up, and I strongly advise you not to…"

  She directed a pitiful smile towards him. "I know there's no going back to the old state. Please don't imagine that I even wish to. I merely want to tell you that perhaps my feelings towards him were not altogether what you think they were. I…"

  "But you came here to meet him?"

  Isbel dived into her handbag impulsively. "Marshall, you've shown me a letter; now I'll show you one…Read that."

  He took it rather unwillingly, and skimmed it through.

  "Who is this Mrs. Richborough he speaks about?"

  "The person who wrote to you."

  "It seems a fatal business all round. And is this letter of Judge's a blind, or did it really extend no further?"

  "I wish you to believe that Mr. Judge was a man of honour…That's all. Now I'll go…I won't insult you by expressing my sorrow for the position I've put you in…You have always been good to me, and I'm afraid I've repaid you in the meanest possible way…Good-bye, for the time being!"

  She got up, and started to stumble towards the door.

  "Do you feel yourself able to walk as far as I proposed?" Marshall asked in a singular tone.

  She stopped to look back over her shoulder. "It seems to me that I have no alternative."

  "That's quite true. I can't come with you, for I have this awful business to attend to. How long will it take you to get clear of the grounds by the way you're going?"

  "I don't know-ten minutes…"

  "I'll sit here for ten minutes by my watch, and then make my way to the lodge. Walk on towards Steyning, and, if I haven't picked you up by the time you have reached there, wait fir me at the station. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, Marshall."

  "Incidentally, how did you get here?"

  "By hired car form Worthing, but I dismissed the driver short of the house."

  "All right, then-you'd better clear off."

  He sat down in the chair which she had vacated, and pulled out his watch. Isbel hesitated a moment, as if she wished to say something more, then a flash of anger at her own weakness seemed to come across her, for she suddenly straightened herself, and walked directly to the door.

  Ten minutes later Marshall rose, left the house, and started down the drive towards the lodge.

  ***

  It was nearing four o'clock when he and Isbel returned to the Gondy together. Isbel went straight to her room. Marshall sought Mrs. Moor, and, without beating around the bush, informed her that the engagement was broken off, by mutual agreement. He referred her to Isbel
for all explanations. She was greatly upset, but had too much good sense to attempt to combat his decision there and then, without learning more about the affair. She wished him godspeed, and begged him, with tears in her eyes, at least to leave the road open for future negotiations. However, he declined to make any kind of promise, or to discuss things with her at all…He spent the night at the hotel, but dined out, and retired to his room early. On the following morning he packed his belongings, settled his bill, and started back to town in the car, without having attempted previously to see Mrs. Moor for the purpose of saying farewell.

  ***

  The inquest was held on Tuesday. Marshall was called upon to give evidence as to the finding of the body, but everything was purely formal. The medical witness certified that death was due to cerebral hemorrhage, and the jury returned their verdict accordingly. Isbel did not attend.

  The two ladies returned to Kensington, as arranged, in the middle of the week. Isbel refused to discuss matters with her aunt, or to see any of her friends. Blanche behaved with great tact; she neither wrote to her, nor called, but she was continually sending flowers and kind messages by way of Mrs. Moor, and Isbel was not ungrateful…a few weeks afterwards, aunt and niece went to the Riveira.

  ***

  Blanche thought the occasion propitious to resume a correspondence with her friend, and Isbel aquiesced, though without any particular pleasure. The first letters were very correct, but, as time passed, Marshall's name began to appear on Blanche's side with greater frequency. In the beginning Isbel thought that it was an unintentional blundering against good taste. It was not long before she realised that the thin end of the wedge had become too securely hammered in to be easily dislodged. She passed over the allusions in silence.

  Then the time came for them to return home. It was March. "…I want to know how we're to stand, Billy," she wrote her friend. "We see a good deal of Marshall in these days. If you happen to run up against him in my house, may I take it that you will behave towards him with common politeness?…"

  Isbel wrote back: "…If Marshall is able to endure my society, I shall certainly be able to endure his…"

  On the evening of the same day that Blanch received this letter, she showed these lines to Marshall himself. He coloured violently.

  "Well-how am I to answer?" she demanded.

  "Tell her I'm not quite a savage."

  "Is that all?"

  "Don't you think we'd better take one step at a time?" asked Marshall.

  Blanche smiled, and suddenly grasped his wrist.

  David Lindsay

  David Lindsay was a Scottish author now most famous for the philosophical science fiction novel A Voyage to Arcturus (1920).

  Lindsay was born into a middle-class Scottish Calvinist family who had moved to London, although growing up he spent much time in Jedburgh, where his family originally came from. Although he won a scholarship to university, he was forced by poverty to go into business and he became an insurance clerk at Lloyd's of London. He was very successful but, after serving in the First World War, at the age of forty, he moved to Cornwall with his young wife to become a full-time writer. He published A Voyage to Arcturus in 1920 but it was not a success, selling fewer than six hundred copies. This extremely strange work was not obviously influenced by anybody, but further reading shows links with other Scottish fantasists (for example, George MacDonald), and it was in its turn a central influence on C. S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet.

  Lindsay attempted to write a more "commercial" novel with his next work The Haunted Woman (1922), but this was barely more successful than theVoyage. He continued to write novels, including the humorous potboiler The Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly, but after Devil's Tor in 1932 he found it increasingly difficult to get published, and spent much of his time on his last work The Witch which was unpublished in his lifetime.

  He and his wife opened a boarding house in Brighton, but they did not prosper and their marriage underwent considerable strain. The house was damaged by the first bomb to fall on Brighton in the Second World War and Lindsay, who was in his bath at the time, never recovered from the shock. His death from an infection resulting from an abscess in his tooth was unrelated to the bomb.

  ***

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