Dark Entries by Robert Aickman

Author:Robert Aickman [Aickman, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780571311781
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

Immediately he entered his unlovely room Fenville knew that his brief anaesthesia was ended. He had known that of course it must end before long; but had expected it to last longer than it had, if only in proportion to the shocks which had caused it. Within a minute of the door being shut, frustrated passion and confused terror were once more upon him, mangling his brain. It was almost as if Dr Bermuda had indeed been a steadying influence.

He sat upon his high stool and sank his head upon his small, second-hand drawing desk. The gas fire was unlighted, and he had hardly eaten for three days.

After an uncertain interval there was a knock at his door. Fenville made no response.

The door was gingerly opened.

‘Why ever don’t you put the light on, Mr Fenville?’

Mrs Stark repaired the omission. Fenville found that his very muscles were congealed into despair.

‘Don’t you want any supper?’ Supper was an extra.

‘No thank you, Mrs Stark.’

‘You can’t expect to get better if you don’t do what the Doctor says.’

‘I don’t expect to get better.’ As so often, he spoke his thought without discretion.

Mrs Stark looked at him balefully. ‘Then you’ll have to live somewhere else. I’m not matron of a hospital.’ This put her in mind of her real business. ‘Don’t suppose you even knew about Miss Terrington?’

‘What about her?’ Fenville had hardly given a thought to Ann since the Doctor’s reference to her in his note.

‘Made away with herself. Overdose of stuff to make her sleep. You’ve got a lot to do with it if you ask me.’ Mrs Stark crossed her arms in order to pass judgment.

Fenville sank upon his bed.

‘You’ve every right to look upset. Weren’t you engaged to her? By what I’ve seen I’m sure I hope you were.’

Fenville’s mind was upon Ann’s love of life and upon the Doctor’s routine words: ‘I have prescribed for Miss Terrington.’

‘When did it happen?’ he said in a low voice. ‘How do you know about it?’

‘It happened yesterday. It’s in all the papers.’ She looked at him more malevolently than ever. ‘What have you been doing with yourself, Mr Fenville, that you haven’t even seen a paper?’

‘I often don’t see a paper.’ But plainly for Mrs Stark such a statement was hard to believe. ‘Is there going to be an inquest?’

‘Of course there’s going to be an inquest.’ The whole framework of society found in her an oracle.

‘I don’t believe she killed herself for a moment.’

‘Miss Terrington didn’t strike me as the kind to have an accident.’

‘Accidents can happen to anyone,’ replied Fenville, forlornly. He was thinking of his visit to the Entresol.

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