Dennis Wheatley - The Haunting of Toby Jugg

'But I do feel that marriage should be something much more than two people agreeing to legalise a yen for one another, and after living together for a few years accepting it as quite natural that they should take another dip in the lucky tub. That is rather like starting to build a house without bothering to select a firm piece of ground, then abandoning the job halfway because the foundations have turned out to be rotten. I think one should try to make something really fine and enduring of marriage. In fact that it should be a sort of growing together in spirit, so that the joy of it should become greater, instead of less, with the passing of the years.'

'You're right about that,' I said softly; 'just as you are about so many other things. But I still don't see why having a lot of money should prevent two people making the sort of marriage you suggest.'

'Don't you? Well, just think for a minute. Mind, I'm not advocating poverty. That is tragic and hideous, and just as bad the other way. But surely you've noticed that couples who are not very well off generally make a much better thing of marriage than the rich. It is all the little difficulties that they have to overcome in making a home and keeping it together that act as the cement for the bare bricks of love. When one of them wants something, it is not just a matter of signing another cheque; it means that the other must forgo something they would have liked to have had themselves. It is that give and take, the little willing sacrifices, the saving up out of a not very big margin to buy one's love a present, that really binds people together.

'But for the rich it is all too easy. They have their fun while it lasts and then there is nothing left. Their homes are not the centres of their lives, but only beautifully furnished settings which they occupy from time to time when they have nothing more exciting to do. They have few real friends but a legion of acquaintances, so they are always running into new people who may attract them physically, and it is an accepted thing that they should flirt just as lightly as they go to the races or play cards. And almost always one of those flirtations becomes a new craving that they feel they must satisfy at all costs. Money is no obstacle so they get expensive lawyers to arrange matters, and with very little fuss or inconvenience to anyone concerned one more divorce goes through.'

After a little pause, Sally went on: 'It is sweet of you to say that I am beautiful; but I know that I am not. I believe that I am passably good looking; and I think that I could hold my own with most girls who have had my type of upbringing, but I am not in the same class as, for instance, your Aunt Julia. I'm not being catty, either, when I say I wouldn't want to be. It's just that I'm different, and I like my own type best.

'But women like Julia Jugg make an art of beauty, and they bowl men over like ninepins. Just one slinky look from a woman like that will often do something to a man that a girl like myself can't bring off in a month of Sundays, however much she loves him. When you get better, Toby darling, as I'm sure you will, and things are normal again, you will lead the sort of life in which you'll meet dozens of women as beautiful as Julia, only younger; and because you are a millionaire they will all make a dead set at you. Well, I'm not competing. It would break my heart if I tried. That's why I wouldn't marry you, Toby.'

I was silent for a moment. I saw the sound sense of her reasoning, and admired her more than ever for her strength of character in scorning the sort of marriage that most girls would have given their eyes to make. Then I said:

'As I am still a cripple, and likely to remain one for a long time to come, the question does not arise. But if I were fit I'd never rest until I had persuaded you to think differently, as far as I am concerned. I am different, you know, from most young men who have had riches thrust upon them. I am different because my unusual upbringing disillusioned me very early. I know better than most people how utterly empty and worthless easy conquests always prove. You are the first girl that I have ever really fallen for, and I think you are underrating that a bit, by suggesting that a platinum blonde, dolled up in a Schaparelli outfit and a new shade of lipstick, is all that is needed to make me lose my head.'

Tm sorry, Toby,' she murmured. 'I didn't mean quite that.'

I kissed her again and made a joke of it. 'Anyhow, if I do get well, there is always one way of getting over your objection. I can make all my money over to Helmuth; then we'll take a ten bob a week cottage, where you can scrub the floors and do all the cooking.'

All this time she had been lying beside me on the bed, with her head pillowed on my shoulder. At my mention of Helmuth she broke from my embrace and sat up with a jerk, exclaiming:

'He mustn't find me here! I waited to come to you till I thought he was safely in bed; but as he sent that awful thing tonight he's certain to come up to find out what effect it had on you.'

As he had done so after he sent the legion of small spiders I thought the odds were on her being right, but I said quickly: 'Don't worry, sweet. If he does, you can hide while he is here.'

'Where?' she asked, with an anxious glance round.

'Behind the secret panel that gives on to Great-aunt Sarah's staircase,' I replied, pointing it out to her. 'But there's another thing. He left the terrace door open slightly, and if he comes up he must find it like that, or open; otherwise, as I couldn't possibly have shut it myself, he'll know that I must have had a human visitor.'

She shuddered. 'I daren't open it again. That-that awful creature may still be out there.'

For the past twenty minutes my every thought had been of

Sally, so I had not been conscious of the change in the atmosphere; but now I realised that, although the moonlight still shone brightly through the grille, the air was no longer foul with that awful stench and was once again warm with the balminess of the summer night; so I said:

'The brute has gone. I'm sure of that. It seems extraordinary that simply slamming a door on a powerful Satanic entity should have been enough to drive it off altogether. I should have thought it would have had another go at trying to get through the grating, but your presence seems to have worked a miracle.'

She shook her head. 'If it has gone, it wasn't anything that I did. It was us. The saying "God is Love" is true, you know. And the spiritual something we released when we discovered that we loved one another must have been terrific. It probably had the same effect on the Horror as its shadow used to have on you; and I wouldn't be surprised if it crept away somewhere to be sick in a corner.'

As far as the beast was concerned her theory sounded highly plausible, but we did not feel that we could count on it also applying to Helmuth; and if she opened the door and left me there was a chance both that it might return, and that she might run into him on her way downstairs. We decided that she had better remain and we would keep our ears open for sounds of his approach. Then, if he did come up, she could quickly open the terrace door, and get into hiding behind the panel, before he entered the room.

So that no time should be lost I suggested that she should get the panel open. She slid off the bed and, as she stepped forward, gave an 'Ouch!' of pain.

'What is it, darling?' I asked anxiously.

'My ankle,' she explained. 'I sprained it last night. That is why I wasn't able to come up to you all day.'

'So Helmuth wasn't lying about that,' I murmured. 'Last night I was half crazy with worry about you. How did you manage with him?'

She laughed, a little ruefully. 'I overplayed my hand and this is the result. Before dinner I thought out what I meant to do. If a girl has just ricked her ankle badly and is in considerable pain it is just as much out of the question to make love to her satisfactorily as if she is disgustingly drunk. He was as charming and interesting as ever over dinner, and I'm sure he thought that he had really got me going.