He took his betrothed by the arm and, without giving Doyle a chance to reply, began a tour of his recently acquired mansion while he chatted about the various improvements he was planning to make. The others had little choice but to tag along behind them. From the hallway, they passed into the main reception room, which seemed slightly more welcoming due to the enormous fireplace gaping in one corner and the tall stained-glass windows, which, despite the dull grey light filtering through them that day, promised rainbow colors when the sun shone. However, the smoke-blackened oak-beamed ceilings evoked the leaden skies that hung over the moor, and the dozens of deer heads mounted on the walls seemed to observe the passing group through glassy eyes tinged with death. Next, the group entered an enormous dining hall that offered no respite from the somber atmosphere pervading the house; on the contrary, it was a windowless, gloomy room that gave off a powerful smell of mustiness and despair. When Murray lit one of the few lamps there and placed it in the middle of the long central table, a feeble pool of light spilled from it onto the dusty wood. But it was enough for them to make out through the surrounding thicket of shadows a ring of pale phantoms spying on them. After the initial shock, Murray lifted the lamp and drew closer to one of the walls. A sigh of relief spread through the group as they realized that the ghostly faces belonged to a row of portraits, doubtless ancestors of the Cabell family. Regarded in descending order, these gentlemen, with their alternately stern or stoical expressions, exchanged dress coats for frock coats and prior to that the more sober tailcoats of the Regency era, illustrating the passage of time more entertainingly than rings on a tree ever did. Apart from the dozen portraits, there was a second door located just opposite the one they had come in through, as well as some rusty shields crossed with swords, a couple of faded tapestries depicting mythological scenes, and an enormous mirror that enclosed the whole room in an ornate gold frame.
“Heavens,” Doyle murmured, pointing toward the portraits, “I don’t think I’d be able to dine easily in their company.”
Ignoring Doyle’s commentary, Murray began pacing round the table, rubbing his hands together excitedly.
“Think how beautiful this room will look, Emma, when we, when we”—he glanced around, trying to imagine what refurbishments could miraculously embellish the room—“change it completely.”
She chuckled. “Why, I think it’s charming as it is, Monty. What is there to change? It’s perfect . . . If you don’t manage to sell the house, we could throw parties here. We could invite all the people we don’t like and make them sit in this dining room eating interminable meals, and at night, when they are asleep, we could drag chains along the corridors and let out bloodcurdling howls. That way we’d be sure they’d never accept another invitation, and we wouldn’t have to accept theirs either, assuming they ever invited us anywhere after such an experience.”
“Oh, that’s a brilliant idea, darling,” Murray said enthusiastically.
“Actually it would be rather good to have somewhere like that,” added Wells, who could think of dozens of people he would invite to such dinners.
“Very well, perhaps we’ll keep it just as it is,” Murray went on jovially. “On second thought, it could be put to other similar uses. We could even”—he grinned mischievously—“hire it out for séances.”
“Oh, no, Monty, not that again . . . ,” Emma began, suddenly growing serious.
“But, darling, feel the atmosphere!” Murray interrupted, signaling the room around them with feigned admiration. “I imagine this is what Mr. Doyle would call . . . what was it again? An atmosphere conducive to the power of suggestion.”
Doyle only scowled at Murray.
“Why, yes,” Murray said, spreading his arms, as though wanting to clasp all that darkness to him, “I think I’ve just found another perfect idea for a business. Any medium would happily pay whatever we asked to hold his séances here. With such a conducive atmosphere, he would scarcely need to employ his usual tricks—”
“That’s enough, Monty,” Emma cut in. “Arthur, I beg you to forgive us once more: we didn’t mean to offend you by mocking your beliefs; we were only teasing.” She looked sternly at Murray. “Isn’t that right, darling?”
“Of course, it was just teasing, Doyle,” Murray confirmed with a shrug.
“I appreciate your concern, Miss Harlow,” said Doyle, ignoring Murray and addressing his fiancée with a look of injured pride. “As I already said when we first met, I know how to enjoy a good joke.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” Emma replied, without clarifying either whether or not Murray’s remarks fell into that category. “Although, speaking of sinister atmospheres, it has to be said there is something very intimidating about this house.”
“Well, it doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest,” Murray declared.
“Oh, come now, Monty,” said Wells, who was praying Murray and Doyle weren’t going to get into another unpleasant argument, “you must admit the place gives you the shivers, regardless of whether we came here expecting that or not.”
“Well, I’d say the house is contaminated with energies beyond our understanding,” Doyle announced with an authoritative air, casting an eye slowly around the room. “I don’t think it is simply a matter of suggestion, George. We all perceive it, even if some of us daren’t admit it.”
“Who dares not admit it?” asked Murray.
“You, of course, darling,” Emma replied.
“Really? And what exactly is it I’m meant to perceive? That the souls of this jolly lot are watching us to make sure we don’t make fun of their whiskers?” Murray argued, pointing at the portraits.
“That’s not what I meant, darling,” replied Emma, maintaining her composure. “But, like Arthur, I, too, believe there is something in this house that our senses perceive without understanding. Maybe not the souls of the departed, or the idea we have of souls. But perhaps everything these people experienced”—she pointed at the portraits lining the walls, and pivoted slowly round—“what made them suffer, and what they loved, has somehow outlived them . . .” She walked over to the table and ran her finger gently along the back of one of the chairs while she went on dreamily. “Imagine all the scenes that have taken place in this dining room: the dinners, the family dramas, the news of war, the joyous tidings . . . Perhaps it is all still here, eternally taking place, somehow vibrating in the air, even though we neither hear nor see it, because our minds are only able to perceive the present . . . There could be places, like this, that are like backwaters in a river, places where the flow of time stagnates and experiences accumulate in layers over the centuries to form a unique, complex present, and that this . . . existential sedimentation, so to speak, is what we perceive. Perhaps the shiver you felt, George, was because at that very moment a butler walked through you carrying a tray of glasses”—at which Wells looked at Emma, startled, and took a discreet step to one side—“and you, Jane, right this minute, you might be standing in the sight line of two rivals who will fight a duel at dawn. And in this chair I am leaning against, perhaps a man is caressing his lover’s foot under the table, while she is writing their initials on the table with her finger”—and with this, Emma’s own slender forefinger traced in the dust an “M” and an “E.” Then Emma contemplated the two letters with a pensive smile, probably wondering whether a hundred years from then, when those letters were long gone, and she herself wasn’t even alive, some visitor would sense her making that gesture, until she realized they had all fallen silent. She looked up, her cheeks turning a delightful shade of pink. “Oh, please forgive my silly daydreams. I was born in a very young country, where the buildings have no memories, so that places like this seem completely magical to me . . .”
“There’s no need to apologize, my dear,” said Jane. “It was a truly beautiful description.”
Everyone agreed except for Murray, who simply gazed at Emma in admiration.
“And not only that,” Doyle chipped in excitedly. “It is a
lso another way of expressing what I have always said: that part of what we are survives the death of our bodies. And why not? Perhaps death is a mere repetition of our lives on a higher plane, a sort of Hinton’s cube where we experience every instant of our lives simultaneously . . . And anyway, mediums have relayed numerous messages from spirits who describe the Hereafter as a carbon copy of their former lives.”
“I don’t think you understood a single word that my fiancée said, Doyle!” exclaimed Murray.
“Of course I did,” Doyle replied indignantly. “I am simply pointing out that there are many ways of expressing the same idea. Something transcends us, transcends our will, our perception of time and space—in other words, our death. Yes, even though our bodies turn to dust, part of us lives on forever. And I agree completely, Emma, that there must be places, as well as people, that serve as conduits for all that energy. Perhaps this house is one of those places, for there is no doubt that we all sense something now. You feel it, Emma, and George and I also feel it. And so do you, don’t you, Jean?”
The young woman nodded, her expression reflecting her unease.
“It must be the damp,” said Murray, wrinkling his nose and staring up at the ceiling.
“Oh, Monty, you are the limit,” sighed Emma. “I promise that if I die before you, I will come back to haunt you every night.”
“Well, you’ll need to find a proper conduit,” he reminded her with a grin.
“Well,” she retorted, “with your great fortune, I have no doubt that you would hire the best medium there is.”
“You can be sure of that, my darling.”
Emma’s eyes twinkled with amusement.
“And the séance would have to be held here at Brook Manor,” she demanded, tapping her foot on the floor. “If I were a spirit, I couldn’t possibly appear anywhere else. It is too delightfully sinister!”
“As always, my love, you show an exquisite taste in—”
Worried that the couple were about to initiate one of those conversations others find embarrassing, Jane hurriedly interrupted, asking Murray whether the house really suffered from damp.
“I’m afraid so, my dear,” Murray told her. “We have found serious damp problems throughout the house. Some of the floorboards are completely rotten, but nothing that can’t be fixed.”
With that, Murray motioned to the others to follow him through the second door. Heaving a sigh, Wells prepared to join them, but a big cobweb hanging from the ceiling became tangled in his hair, and he frantically brushed it away. Fearing the creature responsible for such a colossal web might be proportionate in size to its architectural feat and could now be running about on his back, Wells went up to the mirror and, performing various risky contortions, began to examine himself carefully. Then something he saw reflected in the mirror made him pause. The others were filing out of the room, not through the second door, but rather through the one they had entered moments before. Wells wheeled round, only to find himself even more flabbergasted. There they were, still walking through the second door, Murray at the fore, listing the different ways of combating damp, followed by Emma and Jane, who appeared rapt, and behind them Jean and Doyle, who at that moment whispered something in his companion’s ear that made her chuckle. Wells turned back to the mirror and felt his heart jump. There they were again, faithfully reflected, but filing through the wrong door. Unable to believe his own eyes, Wells turned his head from the real world to the reflected world and back again, watching his friends leaving the dining room through two different doors.
When they had all gone out, Wells stood mutely in front of the mirror, which now reflected a room that was empty except for one terrified man. He turned around and, although he could hear his friends’ voices clearly coming from beyond the doorway they had just gone through in the real world, ran across to the one they had stepped through in the mirror. As he expected, the room with the big fireplace was deserted. Wells stood for a moment staring awkwardly at the mounted deer heads, which were gazing at one another with the idiotic expression guests have when they have exhausted all possible conversations. Then he ran over to the other door, leading to the vast entrance hall, at the far end of which he discovered his companions climbing up to the first floor via the magnificent marble staircase. Wells opened his mouth, ready to call out, but closed it instantly. What on earth was he going to say to them? He returned to the dining room and walked back over to the mirror. Trying to think rationally, he told himself that, due to the way it was positioned or to some distortion in the glass, he must have experienced a strange optical illusion. He spent several minutes examining the mirror and the frame from every possible angle. He even lifted it slightly away from the wall but found nothing behind it. He stood facing it once more and examined the reflected image of the deserted dining room, which seemed identical now to the real one. The same portraits adorned the walls, the same crossed swords, the same lamp spilling its tentative pool of light onto the dusty table . . . the dusty table . . . Wells breathed in sharply. Resting his hands on the mirror, he narrowed his eyes and drew closer until the tip of his nose was almost touching the glass.
In the reflected dust on the reflected table, where Emma had written the two initials, there was nothing. Wells glanced over his shoulder, and he could see them even through the gloom. They were still there, illuminated by the lamplight, an “M” and an “E” clearly traced in the thick layer of real dust. Of course they were still there; why wouldn’t they be? He was alone in the room, and they couldn’t have erased themselves. Wells looked into the mirror again and confirmed once more that the initials weren’t reflected there. His head started to spin. Was this still an optical illusion he couldn’t account for? He tapped the cold surface gently with his splayed hands, as if to satisfy himself that it existed, that it had the consistency of a real object, that it wasn’t a figment of his imagination as well. And then he noticed that, on the side of his chin where he had the tiny scar that gave him such a complex, his reflection showed nothing. As he stood gaping at himself, a wave of sheer terror began to crawl up his spine and spread around the base of his skull like a hungry snake, ready to feed on his sanity. Because there was no other possible explanation for that horror except insanity! Wells ran his fingers over the familiar roughness of his scar, while his reflection stroked his pristine skin with what must have been the same terrified expression.
He staggered backward, and his reflection did the same, both of them covering their corresponding chins with their hands. And then, just as he was about to start screaming, the light in the room changed. Wells looked around him, puzzled, trying to perceive the nature of that change, for it wasn’t that there was any more or any less light but rather that a subtle variation in the same light had made everything seem suddenly less scary. He went back to the mirror with bated breath, and the Wells who lived in the mirror stared back at him with the same expectation, the same startled eyes, the same tension seizing his body . . . and the same scar on his chin.
Wells let out the breath he been holding in a whoosh as a growing sense of peace invaded him. Then he noticed the letters Emma had written in the dust, and he wanted to laugh, but he stopped himself, fearing he might succumb to a fit of hysterics. The sensation of normality was so overwhelming now that Wells couldn’t help but feel slightly ridiculous at being so terrified by a mere trick of the light. How could the atmosphere of that place have made him so suggestive? He stood for a long minute in front of the mirror, examining his face from every possible angle, without the illusion happening again. Finally he realized he couldn’t stay there forever, watching his reflection grow old, and he resolved to find his friends.
Wells went out to the hall through the same door the others had used and walked up the marble staircase leading to the first floor, until he reached a kind of gallery that, like an interior balcony, overlooked the entrance on each side of the staircase. Opposite the gallery was a tall window framing a leaden sky, with a long corridor on either side.
Unsure which one to take, Wells listened out for a voice that might indicate where his companions were, but a dense silence enveloped him, punctuated only by the occasional creaks with which the wood announced its senescence. He decided to approach the window, in case something outside might give him a clue. It offered a splendid view of the moor, brooding gloomily beneath an ashen light. In the distance, beyond a band of rocks and heath, Wells glimpsed the swamp, where he understood several wretched ponies had drowned, and still farther away, dotted along the rolling hills, he saw a cluster of standing stones, ruined huts, and other relics of the ancient Britons. Wells realized, looking down, that he was above the curved driveway where the carriages were parked, and he contemplated the gloomy avenue bordered by two rows of trees, whose tops the wind continued to stir sensually. Then, on a jagged outcrop, Wells made out a dark, looming figure, outlined against the sky like a statue. It belonged to a very tall man who was leaning on a walking stick (or possibly a rifle, he was too far away for Wells to see) and appeared to be surveying the moor as though the place, and any soul brave enough to venture there, belonged to him. He was enveloped in a flowing cloak, which billowed in the wind so that it looked as if his body had gigantic wings, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat. Everything about him felt so familiar that Wells kept staring at him in astonishment, until a curious scene unfolding below caught his attention. Murray’s coachman was on the driveway and appeared to be behaving in an even odder and more alarming way than usual: he had crouched down behind Murray’s carriage and was peering out, apparently watching the watcher on the moor while simultaneously hiding from him. Astonished, Wells observed the old man as he glanced nervously a few times before making his way over to the Mercedes, stooping even more than his old back demanded, and ducked behind it before repeating the same ritual. Wells felt the urge to open the window and ask him in a very loud voice what on earth he was doing, purely out of a perverse desire to make the old boy jump out of his skin, but at that very moment a huge paw descended on his shoulder, almost causing him to leap out of his own.