Thought it was time to trawl through one of these as they've featured fairly prominently of late, and besides, i need an example of the literary, mainstream supernatural fiction Christine Campbell Thomson was providing a break from with the pulp horrors of
Not At Night. As mentioned,
Century Of Creepy Stories is essentially an omnibus edition of Cynthia Asquith's anthologies to date, supplemented with stories from outsiders like Campbell herself (
The Red Turret) and her then-husband
Oscar Cook. As you'd expect, it's not exactly a treasury of blood-drinking stoats, sadistic surgeons, veangeful circus freaks and man-orang utan brain swap stories, but if you're in the mood for some finely crafted ghost and mystery stories, you'd be unwise to pass on this gem.
L. P. Hartley - A Visitor From Down Under: After spending several years living in Australia, Mr. Rumbold returns to London a millionaire and takes a room at Rossall's Hotel in Garrick Street, Soho. But Russell has a terrible secret in his past, one which has left it's grave to follow him from the Antipodes, and right now it's slumped upstairs on a Bus, annoying a genial bus conductor with its super-surly attitude....
'L.P. Hartley' and 'zombie fiction' just don't belong in the same sentence, but strikes me that's exactly what Jimmy Hagberd is! No matter, this one captures Hartley in brilliant, creepy form and the dialogue plays a big part, the entire hotel staff seemingly condemning Rumbold with their every utterance when they're merely going about their business and would never suspect he had blood on his hands.
W. B. Maxwell - The Last Man In: "I like a good secret murder as much as anything in the paper but not this sort - to be butchered in the street. It makes my flesh creep to think about it. If that's London ways, I say you can
'ave London. Give me Bratford."
That's Mrs Judd, landlady of
The Stag Public house, alluding to a terrible crime committed on the Commercial Road which saw the victim left without a face. Still, no need to concern herself with such morbid thoughts. Her son is returning home via Montevideo after eleven years at sea, and it's rumoured he's filthy rich. Her husband, however, isn't quite in the mood to celebrate, preoccupied as he is with the silent, bearded stranger giving off vibes from a corner seat. If Judd thinks the unwanted customer is putting a damper on things now, wait until he hears him raving in his sleep about Chickeeta the tamb'rine girl and some surly, bullying bastard who used to call him "Monkey-face" but won't be doing that again in a hurry.
Maxwell was the son of Mrs. M. E. Braddon (
Evelyn's Visitant,
The Cold Embrace, etc) and he has another story in here,
The Prince, though i'm not sure it qualifies as 'supernatural' fiction. The Prince in question is a limping, fifty year old blackguard, very free with his fists when it comes to his women of whom there have been an endless procession. He finally seems to have met his match in the fiery, passionately loyal Maggie, the organ-grinder's daughter, who is a willing and able accomplice in all of his better-paying blackmail scams. But in Charlie's case, familiarity breeds contempt and he's soon limping after the blonde barmaid at the pub near the gasworks. When Maggie learns of his infidelity she runs off, taking his pistol, and with each day that passes without her having been seen, Charlie suspects suicide. The whole Maggie business is getting on his nerves so he decides to emigrate to Canada with her replacement, but Maggie - or her ghost - seems to follow him all about the house until finally she corners him on the stairwell, gun in hand. The bullets are real enough.
M. R. James - Rats: Young Mr. Thomson, Cambridge University student, takes a room at a remote Suffolk coastal inn to catch up on his reading. During his stay, his curiousity regarding the locked room opposite gets the better of him. A peek inside reveals a human shape writhing beneath a top sheet - Mr. Thomson has not the inclination to draw back that sheet. On the final day of his stay, Thomson pays the room one final surrupticious visit. This time the inhabitant is up and about, but he's in bad shape - in fact, the nosey young man at first mistakes him for a scarecrow. And what's with the metal collar around his broken neck? Innkeeper Betts confides the local legend of his predecessor who fell foul of the locals on account of his consorting with highwaymen.
Shane Leslie - In A Glass Dimly: Begins by pouring scorn on the then public infatuation with mummies and the abominable curses they bestow upon those who despoil their tombs. A far from credulous Egyptian explorer agrees with Leslie and his friends that it's all nonsense, but goes on to relate the one inexplicable episode in all his years of trading artifacts when a trader gifted him a valuable coffin board on account that it brought bad luck to all who came within its vicinity. This occasion proves no different. Next, a look at London's haunted churches, in particular, one in Kensington where the Holy Father has not been able to complete the Communion service in his eighteen months at the parish. It seems the saintly figure depicted in stained glass was modelled on a condemned prisoner completely against his wishes, and now the face contorts into that of a hanged man whenever the Priest reaches for the sacred wafer.
Shane Leslie - The Hospital Nurse: Non-supernatural crime story with macabre twist ending. Berkshire. Sir Atherstone Penguin is a dying invalid in the care of his drab daughter Hosanna and her even drabber husband, Jordan Smith. These stand to inherit his entire estate, his son Edward having left England in disgrace and seemingly vanished from the globe twenty years earlier. But just as the Smiths look set to get their greedy hands on the old man's cash, who should reappear on the scene but the black sheep himself, now an influential Australian politician and heading home to his mother country at the head of a delegation. The old boy's private nurse, Miss Turberah Doole, can envisage a tidy retirement fund if she plays her cards right. If the Baronet were to die and his will were read before Edward could dispute it, the Smith's would get everything - bar her generous cut.
the following are grabbed from earlier posts (there are notes on several more spread around vault):
Edith Bagnold - The Amorous Ghost: While his wife is away, two of the maids hand in their notice after discovering a woman’s underclothes in the master’s room. That night, he watches transfixed as a figure half-materialises in a chair with her back to him, slowly slipping out of her clothes. It’s with great relief he hears his wife return, undress and slip into bed beside him. It must be freezing outside because she’s cold enough to chill the entire room ….
Hugh Walpole - The Tarn: Ullswater. Fenwick despises Foster. He always makes a success of things while Fenwick flounders in his wake. A clear the air meeting - instigated by Foster who doesn't like to upset anybody - gives Fenwick to do what he's always wanted - murder that simpering, obscenely nice, non-swimming bastard by pushing him in the tarn, that fathomless lake at the back of his house. But the icy water that acted as his accomplice in ridding him of his enemy now comes hunting the murderer.
Elizabeth Bowen - The Cat Jumps: The Harold Wrights purchase Rose Hill, a lavish Thames Valley mansion, which has stood vacant for several years due to the dreadful Bentley murder: a husband hacked up his wife in virtually every room of the house. At the Wright’s weekend housewarming party, the guests include the imaginative young Muriel whose morbid obsession with the case soon disturb the others, especially when she begins voicing her suspicions about one of their number, Edward Cartaret ….
Elizabeth Bowen - Telling: Downtrodden Terry always suspected that he must be capable of achieving something in his life and stabbing Jacqueline to death behind the chapel during a party probably qualifies. When it comes to confessing his deed to his family, however, it's still the same old case of nobody listening to a word he says. As much a crime story as horror with Terry very much in the tradition of the blazer and flannels psycho popularised by L. P. Hartley.
Elizabeth Bowen - The Apple Tree: Nineteen year old Myra is finding married life difficult to cope with, not through any fault of her husband, Squire Simon who dotes on her, but on account of the tragedy which befell her as a child. Brought up in a West Country orphanage, she and Doria were thrown together through their unpopularity with the other girls. When Myra was gradually accepted into the group, Doria took it badly and hung herself from the apple tree in the yard. It was Myra who discovered the swinging corpse and "the Crampton Park School affair" was a seven day wonder in the newspapers. Since then, Myra has been haunted by Doria, apple tree and all, neither of whom are shy of revealing themselves in Mr. Simon's presence either. The drain on the otherwise loving couple's health is taking its toll. Time for interfering busybody the indomitable Mrs. Bettersley to intervene on their behalf.
Lady Cynthia Asquith - God Grante That She Lye Stille: Mosstone Village. Margaret Clewer, the youthful owner of the manor house is a charming if elusive young lady with a heart condition and "a very considerable degree of anaemia" according to the diagnosis of the narrator, Dr. Stone, with whom she has fallen in love. Margaret herself complains "I don't feel any sense of being a separate, continuous entity ... I can't find any essential core of personality - nothing that is equally there when I'm alone, with you, or with other people. There's no real continuity, I'm hopelessly fluid!" Stone realises too late that his patient's ailment has a supernatural basis as her ancestress, the sixteenth century Elspeth Clewer, is gradually taking possession, causing the sweet natured girl to tear the heads off her beloved pet birds and launch a vicious attack on the nurse. Can Stone prevent the love of his life being obliterated by the vampiric Elspeth?
William Gerhardi - The Man Who Came Back: Gentle ghost story of a dying old timer who can’t bear to think of being separated from his library and imagines the afterlife as an inexhaustible supply of great books and time enough to read them.
W. S. Morrison - The Horns Of The Bull:
“But sons, if either of you leaves his island for the blood of the other, my curse will strike him … and his brother will triumph over him” - so says the dying elder of the Isle of the Lamb. The two sons, Orm and Iain, have loathed each other all their lives so their father leaves Orm the Isle of the Lamb and Iain the neighbouring Isle of the Bull to prevent them killing each other the minute he’s dead. Orm, the more war-like and devious of the pair, rules his people with black magic and terror while his brother lives as a hermit. You have probably already deduced who is responsible for triggering the final conflict and who prevails in a story that has more to do with folklore than terror.
Mrs. Belloc Lowdnes - The Unbolted Door: Mr. Jack Torquil refuses to accept that his son John, euphemistically reported "missing" in conflict toward the close of WW1 is dead. It's possible that the Germans took him prisoner or he may have been committed to a mental hospital so the door has stayed unlatched for years awaiting his happy return. His wife Anne detests her husband his delusion, his inability to the truth and their once happy marriage has been dead since the day that curt telegram arrived. Now, on the anniversary of the Armistice, the handle of the unbolted door turns in the darkness ....
