The Dark Palace

A man with his back to Qui

Waechter, who was herding his company away, turned for a moment to look at the shouting man. He frowned as he tried to take in what the man was saying. Presumably there was some difficulty with the language. Qui

Waechter dismissed the heckler with an impatient shake of his head and a dark look towards Porrick. The latter took this as a cue to step forward and confront the shouting man. There was something about his ma

The crowd had greeted the outburst with nervous hilarity, neutralizing any danger through ridicule. Qui

Waechter hurried his actors inside, to be followed in by Porrick and his wife, together with Lord Dunwich, and Harry and Jane Le

At the removal of the film people, the man stopped shouting and turned disconsolately away, pushing against the tide of the crowd, who were now forming a queue to be admitted.

As soon as he turned, and Qui

Qui

Qui

The man knew that he had been seen. He held Qui

‘’E’s here, guv! We seen ’im, ain’t we, Mac!’

For a moment, Qui

‘’Artma

Qui

He looked up at the trees in the centre of the square. The lights in the branches seemed brighter now. But that was merely a function of the darkness thickening around them.

SIXTEEN

As the lights went out inside the auditorium, bubbles of excitement seemed to float in the darkness. Voices rose to an urgent clamour. It was as if each member of the audience was rushing to get out the single most important thing they would ever say, which had for some reason occurred to them at this inappropriate moment. Then, everyone ran out of words at the same time. Silence hung momentarily above them. Qui

The band began to play. Because this was a gala occasion, the management of the theatre had evidently supplemented the usual pianist with some string players and a percussionist. The violins came in with a highly charged romantic overture. The darkness seemed to throb and quiver, as if a spasm of emotion had passed through it. Then all at once it burst into shimmering life.

A pair of enormous eyelids opened slowly. Two equally enormous eyes stared out at him. At him, at him alone. That was certainly what Qui

For these were the eyes of a woman. And their gaze was one of desire. What man would not wish to think himself the subject of that gaze?

He knew immediately that they were the eyes of the woman he had seen outside the theatre. Eloise. They held the same magnetic power. But something had changed about them, and not just their scale. In the flesh, her eyes had been warm and engaging. They had possessed a human empathy that reached out to whomever they settled upon. Their gaze was inclusive and generous.

Enlarged and isolated from the rest of her features, the eyes became self-possessed and steely. Yes, they desired the unseen object they gazed upon. But this desire was something fierce, dangerous, frightening. It was a desire in which there would be no room for compromise. The gaze of those gigantic eyes demanded everything. And promised nothing in return. It was a gaze that threatened to possess its object, like a demonic force. A gaze that would take you over and make you forget yourself. It would transform you into something you had never imagined you could be. It would never let you go.

The small, sympathetic, very human personality that had charmed the crowd outside the theatre was nowhere to be seen.

The eyes blinked. The viewpoint receded slightly, to show the whole of the face. And now some of that humanity came back into the eyes. The fierceness of the gaze was given a context, and seemed more comprehensible. What defined the gaze, he understood now, was despair. There was a frailty in her expression that the eyes alone had not communicated, a potent combination of vulnerability and defiance.

A hand came sharply into shot, slapping her across the left cheek. The percussionist threw out a perfectly timed snare-shot.

The audience gasped.

The camera closed in again on her eyes. They flared with indignation and then softened into something more recriminatory, regretful even. The music corresponded to these modulations.

At no time was there fear in those eyes.

Then, at last, the camera angle shifted to show the man who was both the recipient of her gaze and her assailant.

Qui

Paradoxically, devoid of colour and reduced in its dimensions, his image became something far more than the man it represented. Dressed in a white dress uniform, he became the embodiment of every dark and difficult male emotion. (The music from the band rather overstated this, striking up a heavy, melodramatic motif.)

One sensed every aspect of his potential – for love, for violence, for rage, for self-a