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  “Did… did you see anything beyond the door?”

  “Only the cupboard shelves, but…”

  She paused, and he did not want her to go on, tried to blot out her voice, but the words came to him, like echoes from yesteryear.

  “I keep thinking there is someone else in the house.”

  He shook his head: “No… no…”

  “I know it’s pure imagination, but… I thought I saw a face looking down at me over the banisters.”

  “Rosemary,” he took her hand, “don’t say anything more, just do as I say. Go downstairs, get the car out of the garage and wait for me. I’ll pack a bag and will be with you in a few minutes.”

  “But…” Her eyes were wide open, glazed with fear, and she made a faint protest when he clambered out of bed.

  “Please do as I say. Now.”

  She ran from the room and William was reaching for his clothes when he had a glimpse of a figure gliding across the open doorway. For a moment he stood petrified, then he shouted once: “Rosemary!”

  “What’s the matter?” Her voice, hoarse with fear, came up from the hall. “What…”

  Her scream seared his brain like a hot knife and he raced for the landing, ran down the stairs, then stood in the hall, calling our her name, trying to master his fear, the weakness in his legs.

  “William…!”

  The scream came from his study and for a moment he surrendered to the paralyzing terror, stood trembling like a statue on the brink of unnatural life, then with a great effort of will he moved forward, staggered rather than ran through the doorway and took in the scene with one all-embracing glance.

  He—It—Sir Michael, was complete, rejuvenated by the life force of the girl that lay limp in his arms. The face was now lit by a pair of dark terrible eyes, the nose was arched, cruel, the lips parted in a triumphant smile, the long hair only slightly flecked with grey, but his clothes were still ragged, old, besmirched with grave mire.

  The door was open but the room beyond was slightly out of focus, the walls had a shimmering quality, the chandelier candles were spluttering, making light dance with shadow; a chair suddenly lost one leg and it fell over onto the floor.

  He watched William, eyes glistening with sardonic amusement, and made no attempt to intervene as the young man edged round the walls towards the door. When William stood in the open doorway, with the blue room behind him, the thin lips parted again, and the harsh voice spoke:

  “I must thank you again. The woman may have a more lasting quality, but two bodies and souls were always better than one.”

  He moved forward, and Rosemary, now mercifully unconscious, lay in his arms, her head flung back so that her long hair brushed the desktop as they passed.

  “The door,” William’s brain screamed, “destroy the door.”

  He would have given twenty years of his life for an axe. Then he remembered the crossed sabers hanging just above the doorframe. He reached up and gripped the brass hilts, jerked and they came away, then he spun round to face the approaching figure.

  Sir Michael chuckled as he slowly shook his head.

  “Never. You will only harm the lady.”

  William swung the saber in his right hand sideways; struck the door with a resounding crash, and instantly Sir Michael flinched, fell back a few paces as though the blade had been aimed at him.

  “No-o-o.” The protest was a cry of pain; William struck again, and red fluid began to seep out of the door panel, and something crashed in the room behind. Then in a fear-inspired frenzy, William slashed wildly at the door, and was dimly aware that Sir Michael had dropped Rosemary, was reeling around the study, jerking as each blow fell, emitting harsh animal-like cries, his eyes black pools of pain-racked hate.

  The door shivered, then split; one half, now splintered, soggy, crashed to the floor; William swung his right-hand saber and struck at the hinges, the door frame, and did not cease until the brickwork lay bare.

  Sir Michael disintegrated. The face dissolved into an oval featureless mask, the hair turned white, then seemed to melt into a white powder, the entire body collapsed and became an untidy heap of rags and white bones. In a few minutes these too faded away and William was left staring at a dirty patch of carpet.

  He had one last fleeting glimpse of the blue room. The walls and ceiling appeared to fall in, turn into a mass of swirling blue-mist; he saw a great jumble effaces; Negroes with frizzy hair and large, black eyes, young fair-haired girls, children, even animals. Then the shelves of his stationery cupboard came into being—typing paper, ribbons, carbon paper, all merged into their proper place, and William turned his attention to Rosemary, who was stirring uneasily.

  He gathered her up into his arms.

  The splintered remains of the door lay all around, crumbling, rotten with age.

  <>

  *

  Hand to Mouth

  REGGIE OLIVER

  REGGIE OLIVER h as been a professional playwright, actor, and theater director since 1975. His biography of Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed, was published by Bloomsbury in 1998.

  Besides plays, his publications include four volumes of horror stories, with a fifth collection, Mrs. Midnight, due from Tartarus Press. An omnibus edition of his stories, entitled Dramas from the Depths, has been published by Centipede Press as part of its Masters of the Weird Tale series.

  The author’s novel, The Dracula Papers I—The Scholar’s Tale, the first in a projected series of four, was published in January 2011 —the same time as his farce, Once Bitten, was a Christmas season sold-out hit at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, West London.

  As Oliver recalls; “On a boat trip up the Dordogne last year I was intrigued by the sight of a Château on a bend in the river near Beynac. The guide on board told us that it was owned by an American, but seemed reluctant to offer further information except that it was inaccessible to the public and not often lived in. It is these little mysteries that stimulate the imagination.

  “Then I was reading a book about the famous ‘Blood Countess,’ Elizabeth Bithory. It appears that when the late Ingrid Pitt was making a film about her called Countess Dracula, she wanted to add a certain detail to her performance to make it more authentic, but the producers forbade it on the grounds that it was ‘too horrific’ (for a horror film?).

  “In honor of her, that detail is present in my account of the legend.”

  MY COUSIN JUSTIN is one of the undeserving rich. You won’t want to know the details, but I’ll just say he is something very high up in Grippmann-Savage, the international merchant bank, and his bonuses alone amount to several million a year. That is how a couple of years back he could afford, on a whim, to buy a Château in the Dordogne. He told me all about it when we lunched together at his London club, Brummell’s, that September. He was paying, of course. I am a frequently unemployed actor, and the nearest I usually get to a meal out is my local Indian for a takeaway. Unlike my cousin, I lead a hand-to-mouth existence.

  I knew that this was not going to be a purely social lunch. Justin does not give away expensive food, even to his relations, for nothing. In a way, that is what I like about my cousin: you know exactly where you are with him. Everything he does is for his own convenience or financial benefit and he makes no secret of it. A hypocrite he is not.

  I arrived at Brummell’s punctually to find Cousin Justin waiting for me in the bar. He shook my hand and said: “We won’t bother with a drink beforehand. Let’s go straight into the dining room, shall we?”

  Once we had sat down at our table Justin immediately began to choose what we were going to eat. For formality’s sake I was handed a menu, but I was not even asked what I might like. From the waiter he ordered mulligatawny soup for both of us, followed by roast beef from the trolley; then he had a long consultation with the wine steward before finally settling on a decanter of the club claret. When this was done he gave a little sigh of satisfaction and smiled in my direction as if he had just done me a
n enormous favor.

  “Now then, Cousin James, are you in any sort of gainful employment at the moment, or are you, as you say, ‘resting’?”

  People like my cousin Justin are under the illusion that we actors say we are “resting” when we are out of work. No actor in my experience has ever used that expression. I told Justin that I had just finished a thirteen-week tour of a successful farce; I went on to tell him about the company, and the theaters we had been to, but Justin did not even pretend to be interested. He actually waved at a passing high court judge as I was talking to him. Finally he interrupted me.

  “Yes, yes… But what I mean is, are you likely to be working this winter?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I suppose I might get a pantomime at Christmas.”

  Justin looked shocked. “Pantomime! Pantomime? You mean being the back legs of a cow or something?”

  “Usually, I do the villains. Like Abanazer in Aladdin, or—”

  “No. Listen! I’ve got a proper job for you. Or the nearest thing to a proper job you’ll ever do.”

  At that moment the waiter arrived with our soup and for a few brief seconds I was excited. Perhaps Cousin Justin had invested heavily in a movie and was going to use his influence to get me a part in it. Then he spoke again and the illusion was shattered.

  “You know I’ve just bought this Château in the Dordogne?”

  I nodded. As it happens I did know—my sister had told me—but it was typical of his arrogance that he should assume I kept myself informed of his doings.

  “It’s called the Château de Bressac. Incredible place. On a bend of the Dordogne a few miles upstream of Beynac. Fantastic possibilities. Well, obviously, I can’t get down there and do anything about it until next spring, and the builders won’t be in until then anyway, because it’s pretty run-down. Naturally I wanted someone to keep an eye on the place until then. You know: not just look in on it twice a day, but actually live there. See it doesn’t get broken into. Well, I tried the locals but they wouldn’t play ball. You know what locals are like.” I nodded as if I too believed that “locals” belonged to a universal and predictable human category. “The long and the short of it is that no one down there is actually prepared to live in the place and look after it over the winter months, so that was when I had my brain wave. I thought of you. I’ll pay you, of course, but your tasks won’t be exactly onerous. Just a bit of light dusting and general maintenance, I should imagine. There’s an old deux chevaux down there that you can use, so you will be able to get about a bit. Not too much obviously, because your job is to be there and house sit. Château sit, I should say!” He laughed a good deal at his little joke and I politely joined in the mirth. “It could be a golden opportunity for you. You could—I don’t know—read, write, study something useful like accounting, brush up your French. Well?”

  By mid-October it was clear there was going to be no pantomime for me that year, so I agreed.

  *

  I got a cheap flight to Bergerac and splashed out on a taxi to Beynac. There I was picked up in the deux chevaux by a Monsieur Bobelet, whom Justin had retained to keep an eye on the château grounds. Gaston Bobelet owned the farm that adjoined the château. He was one of those taciturn, permanently unshaven French rustics who seem to harbor a grudge against the world in general and foreigners in particular. His wife, whom I met later, was bright-eyed, almost completely spherical, and charming. She complimented me on my French and gave me a delicious cassoulet to eat on my first night at the château.

  I had arrived in fine weather. It was the end of October and Southern France was enjoying an Indian summer. As we drove towards the château along the banks of the Dordogne, I couldn’t help feeling exhilarated.

  The grounds of the château are surrounded by a high brick wall, except for the northern side where it is bounded by the river. There is only one entrance and that is through a gate of exquisite 18th-century wrought iron work, now badly rusted. From there, there is a long, straight drive through a park dotted with some fine old trees. To my right as Gaston took me down the drive in the deux chevaux, I could just see through a belt of poplars and willows the broad stream of the Dordogne glittering in the afternoon sun.

  The château itself was a tall, irregular construction built mostly in the 16th century but with later additions. There were numerous turrets topped by conical slate roofs that gleamed dully like pewter in candlelight. It was not exactly a beautiful building, but it was imposing and picturesque, and, yes, I suppose its ancient grandeur gave it a sort of romantic beauty.

  Madame Bobelet was waiting on the drive before the front door. She was far less taciturn than her husband, but she seemed nevertheless in a hurry to be done with her task. She showed me the main areas of the château and the bedroom on the first floor that she had made up for me to occupy. There was no electricity: lighting was by oil, candle, or gas bottles, which also provided heat for the stove and a primitive boiler for hot water.

  Madame Bobelet was extremely conscientious in providing me with practical information about my new home, but I noticed that when I asked her more general questions about the place and its former inhabitants she brushed them aside. Through the kitchen window, as she was showing me the stove, I caught sight of Gaston, pacing about on the drive, puffing at the soggy end of a Gauloise. Suddenly, Madame Bobelet finished her recitation, wished me a bonne après midi, and a bon appetit (with regard to the cassoulet) and darted out of the kitchen door to join her husband.

  I watched them as they walked down the straight drive to the Château gates, leaving me with the deux chevaux, my evening meal, and the vast unknown spaces of the Château de Bressac.

  My first action when I was alone was to switch on my mobile phone. I could get no signal at all in the château, so I walked out into the grounds. It took me some time before I found a spot that gave me a reasonable connection. It was quite a distance from the château and on the very banks of the Dordogne among the willows. I called Justin.

  “Yes?”

  I told him that I had arrived safely.

  “Right. Well, you won’t need to call me again. If you come across any problems, you and the Bobelets can sort it out between you. That’s what you’re there for, isn’t it?”

  Feeling that I needed to extract some sort of human response from him I said: “It’s a beautiful place.”

  “Well of course it is! I know that!”

  He was offended, I suppose, because he thought I was subtly accusing him of being a philistine. After that there seemed no point in pursuing the conversation so I rang off. Apart from the distant ripple of water, there was no sound. High above in the cloudless blue air, a pale bird of prey with long slow wing beats circled. It was a short-toed eagle, quite common in those parts, though not usually so late in the year. I was proud of myself for having identified it and would have liked to share the moment with someone.

  *

  For the first ten days the weather continued fine, and I settled into a routine of shopping, cooking, and reading. I visited the Bobelets once in their farmhouse to return the cassoulet dish, and though Madame was very civil, it was made quite plain to me that they were both very busy people who had no time to spare talking to the indolent Englishman from the château.

  I tried to be, as far as possible, a diligent caretaker and inspect every part of the building. It was an extraordinarily rambling structure with rooms of all different sizes organized in no particular order with numerous corridors and staircases. Nearly all the rooms were dusty, shuttered and void of furniture, apart from those great dark coffinlike armoires that the French go in for. I tried, for my own amusement really, to make a plan of the place for each of its three main floors, but it baffled me. Not even the tape measure I bought in Beynac for the purpose was any help. I couldn’t make sense of it.

  There seemed to be parts inside the château that were inaccessible. I remembered the story of Glamis Castle, where there was said to be a secret room in which a monster was k
ept. One day the guests at a Glamis house party decided to hang a towel or cloth from every window they could find. If there was a window which was unmarked, then that was the monster’s window. I can’t remember what was the result of the experiment, but I decided to do something similar with the château. I walked round it from the outside counting all the windows, then did the same from within. They more or less added up to the same total. Perhaps, I thought, the hidden parts of the building were internal and windowless.

  One thing I did notice was that at the back of the château on the southwest corner it looked as if there had once been a large octagonal tower of some kind which had either fallen down or had been destroyed. Against one outer wall I could see the remains of a fireplace and an overmantel clinging to it. Farther up there was a series of stone steps, which spiraled up into the château and were lost in darkness. I tried to look for that staircase from the inside, but without success.

  Let me state categorically that I don’t believe I have a psychic bone in my body; nevertheless, there was something I didn’t like about the Château de Bressac. It was not that there was some sort of atmosphere of evil or menace about it, at least as far as I could tell; in fact, there seemed to be no atmosphere at all. That, I suppose, was what I didn’t like. The place felt empty, not just physically but in some other way, too. And it was silent, especially at night. With any normal old building, you expect the odd creak or click, but this one was a tomb.

  I discovered that there is a terrible thing about silence, especially the silence inside a building. Your ears become supersensitive. You find yourself tensed up, waiting for a noise to happen, but of course it doesn’t, so you remain tense. I thought music might help. I had an MP3 player with earphones, but when I had it on in the château I caught myself not listening to the music at all, but somehow listening through it to see if there was any sound to be heard in the spaces beyond.

  It was worse at night. For some reason the shutters of my bedroom window were jammed shut and no amount of shoving and banging could dislodge them. So, once I had extinguished my lamp or candle—-no electricity, remember—I was left in complete darkness and silence. It was like being in a void. I wondered if death was like this. Only a tiny thread of pale light through a gap at the bottom of one of the shutters told me when it was morning.