Dark Sanctuary
Page 28
Wonderingly, Tony lifted them and saw the Stigmata.
“Lord, I am not worthy,” he murmured, but the glory in his face belied the words.
For some minutes there was silence save for the quiet weeping of Valerie, who knelt beside him. Presently he touched her dark curls, saying:
“Don’t cry, my darling. It’s better so — far better. I’ve squared the reckoning now, and everything is all right. You never loved me, did you? Not as you loved John. It was selfish of me to ask you to. Please forgive me. Be good to her, John.”
Hamilton caught his arm and pressed it gently, unashamed of the tears which ran down his face. Tony spoke again, in a voice so low that they had to bend close to hear the words:
“Valerie, won’t you smile for me?”
She lifted her lovely face, struggling bravely with her tears, and gave him such a pitiful little smile that Hamilton thought his heart would surely break.
“That’s better, my darling. Now one kiss. You don’t mind, John?”
Hamilton shook his head and turned away; he could not speak.
“Good-bye, my sweet,” Tony murmured, as she lifted her lips from his; then his eyes darkened, and his head fell back. So passed the last of the Lovells.
The rector stood up, crossing himself.
“Come, my children,” he said, “we must get out of here at once. The material fabric of this place has been tried too far, and with the monstrosity withdrawn I doubt if it will stand much longer.”
“And leave him here?” Hamilton asked.
“Why not? His soul is far away. Should not his body lie in the home of his fathers? It is not an abode of Darkness any more.”
Even as he spoke there was a rending sound from above, and a great mass of rock fell from the roof, splintering not many yards from where they stood.
So they made their way back up the tortuous pathway to the ledge and along the winding tunnel to the sea-cave. Every few minutes a hollow, echoing crash resounded behind them, and when at last they reached the sea the air in the tunnel was full of a fine dust of pulverized rock.
They found the boat moored where they had left it, clambered in, and cast off at once. The sea was calm, but the fog had gone from the face of the waters and a fresh breeze was springing up. Hamilton took the wheel and steered for Pentock, while the rector sat in the stern holding Valerie in his arms. The girl was utterly worn out by all that she had gone through and lay quite still, her dark head pillowed on her uncle’s shoulder.
They had put perhaps half a mile of blue water between them and the island when some indefinable impulse caused Hamilton to stop the engine and look back. Wondering, his companions followed his gaze, and for some minutes they sat there in the gently rocking boat looking at the once familiar but now strangely different scene.
All was as it had ever been: the dark mass of the island crowned with the grey walls of the Abbey, merging imperceptibly into steep cliffs beneath; but there was no menace in it now, no veiled threat to mar its austere beauty. Instead, a kind of tragic loveliness, such as must for ever lie upon the hill of Calvary, now wrung the hearts of the three who looked at it. In this place also a young man had given himself for the world, greatly loving and greatly loved. Gone too was that air of immemorial strength which once had hung about the battlements; instead, a hint of unreality — a touch of the mirage — wove itself into the picture.
Then, even as they watched, the mirage began to fade. Clear across the water came a curious grinding sound, and the massive right-hand tower of the Abbey crumpled inwards, vanishing in a spurt of flying rubble; the roar of its fall followed almost instantly. Quite slowly the second tower leaned across the main body of the building, disintegrating as it fell, until only the outer wall was left, while a great cloud of dust, belching from the ruins within, spread out across the sky. The dissolution of centuries, hitherto held in check by the indwelling power of the curse-monstrosity, was accomplished in the space of a few minutes. Hamilton made as if to speak, but the rector silenced him with a gesture; the end was not yet.
The dust darkened the sky and made it difficult to see clearly what was happening, but it seemed that now the whole crest of the island was caving in. Hamilton realized that the roof of the great cavern within must have given way, for the island seemed to be swallowing the ruins of the Abbey bodily, until at length the rock was naked as when the sea first thrust it up, only a gaping chasm remaining to tell the tale of what had been. But even now outraged Nature was not satisfied, for a long gash opened in the face of the cliff nearest to them, and a vast mass of rock detached itself and slid into the sea with a mighty splash. The whole island appeared to shudder and tilt slightly, like an iceberg about to turn turtle, and then, with a gargantuan convulsion, sank into the depths. The waters rushed roaring together into the gulf where it had been, met, and spouted skywards in a column of foam many hundreds of feet into the air.
As he saw the resultant wave rushing towards them Hamilton hurriedly started the engine and turned the launch bow-on to meet it. They were tossed up like a cockle-shell, and for some minutes were fully occupied in clinging to their seats. When at last, drenched with spray, they could lift their heads again, the sea was empty to the horizon. It was as if Kestrel had never been.
finis
DISCUSSING DARK SANCTUARY
(An Interview with H.B. Gregory)
JP: I and the readers of Inhuman are very appreciative of your taking the time for this interview. I know that I was floored to hear from your daughter some weeks ago, as all our attempts to locate you or an estate ran into a dead end. While my surprise was extreme, I can’t imagine what your reaction would have been to find that your novel was in print after all these years from some tiny company in the US. Could you tell us about your reaction to the news?
HBG: I was amazed, but extremely gratified to learn of the resurrection of Dark Sanctuary; but sad that it came so late in my life when my late wife (to whom it was dedicated) and most of my old friends were gone. As a practicing Anglo-Catholic I hope it may strike a blow for Christianity in these faithless days.
JP: Dark Sanctuary is certainly a classic tale of the struggle of good versus evil, but seems to share much in the way of atmosphere with the work of American writer H.P. Lovecraft. Had you read Lovecraft?
HBG: I certainly had read Lovecraft and greatly acknowledge his influence, particularly in the Cthulhu Mythos, but I always found his failure to describe his nameless subterranean horrors irritating. So I described mine in full detail!
JP: Who were some of your favorites in the horror/mystery genre?
HBG: Charles Williams - War in Heaven, The Place of the Lion. Many C.S. Lewis - That Hideous Strength, Voyage to Venus, etc. Dennis Wheatley - The Devil Ride Out, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. Peter Straub, Dean Koontz.
JP: Your daughter mentioned to me that your writing really started off with the composition of plays for your Church theatre? Was the genesis of Dark Sanctuary a play?
HBG: Yes. The idea of the family curse as a monster lurking in the crypt was there, but in the play this turned out to be a thief in an old diving suit seeking treasure. But the Abbot’s Curse was there and the Satanist “Gaunt”, (I played both parts myself!)
JP: Dark Sanctuary is based on a real place that you visited on your honeymoon, could you tell us a bit about that?
HBG: The island of “Kestrel” is based on St. Michael’s Mount, off the Cornish coast near Penzance. My wife and I spent our honeymoon nearby and visited the castle there; then the ancestral home of Lord St. Leven. Rider was worried about this and I had to write to his Lordship and submit the ms. For his approval before they would publish. Happily, his Lordship approved and raised no objection to publication. He pointed out that since the island and abbey sank beneath the waves in my book, it could hardly be identified with his stately house, which is still there (accessible by a causeway at low tide) and a well-known tourist resort.
JP: Could you tell
us anything about the sale of Dark Sanctuary to Rider? Had you tried a number of other houses, or did it just seem that Rider was a good fit for a book of this type?
HBG: I wrote the novel, for entry in a newspaper competition (which it didn’t win) and then sent the ms. to Hutchinson, who passed it over to Rider (still in their imprint today) and Rider published it in 1940 with 400 copies in the first and only edition. World War II had just begun and the book was a victim. It was well-received, but failed to sell. I suppose that some returning G.I. must have brought a copy to the US. Rider is still part of the Hutchinson’s group and I tried to interest them in republishing Dark Sanctuary many years ago, but they were not interested. In 1940 they mainly published fiction of (they said) the “quaint, queer, scarce, and rare type.” That would almost fit your lot today!
JP: Interesting comparison, (and a flattering one)! Your publisher (Rider) and their parent company (Hutchinson) published a pretty wide range of books that revolved around horror and metaphysical themes, such as J.M. Mills’ two novels The Lords of the Earth and Tomb of the Dark Ones; as well as Bridge Over Dark Gods by Furze Morrish. Did you have any correspondence with other authors working for Rider?
HBG: No. I didn’t know what else Rider had published. I sent ‘Dark Sanctuary’ to Hutchinson, who passed it on to Rider. They then wrote to me and said they would publish.
JP: Considering the scarcity of Dark Sanctuary in first edition (I know of three copies in private hands, and one of them is yours); it’s not likely most of the readers of Inhuman will ever see a copy, let alone one with the dustjacket. Could you tell us what the jacket was like? Are we missing a great piece of artwork?
HBG: It was similar to the current dustjacket: an impression of the abbey and a horrified face. It wasn’t very good, and in retrospect, the publishers thought it could have been improved.
JP: Rider was pretty well-known for publishing a good deal of theosophist nonsense and seemingly published interesting fiction rather by accident than design. Were you surprised that the publishers of such silliness as A Message from the Sphinx and The Projection of the Astral Body were interested in a novel written from a strongly Christian perspective?
HBG: I would have been if I’d known. You seem to be assuming that, in those days, you selected a suitable publisher. You simply sent it off to various publishers until one accepted it. Nowadays, you have agents to do that sort of thing.
JP: You mentioned your fondness for Lovecraft’s work previously and one of the most remarkable features of your novel is the Lovecraftian tone. However, you manage to work in two unique twists; First, you show us the horror in detail (which you mentioned was intentional). Possibly an even more important divergence was where Lovecraft postulates an atheist’s cosmology of chaos, where his Mythos deities are neither good nor evil, but simply completely indifferent; your book paints the eternal struggle in very clear shades of black and white and is equally effective. Was this counterpoint to Lovecraft also intentional?
HBG: You are attributing a greater influence on me from Lovecraft than there was. Lovecraft was one of many authors I read, such as M R James, Dennis Wheatley and Charles Williams. I was not particularly concerned with Lovecraft’s mythology. I feel that there may have been less philosophical significance in both our works than you suggest. Starting from a Christian perspective, I invented a mythology in which the powers of darkness threatened the omnipotence of God. However, it was only the means by which God would assert this omnipotence which remained to be revealed (in the book).
JP: While no one can question the effectiveness of showing the horror in Dark Sanctuary, do you feel that much modern horror has become too descriptive and abandoned the writer’s strongest tool, that of the reader’s imagination?
HBG: I suppose you might say that, but I feel it isn’t what the author wants; it’s what he thinks his public want.
JP: Could you tell us a little bit about your foray into science fiction in the 1950s?
HBG: I felt that I had exhausted my capacity for horror by writing Dark Sanctuary. I wrote a short story called “Boy on the Moon”, which I offered to Boys Own Paper (a ‘serious’ text-based magazine for boys, containing stories and articles about science, hobbies etc.) The editor, concerned about scientific accuracy, submitted it to Patrick Moore (a famous British astronomer), who approved it, and they published.
This success prompted me to write three or four sequels, which attracted the attention of Frank Wells (son of H G); at that time director of the ‘Children’s Film Foundation’. They produced a serial, based on the stories, for showing in cinemas at children’s Saturday matinees.
JP: Lastly, you’ve given the world of horror fiction one of its masterpieces, any chance we’ll ever see another H.B. Gregory novel? Perhaps a short story?
HPG: As I’m almost 92 now; it’s unlikely.
JP: On behalf of the readers of Inhuman I’d like to thank you for taking the time to for this interview and sharing some of the background concerning your remarkable book! Thanks again!
RAMBLE HOUSE’s
Harry Stephen Keeler Webwork Mysteries
(RH) indicates the title is available ONLY in the RAMBLE HOUSE edition
The Ace of Spades Murder
The Affair of the Bottled Deuce (RH)
The Amazing Web
The Barking Clock
Behind That Mask
The Book with the Orange Leaves
The Bottle with the Green Wax Seal
The Box from Japan
The Case of the Canny Killer
The Case of the Crazy Corpse (RH)
The Case of the Flying Hands (RH)
The Case of the Ivory Arrow
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The Case of the Lavender Gripsack
The Case of the Mysterious Moll
The Case of the 16 Beans
The Case of the Transparent Nude (RH)
The Case of the Transposed Legs
The Case of the Two-Headed Idiot (RH)
The Case of the Two Strange Ladies
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Cleopatra’s Tears
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Hangman’s Nights (RH)
I, Chameleon (RH)
I Killed Lincoln at 10:13! (RH)
The Iron Ring
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The Wonderful Scheme of Mr. Christopher Thorne
X. Jones—of Scotland Yard
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Keeler Related Works
A To Izzard: A Harry Stephen Keeler Companion by Fender Tucker — Articles and stories about Harry, by Harry, and in his style. Included is a compleat bibliography.
Wild About Harry: Reviews of Keeler Novels — Edited by Richard Polt & Fender Tucker — 22 reviews of works by Harry Stephen Keeler from Keeler News. A perfect introduction to the author.
The Keeler Keyhole Collection: Annotated newsletter rants from Harry Stephen Keeler, edited by Francis M. Nevins. Over 400 pages of incredibly personal Keeleriana.
Fakealoo — Pastiches of the style of Harry Stephen Keeler by selected demented members of the HSK Society. Updated every year with the new winner.
Strands of the Web: Short Stories of Harry Stephen Keeler — 29 stories, just about all that Keeler wrote, are edited and introduced by Fred Cleaver.
RAMBLE HOUSE’s Loon Sanctuary
A Clear Path to Cross — Sharon Knowles short mystery stories by Ed Lynskey.
A Jimmy Starr Omnibus — Three 40s novels by Jimmy Starr.