Presently Mrs Brudenell clapped her hands and summoned them all outside, where Dick was waiting to address the company in the churchyard. He was standing in front of a shiny modern headstone, which Max presumed was Judy’s, shifting uneasily from foot to foot and rubbing his hands. When the party was assembled and quiet he spoke.
‘I’m not going to make a big speech, but I just want to say a few words about Judy, to whose memory this little expedition tonight is dedicated. Incidentally, I’m sure she would have approved of this way of remembering her.’ The assembled walkers responded with a sound that was half murmur, half laughter. ‘You all — most of you — knew her well, so I don’t need to tell you about her. But I will say this. She was a valued part of our little community, and I think that is what really made her special. She was one of us.’ There was another sound from the walkers, this time more affirmative.
Dick turned and lit two fat white candles which had already been placed on the grass in front of the gravestone. As he did so Max, who stood some yards apart from the others, and at an angle to them so that he looked towards the church while the rest faced Judy’s grave, saw a woman with a small Celtic harp come round the East end of the church and creep behind the gravestone. This presumably was Dick’s wife Daphne, the harpist who had recovered from depression.
Presently she began to play. The sounds that emerged were faint, and they came and went with the breeze, but their very evanescence gave them charm. Every listener could create their own music from the little arpeggios and broken traceries of tune that spiralled into the night sky, and that fragile plucked sound of the harp was undoubtedly appropriate to the occasion. Max from his vantage point could see that the rest of the party was rapt, but he remained detached. The manufactured quality of the moment made him uneasy, and he saw that some of the faces of the walkers wore somewhat forced expressions of solemnity. Max’s glance then strayed towards the windows of the church, lit from the inside with cold yellow electric light.
Something odd was happening in there. A dark object appeared to be moving close to the clear, leaded lights of the middle window on the North flank of the church. Max looked again at the others, but they were still intent on the music and the unflickering candles on Judy’s grave.
When he looked again at the window the moving shape had defined itself as the upper part of a bare human arm in dark silhouette against the glass. The hand had its fingers splayed far apart and appeared to be waving or gesturing. The movement was slow and laborious, as if passing through water or some viscous substance, but it was not lazy or casual. Urgency, desperation even, was communicated.
Max was puzzled by this apparition, because he knew from his time inside the church that windows on the North side were at least seven feet from the floor. Whoever was in there would have had to drag a table to the window and stand on it to be seen, because the pews were not flush against the walls.
Max once more looked to see if anyone else had noticed what he had, but the others were still oblivious.
Turning his eyes again to the window he now saw more than just a moving arm. The whole upper part of a human body was in view with one arm, the right one, still waving. The shape was all in shadow but sharply etched against the glass, in all probability that of a woman. He could make out an irregular mop of frizzy hair. The head appeared to be closest to the glass, indeed pressed against it, so that parts of it were grey rather than black, the eyes signified by two small points of intense darkness. Then he saw another patch of black opening where the mouth might have been. It began to stretch wider into a great gaping, silently howling maw.
Just then the harp music ceased and there was a little patter of applause from some of the walkers. When Max looked back at the window after this momentary distraction the shape was gone. At the same moment, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the harpist slip away from behind the gravestone.
Max made his way quickly and unobtrusively to the church and entered it. He found it, as he had somehow expected, empty; yet the emptiness was no less horrible for being anticipated. But was it empty? Something unseen was moving in the cold artificial light, batting about, like a moth trapped in a lampshade. He felt an icy breath brush his cheek.
‘Cooee!’ said a voice behind him. There was Mrs Brudenell at the church door. ‘Come along now! Dr. Bartleet has got the camper van here and we’re all going home. Have you enjoyed yourself?’
Before he joined the others in the van Max strolled over to Judy’s grave. Between the two candles was a posy of flowers and the photograph, head and shoulders, of a young middle aged woman. It was a smiling, round, ordinary face, fringed with an untidy mop of frizzy hair.
The following morning when Max met Mrs Brudenell at the butcher’s in Winterswick, he felt compelled to thank her for the night before.
‘Yes, I do believe our little expedition was quite a success,’ said Madge Brudenell complacently. ‘I think it was rather an inspired idea of mine to have Daphne play her harp behind dear Judy’s grave. It was so spiritual, don’t you think? Do you know Maggie and Dennis Hooper — bless them! — actually thought it was music from beyond, as it were? Supernatural. Yes! Well, I’m afraid I didn’t disabuse them, because in a way I feel it was. Can you understand that? I know that you’ll think this terribly fanciful but I did feel that Judy was there in some way, if you know what I mean. Still part of our little community, looking down on us and giving us her blessing, in her own little way. Yes, I distinctly felt a presence.’
Mrs Brudenell breathed deeply and favoured Max with a beatific smile. ‘You see, Max — now you mustn’t mock! — but I am afraid I really do believe I am just the tiniest bit psychic.’
Blind Man’s Box
On the thirteenth of July last year, Dr. George Vilier, died suddenly at the age of fifty-five. He was lecturer in Theatre Studies at Bath University, and a colleague and friend of mine, so I suppose it should have been no surprise to discover that he had made me his literary executor. Among his papers I found the almost complete MS of his long-awaited work, The Gothic Experience in Victorian Drama, which I hope will soon see publication. I also found a folder which contained the following documents and notes. I am sure that Vilier was intending to use them to form a single connected narrative, and I debated whether I should do the same. In the end I decided that I would serve his memory better if I arranged these papers in a moderately coherent order, secured the relevant copyright permissions, and published them as they stood. I have added a short note at the end, but readers must decide for themselves whether what follows provides any clue to the mystery of his sudden and tragic death.
R.O. 2007
* * * * *
From Britain on $50 a Day (Roughrider Press 2006):
Seabourne, Kent, 17 miles West of Folkestone, A259: Typical, old-fashioned British South Coast resort, neat enough but lacking the character of Brighton. Quite attractive Victorian sea front worth a look: pier, bandstand, etc. Some of the old hotels will do some very cheap weekend or midweek breaks out of season. Elegant Regency terraced houses in the town have been much knocked about and altered. The 18th Century Classical Revival church of St Thomas, built 1787, is an early work of the architect John Nash* and has an altarpiece depicting the Resurrection by the U.S. born Benjamin West.** Boasts a really great old theater, the Grand Pavilion built 1893 and designed by the theater architect Frank Matcham.*** The imposing front is to be seen in King George Street but has been out of use since 1974 and is in a truly shameful state of disrepair. (Theatre freaks can visit interior on application to the Town Council Offices.)
* John Nash (1752–1835) designed the great ‘Nash Terraces’ in London and the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, etc. It is thought that the row of terraced houses in Seabourne’s Courteney Street are by Nash. [G.V.]
** Benjamin West (1738–1820) was born near Springfield Pennsylvania. He succeeded Joshua Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy and pioneered the art of ‘history painting’ in this country. [G.V.]
From Seabourne, a Brief Guide (Heritage Guides 1999):
Grand Pavilion Theatre, King George Street (Grade 2 listed building, visit by application only)
The Grand Pavilion has been described as a ‘classic Matcham theatre’. It was completed in 1893 at the beginning of Matcham’s great period of theatre building, and opened on March 28th of that year with a production of Lancelot Jones’s society comedy Lady Polly. The exterior, now somewhat dilapidated, is well proportioned and the theatre perhaps derives its name from the pavilion-like structure that adorns the central tower. However, as with most Matcham theatres, it is the interior where his true genius is displayed. The decoration of the auditorium is lavish and done in an eclectic ‘Indian Baroque’ style. The theatre boasted a number of innovations. Besides Matcham’s much vaunted ventilation system, the stage machinery was unusually elaborate and designed to accommodate considerable spectacles. There are mobile and revolving stages which would allow chases, even horse races to take place, the horses galloping over an ever moving stage (operated by hydraulic machinery from beneath) with a mobile backdrop behind, thus giving an almost cinematic illusion of motion. Unfortunately during a performance of the famous horse racing melodrama The Whip in 1910 the machinery failed, a horse lost its footing and was hurled with its jockey into the orchestra pit. The rider was killed instantly and the horse sustained injuries so severe that it had to be put down. After this tragedy the machinery was never used again. Nevertheless the theatre remained, in theatrical parlance, a ‘number one touring date’ and saw some notable productions, featuring the leading actors of the time, including the great Sir Henry Irving in The Corsican Brothers and The Bells*, and Sir John Martin Harvey in The Only Way.
In the twenties the theatre was visited by, among others, Sir Gerald Du Maurier, Jack Buchanan, and the Aldwych Farce team. It is rumoured that Fred and Adele Astaire once performed there in Funny Face in a so-called ‘flying matinee’ (in which an entire London production would be transported from London for an afternoon). In the 1930s it became a repertory theatre and enjoyed mixed fortunes until the war when it became a concert venue for ENSA tours serving the nearby air force bases and the Seabourne Downs military camp. It was hit twice by incendiary bombs but sustained only minor damage.
In 1945 it was bought by the millionaire philanthropist, Kenneth Marlesford, mainly, it is thought, for the benefit of his actress wife, Jane Selway. There she played leading roles in some distinguished revivals of classics and West End plays. (Her Hedda Gabler is still remembered in the town.) In 1953, following another tragic accident in the theatre, Marlesford sold the Grand Pavilion to Danny Cohen, and it became part of the Cohen-Majestic chain of theatres, specialising in variety and pantomime. Many of the leading variety stars of the time topped the bill here, including Bruce Forsyth, Frankie Lane, Max Miller (in one of his last appearances) and the singer Rex Raymond not long before a tragic car accident cut short his brilliant career. In 1966 when ‘live’ variety was beginning to suffer from the competition of Television, Cohen-Majestic sold the theatre to the Seabourne Town Council for an undisclosed sum. It was then run for some years as a seasonal repertory theatre with a pantomime at Christmas, but with no great success. Companies came and went with disconcerting rapidity — no less than three in the Summer Season of 1972. Finally, in 1974 the Town Council closed the theatre down. Despite numerous public-spirited efforts to put it back to its original use the theatre remains derelict though the Town Council, to its credit, has turned down applications to turn it into a Bingo Hall and a multiplex cinema.
*Almost certainly wrong. There are no records of the great Sir Henry Irving (1838–1905) visiting this theatre. The writer is confusing him with his son H. B. Irving who did visit the theatre on tour with revivals of his father’s classic vehicles The Corsican Brothers and The Bells (a tale of supernatural revenge). [G.V.]
From Frank Matcham’s Theatres by Oliver Osborne-Pritchard F.R.I.B.A. (Vitruvius Books 1984)
Grand Pavilion Theatre, Seabourne
‘See here the Bourne of lovers of the Muse
Whose temple Seabourne’s citizens may use.
And now on stage we’ll strive to play our part
To match the skill of Matcham’s matchless art.’
So ran the last lines of the ‘dedicatory ode’ which opened the Grand Pavilion Theatre on March 28th 1893. It was spoken in front of the curtain before the first performance by no less a person than Ellen Terry*. Sadly laboured though the verses are, they do demonstrate how highly the theatre’s architect was rated. How different from fifty or so years later, when Matcham theatres were being destroyed wholesale to make way for uglier, cheaper, and more transitory buildings which met their own fate in a much shorter period of time. Fortunately for the Grand Pavilion, by the time it closed its doors as a theatre, Frank Matcham was beginning to be appreciated again, and a preservation order on the theatre was already in place.
Nevertheless it is now in a sorry state. An air of general neglect, indeed total surrender to the forces of decay, pervades. The roof of the dressing rooms on the top floor has caved in; there is wood rot in all parts of the building; and a deep pool of black, oily water can be seen (and smelt) in the orchestra pit, where the permanent pumping system put in by Matcham has completely failed. As a result I was unable to examine the elaborate machinery installed beneath the stage. The unusually high fly tower is now a tangle of ropes, with forgotten backdrops and cut-out flats of trees and rocks hanging at crazy angles, so that too is hard to appraise.
I was able to obtain access through the good offices of the caretaker and former stage doorman Mr Jack Pegley. Mr Pegley, something of a character, insisted that the proper designation of his role was ‘hallkeeper’, an old fashioned term. He was obviously proud of ‘his’ theatre, though saddened by its present state of dilapidation, and curiously reluctant to show me certain parts of his domain.
In spite of the decay it is still plain to see that the interior is an early Matcham masterwork. Indian motifs pervade throughout in the auditorium and foyers. The main ceiling is encrusted with fine rococo plaster scrollwork which frames cartouches on which Indian scenes have been painted: dancing nautch girls, a durbar, a tiger hunt, and, rather curiously, a scene of suttee in which an Indian widow is shown burning on the pyre of her dead husband. I had the opportunity to inspect this last at close quarters and can testify to the strange vividness with which the unknown artist has depicted a look of agony and despair, clearly visible though the flames and smoke, on the face of the young widow. I am quite sure, however, that very few visitors to the theatre would have given a second glance at this rather macabre insight into Indian life: the cartouche in question is only visible from the cheaper seats in the Gallery.
Indian arches support the ceiling from columns, the capitals of which are in the form of double elephants’ heads facing the stage and the back wall. The effect of these is ponderous and perhaps a little sinister, but impressive. The boxes are made to look like howdahs or pavilions fit for a Maharajah.
I was interested in these boxes particularly as I had discovered in my researches that one of them, the prompt side stage box, had, at the request of the original owner, been installed by Matcham with a speaking tube system by which means the box’s occupant could be in contact with the stage manager in the prompt corner at stage level. This was one of the many innovative features of the Grand Pavilion, but it is, as far as I know, the only one unique to this particular theatre. The first proprietor, The Hon. Arthur Faversham, a minor poet and keen amateur of the theatre, something of a dilettante by a
ll accounts, is said to have kept the box permanently reserved for his personal use, and to have maintained communication with staff and even performers by means of this device. Records show, however, that debts and some aftershocks of the scandal surrounding Wilde, with whose circle Faversham was associated, forced him to flee abroad in 1896. (We also find his name mentioned in papers relating to the Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889.) I was anxious to discover whether the management which bought the theatre from Faversham, Joel Abernethy Theatres Ltd, or subsequent owners had continued to make use of this facility.
My anxiety to inspect the box was not, for reasons unexplained, matched by Mr Pegley’s eagerness to show it to me. Though he had been helpful in other respects, he point blank refused to enter the box and left me to do so by myself. I only mention this because it is indicative of the curious atmospheric hold this theatre has on people, even, I must admit, myself.
I discovered the communication system in the box almost immediately. It is situated behind a red velvet curtain about two foot square which covers a small alcove in the wall that adjoins the proscenium arch. Not only had the system remained in use but, around the late nineteen-forties or early -fifties I should guess, it had been replaced by an electric Tannoy system complete with microphone, speaker, and volume control knob. I casually switched on the speaker’s knob and, to my surprise, the thing appeared to be still operational. (Pegley had turned on the electrics for my benefit.) A barrage of static was followed by a strange whistling or whispering sound that resembled human voices. I called out to Pegley to see if he had gone down to the stage level, but he had not.
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