More Deadly than the Male

by Graeme Davis

  “Pray say what you are thinking.”

  “Just now when you said how incredible it was that real souls should return to this earth, you only spoke of good people, did you not?”

  In his turn Sir Robert hesitated.

  “It is difficult to draw a line even in thought between good and bad people,” he said, “and, thank God, it is not for us to do so. ‘To my Maker alone I stand or I fall.’ There is evil in the best; there is, I would fain hope,” but here his face grew grave and sad, “good in the worst. But even allowing that we could draw the line, is it likely that the bad, even those who have all but lost the last spark, who don’t want to be good, is it likely that they, if, as we must believe, under Divine control, would be allowed to leave their new life of punishment—punishment in the sense of correction, mind you—to come back here, wasting their time, one may say, to frighten perfectly innocent people for no purpose? No, I think I am quite consistent. Only try to get rid of all fears—that is what we can all do. But really I should apologise for all this lecture;” and he was turning to me with a smile, when his eyes fell on the cup which he had replaced on the table.

  “I cannot get over the impression that I have seen that cup—no, not that cup, but one just like it, before. Not long ago, I fancy,” he said.

  “Oh, you must let us know if you find out anything,” we all exclaimed.

  “I certainly shall do so,” he said, and a few minutes afterwards he and Mr. Grenfell took their leave.

  But I had time for a word or two with the latter out of hearing of the others.

  “Who is Sir Robert Masters?” I asked. “Have you known him long? He is a very uncommon and impressive sort of man.”

  “Yes, I thought you would like him. I have not personally known him long, but he is an old friend of friends of ours. He is of good family, an old baronetcy, but he is not much known in fashionable society. He travels a great deal, or has done so rather, and people say he has ‘peculiar ideas,’ though that would not go against him in the world. Peculiar ideas, or the cant* of them, are rather the fashion it seems to me! But there is no cant about him. And whatever his ideas are,” went on young Grenfell warmly, “he is one of the best men I ever knew. He has settled down for some years, and devotes his whole life to doing good, but so quietly and unostentatiously that no one knows how much he does, and others get the credit of it very often.”

  That was all I heard.

  I have never seen Sir Robert again. Still I have by no means arrived yet at the end of my so-called ghost story.

  The cup and saucer were carefully washed and replaced in the glass-doored cabinet. The summer gradually waned, and we all returned to our own home. It was at a considerable distance from my sister’s, and we met each other principally in the summer time. So, though I did not forget Sir Robert Masters, or his somewhat strange conversation, amid the crowd of daily interests and pleasures, duties and cares, none of the incidents I have here recorded were much in my mind, and but that I had while still in Germany carefully noted the details of all bearing directly or indirectly on “Nora’s ghost,” as we had come to call it—though it was but rarely alluded to before the child herself—I should not now have been able to give them with circumstantiality.

  Fully fifteen months after the visit to my sister, during which we had met Sir Robert, the whole was suddenly and unexpectedly recalled to my memory. Mark and Nora the elder—my sister, that is,—were in their turn staying with us, when one morning at breakfast the post brought for the latter an unusually bulky and important-looking letter. She opened it, glanced at an outer sheet enclosing several pages in a different handwriting, and passed it on to me.

  “We must read the rest together,” she said in a low voice, glancing at the children, who were at the table. “How interesting it will be!”

  The sheet she had handed to me was a short note from Mr. Grenfell. It was dated from some place in Norway where he was fishing, and from whence he had addressed the whole packet to my sister’s own home, not knowing of her absence.

  “MY DEAR MRS. DAVENTRY”—it began. “The enclosed will have been a long time of reaching its real destination, for it is, as you will see, really intended for your sister. No doubt it will interest you too, as it has done me, though I am too matter-of-fact and prosaic to enter into such things much. Still it is curious. Please keep the letter; I am sure my friend intends you to do so.

  “Yours very truly,

  “RALPH GRENFELL.”

  The manuscript enclosed was, of course, from Sir Robert himself. It was in the form of a letter to young Grenfell; and after explaining that he thought it better to write to him, not having my address, he plunged into the real object of his communication.

  “You will not,” he said, “have forgotten the incident of the ‘ghost-cup,’ in the summer of last year, and the curious story your friend was so good as to tell us about it. You may remember—Mrs.—— will, I am sure, do so—my strong impression that I had recently seen one like it. After I left you I could not get this feeling out of my head. It is always irritating not to be able, figuratively speaking, ‘to lay your hand’ on a recollection, and in this instance I really wanted to get the clue, as it might lead to some sort of ‘explanation’ of the little girl’s strange experience. I cudgelled my brains, but all to no purpose; I went over in memory all the houses at which I had visited within a certain space of time; I made lists of all the people I knew interested in ‘china,’ ancient or modern, and likely to possess specimens of it. But all in vain. All I got for my pains was that people began to think I was developing a new crotchet, or, as I heard one lady say to another, not knowing I was within earshot, ‘the poor man must be a little off his head, though till now I have always denied it. But the revulsion from benevolent schemes to china-collecting shows it only too plainly.’ So I thought I had better leave off cross-questioning my ‘collecting’ friends about porcelain and faïence, German ware in particular. And after a while I thought no more about it. Two months ago I had occasion to make a journey to the north—the same journey and to stay at the same house where I have been four or five times since I saw the ‘ghost-cup.’ But this was what happened this time. There is a junction by which one must pass on this journey. I generally manage to suit my trains so as to avoid waiting there, but this is not always feasible. This time I found that an hour at the junction was inevitable. There is a very good refreshment room there, kept by very civil, decent people. They knew me by sight, and after I had had a cup of tea they proposed to me, as they have done before, to wait in their little parlour just off the public room. ‘It would be quieter and more comfortable,’ said either the mother or the daughter who manage the concern. I thanked them, and settled myself in an arm-chair with my book, when, looking up—there on the mantelpiece stood the fellow cup—the identical shape, pattern, and colour! It all flashed into my mind then. I had made this journey just before going into your neighbourhood last year, and had waited in this little parlour just as this time.

  “‘Where did you get that cup, Mrs. Smith?’ I asked.

  “There were two or three rather pretty bits of china about. The good woman was pleased at my noticing it.

  “‘Yes, sir. Isn’t it pretty? I’ve rather a fancy for china. That cup was sent me by my niece. She said she’d picked it up somewhere—at a sale, I think. It’s foreign, sir; isn’t it?’

  “‘Yes, German. But can’t you find out where your niece got it?’ for at the word ‘sale’ my hopes fell.

  “‘I can ask her. I shall be writing to her this week,’ she replied; and she promised to get any information she could for me within a fortnight, by which time I expected to pass that way again. I did so, and Mrs. Smith proved as good as her word. The niece had got the cup from a friend of hers, an auctioneer, and he, not she, had got it at a sale. But he was away from home—she could hear nothing more at present. She gave his address, however, and assurances that he was very good-natured and would gladly put the gentleman in the
way of getting china like it, if it was to be got. He would be home by the middle of the month. It was now the middle of the month. The auctioneer’s town was not above a couple of hours off my line. Perhaps you will all laugh at me when I tell you that I went those two hours out of my way, arriving at the town late that night and putting up at a queer old inn—worth going to see for itself—on purpose to find the man of the hammer. I found him. He was very civil, though rather mystified. He remembered the cup perfectly, but there was no chance of getting any like it where it came from!

  “‘And where was that?’ I asked eagerly.

  “‘At a sale some miles from here, about four years ago,’ he replied. ‘It was the sale of the furniture and plate, and everything, in fact, of a widow lady. She had some pretty china, for she had a fancy for it. That cup was not of much value; it was quite modern. I bought it in for a trifle. I gave it to Miss Cross, and she sent it to her aunt, as you know. As for getting any like it—’

  “But I interrupted him by assuring him I did not wish that, but that I had reasons for wanting some information about the person who, I believed, had bought the cup. ‘Nothing to do any harm to any one,’ I said; ‘a matter of feeling. A similar cup had been bought by a person I was interested in, and I feared that person was dead.’

  “The auctioneer’s face cleared. He fancied he began to understand me.

  “‘I am afraid you are right, sir, if the person you mean was young Mr. Paulet, the lady’s son. You may have met him on his travels? His death was very sad, I believe. It killed his mother, they say—she never looked up after; and as she had no near relative to follow her, everything was sold. I remember I was told all that, at the sale, and it seemed to me particularly sad, even though one comes across many sad things in our line of business.’

  “‘Do you remember the particulars of Mr. Paulet’s death?’ I asked.

  “‘Only that it happened suddenly—somewhere in foreign parts. I did not know the family till I was asked to take charge of the sale,’ he replied.

  “‘Could you possibly get any details for me? I feel sure it is the same Mr. Paulet,’ I said boldly.

  “The auctioneer considered.

  “‘Perhaps I can. I rather think a former servant of theirs is still in the neighbourhood,’ he replied.

  “I thanked him and left him my address, to which he promised to write. I felt it was perhaps better not to pursue my inquiries further in person; it might lead to annoyance, or possibly to gossip about the dead, which I detest. I jotted down some particulars for the auctioneer’s guidance, and went on my way. That was a fortnight ago. To-day I have his answer, which I transcribe:—

  “‘SIR—The servant I spoke of could not tell me very much, as she was not long in the late Mrs. Paulet’s service. To hear more, she says, you must apply to the relations of the family. Young Mr. Paulet was tall and fair and very nice-looking. His mother and he were deeply attached to each other. He travelled a good deal and used to bring her home lots of pretty things. He met his death in some part of Germany where there are forests, for though it was thought at first he had died of heart disease, the doctors proved he had been struck by lightning, and his body was found in the forest, and the papers on him showed who he was. The body was sent home to be buried, and all that was found with it; a knapsack and its contents, among which was the cup I bought at the sale. His death was about the middle of August 18—. I shall be glad if this information is of any service.’

  “This,” continued Sir Robert’s own letter, “is all I have been able to learn. There does not seem to have been the very slightest suspicion of foul play, nor do I think it the least likely there was any ground for such. Young Paulet probably died some way farther in the forest than Silberbach, and it is even possible the surly landlord never heard of it. It might be worth while to inquire about it should your friends ever be there again. If I should be in the neighbourhood I certainly should do so; the whole coincidences are very striking.”

  Then followed apologies for the length of his letter which he had been betrayed into by his anxiety to tell all there was to tell. In return he asked Mr. Grenfell to obtain from me certain dates and particulars as he wished to note them down. It was the 18th of August on which “Nora’s ghost” had appeared—just two years after the August of the poor young man’s death!

  There was also a postscript to Sir Robert’s letter, in which he said, “I think, in Mrs.——’s place, I would say nothing to the little girl of what we have discovered.”

  And I have never done so.

  This is all I have to tell. I offer no suggestions, no theories in explanation of the facts. Those who, like Sir Robert Masters, are able and desirous to treat such subjects scientifically or philosophically will doubtless form their own. I cannot say that I find his theory a perfectly satisfactory one, perhaps I do not sufficiently understand it, but I have tried to give it in his own words. Should this matter-of-fact relation of a curious experience meet his eyes, I am sure he will forgive my having brought him into it. Besides, it is not likely that he would be recognised; men, and women too, of “peculiar ideas,” sincere investigators and honest searchers after truth, as well as their superficial plagiarists, being by no means rare in these days.

  *Rhetoric, jargon, or slang. In this context, Mr. Grenfell is saying that Masters is an honest and straight-talking man.

  LET LOOSE

  by Mary Cholmondely

  1890

  The daughter of a clergyman, Mary Cholmondely—a name the British pronounce Chumley—spent most of her first thirty years helping her sickly mother raise her seven siblings and assisting her father with parish work. Debilitated by asthma and thinking herself unlikely to marry (at the age of eighteen, she wrote in her journal “that is hardly likely, as I possess neither beauty nor charms”), she devoted herself to writing in addition to family life. She wrote Her Evil Genius at the age of sixteen; it is now lost, and presumed destroyed. Her first novel, a detective story titled The Danvers Jewels, won her a small following, and was followed by Sir Charles Danvers and five more novels, as well as a memoir and some collections of stories.

  Mary’s 1899 novel Red Pottage caused a scandal when it was published. Despite—or perhaps, because of—her long devotion to her family and her father’s parish, the book satirizes religious hypocrisy and narrow-minded country life; what caused it to be denounced from pulpits across England was its treatment of adultery, female sexuality, and gender roles—the last thing society expected from the daughter of a minister of the Church of England. The book became a sensation, and was even filmed in 1918, but it brought Mary little profit, as she had sold the copyright; she wrote at the time of the uneasiness that her sudden celebrity caused her.

  So far as is known, “Let Loose” was Mary’s only foray into supernatural fiction. Published in the Temple Bar magazine and later collected in Moth and Rust alongside more conventional tales, it is an effective ghost story—but in its day it was almost as controversial as Red Pottage. Mary was accused of plagiarizing the tale from a story by T. G. Loring titled “The Tomb of Sarah,” which appeared in the Pall Mall magazine in December 1900. As a note in Moth and Rust shows, though, she was able to show that her story had been published first—but even so, Mary apologizes for any “unintentional plagiarism” that may have occurred.

  The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold

  Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still.

  Some years ago I took up architecture, and made a tour through Holland, studying the buildings of that interesting country. I was not then aware that it is not enough to take up art. Art must take you up, too. I never doubted but that my passing enthusiasm for her would be returned. When I discovered that she was a stern mistress, who did not immediately respond to my attentions, I naturally transferred them to another shrine. There are other things in the world besides art. I am now a landscape gardener.

  But at the time of which I write I was engaged in a violent flirtation w
ith architecture. I had one companion on this expedition, who has since become one of the leading architects of the day. He was a thin, determined-looking man with a screwed-up face and heavy jaw, slow of speech, and absorbed in his work to a degree which I quickly found tiresome. He was possessed of a certain quiet power of overcoming obstacles which I have rarely seen equalled. He has since become my brother-in-law, so I ought to know; for my parents did not like him much and opposed the marriage, and my sister did not like him at all, and refused him over and over again; but, nevertheless, he eventually married her.

  I have thought since that one of his reasons for choosing me as his travelling companion on this occasion was because he was getting up steam for what he subsequently termed “an alliance with my family,” but the idea never entered my head at the time. A more careless man as to dress I have rarely met, and yet, in all the heat of July in Holland, I noticed that he never appeared without a high, starched collar, which had not even fashion to commend it at that time.

  I often chaffed him about his splendid collars, and asked him why he wore them, but without eliciting any response. One evening, as we were walking back to our lodgings in Middeburg, I attacked him for about the thirtieth time on the subject.

  “Why on earth do you wear them?” I said.

  “You have, I believe, asked me that question many times,” he replied, in his slow, precise utterance; “but always on occasions when I was occupied. I am now at leisure, and I will tell you.”

  And he did.

  I have put down what he said, as nearly in his own words as I can remember them.

  Ten years ago, I was asked to read a paper on English Frescoes at the Institute of British Architects. I was determined to make the paper as good as I could, down to the slightest details, and I consulted many books on the subject, and studied every fresco I could find. My father, who had been an architect, had left me, at his death, all his papers and note-books on the subject of architecture. I searched them diligently, and found in one of them a slight unfinished sketch of nearly fifty years ago that specially interested me. Underneath was noted, in his clear, small hand—Frescoed east wall of crypt. Parish Church. Wet Waste-on-the-Wolds, Yorkshire (via Pickering).