I will quote from the first pages of the Minute Book some of the laws of the Club, which will explain its constitution:
“1. This Society consisteth of seven Everlastings, who may be Corporeal or Incorporeal, as Destiny shall determine.
2. The rules of the Society, as herein written, are immutable and Everlasting.
3. None shall hereafter be chosen into the Society and none shall cease to be members.
4. The Honourable Alan Dermot is the Everlasting President of the Society.
5. The Senior Corporeal Everlasting, not being the President, shall be the Secretary of the Society, and in this Book of Minutes shall record its transactions, the date at which any Everlasting shall cease to be Corporeal, and all fines due to the Society. And when such Senior Everlasting shall cease to be Corporeal he shall, either in person or by some sure hand, deliver this Book of Minutes to him who shall be next Senior and at the time Corporeal, and he shall in like manner record the transactions therein and transmit it to the next Senior. The neglect of these provisions shall be visited by the President with fine or punishment according to his discretion.
6. On the second day of November in every year, being the Feast of All Souls, at ten o’clock post meridiem, the Everlasting shall meet at supper in the place of residence of that Corporeal member of the Society to whom it shall fall in order of rotation to entertain them, and they shall all subscribe in this Book of Minutes their names and present place of abode.
7. It shall be the obligation of every Everlasting to be present at the yearly entertainment of the Society, and none shall allege for excuse that he has not been invited thereto. If any Everlasting shall fail to attend the yearly meeting, or in his turn shall fail to provide entertainment for the Society, he shall be mulcted at the discretion of the President.
8. Nevertheless, if in any year, in the month of October and not less than seven days before the Feast of All Souls, the major part of the Society, that is to say, four at the least, shall meet and record in writing in these Minutes that it is their desire that no entertainment be given in that year, then, notwithstanding the two rules last rehearsed, there shall be no entertainment in that year, and no Everlasting shall be mulcted on the ground of his absence.”
The rest of the rules are either too profane or too puerile to be quoted here. They indicate the extraordinary levity with which the members entered on their preposterous obligations. In particular, to the omission of any regulation as to the transmission of the Minute Book after the last Everlasting ceased to be “Corporeal,” we owe the accident that it fell into the hands of one who was not a member of the society, and the consequent preservation of its contents to the present day.
Low as was the standard of morals in all classes of the University in the first half of the eighteenth century, the flagrant defiance of public decorum by the members of the Everlasting Society brought upon it the stern censure of the authorities, and after a few years it was practically dissolved and its members banished from the University. Charles Bellasis, for instance, was obliged to leave the college, and, though he retained his fellowship, he remained absent from it for nearly twenty years. But the minutes of the society reveal a more terrible reason for its virtual extinction.
Between the years 1738 and 1743 the minutes record many meetings of the Club, for it met on other occasions besides that of All Souls Day. Apart from a great deal of impious jocularity on the part of the writers, they are limited to the formal record of the attendance of the members, fines inflicted, and so forth. The meeting on 2 November in the latter year is the first about which there is any departure from the stereotyped forms. The supper was given in the house of the physician. One member, Henry Davenport, the former Fellow-Commoner of Trinity, was absent from the entertainment, as he was then serving in Germany, in the Dettingen campaign. The minutes contain an entry, “Mulctatus propter absentiam per Presidentem, Hen. Davenport.” An entry on the next page of the book runs, “Henry Davenport by a Cannonshot became an Incorporeal Member, 3 November 1743.”
The minutes give in their own handwriting, under date 2 November, the names and addresses of the six other members. First in the list, in a large bold hand, is the autograph of “Alan Dermot, President, at the Court of His Royal Highness.” Now in October Dermot had certainly been in attendance on the Young Pretender at Paris, and doubtless the address which he gave was understood at the time by the other Everlastings to refer to the fact. But on October 28, five days before the meeting of the Club, he was killed, as I have already mentioned, in a duel. The news of his death cannot have reached Cambridge on 2 November, for the Secretary’s record of it is placed below that of Davenport, and with the date 10 November: “this day was reported that the President was become an Incorporeal by the hands of a French chevalier.” And in a sudden ebullition, which is in glaring contrast with his previous profanities, he has dashed down “The Good God shield us from ill.”
The tidings of the President’s death scattered the Everlastings like a thunderbolt. They left Cambridge and buried themselves in widely parted regions. But the Club did not cease to exist. The Secretary was still bound to his hateful records: the five survivors did not dare to neglect their fatal obligations. Horror of the presence of the President made the November gathering once and for ever impossible: but horror, too, forbade them to neglect the precaution of meeting in October of every year to put in writing their objection to the celebration. For five years five names are appended to that entry in the minutes, and that is all the business of the Club. Then another member died, who was not the Secretary.
For eighteen more years four miserable men met once each year to deliver the same formal protest. During those years we gather from the signatures that Charles Bellasis returned to Cambridge, now, to appearance, chastened and decorous. He occupied the rooms which I have described on the staircase in the corner of the cloister.
Then in 1766 comes a new handwriting and an altered minute: “27 Jan., on this day Francis Witherington, Secretary, became an Incorporeal Member. The same day this Book was delivered to me, James Harvey.” Harvey lived only a month, and a similar entry on 7 March states that the book has descended, with the same mysterious celerity, to William Catherston. Then, on 18 May, Charles Bellasis writes that on that day, being the date of Catherston’s decease, the Minute Book has come to him as the last surviving Corporeal of the Club.
As it is my purpose to record fact only I shall not attempt to describe the feelings of the unhappy Secretary when he penned that fatal record. When Witherington died it must have come home to the three survivors that after twenty-three years’ intermission the ghastly entertainment must be annually renewed, with the addition of fresh incorporeal guests, or that they must undergo the pitiless censure of the President. I think it likely that the terror of the alternative, coupled with the mysterious delivery of the Minute Book, was answerable for the speedy decease of the two first successors to the Secretaryship. Now that the alternative was offered to Bellasis alone, he was firmly resolved to bear the consequences, whatever they might be, of an infringement of the Club rules.
The graceless days of George II had passed away from the University. They were succeeded by times of outward respectability, when religion and morals were no longer publicly challenged. With Bellasis, too, the petulance of youth had passed: he was discreet, perhaps exemplary. The scandal of his early conduct was unknown to most of the new generation, condoned by the few survivors who had witnessed it.
On the night of 2 November 1766, a terrible event revived in the older inhabitants of the College the memory of those evil days. From ten o’clock to midnight a hideous uproar went on in the chamber of Bellasis. Who were his companions none knew. Blasphemous outcries and ribald songs, such as had not been heard for twenty years past, aroused from sleep or study the occupants of the court; but among the voices was not that of Bellasis. At twelve a sudden silence fell upon the cloisters. But the Master lay awake all night, troubled at the relapse of a
respected colleague and the horrible example of libertinism set to his pupils.
In the morning all remained quiet about Bellasis’ chamber. When his door was opened, soon after daybreak, the early light creeping through the drawn curtains revealed a strange scene. About the table were drawn seven chairs, but some of them had been overthrown, and the furniture was in chaotic disorder, as after some wild orgy. In the chair at the foot of the table sat the lifeless figure of the Secretary, his head bent over his folded arms, as though he would shield his eyes from some horrible sight. Before him on the table lay pen, ink and the red Minute Book. On the last inscribed page, under the date of 2 November, were written, for the first time since 1742, the autographs of the seven members of the Everlasting Club, but without address. In the same strong hand in which the President’s name was written there was appended below the signatures the note, “Mulctatus per Presidentem propter neglectum obsonii, Car. Bellasis.”
The Minute Book was secured by the Master of the College, and I believe that he alone was acquainted with the nature of its contents. The scandal reflected on the College by the circumstances revealed in it caused him to keep the knowledge rigidly to himself. But some suspicion of the nature of the occurrences must have percolated to students and servants, for there was a long-abiding belief in the College that annually on the night of 2 November sounds of unholy revelry were heard to issue from the chamber of Bellasis. I cannot learn that the occupants of the adjoining rooms have ever been disturbed by them. Indeed, it is plain from the minutes that owing to their improvident drafting no provision was made for the perpetuation of the All Souls entertainment after the last Everlasting ceased to be Corporeal. Such superstitious belief must be treated with contemptuous incredulity. But whether for that cause or another the rooms were shut up, and have remained tenantless from that day to this.
Number Seventy-Nine
A. N. L. Munby
Location: Red Lion Square, London.
Time: Autumn, 1935.
Eyewitness Description: “I saw something else emerge from his room. At least I can’t say that I saw it; I thought I discerned a shadowy figure come through the doorway, but apart from an impression of grey colouring I could not describe it”
Author: Alan Noel Latimer Munby (1913–74) has been described as “the man who came closest to inheriting the mantle of M. R. James” by Mike Ashley. The son of an architect, he was educated at King’s College, Cambridge, where his fascination with antiquarian books began, and he later became librarian of the college. Munby also became a leading figure in the antiquarian book trade and for many years was associated with the legendary dealer, Bernard Quaritch. He wrote several bibliographical studies as well as a number of stories featuring books and book dealers. “Number Seventy-Nine” combines Munby’s interest in books and the supernatural and is written in an elegant and scholarly style reminiscent of his model. Curiously, Munby’s subsequent collection of ghost stories, The Alabaster Hand, published in 1949, were largely written to pass the time away while he was a German POW at Eichstatt in Upper Franconia from 1943–5. This collection also acknowledged the author’s debt to his inspiration with a dedication to M. R. James: Collegii Nostri Olim Praepositi Huiusce Generis Fabularum Sine Aemulo Creatoris.
“I’m sorry, sir, but number seventy-nine isn’t available.”
The bookseller’s young assistant shook his head complacently he pronounced the words. I was bitterly disappointed. It wasn’t as though I had wasted any time. The catalogue had reached my breakfast-table only half an hour before, and I had gulped down my coffee and made a beeline for Egerton’s bookshop, an old firm whose premises were situated in one of the passages just off Red Lion Square. The item which had so aroused my interest was a manuscript of the mid-seventeenth century, dealing with the sombre subject of necromancy. From the cataloguer’s description it seemed possible to me that it was a transcript of one of the lost manuscripts of Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan astrologer. If this were the case, the price of fifteen pounds was by no means excessive, and I had set my heart on securing the book. Hence my disappointment.
“Was it sold before the catalogue was sent out?” I asked.
The young man shook his head again.
“If it’s been ordered but is still on the premises, perhaps I could see it?” I continued eagerly. The assistant seemed embarrassed.
“I am afraid it isn’t available,” he repeated evasively. “I can’t tell you any more than that.” Then his face lit up with relief.
“Ah, here is Mr Egerton coming in now,” he said. “You’d better ask him about it.”
I turned to greet the proprietor as he came through the shop door.
“What’s all this mystery about number seventy-nine?” I said, waving my catalogue at him. “I gather it hasn’t been sold yet. Can I have a look at it? Surely that’s not much to ask, after all the years I’ve dealt with you.”
The bookseller’s usually genial face clouded over, and he hesitated before replying. Finally he said:
“Will you come upstairs to my room?”
I accompanied him through the shop and past the little cataloguer’s room behind it, and we mounted the stairs together. I’d always liked the firm of Egerton. The bulk of their business was in legal books, but their catalogues usually had something in them of interest to me, and over a period of fifteen years I’d bought a number of books from them. Egerton himself had become quite a personal friend. We often met in the reading-room of the British Museum. We entered his room on the first floor lined with reference books, and he waved me into a chair.
“The manuscript you want to see has been destroyed,” he said.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” I replied. “What an unfortunate accident!”
“It wasn’t an accident,” he said abruptly; “it was burned by – myself.”
I looked at him. He was obviously upset and reluctant to discuss the matter, but why on earth a businessman like Egerton should have destroyed a book worth fifteen pounds was beyond my comprehension.
He realised that some explanation was due, but seemed to be undecided whether to give it to me. Finally he said:
“I’ll tell you about it, if you like. In fact, it’s rather more in your line than mine.”
He paused, and I waited hopefully.
“You knew Merton?” he resumed.
“Your cataloguer?” I said. “Why, of course I know him – you’ve had him with you for years.”
Merton was one of those enigmatic figures that one occasionally meets in the rare-book business – a man of considerable ability and apparently not the slightest ambition.
“I don’t think I’ve ever told you his history,” said Egerton. “He came down from Oxford in 1913, and got caught up in the war before he’d settled down to anything. He was badly shell-shocked in France, and when he got his discharge in 1918 he was a nervous wreck. He came to me temporarily while he was looking round for something to do, and stayed for twenty years. Of course he was eccentric, but extremely able. In fact, he was so eccentric that I tried never to let him deal with customers, but if he kept in his room behind the shop he did really excellent work. I think I can justifiably claim a very high standard for our catalogues, and this was due to Merton. Of course he was undeniably odd – he was normally moody, but sometimes he’d get fits of depression for weeks on end, during which he literally would hardly speak a word to a soul. He wasn’t a very cheerful member of the firm, but his excellence at his job compensated for his other failings.
“About a year ago he came to me one morning and announced that he was engaged to be married. I was astounded, but also delighted for his sake. I felt that if anything could help him to overcome his moodiness and eccentricity, married life would do it for him. I congratulated him warmly and agreed to raise his salary. His fiancée came to the shop several times and he introduced her to me. She struck me as being just the sort of wife he needed – about twenty-five and obviously extremely capable and sensible. H
e was devoted to her and became a new man. I’ve never seen such a transformation as his. You would never have recognized him as the shy, tongue-tied recluse that he was before.”
I shifted uneasily in my chair, wondering what all this had to do with the book I wanted. Egerton must have sensed my unspoken impatience, for he continued:
“Don’t think that all this is irrelevant. You’ll see soon how the manuscript fits into the story. But first I must tell you more about Merton.
“Four months ago his fiancée was killed – in a motoring accident. Naturally any man would be deeply upset in such circumstances, but you’ve no conception of the effect it had on Merton. All his past depression returned a hundred-fold accentuated. He’d sit in his room for hours on end with his head buried in his hands. He seemed to have lost all interest in life. I got seriously concerned about him, and tried to persuade him to see a doctor. I offered him a month’s holiday by the sea, but he refused to take it. If he hadn’t been such an old and tried member of the firm, I should really have had to consider getting rid of him.
“From a conversation I had with him at this time I learned that some quack medium had got hold of him and that he was attending séances. He asked me my view on spiritualism on one occasion, and from his remarks I gathered that he wasn’t himself deriving much solace from it. The medium had, of course, promised that he should be put in touch with his dead fiancée, but the contact had still to be established. It was really pitiful to see a grown man taking such stuff seriously.
“Merton’s state of mind was particularly unfortunate at this time, as I had bought a private library in Shropshire early in the summer. The catalogue I sent you last night represents only about half of it – I had hoped to have offered the whole collection for sale by now. I don’t suppose Merton catalogued more than a third of the items. I did the rest; the boy down in the shop isn’t up to such work yet. I expect you noticed a small section of occult books, of which number seventy-nine was one. Those were the only books in which Merton showed any interest – he spent hours on them, far more time than their value justified, but I didn’t mind. I was so glad to see him at work again, and hoped it would be a prelude to returning to his normal output.
The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories Page 10
