in her hair. It had gone a little against the grain to spend so much money but he could always give it to Lulu afterwards, and surely no one would suspect a man of murdering his wife, who had just bought her a diamond clip. She was delighted with the gift; all that was wanting now was the rose to tuck into it and then she would be ready to go down to dinner. Mr. de Silva began to think that murder was really the easiest thing in the world. They went out on to the balcony and leaned over.
A push, a heave—a terrible cry. Far, far below, little people detached themselves from beneath the midget umbrellas and ran towards the crumpled form. Hélas, hélas! Quel horreur! Fetch the ambulance, inform the police, throw over it the tablecloth of the hotel…
The police burst into the suite. There, sure enough was the distracted form upon the couch with clenched hands and disordered hair, in a storm of crocodile tears. Amid wild sobbing, they extracted the terrible story.
‘He must have leaned over the balcony to look at the rose,’ began Mrs. de Silva…
P.S. I include this story because it’s the first thing I ever wrote for publication.
C.B.
7
Akin To Love…
S HE WAS SCREAMING… SCREAMING… ‘Don’t leave me, come back, come back!’ But they didn’t come back; they had rushed away, all three of them, sick, white, gibbering with the horror of it—leaving her here alone.
It seemed so long ago now, long, long ago, another world, another age since, easily chatting, they had gone up the splendid sweep of the staircase and into that other room. A lovely room—square, high ceilinged, furnished as far as possible in keeping with its eighteenth century air; there was even, though nowadays its curtains were of nylon, a four-poster bed. Her hostess had stirred up the fire to a blaze and kissed her goodnight—wished they hadn’t talked so much to her this evening about all the silly village gossip, hoped she was all right, was she, darling?—and smiled and gone away. In her dressing gown and nightie, the oil lamp glowing softly on the table by the bedside, she had sat down before the cheerfully crackling little fire to brush out her silky hair.
She loved brushing her hair, sitting by the fireside, dreaming. Her thoughts drifted off, a million miles from suicides and hauntings. A young girl had killed herself after sleeping in this room—but that had been fifty, sixty years ago; a woman more recently, but she had been newly widowed and still grieving. And an old woman had slept here and felt a silence, she had said, a chill, ‘a feeling of evil; I could smell it as a horse scents danger…’ but she too, doubtless, had been primed all evening with stories about the house. A young man had lived here, it seemed, two hundred years ago, who had deserted his beautiful wife and joined one of the Hell Fire Clubs, sold his soul to the devil, all the rest of it; had repented and come home and his wife refused to forgive him. And so he had killed himself or killed the wife, or the wife had killed him, nobody seemed to be sure; but anyway, of course he had haunted here ever since. Wherefore, girls and young widows committed suicide, old women felt a sense of nameless evil, a silence, a chill…
And certainly it was extraordinarily quiet—strangely still. Should there not be some sighing of night breezes, some faint brushing of leaf upon leaf at the window sill, some stirring of nocturnal creatures, bat and owl?—should there not be, at least, some flutter of flame from this small log fire that so lately had gaily crackled, but now was like a fire seen, brightly burning, through sound-resistant glass? Sound resistant and heat resistant also; for she held out her hand to its blaze and felt no warmth from it, no warmth at all…
No warmth at all. Fear pierced her, she thrust her hand forward to the very bars of the grate and knew with a shock of realisation that her hand remained still cold, as cold as ice—that all her body
A push, a heave—a terrible cry. Far, far below, little people detached themselves from beneath the midget umbrellas and ran towards the crumpled form. Hélas, hélas! Quel horreur! Fetch the ambulance, inform the police, throw over it the tablecloth of the hotel…
The police burst into the suite. There, sure enough was the distracted form upon the couch with clenched hands and disordered hair, in a storm of crocodile tears. Amid wild sobbing, they extracted the terrible story.
‘He must have leaned over the balcony to look at the rose,’ began Mrs. de Silva…
P.S. I include this story because it’s the first thing I ever wrote for publication.
C.B.
7
Akin To Love…
S HE WAS SCREAMING… SCREAMING… ‘Don’t leave me, come back, come back!’ But they didn’t come back; they had rushed away, all three of them, sick, white, gibbering with the horror of it—leaving her here alone.
It seemed so long ago now, long, long ago, another world, another age since, easily chatting, they had gone up the splendid sweep of the staircase and into that other room. A lovely room—square, high ceilinged, furnished as far as possible in keeping with its eighteenth century air; there was even, though nowadays its curtains were of nylon, a four-poster bed. Her hostess had stirred up the fire to a blaze and kissed her goodnight—wished they hadn’t talked so much to her this evening about all the silly village gossip, hoped she was all right, was she, darling?—and smiled and gone away. In her dressing gown and nightie, the oil lamp glowing softly on the table by the bedside, she had sat down before the cheerfully crackling little fire to brush out her silky hair.
She loved brushing her hair, sitting by the fireside, dreaming. Her thoughts drifted off, a million miles from suicides and hauntings. A young girl had killed herself after sleeping in this room—but that had been fifty, sixty years ago; a woman more recently, but she had been newly widowed and still grieving. And an old woman had slept here and felt a silence, she had said, a chill, ‘a feeling of evil; I could smell it as a horse scents danger…’ but she too, doubtless, had been primed all evening with stories about the house. A young man had lived here, it seemed, two hundred years ago, who had deserted his beautiful wife and joined one of the Hell Fire Clubs, sold his soul to the devil, all the rest of it; had repented and come home and his wife refused to forgive him. And so he had killed himself or killed the wife, or the wife had killed him, nobody seemed to be sure; but anyway, of course he had haunted here ever since. Wherefore, girls and young widows committed suicide, old women felt a sense of nameless evil, a silence, a chill…
And certainly it was extraordinarily quiet—strangely still. Should there not be some sighing of night breezes, some faint brushing of leaf upon leaf at the window sill, some stirring of nocturnal creatures, bat and owl?—should there not be, at least, some flutter of flame from this small log fire that so lately had gaily crackled, but now was like a fire seen, brightly burning, through sound-resistant glass? Sound resistant and heat resistant also; for she held out her hand to its blaze and felt no warmth from it, no warmth at all…
No warmth at all. Fear pierced her, she thrust her hand forward to the very bars of the grate and knew with a shock of realisation that her hand remained still cold, as cold as ice—that all her body
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