Emily Climbs (5 page)

She cowered down on the step, shuddering from head to foot. By now the thunder and lightning were almost incessant: rain blew against the windows, not in drops but sheets, and intermittent volleys of hail bombarded them. The wind had risen suddenly with the storm and shrieked around the church. It was not her old dear friend of childhood, the bat-winged, misty “Wind Woman,” but a legion of yelling witches. “The Prince of the Power of the Air rules the wind,” she had heard Mad Mr. Morrison say once. Why should she think of Mad Mr. Morrison now? How the windows rattled as if demon riders of the storm were shaking them! She had heard a wild tale of some one hearing the organ play in the empty church one night several years ago.
Suppose it began playing now!
No fancy seemed too grotesque or horrible to come true. Didn’t the stairs creak? The blackness between the lightnings was so intense that it looked
thick
. Emily was frightened of it touching her and buried her face in her lap.

Presently, however, she got a grip on herself and began to reflect that she was not living up to Murray traditions. Murrays were not supposed to go to pieces like this. Murrays were not
foolishly panicky in thunderstorms. Those old Murrays sleeping in the private graveyard across the pond would have scorned her as a degenerate descendant. Aunt Elizabeth would have said that it was the Starr coming out in her. She must be brave: after all, she had lived through worse hours than this – the night she had eaten of Lofty John’s poisoned apple
^*
– the afternoon she had fallen over the rocks of Malvern Bay. This had come so suddenly on her that she had been in the throes of terror before she could brace herself against it. She
must pick
up. Nothing dreadful was going to happen to her – nothing worse than staying all night in the church. In the morning she could attract the attention of some one passing. She had been here over an hour now, and nothing had happened to her – unless indeed her hair had turned white, as she understood hair sometimes did. There had been such a funny, crinkly, crawly feeling at the roots of it at times. Emily held out her long braid, ready for the next flash. When it came she saw that her hair was still black. She sighed with relief and began to chirk up. The storm was passing. The thunderpeals were growing fainter and fewer, though the rain continued to fall and the wind to drive and shriek around the church, whining through the big keyhole eerily.

Emily straightened her shoulders and cautiously let down her feet to a lower step. She thought she had better try to get back into the church. If another cloud came up, the steeple might be struck – steeples were always getting struck, she remembered: it might come crashing down on the porch right over her. She would go in and sit down in the Murray pew: she would be cool and sensible and collected: she was ashamed of her panic – but it
had been
terrible.

All around her now was a soft, heavy darkness, still with that same eerie sensation of something you could touch, born perhaps of the heat and humidity of the July night. The porch was so small and narrow – she would not feel so smothered and oppressed in the church.

She put out her hand to grasp a stair rail and pull herself to her cramped feet. Her hand touched – not the stair rail – merciful heavens, what was it? – something
hairy
– Emily’s shriek of horror froze on her lips – padding footsteps passed down the steps beside her; a flash of lightning came and at the bottom of the steps was a huge black dog, which had turned and was looking up at her before he was blotted out in the returning darkness. Even then for a moment she saw his eyes blazing redly at her, like a fiend’s.

Emily’s hair roots began to crawl and crinkle again – a very large, very cold caterpillar began to creep slowly up her spine. She could not have moved a muscle had life depended on it. She could not even cry out. The only thing she could think of at first was the horrible demon hound of the Manx Castle in
Peveril of the Peak
. For a few minutes her terror was so great that it turned her physically sick. Then, with an effort that was unchild-like in its determination – I think it was at that moment Emily wholly ceased to be a child – she recovered her self-control. She
would not
yield to fear – she set her teeth and clenched her trembling hands; she
would be
brave – sensible. That was only a commonplace Blair Water dog which had followed its owner – some rapscallion boy – into the gallery and got itself left behind. The thing had happened before. A flash of lightning showed her that the porch was empty. Evidently the dog had gone into the church. Emily decided that she would stay where she was. She had recovered from her panic, but she did not want to feel the sudden touch of a cold
nose or a hairy flank in the darkness. She could never forget the awfulness of the moment when she
had
touched the creature.

It must be all of twelve o’clock now – it had been ten when the meeting came out. The noise of the storm had for the most part died away. The drive and shriek of the wind came occasionally, but between its gusts there was a silence, broken only by the diminishing raindrops. Thunder still muttered faintly and lightning came at frequent intervals, but of a paler, gentler flame – not the rending glare that had seemed to wrap the very building in intolerable blue radiance, and scorch her eyes. Gradually her heart began to beat normally. The power of rational thought returned. She did not like her predicament, but she began to find dramatic possibilities in it. Oh, what a chapter for her diary – or her Jimmy-book – and, beyond it, for that novel she would write some day! It was a situation expressly shaped for the heroine – who must, of course, be rescued by the hero. Emily began constructing the scene – adding to it – intensifying it – hunting for words to express it. This was rather – interesting – after all. Only she wished she knew just where the dog was. How weirdly the pale lightning gleamed on the gravestones which she could see through the porch window opposite her! How strange the familiar valley beyond looked in the recurrent illuminations! How the wind moaned and sighed and complained – but it was her own Wind Woman again. The Wind Woman was one of her childish fancies that she had carried over into maturity, and it comforted her now, with a sense of ancient companionship. The wild riders of the storm were gone – her fairy friend had come back. Emily gave a sigh that was almost of contentment. The worst was over – and really, hadn’t she behaved pretty well? She began to feel quite self-respecting again.

All at once Emily knew she was not alone!

How she knew it she could not have told. She had heard nothing – seen nothing – felt nothing: and yet she knew, beyond all doubt or dispute, that there was a Presence in the darkness above her on the stairs.

She turned and looked up. It was horrible to look, but it was less horrible to feel that – Something – was in front of you than that it was behind you. She stared with wildly dilated eyes into the darkness, but she could see nothing. Then – she heard a low laugh above her – a laugh that almost made her heart stop beating – the very dreadful, inhuman laughter of the unsound in mind. She did not need the lightning flash that came then to tell her that Mad Mr. Morrison was somewhere on the stairs above her. But it came – she saw him – she felt as if she were sinking in some icy gulf of coldness – she could not even scream.

The picture of him, etched on her brain by the lightning, never left her. He was crouched five steps above her, with his grey head thrust forward. She saw the frenzied gleam of his eyes – the fang-like yellow teeth exposed in a horrible smile – the long, thin, blood-red hand outstretched towards her, almost touching her shoulder.

Sheer panic shattered Emily’s trance. She bounded to her feet with a piercing scream of terror.

“Teddy! Teddy! Save me!” she shrieked madly.

She did not know why she called for Teddy – she did not even realise that she
had
called him – she only remembered it afterwards, as one might recall the waking shriek in a nightmare – she only knew that she
must
have help – that she would die if that awful hand touched her.
It must not touch her
.

She made a mad spring down the steps, rushed into the church, and up the aisle. She must hide before the next flash came – but not in the Murray pew. He might look for her
there. She dived into one of the middle pews and crouched down in its corner on the floor. Her body was bathed in an ice-cold perspiration. She was wholly in the grip of uncontrollable terror. All she could think of was that it must not touch her – that blood-red hand of the mad old man.

Moments passed that seemed like years. Presently she heard footsteps – footsteps that came and went yet seemed to approach her slowly. Suddenly she knew what he was doing. He was going into every pew, not waiting for the lightning, to feel about for her. He
was
looking for her, then – she had heard that sometimes he followed young girls, thinking they were Annie. If he caught them he held them with one hand and stroked their hair and faces fondly with the other, mumbling foolish, senile endearments. He had never harmed any one, but he had never let any one go until she was rescued by some other person. It was said that Mary Paxton of Derry Pond had never been quite the same again: her nerves never recovered from the shock.

Emily knew that it was only a question of time before he would reach the pew where she crouched – feeling about with those hands! All that kept her senses in her frozen body was the thought that if she lost consciousness those hands would touch her – hold her – caress her. The next lightning flash showed him entering the adjoining pew. Emily sprang up and out and rushed to the other side of the church. She hid again: he would search her out, but she could again elude him: this might go on all night: a madman’s strength would outlast hers: at last she might fall exhausted and he would pounce on her.

For what seemed hours to Emily, this mad game of hide-and-seek lasted. It was in reality about half an hour. She was hardly a rational creature at all, any more than her demented pursuer. She was merely a crouching, springing, shrieking thing
of horror. Time after time he hunted her out with his cunning, implacable patience. The last time she was near one of the porch doors, and in desperation she sprang through it and slammed it in his face. With the last ounce of her strength she tried to hold the knob from turning in his grasp. And as she strove she heard – was she dreaming? – Teddy’s voice calling to her from the steps outside the outer door.

“Emily – Emily – are you there?”

She did not know how he had come – she did not wonder – she only knew he
was
there!

“Teddy, I’m locked in the church!” she shrieked – “and Mad Mr. Morrison is here – oh – quick – quick – save me – save me!”

“The key of the door is hanging up in there on a nail at the right side!” shouted Teddy. “Can you get it and unlock the door? If you can’t I’ll smash the porch window.”

The clouds broke at that moment and the porch was filled with moonlight. In it she saw plainly the big key, hanging high on the wall beside the front door. She dashed at it and caught it as Mad Mr. Morrison wrenched open the door and sprang into the porch, his dog behind him. Emily unlocked the outer door and stumbled out into Teddy’s arms just in time to elude that outstretched, blood-red hand. She heard Mad Mr. Morrison give a wild, eerie shriek of despair as she escaped him.

Sobbing, shaking, she clung to Teddy.

“Oh, Teddy, take me away – take me quick – oh, don’t let him touch me, Teddy – don’t let him touch me!”

Teddy swung her behind him and faced Mad Mr. Morrison on the stone step.

“How dare you frighten her so?” he demanded angrily.

Mad Mr. Morrison smiled deprecatingly in the moonlight.
All at once he was not wild or violent – only a heartbroken old man who sought his own.

“I want Annie,” he mumbled. “Where is Annie? I thought I had found her in there. I only wanted to find my beautiful Annie.”

“Annie isn’t here,” said Teddy, tightening his hold on Emily’s cold little hand.

“Can you tell me where Annie is?” entreated Mad Mr. Morrison, wistfully. “Can you tell me where my dark-haired Annie is?”

Teddy was furious with Mad Mr. Morrison for frightening Emily, but the old man’s piteous entreaty touched him – and the artist in him responded to the values of the picture presented against the background of the white, moonlit church. He thought he would like to paint Mad Mr. Morrison as he stood there, tall and gaunt, in his grey “duster” coat, with his long white hair and beard, and the ageless quest in his hollow, sunken eyes.

“No – no – I don’t know where she is,” he said gently “but I think you will find her sometime.”

Mad Mr. Morrison sighed.

“Oh, yes. Sometime I will overtake her. Come, my dog, we will seek her.”

Followed by his old black dog he went down the steps, across the green and down the long, wet, tree-shadowed road. So going, he passed out of Emily’s life. She never saw Mad Mr. Morrison again. But she looked after him understandingly, and forgave him. To himself he was not the repulsive old man he seemed to her: he was a gallant young lover seeking his lost and lovely bride. The pitiful beauty of his quest intrigued her, even in the shaking reaction from her hour of agony.

“Poor Mr. Morrison,” she sobbed, as Teddy half led, half carried her to one of the old flat gravestones at the side of the church.

They sat there until Emily recovered composure and managed to tell her tale – or the outlines of it. She felt she could never tell – perhaps not even write in a Jimmy-book – the whole of its racking horror.
That was
beyond words.

“And to think,” she sobbed, “that the key was there all the time. I never knew it.”

“Old Jacob Banks always locks the front door with its big key on the inside, and then hangs it up on that nail,” said Teddy. “He locks the choir door with a little key, which he takes home. He has always done that since the time, three years ago, when he lost the big key and was weeks before he found it.”