The House with the Echo by T. F. Powys

“The House with the Echo” is taken from Powys short story collection The House with the Echo and Other Stories, first published by Chatto & Windus in 1928. Obviously a fan of the story, Dennis Wheatley reprinted “The House with the Echo” in two anthologies: A Century of Horror Stories (1935) and Shafts of Fear (1964).

 

About T. F. Powys

Theodore Francis Powys (20 December 1875 – 27 November 1953) was a British novelist and short story writer. These days, he’s mostly remembered for his novel Mr. Weston’s Good Wine (1927): an allegorical tale featuring a wine merchant who is apparently God in disguise.

Born in Shirley, Derbyshire, Powys came from a religious family. His father, Rev. Charles Francis Powys, was the vicar of Montacute, Somerset, and his mother was the grand-daughter of Dr. John Johnson: a deacon, priest, poet, and editor.

Powys did not enjoy his schooldays, so did not take his education further after leaving school when he was 15. Instead, he became an apprentice on a farm is Sussex. He must have enjoyed farm life because he later ram his own farm, also in Suffolk. However, in 1901 he gave up his farm and returned to Dorset, where he purchased a small cottage and began to concentrate on writing.

 

The House with the Echo

by T. F. Powys

(Online Text)

I don’t know why it is, but I can never make myself respectable. I have an inane friendliness to mould and to all those who touch and handle this primeval substance. The others, the many who have to do with the paper niceties of life, look disdainfully at me. This may be because I live in a mud hut, drink tea without milk, and have only once had a friend.

I cultivate my garden. An uncle upon my mother’s side sends me a few shillings sometimes, that is all I have to live upon. My hut is as lonely as ever a hut could be, and my nearest town is Stonebridge.

I have many peculiarities, one of the queerest being my interest in religion. Not in the religion that is preached in the churches, but in the religion that moves with the boots of a man. The religion that makes a mark of a nail in the mind As to my friend I must tell you about him. I saw from this man’s footsteps that he belonged to the religion that I like, to the religion that interests me. To the religion that loves the poor.

For many years before I knew my friend, I had ceased to speak to the so-called ladies and gentlemen. I would pass this kind of folk sometimes upon the roads, but whenever I happened to look at their feet I knew them to be altogether without interest. A word in season. It is a mistake to think that all humanity is interesting, it certainly isn’t. Nature is often dullness itself, and people are often no better.

Even a man in a mud hut requires things sometimes. When I wanted a rat-trap or a Dutch cheese I would walk to Stonebridge.

The way to Stonebridge lies along one of those wind-swept heath roads dotted here and there with twisted thorn trees, every one of which takes the form of some animal or bent human being.

In one place, about half-way to Stonebridge, the road dips into a hollow where stands an old house, behind which, some forty yards away, there is a great barn. What use the barn was to anyone I never could discover. The old house was another matter, it contained my friend, Mr. Dove.

I am not strong. Honest death would not have to give very hard a push to lay me flat. The walk to and from Stonebridge always tired me; it does so still.

One day I had walked to Stonebridge and bought a wooden mallet that I needed to mend my railings. I was carrying my mallet home, and had reached “Pidden Gap,” the name of the house that stood in the half-way hollow upon the heath. A man was standing near to the gates. I looked at his boots. They were different to other men’s boots. They were the boots of a man whose religion interested me.

It was winter. I had buttoned up my shabby overcoat, for the evening was chill. The wind had gathered in the hollows of the hills, and every now and again the oncoming rain would lash my face. The man at “Pidden Gap” had been waiting for me. He thought a cup of tea would do me no harm; he invited me to come in.

Now and again one meets a person whose gentleness of manner has a quality in it like the greatest strength and courage. The sound of Mr. Dove’s voice scattered all my gloomy thoughts to the winds. He was no gentleman, so I had nothing to fear when I entered his doors.

Have you ever passed from a wind-beaten heath road where the rain hisses, into a warm room, where a girl, who knows how to be kind to a traveller, sits at the tea-table? If you have never done so, you may take it from me that upon such an occasion the apple dumplings and the cream taste delightfully.

But I must pass on.

I grew more and more friendly with the Doves. I always rested at “Pidden Gap” when I walked to Stonebridge, and Mr. Dove and his daughter Jane were always the same to me, always loving and kindly.

One summer day I was sitting with the Doves. Jane had met me at the door, and had said that her father wished to show me someone who lived near. I did not feel nervous about this stranger, for I knew that none of the so-called “upper classes” ever visited at Mr. Dove’s.

After tea Jane carried the tray of plates and cups into the kitchen. I watched her go out of the room. You know the way a beautiful girl’s figure passes through a doorway. Her back was so entirely grace-giving, even the air must have loved her.

When Jane was gone to wash up the tea-things, Mr. Dove took me by the hand—that was Mr. Dove’s way—and led me into the garden.

“Now,” he said, “you shall hear the echo. The echo is the someone that I wished you to meet. Now listen.” Mr. Dove called, “Theodore, Theodore!”

I can now hear the echo answer his call ‘‘Theodore, Theodore!”

‘‘She calls very clear this afternoon,” said Mr. Dove as we went in.

Jane soon came to us again.

“You belong to ‘Pidden Gap’ now,” she said. “You have heard the echo. Father only shows the echo to those he loves.”

When I left, Jane came with me a little way. One felt one could kiss Jane without a reproof. There was no acted modesty about her. Jane could love. I asked Jane who had taught her to kiss.

“Oh,” she said, “that doesn’t want any learning.”

I walked home without feeling any tiredness.

During my absence that day the postman had pushed a letter through my hut window. The letter told me that my uncle was dead, and that if I wanted the few pounds that he had left me I must go to a northern town to claim it. With one thing and another I remained in the north all the rest of the summer.

At length I was able to return westwards, travelling to Stonebridge, and intending to walk from there to my hut. Leaving my bag at the station, meaning to ask a farmer, who was wont to pass my hut on his way to market, to call for it. I went up into the town and bought a new spade. With my purchase upon my shoulder I left the town.

It was a wild autumn evening, and as I walked along I thought of the time when my friend, Mr. Dove, had first invited me to enter the house. The weather was now as bad, I was tired with my journey, and, do what I could to drive them away, gloomy thoughts would come to me.

The wind blew in those sharp drifting gusts against which one staggered along but sadly. Soon the rain came on, whipping my face with almost conscious malice. I tried to think happily of Mr. Dove and of Jane.

From a little hill above ‘‘Pidden Gap,” I used to see, when waylaid by the darkness, the kitchen light of Mr. Dove’s house. When I reached this hill it rained more than ever, the dull heavy rain of a winter’s night. The water dripped unpleasantly from the spade that I carried upon my shoulder, and ran down the sleeve of my coat.

I saw no light.

I passed down the hill and opened the gates of the house with the echo. I walked up the drive and knocked at the door.

My knocking reverberated through the house; it sounded in all the rooms as a knock will when a house is empty.

I stood still and listened; the only sound I heard was the rain falling. I found my way round the house, and went along a path that I knew led to the place where the echo could be heard.

I called out to the echo, “Theodore, Theodore!” No reply came.

And then I asked in quite a low tone, “Is Mr. Dove dead?”

‘’Dead,” responded the echo.

T. F. Powys (1875 – 1953)

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