Foundations of Fear Read online

  To further complicate the matter, the marketing of literature in the twentieth century has become a matter of categories established by publishers upon analogy with the genre magazines. Whereas a piece of genre horror implies a contract between the writer and the audience, the marketing category of horror implies that the publisher will provide to the distribution system a certain quantity of product to fill certain display slots. Such material may or may not fulfill the genre contract. If it does not, it will be packaged to invoke its similarity to genre material and will be indistinguishable to the distribution system from material that does. As we discussed above, horror itself may exist in any genre as a literary mode, and, as a mode, is in the end an enemy of categorization and genrification. It is in part the purpose of this anthology to bring together works of fiction from within the horror genre together with works ordinarily labelled otherwise in contemporary publishing, from science fiction to thriller to “literature” (which is itself today a marketing category).

  I have previously discussed, in the introduction to The Dark Descent, my observations that horror literature occurs in three main currents: the moral allegory, which deals with manifest evil; the investigation of abnormal psychology through metaphor and symbol; the fantastic, which creates a world of radical doubt and dread. Whether one or another of those currents is dominant in an individual work does not exclude the presence or intermingling of the others. Rather than taking the myopic stance that horror means what the marketing system says it does today, I have applied my perceptions of horror to the literature of the past two centuries to find accomplished and significant works that manifest the delights of horror and which mark signposts in the development of horror. Horror literature operates with an “eerie autonomy” not only without regard to the reader, but without regard to the marketing system. Critic Gary Wolfe’s observation that “horror is the only genre named for its effect on the reader” should suggest that the normal usage of genre is somewhat suspect here.

  Why an ever-widening circle of connoisseurs and innocents seek out and read with delight stories about ghosts and other horrors has been accounted for on divers grounds, most of them presupposing complex motives in our hidden selves. That is what one might expect in a age of reckless psychologizing. It is surely simpler and sounder to adduce historical facts and literary traditions . . .

  —Jacques Barzun,

  Introduction to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural

  It is all the more astonishing to find English weird fiction the property of the drama in Elizabethan days, and later see it confined to the Gothic novel. On first reflection this development seems strange because the supernatural appears to flow more easily into the short tale in verse or prose. The human mind cannot leave the solid basis of reality for long, and he who contemplates occult phenomena must sooner or later return to logical thinking in terms of reality lest his reason be endangered . . .

  —Peter Penzoldt,

  The Supernatural in Fiction

  A horror that is effective for thirty pages can seldom be sustained for three hundred, and there is no danger of confusing the bare scaffolding of the ghost story with the rambling mansion of the Gothic novel.

  —Julia Briggs,

  Night Visitors

  IV Short Forms

  Commentators on horror agree that the short story has always been the form of the horror story: “Thus if it is to be successful the tale of the supernatural must be short, and it matters little whether we accept it as an account of facts or as a fascinating work of art,” says Peter Penzoldt. At the same time, most of them have observed that some of the very best fiction in the history of horror writing occurs at the novella length. Julia Briggs, for instance, after having given the usual set of observations on the dominance of the short form, states: “There are, however, a number of full-length ghost stories of great importance. Most of these, written in the last century, are short in comparison to the standard Victorian three-volume novel, though their length would be quite appropriate for a modern novel. More accurately described as long-short stories, or novellas, they include [Robert Louis Stevenson, Vernon Lee, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Machen, Henry James]. They are quite distinct from the broad-canvas full-length novel of the period not only in being shorter, but also in using what is essentially a short-story structure, introducing only a few main characters within a strictly limited series of events. The greater length and complexity is often the result of a sophistocated narrative device or viewpoint. In each of these the angle or angles from which the story is told is of crucial importance to the total effect, while the action itself remains comparatively simple.”

  Only in a collection of this size could one gather a significant selection of novellas, and I have included a number of them to emphasize the importance of that length. I have excluded familiar masterpieces such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw,” and Conrad’s “The Heart of Darkness” in favor of significant works such as Daphne Du Maurier’s “Don’t Look Now” and H. P. Lovecraft’s sequel to Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, “At the Mountains of Madness,” John W. Campbell, Jr.’s “Who Goes There?” (from which the classic horror film, The Thing, was made), Gerald Durrell’s “The Entrance,” and others.

  I have included several examples of horror from the science fiction movement by writers such as Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler and George R. R. Martin, wherein horror is the dominant emotional force for the fiction, and a sampling of horror stories by women often excluded from notice in the history and development of horror, such as Gertrude Atherton, Violet Hunt, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and Mary Wilkins Freeman. Contemporary masters and classic names in horror are the backbone of the book, Peter Straub and Arthur Machen, Clive Barker and E. T. A. Hoffmann, and many others, but for most readers there will be a few literary surprises. Horror literature is a literature of fear and wonder. Here, then, the Foundations of Fear.

  Daphne Du Maurier

  Don’t Look Now

  Daphne Du Maurier was the granddaughter of George Du Maurier, who invented the infamous Svengali in his popular Victorian novel, Trilby. One of the most popular novelists of the last fifty years, she almost single-handedly kept alive the Gothic romance tradition in the mid-twentieth century, in such novels of mystery and suspense as Rebecca (1938) and My Cousin Rachel (1952). Her stories are collected in the volumes The Apple Tree (1952), The Breaking Point (1959) and Echoes from the Macabre (1976); Classics of the Macabre (1987) reprints the best stories from the others. Her story “The Birds” was the basis of the famous Alfred Hitchcock movie. Nicholas Roeg filmed “Don’t Look Now” superbly. “I have always enjoyed,” she says, “the challenge and discipline of constructing a short story generally based on some personal experience . . . I saw two old women, the twins, who in the story are like a sinister Greek chorus, sitting at a table in St. Mark’s Square. On the way back to my hotel after dark, a child, as I thought, was jumping from a cellar into a narrow boat. These two quite different incidents and the atmosphere of Venice, especially the eeriness of the back streets at night, set me thinking, and ideas began to develop into a story.” And the result is one of the finest supernatural horror novellas of the century, slick, colloquial, yet attaining high intensity and tragic force. It makes an interesting comparison to Gertrude Atherton’s “The Bell in the Fog”. Rarely do stories of the occult generate such conviction (usually they have the same defect as religious fiction—requiring an a priori belief—in order to attain convincing horripilation). “Don’t Look Now” also mixes a good bit of humor into the early scenes, only to emphasize the darkness underneath later. This novella is a triumph.

  “Don’t look now,” John said to his wife, “but there are a couple of old girls two tables away who are trying to hypnotise me.”

  Laura, quick on cue, made an elaborate pretence of yawning, then tilted her head as though searching the skies for a
non-existent aeroplane.

  “Right behind you,” he added. “That’s why you can’t turn round at once—it would be much too obvious.”

  Laura played the oldest trick in the world and dropped her napkin, then bent to scrabble for it under her feet, sending a shooting glance over her left shoulder as she straightened once again. She sucked in her cheeks, the first telltale sign of suppressed hysteria, and lowered her head.

  “They’re not old girls at all,” she said. “They’re male twins in drag.”

  Her voice broke ominously, the prelude to uncontrolled laughter, and John quickly poured some more chianti into her glass.

  “Pretend to choke,” he said, “then they won’t notice. You know what it is—they’re criminals doing the sights of Europe, changing sex at each stop. Twin sisters here on Torcello. Twin brothers tomorrow in Venice, or even tonight, parading arm-in-arm across the Piazza San Marco. Just a matter of switching clothes and wigs.”

  “Jewel thieves or murderers?” asked Laura.

  “Oh, murderers, definitely. But why, I ask myself, have they picked on me?”

  The waiter made a diversion by bringing coffee and bearing away the fruit, which gave Laura time to banish hysteria and regain control.

  “I can’t think,” she said, “why we didn’t notice them when we arrived. They stand out to high heaven. One couldn’t fail.”

  “That gang of Americans masked them,” said John, “and the bearded man with a monocle who looked like a spy. It wasn’t until they all went just now that I saw the twins. Oh God, the one with the shock of white hair has got her eye on me again.”

  Laura took the powder compact from her bag and held it in front of her face, the mirror acting as a reflector.

  “I think it’s me they’re looking at, not you,” she said. “Thank heaven I left my pearls with the manager at the hotel.” She paused, dabbing the sides of her nose with powder. “The thing is,” she said after a moment, “we’ve got them wrong. They’re neither murderers nor thieves. They’re a couple of pathetic old retired schoolmistresses on holiday, who’ve saved up all their lives to visit Venice. They come from some place with a name like Walabanga in Australia. And they’re called Tilly and Tiny.”

  Her voice, for the first time since they had come away, took on the old bubbling quality he loved, and the worried frown between her brows had vanished. At last, he thought, at last she’s beginning to get over it. If I can keep this going, if we can pick up the familiar routine of jokes shared on holiday and at home, the ridiculous fantasies about people at other tables, or staying in the hotel, or wandering in art galleries and churches, then everything will fall into place, life will become as it was before, the wound will heal, she will forget.

  “You know,” said Laura, “that really was a very good lunch. I did enjoy it.”

  Thank God, he thought, thank God . . . Then he leant forward, speaking low in a conspirator’s whisper. “One of them is going to the loo,” he said. “Do you suppose he, or she, is going to change her wig?”

  “Don’t say anything,” Laura murmured. “I’ll follow her and find out. She may have a suitcase tucked away there, and she’s going to switch clothes.”

  She began to hum under her breath, the signal, to her husband, of content. The ghost was temporarily laid, and all because of the familiar holiday game, abandoned too long, and now, through mere chance, blissfully recaptured.

  “Is she on her way?” asked Laura.

  “About to pass our table now,” he told her.

  Seen on her own, the woman was not so remarkable. Tall, angular, aquiline features, with the close-cropped hair which was fashionably called an Eton crop, he seemed to remember, in his mother’s day, and about her person the stamp of that particular generation. She would be in her middle sixties, he supposed, the masculine shirt with collar and tie, sports jacket, grey tweed skirt coming to mid-calf. Grey stockings and laced black shoes. He had seen the type on golf-courses and at dog shows—invariably showing not sporting breeds but pugs—and if you came across them at a party in somebody’s house they were quicker on the draw with a cigarette-lighter than he was himself, a mere male, with pocket-matches. The general belief that they kept house with a more feminine, fluffy companion was not always true. Frequently they boasted, and adored, a golfing husband. No, the striking point about this particular individual was that there were two of them. Identical twins cast in the same mould. The only difference was that the other one had whiter hair.

  “Supposing,” murmured Laura, “when I find myself in the toilette beside her she starts to strip?”

  “Depends on what is revealed,” John answered. “If she’s hermaphrodite, make a bolt for it. She might have a hypodermic syringe concealed and want to knock you out before you reached the door.”

  Laura sucked in her cheeks once more and began to shake. Then, squaring her shoulders, she rose to her feet. “I simply must not laugh,” she said, “and whatever you do, don’t look at me when I come back, especially if we come out together.” She picked up her bag and strolled self-consciously away from the table in pursuit of her prey.

  John poured the dregs of the chianti into his glass and lit a cigarette. The sun blazed down upon the little garden of the restaurant. The Americans had left, and the monocled man, and the family party at the far end. All was peace. The identical twin was sitting back in her chair with her eyes closed. Thank heaven, he thought, for this moment at any rate, when relaxation was possible, and Laura had been launched upon her foolish, harmless game. The holiday could yet turn into the cure she needed, blotting out, if only temporarily, the numb despair that had seized her since the child died.

  “She’ll get over it,” the doctor said. “They all get over it, in time. And you have the boy.”

  “I know,” John had said, “but the girl meant everything. She always did, right from the start, I don’t know why. I suppose it was the difference in age. A boy of school age, and a tough one at that, is someone in his own right. Not a baby of five. Laura literally adored her. Johnnie and I were nowhere.”

  “Give her time,” repeated the doctor, “give her time. And anyway, you’re both young still. There’ll be others. Another daughter.”

  So easy to talk . . . How replace the life of a loved lost child with a dream? He knew Laura too well. Another child, another girl, would have her own qualities, a separate identity, she might even induce hostility because of this very fact. A usurper in the cradle, in the cot, that had been Christine’s. A chubby, flaxen replica of Johnnie, not the little waxen dark-haired sprite that had gone.

  He looked up, over his glass of wine, and the woman was staring at him again. It was not the casual, idle glance of someone at a nearby table, waiting for her companion to return, but something deeper, more intent, the prominent, light blue eyes oddly penetrating, giving him a sudden feeling of discomfort. Damn the woman! All right, bloody stare, if you must. Two can play at that game. He blew a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air and smiled at her, he hoped offensively. She did not register. The blue eyes continued to hold his, so that he was obliged to look away himself, extinguish his cigarette, glance over his shoulder for the waiter and call for the bill. Settling for this, and fumbling with the change, with a few casual remarks about the excellence of the meal, brought composure, but a prickly feeling on his scalp remained, and an odd sensation of unease. Then it went, as abruptly as it had started, and stealing a furtive glance at the other table he saw that her eyes were closed again, and she was sleeping, or dozing, as she had done before. The waiter disappeared. All was still.

  Laura, he thought, glancing at his watch, is being a hell of a time. Ten minutes at least. Something to tease her about, anyway. He began to plan the form the joke would take. How the old dolly had stripped to her smalls, suggesting that Laura should do likewise. And then the manager had burst in upon them both, exclaiming in horror, the reputation of the restaurant damaged, the hint that unpleasant consequences might follow unless . . . The wh
ole exercise turning out to be a plant, an exercise in blackmail. He and Laura and the twins taken in a police launch back to Venice for questioning. Quarter of an hour . . . Oh, come on, come on . . .

  There was a crunch of feet on the gravel. Laura’s twin walked slowly past, alone. She crossed over to her table and stood there a moment, her tall, angular figure interposing itself between John and her sister. She was saying something, but he couldn’t catch the words. What was the accent, though—Scottish? Then she bent, offering an arm to the seated twin, and they moved away together across the garden to the break in the little hedge beyond, the twin who had stared at John leaning on her sister’s arm. Here was the difference again. She was not quite so tall, and she stooped more—perhaps she was arthritic. They disappeared out of sight, and John, becoming impatient, got up and was about to walk back into the hotel when Laura emerged.

  “Well, I must say, you took your time,” he began, and then stopped, because of the expression on her face.

  “What’s the matter, what’s happened?” he asked.

  He could tell at once there was something wrong. Almost as if she were in a state of shock. She blundered towards the table he had just vacated and sat down. He drew up a chair beside her, taking her hand.

  “Darling, what is it? Tell me—are you ill?”

  She shook her head, and then turned and looked at him. The dazed expression he had noticed at first had given way to one of dawning confidence, almost of exaltation.