J. Farjeon - The House Opposite

‘Well,’ answered Ben, after a pause, ‘I don’t wanter frighten yer, see, but this ’ouse ain’t ’ealthy.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Her voice was interested.

‘Creaks and things.’ He was evading the issue. He really didn’t want to frighten her. He knew what fright was. ‘You know. On the stairs. Cupboards and that. You know.’

He wasn’t doing it very well.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ replied the girl, her interest waning. ‘Creaks don’t worry me.’ Ben looked incredulous. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts. Still, if you do, you’d better go. I won’t keep you.’

What? Him go, and her stay? All the manhood in him—and he had a spoonful—rebelled against the suggestion. What would he feel like tomorrow morning when he read in the headlines:

EMPTY HOUSE MYSTERY

BEAUTIFUL GIRL FOUND WITH

THROAT CUT

AND HOARYENTAL KNIFE

IN CHEST

The words were bad enough as they stood up in his imagination. He knew that, if he had to face them in reality, cheese would never taste the same again.

‘Orl right, miss, if yer will ’ave it,’ he muttered. ‘It ain’t the creaks wot’s sendin’ me away. It’s a blinkin’ Injun.’

Now her interest flared up again, and Ben stared at her in amazement.

‘Wot? Do you ’ate Injuns, too?’ he asked sympathetically. ‘Fair gits on my nerves, they does. And this ’un’s the worst I hever come acrost, with ’is slimy manners, and sayin’ good evenin’ to yer in the sort o’ perlite voice wot really means, “I’d like ter stick a knife in yer gizzard,” if yer git me.’

‘But—do you really mean,’ she demanded, ‘that an Indian has been here ?’

‘Yus.’

‘In this house?’

‘Ain’t I tellin’ yer? ’E comes ’ere, like as if ’e owned the blinkin’ plice—the plice, that is—and tells me ter ’op it or somethin ’ll ’appen to yer. ’Oo do yer think yer are? I ses. Oh, I give ’im a bit o’ back chat. But—well, there y’are,’ he ended up rather lamely. ‘’E kep’ on as if ’e meant it. So yer see, miss, if it ain’t safe fer me ter stop, it ain’t no more fer you.’

But the girl made no sign of moving. Instead she looked into the bare room, beyond the packing case, to the window. And her eyes remained on the window.

‘Have you any idea why he wanted you to go?’ she asked.

‘No, miss.’

‘Or—where he is now?’

Ben looked a little uneasy.

‘I thort fust as ’ow ’e was still ’ere,’ he answered; ‘but I reckon now ’e’s gorn right enuff.’

‘And you can’t say where?’ she repeated.

‘Well, if ’e’s gorn ter the ’ouse oppersit, where yer lookin’ at, miss, ’e’s a mug.’

She turned away from the window quickly, and her eyes were now on Ben again.

‘Why should he have gone to the house opposite?’ she demanded. ‘And, if he has, why is he—a mug?’

‘Look ’ere, miss,’ said Ben seriously, ‘orl this ain’t got nothin’ ter do with me and you, ’as it? I dunno where old Rangysinjy’s gorn, orl I know is I ’ope it’s a long way, and the reason I sed ’e’d be a mug ter go in the ’ouse oppersit is ’cos the ’ouse oppersit ain’t much better’n this ’un, ter my thinkin’, not with people pertendin’ ter be dead—lyin’ dahn, I seen ’em, and coffins bein’ derlivered there in carts like stop-me-and-buy-one. And now, fer Gawd’s sake, let’s be goin’, ’cos lummy I’ve ’ad enuff of it, that’s a fack.’

He stopped to breathe. It was rather a long speech. The girl looked at him intently.

‘I’m grateful to you for all your information,’ she said; ‘but if you want to go, I’m still not keeping you.’

‘Yus, you are,’ retorted Ben.

‘How?’

‘By not gettin’ a move on. I ain’t’ goin’ afore you do.’

‘Why not?’

Ben’s expression grew hurt.

‘Well, p’r’aps I ain’t much ter look at,’ he murmured, ‘but Napoleon wasn’t seven foot!’

The remark, as well as the manner of it, made an impression. She regarded him more intently still.

‘I believe I’ve been underrating you all this while, Napoleon,’ she said, ‘and I believe you underrate yourself.’

‘’Oo?’ he blinked.

He wasn’t quite sure of ‘underrate’, but he felt there was a compliment somewhere, and it confused him.

‘I don’t believe you’re half as scared as you say you are,’ she went on, simplifying it.

Ben considered the point. He tried to agree, but couldn’t.

‘There’s times, miss,’ he responded, with an outburst of frankness, ‘when jellies ain’t in it.’ He misread her smile, and tried to save himself a little. ‘Lorst me nerve, miss, in the war—thinkin’ I was goin’ ter be called up.’

‘Just the same, I’m going to stick to my opinion, Napoleon,’ she insisted, ‘and, what’s more, I’m going to test it. You say you won’t go if I stay. Will you stay if I go? ’

Ben’s eyes became big.

‘Wot’s that?’ he jerked.

‘As my caretaker,’ she added. ‘Wages in advance.’

Ben’s eyes became bigger as she opened her bag and laid a pound note on the packing case.

‘Wot—is this your ’ouse?’ he gasped.

‘If you accept the offer, perhaps you could keep an eye on my view for me?’ she suggested.

She returned to the window as she spoke. For a few seconds Ben gaped at her, and he had not found his voice before she suddenly darted back from the window again.

‘I must go!’ she exclaimed. Her voice was tense, and she was at the door in a flash. But at the door she paused for an instant, and her eyes grew worried. ‘Don’t accept my offer, Napoleon,’ she said. ‘It was thoughtless of me—I shouldn’t have made it.’

Then she vanished. He heard her flying down the stairs. The rustle of her clothes grew more and more distant. A moment’s utter silence. The slamming of a door. Utter silence again.

‘Don’t tike ’er hoffer, eh?’ murmured Ben.

He removed his eyes from the doorway to the soap box, on which lay the pound note. Then he removed his eyes from the soap box back to the doorway.

‘Nobody couldn’t tike this job from me,’ he observed solemnly, ‘not with a red-’ot poker!’

His words echoed out into the passage. And the passage seized them, turned them into hollow sounds, and sent them mockingly down the stairs.

BEN did not move for five minutes after the front door slammed and the dream had passed out of it, leaving only the nightmare behind. He wanted to try and work things out, and you could only do that when you kept quite still.

This girl, now, to begin with. What about her? She was a stunner, all right. Do for a queen anywhere, or p’r’aps more a princess like. The kind of girl he’d have liked his little kid to have growed up into, if she’d growed up at all … Just the same, there was something rum about her. First saying she’d come in to get out of the rain. And, afterwards, it being her house, all the time.

‘Yus, but if it’s ’er ’ouse, wot she wanter come in through the winder for?’ wondered Ben. ‘Don’t they ’ave latch-keys?’

There you were, you see! There was something rum about her! You always got a latch-key with a house. Suppose it wasn’t her house?

‘Well, if it ain’t ’er ’ouse, it don’t mike no dif’rence,’ Ben retorted to himself. ‘I’ll bet she ain’t a wrong ’un, although I’ve knowed wrong uns afore wot couldn’t ’elp it. Any’ow, there’s ’er pahnd, and ’ere am I, and I’ve took on the job!’

So that was that. Next?