The Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood (10 Novels & 80+ Short Stories in One Edition). Algernon Blackwood
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wonder how far it was safe to go, and why the governess had arranged for the door to be opened—for he felt sure it was she who had done this, and that it was all right for him to come out. Fright, she had said, was never about in the daylight. But, at the same time, something warned him to be ready at a moment's notice to turn and dash up the stairs again to the room where he was at least comparatively safe.
So he moved along very quietly and very cautiously. He passed many rooms with the doors open—all empty and silent; some of them had tables and chairs, but no sign of occupation; the grates were black and empty, the walls blank, the windows unshuttered. Everywhere was only silence and shadows; there was no sign of the frightened children, or of where they lived; no trace of another staircase leading to the region where the governess went when she disappeared down the ladder through the trap-door—only hushed, listening, cold silence, and shadows that seemed for ever shifting from place to place as he moved past them. This illusion of people peering at him from corners, and behind doors just ajar, was very strong; yet whenever he turned his head to face them, lo, they were gone, and the shadows rushed in to fill their places.
The spell of the Empty House was weaving itself slowly and surely about his heart.
Yet he went on pluckily, full of a dreadful curiosity, continuing his search, and at length, after passing through another gloomy passage, he was in the act of crossing the threshold of an open door leading out into the courtyard, when he stopped short and clutched the door-posts with both hands.
Some one had laughed!
He turned, trying to look in every direction at once, but there was no sign of any living being. Yet the sound was close beside him; he could still hear it ringing in his ears—a mocking sort of laugh, in a harsh, guttural voice. The blood froze in his veins, and he hardly knew which way to turn, when another voice sounded, and his terror disappeared as if by magic.
It was Miss Lake's voice calling to him over the banisters at the top of the house, and its tone was so cheerful that all his courage came back in a twinkling.
"Go out into the yard," she called, "and play in the sunshine. But don't stay too long."
Jimbo answered "All right" in a rather feeble little voice, and went on down the passage and out into the yard.
The June sunshine lay hot and still over the paved court, and he looked up into the blue sky overhead. As he looked at the high wall that closed it in on three sides, he realised more than ever that he was caught in a monstrous trap from which there could be no ordinary means of escape. He could never climb over such a wall even with a ladder. He walked out a little way and noticed the rank weeds growing in patches in the corners; decay and neglect left everywhere their dismal signs; the yard, in spite of the sunlight, seemed as gloomy and cheerless as the house itself.
In one corner stood several little white upright stones, each about three feet high; there seemed to be some writing on them, and he was in the act of going nearer to inspect, when a window opened and he heard some one calling to him in a loud, excited whisper:
"Hst! Come in, Jimbo, at once. Quick! Run for your life!"
He glanced up, quaking with fear, and saw the governess leaning out of the open window. At another window, a little beyond her, he thought a number of white little faces pressed against the glass, but he had no time to look more closely, for something in Miss Lake's voice made him turn and run into the house and up the stairs as though Fright himself were close at his heels. He flew up the three flights, and found the governess coming out on the top landing to meet him. She caught him in her arms and dashed back into the room, as if there was not a moment to be lost, slamming the door behind her.
"How in the world did you get out?" she gasped, breathless as himself almost, and pale with alarm. "Another second and He'd have had you——!"
"I found the door open——"
"He opened it on purpose," she whispered, looking quickly round the room. "He meant you to go out."
"But you called to me to play in the yard," he said. "I heard you. So of course I thought it was safe."
"No," she declared, "I never called to you. That wasn't my voice. That was one of his tricks. I only this minute found the door open and you gone. Oh, Jimbo, that was a narrow escape; you must never go out of this room till—till I tell you. And never believe any of these voices you hear—you'll hear lots of them, saying all sorts of things—but unless you see me, don't believe it's my voice."
Jimbo promised. He was very frightened; but she would not tell him any more, saying it would only make it more difficult to escape if he knew too much in advance. He told her about the laugh, and the gravestones, and the faces at the other window, but she would not tell him what he wanted to know, and at last he gave up asking. A very deep impression had been made on his mind, however, and he began to realise, more than he had hitherto done, the horror of his prison and the power of his dreadful keeper.
But when he began to look about him again, he noticed that there was a new thing in the room. The governess had left him, and was bending over it. She was doing something very busily indeed. He asked her what it was.
"I'm making your bed," she said.
It was, indeed, a bed, and he felt as he looked at it that there was something very familiar and friendly about the yellow framework and the little brass knobs.
"I brought it up just now," she explained. "But it's not for sleeping in. It's only for you to lie down on, and also partly to deceive Him."
"Why not for sleeping?"
"There's no sleeping at all here," she went on calmly.
"Why not?"
"You can't sleep out of your body," she laughed.
"Why not?" he asked again.
"Your body goes to sleep, but you don't," she explained.
"Oh, I see." His head was whirling. "And my body—my real body——"
"Is lying asleep—unconscious they call it—in the night-nursery at home. It's sound asleep. That's why you're here. It can't wake up till you go back to it, and you can't go back to it till you escape—even if it's ready for you before then. The bed is only for you to rest on, for you can rest though you can't sleep."
Jimbo stared blankly at the governess for some minutes. He was debating something in his mind, something very important, and just then it was his Older Self, and not the child, that was uppermost. Apparently it was soon decided, for he walked sedately up to her and said very gravely, with her serious eyes fixed on his face, "Miss Lake, are you really Miss Lake?"
"Of course I am."
"You're not a trick of His, like the voices, I mean?"
"No, Jimbo, I am really Miss Lake, the discharged governess who frightened you." There was profound anxiety in every word.
Jimbo waited a minute, still looking steadily into her eyes. Then he put out his hand cautiously and touched her. He rose a little on tiptoe to be on a level with her face, taking a fold of her cloak in each hand. The soul-knowledge was in his eyes just then, not the mere curiosity of the child.
"And are you—dead?" he asked, sinking his voice to a whisper.
For a moment the woman's eyes wavered. She turned white and tried to move away; but the boy seized her hand and peered more closely into her face.
"I mean, if we escape and I get back into my body," he whispered, "will you get back into yours too?"
The governess made no reply, and shifted uneasily on her feet. But the boy would not let her go.
"Please answer," he urged, still in a whisper.
"Jimbo, what funny questions you ask!" she said at last, in a husky voice, but trying to smile.
"But I want to know," he said. "I must know. I believe you are giving up everything just to save me—everything; and I don't want to be saved unless you come too. Tell me!"