by Lamb, Hugh;
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 by Hugh Lamb
All rights reserved.
Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 2006, is a new anthology of sixteen stories reprinted from the work Gaslit Nightmares: An Anthology of Victorian Tales of Terror, edited by Hugh Lamb, originally published by Futura Publications, London, in 1988.
9780486147802
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y 11501
To Tamar and Zara
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Undying Thing
The Serpent’s Head
The Phantom Model
The Accursed Cordonnier
The Vengeance Of The Dead
The Beckside Boggle
In the Court Of The Dragon
The Old House in Vauxhall Walk
The Drunkard’s Death
Luella Miller
A Psychological Experiment
A Derelict
The Haunted Mill OR The Ruined Home
An Unexpected Journey
The Page-Boy’s Ghost - THE COUNTESS OF MUNSTER
Mysterious Maisie
A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many sources of inspiration for the discovery of material for such a book as this, ranging from booksellers’ catalogues to the casual mention of a name in another work. Victorian publishers themselves were most helpful; they often printed catalogues of their entire output in the backs of their books, a practice which has long since died out, alas. I must acknowledge the help I’ve received from the following people: the staff of Sutton Public Library (who turn up book after book I’ve given up for lost); Mike Ashley, for help with biographical details; similarly, Bob Hadji in Canada for help with Lady Dilke; and grateful thanks for help received from that expert researcher, Richard Dalby.
The Undying Thing
BARRY PAIN
Journalist and humorist Barry Pain (1864-1928) was a prolific writer of short stories, many in comic mood but a lot in grim and macabre vein. Beyond one story (‘The Moon Slave’) he is very seldom reprinted, which is a pity; his work repays study and his several volumes of short stories are well worth acquiring. I recommend these titles (but you’ll have to search hard): STORIES IN THE DARK (1901), STORIES IN GREY (1911), THREE FANTASIES (1904), DEALS (1904) and INNOCENT AMUSEMENTS (1918). Also worth finding is his novel of witchcraft and the supernatural THE SHADOW OF THE UNSEEN (1907), written in collaboration with James Blyth.
‘The Undying Thing’ comes from STORIES IN THE DARK and I hope will show you what I mean. Why this long fantasy has been overlooked for three-quarters of a century is a mystery, for it is streets ahead of many similar stories written in those days and still reprinted now. Barry Pain also reveals one of the rare gifts of the true humorist: knowing when not to put your tongue in your cheek.
I
Up and down the oak-panelled dining-hall of Mansteth the master of the house walked restlessly. At formal intervals down the long severe table were placed four silver candlesticks, but the light from these did not serve to illuminate the whole of the surroundings. It just touched the portrait of a fair-haired boy with a sad and wistful expression that hung at one end of the room; it sparkled on the lid of a silver tankard. As Sir Edric passed to and fro it lit up his face and figure. It was a bold and resolute face with a firm chin and passionate, dominant eyes. A bad past was written in the lines of it. And yet every now and then there came over it a strange look of very anxious gentleness that gave it some resemblance to the portrait of the fair-haired boy. Sir Edric paused for a moment before the portrait and surveyed it carefully, his strong brown hands locked behind him, his gigantic shoulders thrust a little forward.
‘Ah, what I was!’ he murmured to himself – ‘what I was!’ Once more he commenced pacing up and down. The candles, mirrored in the polished wood of the table, had burnt low. For hours Sir Edric had been waiting, listening intently for some sound from the room above or from the broad staircase outside. There had been sounds – the wailing of a woman, a quick abrupt voice, the moving of rapid feet. But for the last hour he had heard nothing. Quite suddenly he stopped and dropped on his knees against the table:
‘God, I have never thought of Thee. Thou knowest that – Thou knowest that by my devilish behaviour and cruelty I did veritably murder Alice, my first wife, albeit the physicians did maintain that she died of a decline – a wasting sickness. Thou knowest that all here in Mansteth do hate me, and that rightly. They say, too, that I am mad; but that they say not rightly, seeing that I know how wicked I am. I always knew it, but I never cared until I loved – Oh, God, I never cared!
His fierce eyes opened for a minute, glared round the room, and closed again tightly. He went on:
‘God, for myself I ask nothing; I make no bargaining with Thee. Whatsoever punishment Thou givest me to bear I will bear it; whatsoever Thou givest me to do I will do it. Whether Thou killest Eve or whether Thou keepest her in life – and never have I loved but her – I will from this night be good. In due penitence will I receive the holy Sacrament of Thy Body and Blood. And my son, the one child that I had by Alice, I will fetch back again from Challonsea, where I kept him in order that I might not look upon him, and I will be to him a father in deed and very truth. And in all things, so far as in me lieth, I will make restitution and atonement. Whether Thou hearest me or whether Thou hearest me not, these things shall be. And for my prayer, it is but this: of Thy loving kindness, most merciful God, be Thou with Eve and make her happy; and after these great pains and perils of childbirth send her Thy peace. Of Thy loving-kindness, Thy merciful loving-kindness, O God!’
Perhaps the prayer that is offered when the time for praying is over is more terribly pathetic than any other. Yet one might hesitate to say that this prayer was unanswered.
Sir Edric rose to his feet. Once more he paced the room. There was a strange simplicity about him, the simplicity that scorns an incongruity. He felt that his lips and throat were parched and dry. He lifted the heavy silver tankard from the table and raised the lid; there was still a good draught of mulled wine in it with the burnt toast, cut heart-shape, floating on the top.
‘To the health of Eve and her child,’ he said aloud, and drained it to the last drop.
Click, click! As he put the tankard down he heard distinctly two doors opened and shut quickly, one after the other. And then slowly down the stairs came a hesitating step. Sir Edric could bear the suspense no longer. He opened the dining-room door, and the dim light strayed out into the dark hall beyond.
‘Dennison,’ he said, in a low, sharp whisper, ‘is that you?’
‘Yes, yes. I am coming, Sir Edric.’
A moment afterwards Dr. Dennison entered the room. He was very pale; perspiration streamed from his forehead; his cravat was disarranged. He was an old man, thin, with the air of proud humility. Sir Edric watched him narrowly.
‘Then she is dead,’ he said, with a quiet that Dr. Dennison had not expected.
‘Twenty physicians – a hundred physicians could not have saved her, Sir Edric. She was —’ He gave some details of medical interest.
‘Dennison,’ said Sir Edric, still speaking with calm and restraint, ‘why do you seem thus indisposed and panic-stricken? You are a physician; have you never looked upon the face of death before? The soul of my wife is with God —’
‘Yes,’ murmured Dennison, ‘
a good woman, a perfect, saintly woman.’
‘And,’ Sir Edric went on, raising his eyes to the ceiling as though he could see through it, ‘her body lies in great dignity and beauty upon the bed, and there is no horror in it. Why are you afraid?’
‘I do not fear death, Sir Edric.’
‘But your hands – they are not steady. You are evidently overcome. Does the child live?’
‘Yes, it lives.’
‘Another boy – a brother for young Edric, the child that Alice bore me?’
‘There – there is something wrong. I do not know what to do. I want you to come upstairs. And, Sir Edric, I must tell you, you will need your self-command.’
‘Dennison, the hand of God is heavy upon me; but from this time forth until the day of my death I am submissive to it, and God send that that day may come quickly! I will follow you and I will endure.’
He took one of the high silver candlesticks from the table and stepped towards the door. He strode quickly up the staircase, Dr. Dennison following a little way behind him.
As Sir Edric waited at the top of the staircase he heard suddenly from the room before him a low cry. He put down the candlestick on the floor and leaned back against the wall listening. The cry came again, a vibrating monotone ending in a growl.
‘Dennison, Dennison!’
His voice choked; he could not go on.
‘Yes,’ said the doctor, ‘it is in there. I had the two women out of the room, and got it here. No one but myself has seen it. But you must see it, too.’
He raised the candle and the two men entered the room – one of the spare bedrooms. On the bed there was something moving under cover of a blanket. Dr. Dennison paused for a moment and then flung the blanket partially back.
They did not remain in the room for more than a few seconds. The moment they got outside, Dr. Dennison began to speak.
‘Sir Edric, I would fain suggest somewhat to you. There is no evil, as Sophocles hath it in his “Antigone,” for which man hath not found a remedy, except it be death, and here —’
Sir Edric interrupted him in a husky voice.
‘Downstairs, Dennison. This is too near.’
It was, indeed, passing strange. When once the novelty of this – this occurrence had worn off, Dr. Dennison seemed no longer frightened. He was calm, academic, interested in an unusual phenomenon. But Sir Edric, who was said in the village to fear nothing in earth, or heaven, or hell, was obviously much moved.
When they had got back to the dining-room, Sir Edric motioned the doctors to a seat.
‘Now, then,’ he said, ‘I will hear you. Something must be done – and to-night.’
‘Exceptional cases,’ said Dr. Dennison, ‘demand exceptional remedies. Well, it lies there upstairs and is at our mercy. We can let it live, or, placing one hand over the mouth and nostrils, we can – ’
‘Stop,’ said Sir Edric. ‘This thing has so crushed and humiliated me that I can scarcely think. But I recall that while I waited for you I fell upon my knees and prayed that God would save Eve. And, as I confessed unto Him more than I will ever confess unto man, it seemed to me that it were ignoble to offer a price for His favour. And I said that whatsoever punishment I had to bear, I would bear it; and whatsoever He called upon me to do, I would do it; and I made no conditions.’
‘Well?’
‘Now my punishment is of two kinds. Firstly, my wife, Eve, is dead. And this I bear more easily because I know that now she is numbered with the company of God’s saints, and with them her pure spirit finds happier communion than with me; I was not worthy of her. And yet she would call my roughness by gentle, pretty names. She gloried, Dennison, in the mere strength of my body, and in the greatness of my stature. And I am thankful that she never saw this – this shame that has come upon the house. For she was a proud woman, with all her gentleness, even as I was proud and bad until it pleased God this night to break me even to the dust. And for my second punishment, that, too, I must bear. This thing that lies upstairs, I will take and rear; it is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; only, if it be possible, I will hide my shame so that no man but you shall know of it.’
‘This is not possible. You cannot keep a living being in this house unless it be known. Will not these women say, Where is the child?”’
Sir Edric stood upright, his powerful hands linked before him, his face working in agony; but he was still resolute.
‘Then if it must be known, it shall be known. The fault is mine. If I had but done sooner what Eve asked, this would not have happened. I will bear it.’
‘Sir Edric, do not be angry with me, for if I did not say this, then I should be but an ill counsellor. And, firstly, do not use the word shame. The ways of nature are past all explaining; if a woman be frail and easily impressed, and other circumstances concur, then in some few rare cases a thing of this sort does happen. If there be shame, it is not upon you but upon nature – to whom one would not lightly impute shame. Yet it is true that common and uninformed people might think that this shame was yours. And herein lies the great trouble – the shame would rest also on her memory.’
‘Then,’ said Sir Edric, in a low, unfaltering voice, ‘this night for the sake of Eve I will break my word, and lose my own soul eternally.’
About an hour afterwards Sir Edric and Dr. Dennison left the house together. The doctor carried a stable lantern in his hand. Sir Edric bore in his arms something wrapped in a blanket. They went through the long garden, out into the orchard that skirts the north side of the park, and then across a field to a small dark plantation known as Hal’s Planting. In the very heart of Hal’s Planting there are some curious caves: access to the innermost chamber of them is exceedingly difficult and dangerous, and only possible to a climber of exceptional skill and courage. As they returned from these caves, Sir Edric no longer carried his burden. The dawn was breaking and the birds began to sing.
‘Could not they be quiet just for this morning?’ said Sir Edric wearily.
There were but few people who were asked to attend the funeral of Lady Vanquerest and of the baby which, it was said, had only survived her by a few hours. There were but three people who knew that only one body – the body of Lady Vanquerest – was really interred on that occasion. These three were Sir Edric Vanquerest, Dr. Dennison, and a nurse whom it had been found expedient to take into their confidence.
During the next six years Sir Edric lived, almost in solitude, a life of great sanctity, devoting much of his time to the education of the younger Edric, the child that he had by his first wife. In the course of this time some strange stories began to be told and believed in the neighbourhood with reference to Hal’s Planting, and the place was generally avoided.
When Sir Edric lay on his deathbed the windows of the chamber were open, and suddenly through them came a low cry. The doctor in attendance hardly regarded it, supposing that it came from one of the owls in the trees outside. But Sir Edric, at the sound of it, rose right up in bed before anyone could stay him, and flinging up his arms cried, ‘Wolves! wolves! wolves!’ Then he fell forward on his face, dead.
And four generations passed away.
II
Towards the latter end of the nineteenth century, John Marsh, who was the oldest man in the village of Mansteth, could be prevailed upon to state what he recollected. His two sons supported him in his old age; he never felt the pinch of poverty, and he always had money in his pocket; but it was a settled principle with him that he would not pay for the pint of beer which he drank occasionally in the parlour of The Stag. Sometimes farmer Wynthwaite paid for the beer; sometimes it was Mr. Spicer from the post-office; sometimes the landlord of The Stag himself would finance the old man’s evening dissipation. In return, John Marsh was prevailed upon to state what he recollected; this he would do with great heartiness and strict impartiality, recalling the intemperance of a former Wynthwaite and the dishonesty of some ancestral Spicer while he drank the beer of their direct descendants. He would te
ll you, with two tough old fingers crooked round the handle of the pewter that you had provided, how your grandfather was a poor thing, ‘fit for nowt but to brak steeans by ta rord-side.’ He was so, disrespectful that it was believed that he spoke truth. He was particularly disrespectful when he spoke of the most devilish family, the Vanquerests; and he never tired of recounting the stories that from generation to generation had grown up about them. It would be objected, sometimes, that the present Sir Edric, the last surviving member of the race, was a pleasant-spoken young man, with none of the family wildness and hot temper. It was for no sin of his that Hal’s Planting was haunted – a thing which everyone in Mansteth, and many beyond it, most devoutly believed. John Marsh would hear no apology for him, nor for any of his ancestors; he recounted the prophecy that an old mad woman had made of the family before her strange death, and hoped, fervently, that he might live to see it fulfilled.
The third baronet, as has already been told, had lived the latter part of his life, after his second wife’s death, in peace and quietness. Of him John Marsh remembered nothing, of course, and could only recall the few fragments of information that had been handed down to him. He had been told that this Sir Edric, who had travelled a good deal, at one time kept wolves, intending to train them to serve as dogs; these wolves were not kept under proper restraint, and became a kind of terror to the neighbourhood. Lady Vanquerest, his second wife, had asked him frequently to destroy these beasts; but Sir Edric, although it was said that he loved his second wife even more than he hated the first, was obstinate when any of his whims were crossed, and put her off with promises. Then one day Lady Vanquerest herself was attacked by the wolves; she was not bitten, but she was badly frightened. That filled Sir Edric with remorse, and, when it was too late, he went out into the yard where the wolves were kept and shot them all. A few months afterwards Lady Vanquerest died in childbirth. It was a queer thing, John Marsh noted, that it was just at this time that Hal’s Planting began to get such a bad name. The fourth baronet was, John Marsh considered, the worst of the race; it was to him that the old mad woman had made her prophecy, an incident that Marsh himself had witnessed in his childhood and still vividly remembered.
