R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Haunted Grange

[dem bones]

R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Haunted Grange (William Kimber, 1988)

Ionicus

Blurb:
Clavering Grange: the house that was built on tainted ground, the house in which ghosts from all ages daily walk, the house in whose woodwork death lingers and in whose cellars and subterranean passageways nameless horrors lurk — for those that have the power to see.
Brian Streatield was only sixteen when he first entered the doors of the Grange. The building was so neglected that he thought it empty, abandoned. It was not, though it would have been better for him had it been the ruin he first thought it. But there dwelt Sir James and Lady Sinclair, members of the family that had lived in the house for hundreds of years. Over the centuries their fortunes had fluctuated. Those whom the house loved flourished. Those whom it did not . . .

Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes, author of many novels and collections of stories of horror, fantasy and the supernatural, proves in this new novel how justified is his reputation as Britain’s Prince of Chill.

"You must expect the bizarre in this house ..."

Clavering, Kentish Downs, 1959. Sixteen-year-old Brian Streatfield is offered a summer job at Clavering Grange by Lady Lydia "all mink coat and no knickers" Sinclair on the grounds that he bears an uncanny resemblance to her late daughter. Five years ago, at the age of seventeen, Susan Sinclair, disappointed in love, blew her brains out in the gun room. Her mother is bent on returning Susan from the other side, the tainted soil hereabouts being favourable to necromantic pursuits. Sir James, who tenaciously pursues alcoholic oblivion, is entirely opposed to his wife's plan, but takes kindly to Brian, who he sets to work cataloguing the library prior to auction. His lordship, desperate for funds, is flogging the family silver as it were. Come the end of the school holiday, the Sinclairs offer Brian permanent employment. They even allow him to dine with them, much to the chagrin of Collins the butler and his wife, Mrs. C (she detests her husband so much that she refuses to answer to "Mrs. Collins"). As befits his sudden elevated status, Brian is allocated a luxurious, triple-bedded chamber on the East Wing ... which just so happens to be the most prolifically haunted on the estate. Her Ladyship, eager to get things moving, takes to visiting Brian during the night, a sexually charged atmosphere presumably catnap to the randy ghosts of the young.

History interlude. Clavering Grange was built in 1198 on the site of an appalling massacre, the Earl of Moxton's army butchering a strange tribe of beautiful people, all black hair and snow white skin who'd set up camp at Clevering Reach (as it was then known). Their alleged crime? Nightly vampiric assaults on cattle. Their own spilled blood taints the land to this day.

Despite Sir James' warning, Brian explores the cellars, a far more harrowing prospect than sleeping in the East Wing, infested as they are with giant rats, diseased mushroom and a moaning carpet of plant-animal hybrids. When his torch battery gives out, Alice, who claims to be alive (or, at least, not dead), leads him to safety. Now, like Miss Sinclair, he flits between two worlds, that of the everyday and that visible to all but the very few - one in a million, according to Alice.

Ghosts briefly encountered to date include those of a rapist Monk, a phantom Cavalier of Hangman's Wood, Queen Elizabeth I (again: see Tales from the Hidden World's Life Everlasting) and an entire church congregation. Even so, nothing particularly interesting has happened since we started, and we've reached p. 102 0f 184. Let's hope it picks up some in the second half.

[Shrink Proof]

Sounds like another one to track down or at the very least keep an eye out for. Mind you, I usually find it worth buying pretty much anything with an Ionicus cover anyway.

[Johnlprobert]

Being very forgiving of RCH's novels (cough Psychic Detective cough) I'll still admit I found this one to be a bit of a slog.

[dem bones]

May 25, 2020 19:23:22 GMT Johnlprobert said:

Being very forgiving of RCH's novels (cough Psychic Detective cough) I'll still admit I found this one to be a bit of a slog.

Now there's a shocker! If you make it through The Psychic Detective chances are you can take anything RCH - or anyone else - sees fit to throw at you - and I speak as someone who took on Gateway To Hell and came through the other side.

The Haunted Grange is just ... there. To these sunken eyes, the first half reads like a series of snippets from the Chetwynd-Hayes back catalogue, randomly recycled to no great purpose.

Lady Sinclair, furious that her daughter has yet to materialise, accuses Brian of deliberately blocking her return and packs him off to the rectory to live with her parents. Canon Hargraves is equally desperate to establish contact with his grand-daughter - "I have never seen her. Others - yes. Like the nun in a grey habit I see now. But never the sweet child I wish to see."

Back at the Grange, an impatient and increasingly gaga Lady Sinclair has insisted Collins remove the main doors. This has invariably proved fatal in the past as it offers access to 'The Wanderer' (did we meet him in The Elemental or was that a different one?) and "disaster follows if it is allowed to enter the house."

Brian, now back from the rectory, comes upon yet another ghost in a cobwebbed locked room on the East Wing. Two hundred years ago, the bastard son of Henry Sinclair was incarcerated and starved to death to prevent his evert inheriting the property.

RCH throws in a sweary interlude to check his pensioners are still with us/ knitting along with the action.

"I've got the buggers open. Whatever wanted to come in is in and whatever wanted to get out is out. Now fuck 'em and may they give birth to whatever they fancy.'
Lady Sinclair and Sir Jimmy arrived on the scene together. She shouted with real or assumed joy and loudly proclaimed.
'At last. Now the house is free. Its stays are unlaced, its belly can now flop. its tits rejoice in braless freedom. My darling can come and go as she pleases, but if the naughty girl will not come when I call her, then I will be able to summon those will make her."

The Wanderer, in the guise of a living dead World War II soldier, shows himself to Brian. The family Banshee is loose on the East Wing. Maybe something is going to happen at last?

[dem bones]

Dear me, but that was dull. Novel briefly perks up to allow the banshee to do its thing, but a paragraph or three of cheap thrill is scant compensation for sleepwalking through page after page of RCH on auto-pilot.

As those who've experienced the Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe's Badger work will attest, there's an art to outrageous padding. You can write the most glaring filler about teeth-brushing or what have you and somehow wildly entertain in the process. Sadly, RCH in boring mode is just boring.