The 5th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

LORD MOUNT PROSPECT John Betjeman

Whenever I sit down to my solitary meal of an evening, I am put to mind of the many obscure Irish peers who are sitting down to theirs. Some, perhaps, in a room over the stables, gaze at the moonlit ruins of what once was a stately mansion; others sip port as the Adam decoration peels off the ceiling and falls with an accustomed thud to the floor. The wind sighs and sings through the lonely Irish night round the wet walls of every house and down each grass-grown drive until it causes even the stable bell to tinkle, although the clock has long ago ceased to work. Such thoughts as these divert me, and such thoughts as these produced the narrative which I am about to relate.

It was after a dinner where the food and the wine and the guests were well selected, where there was an absence of academic friction, and where an aromatic content had settled in upon us, that the germ of an important society came into being. Did we not follow a tradition handed down in our universities by Wesley, Heber, Tennyson, and Wilde? The Society for the Discovery of Obscure Peers was militantly charitable from its outset. It was produced in the glow caused by good food and drink, it was later to burst with good intentions that would fall on Ireland like golden rain. A desultory conversation upon the acute condition of that country had led up to speculations upon its grander inhabitants. There was that comforting lightness about the talk which unites the intelligent.

How kind it would be, we considered, if we were to arrange a dinner for the obscurer Irish peers! It was very sensibly suggested that some of them might not be able to afford the fare to England, so that a meal in their own country should be arranged, if their own country could provide it. With such a spirit of unselfishness the Society was formed, an example not so much of the waste of talent and pettifogging machinations of the pedant as of the oblique large-heartedness that typifies a university. The following rules, unwritten but telling, were composed:

1. Who’s Who shall be accepted as the truth.

2. Any distinction, regarded by the Society as distinguished, disqualifies the peer.

This rule would not affect, for instance, Lord Pentagon, who states in Who’s Who that he is vice-Chairman of the Ballysligo Branch of the Church of Ireland Jubilee Fund Administrative Committee.

3. A peer who is known to a member of the Society is disqualified.

4. A younger brother or son and heir does not count.

The method of selecting an object for our charity was similar to that used by those with simple faith in the Bible, who have no doubts about the minor prophets. Who’s Who was opened at random. The nearest peer who conformed to the Society’s rules was chosen, and every effort was made to get into touch with him.

The usual device was to write and say we were interested in electrical matters and proposed erecting a plant on his estate. This plan was abandoned after the trouble with Lord Octagon. He replied on crimson note-paper and said he would be delighted to see his correspondent.

Our member set out for the west of Ireland. Octagon Abbey was a glorious extravaganza of the eighteenth century. Within it sat Lord Octagon, surrounded by Indian relics collected by his ancestors and by himself. At great expense he had had electric eels imported into his own fish-ponds. His knowledge of electricity was amazing. With fanatical fervour he explained his device for breeding the eels and conserving their electricity by means of a plant which he intended our member to establish at the edge of the ponds. It was three months before Lord Octagon could be induced to abandon the scheme, three months of anxiety for members, both at home and abroad.

Then there was the other plan of introduction: “Would you be so good as to allow me to consult your library, where I believe there are some valuable sixteenth-century editions of Vergil?” Lord Santry, who is one of our staunchest supporters, replied in the kindest way. He welcomed the request of the member chosen for the task. Soon after his arrival at Cahir Santry, our member was informed of his host’s translation of the libretto of all the Savoy operas into Latin hexameters. The first three volumes have cost the Society more than it can reasonably be expected to pay.

I suppose we had collected something like ninety peers and were considering the extension of our membership in order that a successful dinner might be provided when the problem of Lord Mount Prospect arose.

It was not usual for our letters to be disregarded. Persons as lonely as the objects of our charity become excited even on the receipt of an advertisement. For weeks and weeks they gaze out of their castles at the surrounding swamp, unable, probably, to reach the nearest village owing to the torrents of rain and the floods which mirror the leaden sky. Then, when summer comes, and with it a ray of sunlight, they are overjoyed to get a letter from the outside world.

But not so Lord Mount Prospect. The Who’s Who was loose in binding and the pages torn and thumbed like a directory outside a public telephone box when we discovered his name. In truth, the mission of the Society was nearly accomplished; there were few obscure peers left, and the fervour and charity which had started our project was waning under disillusion. For the most part our peers were happy in their gloomy mansions, they showed real pleasure as the footman brought in the oil lamps and they could settle down to a long evening of cutting out jig-saw puzzles or pasting halfpenny stamps on to a fire-screen.

We were, then, somewhat disappointed to find the name of Lord Mount Prospect: but even the most lukewarm among us was stimulated by the odd way in which he announced himself.

What is an Ember Day Bryanite? With trembling hands we turned to Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates. Allow me to quote from Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates (1871):

That spirit of research and curiosity which made possible the forthcoming adventure prompted me to visit a deserted part of North London during the autumn of last year. Could it be that Ember Day Bryanites were still prophesying away up the Caledonian Road? Could it be that even now tired charwomen and weary tailors dressed themselves in sackcloth to listen? Under “Places of Worship” in the London Directory I wondered at the hopeful signs I found. Last and almost least, beneath “Other Denominations”, below the Particular Baptists, and the Peculiar People, below the Sandemanians and Independent Calvinistics, came the glorious words, “Ember Day Bryanite”, and the address, “Hungerford Green, Barnsbury, N.1”.

Fortified with a long and beautiful lunch which lasted until the time when the others have tea, I trod out into the Sunday evening. There was a waiting hush about the Gothic Revival steeples which pricked the starlit London sky: the well-lit thrills of evensong were hardly in preparation, and electric light had not yet thrown up the full richness of nineteenth-century glass which was to stream on to the pavement without.

But what a change met my eye as I left the black brick station, vast and deserted, near the Caledonian Road and saw the fervour of North London’s religious life! Above the noise of tram-car bells, above the gear-changing of the cheaper motor-cars, for this day no longer commercial, and back from the deep joys of Epping and Chingford, above the rich peal of a parish church and the insistent tinkle of a chapel-of-ease urgently in need of funds could be heard quavering sopranos and the Cockney hoarseness of men and women pronouncing a warning of the wrath to come. There they stood, amid listless little groups, gathered inside turnings off the main road. Some political, many religious, and most neither the one nor the other, but vaguely connected with anti-vivisection or the suppression of the Jews, they prophesied with equal fervour of a doom hanging perilously near us.

Small wonder that my progress was slow towards the pleasant little hill embellished with low stucco houses that led up to Hungerford Green! Small wonder that I almost changed my mind as I caught the bright eyes of a thin bearded gentleman proving the inevitability of another deluge. The silence of the empty streets upon the hill enveloped me with the uneasy comfort of a blanket. Only the knowledge of my curious goal urged me on.

Hungerford Green was attractive enough. It was a relic of successful Regency commerce. Two-storeyed houses, once “tight boxes, neatly sashed”, surrounded an oblong space of burnt grass with a curious pavilion in the middle, some conceit of a former merchant aping the gazebos of the great and good. The railings round the grass were sadly bent to make loop-holes for dogs and children, the noble urns of ironwork were battered; from all over Hungerford Green came the whooping of hymns loud enough to stream through ventilating spaces in the pointed windows of Baptist and Wesleyan chapel. The worn grass was bright with the rays of gas-light from the places of worship, with an additional brightness from the outside lamp of a more prosperous chapel where electric light had been installed.

Joyous opening strains of a hearty Nonconformist service! How anxious was I to know under what gas or electric light Ember Day Bryanites, possibly in sackcloth, were even now praising the Lord! And so, reining my enthusiasm with happy delay, I asked a girl whether she knew which was the chapel of the Ember Day Bryanites. She burst into those whooping shrieks maid-servants affect on a roundabout. A sympathetic but dreary woman beside her, yellower and more miserable, suggested that perhaps I meant the Baptist chapel. When I replied that I did not, a sad, long, nasal negative streamed out of her mouth and nose.

With no faint heart I walked round the green, yet fearful of breaking silence with irreligious feet, and I scanned the names on black and gilded notice-boards. “Congregational”, “Primitive Methodist”, “United Methodist”, “New Jerusalem”, “Presbyterian Church of England”, and the last was the last of the lighted chapels which made glorious Hungerford Green. It could not be that the directory was wrong or that my eyes had betrayed me.

There in the remotest corner of the place was the black pedimented outline of an enormous building, more like a warehouse than anything else. As I approached I saw a space of green before it boldly sheltering a struggling plane tree. But the gates of the pathway were padlocked, and a street lamp showed that the path was almost grass. No light or sound came from the great edifice in front, the hymns of the neighbouring chapels had died down to spontaneous prayer, and only the Sunday roar of North London disturbed the air.

I scaled the rusty railing that protected the grass before the chapel building. The plot was bigger and darker than I had supposed, and the chapel loomed so large and high on my approach that it was almost as if it had moved forward to interrupt me. It was plain and square, with a coating of plaster which had peeled in many places and fallen on to the untidy grass below.

I could just discern a printed notice about an electoral roll, years old and clinging limply to its inefficient paste. The double rows of windows were bolted and boarded up. The great doors were shut. But beside them was a wooden notice-board with the remains of lettering still upon it, I struck a match and read:

The Lord had received His Ember Day Bryanites.

Meanwhile the Society had not been idle in its attempts to form an acquaintanceship with Lord Mount Prospect, nor had it failed to follow them with experiments more daring. The silence of his lordship and the mystery which surrounded his name made even the idea of his existence uncertain. A member had written, after a careful study of the geological and political maps of County Galway, professing an interest in the peat bog which extended for some miles round Mount Prospect. His personal and delicately-worded letter had evinced no reply. Undeterred by this he had stolen some paper from the Methodist Recorder and written to suggest a union of the Methodist and Ember Day Bryanite churches. He had been equally unsuccessful.

Notwithstanding, he conceived a bolder proposition. It is a general rule that Irish peers are interested in natural history; at considerable expense and with no little trouble, a large rhinoceros, stuffed and redecorated during the latter part of the last century, was moved with little regret from the spacious hall of a member’s country mansion. It was packed by a firm which was intimately connected with the Natural History Museum, and transported to Ireland. The duty levied by the Free State Government was enormous.

Three months later the rhinoceros was returned. The workmen had been unable to find the road to Mount Prospect and had wandered about Galway for the greater part of a fortnight. Being English they found it hard to get into communication with the inhabitants. When they finally discovered the way to Lord Mount Prospect’s estate they were unable to reach it.

Although it was high summer (the flies and the other insects must have been unpleasant, while even the peat bogs must have been withered in their very channels), the swamps around Mount Prospect were impassable. In a letter, the contractors attempted to describe, in what terms commercial language will allow, the state of things which their employees had encountered. There were large bridges along the road which had either been blown up in the “trouble” or fallen into ruin; vehicular traffic had not been known to go to his lordship’s estate within the memory of the said natives, and so the firm regretted inability re animal as per contract and would beg to return the same to hand.

The news of the final extinction of the Ember Day Bryanites in London, which I was able to bring before the Society, filled all with gloom and disappointment, but it did not quench the reawakened ardour. A letter was sent to every obscure peer befriended by the Society, seeking information, in a tactful manner, of Lord Mount Prospect. Only three had heard his name, none had seen him, and only one supplied information. This was Lord Octagon, whose tales were clearly untrue.

We pictured fearful scenes in the silent mansion of Mount Prospect—a skeleton sitting in a ruined dining-room grinning over a now very aged glass of port, a corpse rotting between sheets of coroneted Irish linen.

The natural course was to go to the Daily Express and suggest a “scoop”, which would at the same time replenish the funds of the Society. A lord who was the very reverse of all that we stood for kindly undertook the unearthing of Lord Mount Prospect. For a week he was mentioned in the social columns. The Dragoman saw him at Tooth’s Galleries looking at a fascinating exhibition of the etchings of the insides of railway engines by Frank Brangwyn. He met him at a party in St. John’s Wood where everyone was dressed as a clergyman, later in the same evening he met him at another party where everyone was dressed as a policeman.

Possibly some of my readers may remember what happened after this. He was removed to the front page of the paper. He had been about to make an ascent in a balloon from Sydenham when he was kidnapped. “THE MISSING PEER” was billed all over London for three days. But the “scoop” failed. No reply-came from Lord Mount Prospect, safe in his castle in Ireland.

The wet weather had by now settled down and it was hopeless to attempt the journey through Galway until the next summer. At Christmas a present of handkerchiefs was sent, purporting to come from a poor relation in Harringay. But it, too, met with no response. After this the practical efforts of the Society ceased until next year should render personal investigation possible.

With an irregular rattling the persons behind the scenes tugged the curtain across the stage. The applause was deafening and for the fifth time the curtain was pulled apart; and for the last time, for the temporary nature of the fittings had caused it to stick, and there stood the actors, sweat glistening through their grease paint, their smiles happy.

There was a renewed burst of clapping; the spirit of fun was not dead yet. For a sixth, seventh, and up to an eleventh time the enraptured audience called for an encore of that wonderful final chorus. The curtains stood ominously apart. The humourless stage manager turned out the lights on the stage. Peers and their wives in the front, army men, clergymen, and their families in the back, retained the calm of good breeding until the lights were switched on in the hall.

We had known that Gilbert and Sullivan would work miracles. The exquisite humour of that last chorus of the Bunundrum, where the hero becomes Chief Conjurer in the land of Og-a-gog after all that trouble with the wicked emperor, the sense of satire and kindly irony that runs through the whole play, the clean wit not unworthy of the pages of Punch, and the perfect poetry of some of the serious stuff as well, make the Bunundrum one of the best of the Savoy operas. Of course, like them all, it has been repeated daily ever since 1888; but it does not lose by repetition. No great works of art do, do they?.

The clouds were lying low but not unpleasantly over the peat bog, and a traveller might have descried, sandwiched between the clouds and the brown earth, little figures delving and hurrying. Were he to have approached closer he would have seen that the figures were of people obviously clever. Some wore spectacles and little-used cricket shirts, others had bought their ties in Paris.

The road to Mount Prospect was being repaired. The funds of the Society, replenished by the Gilbert and Sullivan performance, had paid for a thoroughly successful dinner for obscure peers which was held in the Shelburne Hotel in Dublin. The speeches were rather long.

With the money left over we were able to hire implements and horses. Like Ruskin we set to work to build a road. The track climbed a slight hill after many miles along the flat bog, and lying below it we saw a black pool whose water was strangely still. The silence was intensified by a sound as of distant applause too half-hearted for Gilbert and Sullivan. It was water lapping and licking the granite on the hillside shore of the pool. This edge was white with the powder of the ground stone, ground by ages of black water. The remaining shores were of reeds and meadow-sweet, which disappeared into a blue and distant hill.

Mount Prospect at last in view! Eagerly we stumbled down the declivity of the shore of the lake, and there it was that a surprise unnerved us. This nether shore was littered with paper, so that it might well have been a Surrey beauty spot, and only when we examined the paper closely did we discover that it was not. Thousands of unopened envelopes and parcels lay everywhere. Upon them “Viscount Mount Prospect” was written in the fading hands of many generations. Someone discovered a package less sodden than most others and battered by but one year’s Christmas storms, It was just possible to read the word Harringay on the postmark, while within, the dye had not yet come off six cheap pocket handkerchiefs.

As we were discussing how to cross the lake and the marsh beyond it to where the blue hill swam, a Zion, before our eyes, a postman, black against the skyline, emptied a solitary letter down the slope.

For over a week the sound of hammers and axes resounded on the shore of the black lake. A flat-bottomed boat was built, slim yet not ungainly, and a happy band paddled away in it down the stream that led out of all that black water.

For many hours the weeds and rushes were too high to give a view of the landscape. The dark water writhed with tentacles of water-weed undisturbed for, probably, more than a century. The stream twisted so abruptly, enclosing us in tall prisons of reed, black water, and grey sky, that conversation was awed into silence, broken by the bravado of community singing.

Now and then we went up backwaters and had to turn, and once we were confronted with a broken bridge in a style formerly Indian, now decayed beyond repair. Here and there, swans, more wild than the wildest of song and story, rushed hissing and flapping on our little party from the dark deep bends of the stream, possibly angered by the community singing. The lights were long among some tattered beech trees when we moored our boat beside the Taj Mahal.

But is the Taj Mahal covered with pink stucco? And are there curious Gothic pinnacles behind it? Has the central dome collapsed so that it looks like a diseased onion? Is there grass along the avenues? And if there are beech trees and box hedges around the Taj Mahal, are they overgrown and straggling?

So long as the lingering day lasted we trod among the deserted courtyards and sparsely furnished rooms—incongruously Adam and Chippendale within—whose fittings and mildewed portraits, whose hangings and crumbling walls, whose awful silence were stirred only by the hum of a late fly, the squeak of a bat, or the little ticking noises of hurrying beetles. Nowhere was there sign of living person or lifeless corpse. This was Ireland indeed. This was a romantic and poetical finale to a beautiful story. Lord Mount Prospect did not exist. He had been caught up in a bodily resurrection to sit for ever with other Ember Day Bryanites.

Such were our thoughts, and such they would have remained had we not entered what we had taken to be the back of the house, but which turned out to be but another front. Genius of optical illusions, you eighteenth-century builder! What appeared to be the Taj Mahal on one side was like a very rough sketch of the west front of Peterborough Cathedral on the other. It, too, was pink, in order that the sun might always appear to be setting across pinnacle and crocket.

A vast door showed us the way into a bare chapel with walls of dim Pompeian red. The building was lit by frosted glass fixed into windows boldly representing the pointed style. Never was there so much dust. Yet the eyes involuntarily turned to the pulpit, placed, as in all chapels, where the altar rests in a papistical church.

In the dim light we could see that this plain wooden pulpit, raised above the rows of empty pews, was a welter of papers, piled up to the very sounding board and encumbering the winding staircase. Then—Oh! horror!—a black-gowned figure, whose head was a skull of which all but the spectacles had withered, whose arm rested on a pile of papers, and whose fleshless finger kept a place—a dumb, still, black-gowned figure was propped upright against the papers.

Some time passed of clicking silence before anyone ventured near the papers. When the bravest did so, it was only to see that the papers were all a discourse, and that the fingers rested at the phrase “and three thousand, two hundred, and thirty secondly . . .” Lord Mount Prospect has preached his longest sermon and the mourners go about the streets.