



Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Cortesi and PG Distributed Proofreaders




THE DAMNED

Algernon Blackwood

1914



Chapter I


"I'm over forty, Frances, and rather set in my ways," I said
good-naturedly, ready to yield if she insisted that our going together
on the visit involved her happiness. "My work is rather heavy just now
too, as you know. The question is, could I work there--with a lot of
unassorted people in the house?" "Mabel doesn't mention any other people, Bill," was my sister's
rejoinder. "I gather she's alone--as well as lonely." By the way she looked sideways out of the window at nothing, it was
obvious she was disappointed, but to my surprise she did not urge the
point; and as I glanced at Mrs. Franklyn's invitation lying upon her
sloping lap, the neat, childish handwriting conjured up a mental picture
of the banker's widow, with her timid, insignificant personality, her
pale grey eyes and her expression as of a backward child. I thought,
too, of the roomy country mansion her late husband had altered to suit
his particular needs, and of my visit to it a few years ago when its
barren spaciousness suggested a wing of Kensington Museum fitted up
temporarily as a place to eat and sleep in. Comparing it mentally with
the poky Chelsea flat where I and my sister kept impecunious house, I
realized other points as well. Unworthy details flashed across me to
entice: the fine library, the organ, the quiet work-room I should have,
perfect service, the delicious cup of early tea, and hot baths at any
moment of the day--without a geyser! "It's a longish visit, a month--isn't it?" I hedged, smiling at the
details that seduced me, and ashamed of my man's selfishness, yet
knowing that Frances expected it of me. "There are points about it, I
admit. If you're set on my going with you, I could manage it all right." I spoke at length in this way because my sister made no answer. I saw
her tired eyes gazing into the dreariness of Oakley Street and felt a
pang strike through me. After a pause, in which again she said no word,
I added: "So, when you write the letter, you might hint, perhaps, that I
usually work all the morning, and--er--am not a very lively visitor! Then she'll understand, you see." And I half-rose to return to my
diminutive study, where I was slaving, just then, at an absorbing
article on Comparative Aesthetic Values in the Blind and Deaf. But Frances did not move. She kept her grey eyes upon Oakley Street
where the evening mist from the river drew mournful perspectives into
view. It was late October. We heard the omnibuses thundering across the
bridge. The monotony of that broad, characterless street seemed more
than usually depressing. Even in June sunshine it was dead, but with
autumn its melancholy soaked into every house between King's Road and
the Embankment. It washed thought into the past, instead of inviting it
hopefully towards the future. For me, its easy width was an avenue
through which nameless slums across the river sent creeping messages of
depression, and I always regarded it as Winter's main entrance into
London--fog, slush, gloom trooped down it every November, waving their
forbidding banners till March came to rout them. Its one claim upon my love was that the south wind swept sometimes
unobstructed up it, soft with suggestions of the sea. These lugubrious
thoughts I naturally kept to myself, though I never ceased to regret the
little flat whose cheapness had seduced us. Now, as I watched my
sister's impassive face, I realized that perhaps she, too, felt as I
felt, yet, brave woman, without betraying it. "And, look here, Fanny," I said, putting a hand upon her shoulder as I
crossed the room, "it would be the very thing for you. You're worn out
with catering and housekeeping. Mabel is your oldest friend, besides,
and you've hardly seen her since he died--"

"She's been abroad for a year, Bill, and only just came back," my sister
interposed. "She came back rather unexpectedly, though I never thought
she would go there to live--" She stopped abruptly. Clearly, she was
only speaking half her mind. "Probably," she went on, "Mabel wants to
pick up old links again." "Naturally," I put in, "yourself chief among them." The veiled reference
to the house I let pass. It involved discussing the dead man for one thing. "I feel I ought to go anyhow," she resumed, "and of course it would be
jollier if you came too. You'd get in such a muddle here by yourself,
and eat wrong things, and forget to air the rooms, and--oh, everything!" She looked up laughing. "Only," she added, "there's the British
Museum--?" "But there's a big library there," I answered, "and all the books of
reference I could possibly want. It was of you I was thinking. You could
take up your painting again; you always sell half of what you paint. It
would be a splendid rest too, and Sussex is a jolly country to walk in. By all means, Fanny, I advise--"

Our eyes met, as I stammered in my attempts to avoid expressing the
thought that hid in both our minds. My sister had a weakness for
dabbling in the various "new" theories of the day, and Mabel, who before
her marriage had belonged to foolish societies for investigating the
future life to the neglect of the present one, had fostered this
undesirable tendency. Her amiable, impressionable temperament was open
to every psychic wind that blew. I deplored, detested the whole
business. But even more than this I abhorred the later influence that
Mr. Franklyn had steeped his wife in, capturing her body and soul in his
somber doctrines. I had dreaded lest my sister also might be caught. "Now that she is alone again--"

I stopped short. Our eyes now made pretence impossible, for the truth
had slipped out inevitably, stupidly, although unexpressed in definite
language. We laughed, turning our faces a moment to look at other things
in the room. Frances picked up a book and examined its cover as though
she had made an important discovery, while I took my case out and lit a
cigarette I did not want to smoke. We left the matter there. I went out
of the room before further explanation could cause tension. Disagreements grow into discord from such tiny things--wrong adjectives,
or a chance inflection of the voice. Frances had a right to her views of
life as much as I had. At least, I reflected comfortably, we had
separated upon an agreement this time, recognized mutually, though not
actually stated. And this point of meeting was, oddly enough, our way of regarding some
one who was dead. For we had both disliked the husband with a great dislike, and during
his three years' married life had only been to the house once--for a
weekend visit; arriving late on Saturday, we had left after an early
breakfast on Monday morning. Ascribing my sister's dislike to a natural
jealousy at losing her old friend, I said merely that he displeased me. Yet we both knew that the real emotion lay much deeper.