'Where have you been?' asked Robert's mother when he walked into the drawing room the following day.
'In the garden, Mother,.' he said. 'Do you know where there's a hammer?'
'A hammer?' said his mother with a laugh.
'Yes,.' said Robert matter-of-factly. 'And some nails.'
'No,.' she said with another laugh. 'I'm afraid I do not, darling. Why on earth do you ask?'
'I need them, Mother,.' said Robert, frowning.
'Well, perhaps Mr Fenner will know . . .'
But Robert was already walking out of the door.
Mrs Sackville sighed and returned to the book she was reading but realised she was no longer in the mood. She had a sudden craving for the excellent port Dr Trewain had brought, but was terrified that a servant might find her drinking alone at eleven o'clock in the morning.
She found the constraints of being a vicar's wife every bit as frustrating as Robert found those of being a vicar's son. She loved her husband dearly and he was very supportive of her views on female emancipation, but she hungered for more.
Mrs Sackville had been surprised at how affected she had been by Dr Trewain's revelation about the history of the house. She had been expecting him to recount some ancient scandal or impropriety and had been completely unprepared for what was actually related.
She was a rational woman at heart and ordinarily the tale of the late Reverend Benchley's obsession with a previous, sixteenth-century vicar, who supposedly dabbled in sorcery, would have intrigued rather than disturbed her. She had often toyed with the notion of writing a study of English folk tales and this would have made an excellent subject. But disturbed her it had. There was something about this house that allowed the idea of someone conjuring up a demon - as this Reverend Rochester was supposed to have done - to seem horribly plausible. She understood, too, how in the weakened state of old age, the Reverend Benchley's mind could have become unnaturally fixated upon this tale; how he might have convinced himself that the demon still haunted the darker recesses of the house and grounds.
Even so, she smiled to herself. She refused to become that kind of silly woman who starts at every floorboard creak and sees hobgoblins in every shadowed corner. The repetitive beat of hammering came from outside and she walked through to the hallway at the back of the house and looked out of the window. Robert had evidently found a hammer. What on earth was he up to?
Mrs Sackville did not like the darkened patch of garden and she noticed that neither the maid nor the cook, nor indeed Mr Fenner the gardener, ever seemed to go there. Only Robert frequented that area; only Robert and the big old cat he seemed to have adopted as a playmate.
It was curious, the change that had come over Robert. He seemed to have retreated into himself since they moved here. He had always been something of a secretive child, content in his own company, but it was almost as if he had taken refuge in the kind of childish make-believe she had assumed he had long grown out of. But there was also something strange in his manner. The sooner he was back in school, the better.
Mrs Sackville watched her son. She felt a little guilty at so doing, for she had always believed him to have as much right to privacy as any adult. And yet, it was so fascinating to observe him going about his play with that earnest industriousness peculiar to children.
So taken was she by this idealistic notion that it was a few minutes before another impression began to register. Robert was wielding the hammer he had borrowed with a kind of fevered relish. What was he doing?
He seemed to be taking nails from his lips the way she had seen workmen do, and was struggling in his efforts to nail something - something that Mrs Sackville saw squirming in his hand as he struck.
Mrs Sackville felt a giddy feeling flutter in her stomach and she moved to the garden door. As she opened it, the sound of Robert's hammering could be heard more sharply.
'Robert?' she called, standing in the doorway.
He made no reply but took another nail from his mouth and hammered it home.
'Robert!' she called again, annoyed at how her voice cracked at this greater volume. 'Answer me this instant!'
Robert hesitated mid-blow, turned and faced her; then grinned and continued. This brazen insolence riled even the mild-mannered Mrs Sackville and she stepped through the open door and began to stride across the patchy back lawn towards her son.
'Robert!' she demanded as she approached.
'Robert! How dare you ignore me? What are you doing there?'
Robert got slowly to his feet and turned. She had not noticed before how tired he looked. There were dark stains under his red-rimmed eyes and his skin had a sickroom pallor to it. As she approached, Robert stood back from his handiwork, the better for his mother to see.
On a long plank of wood supported at either end by two upturned terracotta pots was the most extraordinary collection of creatures.
In the dreamlike clarity of that first glimpse, Mrs Sackville could see beetles, worms, a frog or toad - she could not tell which - crickets, flies, butterflies, a mouse and several birds, one of which was still twitching horribly. They were all pinned or nailed to the plank and, judging by the twitching bird, had been alive when Robert fixed them there.
'Good God, Robert,.' she said. 'What have you done? What monstrous thing have you done here?'
Robert smiled horribly and she noticed that his attention seemed to be distracted. She followed his sideways glance to the wall at the back of the garden. There was something there. The mangy old cat was trotting towards them along the top of the wall.
'He is my friend,.' said Robert, and then sensing that he had not given sufficient weight to this statement, he winked and said, 'my special friend. I have done all this for him.'
Mrs Sackville stepped forward and slapped Robert hard round the side of the face, so hard that Robert had to take a step back to steady himself and Mrs Sackville was shocked to feel how much her own hand hurt. Robert rubbed his cheek and looked away to the wall.
'What are you talking about?' said Mrs Sackville, suppressing a sudden urge to vomit and following his gaze. 'You are trying to say you did all this to please a cat?'
'A cat?' said Robert, genuinely confused.
'Yes,.' said his mother. 'A . . .'
But she could see now that it was no cat, but something else - something not at all right. What she had taken for fur, she could see now was more like spines of some sort and this only partly covered its body, leaving patches of warty and raw-looking skin elsewhere. The head looked like something partially skinned and cooked.
Mrs Sackville's mind struggled to cope with what she was seeing as the creature leaned horribly towards her, its impossibly wide mouth opening and closing as if in silent speech. She lifted her hand to her chest to aid the flow of breath that was now coming so painfully slow. She clutched at the linen collar, at the cameo at her throat. The pin at its back pierced her thumb almost to the bone but she did not feel it. She dropped unconscious to the ground.
Robert was momentarily aware that he should have been upset to see his mother lying on the ground at his feet, her dying breath leaving her pale lips, her eyes still wide open, but he was not.
He looked up at his friend sitting on the wall and his friend's mouth broke into one of those remarkable, warm, generous smiles. And Robert, once more, smiled back.
A heavy silence followed the end of Uncle Montague's story, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock. I pulled my clammy hands apart and wiped them on my trouser legs as my uncle leaned forward out of the shadows, the rosy firelight warming his face.
'I trust I am still not frightening you, Edgar,.' he said, raising one eyebrow.
'No, Uncle,.' I said, my voice sounding surprisingly small. 'Of course not.'
Uncle Montague walked slowly to the window and pulled aside the curtain, the milky winter light throwing him into silhouette. I wandered over to the painting and peered into the murky depths behind the house. Was there something there? A boy? There did seem to be something, but what it was I could not have said for sure.
'It looks as though a fog is closing in, Edgar,.' he said.
'Really?' I said, going to join him by the window.
Sure enough, the wood and paddock had disappeared altogether and the garden was likewise being erased by lace-like swirls of fog, curling among the topiary and statues. It was strange to see the suddenness of its arrival, for there was not the least hint of such weather when I arrived. Then something seemed to move between the topiary bushes.
'What was that?' I said, pointing to the place I had seen it.
'What do you think it was?' said Uncle Montague.
'I could not say,.' I replied. 'It moved so quickly.'
'The fog is full of such phantasms,.' said my uncle as if that were an end to the matter. It was unclear whether he meant fog in general, or this fog in particular. Either way, I was not keen to venture out into it.
'I hope it clears before I go home,.' I said.
'Yes,.' said Uncle Montague. 'We would not want you getting lost.'
'That would never happen, Uncle,.' I said. I was sure I knew the journey blindfolded.
'Really?' he said, sounding surprised. 'There are many ways of getting lost, Edgar.' His face seemed suddenly touched with sadness and he patted me on the shoulder. 'Let us return to the fire. This damp air gets into my bones.'
I realised that I too felt a sudden chill gripping my body and I leaned forward and warmed my hands against the fire's welcome heat.
'Are you feeling cold, Edgar?' asked my uncle.
'Yes,.' I answered. 'A little.'
'The fog has crept in, I think,.' said Uncle Montague. 'And there is nothing like fog to chill the soul. I'll ring for Franz and he can bring us a fresh pot of tea. A hot drink should revive you.'
Franz was duly called and a new pot of tea was brought together with another plate of biscuits and a refilled sugar bowl. Uncle Montague put the tray on the table between us once more and poured us both a cup.
'This is no entertainment for a lively young fellow like yourself, Edgar. I'd warrant you would rather be climbing trees or playing rugby.'
'Not at all,.' I said. After Uncle Montague's story about the elm tree I rather thought I might never climb a tree again. As for rugby, it was a game I had always detested.
'Do you have no friends then among the local boys?' he asked. 'Would you not rather be getting up to mischief somewhere?'
'Mischief, Uncle?' I said. 'I am not very good at mischief, and besides, the local boys are rather childish. I would rather be here, sir.'
Uncle Montague smiled.
'Very well, then,.' he said.
'Were you mischievous, Uncle?' I asked, seeing a chance to glean some information about my enigmatic relative. 'When you were a boy?'
Uncle Montague raised an eyebrow. 'When I was a boy?' he asked. 'I should hope that I am not yet too old for mischief.' Uncle Montague leaned towards me, grinning.
'Come now,.' he said. 'Is your existence really so angelic, Edgar?' He placed such a disapproving emphasis on the word 'angelic' that I was tempted to invent some bad behaviour simply to please him. Uncle saw my struggles.
'Never mind, lad. There is no shame in being a good boy,.' he said with very little conviction.
'No, Uncle,.' I said, having never for one moment ever thought that there could be.
'Perhaps you would like to hear a cautionary tale about a boy whose behaviour was not quite so commendable as your own, Edgar,.' said Uncle Montague finally.
'Yes, Uncle. I would like that.'
'Excellent.' He flexed his long bony fingers, his face becoming a mask of seriousness once more. 'Excellent . . .'
It was a crisp, bright October morning. Yellow and brown leaves were slowly falling through the chill air. Frost shimmered in the shadows.
A boy called Simon Hawkins leaned on the cold damp wall, staring at the old woman in the garden beyond. Though Simon could see her, she could not see him, for Old Mother Tallow was blind.
The children in the village called Old Mother Tallow a witch and dared each other to knock on her door. None had even mustered the nerve to enter her garden. On Halloween they threw eggs at her house and ran away. Simon had wandered there in a moment of boredom to see if blind Old Mother Tallow was up to anything exciting. It seemed unlikely.
She wore a grey coat with a thick shawl over that. A heavy dress fell all the way to her feet, the edge of which was soaking up the dampness from the grass. She wore black boots and fingerless gloves. She had a woollen bonnet on her head and her face was red with the cold.
The old woman was examining one of four old apple trees in front of the house. Simon studied her with the same sort of fascination he would were she a bee or an ant going about its business.
She was running her sinewy fingers over the trunk and branches with one hand while opening and closing a pair of secateurs with the other. She reached a point at the end of one branch and raised the secateurs, closing the blades round a twig and cutting into it. As she snipped through it a flock of redwings took flight from a nearby holly tree.
'Who's there?' she said suddenly, making Simon jump. Her voice was low and whispered and yet it seemed to crack like a whip in the silence of the garden. Simon did not answer.
'Come,.' she said, without looking round. 'I may be blind, but I'm not deaf - or stupid. If you have come to frighten an old woman, then shame on you.'
'My name is . . . Martin,.' said Simon.
'Martin, is it?' said the old woman with what sounded to Simon like doubt in her voice. But how could it be doubt? How could she know any different? 'And what do you want, Martin?'
'What are you doing?' he said.
'Pruning,.' said the old woman. 'I am pruning my apple trees. If I did not prune them they would not give me such delicious apples. They would waste all that energy growing new branches and leaves. They need to be tamed.' As she said the word 'tamed', the secateurs yawned open and quickly snapped shut.
'Now I ask you again: what do you want?'
'Nothing,.' he said defensively.
'Nothing, is it?' she said. 'I know you children and your greedy clutching little fingers.' Simon was a little taken aback by the sudden venom in the old woman's voice.
'I'm not doing anything,.' he said.
'Then go away.'
Simon did not move.
'Go away,.' she said again.
'Why should I?' said Simon. 'I'm not doing any harm. I'm not even in your garden. I'm not scared of you.' It was a brave boast that was not helped by the tremble in his voice.
The old woman turned and began to walk towards him. Her eyes were as frosted as the grass on which she trod. There was something so horrible about the gaze of those clouded marble-like eyes that Simon found he could not bear it. He pushed himself off the wall and ran down the hill back to the village, laughing nervously to himself when he was well clear.
Simon was bored. He and his mother had recently moved to the village from the city and to the house that had been his mother's childhood home. Simon's grandfather - his mother's father - had died, leaving them the house and the hardware shop that went with it. Simon's own father had been killed fighting for his country in a far-off land when Simon was a baby and their life had not always been easy. His mother thought the move might give them both a new lease of life.
'Do you know anything about Old Mother Tallow?' said Simon as he and his mother ate lunch.
'Old Mother Tallow?' said Simon's mother with surprise.
'Yes,.' said Simon. 'The blind old bat up the hill.'
'Simon, really,.' said his mother. 'Up at the top of Friar's Lane, you mean? But she can't still be alive.
Why she must have been a hundred when I was a little girl. Mind you, she can't have been, because my mother could remember teasing her when she was a girl.' His mother stopped and stared into space. 'Wait a moment. That cannot be right, can it?'