Dr Porthos and other stories Page 3

  His publisher was pleased with the consistency of his output and he had no doubt that the quiet surroundings here would contribute a great deal to his writing. If only Angele liked the place a little better… Still, she had seemed more pleased with the house lately and he felt that when she saw the new kitchen and all the latest gadgets he proposed to install for her, she would be as delighted with The Grey House as he.

  His musings were suddenly interrupted by a startled cry.

  It came from the direction of the Great Hall and in a few moments more he heard the sharp noise of running footsteps on the stone floor. It was Pierre.

  “Monsieur!” There was a hard excitement in the voice, but no alarm. He quickened his own steps towards the builder. The couple met at the entrance of the Great Hall and an instant later Philip was sharing Pierre’s excitement.

  The workmen had been scraping down the wall of the Great Hall over the fireplace, preparatory to replastering; Philip had long pondered a centrepiece which would provide a striking point for the eye in this chamber and now he had the answer. Beneath the layers of old plaster on the surface of the ancient wall, a painting had begun to reveal itself.

  When Philip arrived, two workmen were engrossed in clearing away an area which appeared to depict a man’s blue waistcoat with gold gilt buttons. Philip joined them on the scaffolding and studied the painting, as it began to appear, with mounting excitement. Pierre seized a paint brush and a can of water and started clearing another area; the four men worked on.

  The rest of the house was silent, Angele and Monsignor Joffroy having gone for a walk and the men on the roof having a temporary break from their labours.

  After an hour, a painting of unique and demoniac nature had emerged; viewing it from the floor of the Great Hall by the brilliant electric light which the workman held to illuminate it, Philip was jubilantly aware of having found his centrepiece - remarkably appropriate in view of his profession as a novelist of the macabre - and yet at the same time he could not help having serious doubts as to the effect it might have on his visitors.

  The radiant colours were unblurred by their long sojourn under the whitewash of an earlier age and the painting really stood out remarkably. It depicted a singularly sinister old man, in a grey tricorn hat and blue coat with gold buttons. His knee breeches were caught in with gold cords and his black shoes had silver gilt buckles. He was pushing his way through some sort of dark, wet undergrowth with concentrated ferocity. In his arms and hanging head downwards as he dragged her into the darkling bushes was a young girl.

  She was stark naked, her pink body, depicted with pitiless detail by the unknown painter of obvious genius, streaked with gouts of blood where the brambles had gashed her. Her eyes were closed, either in death or a faint, it was impossible to tell, and her long gold hair dragged through the wet grass. It was difficult to convey the hideous effect this painting of diabolical brilliance had upon the viewer.

  In the old man’s left hand, held towards the observer, was the curious spiked whip which Philip had seen in this very house not so many weeks before. The workmen were still busy washing away the covering whitewash from the bottom right hand corner of the picture and their backs obscured the details from Philip’s view. He strode about the floor of the hall, trying to get a better perspective.

  At the very bottom of the painting was an enamelled coat of arms with a Latin inscription underneath, which he would have translated later. He was no scholar and would ask Monsignor Joffroy what he made of it. As the workmen again began their interminable hammering upon the roof above his head, the footsteps of the Abbe himself were heard upon the entrance stair.

  His face was pale in the light of the electric lamps and he seemed to stagger and made a warding off gesture with his hand, as he caught sight of the painting, which the workmen had now finished uncovering.

  “For the love of God, Monsieur,” he cried harshly. “Not this horror…”

  Amazed, Philip ran to meet him but a startled shriek from the stairhead above interrupted the projected dialogue. Monsignor Joffroy, remarkably agile for his late middle-age, was even before Philip on the stair. The two men were just in time to save Angele as she fell fainting to the stone floor.

  “Let us get her out of this hall,” the priest whispered, his head close to Philip’s, as they began to lift her. He waved off the alarmed workmen who were swarming down the scaffolding. “Nothing, nothing at all. Just a fainting fit - Madame was merely startled by the painting.”

  Half an hour later, Philip re-entered the hall. Angele, pale and distraught, had returned to the hotel, driven by Roget Frey, who had called to see the work in progress. Finally calm, she had refused to say what was the cause of her alarm and had attributed it to the shock of seeing the painting in such vivid detail.

  Viewed from the top of the stairs, it did strike one with terrific effect, Philip had to admit, pausing at the spot where Angele had stood. But even his stolid materialism had begun to crack with what he had learned in the past few minutes. Monsignor Joffroy, before leaving to comfort Angele, had advised him to have the painting effaced, or bricked over.

  “No good can come of it,” he insisted, but he would not, or could not, explain anything further. He had, however, confirmed what Philip had already guessed. The arms beneath, the strange picture were those of the de Menevals. The motto beneath the escutcheon was the old and terrible one by which the de Menevals had lived; “Do as thou wilt.”

  But the thing which disturbed Philip most of all was the painting’s final detail, which the workmen had uncovered last of all. Upon this point Monsignor Joffroy had persisted in a stubborn silence.

  Philip looked at the picture again and certain words of the Abbe’s came to his mind. Following behind the dreadful couple and gazing with sardonic expression at the viewer was a terrible cat, three times larger than any ever seen in this mortal life. A great, grey cat, with blazing yellow eyes.

  III

  In London, Angele and Philip resumed the interrupted round of their life. The events of the previous autumn seemed blurred and far away and their strangeness something of the imagining, rather than reality. Their friends constantly chaffed them about their old grey house and their preferring to live in such a remote place, rather than to enjoy London life and all the privileges of a successful novelist there.

  Philip, however, never tired of telling his friends what a fascinating gem he had unearthed and in truth he had a most interesting way of relating his stories so that his listeners were more than half convinced; even the most hidebound and deskbound of their acquaintances. A good dozen or more couples accepted invitations to visit them the following summer, seduced by the lilt of Philip’s voice, for his narration of the tale of The Grey House was almost as fascinating as his printed work.

  Angele was, perhaps, pleased at his success and now that she was back in her own familiar atmosphere, the events at The Grey House seemed trivial and commonplace. She supposed it was something that could have happened to anybody. And environment could do many things. The Grey House had an undeniable ambiance that spoke of matters best forgotten, but electric light and modern fittings would dispel them.

  She should have been the novelist; Philip often teased her and said she was the one with all the imagination. It was true in a way, too; as she thought this she looked over at him in a corner of the lounge, pipe in mouth and a pint tankard in one hand. He looked young and supple at forty-five, not a grey hair in his glossy black head; she was proud of him and the success they had made of life and their marriage.

  It was silly to worry so about The Grey House and a ridiculous atmosphere; it was all the same in old houses. Come to that, she had exactly the same sensation in the Paris Conciergerie, with all its terrible associations with the Comite de Salut Public and Marie Antoinette. She dismissed the thoughts from her mind and listened with an interest that was not feigned when Philip read her the latest progress reports from Roget Frey or M. Gasion.

  Sometime
s, too, the Abbe would write them little notes in his scholarly handwriting, but he never referred to The Grey House, save in the most general way, or the painting. Particularly not the painting. Angele herself had seen it again since her stupid fainting fit on the staircase; she had to admit that in the daylight and with her husband and friends around her, it no longer frightened.

  It was a diabolical subject and he was a disgusting old man - the painter had caught a most sinister expression on his face, which left the viewer feeling uneasy - but that was all. Even the cat wasn’t the same as the one she had fancied in the orchard; the one in the picture was at least the size of a bloodhound, but the eyes and face were different.

  They even laughed at it, she and Philip and Roget; Philip had said it might have had nine lives but even a cat as big as that could hardly have lived for two hundred years into the late twentieth century. No, that no longer worried her. But what did worry her then, if the cause of the worry - the sight of a cat in an orchard; the atmosphere of an old house; the discovery of a painting - had no fear for her?

  She was hard put to it to define a reason and eventually forgot all about it as her normal London life went on. Philip’s two books were published, one in December, one in early spring and achieved an even greater success than before. They had money in abundance and life seemed to hold great promise.

  The progress reports on the house were satisfactory and as late spring advanced, Philip began to tear his thoughts away from his life in England and his mind flew to The Grey House, waiting for him to give it the final touches. A flurry of invitations went out from him and Angele and then the couple found themselves with only two weeks to go before they were off again.

  The regular letters told Philip that the roof had been completed; all the domestic arrangements were in the final stages; the panelling of the Great Hall and its picture windows had gone smoothly; the electric lighting was functioning satisfactorily. Roget Frey said that the surprise he and Philip had planned was also going to schedule; he had the work carried out in sections and the structure would be erected whenever Philip chose. The garage and the front terrace too, were nearly complete; the remainder of the work, including the reconstruction of the upper storey would await Philip’s supervision in the spring.

  The author was more than pleased; indeed, judging by the excellent photographs Roget had sent him, the house seemed even more impressive than he had envisaged when he started out on his elaborate scheme of renovation. The terrace overlooking the water mill also looked superb and he hoped to erect a glass marquee on one side so that they could eat in the open in summer even when it rained.

  Much against the Abbe’s advice, he had decided to keep the painting as the centrepiece of the Great Hall; from his researches he had considered that it represented the old Vicompte Hector de Meneval, one of the most debauched and sadistic of the line. It was no doubt how the old boy liked to see himself, in an obscene and allegorical situation, representing the black arts.

  So he had instructed Frey to have the painting framed in oak and preserved under glass. In deference to Angele, the Abbe and other friends of more tender nerves, he had decided to have a plain sliding panel in the modern Swedish style erected over the work. In that way he could have his cake and eat it, he reflected. And at the press of a button the old rogue would be revealed, to shock his friends on a cold winter’s night.

  The two weeks drew to an end at last; Philip attended a dinner given in his honour by his publisher, extended the last of his invitations, drank through his last farewell party and in the first week in May - rather later than he had intended - he and Angele with the car set off on the cross-Channel ferry. They stopped at Fontainebleau for the night and next day made an uneventful journey south.

  They had decided to camp out in the house temporarily, as the greater part was habitable; from what Roget had said, the bathroom was partly in order, the working parts of the kitchen completely so. They could extemporize and superintend the final arrangements themselves. But even so, both liked comfort and rather than arrive late in the afternoon with inadequate provision for food, they had booked in at their old hotel for two nights before deciding to launch themselves completely on to the facilities of The Grey House.

  Their telegrams had preceded them and their old friends M. Gasion, Roget and the Abbe presented themselves punctually for dinner. It was a time of laughter and jokes shared, which Philip always remembered and when the builder Pierre put in an appearance just as they had given him up, the evening seemed complete. Afterwards, they sat out on the balcony, smoking, drinking their cognac and looking over the lights of the quiet city.

  All was well at the house, the couple learned; things had gone even better than expected and Pierre and Roget Frey were obviously bubbling with enthusiasm. If they could decently have done so, they would have dragged Philip and Angele into the car that night and over to the house, late as it was.

  Roget Frey and Philip chaffed the Abbe over what they called the “boxing in” of the painting, but though he good-humouredly smiled at their sallies, it was obvious that his eyes had a serious and thoughtful look. The party broke up late and Philip never had a chance to speak to any of his friends alone. The pair rose late the next morning.

  It was after midday before Frey, the builder Pierre and M. Gasion arrived at the hotel to escort their friends in triumph to their new home. There had certainly been an extraordinary change in The Grey House. In front of the house was a terrace of pink tiles, the great entrance door sparkled with pale yellow paint and boxes of flowers garlanded the facade, with more flowers hanging in baskets on hooks suspended from the walls.

  On the roof, new red tiles caught the sunshine and the straightened turret must have looked as it did in the eighteenth century. On one side, a new garage was nearing completion, needing but a final coat of paint while white balustrades edging the terrace gave the last touch in a notable and inspired piece of restoration.

  The ancient and the modern blended in perfect harmony and even Angele could not resist a gasp of pleasure. With congratulations on all sides, architect, builder and agent passed inside the great door to show the couple the wonders of the interior. It was a happy afternoon and Philip was well pleased, not only with his choice of restorers but in his own ability to choose good men.

  When the mutual congratulations were over, the party stayed on for a convivial dinner and while the majority remained in the dining room, chatting over coffee and cognac, served by a local domestic, Philip and Roget Frey retired to the Great Hall to discuss the next stages of the work. Even the Abbe, when he put in an appearance around nine o’clock in the evening, had to admit that the house now had great charm and style; if he had any reservations he, at any rate, was wise enough to keep them to himself.

  He glanced up at the space over the fireplace when he entered the Great Hall and appeared relieved to see nothing but a smooth wooden panel where the painting was formerly visible. During the next few days Philip and Angele settled down into a more or less stable routine. They had two small portable beds installed in one of the half-completed rooms on the first floor and ate in the kitchen or on the terrace.

  This was in order to avoid inconvenience and extra trouble for the workmen, who were now proceeding with the later stages of the work under Pierre and Roget’s direction. Philip was already writing and the steady clack of his typewriter could be heard from the terrace several hours each day. Roget was in and out several times a day, the work went well; all in all, it was a busy time for the young couple. Some evenings they would drive into the city for a meal or a drink with their friends and several afternoons a week, Angele would go shopping, either alone or with Philip.

  She was busy ordering furniture, domestic utensils, hangings and the many hundreds of individual items which the house would need. Surprisingly, the renovation of The Grey House was not costing as much as they had budgeted for, despite the extensive nature of the work; this was mainly due to Roget’s goodness in the matter
of fees and to the builder’s reasonable rates and friendly attitude.

  This meant that Angele had more to spend on furnishings and she wanted to make sure that her side of the decorating measured up to the high standards set by her husband. Angele was not troubled by any more disturbing thoughts and she had grown used to the tinkling of the water mill. The mist was now rising thickly from the area of trees at the bottom of the orchard, due to the extremely hot weather, but she paid no more attention to that either.

  About the third week in July, the first of their friends from London arrived to inspect the progress of the house. Doreen and Charles Hendry were a jolly couple and they were delighted with The Grey House as they first saw it from their sports car one afternoon. But for some reason their enthusiasm evaporated after their first raptures. One of the guest rooms was now ready for occupation, though still unpainted. It overlooked, from a higher point, the orchard and the grove of trees at the foot of the terrace and it was this room which Doreen and Charles occupied their first night at The Grey House.

  The next morning, at breakfast on the terrace, Angele could not help noticing that Doreen looked drawn and tired. Even Philip sensed this, for he asked, “Sleep well?”

  Charles looked embarrassed. He glanced round the breakfast table and said with a short laugh, “Well, as a matter of fact we didn’t sleep a wink. There was such a howling of cats all night, that we were awake most of the time. Never heard anything like it. One great brute was in the orchard. I got up to sling some water at it. It had burning yellow eyes - gave me quite a turn.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Philip. “Yes, there are a lot of cats round here, now that you come to mention it, but I can’t say they’ve bothered us to that extent. Have you heard them, dear?” he said, turning to Angele.

  His wife had turned quite white. She stammered some casual remark and quickly excused herself. There was nothing else of moment during the Hendrys’ short stay. And short it was. They had originally intended to remain for two weeks but after a few days Charles pleaded urgent business which necessitated his return to England. As their sports car headed up the lane and Angele and Philip waved them off, Angele could have sworn there was relief in Doreen’s eyes as they drove away from The Grey House.