The Devil Walks Read online

  That parapet! It seemed a whole mile high! I could see all the way across to Illingworth – a better, braver prospect than looking down.

  But I’d no time to hang about, gathering courage. At any moment my uncle might glance at the house and see me standing clear against the sky. So, dropping to my knees, I crawled along to where I knew the ivy might be strong enough to bear my weight: right at the end where, all those years ago, Thomas had carved the thickest of his pear-wood coils.

  The ivy that was sturdy then would surely be as strong as iron now.

  I sat astride the parapet. Come now! I urged myself. If Simple Jack can clamber down a beanstalk, then so can you!

  The first few footholds were the hardest to find. My heart banged in my chest. The merest rustle of leaves drowned me in terror. But I kept at it, foot beneath foot, hand under hand. I didn’t dare look down – not for a moment! No, I buried my face against the whiskery stems and forced myself to think I was a child from one of my old story books who climbed down trees as easily as he ran over bridges or paddled in streams.

  Down, down. I could see casement windows now on either side. They were too far away to reach, but still they cheered me with a sense of making progress. If I kept going, then each minute that passed I would be safer.

  So down again. Another foot and handhold. Down, down and down, till I was almost to the ground.

  I turned my head to check no one was near, and then I slithered down a little further, till my feet hit earth.

  And so I left High Gates through the door in the wall that led to Thomas’s cottage. I scribbled a farewell then, rather than cut back round the outside of the wall and risk the captain and his hovering eagles peering out to see me, set off directly across the downs, planning to meet the track to Illingworth beyond the woods, further along the way.

  What was I feeling? Terror, certainly. And yet in spite of that, springing inside me was a shoot of happiness. For I was going back! I’d jump the train and buy a ticket from the guard, and sit in perfect safety and content, counting the minutes and hours as I retraced the long, long journey I had never sought to make.

  Finally I’d arrive where, from the day I left, I’d longed to be again. I saw it all in my mind’s eye as I strode over the downs, setting my path by Illingworth’s church spire. I’d hurry up the Marlows’ garden path and rap at the door. It would swing open. Here would be a surprise to send poor Molly into one of her faints! I’d watch her mouth fall open in astonishment as I stepped past her into the cool hall. She’d say my name with quite as much amazement as if she’d seen a ghost, and then from every room would run the members of the family. ‘Daniel?’ ‘Can it be you?’ ‘What joy!’

  I would be home at last.

  I faltered in my stride. Had I said home? How much must have wheeled about if, after these short months, the word no longer conjured up a picture of my mother sitting by my bed in that small room in which I’d languished so long, but a large airy house cluttered with bonnets and ribbons, bursting with merriment and laughter.

  Now I walked slower, and absorbed in thought. So much had changed since I first shuffled on the doctor’s arm out of my mother’s house. I was a different boy. So the old saying’s true, I told myself. The way we live will make us what we are.

  And that in turn led me to think about my step-uncle. Perhaps the wickedness in him had in itself been born of doing evil – as if it were some sort of muscle he had exercised by all the choices made along his way – until it was his own true self, and he’d become a man who would bring back from all his marvellous travels, not gorgeous silks and spices along with wonderful tales of leaping dolphins and shining minarets, but some stick creature which had been shot through with poisonous magic.

  Perhaps …

  Something drew my attention back. What was that I could see ahead of me? A tiny cloud of dust coming this way from Illingworth – and very fast.

  It was a wagon rumbling along the chalky track.

  Still thinking it much safer not to be seen, I threw myself behind a slope and watched as it rolled by. And it was by the purest chance that, as I looked back, a gust of wind lifted the heavy cloth to show against the silvered sky that silhouette I’d known for ever and will see in dreams until the day I die.

  The doll’s house. On the final leg of its long journey.

  And even now I can’t explain what happened next. It seems to me I must have lost my senses. But I was damned if that vile doll was going to end up in my uncle’s hands. It had, I knew, twisted my mother’s mind till she kept me entombed. Its black, black shadow fell on everything around it. It made my harmless wooden Mrs Golightly hang awry to presage my own mother’s death. It had turned patient, loving Mrs Marlow into a mother who could banish Sophie to her bedroom for almost nothing. For heaven’s sake! This vicious, haunted puppet had managed to turn even sweet Sophie’s games into monstrosities of cruelty and spite.

  Once in my uncle’s hands – once evil had joined hands with stronger evil – what might not happen?

  I could not bear the thought.

  Already I was running after the cart and, with a flying leap, I hurled myself aboard. I threw back the tarpaulin, revealing the doll’s house’s dusty front. I felt around for the hook and tugged it open, thrusting my hand towards the cushioned window seat in which the foul manikin lay.

  Sophie had pinned it down well, so I dug in my pocket for my mother’s ivory case. Surely, I thought, two of the tools held together would be strong enough to prise the seat open again.

  The wagon bucked and rocked. Twice I was thrown aside, and twice I stabbed my fingers with the tools till the blood sprang. But I would not be thwarted. I stuck the sharp little hooks under the seat top and pressed down hard.

  There! It was done. There lay the Severin doll. And I will swear that though its eyes were painted, they fixed on mine with living hatred. Tugging the stiff thing out, I felt a scorching burn shoot down my arm. Then everything around me seemed to chill and darken as if some monstrous cloud had swept across to cut out light and warmth.

  The doll was hard to hold. I grasped it tighter and tighter but still the devilish thing seemed to be trying to whip itself out of my grip.

  The cart kept rattling on. I tried to hold the doll down on the boards. Was it just stones on the path that seemed to send us flying from side to side, hurling me this way and that? I felt true anger. Yes! This doll could pass its feelings on to anyone around. It was a coiled spring of nastiness. A powerhouse of fury.

  But, holding it so tightly, so was I. Its power fed me and I felt my teeth grinding together as I bared my lips and snarled at the strange thing that seethed in my hand, ‘Oh, no! You won’t defeat me now! I’ll stop you struggling! I’ll keep you still!’

  I thrust it back on the boards with all my strength. But in my haste and fury I’d slammed it down just where my dear mother’s lace-making tools lay spilled.

  A delicate steel hook spiked through the manikin’s heart.

  My vision clouded and a bolt of pain ran up my arm and through my body, leaving me breathless. Everything around me shook. I heard a sullen roar, as if some giant soul were bellowing in agony. Under the rocking of the cart it felt as the world itself were heaving angrily; and in an instant I’d been hurled, empty-handed, backwards onto the chalky track.

  Sensing a shift in weight, the driver turned in his seat. Seeing me sitting in the dirt, he shook his head as if to say, ‘Rude boy, to steal a ride and not give so much as a word of thanks!’

  And then, presumably without another thought, he whipped the pony on towards High Gates.

  I scrambled to my feet. There was no chance of catching up with the cart again before it rumbled through the gates between the hovering eagles. In any case, I longed to run for the train. I stood in indecision. Should I turn this way, or that? To set my footsteps on to Illingworth would be the coward’s choice – and in that moment no one in the world felt more faint-hearted than I. But even as I stood there wavering, I
seemed to hear the echo of my own harsh judgement on my father and mother: ‘Both of them made the coward’s choice!’

  I had forgiven my mother. But now I realized Thomas had been right about my father too. He’d said one day I’d come to understand how a man could be tired to the bone with hiding from the devil. My father had been faithful and strong for years. Yet here was I, planning to run for safety after the shortest time.

  Had I no courage either?

  But then another memory sprang to mind, of Dr Marlow in the garden warning me that I’d a whole life’s journey to undertake, and must be brave.

  And Martha and Thomas had been good to me – and to my mother! How could I sit in a warm railway carriage and watch the downs rolling away behind me without assuring myself that they were safe?

  Brave I would have to be.

  So back I trudged, scratched, bruised and terrified, along the track until I reached High Gates. I slipped beneath the eagles’ outspread wings and into the trees, making my way down all the winding paths that I now knew so well. There was no sign of the cart and, guessing that the captain had ordered it round to the courtyard, I set off that way.

  But as I followed the path round towards the arch I saw the front door opening.

  Was it my step-uncle? Had I been spotted in the shadows?

  No, it was Thomas, staggering out onto the steps and gazing around as if in deepest shock.

  What? Was he wounded? Did he have a knife stuck in his back, to make him so unsteady on his feet? His chest heaved and he slumped against a pillar.

  Not even thinking that the captain might come after him and stab me too, I raced to his side. ‘Thomas! You’re hurt! What has he done to you?’

  He couldn’t speak for panting but he shook his head.

  ‘Quick, let me look!’

  While Thomas fought to cram more air into his lungs, I pushed him forward to run my hands over his jacket, front and back. But I could find no blood-stained tear, no small stiletto hole, and finally I let him fall back once again against the pillar with his legs splayed out.

  ‘Thomas?’

  What was that on his face? A grimace of pain?

  No, he was smiling.

  ‘Thomas?’ I begged again.

  And finally, his breath back in his lungs at last, Thomas began his tale. ‘The captain ordered me away, down to the river to cut logs. But then a wheel on the barrow went awry, so I crept back to make a wedge, and by the purest chance I saw him stride out from the Devil Walks, tossing a spade aside.’

  ‘And you knew why!’

  ‘Only a fool would think the man had spent his time clearing the leaves. Fearing the worst, I followed him towards the house.’

  ‘Where he was after my blood!’

  ‘I had no doubt – indeed, so keen was he to get his black work done, he took the stairs three at a time. I was hard pressed to stay close, and truly you would have thought the thunder of my footsteps up behind would have reached even his stopped ears.’ He shook his head. ‘But, no! Your uncle was too taken up with thoughts of murder to look behind him and, shooting back the bolt, he disappeared up the last stairs in search of you. I heard his war cry: “Here I come, boy! Your grave’s already dug! So! A few lines written in your best hand for my convenience. And then – a sad farewell!”’

  Shuddering at the memory, Thomas pressed on. ‘I waited, thinking to creep up and spring on him while he was standing over you and forcing you to write. But all I heard was doors slamming, chairs and tables being hurled about and venomous shouts. “What? Have you become a rat, to slip away behind walls? Show yourself, boy!”’

  I could not help but say it in some triumph. ‘For I was gone!’

  Now Thomas shook his head at me in wonder. ‘I’d barely dared to hope you knew the secret of the hatch – or had the wits to take advantage of it.’

  There would be time enough, I thought, to tell him how my mother’s childhood stubbornness – ‘It must be perfect, down to the last small roof hatch’ – had saved my life. So all I murmured was, ‘Yes, I was gone.’

  Thomas picked up his tale. ‘To cause confusion! For when I reached the top of the stairs and crept along to peer through a crack in the door, I saw your uncle standing in bewilderment, muttering, “The cunning brat! He’s slipped away. But where? And how?” I watched him smash his fist into his palm and hurry to the window to scour the grounds for any sign of you.’

  ‘You should have pushed him out!’

  ‘If I was tempted, I was soon distracted! For as the captain suddenly leaned out further, over his shoulder I saw a tiny cloud of dust coming along the track over Farley Down.’

  ‘The pony cart!’

  ‘Yes, getting closer. And as it came towards High Gates his sharp eyes must have seen a shape he recognized, because he suddenly cried out, “The doll’s house! On its way!”’

  ‘He must have been delighted,’ I said bitterly. ‘His heart’s desire come back at last.’

  ‘More than delighted. He was in a rapture. He threw himself upon his knees as if he prayed in church. “Oh, hurry! Hurry!” he cried. I tell you, Daniel, he might have been a mother calling to the son she had waved off to war a dozen years before. “Hurry!” he kept on whispering. “Come back to me! Oh, hurry!”’

  Again I saw myself sitting by Sophie that day in church, hearing the vicar’s warning: ‘Make no mistake. The devil walks. But he can make no headway unless he has our help. For him to triumph, we must invite him in.’

  I stared at Thomas. ‘You heard him calling someone – something – to come to him?’

  ‘Daniel, I heard him begging.’

  My heart began to thump. ‘What then?’

  ‘Over his bent back I could see the cart jolt closer down the track. Then suddenly it seemed to sway and, as I watched, a further cloud of dust flew up behind as if some small part of its load were lost. Your uncle let out a fearsome, anguished cry that chilled my blood, threw out his arms and fell with as much force as if a knife had stabbed him.’

  I thought again of that sharp little lace-making hook. ‘What, in the back?’

  ‘Just so.’ Thomas spread his hands. ‘Though there was nothing to see. Nothing! And then he started screaming. “No, no! Not me! Not me!”’

  I watched as Thomas shuddered. ‘There was one last, long, awful, awful writhing. Then he lay still.’

  My heart leaped. ‘So, is he dead?’

  ‘I am no doctor, Daniel. To me he looks like a felled log. I called for help, but with the noise of the cart as it rattled up towards the house, Martha could not have heard. So I have loosed his collar and turned his body over.’ Thomas grasped at my hands and whispered, ‘Daniel, his eyes stare out as if he sees into the very pit of hell.’

  We sat in silence for a moment or two, and then this good man took a grip upon himself and scrambled to his feet. Making as if to shake off some grim memory he knew would haunt him all his life, he slid his arm around my shoulders and told me gravely, ‘And I am glad.’

  The cart was in the yard. Thomas walked up and raised the cloth that hid its load.

  As I watched, his expression softened. Pulling a rag from his pocket, he rubbed it over the small portico and round a coil of ivy. ‘So,’ he said softly. ‘Almost as fresh and gleaming under the dust as if I’d made it only yesterday.’ Since there was no sign of the carrier, he turned to me. ‘It’s home at last. Come, help me pull it off.’

  Unwilling, I stepped back.

  Thomas rebuked me. ‘Daniel, the carrier must fetch a doctor to the captain’s body. He’ll travel faster with no other load.’

  So up I reached with Thomas, and together we slid the doll’s house to the back of the cart, then, with an intake of breath to aid the effort, lifted it off and lowered it to the ground.

  Thomas went off in search of Martha; but the two of them were like two Swiss men in a cuckoo clock for, as he vanished through the kitchen door, Martha came out of one of the courtyard sheds, bearing a bottle of cordial to refresh
the carrier.

  ‘The doll’s house!’

  Thrusting the cordial away on the nearest ledge, she hurried forward, then drew back her skirts as if she’d almost stepped on something precious lying on the cobbles.

  I watched her reaching down. She was within a moment of picking up the Severin doll before I gathered wits to shout, ‘Martha! Don’t touch it!’

  ‘But, Daniel—’

  ‘No! Martha, it’s not just one of the old dolls you remember so well. It’s changed.’

  ‘Changed? How can a doll—?’

  But I’d pushed her aside and, reaching out a foot, I tipped it over.

  Sticking out from its back, Martha saw something else she recognized.

  ‘What’s that? Can it be Liliana’s lacing hook?’

  Her old griefs quickened by the sight of something that had once been so familiar, the blood drained from her face. A bitter sob rang around the courtyard and her shoulders heaved. Her knees gave under her, and though I tried my hardest to hold her upright, down she sank.

  Thomas came running. Once at her side, he took one look at me then, clearly reckoning my strength not great enough for the purpose, called to the carrier who, hearing him, peered round the kitchen door and, seeing Martha on the cobbles in a faint, hastily hurried over.

  Together the two men lifted her onto the cart.

  ‘Drive her round to the front,’ said Thomas. ‘The hall is cool. She can recover there. I’ll find some bedding she can rest on, and meet you on the steps.’

  He vanished through the kitchen door. The carrier whipped the water bucket away from his resentful beast and led it from the courtyard.

  I was left alone, staring down at the monstrous thing my uncle had had bewitched and planned to use for all those grasping purposes he’d had in mind when first he brought it home from that strange voyage all those years ago. He and the doll were supposed to work as one. But, with their parting, something had gone wrong. Perhaps because its master was so far away, the little voodoo spirit had grown its own patterns of spite. Its poisonous dreams had worked on my poor mother to drive her mad, then send her to an early grave. It worked on Sophie till her mouth spat horrid voices that were never hers. It worked on all our games, to darken them and spread its shadows of cruelty. Its powers had whipped around in futile wrath, bringing down everyone they touched, and yet achieving nothing.