R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Tales From The Hidden World

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R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Tales From The Hidden World: Four Episodes In The History Of Clavering Grange (Kimber, 1988)

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Blurb:

Clavering Grange was the most haunted house in England. And even though it was eventually razed to the ground the ghosts linger on and even flourish. For the Grange was built on tainted ground that constantly spawns new and even more horrific progeny.

In this new collection, the author, with his characteristic blend of horror and humour, recounts four more episodes in the murky history of the Grange and the tentacles that it throws out to smother the lives of those who live within its shadow.

Foreword
Acknowledgements

Those That Serve - 1900
Life Everlasting - 1963
The Cringing Couple of Clavering - 1980
Home and Beauty - 1985

Thought I'd play it cautious with this one and leap straight in at the lengthy Francis St. Clare adventure, The Cringing Couple of Clavering. In the chronology of things, this episode takes place at 84 Sinclair Drive, 'Strange Haven' shortly after the events described in Loft Conversion (Tales From The Other Side, you know, the one that's a reworking of The Jumpity-Jim. Are you with me so far? I thought not).

So, the new residents of Strange Haven are young Maurice and Emily Morrison and their lives are a misery thanks to the unwanted attentions of four mischievous, eternal entities whose antics - notably those of the younger pair - tend toward the kinky (if you're going to bend down in Strange Haven, be sure to hide the egg-whisk first! ...). This isn't particularly terrible, but then the eternals discover that the couple are perfect conduits for the energy they need to move between dimensions. Anyhow, the Morrisons are so desperate, they hire Francis St. Clare, Psychic Detective, to fight off these fearsome phantoms ....

Chetwynd-Hayes was a great one for "writing blind" and boy, does it show in Cringing Couple .... The story meanders along, enlivened by the usual spiky exchanges between St. Clare and his assistant/ girlfriend Fred and a truly scary episode which sees the Morrisons drained to the point where they resemble mummified husks. Its all rather good fun - if you like RCH or you're a fan of weedy endings, that is - and Fred fans will be pleased to know she still favours "off the shoulder blouses" (light blue, this time, worn with tight red slacks tucked into knee-high green boots. She even has the nerve to slag off the lady-eternal's little black dress/ nylons outfit!).

Grief, but that is a lousy synopsis even by my standards. More later, unless you f**king behave yourselves.

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Eight years. That should be recovery time enough. To be honest, thought I'd read this cover-to-cover so it came as a pleasant surprise to discover otherwise, especially as I've a fondness for his Clavering Grange stories.

Those That Serve: 1900: Sixty-eight pages, maybe forty spent on painfully slow scene setting, but when this one finally gets going it really gets going. We join innocent country girl Hester Winslow, sixteen, as she travels to Clavering Grange to begin work as trainee parlour maid. On the first evening, Sir Stephen Sinclair's elderly sister, Catherine, Countess of Cheltham, favours the old pile with her ghastly presence, Italian toy boy, Anthony, in tow. The Countess, who delights in scandalising her pompous relatives, takes a shine to the new arrival and bagsies her for pet ladies maid. Hester's first shock is when she's required to assist the seemingly beautiful Catherine to undress. Minus war-paint, wig, dentures and assorted upholstery, her Ladyship is revealed as a withered, skull-faced horror with a warty back. For the first time in her young life, Hester is grateful for her own health and good looks even if the latter are the cause of much distressing attention from Anthony and resident sex pest, Jenkins the coachman.

'"Now, be so kind as to remove clothes so we can get down to pleasurable fornication."

'Mr. Anthony, obsessed by his foul intention, was lowering his trousers, thus revealing a monstrous protrusion that did much to make me lose complete control of my emotions ...'

Unfortunately, the Countess too has designs on that lovely body. Her own being used and worn out, Catherine is intent on exchanging the old for the new by means of a Black Sorcery ritual. Sir Stephen suspects his depraved sister and her "escort" are up to no good, but will he be in time to deliver the girl from her nightmare ordeal in the cursed Yellow Room?

RCH went in for a number of these Upstairs, Downstairs supernatural sagas. For all that the going gets dreary for a chapter or three, Those That Serve builds to a tremendous, properly horrific climax.

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Life Everlasting : 1963: Not so much a stand alone story, more a meandering prequel to the Francis & Fred investigation - teach me not to read the episodes in order - in which, henpecked husband Patrick Duberly, sixty-nine, inexplicably cuts a fresh set of teeth, sports a healthy mop of hair and generally rejuvenates all over, until seething wife castigates him "you don't look a day over twenty-five." What will the neighbours think? We don;t get a chance to find out as Patrick is abducted by two neatly dressed men who explain that, like them, he is an immortal - there is one born every century. Sarcan and Kernon whisk their "brother" away to the rat and toadstool infested cellars far beneath Clavering Grange to prepare him for the rigours of eternal life. Patrick perks up when their confederate, Penelope, fantasy maid of all work, serves him breakfast in bed and flashes plenty of leg. After a trip back through the dimensions to eavesdrop a conversation between Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh, the four return to a house on Sinclair Avenue, where Sarcan ("madness is a rare form of sanity enjoyed by the minority"), Kernon ("I'm all for a bit of erotic violence"), and Penelope let on that they are given to tormenting the present day occupants, newly-weds Maurice and Emily Morrison. Which is where we came in.

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Home and Beauty - 1985: Testimony of Greta Rutledge, 28-year-old fashion supermodel and collector of old photographs. Greta despises her beauty because, from the age of fourteen, she's not been able to get a word of sense out of any man - until she's picked up in The Plough Inn, Clavering, by handsome Mark Sinclair. The way of it is this. On the advice of her agent, Greta is holidaying as a guest of Harold and Florrie Catsby at Pear Tree Cottage, Clavering Retreat. Mr. Catsby is desperate to lure Greta up to the attic, ostensibly to view his vast collection of vintage snapshots. Eventually, a combination of Harold's lechery and Florrie's cooking drive Greta to seek refuge in the pub.

Mark invites Greta to move into his manor house, Strange Haven, built on the site of the accursed Grange. His invitation affects the model very much like a command, and despite her mind screaming "no!", she is helpless but to accept. Sinclair grants her the run of the property save for a solitary room - the loft, which, obviously she resolves to explore at the earliest available opportunity.

In other news we learn that the tainted Kentish soil has yielded another bizarre monster, the Munkin. "Neither plant nor animal, but a blend of both. It has roots and draws nourishment from the ground which gave it birth - or, on occasion, human flesh."

And Damien Sinclair, five years dead, is feeling very, very randy.

A loose sequel to Tales from the Other Side's Loft Conversion, (i.e., the Jumpity-Jim rewrite).