American Supernatural Tales Part 7

"Oh only that of course-only. But if he is is here--?" And her sombre eyes seemed to throw it out in vague distress over her fan. here--?" And her sombre eyes seemed to throw it out in vague distress over her fan.

"It proves he's pleased and wants only to help? Yes, surely; it must prove that."

She gave a light gasp and looked again round the room. "Well," she said as she took leave of him, "remember that I too want only to help." On which, when she had gone, he felt sufficiently that she had come in simply to see he was all right.

He was all right more and more, it struck him after this, for as he began to get into his work he moved, as it appeared to him, but the closer to the idea of Doyne's personal presence. When once this fancy had begun to hang about him he welcomed it, persuaded it, encouraged it, quite cherished it, looking forward all day to feeling it renew itself in the evening, and waiting for the growth of dusk very much as one of a pair of lovers might wait for the hour of their appointment. The smallest accidents humoured and confirmed it, and by the end of three or four weeks he had come fully to regard it as the consecration of his enterprise. Didn't it just settle the question of what Doyne would have thought of what they were doing? What they were doing was what he wanted done, and they could go on from step to step without scruple or doubt. Withermore rejoiced indeed at moments to feel this cert.i.tude: there were times of dipping deep into some of Doyne's secrets when it was particularly pleasant to be able to hold that Doyne desired him, as it were, to know them. He was learning many things he hadn't suspected-drawing many curtains, forcing many doors, reading many riddles, going, in general, as they said, behind almost everything. It was at an occasional sharp turn of some of the duskier of these wanderings "behind" that he really, of a sudden, most felt himself, in the intimate sensible way, face to face with his friend; so that he could scarce have told, for the instant, if their meeting occurred in the narrow pa.s.sage and tight squeeze of the past or at the hour and in the place that actually held him. Was it a matter of '67?-or but of the other side of the table?

Happily, at any rate, even in the vulgarest light publicity could ever shed, there would be the great fact of the way Doyne was "coming out." He was coming out too beautifully-better yet than such a partisan as Withermore could have supposed. All the while as well, nevertheless, how would this partisan have represented to any one else the special state of his own consciousness? It wasn't a thing to talk about-it was only a thing to feel. There were moments for instance when, while he bent over his papers, the light breath of his dead host was as distinctly in his hair as his own elbows were on the table before him. There were moments when, had he been able to look up, the other side of the table would have shown him this companion as vividly as the shaded lamplight showed him his page. That he couldn't at such a juncture look up was his own affair, for the situation was ruled-that was but natural-by deep delicacies and fine timidities, the dread of too sudden or too rude an advance. What was intensely in the air was that if Doyne was was there it wasn't nearly so much for himself as for the young priest of his altar. He hovered and lingered, he came and went, he might almost have been, among the books and the papers, a hushed discreet librarian, doing the particular things, rendering the quiet aid, liked by men of letters. there it wasn't nearly so much for himself as for the young priest of his altar. He hovered and lingered, he came and went, he might almost have been, among the books and the papers, a hushed discreet librarian, doing the particular things, rendering the quiet aid, liked by men of letters.

Withermore himself meanwhile came and went, changed his place, wandered on quests either definite or vague; and more than once when, taking a book down from a shelf and finding in it marks of Doyne's pencil, he got drawn on and lost he had heard doc.u.ments on the table behind him gently s.h.i.+fted and stirred, had literally, on his return, found some letter mislaid pushed again into view, some thicket cleared by the opening of an old journal at the very date he wanted. How should he have gone so, on occasion, to the special box or drawer, out of fifty receptacles, that would help him, had not his mystic a.s.sistant happened, in fine prevision, to tilt its lid or pull it half-open, just in the way that would catch his eye?-in spite, after all, of the fact of lapses and intervals in which, could could one have really looked, one would have seen somebody standing before the fire a trifle detached and over-erect-somebody fixing one the least bit harder than in life. one have really looked, one would have seen somebody standing before the fire a trifle detached and over-erect-somebody fixing one the least bit harder than in life.

III.

That this auspicious relation had in fact existed, had continued, for two or three weeks, was sufficiently shown by the dawn of the distress with which our young man found himself aware of having, for some reason, from the close of a certain day, begun to miss it. The sign of that was an abrupt surprised sense-on the occasion of his mislaying a marvellous unpublished page which, hunt where he would, remained stupidly irrecoverably lost-that his protected state was, with all said, exposed to some confusion and even to some depression. If, for the joy of the business, Doyne and he had, from the start, been together, the situation had within a few days of his first suspicion of it suffered the odd change of their ceasing to be so. That was what was the matter, he mused, from the moment an impression of mere ma.s.s and quant.i.ty struck him as taking, in his happy outlook at his material, the place of the pleasant a.s.sumption of a clear course and a quick pace. For five nights he struggled; then, never at his table, wandering about the room, taking up his references only to lay them down, looking out of the window, poking the fire, thinking strange thoughts and listening for signs and sounds not as he suspected or imagined, but as he vainly desired and invoked them, he yielded to the view that he was for the time at least forsaken.

The extraordinary thing thus became that it made him not only sad but in a high degree uneasy not to feel Doyne's presence. It was somehow stranger he shouldn't be there than it had ever been he was was-so strange indeed at last that Withermore's nerves found themselves quite illogically touched. They had taken kindly enough to what was of an order impossible to explain, perversely reserving their sharpest state for the return to the normal, the supersession of the false. They were remarkably beyond control when finally, one night after his resisting them an hour or two, he simply edged out of the room. It had now but for the first time become impossible to him to stay. Without design, but panting a little and positively as a man scared, he pa.s.sed along his usual corridor and reached the top of the staircase. From this point he saw Mrs. Doyne look up at him from the bottom quite as if she had known he would come; and the most singular thing of all was that, though he had been conscious of no motion to resort to her, had only been prompted to relieve himself by escape, the sight of her position made him recognise it as just, quickly feel it as a part of some monstrous oppression that was closing over them both. It was wonderful how, in the mere modern London hall, between the Tottenham Court Road rugs and the electric light, it came up to him from the tall black lady, and went again from him down to her, that he knew what she meant by looking as if he would know. He descended straight, she turned into her own little lower room, and there, the next thing, with the door shut, they were, still in silence and with queer faces, confronted over confessions that had taken sudden life from these two or three movements. Withermore gasped as it came to him why he had lost his friend. "He has been with you? you?"

With this it was all out-out so far that neither had to explain and that, when "What do you suppose is the matter?" quickly pa.s.sed between them, one appeared to have said it as much as the other. Withermore looked about at the small bright room in which, night after night, she had been living her life as he had been living his own upstairs. It was pretty, cosy, rosy; but she had by turns felt in it what he had felt and heard in it what he had heard. Her effect there-fantastic black, plumed and extravagant, upon deep pink-was that of some "decadent" coloured print, some poster of the newest school.

"You understood he had left me?" he asked.

She markedly wished to make it clear. "This evening-yes. I've made things out."

"You knew-before-that he was with me?"

She hesitated again. "I felt he wasn't with me. me. But on the stairs-" But on the stairs-"

"Yes?"

"Well-he pa.s.sed; more than once. He was in the house. And at your door-"

"Well?" he went on as she once more faltered.

"If I stopped I could sometimes tell. And from your face," she added, "to-night, at any rate, I knew your state."

"And that was why you came out?"

"I thought you'd come to me."

He put out to her, on this, his hand, and they thus for a minute of silence held each other clasped. There was no peculiar presence for either now-nothing more peculiar than that of each for the other. But the place had suddenly become as if consecrated, and Withermore played over it again his anxiety. "What is is then the matter?" then the matter?"

"I only want to do the real right thing," she returned after her pause.

"And aren't we doing it?"

"I wonder. Aren't you? you?"

He wondered too. "To the best of my belief. But we must think."

"We must think," she echoed. And they did think-thought with intensity the rest of that evening together, and thought independently (Withermore at least could answer for himself) during many days that followed. He intermitted a little his visits and his work, trying, all critically, to catch himself in the act of some mistake that might have accounted for their disturbance. Had he taken, on some important point-or looked as if he might take-some wrong line or wrong view? had he somewhere benightedly falsified or inadequately insisted? He went back at last with the idea of having guessed two or three questions he might have been on the way to muddle; after which he had abovestairs, another period of agitation, presently followed by another interview below with Mrs. Doyne, who was still troubled and flushed.

"He's there?"

"He's there."

"I knew it!" she returned in an odd gloom of triumph. Then as to make it clear: "He hasn't been again with me. me."

"Nor with me again to help," said Withermore.

She considered. "Not to help?"

"I can't make it out-I'm at sea. Do what I will I feel I'm wrong."

She covered him a moment with her pompous pain. "How do you feel it?"

"Why by things that happen. The strangest things. I can't describe them-and you wouldn't believe them."

"Oh yes I should!" Mrs. Doyne cried.

"Well, he intervenes." Withermore tried to explain. "However I turn I find him."

She earnestly followed. "'Find' him?"

"I meet him. He seems to rise there before me."

Staring, she waited a little. "Do you mean you see him?"

"I feel as if at any moment I may. I'm baffled. I'm checked." Then he added: "I'm afraid."

"Of him? him?" asked Mrs. Doyne.

He thought. "Well-of what I'm doing."

"Then what, that's so awful, are are you doing?" you doing?"

"What you proposed to me. Going into his life."

She showed, in her present gravity, a new alarm. "And don't you like like that?" that?"

"Doesn't he? he? That's the question. We lay him bare. We serve him up. What is it called? We give him to the world." That's the question. We lay him bare. We serve him up. What is it called? We give him to the world."

Poor Mrs. Doyne, as if on a menace to her hard atonement, glared at this for an instant in deeper gloom. "And why shouldn't we?"

"Because we don't know. There are natures, there are lives, that shrink. He mayn't wish it," said Withermore. "We never asked him."

"How could could we?" we?"

He was silent a little. "Well, we ask him now. That's after all what our start has so far represented. We've put it to him."

"Then-if he has been with us-we've had his answer."

Withermore spoke now as if he knew what to believe. "He hasn't been 'with' us-he has been against us."

"Then why did you think-"

"What I did did think at first-that what he wishes to make us feel is his sympathy? Because I was in my original simplicity mistaken. I was-I don't know what to call it-so excited and charmed that I didn't understand. But I understand at last. He only wanted to communicate. He strains forward out of his darkness, he reaches toward us out of his mystery, he makes us dim signs out of his horror." think at first-that what he wishes to make us feel is his sympathy? Because I was in my original simplicity mistaken. I was-I don't know what to call it-so excited and charmed that I didn't understand. But I understand at last. He only wanted to communicate. He strains forward out of his darkness, he reaches toward us out of his mystery, he makes us dim signs out of his horror."

"'Horror'?" Mrs. Doyne gasped with her fan up to her mouth.

"At what we're doing." He could by this time piece it all together. "I see now that at first-"

"Well, what?"

"One had simply to feel he was there and therefore not indifferent. And the beauty of that misled me. But he's there as a protest."

"Against my my Life?" Mrs. Doyne wailed. Life?" Mrs. Doyne wailed.

"Against any any Life. He's there to Life. He's there to save save his Life. He's there to be let alone." his Life. He's there to be let alone."

"So you give up?" she almost shrieked.

He could only meet her. "He's there as a warning."

For a moment, on this, they looked at each other deep. "You are are afraid!" she at last brought out. afraid!" she at last brought out.

It affected him, but he insisted. "He's there as a curse!"

With that they parted, but only for two or three days; her last word to him continuing to sound so in his ears that, between his need really to satisfy her and another need presently to be noted, he felt he mightn't yet take up his stake. He finally went back at his usual hour and found her in her usual place. "Yes, I am am afraid," he announced as if he had turned that well over and knew now all it meant. "But I gather you're not." afraid," he announced as if he had turned that well over and knew now all it meant. "But I gather you're not."

She faltered, reserving her word. "What is it you fear?"

"Well, that if I go on I shall shall see him." see him."

"And then-?"

"Oh then," said George Withermore, "I should should give up!" give up!"

She weighed it with her proud but earnest air. "I think, you know, we must have a clear sign."

"You wish me to try again?"

She debated. "You see what it means-for me-to give up."

"Ah but you you needn't," Withermore said. needn't," Withermore said.

She seemed to wonder, but in a moment went on. "It would mean that he won't take from me-" But she dropped for despair.

"Well, what?"

"Anything," said poor Mrs. Doyne.

He faced her a moment more. "I've thought myself of the clear sign. I'll try again."

As he was leaving her however she remembered. "I'm only afraid that to-night there's nothing ready-no lamp and no fire."

"Never mind," he said from the foot of the stairs; "I'll find things."

To which she answered that the door of the room would probably at any rate be open; and retired again as to wait for him. She hadn't long to wait; though, with her own door wide and her attention fixed, she may not have taken the time quite as it appeared to her visitor. She heard him, after an interval, on the stair, and he presently stood at her entrance, where, if he hadn't been precipitate, but rather, for step and sound, backward and vague, he showed at least as livid and blank.

"I give up."

"Then you've seen him?"

"On the threshold-guarding it."

"Guarding it?" She glowed over her fan. "Distinct?"

"Immense. But dim. Dark. Dreadful," said poor George Withermore.

She continued to wonder. "You didn't go in?"

The young man turned away. "He forbids!"

"You say I I needn't," she went on after a moment. "Well then need I?" needn't," she went on after a moment. "Well then need I?"

"See him?" George Withermore asked.

She waited an instant. "Give up."

"You must decide." For himself he could at last but sink to the sofa with his bent face in his hands. He wasn't quite to know afterwards how long he had sat so; it was enough that what he did next know was that he was alone among her favourite objects. Just as he gained his feet however, with this sense and that of the door standing open to the hall, he found himself afresh confronted, in the light, the warmth, the rosy s.p.a.ce, with her big black perfumed presence. He saw at a glance, as she offered him a huger bleaker stare over the mask of her fan, that she had been above; and so it was that they for the last time faced together their strange question. "You've seen him?" Withermore asked.

He was to infer later on from the extraordinary way she closed her eyes and, as if to steady herself, held them tight and long, in silence, that beside the unutterable vision of Ashton Doyne's wife his own might rank as an escape. He knew before she spoke that all was over. "I give up."

H. P. LOVECRAFT.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he remained for most of his life. Plagued by illness, Lovecraft led a sheltered life in youth; his upbringing was conducted by his overly protective mother, his aunts, and-following the death of his father from syphilis in 1898-by his maternal grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, a successful business-man. Lovecraft's formal education was spotty, and poor health compelled his departure from high school in 1908 without a diploma. After a period of reclusiveness, he joined the amateur journalism movement, prolifically writing essays, poems, and a few stories during the period 1914-1924. The founding of the pulp magazine Weird Tales Weird Tales allowed him to sell his early horror tales with regularity, and he became a fixture in the magazine. After a failed marriage and a move to Brooklyn (1924-26), Lovecraft returned to Providence and began his most vigorous period of fiction writing, with such works as "The Colour out of s.p.a.ce" (1927), "The Dunwich Horror" (1928), "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930), allowed him to sell his early horror tales with regularity, and he became a fixture in the magazine. After a failed marriage and a move to Brooklyn (1924-26), Lovecraft returned to Providence and began his most vigorous period of fiction writing, with such works as "The Colour out of s.p.a.ce" (1927), "The Dunwich Horror" (1928), "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930), At the Mountains of Madness At the Mountains of Madness (1931), and "The Shadow out of Time" (1934-35). In these works, Lovecraft fas.h.i.+oned a pseudomythology that August Derleth later coined the "Cthulhu Mythos," which postulates the existence of immense, G.o.dlike forces who have come to earth from the depths of s.p.a.ce; this mythology embodies Lovecraft's strongly atheistic stance, in which humanity is a helpless p.a.w.n amid the infinite depths of the universe. The Cthulhu Mythos has been widely imitated by other writers, although many (including Derleth) misunderstood its philosophical substance. Lovecraft died in Providence in 1937. Derleth and Donald Wandrei founded the publis.h.i.+ng firm of Arkham House to issue Lovecraft's works in book form, and he has since become recognized as the leading American writer of supernatural fiction in the twentieth century. (1931), and "The Shadow out of Time" (1934-35). In these works, Lovecraft fas.h.i.+oned a pseudomythology that August Derleth later coined the "Cthulhu Mythos," which postulates the existence of immense, G.o.dlike forces who have come to earth from the depths of s.p.a.ce; this mythology embodies Lovecraft's strongly atheistic stance, in which humanity is a helpless p.a.w.n amid the infinite depths of the universe. The Cthulhu Mythos has been widely imitated by other writers, although many (including Derleth) misunderstood its philosophical substance. Lovecraft died in Providence in 1937. Derleth and Donald Wandrei founded the publis.h.i.+ng firm of Arkham House to issue Lovecraft's works in book form, and he has since become recognized as the leading American writer of supernatural fiction in the twentieth century.

"The Call of Cthulhu," written in 1926 and published in Weird Tales Weird Tales (February 1928), is the first major tale of the Cthulhu Mythos and features Lovecraft's use of the doc.u.mentary style and his dense, richly evocative prose style. (February 1928), is the first major tale of the Cthulhu Mythos and features Lovecraft's use of the doc.u.mentary style and his dense, richly evocative prose style.

THE CALL OF CTHULHU.

(Found Among the Papers of the Late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston) "Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival . . . a survival of a hugely remote period when . . . consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity . . . forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them G.o.ds, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds. . . ."

-Algernon Blackwood I.

THE HORROR IN CLAY.