In Ghostly Company (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) (2 page)

Like ‘Brickett Bottom’, another tale favoured by admirers of Northcote’s work, appearing in several anthologies over the years, is ‘The Late Mrs Fowkes’. This story is perhaps the least typical of Northcote’s output as it is concerned with witchcraft. It features a ceremony of Devil-worship very reminiscent of a scene in Dennis Wheatley’s classic
The Devil Rides Out
which was first published in 1934. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, maybe probability, that Wheatley, who was an aficionado of supernatural fiction, was familiar with this story and, shall we say, influenced by it and the Devil-worshipping scene in particular.

Northcote had the ability to take a moment, an incident, and invest it with a strangeness that at once seems inevitable and yet suddenly surprisingly frightening in its potential. For example ‘The Downs’ presents what appears to be a most mundane scenario: a man walks over the Downs as darkness falls to return to his lodgings. There is a long and seemingly inconsequential preamble before the narrator actually sets off on his journey, which lulls us into thinking that this is a very tame story. However, there are clues dropped casually into the text to alert the reader to the unpleasantness to come, like the observation that, ‘I was perfectly confident in my ability to find my way back over the Downs to Branksome at night as the path was very familiar to us, and I expected to be aided by the light of the moon which would rise about ten o’clock.’ This innocent, naïve belief is juxtaposed shortly afterwards by confession that, ‘Up to this night, I had never in the least suspected that I was possessed of any special psychic intelligence.’ These two statements inform the astute and imaginative reader that we are about to witness some very strange occurrences. Without preparing us for precisely what the narrator will encounter on his late-night journey, Northcote has clearly implied that something disturbing
will
happen. As it does. Out of a simple situation comes mystery and frightening consequences.

Northcote applies a similar approach in ‘The Steps’ which begins with the assertion that, ‘The following story purports to be the actual experience of one of our leading medical men.’ So much is packed into that statement: the word ‘purports’ suggests that that there are elements of this tale which we may have difficulty believing; the word ‘actual’ increases that sense that what we are about to read will be difficult to believe; but then he adds that the person at the centre of the story ‘is a leading medical man’, a character with a respectable practical scientific background who is most unlikely to have an impressionable imagination. Northcote strengthens the idea that what he is telling us is really the truth by presenting the incidents as creepy rather than sensational so that we can hear and believe in those haunted footsteps.

In some stories, such as ‘Mr Mortimer’s Diary’ and ‘Mr Kershaw and Mr Wilcox’ – both, incidentally involving a feud between two men, one of whom believes he has been wronged – Northcote plays with the reader, presenting events that could simply be the result of a disturbed mind. It is possible that it is the power of guilt and the force of imagination that causes the strange outcome rather than a supernatural experience.

Northcote’s technique of relaxing the reader early in the story before reaching the nerve-tingling moments, as mentioned in the comments referring to ‘The Downs’, is carried out in many of the stories using different methods. However, none is more cunning than his ploy in ‘The Young Lady in Black’. In this tale, the author states at the outset that while it is not ‘a tale of horror and woe, like the typical ghost story, still it is interesting as opening up for consideration the question of whether, after the death of a body, the spirit is able to carry on and bring to a more or less satisfactory conclusion some task commenced in the flesh.’ The prose may be cool and unemotional but nevertheless it acts as a hook to draw the reader in. The premise expressed in this apparently simple statement is in fact very frightening and tinged with horror.

The idea of the dead influencing the living is also found in ‘The Late Earl of D.’ in which Northcote takes the clever notion of the image of an evil deed surviving in an ethereal form long after its execution. The narrator sees a reflection in a darkened window which reveals a terrible truth.

So, in this fascinating volume we have a very varied confectionery of excellent ghost stories, which at first mislead with their ‘unemotional style’ but which eventually leave the reader with uneasy feelings and a surprising tingle of fear. This rare collection has long been out of print and is a very welcome addition to this series of all that is best and wonderful in the mystery and supernatural genre.

Enjoy!

DAVID STUART DAVIES

IN GHOSTLY COMPANY

Brickett Bottom

The Reverend Arthur Maydew was the hard-working incumbent of a large parish in one of our manufacturing towns. He was also a student and a man of no strong physique, so that when an opportunity was presented to him to take an annual holiday by exchanging parsonages with an elderly clergyman, Mr Roberts, the puarson of the Parish of Overbury, and an acquaintance of his own, he was glad to avail himself of it.

Overbury is a small and very remote village in one of our most lovely and rural counties, and Mr Roberts had long held the living of it.

Without further delay we can transport Mr Maydew and his family, which consisted only of two daughters, to their temporary home. The two young ladies, Alice and Maggie, the heroines of this narrative, were at that time aged twenty-six and twenty-four years respectively. Both of them were attractive girls, fond of such society as they could find in their own parish and, the former especially, always pleased to extend the circle of their acquaintance. Although the elder in years, Alice in many ways yielded place to her sister, who was the more energetic and practical and upon whose shoulders the bulk of the family cares and responsibilities rested. Alice was inclined to be absent-minded and emotional and to devote more of her thoughts and time to speculations of an abstract nature than her sister.

Both of the girls, however, rejoiced at the prospect of a period of quiet and rest in a pleasant country neighbourhood, and both were gratified at knowing that their father would find in Mr Roberts’s library much that would entertain his mind, and in Mr Roberts’s garden an opportunity to indulge freely in his favourite game of croquet. They would have no doubt preferred some cheerful neighbours, but Mr Roberts was positive in his assurances that there was no one in the neighbourhood whose acquaintance would be of interest to them.

The first few weeks of their new life passed pleasantly for the Maydew family. Mr Maydew quickly gained renewed vigour in his quiet and congenial surroundings, and in the delightful air, while his daughters spent much of their time in long walks about the country and in exploring its beauties.

One evening late in August the two girls were returning from a long walk along one of their favourite paths, which led along the side of the Downs. On their right, as they walked, the ground fell away sharply to a narrow glen, named Brickett Bottom, about three-quarters of a mile in length, along the bottom of which ran a little-used country road leading to a farm, known as Blaise’s Farm, and then onward and upward to lose itself as a sheep track on the higher Downs. On their side of the slope some scattered trees and bushes grew, but beyond the lane and running up over the farther slope of the glen was a thick wood, which extended away to Carew Court, the seat of a neighbouring magnate, Lord Carew. On their left the open Down rose above them and beyond its crest lay Overbury.

The girls were walking hastily, as they were later than they had intended to be and were anxious to reach home. At a certain point at which they had now arrived the path forked, the right hand branch leading down into Brickett Bottom and the left hand turning up over the Down to Overbury.

Just as they were about to turn into the left hand path Alice suddenly stopped and pointing downwards exclaimed: ‘How very curious, Maggie! Look, there is a house down there in the Bottom, which we have, or at least I have, never noticed before, often as we have walked up the Bottom.’

Maggie followed with her eyes her sister’s pointing finger. ‘I don’t see any house,’ she said.

‘Why, Maggie,’ said her sister, ‘can’t you see it! A quaint-looking, old-fashioned red brick house, there just where the road bends to the right. It seems to be standing in a nice, well-kept garden too.’

Maggie looked again, but the light was beginning to fade in the glen and she was short-sighted to boot.

‘I certainly don’t see anything,’ she said. ‘but then I am so blind and the light is getting bad; yes, perhaps I do see a house,’ she added, straining her eyes.

‘Well, it is there,’ replied her sister, ‘and tomorrow we will come and explore it.’

Maggie agreed readily enough, and the sisters went home, still speculating on how they had happened not to notice the house before and resolving firmly on an expedition thither the next day. However, the expedition did not come off as planned, for that evening Maggie slipped on the stairs and fell, spraining her ankle in such a fashion as to preclude walking for some time.

Notwithstanding the accident to her sister, Alice remained possessed by the idea of making further investigations into the house she had looked down upon from the hill the evening before; and the next day, having seen Maggie carefully settled for the afternoon, she started off for Brickett Bottom. She returned in triumph and much intrigued over her discoveries, which she eagerly narrated to her sister.

Yes. There was a nice, old-fashioned red brick house, not very large and set in a charming, old-world garden in the Bottom. It stood on a tongue of land jutting out from the woods, just at the point where the lane, after a fairly straight course from its junction with the main road half a mile away, turned sharply to the right in the direction of Blaise’s Farm. More than that, Alice had seen the people of the house, whom she described as an old gentleman and a lady, presumably his wife. She had not clearly made out the gentleman, who was sitting in the porch, but the old lady, who had been in the garden busy with her flowers, had looked up and smiled pleasantly at her as she passed. She was sure, she said, that they were nice people and that it would be pleasant to make their acquaintance.

Maggie was not quite satisfied with Alice’s story. She was of a more prudent and retiring nature than her sister; she had an uneasy feeling that, if the old couple had been desirable or attractive neighbours, Mr Roberts would have mentioned them, and knowing Alice’s nature she said what she could to discourage her vague idea of endeavouring to make acquaintance with the owners of the red brick house.

On the following morning, when Alice came to her sister’s room to enquire how she did, Maggie noticed that she looked pale and rather absent-minded, and, after a few commonplace remarks had passed, she asked: ‘What is the matter, Alice? You don’t look yourself this morning.’

Her sister gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. ‘Oh, I am all right,’ she replied, ‘only I did not sleep very well. I kept on dreaming about the house. It was such an odd dream too; the house seemed to be home, and yet to be different.’

‘What, that house in Brickett Bottom?’ said Maggie. ‘Why, what is the matter with you, you seem to be quite crazy about the place?’

‘Well, it is curious, isn’t it, Maggie, that we should have only just discovered it, and that it looks to be lived in by nice people? I wish we could get to know them.’

Maggie did not care to resume the argument of the night before and the subject dropped, nor did Alice again refer to the house or its inhabitants for some little time. In fact, for some days the weather was wet and Alice was forced to abandon her walks, but when the weather once more became fine she resumed them, and Maggie suspected that Brickett Bottom formed one of her sister’s favourite expeditions. Maggie became anxious over her sister, who seemed to grow daily more absent-minded and silent, but she refused to be drawn into any confidential talk, and Maggie was nonplussed.

One day, however, Alice returned from her afternoon walk in an unusually excited state of mind, of which Maggie sought an explanation. It came with a rush. Alice said that, that afternoon, as she approached the house in Brickett Bottom, the old lady, who as usual was busy in her garden, had walked down to the gate as she passed and had wished her good day.

Alice had replied and, pausing, a short conversation had followed. Alice could not remember the exact tenor of it, but, after she had paid a compliment to the old lady’s flowers, the latter had rather diffidently asked her to enter the garden for a closer view. Alice had hesitated, and the old lady had said ‘Don’t be afraid of me, my dear, I like to see young ladies about me and my husband finds their society quite necessary to him.’ After a pause she went on: ‘Of course nobody has told you about us. My husband is Colonel Paxton, late of the Indian Army, and we have been here for many, many years. It’s rather lonely, for so few people ever see us. Do come in and meet the Colonel.’

‘I hope you didn’t go in,’ said Maggie rather sharply.

‘Why not?’ replied Alice.

‘Well, I don’t like Mrs Paxton asking you in that way,’ answered Maggie.

‘I don’t see what harm there was in the invitation,’ said Alice. ‘I didn’t go in because it was getting late and I was anxious to get home; but –’

‘But what?’ asked Maggie.