SHADES OF LUCK
Rodney Blenkinsop laughed aloud when Mr Drysdale, the Latin teacher pointed at him and said, “Translate for us, Mr Blenkinsop please.”
“No problem sir. Where do you want me to start?”
“At the beginning, would be usual, Mr Blenkinsop. Oh, and a little less hilarity please.”
Rodney was the best Latin translator in the class. He was a natural and proved it by rattling off the first paragraph of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. When he sat down the class gave him a round of applause to which he acknowledged with a bow.
It was the last class before half term and an air of tomfoolery pervaded the normally staid surroundings. The windows were open and the sound of hay being reaped in the neighbouring fields could be heard. Flies and bees buzzed about in the languid air and the roll of thunder echoed in the distance.
Later in the day, Rodney and I intended to visit a recently discovered temple dedicated to the Roman god Hecate, goddess of magic, witchcraft and necromancy. The Romans had brought various religions with them when they invaded Britain
The sun was high in the summer sky as we made our way across the fields which lay like a patchwork quilt all about us. Birds sang in the trees as we neared the site.
“Think it will be in the next field, old thing,” said Rodney striding ahead of me towards a rather battered looking gate.
“Hold up,” I shouted running after him. “What are we going to do when we find it?”
Rodney stopped, swivelled round and said,” we are going to investigate it!”
As we climbed over the gate the first thing we noticed was a massive hole in the centre of the field. The plough must have caught on some buried stonework and tearing it away had caused a cave in. It was fortuitous that we had brought ropes and lamps for it looked like we might have to climb down into the hole. Great! I thought sarcastically.
My misgivings were confirmed when we lowered one of our lamps into the void. The beams lit up early architecture in a dilapidated condition, but ripe for exploration.
A large oak tree grew quite close to the hole and after securing our ropes to its stout trunk both Rodney and I lowered ourselves slowly down into the ruins. At the bottom we lit the other lamp and began to inspect the area.
Most of the damage was restricted to the roof which had originally been hit by the plough. Some of the stonework lay within the altar area and earth and weeds had fallen in through the breach.
Rodney shouted to me a few minutes later. When I reached him I saw he was indicating some writing on the wall.
“Look Carruthers, Latin inscription!”
“What does it say?” I asked.
“Cave Creperum. It warns of the darkness! Yes,” he said pausing. “Beware of the Darkness.”
“How strange,” I replied looking about. “Where will we go now?”
As we rounded part of the outside wall we found ourselves in a small antechamber. In the centre lay a pool of reddish looking water. On a stone which sat in the middle of the pool was carved the word ‘Felix’.
“The Latin for luck,” he said as he rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hands into the water.” It will bestow good luck upon me, don’t you think?”
As he spoke a large shadow moved over the chamber and I looked towards the lamp, positive some animal had moved in front of it, but there was nothing there. Before he left Rodney scooped some water from the pool ostensibly for checking chemically or that was what he told me.
All the way back to the dormitory I felt we were being paced by someone or something which followed us in a parallel course beyond the trees and bushes. Something moving furtively but following us all the same.
The sample of water was fairly ordinary apart from the fact that it had a very high iron concentration. Rodney suggested that it may have once received large amounts of blood, possibily sacrifices.
The rest of the year passed uneventfully. Rodney passed all his Finals and left with a first Class Honours degree, while I had to make do with a second class. Everything it seemed had happened alright for Rodney, but although successful he was unpopular with the other scholars as they felt some sort of presence hung about him. When he left, the sensation left with him and the College breathed a sigh of relief.
I got a post in a lawyer’s office. I started at the bottom, running errands, making tea and delivering payment for bills to other businesses and tradesmen. Soon I had moved up to Lower clerk whose responsibilities included making up the pay for the other office staff, ordering stationery and attending meetings where I took the Minutes.
Life moved fast for me but I filled every second of it. I had a lady friend called Emma and she and I would go on long walks in the country. We were both interested in ruins, standing stones and other ancient monuments. Often we would hire bicycles and ride out to visit nearby villages and towns.
In the summer of that year I asked Emma to marry me and she accepted. We planned on an Easter wedding and I gave Emma an engagement ring with a sapphire surrounded with small diamonds which we wore proudly.
It was in the autumn that I received the letter from Rodney Blenkinsop. He was living across in the northeast of the country. He described the area as beautiful with fenland and marshes where wild birds of every type could be seen. He said that he had married a lady called Sylvia and lived in a large house called ‘Fretlands Manor’. He wanted to invite me to stay with them for a week or two to ‘catch up’ on the time that we had been apart.
The letter rather than being a pleasant account harboured some strange sensations of ambiguity in the script. Rodney was worried about something, of that I was sure, but he couldn’t write about it directly.
Emma asked if she could accompany me, even after I explained that the journey would be interminable. We started out at first light and soon were well on the way. We broke up our journey by stopping at inns on the road and resting, before continuing on.
It was late evening when we caught sight of Fretlands Manor. The sky was darkening and a light rain was falling. The wind shook the trees as we made our way into Blenkinsop’s estate. The gates sported stone eagles which had seen better days. One lacked a wing and the other was missing half of its head. A curlew wailed its lonely cry adding to the desolation I felt for this benighted place.
Rodney met us at the main door. He shook my hand and greeted Emma with true warmth. The butler carried our cases into the house and we were led to the drawing room by a maid. There was a strange feeling of tension running through the atmosphere of the house. Everyone on the staff who we had met spoke in near whispers and often looked over their shoulders.
There was also a mild odour that pervaded the house. It smelt like a mixture of a ‘wet dog’ smell and rotten eggs.
Sylvia was sitting on a couch when Emma and I entered the room. She was very beautiful and heavily pregnant Her eyes looked red and I knew that she had been crying. I introduced myself and then Emma to her and we sat and made small talk while one of the servants brought in some tea and sandwiches for us.
Sylvia asked about our journey, hoping that it had not been too arduous for us and that we had found the hospitality at the inns, where we had stopped, to be adequate. It was at that point that Rodney joined us.
Stepping into the room he closed the door and walking across to where we were, sat down next to me.
Once again we talked of trivialities until Sylvia suggested to Emma that she might like to ease her tired muscles with a hot bath before she retired for the night. This was accepted with pleasure and the two ladies left the room.
Rodney got up and paced around the room. I knew that he would now tell me what had been bothering him, but he was having a problem putting it into words.
“Carruthers, my dear friend,” he started to say. “I really don’t know how to tell you this. I am sure you will think that I am mad, I really do.”
“Look Blenkinsop, I can only help you if you explain what is bothering you. Now sit down and tell me.” I took his arm and pulled him down next to me.
After another long pause, he started to speak,” I and my lovely wife are being haunted. We have no happiness only fear and loathing.”
“When did this nightmare start?” I asked, unsure of what was to come.
“Do you remember several years ago when we were at Ashbrook House? We decided to investigate that temple that had been uncovered by some wretched farmer while ploughing his field.”
“Yes, I remember,” I replied tentatively.
“Well, do you recall I dipped my hands in the water? In the pool where the stone read ‘Felix’ which I interpreted as meaning luck. All the way back to Ashbrook House we felt as if something was following us, a presence.”
Rodney covered his face with his hands and for a few minutes we sat side by side in silence.
“After I left Ashbrook House I fell in with some bad company. A party of men who drank and betted. Well, I became like them, shady characters, but unlike them my bets always won! It wasn’t long before my colleagues noticed my good fortune and started to match my bets. We all prospered, but the presence we had sensed all these years before, returned. It was always with me, watching, waiting patiently.”
“But what did it want?” I asked. “If it was acting like some sort of talisman for you, you would think that it would want something in return.”
“You would think so wouldn’t you?” he replied. “But all it does is hang about and plague us with its filthy stink!”
“You still benefit from its benevolence?”
“Oh yes, after I left the company of brigands I invested a lot of the money I had won and my fortune grew. It was like the Midas touch, I couldn’t lose. I built this house for Sylvia and hopefully many children, but with the building came the creature. Did you not sense its presence when you arrived, did you not smell its corrupt miasma?” Rodney slumped in his chair.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked feeling slightly responsible, I had gone to the temple with him, I had just forgone the soaking of my hands.
By the time I got to the bedroom, Emma was already asleep. I stood and watched her as she slept. She was beautiful and I knew that I was a lucky man to have her as my wife.
I began undressing to go to bed, it was quite late and the house was silent. As I hung my clothes on the back of the chair I felt that I was being watched. The hairs on my neck rose and a shudder ran through my body.
I spun round and there just above the bed head, two red eyes glowed.
How long I stood watching them I do not know, all I do remember was praying that Emma stayed asleep.
With the eyes, a feeling of dread began to come over me. Emma and I were not welcome, we were in the way. These thoughts formed in my mind and I felt under the power of some powerful hypnotist.
I am sure that I would have stood mesmerised for the duration of the night had Emma not rolled over in her sleep and called my name out. I was instantly awake and rushed over to the bed head, but the eyes had vanished!
The next day, in an attempt to escape the oppression and odour of the house, Emma and I took a picnic and walked into the surrounding country. We had not walked for more than an hour before we came upon an idyllic spot down by the river. The reeds and bulrushes framed the water rushing by us and the grass was soft and fragrant. We sat and lazed there for the whole day listening to the birds and enjoying the sun’s warm rays.
Gradually the day began to cool as we approached evening and reluctantly we gathered together our picnic things and coats and made our way back to Fretlands.
As we made our way up the drive we noticed a horse drawn carriage sitting outside the main door. Nearing the house, Rodney and a gentleman in a dark suit emerged. They shook hands heartily before the gentleman climbed up on his carriage and rode off.
“Nigel, Emma. I am a father! Sylvia has given me a son!” Rodney cried excitedly.
Over the next weeks the house rang with babies cries. The loathsome odour was often replaced by soiled napkin and sickness perfumes and the malign influence seemed to slacken its grip on the household so much so that singing and whistling could often be heard emanating from the servants quarters.
In fact things settled down so much that Emma and I encouraged Rodney and Sylvia to go out to dinner at a nearby town. We agreed to babysit young Aldous, the name the baby had been christened.
Sylvia looked very glamorous and Rodney looked dashing as they boarded their carriage.
“Now, you are sure everything will be alright?” fussed Rodney.
“Yes Rodney, everything will be fine,” replied Emma.
“I’ve left milk and fresh napkins out for Aldous…..” Emma started to say.
“Off you go!” I commanded. “Have a lovely time.”
The evening passed reasonably peacefully, Emma and I played a few hands of bridge which I lost dismally. I hinted that she might have mistakenly played certain cards and she took umbrage at this suggestion.
“I will go up and check on little Aldous and give you some time to put together your apology to me,” Emma said as she left the room.
I sat gazing into the fire, thinking about nothing in particular. The room was warm and I must have fallen asleep.
A terrified scream echoed through the house. I was on my feet and running
Before I had fully woken up, but I knew that something had frightened Emma badly. She had been going up to the nursery so I assumed that she was there.
As soon as I threw the nursery door open I was greeted with the stench. After its absence for so long, it was disgusting.
Emma cringed in the corner of the room looking fearfully towards the baby’s cot over which shone the two red eyes of the creature. But this time instead of glaring, the eyes looked down greedily at the baby.
I instinctively picked up a brass bowl that had been lying on one of the tables and without thinking threw the bowl at the eyes. It hit the wall with a resounding boom and poor little Aldous, getting a terrible fright gave out a high pitched scream.
The eyes vanished and for a brief second the terrible feeling of tension relaxed. Emma snatched up the baby and ran out of the nursery, closely followed by myself. I turned quickly and pulled the nursery door closed and locked it.
When Rodney and Sylvia returned to Fretlands Manor they found the house in turmoil. Sylvia and I had taken Aldous into the lounge with us. He was sleeping quite soundly on the couch.
“Your creature returned, Blenkinsop,” I said. “I am sure it wants the baby.” I went on to tell him of my feeling when I saw the eyes gazing at Aldous.
“Then we will leave the house!” he cried. “I will not put my family at risk.”
Later after the ladies had gone upstairs to bed Rodney and I sat drinking whisky and pondering the problem.
“If you leave it will only follow you,” I said dismally. “We must stand up to it!”
“And how do we do that?” Rodney asked, shaking his head.
Then I remembered the incident in the nursery and laid out a plan that I thought just might work. Rodney chuckled evilly, “I think it may just work.”
The next morning Rodney addressed his staff, the grounds men, the gardeners and two young boys who had been helping out in the orchard.
“I want you all to get pots, pans, bits of metal, anything that you can hit hard and it make a noise. We will meet here in half an hour and I will show you what we will do with this unholy orchestra!”
In half an hour everyone had reassembled. Even Emma and I had been given large pots and metal spoons.
“Right now,” said Rodney. “I want you up in the attics and gradually work your way down through the house. Make as much of a hullaballoo as you can!”
I will never forget that day. The boys laughing as they climbed the stairs, the cooks banging on their pots and everybody making a din. They started in the highest point of the house and by the time they were coming down the stairs to the first floor there was a large cloud of turbulent smoke moving before them.
“Keep up the noise!” shouted Rodney. “It’s working!”
The smell of that cloud was nauseating, it smelt like rotting carrion and rotten eggs. The colours roiled in it, purple, green, sickly yellow and other hues. A faint screaming could be heard coming from the most turbulent bits of it. The creature was being routed!
Eventually the cacophony reached the main door and the head butler threw it open and the billowing cloud spilled out into the fresh air. The noise makers ran out after it and watched as it rose higher and higher into the air. Soon it was so small that it vanished from sight.
I would like to say that Rodney, Sylvia and Aldous regained their happiness, but the servant of Hecate, as I thought it was, didn’t leave without a fight. Rodney lost his prodigious good fortune and lost heavily both at the gaming tables and on the Stock Market. Emma and I heard later, that Sylvia had left him and taken the baby with her after Rodney had started to drink heavily.
The last report we received about my old friend was that he had decided to emigrate to America Southampton , Rodney fell overboard and was drowned. They recovered his body and a post mortem was carried out, just in case there had been foul play. The surgeon found nothing untoward and recorded it as an accidental death.
The one item that surprised the doctor was that the water in Rodney’s lungs was found to be fresh water- with a high concentration of iron in it.
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