Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories

'What d'you mean?' she asked.

'I see it like this,' said Hilary, rubbing a place on his knee. 'Either the dog is chained up, or shut in behind that wall, and we're all right Or else he isn't, and it's no good our running.'

It was somewhat the way that Mary's own influence had taught him to think, and she responded to it.

'Perhaps we should look for some big stones,' she suggested.

'Yes,' he said. 'Though I shouldn't think it'll be necessary. I think he must be safely shut up in some way. He'd have been out by now otherwise.'

'I'm going to look,' said Mary.

There are plenty of stones in the worn earth of southern Surrey, and many old bricks and other constructional detritus also. Within two or three minutes, Mary had assembled a pile of such things.

In the meantime, Hilary had gone on a little along the track. He stood there, listening to the clamorous dog almost calmly.

Mary joined him, holding up the front part of her skirt, which contained four of the largest stones, more than she could carry in her hands.

'We won't need them,' said Hilary, with confidence. 'And if we do, they're everywhere.'

Mary leaned forward and let the stones fall to the ground, taking care that they missed her toes. Possibly the quite loud thuds made the dog bark more furiously than ever.

'Perhaps he's standing guard over buried treasure?' suggested Mary.

'Or over some fairy kingdom that mortals may not enter,' said Hilary.

They talked about such things for much of the time when they were together. Once they had worked together upon an actual map of Fairyland, and with Giantland adjoining.

'He might have lots of heads,' said Mary.

'Come on, let's look,' said Hilary.

'Quietly,' said Mary, making no other demur.

He took her hand.

'There must be a gate,' she remarked, after they had gone a little further, with the roaring, growling bark as obstreperous as ever.

'Let's hope it's locked then,' he replied. At once he added: 'Of course it's locked. He'd have been out by now otherwise.'

'You said that before,' said Mary. 'But perhaps the answer is that there is no gate. There can't always be a gate, you know.'

But there was a gate; a pair of gates, high, wrought iron, scrolled, rusted, and heavily padlocked. Through them, Hilary and Mary could see a large, palpably empty house, with many of the windows glassless, and the paint on the outside walls surviving only in streaks and smears, pink, green, and blue, as the always vaguely polluted atmosphere added its corruption to that inflicted by the weather. The house was copiously mock-battlemented and abundantly ogeed: a structure, without doubt, in the Gothic Revival taste, though of a period uncertain over at least a hundred years. Some of the heavy chimney-stacks had broken off and fallen. The front door, straight before them, was a recessed shadow. It was difficult to see whether it was open or shut. The paving stones leading to it were lost in mossy dampness.

'Haunted house,' said Mary.

'What's that?' enquired Hilary.

'Don't exactly know,' said Mary. 'But Daddy says they're everywhere, though people don't realize it.'

'But how can you tell?' asked Hilary, looking at her seriously and a little anxiously.

'Just by the look,' replied Mary with authority. 'You can tell at once when you know. It's a mistake to look for too long, though.'

'Ought we to put it on the map?'

'I suppose so. I'm not sure.'

'Is that dog going to bark all day, d'you think?'

'He'll stop when we go away. Let's go, Hilary.'

'Look!' cried Hilary, clutching at her. 'Here he is. He must have managed to break away. We must show no sign of fear. That's the important thing.'

Curiously enough, Mary seemed in no need of this vital guidance. She was already standing rigidly, with her big eyes apparently fixed on the animal, almost as if hypnotized.

Of course, the tall, padlocked bars stood between them and the dog; and another curious thing was that the dog seemed to realize the fact, and to make allowance for it, in a most undoglike manner. Instead of leaping up at the bars in an endeavour to reach the two of them, and so to caress or bite them, it stood well back and simply stared at them, as if calculating hard. It barked no longer, but instead emitted an almost continuous sound halfway between a growl and a whine, and quite low.

It was a big, shapeless, yellow animal, with long, untidy legs, which shimmered oddly, perhaps as it sought a firm grip on the buried and slippery stones. The dog's yellow skin seemed almost hairless. Blotchy and draggled, it resembled the wall outside. Even the dog's eyes were a flat, dull yellow. Hilary felt strange and uneasy when he observed them; and next he felt upset as he realized that Mary and the dog were gazing at one another as if under a spell.

'Mary!' he cried out. 'Mary, don't look like that. Please don't look like that.'

He no longer dared to touch her, so alien had she become.

'Mary, let's go. You said we were to go.' Now he had begun to cry, while all the time the dog kept up its muffled internal commotion, almost like soft singing.

In the end, but not before Hilary had become very wrought up, the tension fell away from Mary, and she was speaking normally.

'Silly,' she said, caressing Hilary. 'It's quite safe. You said so yourself.'

He had no answer to that. The careful calculations by which earlier he had driven off the thought of danger had now proved terrifyingly irrelevant. All he could do was subside to the ground and lose himself in tears, his head between his knees.

Mary knelt beside him. 'What are you crying about, Hilary? There's no danger. He's a friendly dog, really.'

'He's not, he's not.'

She tried to draw his hands away from his face. 'Why are you crying, Hilary?' One might have felt that she quite urgently needed to know.

'I'm frightened.'

'What are you frightened of? It can't be the dog. He's gone.'

At that, Hilary slowly uncurled, and forgetting, on the instant, to continue weeping, directed his gaze at the rusty iron gates. There was no dog visible.

'Where's he gone, Mary? Did you see him go?'

'No, I didn't actually see him,' she replied. 'But he's gone. And that's what you care about, isn't it?'

'But why did he go? We're still here.'

'I expect he had business elsewhere.' He knew that she had acquired that explanation too from her father, because she had once told him so.

'Has he found a way out?'

'Of course he hasn't.'

'How can you tell?'

'He's simply realized that we don't mean any harm.'

'I don't believe you. You're just saying that. Why are you saying that, Mary? You were more scared than I was when we came here. What's happened to you, Mary?'

'What's happened to me is that I've got back a little sense.' From whom, he wondered, had she learned to say that? It was so obviously insincere, that it first hurt, and then once more frightened him.

'I want to go home,' he said.

She nodded, and they set off, but not hand in hand.