The Uncanny House

CHAPTER I EGGY writes

“DEAREST JOAN,

“Rejoice with me for we have found a house! I was in the last stage of despair and had begun to think we should have to take to a tent, or a caravan. Percy didn’t worry—you know he never worries about anything—but it was really getting serious, for one can’t take four children to an hotel, or rooms, especially if one isn’t a millionaire. We have to get out of this house in three months, and there seemed no prospect of finding another. We've been to see about umpteen hundred all over the country, because it doesn’t matter to Perks where he lives; but they were all either beyond our limit in price or absolutely impossible. We saw this one advertised in Country Life—you know the sort of dream palace they portray—and sighed to think it would probably be priced at double what we could afford. But the tag ‘must be sold, even at a nominal price’ gave us a ray of hope and we went to see it the other day.

“My dear, we got it dirt cheap, and it is a bargain. Not ideal, or all my fancy painted for a house to live in, but well built, ‘commodious,’ which means plenty of good-sized rooms, nice kitchens and offices, a pleasant well-lighted room for Perks’ studio, and so forth. Curiously enough nobody seemed to want it, and I must say the neighbourhood is not too attractive. It is on the outskirts of a country town with a few other villas scattered near. ‘Villas!’ I hear you say contemptuously. Oh yes, it’s a villa right enough; you couldn’t call it anything else honestly, though it was labelled ‘a country house’ in the advertisement. And it’s about as commonplace as they make ’em. But it’s a house, a home, and for that I am truly thankful.

“The only fly in the ointment is that there is no gas or electric light laid on—I expect that partly accounts for its cheapness—but we got used to oil in the last house we had, and we can have electricity put in as soon as we've got over the first expense. I always think there’s something rather enchanting about lamps and candles; they shed such a

THE UNCANNY HOUSE i soft, romantic light; and fortunately I kept our Perfection cooker when we came here. It’s cheaper than a gas one. Anyhow I mean to make the best of things, and there’s a lovely big garden for the children to play in.

“The late owner, I am told, was a curmudgeon and much disliked by his neighbours because of the menagerie he kept, animals that were a continual annoyance to everybody near; goats and pigs that filled the ambient air with poisonous odours; dogs that barked incessantly day and night. No amount of threatening or persuasion had any effect on him; he was quite impervious to entreaty and, from all accounts, a little mad. For this his house was known in the neighbourhood as ‘Hell Corner,’ but its proper name is ‘The Beeches,’ from two fine’ ones in the garden.

“Well, I am grateful to the old boy for dying, anyhow, and for dying without a will, which is the probable cause of the house being thrown on the market and sold at a reasonable price. He might have left it to a sister’s cousin’s aunt on condition that she lived in it! But the nearest of kin is a bachelor cousin who has an estate of his own somewhere; and doesn’t want it. So, praise Allah! we get it, and shall move in with all possible despatch. It must be redecorated (you never saw such wall-papers in your life!) but that ought not to take long. The children are wildly excited at the thought of going to live in the country, which they picture as a sort of Noah’s Ark land, full of fascinating animals. Unfortunately for them, the goats have been sold and the dogs despatched. The latter were so savage with being always chained that nobody dared go near them.

“No more now, old thing. Let me hear from you soon and I[’ll tell you how we go on. We are going to the sale next week, to see if we can pick up any carpets, etc., cheap.

“Yours, “PEGGY.

“P.S.—By the way, I believe the legatee cousin lives in your part of the world. His name is the same—Barker. Do you know anything of hime”

Joan replies:

“Hearty congratulations, old dear! I’m so glad you’ve found a house at last. May it prove a source of comfort and joy for many years to come, even if it ts a villa, and commonplace. The old houses that look so enthralling in advertisements are often unsatisfactory to live in, dark and inconvenient and insanitary. But however ordinary it is, my dear, I’m sure you'll beautify it with your fine taste and Percy’s help. I don’t like the name ‘Hell Corner’ for you. You’re too psychic and susceptible to suggestion. You'll be dreaming of demons and seeing them in the shadows! Don’t I know you well, sweet Peg? But now that the ‘curmudgeon’ has departed this life, with all his sins upon him, no doubt the name will die out, and you will find the place a fairyland in which your own little sprites will revel. Bless them, and give them a hug all round from Aunty Joan. :

“To I know Daniel Barker? Just don’t ‘I! Why, he’s our landlord and the most grasping old heathen who ever skinned a flint! He has put our rent up and up, on the flimsiest pretexts, till we are in despair, and won’t do a thing to the house, which is literally rotting. He never gives a penny away and is cordially hated by everybody—a regular Scrooge. What a shame it is such hogs should inherit fat legacies! And what fools people are not to make wills! Did your old boy die suddenly? He couldn’t have left his money to anyone who needed it less, or who would do less good with it, than old Dan Barker. He ought to live in ‘Hell Corner’ if anyone did. No doubt he will before long—not in your house, but down below!”

CHAPTER II HE family of Dacre consisted of Percy

husband and father, an illustrator of books and magazines with a small private income; Margaret, his wife; Gilbert, known as Gib, their eldest son, aged seven; Katherine, known as K., their eldest daughter, aged five; Felicia, known as Fliss, their second daughter, aged three and a half; and Hereward Percy, known as Billikin or the Hobgoblin, aged one year and ten months. They had a young nurse named Rosamond Joyce Boggs, known as Nanny, and a general servant of somewhat riper years, named Irene Melisande, but known as Cook, or Cookie. She preferred this title of honour to any other, as suggesting the chef of the establishment, and giving her higher standard in domestic service than that she actually possessed. A _ parlourmaid, housemaid, and “tweenie” were thereby implied, whereas she filled all these posts in her own discreet and highly capable person. ‘Both maidens adored the children and had a certain affection for Percy and Peggy, who gave them every satisfaction.

II

They were a good-looking young couple. Percy was sufficiently tall, slender, darkish, and serene-looking, rarely out of temper, and fond of talking. Peggy was small, goldenhaired, pretty, and animated; somewhat highly strung and nervous, looking more delicate than she really was, and also much younger, for she was thirty-four and might have been taken for twenty-four. They were instantly noted as strangers at the sale of furniture to which they came, and were regarded with much interest as the new owners and tenants of The Beeches. They had motored seventy miles that morning, rising at six o’clock to do so, but both looked fresh and smart, with the indefinable London air about them.

It did not take Peggy long to decide what she would like to buy and what she wouldn’t have as a gift. The early Victorian pictures and furniture came under the last category, and she declared that, sooner than live with any one of them she would “die in a ditch.” But there was one carpet and a dinner service she wanted, with some linen sheets and thick blankets, some glass, some brooms and brushes and saucepans and, quite new, rustless knives. All those Perks must bid for and—yes, certainly, an old worked pole-screen of quaint design, a duck of a thing that she knew at a glance was valuable. She must have that, whatever it fetched. It would go so well with their Jacobean chairs and other antiques that she and Percy had collected. He demurred. It was not a necessity, he said, and they couldn’t afford just now to indulge in luxuries. But Peggy declared that she would rather go without the necessities than not have this treasure; adding: “One always wants useless things most. Whoever longed for an umbrella or a strong pair of boots?”

Others, apparently, shared her desire for the fire-screen, and the bidding for it ran high. With a red spot on either cheek Peggy took the matter out of her husband’s hands and ran it up until opponents, one by one, gave in.

“Fiaven’t I been a foolr” she whispered to Percy, and his “Rather!” was a dash of cold water.

“T had to have it, Perks.”

“So I observe.”

“Are you phere

“Furiously.”

She glanced at him out of the corners of her eye and glimpsed the twinkle in his own.

“We can do without other things,” she murmured.

“Exactly. A carpet, for instance. Bare boards are much healthier.”

“T’d rather eat on the floor than lose that lovely thing. I’m sure it’s going to bring us luck. Something inside me tells me so.”

“Something inside you always does find an excuse for your most shameless actions,” he said, imperturbably. “You do humbug your little self, don’t your”

“Yes, but not you,” she retorted quickly, and they both laughed. It was true she could never humbug Percy. His love was great but by no means blind. They were standing just outside the door of the room where the selling was going on when this short dialogue took place.

“Can’t you really afford the carpet now,” she said, anxiously.

“Not if anyone else wants it as badly as you did the screen,” he said. “I’ve settled my price, and if it fetches more we'll have to buy a bit of cocoanut matting instead—that’s all. One can’t have everything in this world.”

However, they did get the carpet and the dinner service, the mops and brooms and blankets and various other things, including a rather charming pseudo-Sheraton writingtable, which Peggy swore was a real antique and felt sure it had a secret drawer in which she should find something wonderful. Percy declared that it had been made last year and was a clever fake, but he bought it all the same, at a moderate price. After all, he told himself, if it gave Peggy so much pleasure, what did it matter whether it was genuine or a fake? He didn’t care. Beauty was beauty to Percy; fashion and age were of no account. Peggy’s whims were. He forked out willingly and had his reward in her childish joy. After all, he told himself, he had got the house much cheaper than he had expected.

They were standing together by a table in a room that looked on a pretty little garden pleasance, with a fountain in the middle of a round pool, and Percy was saying what a lovely mess the children would get themselves into playing there, when Peggy suddenly shivered through her slender body and ejaculated “Ugh!” He looked round and saw that she had turned pale.

“Only a goose walking over my grave,” she replied with a grimace. “I had a queer sensation come over me, as if—as if—oh, you'll only laugh.”

She paused.

“No—I won’t. As if—what?”

“As if something icy cold had brushed past me.”

“You’re tired, my dear, and hungry. So am I, after that hurried lunch. We'll go back to the hotel and have a bursting tea. Come along. There’s nothing: else we want, is theres”

A voice behind broke into their conversation and both paused involuntarily.

“Yes, it does seem dreadful, when we know how he would have hated it—having a lot of people in his house, poking his things about. Hardly anybody has ever seen the inside of it before. The blinds were always kept down in front of the house, you know, and every door locked and bolted. Have you seen the key basket? About two dozen keys, and it weighs a ton!” said the voice, and another took up the tale.

“Talk about turning in one’s grave. I should think he must. Poor old thing! That’s if he knows. It is to be hoped he doesn’t.”

“T don’t feel sorry for him a bit,” said the first voice. “Look how he treated that poor, faithful woman who worked for him over twenty years and gave up everything, and every friend, she had in the world to make him comfortable. She must have led a dull, miserable life here, alone all day while he was at business or away. He used to go to London a lot. How beautifully she kept the house, too, not even a speck of dust under the carpets—did you notice? And then, after promising to provide for her, never leaving her a penny. And’she’s not the only one. The gardener, Judkins, and the other men who worked for him are very bitter about it. They say he gave them low wages, promising them they would get good legacies when he died. I call it really criminal of him not to make a will after telling them that—cheating the poor things.”

“T suppose he didn’t know he was going to die.”

“Then he was a fool, as well as a knave! Does any man live for ever? And he was over seventy.”

“They say he wasn’t all there—very odd and queer in his ways. That might partly account for it. He certainly didn’t behave like a sane man, from all I’ve heard; keeping dogs always chained up, like wild beasts, and never letting anyone inside his house. Would any man in his senses . . .”

The voices trailed off as the speakers went on to another room. Peggy and her husband had pretended to look at some old books on the table while they listened to this interesting conversation. They were making their way out when they heard a girl say with a light laugh: “Brrh! there’s a dreary sort of feeling about this house somehow. I don’t think I’d like to live here, would your I’m sure I should be atways seeing the old man grinning at me through the windows.”

“Oh, don’t, Nell. You give me the creeps,” said another voice, and these, too, passed the door. Peggy clutched Percy’s arm convulsively.

“Did you hear those people? Oh, Perks, I can’t live here—I wish we hadn’t bought the house.”

“Because a lot of drivelling women talk piffle! Don’t be an ass, Peg. We shall be as jolly as dogs here, you'll see. ‘Come on.”

“Those poor chained brutes couldn’t have been very jolly!”

“Well, we shan’t be chained, my dear. Let’s get out of this stuffy place.”

“T suppose I am rather an ass,” said Peggy reflectively, as they walked down the short drive to the gate.

“A superlative one,” he declared cheerfully. “And why not? The ass is a useful animal with lots of character.”

THE UNCANNY HOUSE 19 “T don’t see how one could love an ass.” “Ho! don’t your Well, I do.”

She. began to giggle. “You are the limit, Perks.”

“T am that—and more,” said Perks

Chapter III

T was a soaking day in the middle of September when Percy and Peggy Dacre entered their new home at Leatheringham. They had hoped to occupy it at least a month earlier, but, in such cases, man proposes and labour disposes. We all know what happens to houses whose landlords or tenants desire to have them redecorated. The work is promised to be completed by a certain date, but when that date arrives the work is hardly begun. Far be it from the writer of this veracious chronicle to lay any blame on anybody in particular. It may be the master decorator’s fault; it may be the men’s. We know the latter have an annoying little habit of beginning a job and then going off somewhere to finish another. ‘“Variety’s the spice of life,” and they may find it monotonous to stick at one too long. Anyhow, there it is, and fine lessons in patience are the result thereof. Mr.and Mrs.Dacre chafed exceedingly,but some people may consider they were lucky in getting into their new home by September.

The loads of furniture had mostly been discharged by the time they arrived by car. A van stood in the road outside the house as they drew up, and two men were hauling unshapely objects out of it, in the rain, bearing a certain amount of gravel and mother earth with them from the garden into the house as they did so.

They had brought Cookie with them, and she sniffed audibly at first sight of the place, but was reassured when she saw the large light kitchen, with its window looking out upon the garden. She appreciated, also, the nice scullery, with its copper and drying apparatus, and the big larder and pantry. Peggy had broken to her, as gently as possible, the regrettable absence of a gascooker, to which she had been accustomed, so she was spared that shock to her nerves. A char-lady, who had been recommended to Mrs. Dacre by the auctioneer who had sold them the house, had prepared a good fire in the Gargantuan kitchener, all polished up to distraction, and also in one of the receptionrooms and a bedroom; so the place, in spite of its chaos, did not look too dreary.

They had not, of course, brought the children, who were to be fetched, with Nanny, as*soon as the new abode was prepared to receive them. A friend was keeping house in the meantime. Their absence did not tend to raise the spirits of the young couple, who were rarely parted from their small family and hated to have them out of their sight. But they had no time to mope, for there was much to do before darkness set in, and they were very busy till six o’clock, the time fixed for their evening meal. They had lunched on their way and had only a cup of tea when they got in; so they were ravenous, as well as very tired, when they sat down, in the kitchen, to a scratch meal of tinned tongue, eggs, bread and butter, and tea, which was all Cookie could provide for them. They pronounced it, by the way, the most delicious, satisfying, and enjoyable repast they had ever eaten!

There was very little they could do after dark, for they were not used to the comparatively dim light of lamps, so could not put down carpets, hang pictures and curtains, or do any of the hundred and one things necessary to the furnishing of a house. They could only go on unpacking certain precious pieces of furniture that had been wrapped round with straw and sacking—fix up more comforts in the bedrooms for themselves and Cookie, and stow away the contents of a packing-case full of household linen in the hot cupboard by the bathroom.

By the time that was done Peggy began to feel very worn out and depressed. The gloom of the house; the moaning of wind and continuous beat of rain on the creepers outside; the strange shadows thrown by the small oil-lamp they worked by, all preyed on her mind and gave her an eerie feeling of boding ill-fortune. Percy, who, although an artist, had nothing of the ‘artistic temperament,’ was unperturbed as usual, and seemed to regard everything annoying or inconvenient as part of the picnic—he called it a ‘picnic. When he had done as much work as he wanted to do, he just wandered about, with his pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, making whimsical comments upon everything and chaffing Peggy for getting heated and worried.

“You're a beast, Perks,” she exclaimed, after one of his gibs. “You always laugh at me. But I don’t care what you say. [I feel sure something horrid is going to happen. Probably the children have caught measles. I heard that Bobby Baines fell with them the day after that party they went to. And if so, we shan’t get them here for weeks and weeks.”

“Well, they haven’t got measles yet. Give ’em a chance.”

“Just lend a hand with this chest of drawers, lazy-bones. I wonder which room the old boy slept in,” Peggy switched off, as they pushed the chest into the place she designed for it. “I hope it wasn’t this one.”

“Ssh!” he said, looking round mysteriously, and speaking in a creepy whisper: “Don’t let him hear you speak of him so disrespectfully.”

“Oh, be quiet, Perks! Do you want to make me screamP You always scoff, but you'll see :

“T don’t mind what J see,” he said, “as long as you don’t see anything. I’m not afraid of spooks. Let ’em all come! What a filthy state we’re in, aren’t we? T think I’) have a bath.”

“No you don’t,” said Peggy, with emphasis. “I’m not going to be left alone a minute. If you have a bath, I'll sit in the bathroom.”

“YT don’t mind. There’s no false modesty about me,” he observed blandly.

But he did not take his bath then, and they went down to the room they had decided to make their morning-room, as it faced east and looked on the pretty little fountain court

While they had been upstairs Cookie and Mrs. Tubb had made it habitable, with two easy chairs, a bright lamp, and big fire. There was no carpet down yet, but they had found a Persian rug and laid it down by the fire. It looked cosy.

“That Cookie of ours is a pearl of great price,” remarked Percy, as he stretched his tired legs to the blaze. “By the way, Peg, who thought of the oil? I suppose it was the char-lady. I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Oh, didn’t I?” said Peggy, making a face at him. Then she laughed, for of course she hadn’t thought about the oil. “I’m afraid you don’t think I’m a pearl of great price.”

“Ten a penny, more likely! But one can’t have everything, and you have golden hair and onyx eyes and a pearly skin and a ruby mouth, so I must fain be content.”

“Go to! You know perfectly well I’m a miracle among housewives and think of your every comfort. Say, Perks, when can we get electric light in? How long will it taker”

“Star of my soul, haven’t I told you it has to be brought two miles and will cost a fortune. Now do be a decent fellow and don’t worry your poor bread-winner for impossibilities. Do you want to see him in the Bankruptcy Court?”

“Tt would be a saving in the end, Perks.”

“T don’t think!”

“Tt would. It would save doctor’s bills. The children will be always tumbling downstairs, and I shall have a nervous fever.”

“Then you will go to the hospital—free ward.”

“Don’t be a beast. You must work a little harder and send out things—or charge more.”

“Tf I charged half as much for my drawings I could sell twice as many!” He chuckled over this quotation from Punch. “All in good time, my Blessing. We’ll have electric light when I am appreciated at my true worth and all the editors and advertisers in the world are at my feet.”

“They would be now if they only knew what was good,” said Peggy, who had immense faith in her husband’s talent.

“They never do, my dear. They needs must love the lowest when they see it. But no matter. A day will come when they shall hear me—I mean, see me, in posters a mile high beautifying the landscape from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s. I’ve an idea for one now—a rapturous Robinson Crusoe, of gigantic size, finding a footprint on his desert island of the Matchless Corn-curing Shoe. JI think of turning my talent to advertisements altogether, Peg, and chucking the other work. It will pay me better, and when a man has a wife clamouring for - electric extravagances and so forth, he must prostitute his genius in order to——”

He was not permitted to finish the sentence. The clamouring wife was at that instant on his knees, with one hand over his slanderous mouth and the other rumpling his curly dark hair. And the discussion came to an end.

CHAPTER IV HE next few days were spent in a hectic

muddle. Cookie came to Peggy every hour of the day with the enquiry: “I s’pose you don’t remember, mum, where we packed —so-and-sor” And Peggy’s invariable answer was, “I really don’t, Cookie.” Or it would be Peggy who asked the question and received the same reply. She and Cookie had packed most of the small things, china, glass, silver, linen, etc., not trusting them to the men who were ready to undertake this as part of their job, and the result was chaos, as, upon arrival, their minds seemed blank on the subject. However, they found everything in time, and got the house into some kind of order.

A little room that had once been a conservatory, with a glass roof, had been converted by the late owner into a place where he kept stores during the Great War, his nervous soul being consumed by the dread of starvation. On discovery he had had to pay rather heavily for this infringement of regulations and the room had been since disused. It was ideal as a studio for Percy, and when a thick felt covering had been laid on the tessellated floor, and a marvellously heat-dispelling oil stove had been found for a corner, it was not too comfortless. Not that Percy demanded much in the way of comfort. He was, perhaps, the most easily-pleased man in this respect the world has ever known; but he could not, of course, draw with frozen fingers. —The room led out of the morning-room, where a fire was always kept burning, and, with the door open between, shed some of its warmth into the other. On sunny days the glass roof gave it the temperature of a conservatory.

There were, besides, two big rooms for dining-room and drawing-room, but these did not come into everyday use until the house was finished and everything normal.

Peggy’s prognostication about the measles was not fulfilled. They received good news of the children’s health and arranged for them to come in less than a week after entering the new home. But the night before Percy was to fetch them something happened.

Percy went out to post a letter at a pillarbox standing at the end of the road, and

When he came back he found Peggy standing in the doorway. She ran out to meet him, as he came through the gate and up the circular carriage drive.

“Oh, what a long time you’ve been!” she cried. “Did you hear the dogs?”

“What dogs?” he asked, adding hastily: “Oh, those; yes, of course I did. Who wouldn’t? They are at that big house round the corner. I should say an Airedale by the bark, or two.”

“Perks, you know they have only lap-dogs at the corner house. Besides =

“Probably got a visitor. Dogs hate strange houses, you know. I think we must have another dog, Peg, and give our neighbours a bit of their own back.”

“Oh, no, Percy, I couldn’t—after poor darling Micky.”

Her voice broke. Micky had been their Irish terrier, deeply beloved and recently defunct. They had decided they couldn’t bear to have another in his place.

Peggy’s fears were allayed as soon as Percy said he had heard the barking, though a small suspicion lurked in her mind as to the validity of his suggestion that an Airedale, or other deep-mouthed hound, was visiting at the corner house. She did not suspect the truth, that Percy had heard no barking .

whatever, and his unveracious statement was due to a quick perception of her superstitious fears. He had heard her say, more than once, that it would not surprise her if the ghosts of those poor murdered dogs gave tongue, and when he saw her white face and _ terrorstricken eyes at the door, jumped to a conclusion. She fancied she had heard them. Percy gave his wife credit for sufficient imagination to create bogies and left it at that. His faith in things unseen might have been represented by a cipher. The only way to quash her terrors was to pretend he had heard dogs at the corner house, so, like a good comforting husband, mindful only of his wife’s welfare, he lied cheerfully and decisively.

It was silent enough now, as they went into the drawing-room and sat down again by the fire. Not a sound disturbed the stillness, save the steady drip of rain on the creepers outside and an occasional gust of wind against the windows. It was a very wet autumn that year, and had rained, on and off, nearly the whole week. They found the silence rather oppressive—at least Peggy did. Percy was rarely oppressed, or depressed, by anything. They had come from town and were not yet used to country quiet. Even in the village home they had occupied some years previously, they heard the whistles and shunting of trains not far off; the talk of labourers dragging heavy boots on the road outside; the lowing of bereaved cows and other country noises. But here, well outside the town and not on a main road, an occasional motor-car passing, or a cock crowing, was all they ever heard at night.