said, and heheld onto my hand with a sudden fierce grip as he shook it. ‘I pray that you do not.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I called, deliberately making myself sound carefree and cheerful, and I ran lightly downthe staircase, leaving Mr Jerome to his agitation.
I returned to the Gifford Arms and, instead of telephoning, wrote a letter to Mr Bentley. In it I described the house and its hoard of papers and explained that I should have to stay longer than anticipated and that I expected to hear if Mr Bentley required me to return at once to London, and make some other arrangements. I also made a lightremark about the bad reputation Eel Marsh House enjoyed locally and said that for this reason – but also for others rather more mundane – it might be difficult for me to get any help, though I was anxious to try. The whole business, nevertheless, should be completed within the week and I would arrange for the dispatch of as many papers as seemed to be important to London.
Then, putting the letteron the table in the lobby, to be collected at noon, I went out and found the landlord’s bicycle, a good, old-fashioned sit-up-and-beg with a large basket on the front almost like that sported by the butcher-boys in London. I mounted it and pedalled out of the square and away, up one of the side streets towards the open country. It was theperfect day for bicycling, cold enough to make the windburn against my cheeks as I went, bright and clear enough for me to be able to see a long way in all directions across that flat, open landscape.
I intended to cycle to the next village, where I hoped to find another country inn and enjoy some bread and cheese and beer for lunch but, as I reached the last of the houses, I could not resist the urge that was so extraordinarily strong within meto stop and look, not westwards, where I might see farms and fields and the distant roofs of a village, but east. And there they lay, those glittering, beckoning, silver marshes with the sky pale at the horizon where it reached down to the water of the estuary. A thin breeze blew off them with salt on its breath. Even from as far away as this I could hear the mysterious silence, and once again thehaunting, strange beauty of it all aroused a response deep within me. I could not run away from that place, I would have to go back to it, not now, but soon, I had fallen under some sort of spell of the kind that certain places exude and it drew me, my imaginings, my longings, my curiosity, my whole spirit, towards itself.
For a long time, I looked and looked and recognized what was happeningto me. My emotions had now become so volatile and so extreme, my nervous responses so near the surface, so rapid and keen, thatI was living in another dimension, my heart seemed to beat faster, my step to be quicker, everything I saw was brighter, its outlines more sharply, precisely defined. And all this since yesterday. I had wondered whether I looked different in some essential way so that,when I eventually returned home, my friends and family would notice the change. I felt older and like a man who was being put to trial, half fearful, half wondering, excited, completely in thrall.
But now, managing to suspend this acute emotional state and in order to help myself retain my normal equilibrium, I would take some exercise, and so I turned the bicycle and remounted and pedalled steadilydown the country road, putting my back firmly to the marshes.
S PIDER
I RETURNED some four hours and thirty-odd miles later in a positive glow of well-being. I had ridden out determinedly across the countryside, seeing the very last traces of golden autumn merging into the beginnings of winter, feeling the rush of pure cold air on my face, banishing every nervous fear and morbid fancy by energetic physical activity. I had found my village inn and eaten mybread and cheese and even, afterwards, made myself free of a farmer’s barn to sleep for an hour.
Coming back into Crythin Gifford
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I called, deliberately making myself sound carefree and cheerful, and I ran lightly downthe staircase, leaving Mr Jerome to his agitation.
I returned to the Gifford Arms and, instead of telephoning, wrote a letter to Mr Bentley. In it I described the house and its hoard of papers and explained that I should have to stay longer than anticipated and that I expected to hear if Mr Bentley required me to return at once to London, and make some other arrangements. I also made a lightremark about the bad reputation Eel Marsh House enjoyed locally and said that for this reason – but also for others rather more mundane – it might be difficult for me to get any help, though I was anxious to try. The whole business, nevertheless, should be completed within the week and I would arrange for the dispatch of as many papers as seemed to be important to London.
Then, putting the letteron the table in the lobby, to be collected at noon, I went out and found the landlord’s bicycle, a good, old-fashioned sit-up-and-beg with a large basket on the front almost like that sported by the butcher-boys in London. I mounted it and pedalled out of the square and away, up one of the side streets towards the open country. It was theperfect day for bicycling, cold enough to make the windburn against my cheeks as I went, bright and clear enough for me to be able to see a long way in all directions across that flat, open landscape.
I intended to cycle to the next village, where I hoped to find another country inn and enjoy some bread and cheese and beer for lunch but, as I reached the last of the houses, I could not resist the urge that was so extraordinarily strong within meto stop and look, not westwards, where I might see farms and fields and the distant roofs of a village, but east. And there they lay, those glittering, beckoning, silver marshes with the sky pale at the horizon where it reached down to the water of the estuary. A thin breeze blew off them with salt on its breath. Even from as far away as this I could hear the mysterious silence, and once again thehaunting, strange beauty of it all aroused a response deep within me. I could not run away from that place, I would have to go back to it, not now, but soon, I had fallen under some sort of spell of the kind that certain places exude and it drew me, my imaginings, my longings, my curiosity, my whole spirit, towards itself.
For a long time, I looked and looked and recognized what was happeningto me. My emotions had now become so volatile and so extreme, my nervous responses so near the surface, so rapid and keen, thatI was living in another dimension, my heart seemed to beat faster, my step to be quicker, everything I saw was brighter, its outlines more sharply, precisely defined. And all this since yesterday. I had wondered whether I looked different in some essential way so that,when I eventually returned home, my friends and family would notice the change. I felt older and like a man who was being put to trial, half fearful, half wondering, excited, completely in thrall.
But now, managing to suspend this acute emotional state and in order to help myself retain my normal equilibrium, I would take some exercise, and so I turned the bicycle and remounted and pedalled steadilydown the country road, putting my back firmly to the marshes.
S PIDER
I RETURNED some four hours and thirty-odd miles later in a positive glow of well-being. I had ridden out determinedly across the countryside, seeing the very last traces of golden autumn merging into the beginnings of winter, feeling the rush of pure cold air on my face, banishing every nervous fear and morbid fancy by energetic physical activity. I had found my village inn and eaten mybread and cheese and even, afterwards, made myself free of a farmer’s barn to sleep for an hour.
Coming back into Crythin Gifford
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