Authors: Neil M. Gunn
Second Sight (28 page)
“IâI should say Iâagree with Harry. Youâyou can hit a fellow with a marling spike, but you can't jolly well crumple him up with anything abstract. I mean, can you?”
While they were enjoying this, the door opened and Geoffrey appeared, still limping slightly. He was received with cheers and bowed his acknowledgements.
“Feeling all right again?” Lady Marway asked him in the casual friendly tone obviously meant to change the topic of conversation.
“Never better, thank you.” Geoffrey smiled all round.
“I think it was the fruit cake,” Joyce declared. “Did you have two slabs?”
“I'm afraid I did,” Geoffrey admitted.
“So did George. That explains it.”
“Explains what?” asked Geoffrey.
“Why George didn't go giddy. He belched.”
“Oh I say!” protested George.
“Yes. Right in the middle of a sentence. Oh terrific. And then instead of apologising for such disgusting behaviour, he roared with laughter.”
“I thought I heard his voice dominating the scene.” Geoffrey was enjoying the fun.
“Now, no more leg-pulls. I've had enough,” and George turned to Sir John.
But Joyce wasn't letting him off as easily as that. “Have you ever heard George on dead bodies?” she asked Geoffrey.
“On what?”
“Dead bodies. You know, the dead body in a thriller.”
“No, I can't say I have. But there's nothing I should like better. At least George would have the practical realistic point of view, and that should be refreshingâthese days.” He laughed loudly.
“Been pretty wet to-day, hasn't it, sir?” said George to Sir John.
They were all amused except Helen who replied, “Yes, did you notice the glass?”
“It fell a bump, didn't it?” said George.
“Yes. It's still going down. I've just tapped it.”
“Have you,” said George. “Rotten, what?”
There was a distant rumble of thunder.
“Ah, after that it may go up again. Do you think there's any chance?” Geoffrey asked Helen with mock seriousness.
She picked up a cushion.
“You don't like dead bodies?” he inquired in a loud confidential whisper.
She threw the cushion at him. “No, I don't. And I think you are all perfectly horrid and callous and disgusting.”
Geoffrey appealed to her: “But, Helen, surely you wouldn't think
me
disgusting as a dead body?”
“Geoffrey!” she exclaimed, with a touch of fear.
“Hush, child,” said Lady Marway. “Though I must say I think this talk on dead bodies has gone far enough.”
“But surely it's the case”, Geoffrey explained, “that the more one discusses a subject the more one gets rid of any fear of it? It's the dumb fear, the unexpressed emotion, that's so dreadful a burden. All the psychologists agree on that.”
“Possibly,” said Lady Marway. “But I am not quite sure that the psychologists understand everything.”
“Perhaps not everything,” Geoffrey admitted. “I had an interesting conversation with Maclean. I probed him about what happened when he was a boy. They used to gather in what he called a kailee-house or something like that. They would talk and gossip and sing and tell stories. Sometimes, he said, the ghost stories would be so terrifying that grown men would be afraid to go home in the dark. They believed in them.”
“Pure superstition, I suppose,” observed Harry.
Geoffrey met his eyes. “No. Just ghost stories.”
“The ceilidh-house was quite an institution in those days,” Sir John explained. “Their sort of school or college.”
“And a very good one, too,” said Lady Marway. “For work was done there, real work, like spinning and cloth-makingânot all talk.” She put aside her tapestry frame. “I must see about dinner.”
“One up for you!” declared Marjory. “Perhaps I can help,” and she went out with Lady Marway.
“What was your point exactly?” Harry asked Geoffrey.
“That they believed in ghostsâbut didn't investigate them.”
“Naturally.” Harry nodded.
“Naturally?”
“Do you investigate everything you believe in?”
“For the most part, yes,” replied Geoffrey.
“Oh, I don't.”
“You're telling us,” said Joyce, picking up a detective novel, for George's leadership would now be lost.
“I wonder how much of what we believe, we ever do investigate?” Helen asked. “All my education consisted in being told things. Andââ”
“Yes?” prompted her father.
“Well, the best, the most vivid things, I just happened on. I meanâlikeââ”
“Alick's fauna and flora,” suggested Geoffrey.
“Yes,” said Helen simply.
Geoffrey gave his short laugh. “You're an impressionist. You can hear things in the wind.” He paused and they heard the wind whine as if an outside door had opened. “Maclean said there would be stories about the sounds of wood being sawn for a coffin, before ever there was any coffin, of course; ghostly wood and ghostly saws; and ghostly rappings, too, foretelling a death, until you would get so worked up that on the way home if you heardââ” Three deliberate raps at the gunroom door interrupted him. There was a moment's silence, before Geoffrey finished, “You would be so worked up that you would react like George.” For George involuntarily started for the door before Geoffrey with a mocking gesture pulled him up. Sir John said, “That's Maclean's knock,” and looked at his watch.
“Well, about to-morrow?” Geoffrey asked.
“Well?” said Sir John, pausing, with a smile, “Feel quite fit?”
“Oh, I think so.” Geoffrey turned it over in his mind. “Only not the far beat this time.”
“We can fix that in the morning, I think.”
Sir John turned the knob and opened the door, saying, “Well, Maclean.” Then he stopped dead and stared straight before him. “Maclean!” he called. He went into the gun-room, where the bracket lamp was lit. The others crowded to the door. There was obviously no one in the gun-room. Sir John traversed it rapidly, opened the outside door, stood on the doorstep and peered around. The darkness had fallen very early. “Maclean!” he called again. Then he stepped back into the gun-room, and closed the door and wiped the rain from his hair. “That was rather remarkable. I could have sworn it was at that door.”
George was looking around at the walls, but there were neither full-length cupboards nor recesses.
As they re-entered the sitting-room, Geoffrey said, smiling, “I could have sworn it was at that door, too, but it just shows you you can't always trust your ear. Sound can travel in the most elusive way. You know how difficult it is to spot where a new sound is in a motor-car.”
“Rather!” said George. “I once had the gear-box taken adrift because of a rattle from the fan.”
“Must have been the outside door,” murmured Sir John. “Probably gone round to the kitchen, whoever it was.” Lady Marway and Marjory entered from the hall door. “Did you see Maclean about?” Sir John asked his wife.
“No,” said Lady Marway, looking at him and then at the others. “Why?”
“Nothing. It's all right. We thought we heard him knock.”
“I can see Helen is still doubtful.” Geoffrey laughed. “You see”, he explained to her, “that's the way it happens. You're all worked up to the sound of ghostly rappings, and then if a twig touches the window or an errand boy knocks at the wrong door!⦔
“But that was neither a twig nor an errand boy, and you know it,” she challenged him.
“Very well.” He nodded. “Let's investigate. Do you mind,” he said to Lady Marway, “if I ring?” He rang.
“But what actually happened?” Marjory asked, glancing from one to another.
“Oh, just that someone knocked,” Geoffrey explained to her. “And we assumed it was at that doorâsimply because we were expecting it there. Isn't that so, Sir John?”
“Yes,” said Sir John, with reserve. He watched the door open and Mairi appear. “Is Maclean about, Mairi?”
“No, sir. We haven't seen him yet to-night.”
“Did anyone call just now at the kitchen door?”
“No, sir.”
“We thought we heard someone knocking.”
“No, sir. We had no one.” She was obviously quite sincere.
“Is Alick about?” Geoffrey asked her suddenly.
“No, sir.”
They watched her face darken.
“Thanks, Mairi,” said Sir John.
As the door closed, Lady Marway spoke deliberately. “I really do think it is time I put my foot down. This is getting a bit too absurd. I feel that the peace of the house is deteriorating. And all over silly trifles like coffee cups and window curtains and so on. I do not mean to blame you, Harry, but there is at least one sense in which I think Geoffrey is right. Out of a vague uneasiness, we are working up a situation. Well, I think it is time we stopped it. If someone knocked at a door, then someone knocked. And I am now going to the kitchen to make sure there was no one knocking thereâwith whatever intention.”
Her definite manner had a distinct effect on everyone except Joyce, who said, as if inspired: “What if it was the front door?”
“Jove, yes!” said George. “Let's get a torch and do some spoor hunting outside. Shall we?”
“Right!” said Marjory; and with Joyce and George she followed Lady Marway from the room.
“That's an idea,” said Sir John thoughtfully. “If wet feet came in from outside they should have left a mark.”
“Now we're getting down to it,” observed Geoffrey confidently, as he followed Sir John into the gun-room.
Helen came close to Harry. “What do you make of it, Harry?”
“I don't know. But I have the feeling that it's a deliberate trick. I have the awful feeling that Geoffrey is playing a trick, the fool!”
“That's good enough anyway,” came Geoffrey's voice. “Let's ask Harry: he's an authority on ghosts.”
“I wonder if ghosts do leave wet footprints,” said Sir John, smiling, as he came in.
“Footprints?” echoed Helen.
“Quite clearly,” said Sir John. “Wet footprints from the outer door to the inner.”
“As the Scotch say,” observed Geoffrey to Harry, “whaur's yer ghost noo?”
“Are the Scotch supposed to say that?” inquired Harry.
“Well, anyhow, someone materially solid enteredâknockedâand had time to get away.”
Harry, still holding his eye, remarked: “So I supposed.”
“Oh you did? Good. Merely to clear away all dubiety, then, will you tell us if, in your experience, ghosts leave wet footprints?”
“It's a matter I have still to investigate,” Harry replied. “As for wet footprints in there, I seem to remember”âto Sir Johnâ“that you not only opened the outside door but went out on to the doorstep, which presumably would have been wet. You're sure the wet footprints are not your own?”
Involuntarily Sir John felt the sole of his right shoe. “I rememberâyesâbutââ” He went back into the gunroom, followed by Helen.
“Getting a kick out of it?” Harry challenged Geoffrey.
“Kick?”
“Don't be a blasted fool. I warn youâstop!”
“I seem to have got you properly going anyhow!” He laughed. “Another few days and you'd have been more neurotic than your stalker. Though I still doubt if he's anything more than cunning.”
“Trying to get your own back, flattering yourself you're doing it in the interests of science and not to soothe your own hurt vanity. You think I don't see through you?”
“Steady!” said Geoffrey, his whole expression narrowing vindictively.
“I'm sorry, Geoffrey.” Harry pulled himself together. “I really am concernedââ”
But Geoffrey interrupted him coldly: “I am only concerned about the difference between what is evidence and what is not, between reality and neurotic humbug. And if I could expose it by a child's trick, I would. Indeed a child's trick would be the most perfect medium.”
“Evidence,” said Harry with a shrug. “You affect to be moved only by evidence. You think you can put that over on me?”
“No,” said Geoffrey. “Even I could hardly hope to do that, for by your own admission you prefer to believe without investigation of any sort.”
“At least I am honest,” replied Harry. “You know quite well that nine-tenths of what we implicitly believe no one of us has ever investigated. How many thousands of specialists are concentrating on different branches of knowledge? And their results we acceptâbecause we mustâwithout investigation.”
“The mass may accept. Quite. Butââ”
“No, all of us. You, for example. What are the two most important things in the world to you? Your body and your mind. Well, have you ever done anatomy? Have you ever done mental research? Have you?”
“Where's the point?”
“You're hedging. You see the point. You have never done anatomyâyet you accept what the anatomist tells you about your blood stream and your glands and your liver and all the rest of it. I have never done astronomyâyet I accept the astronomer's tale about the dog star Sirius being so many billions of miles away. Well, this is my point. The folk here accepted the man with second sight as you accept the anatomist and I the astronomerâwithout investigation. They were satisfied with their results or evidence, as we are with ours.”
Marjory, Helen, Joyce, George, and Sir John came in from the gun-room while Harry was talking. Their hunt for a revealing spoor on the wet gravelled surface having proved fruitless, their attention was now drawn by the intensity in the argument proceeding between the two men. Geoffrey, who was facing them, appeared actually not to see them and, immediately Harry had finished, replied:
While they were enjoying this, the door opened and Geoffrey appeared, still limping slightly. He was received with cheers and bowed his acknowledgements.
“Feeling all right again?” Lady Marway asked him in the casual friendly tone obviously meant to change the topic of conversation.
“Never better, thank you.” Geoffrey smiled all round.
“I think it was the fruit cake,” Joyce declared. “Did you have two slabs?”
“I'm afraid I did,” Geoffrey admitted.
“So did George. That explains it.”
“Explains what?” asked Geoffrey.
“Why George didn't go giddy. He belched.”
“Oh I say!” protested George.
“Yes. Right in the middle of a sentence. Oh terrific. And then instead of apologising for such disgusting behaviour, he roared with laughter.”
“I thought I heard his voice dominating the scene.” Geoffrey was enjoying the fun.
“Now, no more leg-pulls. I've had enough,” and George turned to Sir John.
But Joyce wasn't letting him off as easily as that. “Have you ever heard George on dead bodies?” she asked Geoffrey.
“On what?”
“Dead bodies. You know, the dead body in a thriller.”
“No, I can't say I have. But there's nothing I should like better. At least George would have the practical realistic point of view, and that should be refreshingâthese days.” He laughed loudly.
“Been pretty wet to-day, hasn't it, sir?” said George to Sir John.
They were all amused except Helen who replied, “Yes, did you notice the glass?”
“It fell a bump, didn't it?” said George.
“Yes. It's still going down. I've just tapped it.”
“Have you,” said George. “Rotten, what?”
There was a distant rumble of thunder.
“Ah, after that it may go up again. Do you think there's any chance?” Geoffrey asked Helen with mock seriousness.
She picked up a cushion.
“You don't like dead bodies?” he inquired in a loud confidential whisper.
She threw the cushion at him. “No, I don't. And I think you are all perfectly horrid and callous and disgusting.”
Geoffrey appealed to her: “But, Helen, surely you wouldn't think
me
disgusting as a dead body?”
“Geoffrey!” she exclaimed, with a touch of fear.
“Hush, child,” said Lady Marway. “Though I must say I think this talk on dead bodies has gone far enough.”
“But surely it's the case”, Geoffrey explained, “that the more one discusses a subject the more one gets rid of any fear of it? It's the dumb fear, the unexpressed emotion, that's so dreadful a burden. All the psychologists agree on that.”
“Possibly,” said Lady Marway. “But I am not quite sure that the psychologists understand everything.”
“Perhaps not everything,” Geoffrey admitted. “I had an interesting conversation with Maclean. I probed him about what happened when he was a boy. They used to gather in what he called a kailee-house or something like that. They would talk and gossip and sing and tell stories. Sometimes, he said, the ghost stories would be so terrifying that grown men would be afraid to go home in the dark. They believed in them.”
“Pure superstition, I suppose,” observed Harry.
Geoffrey met his eyes. “No. Just ghost stories.”
“The ceilidh-house was quite an institution in those days,” Sir John explained. “Their sort of school or college.”
“And a very good one, too,” said Lady Marway. “For work was done there, real work, like spinning and cloth-makingânot all talk.” She put aside her tapestry frame. “I must see about dinner.”
“One up for you!” declared Marjory. “Perhaps I can help,” and she went out with Lady Marway.
“What was your point exactly?” Harry asked Geoffrey.
“That they believed in ghostsâbut didn't investigate them.”
“Naturally.” Harry nodded.
“Naturally?”
“Do you investigate everything you believe in?”
“For the most part, yes,” replied Geoffrey.
“Oh, I don't.”
“You're telling us,” said Joyce, picking up a detective novel, for George's leadership would now be lost.
“I wonder how much of what we believe, we ever do investigate?” Helen asked. “All my education consisted in being told things. Andââ”
“Yes?” prompted her father.
“Well, the best, the most vivid things, I just happened on. I meanâlikeââ”
“Alick's fauna and flora,” suggested Geoffrey.
“Yes,” said Helen simply.
Geoffrey gave his short laugh. “You're an impressionist. You can hear things in the wind.” He paused and they heard the wind whine as if an outside door had opened. “Maclean said there would be stories about the sounds of wood being sawn for a coffin, before ever there was any coffin, of course; ghostly wood and ghostly saws; and ghostly rappings, too, foretelling a death, until you would get so worked up that on the way home if you heardââ” Three deliberate raps at the gunroom door interrupted him. There was a moment's silence, before Geoffrey finished, “You would be so worked up that you would react like George.” For George involuntarily started for the door before Geoffrey with a mocking gesture pulled him up. Sir John said, “That's Maclean's knock,” and looked at his watch.
“Well, about to-morrow?” Geoffrey asked.
“Well?” said Sir John, pausing, with a smile, “Feel quite fit?”
“Oh, I think so.” Geoffrey turned it over in his mind. “Only not the far beat this time.”
“We can fix that in the morning, I think.”
Sir John turned the knob and opened the door, saying, “Well, Maclean.” Then he stopped dead and stared straight before him. “Maclean!” he called. He went into the gun-room, where the bracket lamp was lit. The others crowded to the door. There was obviously no one in the gun-room. Sir John traversed it rapidly, opened the outside door, stood on the doorstep and peered around. The darkness had fallen very early. “Maclean!” he called again. Then he stepped back into the gun-room, and closed the door and wiped the rain from his hair. “That was rather remarkable. I could have sworn it was at that door.”
George was looking around at the walls, but there were neither full-length cupboards nor recesses.
As they re-entered the sitting-room, Geoffrey said, smiling, “I could have sworn it was at that door, too, but it just shows you you can't always trust your ear. Sound can travel in the most elusive way. You know how difficult it is to spot where a new sound is in a motor-car.”
“Rather!” said George. “I once had the gear-box taken adrift because of a rattle from the fan.”
“Must have been the outside door,” murmured Sir John. “Probably gone round to the kitchen, whoever it was.” Lady Marway and Marjory entered from the hall door. “Did you see Maclean about?” Sir John asked his wife.
“No,” said Lady Marway, looking at him and then at the others. “Why?”
“Nothing. It's all right. We thought we heard him knock.”
“I can see Helen is still doubtful.” Geoffrey laughed. “You see”, he explained to her, “that's the way it happens. You're all worked up to the sound of ghostly rappings, and then if a twig touches the window or an errand boy knocks at the wrong door!⦔
“But that was neither a twig nor an errand boy, and you know it,” she challenged him.
“Very well.” He nodded. “Let's investigate. Do you mind,” he said to Lady Marway, “if I ring?” He rang.
“But what actually happened?” Marjory asked, glancing from one to another.
“Oh, just that someone knocked,” Geoffrey explained to her. “And we assumed it was at that doorâsimply because we were expecting it there. Isn't that so, Sir John?”
“Yes,” said Sir John, with reserve. He watched the door open and Mairi appear. “Is Maclean about, Mairi?”
“No, sir. We haven't seen him yet to-night.”
“Did anyone call just now at the kitchen door?”
“No, sir.”
“We thought we heard someone knocking.”
“No, sir. We had no one.” She was obviously quite sincere.
“Is Alick about?” Geoffrey asked her suddenly.
“No, sir.”
They watched her face darken.
“Thanks, Mairi,” said Sir John.
As the door closed, Lady Marway spoke deliberately. “I really do think it is time I put my foot down. This is getting a bit too absurd. I feel that the peace of the house is deteriorating. And all over silly trifles like coffee cups and window curtains and so on. I do not mean to blame you, Harry, but there is at least one sense in which I think Geoffrey is right. Out of a vague uneasiness, we are working up a situation. Well, I think it is time we stopped it. If someone knocked at a door, then someone knocked. And I am now going to the kitchen to make sure there was no one knocking thereâwith whatever intention.”
Her definite manner had a distinct effect on everyone except Joyce, who said, as if inspired: “What if it was the front door?”
“Jove, yes!” said George. “Let's get a torch and do some spoor hunting outside. Shall we?”
“Right!” said Marjory; and with Joyce and George she followed Lady Marway from the room.
“That's an idea,” said Sir John thoughtfully. “If wet feet came in from outside they should have left a mark.”
“Now we're getting down to it,” observed Geoffrey confidently, as he followed Sir John into the gun-room.
Helen came close to Harry. “What do you make of it, Harry?”
“I don't know. But I have the feeling that it's a deliberate trick. I have the awful feeling that Geoffrey is playing a trick, the fool!”
“That's good enough anyway,” came Geoffrey's voice. “Let's ask Harry: he's an authority on ghosts.”
“I wonder if ghosts do leave wet footprints,” said Sir John, smiling, as he came in.
“Footprints?” echoed Helen.
“Quite clearly,” said Sir John. “Wet footprints from the outer door to the inner.”
“As the Scotch say,” observed Geoffrey to Harry, “whaur's yer ghost noo?”
“Are the Scotch supposed to say that?” inquired Harry.
“Well, anyhow, someone materially solid enteredâknockedâand had time to get away.”
Harry, still holding his eye, remarked: “So I supposed.”
“Oh you did? Good. Merely to clear away all dubiety, then, will you tell us if, in your experience, ghosts leave wet footprints?”
“It's a matter I have still to investigate,” Harry replied. “As for wet footprints in there, I seem to remember”âto Sir Johnâ“that you not only opened the outside door but went out on to the doorstep, which presumably would have been wet. You're sure the wet footprints are not your own?”
Involuntarily Sir John felt the sole of his right shoe. “I rememberâyesâbutââ” He went back into the gunroom, followed by Helen.
“Getting a kick out of it?” Harry challenged Geoffrey.
“Kick?”
“Don't be a blasted fool. I warn youâstop!”
“I seem to have got you properly going anyhow!” He laughed. “Another few days and you'd have been more neurotic than your stalker. Though I still doubt if he's anything more than cunning.”
“Trying to get your own back, flattering yourself you're doing it in the interests of science and not to soothe your own hurt vanity. You think I don't see through you?”
“Steady!” said Geoffrey, his whole expression narrowing vindictively.
“I'm sorry, Geoffrey.” Harry pulled himself together. “I really am concernedââ”
But Geoffrey interrupted him coldly: “I am only concerned about the difference between what is evidence and what is not, between reality and neurotic humbug. And if I could expose it by a child's trick, I would. Indeed a child's trick would be the most perfect medium.”
“Evidence,” said Harry with a shrug. “You affect to be moved only by evidence. You think you can put that over on me?”
“No,” said Geoffrey. “Even I could hardly hope to do that, for by your own admission you prefer to believe without investigation of any sort.”
“At least I am honest,” replied Harry. “You know quite well that nine-tenths of what we implicitly believe no one of us has ever investigated. How many thousands of specialists are concentrating on different branches of knowledge? And their results we acceptâbecause we mustâwithout investigation.”
“The mass may accept. Quite. Butââ”
“No, all of us. You, for example. What are the two most important things in the world to you? Your body and your mind. Well, have you ever done anatomy? Have you ever done mental research? Have you?”
“Where's the point?”
“You're hedging. You see the point. You have never done anatomyâyet you accept what the anatomist tells you about your blood stream and your glands and your liver and all the rest of it. I have never done astronomyâyet I accept the astronomer's tale about the dog star Sirius being so many billions of miles away. Well, this is my point. The folk here accepted the man with second sight as you accept the anatomist and I the astronomerâwithout investigation. They were satisfied with their results or evidence, as we are with ours.”
Marjory, Helen, Joyce, George, and Sir John came in from the gun-room while Harry was talking. Their hunt for a revealing spoor on the wet gravelled surface having proved fruitless, their attention was now drawn by the intensity in the argument proceeding between the two men. Geoffrey, who was facing them, appeared actually not to see them and, immediately Harry had finished, replied:
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