Collected Ghost Stories

by M. R. James

  At breakfast next morning he was induced to qualify his satisfaction to some extent—but very slightly. ‘There is one thing I rather regret,’ he said, ‘that we allowed them to join up the vertical bands of the pattern at the top. I think it would have been better to leave that alone.’

  ‘Oh?’ said his aunt interrogatively.

  ‘Yes: as I was reading in bed last night they kept catching my eye rather. That is, I found myself looking across at them every now and then. There was an effect as if someone kept peeping out between the curtains in one place or another, where there was no edge, and I think that was due to the joining up of the bands at the top. The only other thing that troubled me was the wind.’

  ‘Why, I thought it was a perfectly still night.’

  ‘Perhaps it was only on my side of the house, but there was enough to sway my curtains and rustle them more than I wanted.’

  That night a bachelor friend of James Denton’s came to stay, and was lodged in a room on the same floor as his host, but at the end of a long passage, half-way down which was a red baize door, put there to cut off the draught and intercept noise.

  The party of three had separated. Miss Denton a good first, the two men at about eleven. James Denton, not yet inclined for bed, sat him down in an arm-chair and read for a time. Then he dozed, and then he woke, and bethought himself that his brown spaniel, which ordinarily slept in his room, had not come upstairs with him. Then he thought he was mistaken: for happening to move his hand which hung down over the arm of the chair within a few inches of the floor, he felt on the back of it just the slightest touch of a surface of hair, and stretching it out in that direction he stroked and patted a rounded something. But the feel of it, and still more the fact that instead of a responsive movement, absolute stillness greeted his touch, made him look over the arm. What he had been touching rose to meet him. It was in the attitude of one that had crept along the floor on its belly, and it was, so far as could be recollected, a human figure. But of the face which was now rising to within a few inches of his own no feature was discernible, only hair. Shapeless as it was, there was about it so horrible an air of menace that as he bounded from his chair and rushed from the room he heard himself moaning with fear: and doubtless he did right to fly. As he dashed into the baize door that cut the passage in two, and—forgetting that it opened towards him—beat against it with all the force in him, he felt a soft ineffectual tearing at his back which, all the same, seemed to be growing in power, as if the hand, or whatever worse than a hand was there, were becoming more material as the pursuer’s rage was more concentrated. Then he remembered the trick of the door—he got it open—he shut it behind him—he gained his friend’s room, and that is all we need know.

  It seems curious that, during all the time that had elapsed since the purchase of Poynter’s diary, James Denton should not have sought an explanation of the presence of the pattern that had been pinned into it. Well, he had read the diary through without finding it mentioned, and had concluded that there was nothing to be said. But, on leaving Rendcomb Manor (he did not know whether for good), as he naturally insisted upon doing on the day after experiencing the horror I have tried to put into words, he took the diary with him. And at his seaside lodgings he examined more narrowly the portion whence the pattern had been taken. What he remembered having suspected about it turned out to be correct. Two or three leaves were pasted together, but written upon, as was patent when they were held up to the light. They yielded easily to steaming, for the paste had lost much of its strength and they contained something relevant to the pattern.

  The entry was made in 1707.

  ‘Old Mr. Casbury, of Acrington, told me this day much of young Sir Everard Charlett, whom he remember’d Commoner of University College,* and thought was of the same Family as Dr. Arthur Charlett, now master of ye Coll. This Charlett was a personable young gent., but a loose atheistical companion, and a great Lifter, as they then call’d the hard drinkers, and for what I know do so now. He was noted, and subject to severall censures at different times for his extravagancies: and if the full history of his debaucheries had bin known, no doubt would have been expell’d ye Coll., supposing that no interest had been imploy’d on his behalf, of which Mr. Casbury had some suspicion. He was a very beautiful person, and constantly wore his own Hair, which was very abundant, from which, and his loose way of living, the cant name for him was Absalom,* and he was accustom’d to say that indeed he believ’d he had shortened old David’s days, meaning his father, Sir Job Charlett, an old worthy cavalier.

  ‘Note that Mr. Casbury said that he remembers not the year of Sir Everard Charlett’s death, but it was 1692 or 3. He died suddenly in October. [Several lines describing his unpleasant habits and reputed delinquencies are omitted.] Having seen him in such topping spirits the night before, Mr. Casbury was amaz’d when he learn’d the death. He was found in the town ditch, the hair as was said pluck’d clean off his head. Most bells in Oxford rung out for him, being a nobleman, and he was buried next night in St. Peter’s in the East. But two years after, being to be moved to his country estate by his successor, it was said the coffin, breaking by mischance, proved quite full of Hair: which sounds fabulous, but yet I believe precedents are upon record, as in Dr. Plot’s History of Staff ordshire.*

  ‘His chambers being afterwards stripp’d, Mr. Casbury came by part of the hangings of it, which ’twas said this Charlett had design’d expressly for a memoriall of his Hair, giving the Fellow that drew it a lock to work by, and the piece which I have fasten’d in here was parcel of the same, which Mr. Casbury gave to me. He said he believ’d there was a subtlety in the drawing, but had never discover’d it himself, nor much liked to pore upon it.’

  The money spent upon the curtains might as well have been thrown into the fire, as they were. Mr. Cattell’s comment upon what he heard of the story took the form of a quotation from Shakespeare. You may guess it without difficulty. It began with the words ‘There are more things.’*

  AN EPISODE OF CATHEDRAL HISTORY

  THERE was once a learned gentleman who was deputed to examine and report upon the archives of the Cathedral of Southminster.* The examination of these records demanded a very considerable expenditure of time: hence it became advisable for him to engage lodgings in the city: for though the Cathedral body were profuse in their offers of hospitality, Mr. Lake felt that he would prefer to be master of his day. This was recognized as reasonable. The Dean eventually wrote advising Mr. Lake, if he were not already suited, to communicate with Mr. Worby,* the principal Verger, who occupied a house convenient to the church and was prepared to take in a quiet lodger for three or four weeks. Such an arrangement was precisely what Mr. Lake desired. Terms were easily agreed upon, and early in December, like another Mr. Datchery* (as he remarked to himself), the investigator found himself in the occupation of a very comfortable room in an ancient and ‘cathedraly’ house.

  One so familiar with the customs of Cathedral churches, and treated with such obvious consideration by the Dean and Chapter of this Cathedral in particular, could not fail to command the respect of the Head Verger. Mr. Worby even acquiesced in certain modifications of statements he had been accustomed to offer for years to parties of visitors. Mr. Lake, on his part, found the Verger a very cheery companion, and took advantage of any occasion that presented itself for enjoying his conversation when the day’s work was over.

  One evening, about nine o’clock, Mr. Worby knocked at his lodger’s door. ‘I’ve occasion,’ he said, ‘to go across to the Cathedral, Mr. Lake, and I think I made you a promise when I did so next I would give you the opportunity to see what it looks like at night time. It’s quite fine and dry outside, if you care to come.’

  ‘To be sure I will; very much obliged to you, Mr. Worby, for thinking of it, but let me get my coat.’

  ‘Here it is, sir, and I’ve another lantern here that you’ll find advisable for the steps, as there’s no moon.’

  ‘Anyone might t
hink we were Jasper and Durdles,* over again, mightn’t they?’ said Lake, as they crossed the close, for he had ascertained that the Verger had read Edwin Drood.

  ‘Well, so they might,’ said Mr. Worby, with a short laugh, ‘though I don’t know whether we ought to take it as a compliment. Odd ways, I often think, they had at that Cathedral, don’t it seem so to you, sir? Full choral matins at seven o’clock in the morning all the year round. Wouldn’t suit our boys’ voices nowadays, and I think there’s one or two of the men would be applying for a rise if the Chapter was to bring it in—particular the alltoes.’

  They were now at the south-west door. As Mr. Worby was unlocking it, Lake said, ‘Did you ever find anybody locked in here by accident?’

  ‘Twice I did. One was a drunk sailor; however he got in I don’t know. I s’pose he went to sleep in the service, but by the time I got to him he was praying fit to bring the roof in. Lor’! what a noise that man did make! said it was the first time he’d been inside a church for ten years, and blest if ever he’d try it again. The other was an old sheep: them boys it was, up to their games. That was the last time they tried it on, though. There, sir, now you see what we look like; our late Dean used now and again to bring parties in, but he preferred a moonlight night, and there was a piece of verse he’d coat to ’em, relating to a Scotch cathedral,* I understand; but I don’t know; I almost think the effect’s better when it’s all dark-like. Seems to add to the size and heighth. Now if you won’t mind stopping somewhere in the nave while I go up into the choir where my business lays, you’ll see what I mean.’

  Accordingly Lake waited, leaning against a pillar, and watched the light wavering along the length of the church, and up the steps into the choir, until it was intercepted by some screen or other furniture, which only allowed the reflection to be seen on the piers and roof. Not many minutes had passed before Worby reappeared at the door of the choir and by waving his lantern signalled to Lake to rejoin him.

  ‘I suppose it is Worby, and not a substitute,’ thought Lake to himself, as he walked up the nave. There was, in fact, nothing untoward. Worby showed him the papers which he had come to fetch out of the Dean’s stall, and asked him what he thought of the spectacle: Lake agreed that it was well worth seeing. ‘I suppose,’ he said, as they walked towards the altar-steps together, ‘that you’re too much used to going about here at night to feel nervous—but you must get a start every now and then, don’t you, when a book falls down or a door swings to?’

  ‘No, Mr. Lake, I can’t say I think much about noises, not nowadays: I’m much more afraid of finding an escape of gas or a burst in the stove pipes than anything else. Still there have been times, years ago. Did you notice that plain altar-tomb there—fifteenth century we say it is, I don’t know if you agree to that? Well, if you didn’t look at it, just come back and give it a glance, if you’d be so good.’ It was on the north side of the choir, and rather awkwardly placed: only about three feet from the enclosing stone screen. Quite plain, as the Verger had said, but for some ordinary stone panelling. A metal cross of some size on the northern side (that next to the screen) was the solitary feature of any interest.

  Lake agreed that it was not earlier than the Perpendicular period:* ‘but,’ he said, ‘unless it’s the tomb of some remarkable person, you’ll forgive me for saying that I don’t think it’s particularly noteworthy.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say as it is the tomb of anybody noted in ’istory,’ said Worby, who had a dry smile on his face, ‘for we don’t own any record whatsoever of who it was put up to. For all that, if you’ve half an hour to spare, sir, when we get back to the house, Mr. Lake, I could tell you a tale about that tomb. I won’t begin on it now; it strikes cold here, and we don’t want to be dawdling about all night.’

  ‘Of course I should like to hear it immensely.’

  ‘Very well, sir, you shall. Now if I might put a question to you,’ he went on, as they passed down the choir aisle, ‘in our little local guide—and not only there, but in the little book on our Cathedral in the series*—you’ll find it stated that this portion of the building was erected previous to the twelfth century. Now of course I should be glad enough to take that view, but—mind the step, sir—but, I put it to you—does the lay of the stone ’ere in this portion of the wall (which he tapped with his key), does it to your eye carry the flavour of what you might call Saxon masonry? No, I thought not; no more it does to me: now, if you’ll believe me, I’ve said as much to those men—one’s the librarian of our Free Libry here, and the other came down from London on purpose—fifty times, if I have once, but I might just as well have talked to that bit of stonework. But there it is, I suppose every one’s got their opinions.’

  The discussion of this peculiar trait of human nature occupied Mr. Worby almost up to the moment when he and Lake re-entered the former’s house. The condition of the fire in Lake’s sitting-room led to a suggestion from Mr. Worby that they should finish the evening in his own parlour. We find them accordingly settled there some short time afterwards.

  Mr. Worby made his story a long one, and I will not undertake to tell it wholly in his own words, or in his own order. Lake committed the substance of it to paper immediately after hearing it, together with some few passages of the narrative which had fixed themselves verbatim in his mind; I shall probably find it expedient to condense Lake’s record to some extent.

  Mr. Worby was born, it appeared, about the year 1828. His father before him had been connected with the Cathedral, and likewise his grandfather. One or both had been choristers, and in later life both had done work as mason and carpenter respectively about the fabric. Worby himself, though possessed, as he frankly acknowledged, of an indifferent voice, had been drafted into the choir at about ten years of age.

  It was in 1840 that the wave of the Gothic revival* smote the Cathedral of Southminster. ‘There was a lot of lovely stuff went then, sir,’ said Worby, with a sigh. ‘My father couldn’t hardly believe it when he got his orders to clear out the choir. There was a new dean just come in—Dean Burscough it was—and my father had been’prenticed to a good firm of joiners in the city, and knew what good work was when he saw it. Crool it was, he used to say: all that beautiful wainscot oak, as good as the day it was put up, and garlands-like of foliage and fruit, and lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes. All went to the timber yard—every bit except some little pieces worked up in the Lady Chapel, and ’ere in this overmantel.* Well—I may be mistook, but I say our choir never looked as well since. Still there was a lot found out about the history of the church, and no doubt but what it did stand in need of repair. There was very few winters passed but what we’d lose a pinnicle.’ Mr. Lake expressed his concurrence with Worby’s views of restoration, but owns to a fear about this point lest the story proper should never be reached. Possibly this was perceptible in his manner.

  Worby hastened to reassure him, ‘Not but what I could carry on about that topic for hours at a time, and do do when I see my opportunity. But Dean Burscough he was very set on the Gothic period, and nothing would serve him but everything must be made agreeable to that. And one morning after service he appointed for my father to meet him in the choir, and he came back after he’d taken off his robes in the vestry, and he’d got a roll of paper with him, and the verger that was then brought in a table, and they begun spreading it out on the table with prayer books to keep it down, and my father helped ’em, and he saw it was a picture of the inside of a choir in a Cathedral; and the Dean—he was a quick-spoken gentleman—he says, “Well, Worby, what do you think of that?” “Why,” says my father, “I don’t think I’ave the pleasure of knowing that view. Would that be Hereford Cathedral,* Mr. Dean?” “No, Worby,” says the Dean, “that’s Southminster Cathedral as we hope to see it before many years.” “In-deed, sir,” says my father, and that was all he did say—leastways to the Dean—but he used to tell me he felt reelly faint in himself when he looked round our choir as I can rememb
er it, all comfortable and furnished-like, and then see this nasty little dry picter, as he called it, drawn out by some London architect. Well, there I am again. But you’ll see what I mean if you look at this old view.’

  Worby reached down a framed print from the wall. ‘Well, the long and the short of it was that the Dean he handed over to my father a copy of an order of the Chapter that he was to clear out every bit of the choir—make a clean sweep—ready for the new work that was being designed up in town, and he was to put it in hand as soon as ever he could get the breakers together. Now then, sir, if you look at that view, you’ll see where the pulpit used to stand: that’s what I want you to notice, if you please.’ It was, indeed, easily seen; an unusually large structure of timber with a domed sounding-board, standing at the east end of the stalls on the north side of the choir, facing the bishop’s throne. Worby proceeded to explain that during the alterations, services were held in the nave, the members of the choir being thereby disappointed of an anticipated holiday, and the organist in particular incurring the suspicion of having wilfully damaged the mechanism of the temporary organ that was hired at considerable expense from London.

  The work of demolition began with the choir screen and organ loft, and proceeded gradually eastwards, disclosing, as Worby said, many interesting features of older work. While this was going on, the members of the Chapter were, naturally, in and about the choir a great deal, and it soon became apparent to the elder Worby—who could not help overhearing some of their talk—that, on the part of the senior Canons especially, there must have been a good deal of disagreement before the policy now being carried out had been adopted. Some were of opinion that they should catch their deaths of cold in the return-stalls, unprotected by a screen from the draughts in the nave: others objected to being exposed to the view of persons in the choir aisles, especially, they said, during the sermons, when they found it helpful to listen in a posture which was liable to misconstruction. The strongest opposition, however, came from the oldest of the body, who up to the last moment objected to the removal of the pulpit. ‘You ought not to touch it, Mr. Dean,’ he said with great emphasis one morning, when the two were standing before it: ‘you don’t know what mischief you may do.’ ‘Mischief ?’ it’s not a work of any particular merit, Canon.’ ‘Don’t call me Canon,’ said the old man with great asperity, ‘that is, for thirty years I’ve been known as Dr. Ayloff, and I shall be obliged, Mr. Dean, if you would kindly humour me in that matter. And as to the pulpit (which I’ve preached from for thirty years, though I don’t insist on that), all I’ll say is, I know you’re doing wrong in moving it.’ ‘But what sense could there be, my dear Doctor, in leaving it where it is, when we’re fitting up the rest of the choir in a totally different style? What reason could be given—apart from the look of the thing?’ ‘Reason! reason!’ said old Dr. Ayloff; ‘if you young men—if I may say so without any disrespect, Mr. Dean—if you’d only listen to reason a little, and not be always asking for it, we should get on better. But there, I’ve said my say.’ The old gentleman hobbled off, and as it proved, never entered the Cathedral again. The season—it was a hot summer—turned sickly on a sudden. Dr. Ayloff was one of the first to go, with some affection of the muscles of the thorax, which took him painfully at night. And at many services the number of choirmen and boys was very thin.