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"'The Old Man of Munington was purchased by Gardner Dozois, and appeared in the Mid-December 1993 issue of Asimov's, with an illustration by Carol Heyer. This was David Redd's first sale to Asimov's—he's since sold us another one—but Redd, although never prolific, has been a familiar name to cognoscenti for more than three decades. A civil engineer who lives and works in Wales, Redd began writing in 1966, and has sold stories to markets such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, In-terzone, The Gate, and Scheherazade. Redd is passionately Welsh, and Wales is the setting for the chilling, suspenseful, and strangely evocative story that follows, one which demonstrates, convincingly, that things are not always as they seem…
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I
The old man was huge and slow, coming out from the rear yard of Manor of Munington into the kitchen garden, yet he did not seem frail. Rather, he gave an impression of great bulk and solidity, having stooped to come out through the doorway onto the black cinder path, with his dark grey cloak swirling about him as he moved. Ashes crunched beneath his boots. His face seemed round and fleshy, what could be seen of it behind the trailing woolen scarf which masked his nose and mouth against the chill November air. His skin had the unhealthy smooth pallor of some fungal growth, yet his eyes were wide and sparkling like dark water in moonlight.
This was his outward appearance, this was how he allowed the outside world to perceive the Old Man of Munington.
His chauffeur, a smaller and slighter figure following behind, wore the peaked cap and leather gloves which were all that people ever remembered of his appearance. Without his uniform, the chauffeur could have walked in the village and been thought a stranger.
"Shall we take the Bentley, sir?"
They spoke in English, for the cleaning girl from Llandygoch might be able to hear, from within the kitchen.
"In a moment, Digby. Let me think awhile."
The Old Man paused. It was now mid-afternoon, and the workers from the Establishment would not be returning for another two hours. He felt himself impatient to speak with Maximilian, yet impatience was itself a danger when plans had to be measured in decades or longer instead of mere hours. The decision soon to be made must not be made hastily.
Beside the path, in the bare brown earth of the cabbage patch, misshapen stalks still stood where sprouts had been picked months before. The Old Man could smell the faint sulphurous odor of their frost-darkened stems. A few yards further, past the compost heap with its blanket of mouldering weeds, the boundary hedge was bright with red clusters of hawthorn berries. Over the hedge between patchwork fields was the river Mwldan, spreading out to the nearby sea. All these things were natural, thought the Old Man.
Yet the thing which Maximilian and the man Marker were perfecting at the Establishment was in no way natural. Most assuredly it was the enemy of all things natural, of red berries and the sea, of men and other things. And this was why the Old Man needed time to think, because soon he would find it necessary to act. He knew something which Maximilian Wolf did not: last month, October 1951, the Americans had commenced designing a similar device at Los Alamos.
"I must speak with Maximilian," he said. That much was imperative.
"When he comes home here, sir?"
"No, I'll not wait. He'll stop in Llandygoch for some purchases, no doubt—he likes being among these people. We can intercept him there, before he wastes more time."
"Very good, sir."
The chauffeur glanced toward the kitchen window. The Old Man shook his huge head.
"I presume Gaynor is still busy in there." Which meant, of course, that they could not speak freely until they were in the car. "To the Bentley, then, Digby."
"Yes, sir. The garage is open."
The Old Man resumed his progress down the path of black ashes, toward the former stone barn which now housed his automobiles. His mind was still active, still turning over the possibilities.
"I need to know more, Digby. There must be some personal factors we have missed in our inquiries. Tell me again about this man Harker, and about the girls…"
Within the kitchen, Gaynor Evans was drying the last of the wineglasses. She had closed the top window to keep out the draft, and she had heard nothing.
==========
II
"Why does Uncle Ken read stories like that? It's horrible!"
Jenny, aged ten, came excitedly into their bedroom where her sister Nancy, eleven, had got straight down to her homework. Jenny had been reading the big black book in Ken Harker's study again, the book with a picture of a bat on the cover. Their aunt was cooking dinner for when Uncle Ken came home on the blue bus from Aberpoeth, and was trusting the girls to settle down by themselves after school. Jenny, naturally, had dumped her leather satchel and gone to resume her investigations into Uncle Ken's strange little library. Nancy sighed, with all the maturity of her extra year.
"Jennifer! You shouldn't be going in there!"
"Well, nobody's ever said I couldn't. But it was horrible!"
Jenny flopped down on her bed, on the multicolored quilt which Aunt Hattie had knitted from oddments of wool -during the war, and ran her fingers through her auburn curls. She felt sickened by the brief story she had just read, and also a little frightened by her own feelings.
"Jenny," said Nancy patiently, "I've got equations to do, and I don't want to have to ask Uncle Ken about them again."
"There was this man, and he could hear footsteps behind him, and he could feel this other person coming closer—"
"Like the feelings you get?"
"Well, not quite, but he could feel someone coming up behind him, and then this someone pushed into his body and went right through him!"
Jenny was still trembling with the memory of it, but as she spoke she realized how ridiculous it must sound. Clearly, Nancy thought it sounded ridiculous too, because she was grinning at Jenny.
"So what? It's only a story—things like that don't really happen. Yesterday you were reading about vampires. I wish you'd stop!"
"But it's the only way I can find out about these things."
Jenny knew it was her own fault for looking at Uncle Ken's books anyway, as they weren't meant for children. Nancy was simply gazing at her, in that superior self-assured grown-up way she always used to make Jenny feel small. Under that gaze, Jenny could feel the frightenedness and the bubbling weirdness gradually fading away. She knew Nancy was right, as usual. Without Nancy saying another word, Jenny gave in to the old arguments.
"All right, I shouldn't have read his books. Let's go for a walk instead."
"After my piece of homework here. And we'll have to be back before dinner!"
"We could buy some sweets in the shop, or look for this week's Kitty Hawke comic?"
There was no answer from Nancy, bending over her mathematics once more. Jenny sat back on the bed and drew up her legs, hugging her knees. Life was very strange, she thought, wondering why Uncle Ken liked to read about horrible things. He didn't seem that sort of person, not when she saw him putting his arm around Aunt Hattie or digging the garden or playing snakes-and-ladders with her and Nancy. And she hadn't noticed these books in the old house, either; it was only since they'd moved down here last year that she'd started finding them. Perhaps they were simply easier to find after the move, or perhaps she was looking harder for them now.
Jenny knew why she herself wanted to read stories of dark things: it was the only way she could learn anything about the strange feelings that came over her sometimes, when she was with certain people.
When Jenny had first read about vampires, she had felt that she almost had the answer.
Perhaps the details about sleeping in coffins and drinking blood and only coming out at night were exaggerations, and the real vampires were simply ancient long-lived creatures which dwelt secretly among human beings and preyed on them. Perhaps.
Jenny had tried other ways of finding explanations for her feelings, by asking Aunt Hattie, and even asking Uncle Ken or the vicar once or twice, but the grownups always dismissed her feelings as just feelings, nothing more. They didn't understand. Only Nancy could sympathize, Nancy now busy with her head bent over her exercise book, but it was only sisterly sympathy without really knowing what was happening. Nancy could not feel the strangeness the way Jenny could. This was one of the worst parts about losing both their parents in the air raids, this not having a mother or father who could share her feelings and explain things to her. Even Aunt Hattie, her mother's sister, was never close enough to her for that.
Jenny waited for Nancy to finish her homework. Then they could go for a little walk in the lanes around Llandygoch, and talk over everything between themselves.
From downstairs, she heard the clatter of Aunt Hattie putting a saucepan on the range.
As she calmed down, and the effect of that last story faded, she wondered again why Uncle Ken read them. He didn't have any feelings of strangeness to try to understand, she was sure. So why read tales of mystery and horror? Yesterday, after Jenny had read the story about vampires and had wanted to keep a cross in the bedroom, Nancy had said Uncle Ken read stories for the same reasons as everyone else did, for fun, to relax, to take his mind off work. But Jenny wondered what work was he doing in the Establishment now, for tales of dreadful horror to seem like a relaxation?
"Oh, hurry up with that maths, Nancy! Let's go out before it gets dark!"
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III
The village of Llandygoch lay on the lower part of a hillside, above the river, at the center of a spider web pattern of lanes and farm tracks. "Take the upper lanes, Digby," the Old Man had said. "Drive slowly." So the long grey Bentley had cruised in a leisurely manner between the high overgrown hedgebanks of the fields, frequently halting for the Old Man to haul himself out from the passenger seat and gaze down upon the roofs of Llandygoch from a convenient gate.
While leaning upon this gate or that, he would get Digby to go over the facts concerning Kenneth Harker yet again. The Old Man would murmur to himself, pondering the problem, while, upon the pastures below, black-and-white cows huddled in the shelter of the hedge. It was late afternoon, and the air was growing cold. Thin columns of smoke trailed upward from the chimneys of Llandygoch. His eyes followed the smoke downward to one particular roof, where in an hour or two Kenneth Harker would be arriving home from his work. Digby had pointed out that roof a short while ago.
The pattern was not yet complete, thought the Old Man. He needed more details about the project and particularly about Kenneth Harker.
He was no longer sure that Maximilian was the best person to provide those details.
Time passed, while the sun descended slowly over the western hills of Cnappan above the estuary, and the Old Man stood musing at the gate. He saw the roofs and gardens. He saw the crumbling walls of Llandygoch Abbey, a ruin since its closure at the Reformation four hundred years earlier. He saw evening shadows lengthening. He recalled standing here on long afternoons during the recent war, making plans for using what influence he had, feeling frustration that these people would not behave like reasonable beings.
Presently, he saw the movement for which he was waiting. In the middle street, two small figures appeared, from the cottage now owned by Kenneth Harker.
The two girls wore brown coats and fawn headsquares, looking like twins at that distance. The Old Man watched them until he was sure which path they were taking. Then he turned back to the Bentley and motioned to Digby.
"They are going along the Longhouse road. We shall go back down as far as Pentre, and wait."
"Yes, sir. And Mr. Maximilian?"
The Old Man shook his head. "We shall see." He did have genuine admiration for the way in which Digby, after years in his role, could convey the most subtle shades of meaning through the most innocuous of words. Mr. Maximilan was indeed becoming a question. But first, then were Harker's two nieces to be investigated.
At the turning to Pentre, the lane had been widened in rough stone as a pull-in for lorries. Digby brought the Bentley in by the milkstand fashioned from old railway sleepers, which bore the farm name roughly burnt into the timber. The Old Man got out and stood staring at the name in silence. He remembered this farm from earlier days when men had been dividing the fields with hedges. There had been problems in those days too, but they had been different problems.
He was still gazing at the burnt lettering, in the grey light of evening, when the two small girls came up the lane.
Very slowly, the Old Man turned to look at them. He had heard their footsteps slowing down as they approached him. Digby was still in the Bentley as he had arranged, behind the wheel to show that the chauffeur knew his place. The Old Man did not intend that the girls should be frightened in any way.
He raised his hat slightly to them, in a deliberate and unhurried gesture.
"Good afternoon, young ladies. You know my name, I believe?"
Of course they did, for he was careful to be a familiar sight around the village and town. The slightly taller of the two answered him, her roundish face taking on a pleasant smile as she spoke: a well-brought-up child, he judged.
"Oh yes," she was saying, "you're Mr. Claude Munington, from Manor of Munington over the hill. It's a lovely big house."
The other girl had thinner features, and seemed oddly pale. She did not speak, or smile.
"So you know me and my house. You have lived here about a year, but we have not met socially. I believe you were in the Memorial Hall for the Brains Trust last month?"
"Yes. Uncle Ken was on the panel—I mean our uncle, Mr. Harker."
"I was there." He had accepted the collection on behalf of the hospital. One of the many duties, formerly necessary, which were now becoming a hindrance. It was time he retired from public life and did no more than contemplate the line between earth and sky, as now. He returned his attention to the girls: the questions must start. "What are your names?'"
"I'm Nancy, and this is my sister Jennifer. Jenny."
"'I am very pleased to meet you both. I understand that your uncle works with my—ah, young cousin, Maximilian Wolf." They both nodded, fawn headsquares bobbing up and down. "Maximilian speaks most highly of your Mr. Harker. I understand that your uncle and aunt have brought you up. He was most fortunate in being able to afford Coney gar Cottage when he moved here."
"Oh, it was my money," said Nancy unexpectedly. "He's keeping it in trust for me, after our parents were killed."
"Ah. I see." This was not something he would have asked, but it did show that Mr. Kenneth Harker was a responsible man, as indeed the Old Man had already judged on previous evidence. "Your inheritance is being administered in trust for you two."
"No, just for me. Jenny was too young when they died."
Jenny spoke for the first time. "They hadn't changed the will. I'd only inherit if anything happened to Nancy."
A curious arrangement, but merely one more example of mankind's ability to complicate the business of life. It was unimportant. He must not become sidetracked by childish chatter. Carefully he leaned back against the milkstand, which creaked despite his caution, and stooped toward them slightly so that he would not seem so extremely tall compared to their young figures.
"I am sure your uncle will provide for you both. He will have only the kindest of thoughts for you, no doubt."
"Oh yes, he reads horror stories, but he isn't like that at all. He's nice, and Aunt Hattie is. We love them both."
At this silence fell, while the Old Man realized that he had learned something neither Maximilian nor Digby had told him, this taste in reading. His instinct told him that here was an important aspect of human psychology, one which he needed to consider more deeply. Distantly, he heard rooks cawing from the vicarage trees.
"We'd better be going," said Nancy. "We'll have to be back for dinner, before Uncle Ken comes home."
"Of course. However, we will meet again soon, no doubt. It is time your uncle came to visit Manor of Munington, you too, now that you have all settled into the village. I shall speak to Maximilian about an invitation. Good-day to you, young ladies."
As they turned back along the way they had come, he saw that the younger girl still appeared unhappy, her face extremely pale. She had been no use to him. The other girl though, Nancy, could well be most informative. He would have to speak to her again, when there was no pressure of time to limit his questions. That was something he could arrange with or without Maximilian.
Certainly he would have to bring their uncle to Manor of Munington very soon. This situation needed to be resolved swiftly.
He returned to the passenger seat of the Bentley. Digby looked at him inquiringly. "Any progress, sir?"
"Perhaps. I was not aware of Mr. Barker's tastes in reading matter."
"The Daily Telegraph and the Radio Times, sir. And the scientific journals which Mr. Maximilian knows about."
"There is more. We will talk about this later. Take me back to the manor for now."
"Didn't you intend meeting Mr. Maximilian, sir?"
"Not now. Let him follow his usual pattern of visiting shops and finding a drink or two. Time enough to speak to him later." And as the Bentley moved away smoothly, preparing to reverse in the farm entrance, the Old Man added, more to himself than to Digby,''I do not think he will have had any success with Marker."
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IV
A little earlier that afternoon, Maximilian Wolf had become aware that Kenneth Harker had left the laboratory. Perhaps this was the moment to approach the man.
Outside, a cold sea breeze was blowing over the huts and lawns of the Aberpoeth experimental facility. Max pulled his black greatcoat about him more tightly, and strode down the concrete path toward the proving shed. He recalled Harker telling him recently that he could work out problems better in a few moments of quietly gazing out to sea than in several hours of racking his brains over a laboratory bench. If Max knew anything about people, he knew where to find Harker now.
He went along the side of the corrugated-iron Nissen hut that was the proving shed. There were no windows in its curving sides, only double doors at each end. Max reached the far corner, where the ground fell away overlooking the sea, and there he found Kenneth Harker.
The man was leaning against the doors from which missiles would be wheeled out at times, or fumes would coil out from an engine on test. The profile of his lean face looked gaunt and withdrawn. His eyes seemed fixed on the horizon, or on his future. Max knew that the time had come for directness.
"Ken! I thought I'd find you here. Anything wrong?"
Harker turned his head slowly, as if reluctant to return his attention to everyday matters.
"Oh. Max, it's you. No, nothing's wrong. I came here for some peace and quiet, that's all."
Max had to ignore the hint .''Problems, Ken?'"
"Only the one you know about. The chain reaction. I have proved that the test can go ahead."
"You proved that yesterday, Ken. Haven't you sent out the results yet?"
"I'm still checking them, but that won't take long. I'll send the report out tomorrow—I get them asking for it twice a day now. That's not the problem."
"Then what is?"
He saw Harker frowning. Over his shirt, the scientist wore only a sleeveless knitted top, yet gave no sign of feeling any cold. Max had seen him similarly shut out physical sensation on other occasions when concentrating on 'overcoming technical difficulties, so now he must be concentrating with equal singlemindedness upon the moral difficulty which faced him.
"Max," said Harker, "I've been thinking very hard about what you said yesterday. About the risk that the hydrogen reaction, once initiated, would spread from the bomb into the water of the atmosphere and sea."
"I believe," said Max very carefully, "that it is a risk which you have to consider."
"You said, that peaceful sea out there could become ablaze like the Sun. Every living thing on this planet could perish."
"I did say that, as a possibility. It is rather more possible that your calculations are correct, and the reaction would be confined to the material of the apparatus itself."
Harker gave a brief nod. "Yes, Max. But you also said that I could never be wholly certain that I had considered every possibility. As long as there was a risk the chain reaction could spread, any risk at all, it would be better to report that the risk was too great, and say the tests should be canceled and the project abandoned. We shouldn't take risks with the future of the world, you said."
"I did say that. Is that what you came here to think about?"
"Oh no, Max. I've made up my mind."
"You have?"
"Yes. That was the easy part. The test can go ahead." Harker gave a sudden short laugh. "The difficult part was working out how to tell you, Max."
Maximilian Wolf pressed against the wall of the Nissen hut for support, in his sudden dismay and confusion. So
Harker was determined to give this nation the ultimate weapon—
Max thought swiftly. He would have to inform the Old Man of this, and persuade him to take action.
==========
V
For Jenny, one good thing about Llandygoch and the nearby town of Trefwldan was that both places were utterly safe at night. There were no bomb sites, no meths drinkers in alleys, no danger worse than being kept chatting on Mrs. Evans's doorstep past bedtime. So her aunt and uncle saw no harm in letting Jenny and Nancy go out for a walk which might last a couple of hours even in winter darkness, as long as they wrapped up warmly and promised not to go near the river. That was very convenient tonight, when Jenny felt an imperative need to go investigating the Old Man of Munington.
The need had become urgent during the evening meal.
"Max invited me to dinner tomorrow," Uncle Ken had said, as they ate around the living-room fire. "You girls too, if you want to see the old manor-house. We must be getting accepted into village life these days."
Jenny had other thoughts, but did not voice them to her aunt and uncle.
"I can't put off my Red Cross," Aunt Hattie had said. "We're still catching up after the election. But you all go, dears. Enjoy yourselves. Well, well, first the Brains Trust and now an invitation to the Manor!"
Not one invitation to the Manor but two, and two in one day, Jenny had thought. An odd coincidence. She didn't believe in coincidences. She did, however, believe in the Workings of Dark Forces, especially after finding those books in Uncle Ken's study… and especially after being so close to the Old Man himself.
Jenny had never felt the feeling of strangeness running down her back as strongly as that afternoon when she had been standing before the Old Man of Munington, in the lane below Pentre farm. That feeling couldn't have been imagination, whatever the vicar might say, and anyway she wasn't going to ask him again, well-meaning though he had been.
The old house called Manor of Munington, she knew, was only half a mile along the lane from Longhouse. She and Nancy had walked past there several times.
, So, as anyone could walk around Llandygoch and Trefwldan at night without fear, Jenny and Nancy said they were going out.
"Wrap up warmly, dears," said Aunt Hattie.
"Don't go near the river," said Uncle Ken.
The night outside was dark and starlit, although it was without the evening mists which sometimes made the lights of Trefwldan seem like a fairy city across the river. Instead Jenny could see the dark fields around her as she and Nancy walked up the lane toward Longhouse, and could see also the comforting twinkling shape of Orion the Hunter rising above the hill. His three-starred belt and bright shining sword were clear, although his lower stars were hidden by the brow of the hill. Further up: the seven sisters of the Pleiades, a friendly family who dwelt in her dreams amid a web of light. Being out under the night sky held no terrors for Jenny. Other things might frighten her, but not the night.
She and Nancy walked swiftly, as much to keep warm as to reach Munington quickly. Only once she heard a car, back in Llandygoch, which went away on a lower road towards Pulpit sands. At this time of night, most people were indoors listening to the wireless.
"There won't be many servants," said Jenny, thinking ahead to what they would do when they reached the Manor. "The chauffeur, the cook. Who else?"
"Didn't Mrs. Evans say there was a gardener?"
"Yes, but she said he only goes in during the day. Like her daughter who helps the cook."
"So we won't have many people to watch out for," said Nancy .''Only Maximilian, the grandson or cousin or whatever he is. A sort of second cousin twice removed, or something. I got lost in all those names she was telling us."
"Mrs. Evans wasn't too sure herself," said Jenny. "Not with so many of the old family moving away or going off in the war. I suppose that's why they don't need so many servants now."
"Or they can't get servants. The ones they have are all old." Nancy gave a soft chuckle. "Lucky for us, if they're all deaf as posts and can't hear us creeping in."
Jenny chuckled back, but she grew thoughtful at the prospect of entering Manor of Munington itself, and said no more for a while.
Orion's club was bright above his head, and so was the rim of stars that formed his shield, when they went past Longhouse and the hill leveled off. Between the hunter and the Pleiades, Jenny could see the glow of Aldebaran in the horns of Taurus. Lower down, an owl went floating past, as a white shadow, toward the barns of Longhouse, its only sound the whisper of its wings. Other birds, in the hedge, would make an occasional low cheep as the girls walked by. And after that the lane went downhill, and all of a sudden Jenny found herself approaching the grey stone pillars at the entrance to Manor of Munington itself.
"It didn't take long to get here," Nancy whispered to her. "We'll have at least an hour to scout about."
Jenny said, "I hope I don't get that feeling again," but she was determined to conquer it, and went first through the gate pillars toward the Manor.
As she walked down the rough drive, Jenny could see the pale stone bulk of the house through a few tall bare treetrunks ahead. Somewhere in there was the Old Man, who made her feel strangeness, who had invited Uncle Ken here tomorrow, and who… well, perhaps she'd been reading too many books from the study. There was nothing she could really say against him. But she needed to find out, which was why she was here, and why she had brought Nancy along to help. Jenny was sure of one thing: she never wanted to have to face the Old Man alone.
Now she could see the front porch with its columns, and the narrow small-paned windows on either side. One ground floor window had a light on, and so did a second-floor window under the eaves. The lights were soft, mellow, she noticed. They must be paraffin lamps rather than the electric.
"I can't see any way in at the front," she whispered to Nancy.
"Remember what Mrs. Evans said. Her Gaynor works in the kitchen. She gets in by a back door past the garage. Let's try it."
On their way around, Jenny tried to peer in through the lighted window, without going so near that she might be seen. It appeared to be a lounge. A high-backed leather chair, turned away from her, cut off most of her view, but she could see the tall dark-haired figure of Maximilian Wolf, standing beside a cabinet where stood a decanter and glasses. He seemed to be talking to someone else, presumably someone sitting in the high chair.
Jenny felt cold. She felt shivery, uneasy.
Even at this distance, she could feel the presence of the Old Man inside that room.
With a shudder she turned, and followed Nancy past the garage to the rear gardens of Manor of Munington. Quickly, she explained what she had seen, and felt.
"So you felt it again. That proves it—we were right to come!" Nancy put an arm around her for a moment. "Come on. We'll get in and see what they're plotting for Uncle Ken."
"I don't know if they're plotting anything. I've just got a feeling. Nancy, I'm not very good at this Sexton Blake business. What if the back door's locked?"
It wasn't.
"It didn't matter if it had been locked," Nancy whispered to her. "I could have worked that top window open with a nail in two seconds. You learn a lot of things when you come up from the juniors."
Then they went inside.
Jenny went through the darkened kitchen very cautiously, arms spread forward and fingers outstretched, feeling for any tables or chairs which might have crockery balanced on them. It was very dark in here. Nancy was following, equally slowly; Jenny could hear her breathing but not her footsteps. In a cottage with creaking floorboards, the girls had learned to tread lightly. Jenny reached the door, feeling the linen of aprons hanging behind it, and closed her fingers upon the round doorknob. Slowly she turned it and eased the door open.
In the dark corridor, Jenny saw a line of light under a far door. That must be the living room, where the Old Man was. Already she could feel that empty strangeness ahead, like a great block of ice freezing everything around it, could feel it from the small of her back right up to between her shoulders.
But if she wanted to hear what the Old Man of Munington was saying, she would have to go up to that door—
—put her head against the timber paneling—
—and listen—
==========
VI
Within the marble fireplace, the log fire crackled and flared. This wood from the fallen Scots pine was resinous and prone to sparks, but Claude Munington had a liking for the pleasant aroma of its smoke, slightly pungent to his nostrils. He settled his immense bulk further into the leather armchair, feeling the comfortable solidity of its iron inner frame. He placed great store upon a sense of stability, something which Maximilian could never understand.
Yet in their disagreement now, he rather than Maximilian was the one arguing for change.
"Human society is no longer stable," he repeated. "The social order has changed much in recent years, and will change again."
Maximilian was frowning, standing against the side cabinet with the drink he had not yet touched.
"What do changes in human society matter? Our problem is with Harker. He either changes his mind, or dies. That project must not go any further!"
In his armchair the Old Man sighed. He had lived so long, and seen so many dwellers in this house wish to interfere in human affairs. The worst disagreements and the attendant crisis had come in the Great War, when much of his family had taken the path of action, and had gone away never to return. Their efforts had failed. Maximilian's efforts would fail. Maximilian did not seem to appreciate the one central lesson of history: human affairs were best left alone.
Of course, Maximilian was still young, still in his inquiring, wandering stage, and although he was indeed a distant relative of the family, he had not been brought up here, had not had the time to gain wisdom from the Old Man as he should have. Perhaps a different approach was needed.
"You know, Maximilian, we ourselves are at our most stable when we are adapting to change. Let me give you an example."
"'If you must. It will not alter the fact that Harker must die."
"My example is the spread of the middle class, and the consequent parallel spread of the suburbs. New houses are being built on new estates, and new patterns of living are developing. We may not be able to populate one large house without arousing curiosity any longer, but many small houses may serve the same function. A family which has lost its large ancestral home may occupy some quiet cul-de-sac of a residential estate quite conveniently. Such a group of houses could be a modern equivalent of those wild isolated farms of Cnappan which no outsider ever visits, and could be as stable as them. So, by adapting to circumstances, we appear less intrusive than if we resist. Do you not see that, Maximilian?"
"You can't mean that we should let risks increase without taking action, surely. We have a clear duty to shape the events around us! Answer me one thing, if you will!"
"And what is that?"
"'Can you stand by and see our dangers increase, and do nothing?"
"No. That is why I invited Harker here. I am glad that you also invited him. We do not fully understand him, you know. We must explore the reasons for his decision, and try to understand his mind. Then his motives will be clear."
This was a tedious argument, but one he had to go through. Digby had long since given up and retired to his bed. So had Cook.
Maximilian came forward. "And if you never understand him? If our talk with him tomorrow comes to nothing? Would you not take action then?'"
"Perhaps."
Within himself, the Old Man knew that however reluctant he might be to act, when the moment came, he would do whatever was necessary, without hesitation.
And Maximilian, having opened the possibility of doubt, came forward again with the question which could not logically be refused.
"If you think there may be a need for action, won't you prepare for it?"
The answer the Old Man gave was inevitable.
"Yes."
"Then we must prepare for it now. Come to the lower chamber, now. What means would you suggest for disposing of him?'"
"It must be natural. The sea-chest."
At last the Old Man began to move, to rise from his armchair.
"As you say, if there is a need for action, we should prepare for it. We shall go down, and make ready for tomorrow."
==========
VII
In the darkened corridor, Nancy was listening for sounds of movement, but it was Jenny, with her ear to the living-room door, who gave the warning first.
"They're coming!"
She pulled Nancy back along the corridor, to the only cover they knew—the kitchen door. There seemed to be a stairway along one side, but she didn't dare explore it. If they'd been more experienced in sleuthing, they'd have remembered to bring a torch, but neither of them had thought of it. Jenny got into the kitchen and just glimpsed light bursting into the corridor as Nancy pulled the door closed behind them.
In that brief moment of light, Jenny had seen the stair-ease, an end door which must lead into the hall or porch, and several other side doors. She tried to memorize what she had seen, at the same time listening for footsteps coming nearer.
And just as she had felt through all that time with her ear to the door, she felt that sense of cold strangeness, now almost overpowering.
A shuffling noise came: the Old Man was in the corridor. She couldn't hear any other steps, probably because the carpet would be muffling the sounds, as she'd found when trying to move lightly herself. Was he going to come into the kitchen?
There was a clicking sound, a door handle from a little distance away. Jenny felt herself becoming calmer, and realized with the surprise of self-discovery that she could actually sense that the Old Man was moving further away. (And perhaps Maximilian too, because he had given her the same feeling on the times she had met him, although it had never been as strong as with the Old Man himself.)
"Nancy," she whispered. "We're all right. He's moving away. I can tell!"
"Thank goodness for that! What was he saying in there?"
For Jenny had done all the listening, while Nancy had kept guard on the corridor side, and Jenny hadn't dared pass on any news for fear of missing hearing something even more vital.
Swiftly, she explained the worst parts of what she had heard. "They say Uncle Ken's making some kind of a weapon, something too horrible to use. They want him to change his mind and stop it, I think, but I'm not sure. If he doesn't do what they say…"
"Oh, no! Where are they now?"
Jenny slid the kitchen door open a touch. In the corridor, a different door was giving out light now, half-open. Jenny opened the door the rest of the way.
"I think they've gone somewhere else. Let's look."
The "somewhere else" proved to be a flight of steps heading down underneath the living-room, lit by a modern electric bulb. So the wiring-up had started. That light meant that there would be no shadows to hide in. Jenny looked doubtfully at Nancy, but she knew that if she wanted to hear anything more she would have to go down the steps. Nancy nodded. At least Jenny could feel that the Old Man was not too near.
The steps were stone, well-worn, and around the next corner they were interrupted by a slate-flagged landing. A branching flight of steps led up again, to another corner, which Jenny found ended at a solid-looking timber door. The first flight went on down to yet another door, which again was partly open. Jenny put her hands to her head, trying to work out where all these steps and corridors and doors were in relation to each other. And the feeling was coming back, making things seem worse again. She had a sudden fear of what the Old Man might do if he sensed her presence.
"Nancy, I'm going to listen again. Can you keep watch at the landing?"
"No, I think I ought to be the one down by the door, Jen. I'm older."
"But Nancy, you can't tell when they're near. I can. I really can, that's how all this started. Let me go."
Her sister didn't like it, Jenny could tell, but at last she said, "All right. If you're sure," and went back to halfway up the stairs.
Jenny tiptoed to the half-open door. She trembled. A wave of cold uneasiness washed over her, and it was not from herself. She could not bring herself to look around the edge.
She and Nancy must have waited too long before coming down, because whatever discussion had been necessary seemed almost over. She could hear the low booming tones of the Old Man quite distinctly.
"'I am not persuaded, Maximilian. I feel certain that Harker will make the correct decision. However, I agree that making provision for a final solution would be prudent."
The softer voice of Maximilian was more difficult to hear. Jenny could only make out a few words: "… the sea-chest… seem natural… drowning…"
Then the Old Man spoke again, with words which were clear even if their meaning was not.
"It will do. Digby can fill the chest with sea-water tomorrow. Now we have talked enough, Maximilian. Let us go up for a last drink, and prepare for sleep."
Jenny thought, Go up?
"Nancy! Get out!"
Jenny called as loudly as she dared, and heard a slight scurry of feet above her. Immediately Jenny herself went rushing up the stone steps, feeling the strangeness in motion somewhere behind. In her rush she went straight through the top door, into the corridor, and along toward the kitchen. The darkness after the lighted stairway confused her, with after-images flashing around her.
It was a moment or two before she reached the kitchen door and realized that it was closed. Nancy was not with her.
Behind Jenny were heavy footsteps on stone, and a sense of the strangeness approaching. Where had Nancy got to? Where? With the feeling that the Old Man of Munington was about to see her at any moment, Jenny raced through the last two doors—leaving them closed behind her—and went from the kitchen out into the garden. Her feet crunched into cinders—the path—and she jumped aside to the softer earth. A cabbage stalk snapped under her foot, startling her into a gasp.
"Nancy! Oh, where are you?"
There was no answer. Gradually, Jenny understood that she was out under the stars, that the Old Man and Maximilian must have gone back to the living room, and that
Nancy must be trapped somewhere inside the square stone walls of Manor of Munington.
She would never tell anyone the way she felt now, in the dark, stepping off the vegetable patch, going back to the kitchen door. This was absolutely horrible. And trying to tiptoe on the doorstep, her shoe slipped slightly, being muddy from the garden, and immediately she could imagine the Old Man finding her trail of muddy footprints all through the house in the morning. Jenny breathed heavily, pulled off her shoes, and went back in her stockings into Manor of Munington. She hoped she would be able to pick up the shoes on her way back out, or else they would betray her as surely as muddy footprints would have done.
Going back through the kitchen was worse than the first time. She was still feeling her way in the dark, but now she was alone and worrying terribly about Nancy, and she knew that at any minute someone might come along to lock the doors for the night. These people probably had the country habit of an early bed to allow early rising in the morning. This thought made her so anxious and fearful she could hardly bring herself to re-enter the corridor. When at last she did, she found it as dark as before, with only a tiny line of light under the living-room door. The other doors were all closed.
She stepped cautiously up to the door which she thought concealed the steps down, and tried the handle. It turned, but the door did not move. Luckily her fingers brushed against a key, unnoticed before, and this opened it.
The feeling was strong again, but that was because she was close to the living room and its occupants, she hoped. She had to go down those stairs. If Nancy wasn't there, she might be on the upper staircase, or else she might have got into the living room, either in hiding or dragged there by force…
So down the stone steps she went, as silently as she could, down to the corner. She didn't know how to switch on the light, and thought she was probably safer without it. At the turning, she stopped.
She whispered, "Nancy?"
"Jen?"
In another moment, they were together. "You took the other steps?" Jenny hugged her sister with enormous relief, squeezing the breath out of them both. "Phew! Let's go."
Side by side, they hurried back up the steps.
"I heard them lock me in, Jenny. I couldn't get out. I was just trying the other doors when I heard you. That bottom room—I found a light switch—it's like an old torture chamber in there—"
Jenny told her to save it for later. There were things she'd overheard which she still had to tell Nancy, but the important thing now was to get out. The feeling was still strong. Quickly they took the same way back, closing all the doors behind them. Jenny was glad to leave the kitchen for the last time, thinking how easily someone could have locked the door with her trapped outside and watching helplessly from the vegetable patch. Only Nancy would have been able to open the window, but Nancy would have been locked away down on the stone stairway. The two of them had been so lucky to get out. At least Jenny knew that the risk of coming back had been worthwhile.
Outside the kitchen door, in the night which felt warm and comforting compared to the strange uneasiness she had felt within the house, Jenny retrieved her shoes and put them on. She even smoothed the trodden ground where she had stood in the vegetable patch.
"Clever girl," whispered Nancy approvingly. "You know, Jenny, you needn't have come back for me. I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't. I'd have managed somehow."
"Oh no, I had to come back for you!"
Jenny could never have left Nancy in that place, no matter how bad the feelings became.
"I know. I've always said you'll get half when I'm twenty-one, you know."
"Nancy, I don't want it!"
The dark half-seen garden of Manor of Munington was no place for this old argument. Jenny felt Nancy's arm on her shoulder. "Home, James, and don't spare the horses!"
They walked back still hand in hand, through the garden and past the garage and down the dreadfully long drive, until they were out on the lane and the feeling had quite gone from Jenny. On the black horizon, three miles distant, was the little red warning light which marked the observation tower of Aberpoeth. Above her, Orion and the sisters of the Pleiades were keeping watch. Familiar stars, old friends. They were with her all the way down past Long-house, past Pentre, between the high hedgebanks, down to the lights of Llandygoch and so in through the gate of Coneygar Cottage itself.
"I was just beginning to worry about you," said Aunt Hattie.
"Sorry we're late," said Jenny.
"We had a nice walk up to Manor of Munington," said Nancy.
==========
VIII
Maximilian Wolf slept badly that night, thinking he would have to act if the Old Man did not, and in consequence he was unable to concentrate fully at work the next morning. He did however spend the first hour usefully with Kenneth Marker.
Towards noon, he became aware that Kenneth Harker had been missing for an hour or more, and therefore he went searching for him.
Harker had retreated to the quiet sanctuary of an organic analysis bench. Max found him behind a row of burettes, their glass tubing clamped upright before him like a screen. He was writing in the familiar yellow-spined S.O. Book 127, a hard-covered foolscap jotter he used for all his project summaries; the book was an inch-thick 1938 version, not one of the slim narrow-feint wartime economy stocks which were all that Max had been issued. Max had learned to recognize these little status markers in the public service. He had learned too that when Harker took his fountain-pen to this book, another stage of some project was virtually over.
Max came around the shield of burettes and pulled up a stool beside Marker.
"Here you are, Ken. Have you thought any more about my suggestion?"
Marker paused, holding his pen an inch above the book.
"Max, I couldn't fail to think about it. A remote possibility, but as you say it must be considered. I've got young Jenkins combing the literature now."
"I'm glad to hear it. This may be a slight case of perfectionism on my part, as you would say, but we have a responsibility to cover every aspect of the problem."
Marker wrote down a few words, then looked up again.
"Do you realize, Max, your perfectionism has cost me another day? I won't be able to document my final recommendations until tomorrow, thanks to you!"
"I am glad to hear that too," said Max. Very glad. This was what he had neglected his own work earlier on to achieve, this postponement of Harker's written decision until after tonight. Admittedly he had been forced to posit some fairly unlikely possibilities. His previous objections had not been enough, not quite. The need for cryogenic housing was a technical problem which would surely be overcome soon. Also, reports of some foreign experiment code-named George suggested that the danger of the reaction spreading was now so slight as to be negligible, although fortunately Harker lacked sufficient information to be absolutely sure. Max wished he could learn where this data had come from, but he knew that for security reasons neither he nor Harker would ever be told.
The restrictions of life among humans could seem so petty and pointless at times.
Max brushed a finger casually against the glass tap of the nearest burette while he considered whether or not he had done enough to create a delay. It seemed, on balance, that he had. He watched the gold nib sliding across the smooth paper, then stood up. "I won't disturb you any further, Ken. No doubt you need peace to collect your thoughts. Although, one thing, Ken—I take it that your acceptance of the invitation to the Manor tonight still stands? Pressure of work will not interfere?'"
Barker's pen paused again. "No, I'm looking forward to the break, and to meeting your noble cousin." He chuckled suddenly at Max, as was his habit when ending a conversation. "And I'm sure my two nieces will enjoy visiting the Manor."
==========
IX
School had been almost unbearable for Jenny, long and tedious with far too much time to think. All day since the moment of waking up, she'd been recalling what she had heard the night before. She and Nancy had whispered to each other about it for hours after going to bed last night, but today they'd had no chance to discuss it. This term, Nancy had gone up to another school, being eleven, and Jenny had no one at break or lunchtime who could help, who could even be told. Jenny was never gladder to see the school bus at the end of the afternoon, and to see Nancy already up on the top deck.
There was no dinner at the cottage tonight, only a quick sandwich for them as well as for Uncle Ken, because tonight they were having dinner at Manor of Munington.
At least this gave Jenny time to make plans with her sister, except that they couldn't think of anything useful to do. Warning Uncle Ken not to go wouldn't work, they agreed. All they could do was tell all the neighbors exactly where they were going, for safety's sake. After that they could only wait.
Then, when the Bentley arrived—
"We're so excited," Nancy announced to the chauffeur. "We've told everyone we're having dinner at the Manor!"
Nancy paused, for Jenny to come in on cue, but all of a sudden Jenny found herself unable to speak. She felt as though she were leaning over a vast icy gulf, as though a great numbness were spreading up across her back. With an effort she nodded toward the little old chauffeur, even now turning to look at her.
"I've got that feeling again, Nancy…"
"What feeling?" asked Uncle Ken, following them through the cottage gate in his demob suit. "Are you all right, my girl? You look pale."
"Just a headache," Jenny gasped. "I'll see if Aunt Hat-tie's got some aspirin."
It was what Aunt Hattie had given her before, when she had complained of feeling odd. It would be better than nothing. The thought of all the feelings of last night coming back, worse than ever, being at the Manor with its people, was making her queasy. She dashed inside, found her aunt, and was given two white tablets. Hastily, she swallowed them, washed them down with a cup of water, and returned outside to the car. Around her, the evening air seemed to hang heavily over the quiet village.
"Better now?" asked Uncle Ken. Nancy just raised her eyebrows, which meant the same thing.
"Not really," said Jenny. "I'll get over it. Can we go?"
"In you get," said Uncle Ken, and they all bundled into the back seat. He felt Jenny's forehead. "No temperature. Yes, you'll soon get over it." As the chauffeur started up, he went on, "Give the aspirin time to work. Remarkable stuff, you know. Acetylsalicylic acid. Chemically it is virtually the same as a substance found in willow bark, so perhaps there was a basis of fact in some of the ancient witches' brews."
Jenny sighed. Uncle Ken could never forget that he was a scientist. Never, unless when losing himself in his favorite horror stories, maybe. He was always telling her and Nancy more than they wanted to know.
The Bentley was carrying them swiftly up the lane toward the Manor—by headlights, for the night was already dark. In the yellow glow ahead, Nancy glimpsed the milk-stand of Pentre where she had met the Old Man yesterday and felt the same disquieting presence as she felt around his younger cousin, Max Wolf, or around the chauffeur now.
Except that she couldn't sense the chauffeur anymore.
The feeling had gone.
Uncle Ken was right. Aspirin was remarkable stuff. Maybe one day she would discover why—what had he said about witches' brews?—but meanwhile she was simply grateful that it worked. She began to feel that, despite her fears, she could face an evening with the Old Man of Munington
And still keep clear-headed enough to see what he might try with Uncle Ken.
==========
X
He saw their lights coming up the drive, and heaved himself out from the great reinforced armchair in the living room to await his guests.
The Old Man had resisted the effects of aging longer than most of his kind, but now the long reach of time had advanced upon him. In previous years, he had disguised his longevity by simple deceptions, such as leaving for a while and returning later as his own nephew, but nowadays he could no longer assume the appearance of a younger person. His body was becoming stiffer, less mobile, settling with age into a pattern which was not of his choosing.
Any physical action tonight would have to be swift and without warning, to have any hope of success. Although the sheer weight of his huge body would give him some advantage.
He reached the porch and stood ready, still wrapped in the grey outdoors cloak, which made him seem even larger than he was. As the Bentley drew up, he opened the door and switched on the new electric lantern. By its light, he saw Digby letting out his passengers, the tall figure of Harker, the two small girls. Those two would be no hindrance to him. If anything, their presence might act as a restraint on Maximilian's occasional impulsiveness. He greeted them first, to maintain the old courtesies.
"Good evening to you, young ladies, Mr. Harker. I am so pleased that you could come."
As they murmured thanks, he stepped back, conscious that he must not allow his bulk to overawe them, not yet.
"Come inside. Let me show you around the house."
He ushered them forward into the main hall, where there were lights, and he spent several minutes pointing out in leisurely fashion the oak staircase, the wood paneling, the ancient portrait paintings and an even older suit of armor in one corner. These were things they would expect to see, things which would reassure them.
"The present Manor is relatively new," he informed them. "It was almost entirely rebuilt by John Nash in 1800, on the site of an earlier building." He remembered Nash well, a very capable young man.
Of the original building, nothing remained but the cellars.
"You must be cold after your journey. I will show you the rest of the Manor later. Let us make ourselves comfortable around the fire."
He had set the scene for the evening well enough. Now he ushered them into the living room, toward the great fireplace with its blazing logs, where Maximilian was waiting.
For the next hour, he was the perfect host, making conversation, offering drinks—fresh milk for the girls—smiling as much as his huge ravaged face would allow.
Cook came in, Cook who was actually his sister, although no person in the village could have guessed it, and she brought in an excellent traditional meal of beef and vegetables. There were enough additional culinary flourishes to imply that rationing had never restricted the Munington household in any way. Soon Kenneth Harker appeared to be thoroughly relaxed. The man was clearly at his ease, his nieces less so, although they seemed much less nervous than yesterday when the Old Man had spoken to them on the road. And Maximilian, for once, was taking pains to be genial and good company.
Maximilian and the Old Man, of course, had different objectives for the evening, although Maximilian did not know that yet.
The Old Man pondered while they ate.
There was a missing factor in his knowledge of Harker, something even Maximilian had not been able to tell him. He knew that Harker had an excellent scientific mind, and was trusted with information of the highest military security classification, but more individual details were still lacking. Harker had made several friends in Llandygoch since his arrival and he certainly joined in the village activities, although not quite to the same extent as his wife with her Red Cross and her Girl Guides. He was known to like macabre horror stories in his reading, but that was not too unusual. Yet somewhere in this picture of the man was some reason why Maximilian's attempts at persuasion had proved ineffective, some reason why Harker was so unshakable in his conviction that the hydrogen bomb project should go ahead. Was the fault in Maximilian's basic approach, or in his reading of human personality?
The Old Man continued probing under cover of light conversation, but he learned nothing useful until the meal proper was over.
Then the hint came almost by chance. A reference to the parents of the two girls, their deaths, the fact that an inheritance was waiting. Although Harker did not mention the finer details there, in front of the log fire, the Old Man happened to recall some words from yesterday, when he had met the girls on the road by Pentre.
They had said that the inheritance was for Nancy alone.
Only Harker could have told them that! And told them without caring what envies, what jealousies and divisions it might have caused between the sisters!
The Old Man had gained enough experience of human reactions to such things to realize what this fact told him about Harker. It was something to which Maximilian had been blind. This had to be confirmed, quickly.
"So the girls are provided for," he said, bringing an unusual warmth to his booming tones. He widened his lips in an approximation of a smile at the two round little faces, now pinkish from the warmth of the fire. 'That is indeed good to know. I take it that a trust fund has been set up for them?"
Harker nodded; the man had allowed Maximilian to keep topping up his glass of port, ever since the first toast to the health of His Majesty, and he was clearly in a convivial mood.
"Yes, it's a trust for the two of them in effect—" Harker drained his glass again—"although under the actual terms, Nancy is the sole beneficiary, as the legal chaps put it. That doesn't matter to me—I look after them both."
The Old Man looked at them with a beam which they might have mistaken for affection, rather than satisfaction.
He heard breath drawn in sharply. Maximilian must have realized the significance of all this.
"You're quite open!" said Maximilian. "Was that important to you, Ken, letting the girls know where they stand?"
"Yes, yes. It's a fact. I don't hide facts from anyone."
Before the Old Man could interrupt them, Maximilian went on, "Just as you won't hide the facts about the bomb from anyone, Ken?"
He had grasped it.
"That is work," the Old Man said firmly, to check any further indiscretions. "We do not wish to talk about work tonight, eh? We wish to forget our duties. And as your work has such a high security classification, both of you, we should not start the habit of discussing it. Walls have ears. Please, refill your glasses."
It had taken Maximilian this long to see the obvious. How many months? But at last he must be convinced that Harker would never alter his mind. The psychological pivot of the situation had been reached; at least one life would be ended tonight.
And indeed, very soon the Old Man found Maximilian turning the conversation to the subject of their cellar.
==========
XI
Jenny drew in breath. She needed to. Despite the heat of the living room, a strange chill was beginning to disquiet her. "Excuse me, please—I wonder—where's the bathroom?"
"By the kitchen door," said Maximilian. "Near the end of the corridor we showed you."
"Coming, Nancy?" Jenny took her sister's arm and almost pulled her out of the room. The wearing off of the tablets was the least of her worries. In the corridor, she stopped and faced Nancy.
"All those questions! They're after something, Nancy! They thought we wouldn't notice!"
"Uncle Ken didn't notice."
"He wouldn't, he's had too much port. He's like that after sherry, too." Jenny sighed. "What can we do?"
Nancy shook her head. "There's only one thing we can do. When they make a move, we'll grab him and get him to run for it before they catch him. The Bentley's still outside the front—he can drive it, it can't be any different to our Black Bomber."
Jenny felt uneasy. "I don't think he's up to it—"
Suddenly the feeling became much worse, a shiver all the way up her backbone, and in the same instant the door ahead opened. Out from the kitchen came the old cook, in her grey uniform and starched white apron. Jenny went silent at once. She wanted to close her eyes but did not dare to.
The cook stared at them. Her eyes were cold and unblinking. Her face bore patches of some skin disease which gave her an almost scaly appearance. She was very tall.
Nancy said, "We were looking for the bathroom."
Slowly the cook raised her hand, and indicated a narrow door set underneath the staircase.
"It is there."
"Oh, thank you." Nancy smiled brightly and led Jenny toward it. As the two of them went through the door Nancy whispered, "Jen, are you all right?"
"Not really. The feeling's coming back. Worse. Now I'm getting it from her as well!"
==========
XII
The Old Man sat slumped in his leather armchair, deep in thought. The girls had returned but were very quiet. Maximilian had been talking of werewolves and vampires, in fiction, and now he said casually,''Well, Ken, if you like the macabre, that cellar of ours would interest you."
"The cellar? You mentioned it just now." Harker controlled his speech well for someone who had consumed so much port. "What did you say you kept down there?"
"Stocks, a scold's bridle, and some man-traps our ancestors set in the grounds—"
Ancestors? The Old Man nearly grunted his protest. He had set those traps himself, in the days before the world began changing.
He could see that Maximilian was now quite determined to act. It was time. He spoke.
"Yes, you will find our cellar interesting. Maximilian! Will you go down, open the doors and arrange some light for our visitor?"
The Old Man had said doors in the plural deliberately. One door for the cellar itself, the other for the sea-chest. By now the chest had been filled. As everyone in Manor of Munington knew, any person found drowned off the cliffs would naturally have his lungs full of salt water.
Maximilian said, "I'll go down."
"We shall follow," said the Old Man. "First I shall find something to interest the girls. The library, perhaps."
The lower door to the library was off the stairs to the cellar.
As Maximilian went out, the Old Man motioned for the girls to get up. Their uncle was already standing. Slowly the Old Man nodded to them. "Yes, the library. I think, Mr. Harker, that you too would find some books of interest in our library. Come."
He led the three of them into the corridor. He saw that the girls were again pale; perhaps they had not liked the talk of man-traps. With a desire for haste, he took them through the stairs door, and down the first stone steps. Maximilian had put on the stairs lights already.
"This way, young ladies. You too, Mr. Harker. You are welcome to see the library."
He guided them across the underground landing and up the other steps, noticing the younger girl glance back nervously at the flight leading down to the cellar. She was the one he would speak to, then. He pressed on the secret catch, and the door swung away from him. In another moment, they had light, and were stepping into the library.
It was another long high-ceilinged room, always a little chilly due to its north aspect, but Digby had lit a small fire in the grate while their guests were eating, and the atmosphere was not unpleasant. Yes, the girls would prefer this to the cellar.
Most of his volumes were behind glass. Harker gave a slightly tipsy laugh. "Nice bookcases! A bit better than my old American ammunition boxes painted battleship grey, eh what?" He hiccupped. The Old Man saw the elder girl frowning at him behind his back.
On the table, under the light, the Old Man had left a book open.
"Ah, Mr. Harker, you see what I was reading earlier. A rare edition of a work by Doctor Polidori, annotated and illustrated. Sit down, please. This passage will be to your taste, I believe."
Harker slid somewhat abruptly into the chair which the Old Man held ready for him. His head bent over the volume.
Quietly, the Old Man turned to Jenny. "There is no need for him to hurry down to the cellar. If he is reading, he may stay here as long as he wishes. I will go down to Maximilian."
He moved away before she could do more than stare at him in puzzled fashion. Harker was reading, and the other girl was looking at an illustration with an expression of distaste.
The Old Man departed from the library, operating the secret catch again on his way out. He wondered how long his guests would take to examine their surroundings, and to discover that every door and window around them was now locked.
==========
XIII
Jenny crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself tightly. It didn't help the feeling. Nancy looked worried.
This was as bad as last night.
"Mmph! A fascinating book, this. Still, better get down to Max, I suppose."
Jenny felt a shudder of horror at the thought. She was very tempted to follow Nancy's plan and try to get him out, perhaps climb through a window, flee away from Manor of Munington. And she was almost ill with the strangeness inside her, boiling up like smoking ice, all white and inexplicable. She needed time to think.
Then she remembered what the Old Man had said as he left.
"Oh, Uncle Ken, you carry on reading. Old Mr. Munington said not to hurry, you read all you want to here."
"Well—"
"He won't mind, really."
And Jenny leaned over beside his shoulder, and put her finger to the printed words. In another moment, Uncle Ken was reading again.
Presently she became aware that his head had slipped further down. He was beginning to snore.
Carefully she moved away, feeling enormous relief that at least he would not attempt to go down to the cellar just yet. She turned back to Nancy, feeling the strangeness a little less for a second.
"He's asleep!"
"Too much port. Best thing, though. I really didn't like the sound of that cellar."
"If he sleeps long enough maybe they won't insist on him going down."
Then she realized how foolish that must sound, given their suspicions. Jenny thought hard. Things had gone wrong. It was her fault for falling in too readily with the Old Man's suggestions, instead of getting Uncle Ken to slip away at once. The Old Man was too persuasive. She and Nancy had better find an escape route now, before they were disturbed.
That was when she found they could not open the door. Or the other door. Or any of the windows.
Uncle Ken was asleep over the book and would not wake up no matter how hard they shook him. Every way out was locked, and something dreadful was being prepared for them in the cellar. They were all trapped. This was the worst moment of her life.
A worse moment was about to begin.
The strangeness within Jenny intensified suddenly. It became real pain. It seemed to twist like something cold and electric inside her and all around her, until it seemed to overwhelm her… as if she were sinking through seas of ice…
She felt herself going down. She seemed to taste salt water.
==========
XIV
"Jenny! Wake up! Oh please Jen, wake up!"
From darkness Jenny swam up into light, toward the anxious face of Nancy with her hair edged in the glow of the lamplight above. The strangeness was still there, but it was more bearable now.
Above her too was a huge lumpy face, solemn and high, the face of the Old Man of Munington.
"Is anything the matter, young lady?"
She remembered where she was, and the way she had felt when that wave of strangeness came over her. She had felt nothing like that ever in her life before, but she could not admit it to that monstrous figure above her.
"It was nothing," said Jenny. "I get these headaches… I could do with an aspirin."
The Old Man nodded, reached for her and helped her up. She flinched, but fortunately he must have mistaken her reaction for ordinary shock, because he said almost gently, "We have no medication like that here, but perhaps your aunt will give you some when you go home." . Jenny gasped, "Home?"
The Old Man was already shaking her uncle where he lay slumped across book and table.
"Mr. Harker? Mr. Marker! No, he is deep in sleep. We shall have to carry him to the car."
"The car?" Jenny and Nancy echoed the words together. The Old Man must have meant it about them going home.
"Yes. It is time you two were in bed, I am sure, and time your uncle was too, I think. I shall bring Digby to help me carry him up."
This time, Jenny had enough wits left to ask, "Why not Mr. Wolf?"
"'He has gone… gone for some fresh air, since he saw Mr. Harker was in no state to visit the cellar. He said it seemed a pleasant night for a walk." The Old Man of Munington went across to the other door. "I shall find Digby. Wait here." He was gone. As he went, the feeling of strangeness lessened.
Jenny remembered what she had felt before fainting, the sheer overwhelming power of it. She spun around, facing the door to the cellar stairs. It was open. No feeling came from down there, none at all. She looked back: Uncle Ken was still snoring. She could hear him.
"Nancy, stay with him. I want to look in the cellar."
"Jenny, no! Why?"
"Because there's no feeling! Don't stop me!"
She ran out, and clattered down the steps. No time for silence now. She had to see where that wave of strangeness had come from, now, before the Old Man could come back from arranging the car.
The lights were still on, the cellar door still open. Jenny rushed in. Around the shadowy margins she was vaguely aware of strange devices, of frameworks of timber and metal, of iron rods and leather-seeming straps, but after her first swift impressions she had eyes only for the large wooden chest in the center of the chamber.
The chest was huge, over six feet long. It had a heavy flat lid, now closed. Around it, the ancient stone flags of the floor were splashed with water.
Jenny went to the chest, reaching for the lid.
Nancy was beside her. "Jennifer, what are you doing?"
"Opening it! Give me a hand!"
"I shouldn't, but—just quickly, then."
Together they strained and pushed, and raised the lid a little way, until Jenny was able to see inside.
The thing under the water still wore clothes, but its half-seen face was like the face of some unknown animal. And the hand floating limply from a sleeve was merely a fold of webbed skin.
Jenny screamed.
The lid fell back with a heavy thud. A muffled swash of water sounded.
"Young ladies!"
The Old Man of Munington stood above them in the doorway. His presence seemed as immovable as the solid walls themselves.
With the strangeness a cold mist boiling around her, Jenny knew exactly what to do. She reached for two iron rods nearby, picked them up, and formed the sign of the cross.
She had read it in the books her uncle kept hidden.
The Old Man raised his hand toward her, then seemed to hesitate.
Jenny shook her head at him. "Don't come any nearer!" Nancy was still by the chest, frozen in shock.
"You will say nothing of this," said the huge figure in the doorway. "Your uncle is alive and I have saved him, though you do not realize it. There are some of us who believe that human civilization should progress with the minimum of interference, for the good of us all. So, young ladies, if you wish to ensure your uncle's safety you will go home and sleep, and remember only that there is no evil in Manor of Munington, not now. What you have seen must stay secret."
Jenny merely continued to hold up the cross. It was all she had.
The presence of the Old Man was bearing down upon her with almost hypnotic force.
"Secret. Your uncle's project is a military secret. You must say nothing."
Abruptly the Old Man turned in the doorway, and held out an arm to them.
"Come. We must carry your uncle to the car."
Afterward, Jenny still took the cross with her into the Bentley, and still held on to it as she sat beside Nancy and a slowly reviving Uncle Ken, all the way down through the country lanes right to the door of Coney gar Cottage.
On the doorstep she stood watching the car lights disappear back along the lane, and at last she let the iron rods fall. In her heart, she felt that they had really been of no use.
She and Nancy and Uncle Ken had returned alive from Manor of Munington only because it had suited the Old Man to let them live. She could only guess at why.
In the stories Jenny had read about forces of darkness and of light.
There were black witches who were evil. There were white witches who were not.
There were black vampires.
Why not a white vampire?
==========
XV
The following morning Digby brought the Bentley to a field gate below Longhouse, where the Old Man could look out over the roofs of Llandygoch and contemplate the timeless river Mwldan beyond.
"Will those girls talk, sir?"
"Not while their thoughts are inhibited by ideas from their foolish mystery tales. Humans are very suggestible creatures, when you have studied them for as long as I have. You noticed how I backed away before the smaller one's cross? They will not speak for fear of ridicule, and eventually the unpleasantness will have faded from their minds. Barker's life and work will be undisturbed. The balance will continue."
The Old Man shifted his bulk slowly, leaning more heavily on the gate.
"Thus the affair is ended. I regret that Maximilian became too troublesome, but it was inevitable, as we saw from the first. He had best move away suddenly, rather than become a Missing Person, you think?'"
"I can arrange it either way, sir. It's funny how some of these youngsters who come to us learn the basics in no time, and some of them never do."
"Quite so, Digby. Maximilian would never have learned. Neither would he have appreciated that under the English system Harker's report will be pigeonholed for years, or certainly will not be acted upon until some other nation overcomes the refrigeration problem. But the end result will be the same, for this is not the only hydrogen bomb project in the world."
The Old Man straightened himself, very slowly.
"The knowledge will spread, Digby. Humanity will have a weapon capable of destroying every living thing on this planet."
"Well then, sir, you'd better go on keeping an eye on them."
"Indeed I had. Nothing is ever simple."
The Old Man of Munington left the gate, and returned to the passenger seat of the Bentley. After a moment, Digby too got in, and the Old Man gave directions to drive down toward Llandygoch, where he could buy a newspaper and see what else the human beings were learning to do.