“I’m bored,” Philip whined. “Can't
we go now?”
“Hush!”
said Mum.
He hadn’t been
that loud. It was just that in this cold dim abbey every sound was magnified. A
whisper rustled around the walls. A cough made you jump. Each shuffling footstep
woke echoes that scurried off across the floor to bury themselves in nooks and
crannies and little dark spaces. Philip longed to be outside, where the little
lizards flickered over the hot stone steps in the sunshine.
His parents had
stopped in front of another tomb: a sort of stone box with a marble bishop
lying flat on top of it, scowling at the roof. His face was like a cake of
dirty soap, half rubbed away by time. “Dad,” Philip pleaded. “Can we go?”
“We’ve hardly
been here ten minutes,” said Dad. “Try to take an interest!”
“He’s only eight,”
said Mum. “Phil, this is a famous place, a treat for Dad. He lectures about medieval
things, remember? I could take him out, Mark, we can wait for you in the
square.”
“But then I’ll feel
I’ve got to rush. And you can’t miss seeing the Danse Macabre, it’s the reason we
came. It’ll be exciting, Phil. Skeletons! You’ll like that, won’t you?”
“Real ones?”
“Of course not
real ones, don’t be silly.” (Though why was it silly? There must be hundreds of
skeletons in a place like this.) “It’s a painting,” Dad went on, “a marvellous painting.
Come and see.”
He led them into
a dismally lit side aisle. “Here it is!”
There were marks
on the plaster, but Philip couldn’t see properly until Dad went to find one of
the guides – a monk, a tall man in a grey robe. The monk had a torch. He
switched it on and danced it over the wall. Philip gasped. Out sprang a
horrible face – bald, bony, with hollow eyes and grinning teeth –
But it of course
it was just a grubby old picture. The torchlight travelled down over a laddery
chest, pinched waist and long spidery legs, then swung up to show that the
creature had its arms round some person wearing a cloak and a crown.
“Un cadavre et l’Empereur,” said the
monk. He glanced at Philip and dropped into English. “The Dance of Death, m’sieur,
’dame. Many such paintings were made after the Great Plague. Here you see Death
meeting emperor, bishop, knight, peasant – all the estates.”
He swung the
torch along the dirty plaster wall to pick out a procession of figures: people
being waylaid by skeletons. Not clean Halloween ones. Their spindly limbs were
clothed in withered muscle. They grinned with awful glee as they linked arms
with the living to yank them away into the dance of shadows. And the living
figures stood in frozen sadness at the surprise of death.
“Wonderful!” Mark paced along the wall,
studying it. “Look at this group, Becky. So powerful.” He stopped near the end
of the fresco, where one of the Deaths bent down coaxingly to a little child,
hiding its pitiless face behind one crooked elbow, stretching out its other
hand to touch.
“Oh…” Mum
sounded breathless and odd. She stepped forward, blocking Philip’s view.
“Mark,
it’s not very suitable –”
Dad wasn’t
listening. “The fresco was never finished?” he asked the monk.
“That is correct, m’sieur. The drawings were made
in charcoal, the background painted in. Then the artist went no further. The
clothes, the faces, the figures were left as you see them – sketches, without
colour.”
“Why?”
The monk
shrugged. “No one knows.”
“Are there no
records? When was it painted?”
“Quinzième siècle… perhaps 1470s. In the
time of Abbot Renaud, it is thought. But nothing is known of the artist. He may
have been a monk here…”
He droned on. And
on. Losing interest, Philip saw something like a stone bed sticking out from
the wall. What a funny thing! There was even a stone pillow at one end, and a
strange hole, like the plug hole in a bath, at the other. Intrigued, he sat on
the stone edge and poked a pencil down the hole to see how deep it was. The
point went into something soft. Chewing gum? No; this felt mushy…
“Get up! You
mustn’t sit there!” the monk shouted.
Philip jumped
up. The pencil went flying. Mum and Dad glanced his way, shook their heads and went
on talking. The pencil rolled into a gloomy corner and he scrambled after it. Horrible
abbey! Horrible monk! He picked up the pencil and in revenge scrawled his own name
on the wall.
His scream shocked the echoing
spaces. All the murmuring and whispering and fidgeting went small and still. Mum
and Dad came running to snatch and scold him.
“How could you,
Philip? Scribbling on a wall, in a church, of all places – defacing a wonderful
fresco – ” Dad drew a disbelieving breath. “What were you thinking?”
“I’d better take
him out,” said Mum.
They waited in the
strong, comforting sunshine for Dad to finish apologising. Philip hung his head
while Mum ranted. “I don’t care how bored you were, there’s no excuse. And,
goodness, what’s this on your trousers? It’s all black and sticky.” She whipped
out a tissue and rubbed. “It’s some kind of tar, I believe – and it smells
revolting. You’ve got it on your fingers, too. Where did it come from?”
“My pencil,” he whispered, pulling it out of
his pocket.
“Throw it away!”
She twitched it from his hand and sent it spinning down the steps, adding more
gently, “But what made you scream?”
“A nasty man,”
he whispered.
Unexpectedly,
Mum was silent. “Those paintings,” she said at last. “I’m sorry, Phil. They
were nasty, I agree.”
“Mum – ”
“Don’t think any
more about them.” She gave him a brief hug. “We’ll do something fun this
afternoon.” She turned as Dad emerged from the cold mouth of the abbey door. “Was
he very angry, Mark?”
“It’s worked out
well!” He was looking gleeful. “Phil’s silly scribble will clean off easily
enough, and guess what? The monk who showed us the fresco is the librarian –
Dom Raphael, he’s called. So I introduced myself, told him I’m a medievalist
and asked if I could see the library – he says it’s full of old books and
manuscripts. And he’s going to let me see them this afternoon! How about that?”
“Lovely,” Mum
sighed.
That afternoon she and Philip went
riding on rough little ponies through the resinous sunlit glades of the
pinewoods. But the sunshine dazzled his eyes and his head ached. By suppertime
he felt worse. Their guesthouse was in the village, a few crooked streets from
the abbey. Madame Bertrand, the proprietress, was concerned. “He is pale, it is
no good for children to look so. Can you not eat the tart, mon lapin? Non? Ah, quel dommage!”
“Bedtime,” said
Mum rather grimly. She took Philip up to
the room they all shared. There was a big four-poster bed for his parents, and
a small couch against the wall for Philip. The ceiling sagged, the walls bulged
as if the whole room might collapse with age. Up till now Philip had liked it. He
hadn’t minded being left there while Mum and Dad had a last drink and an
evening stroll. Tonight –
“Don’t go,” he
begged, grabbing Mum’s hand.
“Now what’s
wrong?” She stroked back his hair. “You’re not frightened, are you? Are you?” He
nodded. “What of?”
“That man I saw
in the abbey,” he muttered, picking at the covers.
“Oh Phil! It was
only a picture, not a very nice one, but just a picture.”
“It wasn’t a
picture. He spoke to me.”
“What?...In
English?”
Philip looked confused.
“No – I don’t know. But he did speak. He said, ‘I shall come and get you.’ And
I didn’t like it. He hadn’t got any lips.”
She drew a sharp
breath. “Phil. What an imagination you have! It was a nasty old wall painting, that’s
all. Now lie down and go to sleep.”
Downstairs in
the dining room, she said, “Mark, the fresco in the abbey has scared Philip stiff.
It took ages to get him to sleep. He’s scared of a nasty man who’s going to come
and get him.”
“Probably Dom
Raphael! Phil’s upset, that’s all. He got in trouble for writing on the wall,
and this is the reaction.”
“Well you can’t expect an eight year-old to
enjoy trailing around old abbeys. I wish you'd pay him a bit more attention –”
They went to bed
annoyed with each other. Philip was sound asleep, and Mark soon dropped off.
Becky lay restless for a while, fretting and dozing, till she drifted into some
kind of dream. She was lying back to back with Mark, but in the dream it was
not him. It was someone else – someone long and stringy, who would presently
turn and wind leathery arms around her…
She struggled
out of sleep with a muffled shriek, and sat up. Nearby in the darkness, Philip
was tossing and moaning. She was about to get up and go to him when she heard
scratching on the outside of the bedroom door.
The cat…
She didn’t
believe it was a cat. The door was old and loose-fitting. A clumsy bolt
prevented it from drifting open in the middle of the night. The door rattled
softly and the old-fashioned latch clicked as it lifted and dropped, but the
bolt held. Then there was more scratching, like something picking at the edges
of the door. It went on for a time, then stopped. A moment later, as if trying
one last thing, there came a quiet, stealthy knock.
She sat frozen.
The knock was not repeated.
It was much,
much later before she could get to sleep.
Next morning at breakfast, pleasant
Madame Bertrand was in a bad mood. Setting the croissants abruptly on the
table, she launched into forthright French.
She
was sorry to say it, but le petit
Philippe must have brought something in on his shoes yesterday. This morning
she had found the passage covered in dirty marks, leading up the stone staircase
to just outside their door. She had had to scrub the steps on her knees, and it
was hard to remove, black and sticky, and of an ‘odeur pestilentiel’. She could not allow such a thing to occur
again.
“I’m
very sorry, Madame,” said Mark, “but it couldn’t be Philip; there were no dirty
marks when we went to bed last night. Your shoes are clean, Phil, aren’t they?
Show Madame!” Obediently, Philip stuck his feet out. He was pale, with black
rings under his eyes. He said he had had bad dreams, that man had been trying to get into the room during the night.
“It
was his footprints,” he said with a hysterical laugh. His parents looked at him
uneasily, and Madame Bertrand suddenly patted him on the shoulder. “La, la,
la,” she said. “It matters nothing. You are tired, mon pauvre. Boys should not be tired. Now, m’sieur”
– she turned to Mark – “do not take him to the abbey. Let him run in the
sunshine. It will be better.” She beckoned Philip. “Viens, mon petit. Come with me, I have a sucette for you,” and she led him away to the kitchen to give him
sweets.
“And
shall we?” Becky looked at Mark.
“Shall we do
what?”
“Run about in
the sunshine.”
“Ah…” He looked
shifty. “I just wonder – would you mind very much if I went to the abbey again?
There’s some fascinating old rolls of accounts which haven’t been touched for
years. Dom Raphael says he needs more help. And I didn’t tell you last night,
but we found an item relating to the fresco. A man called Jehan le Necre –
‘Black John’ – was given money ‘at the command of Abbot Renaud, to pay for a
great brush of hogshair and two others of squirrel, for the Danse Macabre on
the wall west of the choir.’ Of course we don’t know if he was the painter. But it’s likely, quite likely, and it would be
such a coup if we could prove –”
“Yes,
of course. I see.” She sighed. “I suppose so.”
“Becky, you’re a
darling.” He took her hand. After a moment she withdrew it. “Mark, tell me
something. Why did Dom Raphael shout at Phil yesterday for sitting on that
little stone bed?”
“Ah
– that.” He looked uncomfortable. “It’s not a bed, you see, though of course Phil
would think it was. It’s a medieval funerary bench – a mortuary slab. They laid out all the dead monks there. That’s
a drainage hole at the bottom end.”
“Ugh!
Madame Bertrand is right. From now on, Phil and I are staying out of the
abbey.”
She took him for a picnic. They
climbed the hill above the village and she sat watching cloud shadows chase
over the sloping fields while Philip played football with some English boys
whose parents had stopped their car nearby.
“We’re
staying at a campsite,” the boys boasted. “There’s a swimming pool, and table
tennis, and barbecues every night. Is it just you and your mum? Where are you
staying?”
“Down
there.” Philip pointed. “In the town. My Dad’s working in the big abbey. See
it?”
“In
the abbey? Weird! Is he religious or something?”
“No.
He just likes history.”
When
the boys had left, he said, “I wish we could go camping.”
“Next year! If
Dad agrees.”
The wind had
whipped colour into Philip’s face and his eyes were brighter. But when she tucked him into bed that
evening, he held her hand more tightly than ever, and looked at her pleadingly.
“Phil –” She
didn’t know what to do. “We’re only downstairs. We’ll be coming to bed later,
you won’t be alone. How I wish we’d never taken you into the abbey. Are you still scared of that painting?”
He shook his
head. “I’m afraid of that man.” His lips trembled and his eyelashes were
suddenly spiky and wet. He put his arms around her and buried his face. “Philip, dear…” She hugged him back. “You’re quite
safe. Shall I stay till you go to sleep?”
He shook his
head again. Just as she got to the door he said in a flat, tired voice, “It
wouldn’t help. He won’t come until after you’ve gone.”
She went back,
held his hand, looked him in the eye. “Philip. Listen to me. Nobody is going to come. Nothing bad
will happen. I promise. I promise!
Now lie down, and go to sleep.”
He was tired
after all, and it didn’t take long. When she saw him breathing peacefully, she
drew the covers up and switched off the light.
Downstairs, Mark
was full of excitement. “We’ve found out more. The Abbot himself is interested
now. It really was ‘Black John’ who made the Danse. But we don’t know much
about him. He was probably from another monastery, on loan as it were, to do
the work. Clearly a brilliant artist, but a bit of a troublemaker. Malicious. The other monks complained to the abbot that
he quarrelled in the cloisters and ‘disturbs our peace.’ They may have got
tired of him you see, and sent him away. That could be why the fresco was never
finished.”
“I wish it had
never been started! Phil’s still terrified. And I didn’t sleep well last night
myself.”
“It is strong
stuff,” Mark admitted. “Intended to be.” He hesitated. “I’m not surprised he’s
nervous, it’s even affected me. While we were working on the Latin, Dom Raphael
left the room to fetch something. But I felt I was not alone. I kept twisting about
to see who was watching me. Just as he came back, I could swear I heard a voice
say in a very strange accent, ‘Je vous mène
à la danse.’ I asked Dom Raphael if he’d spoken, but he just looked at me
and shook his head.”
“What did it mean?”
Becky asked apprehensively.
“Well… ‘I will
lead you in the dance,’ or ‘take you to the dance,’ I should think. It was my
mind playing tricks: no one was there.”
“Mark…” Becky
swallowed, and stopped.
“No! No, no, no!” Mark smacked his hand on the table. “And to
show you all’s well, we’ll go for an evening walk. Yes, now! You mustn’t get
into a silly, superstitious panic. We’ll just walk down towards the abbey and
back. It’s a lovely evening.”
They set off arm
in arm down the narrow street. Few people were about. The uneven roofs showed
dark against a clear sky in which tremulous stars were opening. In the square, they looked up at the mighty bulk
of the Abbey, reared high on its great flights of steps. A wonderful sound drifted
from the glimmering windows: a sonorous humming that rose and sank, musical as
a hive. The monks were chanting the evening prayers.
“Oh, you’re
right, Mark,” said Becky softly. “No harm could come out of a place like this.”
They walked
slowly, listening till it ended. “We’ve stayed too late. Philip might wake,”
she said at last. As they turned to go back, something slipped from the dark
Abbey doorway and scuttled down the steps. It was too dark to be sure –
“A very big
dog?”
Becky shivered. “It
moved like a spider.” They could not see where it had gone. “Hurry!” she said,
grasping his hand.
The street was
quiet. Ahead of them, someone else was out late. They could see his shoulders
and head in silhouette, bobbing along about fifty metres ahead of them. He
seemed very tall and thin, and, as he passed below a street lamp, wasp-waisted. “Isn’t there something odd
about that chap,” began Mark. Becky didn't reply. She tore her hand free from
his and began to run.
With some dread
knowledge stirring within him, he started after her. She was racing, hair
flying, but he gained on her with long strides. Beyond, the figure she was
pursuing passed below another lamp, and the head gleamed bald. It turned at the
door of the guesthouse and vanished inside.
Mark crashed
past his wife in the doorway and leaped upstairs three at a time. The treads were patched and soiled, the
doorhandle sticky. He burst into the bedroom, hearing Becky sobbing as she
clawed her way up behind him.
Philip lay
asleep. Poised over him was a spindly figure, black and dripping as an oiled
bird dragged from a slick. It reached out, hesitated. Hid its face in the crook
of one arm. Jerkily, the other hand plucked at Philip.
The little boy
woke. Screaming, he drew up his knees and thrust himself backwards. Heart thudding with revulsion, Mark snatched
at the wiry black arm, feeling the skin break and ooze under his fingers, and
flung the creature in one violent movement against the wall. Becky threw herself
between, shielding her son. Phil was huddled against the headboard, his eyes like
black pennies. “You promised he wouldn’t come!” he shrieked. “Mummy, you promised!”
Mark turned upon
the thing, which had fallen and was crawling brokenly in the corner. “Go!” he
stammered in unspeakable horror. “Go away!”
Feet hammered on
the stone steps. Two men burst into the room in a swirl of grey robes. The Abbot and Dom Raphael! And after them puffed Madame Bertrand, shocked and
open-mouthed. Towering over the thing on the floor, the Abbot lifted his right
hand. With slow, emphatic ceremony he made the sign of the cross. “Jehan le
Necre!” he commanded, and the creature writhed, “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,
discede hinc in locum qui paratum est tibi. Vade, et reverte nunquam!”*
Madame Bertrand was wonderful. After a single glance at the mess on the
floor, she swept them all into her private sitting room, where she made Philip drink
a bowl of hot chocolate and plied the rest with tiny glasses of old cognac,
strong and aromatic enough to exorcise any number of ghosts.
“How did you
know to come?” Mark asked when, safe and warm at last, Philip had fallen asleep
on Becky’s knees. “How did you know?”
“Dom Raphael
feared you were in danger,” said the Abbot.
“But why?”
“He had found this
piece of loose parchment. It may be in Abbot Renaud’s own hand, for this is
what it says –
“
‘The Danse Macabre will not be completed. For since the death of the painter,
no one will undertake to begin where he left off. They say the Evil One came to
claim him, and that he is as jealous in death as he was in life, and will not suffer another hand so much as
to touch his work.’”
“And
I thought” – stammered Dom Raphael – “I thought at once of your son, who in
innocence had written his own name at the foot of the Danse Macabre. And I believed
he was in danger. For here in the margin, see?” – he leaned over, pointing – “some
other hand has written, ‘He died of the
plague, but does not rest’.”
The
Abbot said, “When Dom Raphael showed this to me, I doubted. But he said we
should clean off the writing, and soon, for he had heard the whispering of the
enemy, and it chilled his soul.
“I
was still doubtful, though I have known Dom Raphael a long time. But after
Vespers we went to look at the Danse together and he showed me with a torch
where your son had written on the wall. So childish a thing, I almost laughed,
but Dom Raphael did not laugh. No, he took my arm and led me along the wall
past all the dancing Deaths, counting them as we went, and he said, and his
voice shook, ‘Mon père, there have
always been eight Deaths in the Danse, but here are only seven. There is one
Death missing.’”
Dom Raphael
said, “It was the one with the child.”
© Katherine Langrish 2021
* In the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit, be gone from this place to the place prepared for you. Go, and
never return!”
Note: The Danse Macabre in this story
is closely based upon that of the Abbey Church of St. Robert in the town of La
Chaise Dieu, Auvergne, France. For unknown reasons, it was left unfinished.
Needless to say, all events and personages in the story,
including ‘Jehan le Necre’, are entirely fictional.
The photographs of the Danse are from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Danse-macabre-chaise-dieu-panneau-1.jpg
