Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James

by M. R. James

  But there was no tree.

  After some moments of silent astonishment—for he felt that he could not explain the situation to himself, and much less to Mr. Barker—Humphreys was fain to point out for destruction a perfectly inoffensive and rather handsome shrub which grew about forty yards off and palpably did not intrude on the lawn. And then had first to be told—what he knew already—that this was not an Irish yew, and next persuaded by much superfluous pleading, to spare it. [“Very well,” he said at last, “perhaps you are the best judge.”] He returned to the library and to his morning’s interview with the bailiff, feeling rather small.

  The bailiff was not there but the curate had looked in. “Were you reading this?” he said, after his business was settled. “I found the book open on the table. These old preachers are very fine—Jeremy Taylor in particular. I don’t know who this is: the first pages are gone and there’s no title on the back.”

  “No, I wasn’t reading it,” said Humphreys, taking the little book from him. “It must have blown open, I suppose. What is it? Oh, a Meditation on Death!”

  “Well, just look at that page,” said the curate; “full of imagination, isn’t it?”

  Humphreys read these sentences:

  “And what when your feet stumble upon the dark mountains as it is in Jeremy, when you go with Job, whence you shall not return, into a land of darkness and the shadow of death, without any order and where the light is as darkness: ubi umbra mortis saith Hierome, et nullus ordo, sed sempiternus horror inhabitat. Some, nay the most, and that warrantably, speak of fire and the company of tormented and tormentors: but here is figured no kind of light or society, what our ill dreams not seldom present, namely a solitude and yet no security. What purposeless journeyings, what unseen pursuings, what ambushes feared, what visages faintly seen and in part suspected, shall vex and scare poor souls nearly stript of their familiar raiment! Alone he shall find himself who but now talked with friends: houseless who lately sat.”

  “Oh, some pages gone!” said Humphreys. “Yes, it is imaginative; not very encouraging, though!,” and he shuddered a little, for the words had brought back his dream.

  “No, it isn’t exactly,” the curate said slowly, looking at him. “Perhaps it would have got more cheerful as it went on.”

  “Perhaps it would,” answered Humphreys vaguely. “Oh, by the way, Evans, couldn’t you dine with me tonight? It would be kind.”

  So that was settled. It was a relief to Humphreys, for the atmosphere of the house was becoming just a little oppressive to him, and he was not in the mood for another solitary evening. However, he would not have been condemned to solitude in any case, for later in the day a telegram arrived from George Rowland, the friend he was expecting, to ask if he might come that very afternoon [instead of two days later], and of course nothing could have been more welcome.

  After luncheon, Humphreys was obliged to take the way he had gone the previous evening, through the fields and up the hill overlooking the valley. It is not clear how the thought came to him, but as he entered the field path, he found himself wondering why the post he had seen had been placed in the middle of one of the pastures—he remembered the spot exactly. The placing of the post may have been odd, but it was still odder to find that during the night it had been taken away so cleanly as to leave no mark. A laborer was not far off.

  “Was there a black tarred post somewhere in this field by the path?” asked Humphreys.

  No, that there wasn’t, and as the man passed through the field twice a day or more, he could speak to it.

  “Well, all right, thank you: my mistake,” said Humphreys and went on, wondering what further tricks his eyes proposed to play him. Two, no, three in one day so far, for he recollected the fancied figure in the porch: and on the top of that, the feeling that a hand was on his head the night before. Was he going to be a—well, a case for a brain specialist? There was nothing whatever in the history of his family to countenance such a fear, nor anything in his present physical condition. He felt as well, as unexcitable, as at any time of his life. No, it must be either an accumulation of coincidences or—what was that touching his arm? It might have been a branch, if he had not happened to be in the open field! Whatever it was, the effect was curious: it brought back the dream—he was beginning to think of it as the vision—of the evening before. The homely well known pasture seemed in a moment to widen into an illimitable gray expanse—an acute feeling of extreme loneliness and of being on a hopeless and aimless journey came over him and his whole being cried out for companionship and protection, and yet he felt that there was none, none whatever to be had: he was helpless in a world of hostile shadows. Nothing was interesting anymore, nothing was or could be important, and for all that, there was an instant pressure of hurry and no time to stop and think. It was a bitterness of despair which could not, he said, be put into any human words, and he believes he sank down under it and cowered on the ground—fortunately not in sight of any passer-by—and here for how long he couldn’t tell he wrestled for his life and his reason.

  Of two things he felt convinced all the while: one was that this deadly fever came from someone outside himself, someone who was near him then; the other that there was something which he ought to remember and could remember if the pressure [of dreadful images] on his brain would only relax for an instant! The only words he could summon were words of fear, that he had read that morning. They droned through his head incessantly, “ubi umbra mortis et nullus ordo sed sempiternus horror inhabitat.” Over and over again they came back and he felt himself being sucked away from the world of men, and indeed he does not see how he could have helped yielding to the strain that was on him, and giving up hope and reason if not life itself, had he not paused on the words umbra mortis. They brought to his mind in a moment the image of some lettering in a brass on a tomb—this is how he puts it—that he had been taken to see years before. “Umbra mortis,” he seemed to say to himself, “to be sure, that was it—etsi ambulavero.” He raised his head and drew breath. “Absurd,” he said again. “Of course that was what I wanted. Dear me. Why couldn’t I think of that before?” The strain was relaxed. He rose to his feet and looked about him: the field was its own familiar self again and the sun bright in the sky. An exaltation of spirit came upon him which he could hardly repress, and he does not know what surprises of laughter and singing he may have inflicted on casual hearers as he went home. [Upon his graver feelings there is no need to dwell]

  The satisfaction he felt was complete and permanent: he [was sure now that even the bare unhoused spirit has nothing to fear] had a talisman now which could always [dispel the darkness] rout the influence that had been deliberately trying to kill his physical life and blind his mental eye. And soon he began to think what that influence could be. He had felt when he rose from the ground as if someone had hastily moved away, and that in anger. What more he thought, I do not think it necessary to set forth now.

  [new sheet]

  At eleven o’clock after a cheerful evening, the curate left Humphreys and his friend in the library and set off down the drive.

  [the rest of the sheet is blank]

  [new sheet]

  It was a very cheerful trio that met at dinner. Humphreys was just in the mood to make an evening “go.”

  After the curate had left them, Rowland and Humphreys settled themselves in the library and the story we have heard came out.

  “Well, of course,” Rowland said, “if I hadn’t seen something of you before you told me all this, I should have put it down to softening of the brain, but there isn’t much wrong with you, John. What do you suppose is the reason for it yourself?”

  “I can only be sure of one thing about it; that it comes from outside, and I’m rather driven to the supposition that somebody must be trying to frighten me out of my mind.”

  “Oh well,” said Rowland, “I can’t see much in that idea. Who is there to do a thing like that, I mean? It’s a very far-fetched way of managing
the job.”

  “Why, no doubt it would be simpler to take a shotgun, but if you come to think of it, this isn’t such a very bad plan. If it succeeds no one can trace it to you, and if it doesn’t, I suppose you’re very much where you were. It isn’t quite a new thing either; I was reading only the other day about a wizard sending a lot of spirits to plague a young woman.”

  “Well, if you can find anybody whose interest it is to get you off the scenes and who practices secret arts, I’ll accept your theory. Who’s the heir-at-law?”

  “Of this place? I don’t know—nobody I ever saw. I can find out though. But, George, I doubt if you realize even now what a well-defined set of experiences it’s been. First I see someone coming to meet me, and he turns out to be a post—and next day the post isn’t there and never has been; then someone standing in the porch, and there’s nobody there; then my dream in this room and the feeling a hand on my head—which I know wasn’t only fancy; then seeing a tree out of the window where there wasn’t one. Then next morning that funny little book turned up and set my thoughts going again. By the way, I was going to show it to you. It’s on the table there—that little brown book—yes, that’s it: it was page 69. You read it.”

  [But it was not page] “Are you sure you hadn’t seen this before you fell asleep and had that dream?” said Rowland.

  “Quite certain. I’d never opened the book before Evans showed it me today. And then there was that awful fright I had this afternoon in the field. All in twenty-four hours. And I tell you, if I hadn’t got out of that sort of fit in the way I did, I’m quite sure I must have gone under altogether! No, it really is something altogether external to me. I’m not in the habit of thinking about death and unhoused souls and those things.”

  “It is odd, certainly,” said Rowland. “Very odd. But, well, let’s leave it at that for the present. I’m not sure what I think.”

  They were in the library next day, Humphreys writing, Rowland exploring the shelves. Outside, the cheerful sound of the lawnmower made an agreeable accompaniment. Suddenly there was a pause in its whining, and voices were heard in eager conversation. [“Oh lor’,” said a boy’s voice a moment later, “whatever is it?”] Rowland looked out and saw the two gardeners examining a small object which one of them was holding.

  “Found something?” he called to them.

  The head man looked up, touched his hat and advanced slowly to the window, still looking curiously at what he held.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said. “I just see this in the grass to one side of the mower. We should ’a broke it to pieces next turn.”

  “What is it?” said Humphreys, who had come to the window.

  “Well, Mr. Humphreys, that’s the puzzle. Meself I should ’azzard the guess it was a child’s plaything. Only for it bein’ reely so very unsightly. But—well there—you take a look at it yourself, sir; that’s the best plan. Then you’ll be hable to form your own notion what it might be. Per’aps it’s more of a fancy curio than anythink helse.”

  With this verdict he handed the thing in. It was a small dirty tin box in which lay a very horrid little doll of black wax—roughly fashioned to look like a corpse. Around this was wound a strip of paper. They shook out the image and unwound the paper, and thereon was written:

  “esto hic timor mortis”

  [about three or four lines left blank]

  was still waiting for an opinion. “I suppose it is a fancy curio as you say. [said Humphreys when] I’ll keep it and see if I can find an owner for it. Much obliged to you.” And as soon as the mowing machine had resumed work: “Now then, George; doesn’t this look like secret arts? What an infernal piece of spite. Did you ever hear of anything to touch it? I declare, if I can find who put that thing there, I’ll …” He stamped about the room inarticulate with anger.

  [I should say you had a very fair chance of finding who it was if you want to do that, Rowlands said.] “Now come, Johnny, do you really believe that anyone can give you the jumps by leaving dolls about on the front lawn?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Humphreys, stopping. “It’s pretty plain at least that someone thought they could. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes, perhaps they did. But—

  —and also that

  [manuscript ends]

  Marcilly-le-Hayer

  THE OTHER STORY might perhaps be considered a variation on the same theme: no doubt it was suggested by an incident as the first. It was told as a personal experience of the narrator’s. He said:

  I was traveling [a good many years ago] in France and found myself at a place called Moulins. I went into a curiosity shop [in a street] not far off the Hotel de Ville to inquire the price of a drawing I had noticed in the window. The man asked more than I wanted to give so I began looking at other things. There were a few old books, all totally uninteresting to me; but, as it turned out, there was nothing else in the shop that I cared in the least to acquire and so by way of doing something to justify the trouble I had given, I bought five or six of the smallest of these books.

  Next day I went by train to Troyes [Nevers] and when I was tired of looking out of the window I opened my handbag and took out at random one of my purchases. It was a [n odd] volume of an old novel called Caroline de Lichtenfeld: the sort of book that is rarely disturbed from any resting place it may have found, by me at any rate: for all I know it may be a standard work.

  I began at the beginning and turned over forty [odd] pages or so: the story made very little progress. Then my eye was attracted by some building we were passing, and I studied the landscape for two or three miles. After that, I returned to my book and noted that I had reached page 43 and was in the middle of a dialogue which ran thus:

  “Où descendez-vous?”

  “À l’Hôtel des Ambassadeurs.”

  “Bon,” dit-il, “vous avez sans doute commandé une chambre?”

  “Ah, non,” dis-je, “je n’y avais pas même songé. Mais cela s’arrangera sans doute. La ville ne serait pas en fête ces jours-ci?”

  Il haussa les épaules. “Qui sait?” fit-il. “Parlons d’autre chose: Vous la connaissez, je pense, la ville de [Nevers]?”

  “Je n’ai fait que passer par là il y a dix ans.”

  At this point I turned over the page and at the same time glanced up. My eye fell on my opposite neighbor who was an elderly lady, stout, and wearing a slight black mustache and a highly determined expression. She was not otherwise interesting. I resumed my reading: the words were curiously appropriate.

  “Vous regardiez votre vis-à-vis,” continua-t-il.

  “Eh oui! Qu’y a-t-il de singulier en cela.”

  “En effet, très peu de chose, seulement, [vous la verrez égorgés ce soir] savezvous où elle demeure?”

  “[Monsieur! ne parlez pas de la sorte] Comment donc?—moi qui la vois pour la première fois.”

  “Eh bien. Je vous le dirai. C’est à Marcilly-le-Hayer sur la place. La maison à trois pignons.”

  “[Vraiment?] C’est [bien] possible: mais pour vrai vous dire elle me paraît pas bien intéressante.”

  “A very long-winded dialogue this,” I thought, “not much concentration about it”; and I turned over a leaf or two to see where we were getting to. I found that the personage who had volunteered the information about the woman in the book was now disgorging more—in fact was giving her whole biography. She had been a laborer’s daughter in the village of Marcilly-le-Hayer. Her good looks had attracted the notice of a middle-aged man who owned a good deal of property in the place, a M. Giraud—Émile Giraud (a name which to me seemed unaccountably familiar). He was, said the book, a thoroughly reputable, honest, and amiable person: and his love for the girl—Eugeiné Dupont—was sincere. The match was of course an extremely advantageous one for her. She had no lover of her own rank whom she was in the least inclined to favor, and the marriage took place. [Eighteen months afterward] After nearly three years of what seemed to all their acquaintances a very happy married life, M. Giraud
disappeared from Marcilly leaving absolutely no trace. [Like many country people of his class] He used to leave a not inconsiderable sum of ready money in the house toward the end of each week to pay his men. It was on a Friday that he was found to be missing, and the money was gone too. The widow was obliged to procure a further supply from the branch of the Société Genérale in the village. She felt the loss of her husband acutely and never married again.

  “Société Genérale,” I said to myself: “I didn’t think that existed in the eighteenth century.”

  But, said the book, in continuation, if any one were to go to Marcillyle-Hayer and call at the house with the three gables, and ask [to see] the mistress, and ask her what she keeps under the pavement in the further corner of the stable, he would then find out whether she was interesting or not.

  “It would be a very impertinent question to ask anyone,” I thought, and with that I put the book away, and took another.

  The train to Troyes was very full, and I realized to my disgust, before my journey was over, that a large cattle-show was going on there. I had very great difficulty in finding any room at all: at last I was accommodated with a bed in a rather second rate establishment called the Hotel Terminus. The only part of this place which had any pretension to novelty was the name which was palimpsested over the door. I amused myself by deciphering the old sign, still partly visible underneath: it read “Hotel des Ambassadeurs.”

  After exploring Troyes, I found I had a day or two to spare, and I studied the map of the department. There I found, as you might find, the name of Marcilly-le-Hayer occupying a very prominent place in the midst of the uplands which no railway touches. I believe—I say I believe—that I had forgotten all about the story in my book in the days which had passed since I read it. But I now recollected it, and this, combined with the fact that there seemed to be some interesting buildings in and near Marcilly, determined me to go there. I bicycled thither—a laborious ride—and arrived late in the afternoon. There was an inn on the Place which was quite satisfactory and I had, of course, come prepared to spend a night there. Immediately opposite to the window of my room was a house with three gables.