Ok, now this is a creepy story. It was written in 1937 and, although The Wars do not figure directly, the effects of WWI are an important part of the story and the anticipation of England getting involved in a second world war is somberly discussed by the characters. But, for now, they are war free and Christmas is coming so everyone is eagerly heading out of London to better things.
Our story begins in a stuffy train car late afternoon on December 24. The train has stopped because of snow on the track and we find six people, each getting increasingly anxious that they will be stuck on that train all through Christmas. They are:
David and Lydia Carrington: Brother and sister, both in their early 20s, are headed to a happy Christmas house party. Both are described as good looking, smart and capable--sort of a sibling jolly hockeysticks pair.
Jessie Noyes: A very young (sort of implied underage) chorus girl. She looks baby faced and innocent, but has had her share of hard knocks and has a very good idea of how the world actually works. She's heading to Manchester to meet with a possible employer who is offering a long term contract--if she shows up on time and meets his needs. She's both worried that it's not what it pretends to be and, if it is and she misses it because of the train delay, she'll lose out on her big break. She keeps a diary and her entries are how we find out about off screen events.
Robert Thomson: A nervous clerk with two pinks spots on his cheeks because he's stressed, embarassed, exhausted, or scared. (He's the character prone to fainting--there's always one.) He is a romantic sort who falls in love with every pretty girl he sees but never has the nerve to talk to. He imagines saving each in increasingly elaborate fantasies His favorite fantasy is saving a girl after an airplane crash. He's not exactly sure how to save her but he is confident that, once he does, she'll fall in love with him. He falls instantly in love with Jessie--she's platinum blonde--the real thing! But Lydia is pretty, too, in a more sporty and bold sort of way. This prompts him to revise his fantasy to have two girls who need rescuing from an airplane crash. He's preocupied with the logistics of this story--would he carry both?--so doesn't talk much in the train car other than to tell everyone that he's "Thomson without a 'p'" and that he's on his way to visit an elderly (and loathed) aunt who dangles wealth but never gives him any because she thinks he's useless. (She's right.)
Edward Maltby: A small, elderly man with white hair. He plays the part of a dottering old fool, but it turns out he's a lot sharper than he pretends. He's a book author and researcher of psychic events and all things "other worldly." The others reagrd him as interesting and silly, but it turns out it's a good thing he's along for this mystery as they have no idea how to handle what they are about to be up against.
"The Bore," Mr. Hopkins: He is an older man, though not old, so I would guess late 50s or early 60s. He's spent his younger years traveling the wild parts of the world and no matter what anyone says, he has a story that tops it based on his first hand experiences in the Yukon, jungles of India or wilds of South America. He has decided that Jessie is "easy" and so makes lascivious remarks to her every time the conversation lags. She rebuffs him repeatedly and then he claims his feelings are hurt and he demands a kiss from her for an apology. Everyone finds being with him excruciating.
Ok, let's get to the action. Having decided that they'd be better off walking to the next train line which is just a few miles over, across some fields, the four young things start to get up to go. Mr. Hopkins thinks they're foolish but decides he must do something to impress them, so leaves the cabin to hunt down a porter. Mr. Maltby is dithering as to whether he's up for the walk, given how cold it is outside and how quickly the snow is piling up, but he certainly doesn't want to spend all night alone with Mr. Hopkins. Then five things happen at once: (1) Mr. Hopkins rushes back in, looking like he's running from the devil. He denies having seen anything odd but won't talk about it--the first time he's been quiet since the journey began; (2) A man runs from the car next to them, down the corridor, opens the door to outside, jumps out, and heads across the field. (3) Mr. Maltby jumps up, goes out into the corridor, decides conclusively that he MUST walk with them--and that they must leave immediately. (4) The four young ones grab their bags and coats and are rushed out the door by Mr. Maltby. (5) Mr. Hopkins, still terrified, insults them and pouts in the cabin by himself.
Our group, now down to five, heads across the fields, blinded by whirling snow which has filled up ravines and gullies. One or another is always misstepping, falling over, and getting turned around. At one point, they tumble down a steep, wooded hill, landing in a heap at the bottom. All are fine except Jessie, who has twisted her shapely ankle. This is Thomson's chance! But rather than swoop her up and carry her so she can fall in love with him, he stands there uselessly so David picks her up and tells him to carry Jessie's small overnight bag. Having no idea where to go, they try to follow the tracks that that other guy left, the one who ran from the train. Soon, though, they realize that there are two sets of tracks which have intertwined over each other, one going one way, the other set going in another direction. Now, thoroughly exhausted, frozen stiff and terrified, they wonder what to do. Should they go to the left? Go to the right? Go back to the train? David decides there is NO WAY he could carry Jessie all the way back to the train, so they head to the right, not very confident that that is the way to go. But, fortunately (or is it?) they see a light appear in the darkness: it's a house! Giddy with relief, they go to the door and knock. No one answers. But someone MUST be home, because they can see lights on and lit candles. They decide they have to go in if only to avoid freezing to death. In they go, and each calls out to anyone in the house. No one answers--yet there HAD to be someone there very recently: there is a crackling fire in the fireplace in the livingroom and (they find out later) in one of the bedrooms; the diningroom is all laid out for a big meal; the kitchen has a tea tray prepared and the tea is still steaming hot! Then they notice a bread knife on the floor, the door in the kitchen to behind the house wide open letting snow blow in, and footprints leading out, as if someone ran as fast as they could from the house. Well, isn't that a hell of a thing!
Scared to stay, too cold, exhausted and hungry to leave, they decide to be sensible and ignore all signs of a terrible crime and get warmed up and drink their tea. Just as they are settling in the livingroom they see a terrifying portrait of a strangely old/young man staring down at them--one of those paintings where the eyes seem to follow you wherever you are in the room. Then they hear a terrible commotion at the front door. What are they more afraid of--an angry owner or a knife dropping murderer or that damned painting? In stumbles a "Mr. Smith" (no one believes this is his real name), a giant thug with a "common" (read: ungrammatical) way of speaking. He's resentful, fearful and demands a cup of tea. While he slurps his cuppa, he tells them a ridiculous tale of how he got there: he claimed he wasn't on a train, didn't walk from anywhere, and that train ticket that fell out of his coat pocket wasn't his. Fed up with their questions, he flies into a rage and heads out the door. Seconds later they hear terrified shouts and screams, and then in walks The Bore, Mr. Hopkins. He stumbles in, covered in snow and all full of himself, sees their tea and demands a cup. Jessie dies a little inside, dreading his lurid suggestions--and she's right to do so, because once he's warmed up, he plops down next to her on the couch and offers to rub her sore ankle. At that point, she decides she's going to use the bath upstairs and then lie down--and Hopkins offers to join her there, if you can believe it! Fortunately, Lydia knows how to shut him down and helps Jessie up the stairs. Meanwhile, our flustered clerk (again furious with himself for missing the chance to save Jessie from Hopkins) offers to clean up the dishes in the kitchen. Hopkins' story is that he decided he DID want off the train and he tried to follow them, but got hopelessly muddled when their 5 sets of footprints turned into 7 sets of tracks, all winding around and messing the other tracks. Only when Mr. Smith opened the door and the firelight spilled out did he see that he was near a house and found his way to the door.
Well, now they wonder what to do: should they leave as quickly as possible? sit quietly by the fire, making sure to not break anything (sounds of the pink cheeked clerk dropping tea cups in the kitchen dispel any hope of that)? help themselves to a full Christmas dinner, a good night's sleep and hope for the best? It's the last plan that Lydia pushes for: she's determined that they have a jolly Christmas eve with presents the next morning. She even announces that she's going to find holly and mistletoe outside! Well, that's not going to happen...
In no particular order: Thomson becomes gravely ill and faints and slips into a fever dream full of angry elephantine aunts and smooth shapely ankles; Jessie lays down in a bed upstairs and enters a strange fugue state where she has visions of people being murdered in the house--one poisoned and another bonked with a hammer; Mr. Maltby finds evidence that the caretaker is named Mr. Shaw and surmises that he was the one who ran pell-mell out of the house from the kitchen; David heads outside to see where Smith went and finds a corpse half buried in the snow and then two more people in a car crashed into a tree--a Mr. Strange and his daughter, Nora, who are owners of the house yet Nora's never seen it before and her father hasn't been there in almost 25 years--since the mysterious death of his father. (Who literally died in the middle of a sentence that began, "I'm sorry, son, I shouldn't have disowned you. I want to take care of you and have decided to"----gurgle and then death rattle.) They explain all the broken cups, used towels and the sweaty clerk sleeping in one of the beds upstaris. Nora and her father are surprisinly easy going about it. Of course Nora is beautiful and David falls instantly in love with her...
Ok, by now we are barely through chapter 4. What else can possibly happen? Well, we need to find out who killed the old man in the portrait, why Mr. Strange is so, well, "strange," who the corpse in the snow is, where Shaw went (did he kill the corpse?) and, who killed the guy in the train car next to them back in chapter 1 (yes, that's the event that set Hopkins off) and then ran out into the snow and made tracks that everyone's been following around and around? Was that Mr Smith--but then who killed Smith? Or, is there someone else roaming around out there, just waiting for people to be alone so they can pick them off, one by one--and is that Shaw? But he wasn't on the train, he was in the house making tea....how many murderers are there???
It turns out that there are a LOT of murderers circling this house. I won't give anything away, but let's just say that by the time the snow has melted a bit and the police show up, four murders are solved and everyone decides that ghost stories are not just silly things kids make up. At the end of the story Jessie is sitting next to Mr. Strange as he eats his Christmas dinner so he won't be lonely. She later writes in her diary, "I stayed with him till dinner was over--he wasn't allowed much of it, poor fellow. And I could see him falling in love with me, it's awful, I get all the wrong people." She sure does.
No comments:
Post a Comment