The trumpet in the dust

by Constance Holme

The whole world had seemed bright with the fine September day which had been sent to bless Mrs. Clapham, but there was no September day in Emma Catterall’s. Most houses take on a different character with the seasons, and are either cosy or dreary in winter, sunny or stuffy in summer; in spring, perhaps, full of unexpected light and shade, and in autumn of the after-glow of sunsets or the splendour of windows framing some golden tree. But in Emma Catterall’s house the year went by without ever setting foot inside her door, never once renewing the atmosphere or cleansing it by a breath. Going into it was like going into some primitive cave, where all that the centuries seemed to do for it was to make it ever more dark and damp, and to add to the whispering bats that clung about its walls.

Mrs. Clapham, with all her varied experience of dwellings behind her, knew that there were people who made houses dark simply by living in them, and others again who seemed to fill them with a sort of hard-edged light. She knew this by the half-conscious effect which they had upon her, so that, leaving the one, she was always glad to get out again into the sun, and hurried away from the other to find a shadowed corner of her own. But the atmosphere of Emma Catterall’s had a quality that was altogether different. Going into it was less like going into a house than into the terrible lodging of some human—or, rather, dreadfully inhuman—mind.

Yet the dwelling itself was extraordinary enough, in all conscience. There are some houses so curiously, almost insanely, built, that the brain simply refuses to grasp them; and others again full of some strong influence which seizes upon you as you go in. Mrs. Clapham knew of at least one abode in which, after years of scrubbing and cleaning, she still found herself unable to distinguish between the doors; and another in which, directly she got inside, she turned instinctively to mount the stairs. Emma’s house seemed to share both these idiosyncrasies after its own fashion. Not only was it thoroughly mad in construction, but it was full of some queer power. There were people who said that it was an ancient slaughter-house turned into a dwelling and even now it was neither house nor cottage. It had bulging walls and unequally placed windows, and lead spouts ornamented with strange heads; and instead of standing in line with its neighbours, it had edged its way out until it narrowed the street. There it had turned itself round to command a view of the hill, as if, like Emma herself, it must always be on the watch.

From the stone steps you came to a landing with a couple of doors, while directly in front a mean little stair went creeping away from you into the dark. Both doors were closed when Mrs. Clapham arrived, and that in itself seemed rather strange. They were oak doors, apparently never polished, so that, instead of shining like mirrors, they looked dirty and dead; and Mrs. Clapham had long ago forgotten which was which. Emma might at least have left one of them ajar, she thought to herself rather indignantly, staring irresolutely from one black latch to another, as well as, almost as if fascinated, at the depressed-looking stair.

It was one of those stairs which, after inviting you to ascend, suddenly dart round a corner and vanish nobody knows where. The only difference was that this stair did not dart; it barely even crept; scarcely, indeed, seemed willing to behave like a stair at all. And as Mrs. Clapham stood gazing at it, waiting for Emma to appear, she remembered the little boy who also had only crept, cold to his very bones at the thought of his spied-on bed....

She herself had never seen the comfortless room in which Stephen had slept and wept, but it was easy enough to imagine from what Tibbie had told her. According to Tibbie, it had had the same dirty and dead door, and the sort of upsetting floor that catches nastily at your feet. The paper had hung in mouldy festoons from the leaning walls, and in the darkest corner of all had stood the rickety, half-clothed bed. Even in summer the long, narrow place had been almost dark, and full of a trap-like effect produced by a window too small for the room. And all up and down had been scattered possessions of his mother’s, so that, whether she was in or out, the atmosphere was still Emma’s. There was an army of old clothes, for instance, which Stephen had simply loathed, because of that likeness which old clothes keep to their former wearer. Even when Emma had stopped staring and gone away, the old clothes had stared instead. Stephen had seen them swollen and swung into life by some passing breeze, or as limp and dreadful old Emmas, hanging slackly by skinny necks....

And still there was no sound or vestige of life from behind either of the dead-looking doors.... She put out her hand to knock, and dropped it again, intimidated by the silence, and fell instead to staring afresh at Stephen’s stair. Her imagination, unusually stimulated by the day’s events, presently went so far as actually to show her Stephen himself. Through the dusk his thin little hands gleamed as he tugged himself up by the dirty rail, and his thin little legs gleamed as he dragged them from step to step. His eyes travelled towards her as he reached the curve, and she nearly dropped; for it seemed to her as she looked that it was not Stephen whom she saw, but the terrified, haunted face of his little five-year-old son....

The thought of Stevie in that place frightened her so much that she was hurried into instant action, and, choosing at random, she knocked at the door on her left. Later, as nobody answered, she knocked again, and was lifting her hand a third time when a faint noise drew her round. Facing about, she discovered that the door behind her had opened without her knowledge, and that Emma was standing watching her with her Giaconda smile.

“Eh, now, you did give me a start!” she remonstrated almost crossly, crimsoning with annoyance and an inexplicable sense of shame. Emma, however, did not deign to reply, but merely backed, smiling, through the kitchen door, opening it just sufficiently to allow the other to squeeze through.

“You’ve been such a while, I made sure you didn’t mean coming at all,” she at last condescended to answer, when they were in the kitchen—a queer-shaped room with a sloping and knotted floor, a window that looked out at nothing more inspiring than the side of a barn, and another, which held the ferns, overlooking the street. It was gloomy, like everything at Emma’s, and Mrs. Clapham, who was usually so neat on her feet, found herself first kicking the dresser, then bumping the table, and finally catching her toe in the torn rug. She was thoroughly flustered by the time she had sat herself down in the chair indicated by Emma, while the fact that Emma herself did not sit down, but remained standing beside the table, disquieted her more than ever. But then, as she and Mrs. Tanner had already agreed, Emma never did sit down. Even at night you could not think of her as sitting in front of the fire, knitting, perhaps, or simply dreaming of old times. Even at that hour she felt sure she would be on the watch, stealing about the house and peering into the rooms. Standing by empty beds, too, Mrs. Clapham thought, with a shiver, and possibly pretending to herself that they had suddenly been re-filled....