“Indeed they told those old sea captains just such stories, and also that in return for worshipping Dagon they’d been given all the wealth of the oceans in the abundance of fish they were able to catch, and in the strange golden alloy, which was probably washed out of their mountains in rainy-season streams. It would be the native priests, of course—their witch doctors, priests of Dagon or his ‘esoteric order’— who secretly worked the gold into the jewellery whose remnants we occasionally see today.
“But the modern legend—the one you’ll hear in Innsmouth and its environs—is that in return for the good fishing and the gold, the natives gave of their children to the sea, or to man-like beings who lived in the sea: the so-called ‘Deep Ones, servitors of Dagon and other alleged, er, ‘deities’ of the deep, such as Great Cthulhu and Mother Hydra. And the same legend has it that Innsmouth’s sea captains, in their lust for alien gold, the favours of mainly forgotten gods out of doubtful myths, and the promise of life everlasting, followed suit in the sacrifice of their young to Dagon and the Deep Ones. Except they were not sacrifices as such but matings! Thus in both legends, it became possible to blame the ‘Innsmouth look’ or taint on this miscegenation: the mingling of Deep One and clean human blood. But of course no such matings took place because there’s no such thing as a merman! Nor was there ever, but that didn’t stop a handful of the more degenerate Innsmouth people from adopting the cult, as witness that weathered, white-pillared hall dedicated to the Esoteric Order of Dagon.
“Which leaves only the so-called ‘epidemic’ of 1927-28...
“Well, seventy years ago our society was far less tolerant. And sad to say that when stories leaked out of Innsmouth of the sheer scale of the taint—the numbers of inbred, diseased and malformed people living there—the federal government’s reaction was excessive in the extreme. But there’s little doubt that it would have been the same if AIDS had been found there in the same period: panic, and a knee-jerk reaction, yes. And so there followed a vast series of raids and many arrests, and a burning and dynamiting of large numbers of rotting old houses along the waterfront. But no criminal charges were brought and no one was committed for trial; just vague statements about malignant diseases, and the covert dispersal of a great many detainees into various naval and military prisons.
“Thus old Innsmouth was depopulated, and these seventy-odd years later its recovery is still only very sluggish. There is, however, a modern laboratory there now, where pathologists and other scientists—some of them Innsmouth people themselves—continue to study the taint and to offer what help they may to the descendants of survivors of those frenzied federal raids. I worked there myself, however briefly, but it was disheartening work to say the least. I saw sufferers in every stage of degeneration, and could only offer the most basic assistance to any of them. For among the doctors and other specialists there... well, the general consensus is that there’s no hope for a cure as yet for those with the Innsmouth blood. And until or unless the taint is allowed to die out by gradual dispersion or depletion of that diseased foreign gene pool, there shall always be those with the Innsmouth look...”
Jilly was as calm as Jamieson had ever seen her now—too calm, he thought—like the calm before a storm. Her eyes were unblinking and had a distant quality, but her look was reflective rather than vague or vacant. And finally, after a few long moments of silence, the old man prompted her, “What now, Jilly? Is something still bothering you?”
Her gaze focussed on him and she said, “Yes. I think there is one more thing. You said something about everlasting life—that the Innsmouth seafarers had been promised everlasting life if they embraced the worship of Dagon and these other cult figures. But... what if they reneged on the cult, turned back from such worship? You see, toward the end George frequently rambled in his sleep, and I’d often hear him say that he didn’t want to live forever, not like that. He meant his condition, of course. But I can’t believe—no, no, I can! I do!—that he believed in s-s-such things. So, do you think—I mean, is it p-p-possible—that my husband was once a m-member of that old Innsmouth c-c-cult? And could there be anything of t-truth in it? I mean, anything at all?”
Jamieson shook his head. “Anything to it? Only in his mind, my dear. For you see, as George’s condition worsened, it would have been more than a merely physical thing. He would have been doing what you are doing: looking for an explanation where none exists. And having had to do with those cultists—and knowing the legends—he might have come to believe that certain things were true. But as for you, you mustn’t. You simply mustn’t!”
“B-b-but that tainted blood,” she said, her voice a whisper now, as if from far away. “His blood, and Geoff’s blood, and... and w-w-what of Anne’s?”
“Jilly, now I want you to listen.” The old man took hold of her arms, grasping her very firmly. And of all the lies or half-truths he had told her in the past half-hour, the next would be his biggest deceit of all. “Jilly, I have known you and Anne—especially Anne—for quite a while now, and from my knowledge of the Innsmouth taint, and also from what I know and have seen of your daughter, I would be glad to stake my reputation on the fact that she is as normal as you or I.”
At which she sighed, relaxing a little in her chair...
And taking that as his signal to depart, Jamieson stood up. “I must be off,” he said. “It’s late and I’ve some things to do before bed.” Then, as he made his way to the door, he said: “Do give my regards to Anne, won’t you? It’s a shame I missed her—or perhaps not, since we needed to have our talk.”
Jilly had followed him—rather stumblingly, he thought—and at the door said, “I really d-d-don’t know how to thank you. My mind feels so much more at ease now. But then it always does after I-I-I’ve spoken with you.” She waited until he’d got into his car, and waved him a shaky goodbye before closing the door.
Pulling away from the house, the old man noticed an almost furtive flicker of movement in the drapes of an upstairs window. It was Anne’s bedroom; and very briefly he saw her face—those huge eyes of hers—in the gap of partly drawn-aside curtains. At which he wondered how long she had been awake; even wondered if she had been asleep! And if not, how much shed overheard.
Or had she perhaps already known it all...?
* * *
The long winter with its various ailments—Anne White’s laryngitis, and Doreen Tremain’s ’flu—merged slowly into spring; green shoots became flowers in village gardens or window-boxes; lowering skies brightened, becoming bluer day to day.
But among these changes were others, not nearly so natural and far less benign, and old Jamieson was witness to them all.
He would see the beachcomber—“young Geoff”, indeed, as if he were just another village youth—shambling along the tidemark. But he wasn’t like other youths, and he was ailing.
Jamieson watched him in his binoculars, that tired shambler on the shore: his slow lurching, feet flip-flopping, shoulders sloping, head down and collar up. And despite that the weather was much improved, he no longer went out to sea. Oh, he looked at the sea— constantly pausing to lift his ugly head and gaze out across that wide wet horizon—gaze longingly, the old man thought, as he attempted to read something of emotion into the near-distant visage—but the youth’s great former ability in the water, and his untried but suspected strength on dry land, these seemed absent now. Plainly put, he was in decline.