The Year's Best Horror Stories 11

THE EXECUTOR by David G. Rowlands

Born August 1, 1941, David G. Rowlands is a biochemist who makes his home in Buckinghamshire. Presumably such a technical profession would have predisposed Rowlands to direct his writing interests toward “hard” science fiction; instead, he discovered the ghost stories of M.R. James while at Eton College Choir School and had written his own first ghost story at age 13. Writing during college lectures instead of taking notes, Rowlands published numerous ghost stories in student publications between 1958-63, and thus was born Father D. O’Connor, whose reminiscences are very much in the classic English ghost story tradition. Since those days Rowlands’ stories have appeared in The Holly Bough and Ghosts & Scholars; Eye Hath Not Seen… a booklet of Father O’Connor stories, was published by Rosemary Pardoe’s Haunted Library recently, and a second such collection is being planned. Rowlands’ other interests include western films, campanology and model railways, and other facets of his writing reflect this: he was associate editor of Wild West Stars, and his books include Spliced Doubles, The Tralee and Dingle Railway, and The Dingle Train (with W. McGrath).

M.R. James observed that “places are prolific in suggestion,” and David. G. Rowlands agrees: “My stories invariably encapsulate a setting that has impressed me. It needs no deep penetration to recognize my ‘Longbury’ of the story as an amalgam of Longville and Rushbury—the latter being one of the loveliest villages in Shropshire. The house/wash-house/chapel complex was situated in my old home village (Iver, Bucks), however, and was only demolished as part of a redevelopment scheme in 1973. It was much as I’ve described it—the scullery with range, the chapel and that dank, dark, gloomy washhouse. I did indeed hear children’s voices all about me—it was a very strange house—and to this day it remains quite inexplicable.”

Fr. O’Connor made it a regular custom to invite other clergy to dinner from time to time, a pleasant little ecumenical exercise resisted only by a somewhat dour Presbyterian. On such occasions the table talk might center on ‘shop,’ local gossip, antiquities or anecdotes.

One particular evening, the Baptist and Anglican ministers only were present—a Mr. Cummings and a Rev. Timothy, respectively. A remark from the Rev. Timothy about the grievous matter of one of his church bells needing to be recast had launched Fr. O’Connor into anecdotes of early itinerant bellfounders. Beginning with Robert Catlin, who had cast the local tenor bell in the churchyard, he came by devious routes to a sixteenth-century monk of St. Milburg’s—the Cluniac Abbey at Much Wenlock in Shropshire—one William of Corvehill: noted for many mechanical and artistic talents, but especially for bell casting and bell hanging… but—by your leave—I will keep that for another occasions.

Mention of Wenlock sufficed to enthuse the Rev. Timothy, who was a keen student of architecture, and we had a long exposition of the beauties of the Guildhall in that quiet little Shropshire town. His panegyric on the paneling was interrupted by Mr. Cummings, who inquired whether the wheeled stocks were still there.

“I believe so, my dear fellow,” replied the Anglican, “but why do you mention them? There are a much better set in the Cardiff Folk Museum, you know.”

Mr. Cummings laughed. “No reason, really. It just reminded me that my great aunt Lucy was threatened once by the vicar of Wenlock (or is it Rector? I forget) with being put in the stocks and wheeled through the town and surrounding villages.”

“She must have been a character,” I commented.

“Yes,” he said musingly. “She was widely believed to be a Wise Woman or witch; certainly people came from miles around for her cures.” He laughed (the Baptist congregation being very small in our village). “It’s a pity I haven’t inherited her talents, maybe.” He grew suddenly serious: “Though I’m glad I haven’t.”

Fr. O’Connor caught my eye and winked so that Mr. Cummings could see.

“Ha,” he said, “that sounds like the basis of a good story, Cummings; what about it?”

Mr. Cummings thought for a moment. “I don’t see why not,” he said. “It reflects badly on my relatives, but as they’re all dead and buried long ago, I don’t suppose any harm can come of telling the story now.”

“Well then, gentlemen, I propose we adjourn to the study, where we can talk in comfort over a pipe or two,” said the good Father, rising to say Grace.

When we were all comfortably ensconced, Mr. Cummings began his story:

My grandfather was the son of a Shropshire yeoman farmer,” he began. “He blotted his copybook by marrying a Romany girl (of all people!) and his father threw him out in consequence. The couple went to Hereford, where my father was born, and they both worked in the cattle market. However the girl tired of the restricted life, upped and went off with a drover, leaving him to raise my father alone. He moved to Gloucester as stockman for an auctioneer and lost touch with his family, apart from his sister, this eccentric old dame who lived on Wenlock Edge. (The family farm went to my grandfather’s younger brother). My father entered the auctioneer’s as a trainee clerk, married the boss’s daughter and ultimately managed the business for her family. All this is by the way however; what concerns my story is that at the age of ten, or thereabouts, I succumbed badly to bronchitis and the doctor recommended a holiday away from the lower reaches of Gloucester. My poor Dad was at his wits’ end what to do about it, since he was too proud to ask help from my mother’s family, despite her urgings. Then he remembered his old aunt. Somehow, it was settled that I should go and stay there for six weeks or so.

Longbury, where she lived, was a tiny community on the Wenlock Edge, immortalized by Houseman’s verses. Even such a communal backwater was a microcosm of a divided Christendom, however, for there were Anglicans (of ‘high’ leaning), Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Roman Catholics and even a few ‘Friends’ of austere persuasion, who met over the village shop.

My great aunt’s residence, “Rose Cottage,” was a rambling place that had belonged to her husband’s parents, who used to run the village school; and it was situated at the end of a little lane that led off the main street through the village. A singlestory wing had been added about a hundred years earlier and this was fitted out and used as the Baptist chapel. There was some mystique surrounding my great uncle, who had been custodian of the chapel and lay preacher as well, and I was told he had gone abroad in ‘The Lord’s Service.’ It was only later that I learned he had actually disappeared—at the same time as, and presumably in the company of, a buxom young farm girl who had attended the chapel and in whose spiritual welfare he had shown great interest. Needless to say it had been the scandal of the district for years, though I daresay any eloping couple need have gone no further than had my grandfather to escape local opinion. So far as Shropshire villagers of that period were concerned Hereford and the North Pole were equidistant!

My aunt had assumed the caretaker’s role and a minister used to bicycle over from Stokesay; there being no Sunday train service.

From the start of my visit I was afraid of the old lady, though she was kind enough to me in a gruff sort of way. She must have been in her sixties then, I suppose, dressed always in black material that had gone greenish with age, and which had been polished to a sheen from long use. She had rounded, vaguely benevolent features, belied both by a sharp pair of hazel eyes and a curiously sibilant voice that instilled respect far more than any stridency could have achieved. Her greeting was typical:

“Well, Harold,” she said, peering at me from top to toe, “I don’t suppose you want to be here any more than I want you, but I suppose we must make the best of it; blood is blood, after all. Mind your manners and keep out of my way, and we shall get along, I daresay.”

How well I remember that cottage! There were two downstairs rooms; the one—termed the ‘Scullery’—was dining and kitchen combined, dominated by a huge kitchen range which I had to ‘blacklead’ every day as one of my tasks, and with red enameled doors that had to be polished until I could see my face in them. The other downstairs room was next to the chapel, sharing a wall (though there was no door connection); cool and dark with chintzy furniture and pervaded by that unmistakable smell of the long-unlit coal fire. Occasionally if I entered on a Sunday, I could hear the chapel piano through the wall—played with more vigor than skill—and the discordant mumble of singing. There was a little alcove, curtained off, with scrubbed table, pair of scales, huge stoneware pestle and mortar and other impedimenta of the herbalist; for the old lady was much in demand locally as a ‘Healer’ or ‘Wise Woman’ and was clearly a thorn in the flesh of the local doctor. Indeed, she had a daily stream of visitors—some furtive, some defiant, some afraid, a few resigned; but all clearly in awe of the old curmudgeon. Since she was both astute and imperious, I imagine she must have accumulated more knowledge about local people and their affairs than was good for them. The path outside divided in two—one main sweep going from the front door (there was no back!) to the gate into the lane; the other went past the new wing, crossing the chapel path (worshippers came in by a different gate) and on to a long dark shed, called ‘The Wash House,’ with sagging rainwater barrel outside and mangles, stones, flatirons and sinks inside. A substantial hook and pulley system ran on a rusty wire the length of the shed, for easy handling of laundry baskets.

My aunt lived alone since her husband’s defection, and a ‘daily woman’ came in: a Mrs. Bardette, who was as taciturn as my aunt and a hard taskmistress. The reading matter available was unquestionably moral and wholesome for a young lad (Mary Webb herself could have grown up with my aunt), but the rewards of the excessively virtuous have never appealed to me as a theme. Missing the company of my Gloucester street chums, as I rubbed the graphite paste onto the range one day, I ventured to ask Mrs. Bardette who there was of my age for me to play with.

She gave a short bark of a laugh. “Playmates?” she cried. “You won’t get local lads coming here, my boy, and that’s a fact.” When I asked the obvious, she retorted, “Because Mistress won’t have them, that’s why. She’d take her stick to them… or something.” (This last being something of an afterthought). She looked sideways at me, a slightly malicious nuance coming into her voice. “Not to say you mightn’t get company sometimes; this was once a school you know,” and she cackled to herself as she deposited the washing she was doing on to the big rubbing board and ladled more hot water from the iron pot on the range into the sink. She jumped rather guiltily as my aunt spoke from the doorway; neither of us knew how long she had been standing there.

“Mrs. Bardette, why are you washing in here? The Wash House is the place for that as you know very well. There’s the copper ready for lighting and plenty of firewood.”

Mrs. Bardette shook the suds of Sunlight soap from her arms before folding them akimbo.

“You know why,” she almost shouted. At this juncture my aunt seemed to notice my ears flapping and sent me off to the shop on a pretext. She watched me go, and since the scullery window overlooked the entire path, I could not creep back to overhear more. As I left she was hissing, “Now, Mrs. Bardette, you know perfectly well…” And I heard the louder voice reply, “Oh yes, I know all right…”

Now, whatever Mrs. B. might feel about the Wash House, I soon discovered what she had meant about the school and company (I only mention this, gentlemen, to give some idea of the atmosphere of the place; so far as I know it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story). There was a wide staircase leading up to the bedroom and a bend in the stairs where a window looked across the slopes to Long Mynd. One afternoon, while all was quiet in the house I was running upstairs to my room, and I paused to look out of this window. To my amazement, childrens’ voices—like the far-off clamor of a school playground—were all around me in the air; confused and incoherent, coming from nowhere. I shook my head, but it continued; without rhyme or reason. Then it ceased as suddenly as it had begun. I was strangely frightened and ran back downstairs and into the garden where my aunt was gathering herbs. She was muttering to herself as usual, a wooden lath basket over her arm. It was a measure of my fright that I poured it all out to her. She rose to her feet and put out a hand as if to touch me; then withdrew it.

“Ah,” she said. “You have the gift of hearing… don’t worry, it runs in the family. Sometimes you hear things; sometimes you don’t; sometimes you see things…” and here she put her hand on my shoulder. I felt a strange sensation, that odd sweetness when a voice or timbre fascinates one; it vanished as she removed her hand… “Sometimes you don’t. It’s nothing to worry about. You’ll hear—yes, and see too—more than that in your life, Harold.”

Not a word more did I get from her on the subject; though I was conscious of her speculative glance on occasion and certainly her manner was less severe from that moment on.

There was nothing to be got from Mrs. Bardette either. “Pooh; that’s nothing,” she scoffed with a toss of her head to the window—which I took to indicate the Wash House.

With the temerity of youth, and the curiosity of a kitten, I hung about the shed in the daytime. (I was not allowed out after six at night). It was a gloomy, dank place frequented by the occasional frog and lit only by a much-dirtied skylight. It could be brilliant sunshine outside, but the minute I entered (there was no door), darkness closed in on me and had the physical effect of making me breathless. Overall hung an indescribable mustiness. I could see the old wrought-iron mangles, and the two ‘coppers’ for heating water. In the dimness my eyes could just discern a brace of heavy flatirons on a stove top, and between the intangible outlines of the coppers gleamed the dull white of a sink. Close by this, further into the shadows, hung an inverted face. It was so grotesquely unrecognizable that I stared at it for several moments without realizing what it was. It was bloated and puffy and it began to drip water from the dangling hair to the floor. I had unconsciously advanced into the shed and I turned to run, only to be confronted by another, between me and the doorway. The hair from its sodden features trailed onto the floor. I shut my eyes and hurled myself at where I judged the opening to be, and so ran out into the sunlight; straight into the apron of Mrs. B. who was on the chapel path.

“Hmm, I know where you’ve been,” said she, dryly, and frog-marched me off to the chapel, where I sat on one of the chairs, trembling now, while she collected up the coconut mats. We hung them over the privet hedge and I helped her to beat them with the ‘spider.’ She made no further allusion to the cause of my fright, except to growl, “I’d keep out of there, my lad—and, whatever you do, say nothing to the mistress,” but she kept me beside her, and we went indoors and had a cup of tea together.

That was the eve of my departure, and nothing else untoward happened. I had expected fearsome dreams but in fact passed a quiet night. In the morning, my aunt walked with me to the—getting much salutation from local people—and put me on to the train home. To my utter amazement, she kissed my cheek and pressed half-a-crown into my hand. I was moved to wave from the carriage, but she had gone, and the interest of the journey dispelled all other thoughts.

“Doubtless you have already anticipated the outcome of my little experience, gentlemen?” remarked Mr. Cummings, stirring in his chair and lighting a vile little cheroot that smelled like burning cowpost. (I had visions of poor Mrs. Bailey trying to get the smell out of the curtains.) He waved the thing about like a joss-stick, describing smoke trails in the air, and at our lack of response, settled down again and continued.

I heard nothing of my aunt for years, save that thereafter she sent me a pound on each successive birthday. My father’s long illness intervened, and he died. She did not attend the funeral, nor did any others from the family in Shropshire; though I wrote to them all.

I was at theological college when I got a letter forwarded from home. It was written in large, badly formed letters, and was from a second cousin I had never met, telling me of the old Lady’s sudden death. Due to the delay in forwarding, the funeral was imminent and it seemed that she had named me to the family lawyer, and they were inviting me to attend and—later—to execute the will. I got compassionate leave and caught a train within a couple of hours.

The vagaries of railway timetables meant that I had to break my journey at Hereford. I could not resist revisiting the magnificent cathedral. Then, after a bun and an unpleasantly warm glass of milk in a teashop, I caught the Shrewsbury train and headed for Craven Arms.

There I crossed to the platform for the Wellington Branch, where a diminutive tank engine—running backwards—and two coaches were hopefully awaiting passengers. At 5 pm by the station clock we puffed out. Nostalgia awoke in me, for it had been this same train I had caught as a child of ten; a large and embarrassing label with my name and destination affixed to my best (and only) coat. The guard of the Shrewsbury train had handed me over to his counterpart of the branch line to ensure my alighting at Longbury. This time I would have to fend for myself! Even the engine was the same; for I remembered the number well—4401. Surely the carriage too? Had I not seen the sepia picture of Dawlish sea wall before? (But then it is in so many carriages!)

The little train left the main line at Marsh Farm Junction and headed out across Wenlock Edge, that lovely country of Houseman’s verses. (I will refrain from comment on Mary Webb, that other Salopian writer of note—since I know her bilge is popular with Mr. Timothy!) The sun was behind Long Mynd and one could not have guessed from the wild beauty of the scene that a little farther along this rural railway lay Shropshire’s ‘black country’—the iron foundries of Coalbrookdale and Horsehay & Dawley (what a deceptively lovely name!), dating back to 1709 and the Dudley family; though I believe charcoal forges had heated iron in those hills since Tudor times.

I was the only passenger to alight in the soft warm air at Longbury. The porter took my ticket, and replied to my compliment in the well-kept flower beds on the platform. “A welcome to you, Mr. Cummings,” he said, with a rather odd look at me, and signaled to a waiting car outside before marching off to the little cabin at the end of the platform to receive the tablet back from the engine driver. Clearly my coming was known in the village.

As I stepped forward to meet my cousin I could hear the explosive staccato bark of the train pulling away from the station and off toward Much Wenlock.

My cousin Sefton was a likeable enough chap, who was obviously intending me to stay at his farm. However in course of conversation on details of the morrow’s funeral, it transpired that my great aunt’s body was lying alone at her cottage. “Harry Jones, the Undertaker, wouldn’t take her to his parlor of course,” was the bald statement in Sefton’s Shropshire accents. When I asked the reason, and why “of course,” I was met with a shrug of the shoulders. In my stubborn way, I therefore determined to spend the night at the cottage, if only for the remembrance of her kiss, half-crown and annual pound! Seeing I meant what I said, Sefton made no argument—though he was clearly surprised—gave me the key and said there would doubtless be provisions in the larder. He gave me his telephone number “in case” (there were phones at the pub, village store and vicarage). As he dropped me with my suitcase at the gate to the cottage, I said brightly, “Well, if I’m lonely, I’ll drop into the pub.”

“Mebbee you’d better not,” he said, with an odd look. “In any case, you won’t lack for company.” And with that he drove off.

I walked up the well-remembered path through the tidy garden, full of the scent of thyme and other herbs, and with roses and honeysuckle over the porch and walls; opened the door and put on the light. Great Aunt Lucy was lying in her open coffin in the old parlor. Even the tang of medication could not mask the all-pervading smell of unlit fire. What memories that smell evoked! I looked at my aunt’s waxen features; she was smaller than I remembered and her face had got thinner and more lined. As I bent and kissed her cold forehead, I became conscious of a murmur of voices from beyond the chapel wall. There must be a ‘Convenanters’ meeting or something in progress—though six o’clock of an evening was an odd time to have it. I put my ear to the wall; the murmur resolved into the voices of a man and woman, but I could catch nothing of what they had said. I went outside to look at the chapel wing, but it was immediately obvious in the gloaming that there were no lights within; indeed, the door was locked. How peculiar! However, remembering my childhood tenor on the stairs, I just had to accept that this was a house of inexplicable sounds. This put me in mind of my other fright and I looked apprehensively toward the louring bulk of the Wash House, thought better of it and went back into the cottage. The muffled voices had, I thought, sunk to whispers, but might have ceased altogether. I gave it up and went into the scullery to forage.

My accomplishments of yesteryear returned, and I soon had a fire going in the range and a kettle on the hob before the open enamel door. I managed very well with some eggs that proved to be quite fresh and some slices of cured ham. There was a big valve radio and I switched it on to have some noise about me: the place was deathly quiet, which I found uncanny—there were not even the usual mice or cockroaches of the country cottage. Maybe my aunt’s herbal knowledge had kept them at bay. Thinking of this, I returned to the front room where she lay, and looked into the curtained alcove. Her equipment was still there. I swung the pans of the scale idly and my eye caught a protruding knothole in the wall paneling. It came out easily into my hand leaving a small black hole. Selecting a dried grass stem from a small bundle on the table top, I poked it into the hole—it went through. So, the old lady had a peephole into the chapel from her seat at the table. I leaned forward to apply my eye to the hole, but of course all was dark within; though, I must say, I felt there was a cautious shifting movement beyond me in the murk. After all, it was now quite dark outside. However, in leaning forward I had put all my weight on the edge of the table, which must have loosed some spring or catch, for an unsuspected drawer appeared—stealthily as it were—without a sound from underneath. It gave me quite a start. The drawer was large and shallow, cleverly concealed to fit flush to the side of the table and remain undetected. In it were several books of the ledger type. Pushing the drawer back I took them to read beside the scullery range, for the room was becoming decidedly chilly. At any rate they might make better reading than Virtue’s Reward or Little Jeremy’s Prayers, offered by the bookcase.

As I crossed to the door I got a severe shock and dropped the books. Aunt Lucy’s head had turned in the coffin and had tensed or contracted into a distinctly malevolent leer, as if she were sharing a secret—and that none too pleasant a one—with me. Startled, but reassuring myself from my ignorance, that such muscular contractions might be quite normal in corpses, I bent and put my ear to her chest (I must admit to a fear that her arms would rise from her sides and clasp me!) but there was no heartbeat of course. I took a small glass dish from the herb table and held its cold surface to her lips and nostrils, but there was no dimming at all: that was enough for me… I left the range fire to die out, put out the lights and radio, and scuttled off down the drive to the pub. I had fully intended to visit the Wash House with an electric torch to dispel my childish dread of its gloomy shadows, but now—admitting my unreasoning cowardice to myself—I no longer had any such notion.

Clearly both publican and villagers knew who I was. They weren’t hostile—simply wary and offhand. There was no room to let it seemed. (I almost expected the landlord to add “Leastways not to you.”) A fine situation: either I could go back to the cottage, or phone Sefton and admit that I couldn’t stay with one dead old lady for whom I had previously and arrogantly asserted pity and dutiful affection. Clearly I should get nowhere asking any villager for a bed…

So I went back to the cottage, poked and fuelled the fire back to life and put the radio on loud for company. Jeff and Luke, and the other “Riders of the Range,” investigating a ghost town in the West did not help my mood much, what with the creaking doors and mysterious footsteps: I found some music instead. Then I settled myself in the chimney corner, back to the two walls, to browse through the books. All were painstakingly compiled in longhand, making use of extensive but simple abbreviations. Although not copper-plate, the hand was bold and clear and the first tome proved to be the old girl’s Herbal; clearly a valuable compilation. (I subsequently presented it to the library at Kew.) Aunt Lucy had obviously been an amateur botanist of very practical bent: there were notes of where plants could be found in the locality, sketches of their anatomy and counsel on how to propagate them. There was an extensive cross-indexing of entries and a long list of ailments and cures, some of the latter distinctly odd. The second book was heavier and thicker, and had an alphabetical thumb-index. It was rather like a doctor’s case book, for under family names it contained details of treatments and transactions she had carried out. To my surprise and dismay however, on closer reading it also contained a great deal of intimate, scandalous and often sordid detail about persons in the parish. Clearly her view had been ‘knowledge is power’ and there could be no doubt she had shamelessly and callously exploited the confidence (willing or unwilling) of her ‘clients.’ Thus I could read of Maisie Bassett’s indiscretions, unwanted pregnancy and the conclusion of that little affair, and the subsequent use my Aunt had made of her knowledge; or—again—the ‘threats’ of local doctor and clergy—to whom one hapless victim had obviously confessed; and so on. I’m ashamed to say that the horrible fascination of the pathetic (and very human) errors catalogued in detail, kept me reading. By the time I’d read for several hours, I was feeling extremely tired. In a fit of disgust I threw the book on to the range fire and poked and stoked at it, until the ghastly catalog of human frailties was consumed.

To be quite frank, I did not fancy going upstairs, and arranged chairs before the fire so that I could stretch out; made some more milkless tea and settled down with the final volume.

This appeared to be an attempt at a narrative/journal based on her daily round, but the writing—which started out legible and clear—became much less so, showing clear signs of hasty setting down and lack of care, in contrast to the other books. It deteriorated so that letters were often unformed or words missed out—so fast, I judged, had the writer’s thoughts flowed ahead of the pen. With the heat from the range and the sighing of the fire within (the radio broadcasts having ceased), I drowsed over the lines of barbed-wire script, which blurred before my eyes as if water had poured across the page.

I found myself rethinking some details of my visit of ten years earlier. I had slept in the little front room upstairs where the ceiling sloped down to a tiny window that overlooked the pathways and village lane. In my mind’s eye, I could see that fresh, whitewashed room with rush mats on the floor and rough but comfortable bedding scented with dried lavender heads. There was a biblical picture, “The Light of the World,” over the bed. I knew I had suddenly woken, for the harvest moon shone direct on my face through the open window. I heard a sound outside and climbed up, with some difficulty for my legs were short, into the tiny window recess up in the wall, to look out. The gardens and paths were bathed in ethereal brilliance and there was a slight ground mist. To my surprise, two figures were standing by the chapel, locked in each-other’s arms. A stealthy sound came from the house below me and someone—it could only be my aunt—came out of the front room and into the garden. She came from under the porch into my range of vision, down the chapel path to the herb garden, and toward the couple, making shooing gestures with her hands. They had turned to face her, the man’s arm protectingly round the woman; then I must have blinked or something, for all of an instant they were gone, and my aunt was pacing sedately back to the house. As luck would have it, she looked up and saw me leaning from the window, and that strange grimace I had seen earlier crossed her face. I shot back into bed, overturning the chair with a clatter, and lay quiet; frozen with fear between the sheets. I heard her come upstairs and pause on the landing outside my door, with creaking of floorboards. “Please don’t let her come in,” my child’s mind was praying. Came a further creaking of the boards and a low laugh… and I awoke, with that laugh still held in my ears, to find myself back in the present, a grown man, but upstairs in the dark, crouched on the small bed and clutching a handful of counterpane!

As a grown man, I could stand on the chair (which I righted!) and look out of the window without getting on to the ledge. It was nearly morning; the moon had waned and there was nothing to be seen. It was, indeed, that ‘darkest hour.’ I pulled myself together, put on the landing light and went downstairs, nerving myself to enter the front room. There lay Aunt Lucy in her coffin, head returned to face the ceiling; the risus sardonicus, or whatever it might be, had gone and her features were composed.

There was plenty of life in the range fire, and I drew it up to boil water for tea and to fry some eggs. I picked up the books where they had fallen to the floor and put them on the table. After eating I washed myself at the sink and went up the lane for a walk, to see the welcome dawn break over the hills and to enjoy the birds’ chorus.

I was listening to the nine o’clock news on the radio when the undertaker’s men arrived to close the coffin. Not long after, Sefton and some others of the family arrived, and after introductions we preceded the pall bearers into the chapel, where the itinerant preacher was removing his bicycle clips. After a brief service and tribute to Aunt Lucy’s long years of caretaker duty, we marched ahead of the hearse up the village street to the new burial ground beyond the churchyard. Few if any of the villagers were about and none had attended the service; yet curtains twitched and a few heads were looking over the churchyard wall… no doubt wondering if their secrets had gone to the grave with her.

As we walked away leaving her in the ground, a formally dressed young man touched my arm and introduced himself as my aunt’s lawyer. He gave me an ordinary manila envelope addressed in her writing. I undertook to contact him about the will in due course, and he got into his 14 hp Austin and drove off.

I declined Sefton’s invitation and returned to the cottage as I wanted to catch the afternoon train back to Craven Arms and college, if possible. Outside the pub, the landlord was shiftily watering his potted geraniums in the window boxes. He turned reluctantly as I spoke: “I found some notes of my aunt’s concerning the business of folk in the village.” He swallowed hard and eyed my tie-knot. “You may like to tell them that I have burned the lot and that their privacy is respected.” He mumbled something, then—spontaneously—shook my hand and turned away as if in embarrassment. I guessed that at any rate, he and Maisie Bassett would sleep the easier now.

My aunt’s letter was brief and to the point, enclosing a copy of her will. “You have my gift of sight,” she wrote. “Do what you will with it. Meantime you will find in my herb table” (here she gave directions for opening the drawer I had already discovered) “some books—use them as you see fit. If you should care to succeed me as a healer you will find that the villagers will support you because of the great knowledge in these books. My journal will explain that which mystified you as a child and I leave you to do what you think necessary.” In essence, the will itself left the cottage and effects to me if I chose to occupy them, or—if sold—to divide the proceeds between Sefton and myself.

Clearly then, the ‘Journal’ that I had mistaken for an embryo novel, was the one I wanted; so I settled down to read it there and then. As I did so, my hair began to rise.

By this account, my Uncle’s ministry had not been confined to the spiritual plane where the females of his congregation were concerned. Certainly the decisive involvement with that farm lass—a distant relative—had deteriorated from spiritual to physical in remarkably short time; and the undue amount of spiritual guidance given to her alone in the chapel would have aroused suspicion in far less astute a person than Aunt Lucy, who had clearly put her peephole to good use. Her writing grew less and less legible as she vengefully recorded some of their inane utterances and the more sacrilegious aspects of their behavior in the apparent security and privacy of the chapel. She bode her time and thus became aware of the girl’s pregnancy as soon as her husband. Rage almost obliterated her meaning when she wrote of their plans to run away together, and I had a hard time deciphering the scrawl.

Once they had arranged a rendezvous at the chapel gate for a certain evening, she acted with speed and decision. Suffice it to say that along with an appetite for the females of his flock, my uncle liked ‘Welsh cakes,’ those unleavened sweet buns baked in the oven from flour and water. My aunt simply substituted flour made from the roots of Hawthorn (For obvious reasons this identity is incorrect. However, there are well-documented cases where multiple hawthorn scratches—hedging etc—have produced nausea and vertigo) which contain a virulent poison that baking would reduce in toxicity to a general paralytic agent.

Inert as he was; paralyzed, but horribly conscious, she had dragged her offending spouse on a carpet out to the Wash House, humped him upright, then—with the aid of the laundry basket hook and line—upended him, head first, into the water butt. There she left him to drown, upside down, while she returned the carpet to the cottage and swept it clean.

I was so horrified at this ‘confession,’ that I could hardly continue reading.

However, the agitated, eccentric handwriting continued relentlessly to relate how, later that night, the girl had arrived at the chapel gate to rendezvous with my uncle. Aunt Lucy had put a thick sack over her head and dragged her into the Wash House, where a hurricane lamp was lit. The first thing the terrified girl saw when the sack was removed was the flaccid body of her dead lover hanging upside down out of the big sink—his inverted face toward her, eyes staring blankly and hair dripping on to the floor. She had shrieked and fallen in a fit, which had made it easy for Auntie to hoist her similarly into the butt—head first again, to prevent any chance of her getting out even if she revived. Aunt then went off to make a cup of tea, gathering up the girl’s bag of belongings en route. An hour or so later she hoisted the sodden bundle of dead girl out with the basket hook and reunited the lovers in the sink. It seems incredible to me, but she left them there all next day, during which she instituted a search for her missing husband and played the worried wife. Simultaneously the police were looking for the missing girl, and they soon concluded—in the light of local opinion—that the two had run away together. A report of a couple seen boarding an early train to Hereford at Craven Arms seemed to confirm the theory. That night my aunt dug up a portion of her herb garden and buried them both, bags and all beneath the thyme. When the local policeman came with tidings of the ‘Craven Arms couple’ she was placidly hoeing the topsoil around the thyme plants—which (she said) were doing rather badly that year.

(Mr. Cummings paused. We all sat in silence, surprised at the sudden blunt turn of his narrative. With a heavy sigh, he continued…)

I sat down for a long time, thinking over this chronicle of events which—if true—would scandalize Wenlock for years. On the other hand, the protagonists were all dead, with no direct family links remaining; what possible benefit to anyone to stir up a mess of this nature, now? My prospect of catching the afternoon train vanished, for I needed a talk with Sefton: his common-sense would be a lifeline to my somewhat disordered wits.

In the event, we left things as they were and burned the journal. Clearly, if the ground contained remains that could eventually be uncovered, then it was best kept in the family. Sefton turfed over the herb garden, and we let the cottage to his brother-in-law, and then to a cousin. Neither stayed; both moving out soon after arrival, claiming the place was haunted and that they could not stay. Since then we have not even been able to get a local jobber to tend the gardens—word has spread, you see—and they have run wild; the cottage is fast going to ruin, though of course the chapel has remained in use and they keep their path clear. There you have it, gentlemen: the story of the skeletons that literally lurk in our family gardens, if not cupboard.

I had noticed that as Mr. Cummings concluded his narrative, Fr. O’Connor became fidgety and flushed. Now he looked decidedly uncomfortable and exchanged glances with the Rev. Timothy.

“It is embarrassing to say this, Mr. Cummings, and please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not quarrelling with your handling of this matter except in one respect. If they were indeed murdered, then I think you have wronged that couple by doing nothing.” (Rev. Timothy made noises of assent.)

Mr. Cummings looked surprised. “You think we should exhume them, Father?”

“My dear chap, whatever we do, we must at least ensure their rest. See here now, this is no time for sectarian differences; obviously I don’t expect you to share my very real belief in purgatory; but if there is a haunting, and I suppose there must be—from your experiences and from those who won’t stay there—then it’s due to one of two things surely? Either a ‘place memory:’ an emotional crisis recorded at that spot by the couple or your aunt; or else a genuine haunting and their spirits cannot rest. The unusual reason I have found for the latter is lack of proper burial and absolution.”

The old priest leaned forward and patted Mr. Cummings’ hand. “We will go to Longbury, you and I, and when it is dark, we will read the burial service over the ground, after praying for absolution of their sins, eh? If their poor bodies are not there; well, there’s no harm done. If they are buried there, then it may be that we can help them to gain the rest they are seeking.”

Mr. Cummings rose and held out his hand. “Thank you, Father O’Connor. I believe you are right and I should value your company and your help in righting my neglect.”

They duly went, and I can only report what Cummings said subsequently. The cottage has been refurbished and occupied without incident. The Wash House has been demolished and his nephew and family are happily installed.