Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James (52 page)

He closed with this plan, and we now find him seated in a third-class carriage at 9:45 a.m., on his way to Kingsbourne Junction, and studying the map of the district.

One old man was his only fellow-traveler, a piping old man, who seemed inclined for conversation. So Mr. Davidson, after going through the necessary versicles and responses about the weather, inquired whether he was going far.

“No, sir, not far, not this morning, sir,” said the old man. “I ain’t only goin’ so far as what they call Kingsbourne Junction. There isn’t but two stations betwixt here and there. Yes, they calls it Kingsbourne Junction.”

“I’m going there, too,” said Mr. Davidson.

“Oh indeed, sir! Do you know that part?”

“No, I’m only going for the sake of taking a walk back to Longbridge, and seeing a bit of the country.”

“Oh indeed, sir! Well, ’tis a beautiful day for a gentleman as enjoys a bit of a walk.”

“Yes, to be sure. Have you got far to go when you get to Kingsbourne?”

“No, sir, I ain’t got far to go, once I get to Kingsbourne Junction. I’m agoin’ to see my daughter, sir. She live at Brockstone. That’s about two mile across the fields from what they call Kingsbourne Junction, that is. You’ve got that marked down on your map, I expect, sir.”

“I expect I have. Let me see, Brockstone, did you say? Here’s Kingsbourne, yes. And which way is Brockstone toward the Stanfords? Ah, I see it: Brockstone Court, in a park. I don’t see the village, though.”

“No, sir, you wouldn’t see no village of Brockstone. There ain’t only the Court and the Chapel at Brockstone.”

“Chapel? Oh yes, that’s marked here too. The Chapel—close by the Court, it seems to be. Does it belong to the Court?”

“Yes, sir, that’s close up to the Court, only a step. Yes, that belong to the Court. My daughter, you see, sir, she’s the keeper’s wife now, and she live at the Court and look after things now the family’s away.”

“No one living there now, then?”

“No, sir, not for a number of years. The old gentleman he lived there when
I was a lad, and the lady she lived on after him to very near upon ninety years of age. And then she died, and them that have it now, they’ve got this other place, in Warwickshire I believe it is, and they don’t do nothin’ about lettin’ the Court out. But Colonel Wildman he have the shooting, and young Mr. Clark, he’s the agent, he come over once in so many weeks to see to things, and my daughter’s husband he’s the keeper.”

“And who uses the Chapel? Just the people round about, I suppose.”

“Oh no, no one don’t use the Chapel. Why, there ain’t no one to go. All the people about, they go to Stanford St. Thomas Church. But my son-in-law he go to Kingsbourne Church now, because the gentleman at Stanford he have this Gregory singin’, and my son-in-law he don’t like that. He say he can hear the old donkey brayin’ any day of the week, and he like something a little cheerful on the Sunday.”

The old man drew his hand across his mouth and laughed. “That’s what my son-in-law say; he say he can hear the old donkey,” etc.,
da capo
.

Mr. Davidson also laughed as honestly as he could, thinking meanwhile that Brockstone Court and Chapel would probably be worth including in his walk, for the map showed that from Brockstone he could strike the Tent Valley quite as easily as by following the main Kingsbourne–Longbridge road.

So, when the mirth excited by the remembrance of the son-in-law’s
bon mot
had died down, he returned to the charge, and ascertained that both the Court and the Chapel were of the class known as “old-fashioned places,” and that the old man would be very willing to take him thither, and his daughter would be happy to show him whatever she could.

“But that ain’t a lot, sir, not as if the family was livin’ there; all the lookin’-glasses is covered up, and the paintin’s, and the curtains and carpets folded away. Not but what I dare say she could show you a pair just to look at, because she go over them to see as the morth shouldn’t get into ’em.”

“I won’t mind about that, thank you. If she can show me the inside of the Chapel, that’s what I’d like best to see.”

“Oh, she can show you that right enough, sir. She have the key of the door, you see, and most weeks she go in and dust about. That’s a nice Chapel, that is. My son-in-law he say he’ll be bound they didn’t have none of this Gregory singin’ there. Dear! I can’t help but smile when I think of him sayin’
that about th’ old donkey. ‘I can hear him bray,’ he say, ‘any day of the week.’ And so he can, sir. That’s true, anyway.”

The walk across the fields from Kingsbourne to Brockstone was very pleasant. It lay for the most part on the top of the country, and commanded wide views over a succession of ridges, plow and pasture, or covered with dark-blue woods—all ending, more or less abruptly, on the right, in headlands that overlooked the wide valley of a great western river.

The last field they crossed was bounded by a close copse, and no sooner were they in it than the path turned downward very sharply, and it became evident that Brockstone was neatly fitted into a sudden and very narrow valley.

It was not long before they had glimpses of groups of smokeless stone chimneys, and stone-tiled roofs, close beneath their feet. And not many minutes after that, they were wiping their shoes at the back door of Brockstone Court, while the keeper’s dogs barked very loudly in unseen places, and Mrs. Porter in quick succession screamed at them to be quiet, greeted her father, and begged both her visitors to step in.

It was not to be expected that Mr. Davidson should escape being taken through the principal rooms of the Court, in spite of the fact that the house was entirely out of commission.

Pictures, carpets, curtains, furniture, were all covered up or put away, as old Mr. Avery had said, and the admiration which our friend was very ready to bestow had to be lavished on the proportions of the rooms, and on the one painted ceiling, upon which an artist who had fled from London in the plague-year had depicted the Triumph of Loyalty and Defeat of Sedition. In this Mr. Davidson could show an unfeigned interest. The portraits of Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, Peters, and the rest, writhing in carefully-devised torments, were evidently the part of the design to which most pains had been devoted.

“That were the old Lady Sadleir had that paintin’ done, same as the one what put up the Chapel. They say she were the first that went up to London to dance on Oliver Cromwell’s grave.” So said Mr. Avery, and continued
musingly, ‘Well, I suppose she got some satisfaction to her mind, but I don’t know as I should want to pay the fare to London and back just for that. And my son-in-law, he say the same; he say he don’t know as he should have cared to pay all that money only for that.

“I was tellin’ the gentleman as we come along in the train, Mary, what your ’Arry says about this Gregory singin’ down at Stanford here. We ’ad a bit of a laugh over that, sir, didn’t us?”

“Yes, to be sure we did. Ha! Ha!” Once again Mr. Davidson strove to do justice to the pleasantry of the keeper. “But,” he said, “if Mrs. Porter can show me the Chapel, I think it should be now, for the days aren’t long, and I want to get back to Longbridge before it falls quite dark.”

Even if Brockstone Court has not been illustrated in
Rural Life
(and I think it has not) I do not propose to point out its excellences here, but of the Chapel a word must be said.

It stands about a hundred yards from the house, and has its own little graveyard and trees about it. It is a stone building about seventy feet long, and in the Gothic style, as that style was understood in the middle of the 17th century. On the whole it resembles some of the Oxford college chapels as much as anything, save that it has a distinct chancel, like a parish church, and a fanciful domed bell-turret at the south-west angle.

When the west door was thrown open, Mr. Davidson could not repress an exclamation of pleased surprise at the completeness and richness of the interior. Screen-work, pulpit, seating, and glass—all were of the same period. And as he advanced into the nave and sighted the organ-case with its gold embossed pipes in the western gallery, his cup of satisfaction was filled. The glass in the nave windows was chiefly armorial. In the chancel were figure-subjects, of the kind that may be seen at Abbey Dore, of Lord Scudamore’s work.

But this is not an archaeological review.

While Mr. Davidson was still busy examining the remains of the organ (attributed to one of the Dallams, I believe) old Mr. Avery had stumped up into the chancel and was lifting the dust-cloths from the blue velvet cushions of the stall-desks. Evidently it was here that the family sat.

Mr. Davidson heard him say in a rather hushed tone of surprise, “Why, Mary, here’s all the books open agin!”

The reply was in a voice that sounded peevish rather than surprised. “Tt-tt-tt, well, there, I never!”

Mrs. Porter went over to where her father was standing, and they continued talking in a lower key. Mr. Davidson saw plainly that something not quite in the common run was under discussion, so he came down the gallery stairs and joined them.

There was no sign of disorder in the chancel any more than in the rest of the Chapel, which was beautifully clean. But the eight folio prayer-books on the cushions of the stall-desks were indubitably open.

Mrs. Porter was inclined to be fretful over it. “Whoever can it be as does it?” she said. “For there’s no key but mine, nor yet door but the one we come in by, and the winders is barred, every one of ’em. I don’t like it, father, that I don’t.”

“What is it, Mrs. Porter? Anything wrong?” said Mr. Davidson.

“No, sir, nothing reely wrong, only these books. Every time, pretty near, that I come in to do up the place, I shuts ’em and spreads the cloths over ’em to keep off the dust, ever since Mr. Clark spoke about it when I first come.

“And yet there they are again, and always the same page—and as I says, whoever it can be as does it with the door and winders shut. And as I says, it makes anyone feel queer comin’ in here alone as I ’ave to do, not as I’m given that way myself, not to be frightened easy, I mean to say. And there’s not a rat in the place—not as no rat wouldn’t trouble to do a thing like that, do you think, sir?”

“Hardly, I should say, but it sounds very queer. Are they always open at the same place, did you say?”

“Always the same place, sir, one of the psalms it is, and I didn’t particular notice it the first time or two, till I see a little red line of printing, and it’s always caught my eye since.”

Mr. Davidson walked along the stalls and looked at the open books. Sure enough, they all stood at the same page: Psalm cix., and at the head of it, just between the number and the
Dens laudum
, was a rubric:
For the 25th day of April
.

Without pretending to minute knowledge of the history of the Book of Common Prayer, he knew enough to be sure that this was a very odd and wholly unauthorized addition to its text, and though he remembered that
April 25 is St. Mark’s Day, he could not imagine what appropriateness this very savage psalm could have to that festival.

With slight misgivings he ventured to turn over the leaves to examine the title-page, and knowing the need for particular accuracy in these matters, he devoted some ten minutes to making a line-for-line transcript of it. The date was 1653. The printer called himself Anthony Cadman. He turned to the list of Proper Psalms for certain days. Yes, added to it was that same inexplicable entry:
For the 25th day of April: the 109th Psalm
.

An expert would no doubt have thought of many other points to inquire into, but this antiquary, as I have said, was no expert. He took stock, however, of the binding—a handsome one of tooled blue leather, bearing the arms that figured in several of the nave windows in various combinations.

“How often,” he said at last to Mrs. Porter, “have you found these books lying open like this?”

“Reely I couldn’t say, sir, but it’s a great many times now. Do you recollect, father, me telling you about it the first time I noticed it?”

“That I do, my dear. You was in a rare taking, and I don’t so much wonder at it. That was five year ago I was paying you a visit at Michaelmas time, and you come in at tea-time, and says you, ‘Father, there’s the books layin’ open under the cloths agin.’ And I didn’t know what my daughter was speakin’ about, you see, sir, and I says, ‘Books?’ just like that, I says. And then it all came out.

“But as Harry says—that’s my son-in-law, sir—‘whoever it can be,’ he says, ‘as does it, because there ain’t only the one door, and we keeps the key locked up,’ he says, ‘and the winders is barred, every one on ’em. Well,’ he says, ‘I lay once I could catch ’em at it they wouldn’t do it a second time,’ he says.

“And no more they wouldn’t, I don’t believe, sir. Well that was five year ago, and it’s been happenin’ constant ever since by your account, my dear. Young Mr. Clark he don’t seem to think much to it. But then he don’t live here, you see, and ’tisn’t his business to come clean up here on a dark afternoon, is it?”

“I suppose you never notice anything else odd when you are at work here, Mrs. Porter?” said Mr. Davidson.

“No, sir, I do not,” said Mrs. Porter, “and it’s a funny thing to me I don’t,
with the feeling I have as there’s someone settin’ here—no, it’s the other side, just within the screen—and lookin’ at me all the time I’m dustin’ in the gallery and pews. But I never yet see nothin’ worse than myself, as the sayin’ goes, and I kindly hope I never may.’

In the conversation that followed (there was not much of it), nothing was added to the statement of the case.

Having parted on good terms with Mr. Avery and his daughter, Mr. Davidson addressed himself to his eight-mile walk. The little valley of Brockstone soon led him down into the broader one of the Tent, and on to Stanford St. Thomas, where he found refreshment.

We need not accompany him all the way to Longbridge. But as he was changing his socks before dinner, he suddenly paused and said half-aloud, “By Jove, that is a rum thing!”

It had not occurred to him before how strange it was that any edition of the prayer-book should have been issued in 1653, seven years before the Restoration, five years before Cromwell’s death, and when the use of the book, let alone the printing of it, was penal.