fruit over the front porch, a design especially favoured by Samuel McIntire, was chipped and stained with bird droppings.
The Atlantic wind whined across the gardens, and around the corners of the house, and chilled my already-soaking back.
I went up the stone steps into the porch. The marble flooring was crazed and broken, and the paint was flaking from the front door as if the woodwork were suffering from a leprous disease. I pulled the bell-handle, and I heard a muffled jangling somewhere within the house. I rubbed my hands briskly together to try to keep myself warm, but with that wind whipping around the corner it wasn’t easy.
There was no answer, so I rang again, and knocked, too. The knocker was fashioned in the shape of a gargoyle’s head, with curved horns and a glaring face. It was enough to scare off anybody, even in daylight. What was more, it made a dead, flat, sepulchral sound, like nails being driven into the lids of solid mahogany caskets.
‘Come on, Mrs Simons,’ I urged her, under my breath. I’m not standing out here all night.’
I decided to give it one last try. I slammed the knocker and jangled the bell, and even shouted out, ‘Mrs Simons? Mrs Edgar Simons? You there, Mrs Simons?’
There was no reply. I stepped away from the door, and back down the porch steps.
Maybe she had gone out visiting, although I couldn’t think who she would want to visit at this time of night, in the middle of a furious gale. Still, there didn’t appear to be any lights in the house, and although it was hard to tell in the darkness, the upstairs drapes didn’t appear to be drawn. So she wasn’t downstairs, watching television or anything; and it didn’t look as if she were upstairs, asleep.
I walked around the side of the house just to make sure there were no lights on at the back. It was then that I saw Mrs Edgar Simons’ Buick, parked just outside her open garage doors. The garage doors were trembling and rattling in the wind, but there was nobody around, no lights, no sounds, nothing but the rain sprinkling against the car’s hood.
Well, I thought, uncertainly - maybe somebody’s called by and taken her out. It’s none of my business anyway. I turned to retrace my steps around the house, but suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a white light flash in one of the upstairs rooms.
I stopped, and squinted up against the rain. There was nothing for a while, then the light flashed again, so briefly that it could have been anything at all - the reflected headlamps from some faraway car, a distant flash of lightning, mirrored in the glass. Then it flashed again, and again, and for a moment there was a long sustained flicker, and I could have sworn that I caught sight of a man’s face, looking down at me as I stood in the garden.
My first inclination was to run like hell. I had tried to be calm and collected after I had seen that flickering hallucination of Jane, but after I had got back to the cottage, I had immediately been seized by a terrified panic, and I had wrenched open the front door and cantered down Quaker Lane as fast as I could humanly go.
Now, however, I was a little braver. Maybe Keith and George had been right, and all that I had been witnessing around Quaker Hill tonight was St Elmo’s Fire, or some other kind of scientific phenomenon. Keith had said that he had witnessed it hundreds of times, so what was so unusual about my seeing it twice?
There was another reason why I didn’t run away, a deeper reason, a reason tied up with the sad and complicated feelings I had about Jane. If Jane had really appeared to me as an electrical ghost, then I wanted to know as much about these manifestations as I possibly could. Even if she couldn’t be brought back physically, maybe there was a way of communicating with her, even talking to her. Maybe all this seance stuff was true after all; maybe people’s souls were nothing more extraordinary than all the electrical impulses
The Atlantic wind whined across the gardens, and around the corners of the house, and chilled my already-soaking back.
I went up the stone steps into the porch. The marble flooring was crazed and broken, and the paint was flaking from the front door as if the woodwork were suffering from a leprous disease. I pulled the bell-handle, and I heard a muffled jangling somewhere within the house. I rubbed my hands briskly together to try to keep myself warm, but with that wind whipping around the corner it wasn’t easy.
There was no answer, so I rang again, and knocked, too. The knocker was fashioned in the shape of a gargoyle’s head, with curved horns and a glaring face. It was enough to scare off anybody, even in daylight. What was more, it made a dead, flat, sepulchral sound, like nails being driven into the lids of solid mahogany caskets.
‘Come on, Mrs Simons,’ I urged her, under my breath. I’m not standing out here all night.’
I decided to give it one last try. I slammed the knocker and jangled the bell, and even shouted out, ‘Mrs Simons? Mrs Edgar Simons? You there, Mrs Simons?’
There was no reply. I stepped away from the door, and back down the porch steps.
Maybe she had gone out visiting, although I couldn’t think who she would want to visit at this time of night, in the middle of a furious gale. Still, there didn’t appear to be any lights in the house, and although it was hard to tell in the darkness, the upstairs drapes didn’t appear to be drawn. So she wasn’t downstairs, watching television or anything; and it didn’t look as if she were upstairs, asleep.
I walked around the side of the house just to make sure there were no lights on at the back. It was then that I saw Mrs Edgar Simons’ Buick, parked just outside her open garage doors. The garage doors were trembling and rattling in the wind, but there was nobody around, no lights, no sounds, nothing but the rain sprinkling against the car’s hood.
Well, I thought, uncertainly - maybe somebody’s called by and taken her out. It’s none of my business anyway. I turned to retrace my steps around the house, but suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a white light flash in one of the upstairs rooms.
I stopped, and squinted up against the rain. There was nothing for a while, then the light flashed again, so briefly that it could have been anything at all - the reflected headlamps from some faraway car, a distant flash of lightning, mirrored in the glass. Then it flashed again, and again, and for a moment there was a long sustained flicker, and I could have sworn that I caught sight of a man’s face, looking down at me as I stood in the garden.
My first inclination was to run like hell. I had tried to be calm and collected after I had seen that flickering hallucination of Jane, but after I had got back to the cottage, I had immediately been seized by a terrified panic, and I had wrenched open the front door and cantered down Quaker Lane as fast as I could humanly go.
Now, however, I was a little braver. Maybe Keith and George had been right, and all that I had been witnessing around Quaker Hill tonight was St Elmo’s Fire, or some other kind of scientific phenomenon. Keith had said that he had witnessed it hundreds of times, so what was so unusual about my seeing it twice?
There was another reason why I didn’t run away, a deeper reason, a reason tied up with the sad and complicated feelings I had about Jane. If Jane had really appeared to me as an electrical ghost, then I wanted to know as much about these manifestations as I possibly could. Even if she couldn’t be brought back physically, maybe there was a way of communicating with her, even talking to her. Maybe all this seance stuff was true after all; maybe people’s souls were nothing more extraordinary than all the electrical impulses
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