The Persistent Watcher
TOMOVETHROUGHa dark night without betraying progress requires obedience to two commandments. You must not collide with an object, and so create sound. And you must not impinge yourself upon a lighter shadow and thus be seen. Though the night skybe heavily veiled by clouds, it is a Judas.
To have approached and mastered Foster’s dog without that animal once barking its alarm was an accomplishment less than that of reaching the kitchen at the Answerths’ men’s quarters without arousing even one of the several dogs chained to various kennels for the night. This depended on wind-dodging, moving without producing sound vibrations heard by animals, and moving without being seen by animals able to see farther in the dark than in broad daylight.
Blaze was mixing a bread batter in a large tin dish when he was conscious of someone looking at him. His bush education had begun when a toddler, his teachers being the aborigines, and the crafty crows, and cattle when that indefinable something termed herd instinct is in the ascendant at night.
While completing the mixture of yeast and flour, he determined that the watcher wasn’t outside the window, or the door, but within the dark pantry. He covered the dish with a cloth, carried it to a chair beside the stove, and wrapped it about with a hessian bag that the temperature might be maintained till morning. Only then did he turn directly to the pantry and see Bony just beyond the doorway, and beckoning.
Aware that entry had beeneffected through the pantry window, and that not without good reason, Blaze lit his pipe and casually closed the kitchen door, as casually lowered the blind masking the window, and finally crossed to the pantry.
“You on the flamin’ warpath?” he asked.
“Have to work now and then,” confessed Bony. “Lend a hand?”
“Two hands and both feet.”
“I want enough tucker to keep going for three days. I’d like it in a sugar-bag with a rope to sling it over a shoulder.”
“Bread, meat and brownie, eh? Tea and sugar and a billy?”
“No. The lake water will have to do. The lake’s rough, I suppose.”
“Yes. You aiming for the house?”
“That is where I am going.”
The cook’s old pipe gurgled. Casually he asked if Bony could swim, and on being answered affirmatively, went on: “If the Prime Minister was here and says to me, you take me over to Venom House tonight and I’ll word the King to make you a lord, I’d tell him no deal. There ain’t a hope of wading over the causeway, and the boat’s more’n likely to sink.”
“I must make the effort,” stressed Bony. “You bring the tucker in the bag, and I’ll row the boat over. I’ll set it adrift and it can be thought it broke its moorings.”
Blaze departed to the kitchen. He had the sugar-bag well stocked on his return, and Bony noticed he had kicked off his slippers.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you again in a day or so.”
“Getting on all right with the job?” Blaze asked, slipping on an old dungaree coat.
“It’s coming to the boil.”
“Good! The sooner it does, the sooner the old lady will sleep easy. You go outer the window first. I’ll foller on.”
On leaving the building, Bony proceeded parallel with the Folly for a hundred yards before turning down the slope to the water, Blaze recognizing the objective of keeping windward of the dogs. The boat had been freed from its tree stump and drawn high up on the beach, and when sliding it down to the water, Blaze took command.
“Knowing the set of the tide, I’ll take the bow oar. We gotta keep her off the causeway.”
“But you’re not coming?”
“Too right I am. Can’t have this boat wrecked. Everyone’d know she couldn’t have been washed off and wrecked. Work her round so’s we can shove her in bow first. You be ready to get to that stern oar. Once she swings broadside to the waves she’ll spin over and under like an alligator with a bullet in his belly.”
Bony was drenched before he slipped his oar. Unseen giants pounded the craft, and it seemed that the boat had to take ten terrific waves to the yard.
“East!” snarled the cook. And “Give it to her!”came his order. Ghosts came and disappeared on either side. There was no sky, no earth, no sea, only the ghastly ghosts. And labour. Fortunately for Bony, he could manage an oar, knew when to feather it, when to dig deep, when to slip clear. All this he was doing for about a week when abruptly the ghosts vanished for good, the boat rode easily, and over his shoulder he caught sight of a tiny light seeming a hundred miles away.
With a hard jerk, the boat was stopped by the levee.
“Give us your rollock, and pass your oar,” ordered the captain. “I’ll have the wind astern going home. Anything you want done?”
“No. And thanks very much.”
“Push her off.”
At once the boat disappeared, and Bony strode over the levee and made for the light. The light became no larger, no brighter. It became the centre of an oblong frame, the window of the lounge at Venom House.
It was a tiny bedside lamp placed on a small table at the foot of a low bed. Dimly the shape of Mary Answerth was outlined by the bedclothes. At the head of the bed was a chair, but no attendant nurse. The door was half-open. There was no light in the hall beyond.
Having tested the window catch, he passed along the house front to the porch. The door was locked. Beyond the porch, the dining-room windows were fastened. Round the first corner, the library window was locked, and on looking up and thus placing the house top against the barely discernible sky, it was only by the expenditure of time and patience that he was assured Morris Answerth’s lattice-guarded bedroom window wasn’t wide open.
To miss obstructions at the rear of the house, he walked to the levee and followed that. There were lights in three of the rear rooms. In the first Mrs Leeper sat writing at a table. The second was the kitchen and unoccupied. In the third room Janet Answerth played her piano, a shaded standard oil-lamp bringing to sharp relief the music sheet, the fluttering hands, the hair of gold. Her face he could not see.
Seated on the damp levee, he could observe all three rooms. The spray from the Folly fell upon his back, but failed to wet him more than he was already. The wind continued from the north and warmly. The night was filled with noise. The time… it was of no importance.
Janet ceased playing and closed the piano lid. Swinging round on the stool, she left it to pass to a small table, took a cigarette and lit it. She glanced once to the door, dropped the spent match to the ash-tray, and slowly came forward to stand at the window.
She could see nothing but the sheen of the lamplight on the glass. Slowly smoking, she remained there till it was necessary to return to the ash-tray with the butt. Having stubbed it without haste, she walked to the door, and vanished.
Mrs Leeper, in her room, put down her pen and listened. Janet appeared in the kitchen, where she gathered a cup and saucer, a plate of biscuits, and two apples, which she peeled and quartered. Finally, spooning something from a tin into the cup, she added boiling water, and left the kitchen with her tray.
Mrs Leeper rose from her table and, on her toes, moved to the door, remaining there with the door ajar, listening. Then she opened the door and went out in the manner of a marionette.
Guessing Janet’s destination, Bony hurried along the levee to gain position opposite that corner of the house enabling him to observe both living-room and bedroom occupied by Morris. He was in time to see a lamp being carried across the living-room and into the bedroom.
Janet stayed about an hour, and when the light was again crossing the living-room, Bony moved nearer the front entrance and watched the stained-glass window colour with light and gradually dim out as Janet left the hall.
The light in the lounge suddenly became stronger and Bony almost ran to the window. Carrying a hurricane lamp, Janet was standing at the foot of the bed. She was holding the lamp too low for the light to fall upon her sister’s face. Mary was still asleep. From Mary, Janet turned to the table. Her elfin face was expressionless, and her pose became still. She could have been registering her sister’s breathing. She did not notice the movement of the door. It was being slowly opened, and movement stopped when the opening was four or five inches.
Beside the little lamp on the table was a carafe of water, a roll of cotton wool, bandages, salve and smaller bottles containing tablets. For what appeared a long time, she remained still, merely looking downward upon these articles. She appeared unconscious of the lamp she held. The door closed a fraction.
Slowly her left hand went forward to take up one of the bottles of tablets, and she appeared to be counting them. From her, Bony’s attention was distracted by movement on the bed. Mary was raising herself to see what Janet was doing, and, from her expression, not without effort and pain.
Mary’s face was almost as white as the bandage about her neck. Drawn on the square face, the mouth was a straight dark line, and the eyes were twin black discs. Janet could have been counting the tablets in thebottle, she could have been reading the directions on the label. Having satisfied herself, her hand slowly fell to replace the bottle, and, more quickly, Mary eased her head to the pillow.
On Janet beginning a turning movement to the door, the door closed. She crossed the room, passed out to the hall. The little lamp on the table betrayed no movement on the bed.
Returning swiftly to the rear of the house, Bony saw Mrs Leeper again seated at the table and now reading a book. Carrying her lamp, Janet appeared in the kitchen, where she extinguished the lamp and made herself a hot drink. Eventually she left the kitchen and appeared in her sitting-room… when Mrs Leeper was again listening at her door. Janet took up a book, extinguished the standard lamp. The room in darkness, she was no longer visible. The tense Mrs Leeper remained at her door for another fifteen seconds, when she vanished into the passage.
It was clear that neither woman believed Mary’s story of the man who invited her to talk outside the house. Neither Janet nor Mrs Leeper evinced the slightest sign of being conscious of the unmasked windows, confident of the security given by the “island” especially during such a night of wind and rough water.
It began to rain, but Bony ignored it. The wind died away to permit freedom to the many sounds of the Folly. Not far from him, and inside the levee, gentle quacks told of wild ducks taking shelter.
He was decided that Janet must have gone upstairs to her bedroom without carrying a light and that Mrs Leeper was so assuring herself, when aware of being cold and that the wind was coming from the south-west.
Mrs Leeper appeared in the kitchen, where she heated milk, cut thin bread and butter, filled a hot-water bag. The remorseless Bony watched her rouse Mary Answerth, persuade the patient to drink and swallow the bread and butter, slip the water-bag under the blankets, give her tablets from one of the small bottles. They spoke, but he could not hear what was said. Mary was made comfortable for the night, and Mrs Leeper attended to the little lamp and went out… leaving the long bell rope attached to the head of the bed.
Bony saw Mrs Leeper wash the utensils in the kitchen, drink a cup of tea, put out the light and retire to a room beyond that where she had been sitting… and listening. When her light went out, he passed round the house to sit with his back against the wall under the lounge window.
He managed a cigarette without making light to be seen two yards away. Thereafter he stood keeping watch over the patient, the rain beating upon him, the wind mercifully gentle and causing a minimum of cold through his saturated clothes.
When the roosters crowed, he crawled under the tarpaulin covering the saw-bench, removed his clothes and burrowed deep into the sawdust.