THEY RETURN AT EVENING
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Humour is also used to good effect in the early stages of 'The Seventeenth Hole at Duncaster', before the true horror begins. The Colonel, with whom Mr Baxter plays a round of golf, is described as serving the game 'with an even more fanatical devotion than he had served his King. He was a jolly old maniac with a handicap of sixteen and a style of his own.' As the round progresses, he collects 'much fine sand in various portions of his attire', and as they approach the seventeenth the Colonel is 'in the rough on the right, an alliterative position he usually occupied. He played his fourth — one of the few properly struck golf shots of his existence — dead on the pin.' When he finds that his ball is not on the green, but rather dozing behind a tree, he makes 'robust use of an expletive much favoured by the gallant men he had once had the honour of commanding'.
The touches of humour throughout the stories make the horror, when it comes, even more intense, and it is to Wakefield's credit that, in these early stories, he does not spell out the horror in gruesome detail: like James, he prefers to leave most of it to the reader's imagination. From 'The Seventeenth Hole at Duncaster':
Cyril Ward was lying on his back, his eyes wide, staring, and horrible — obviously dead.
Amongst those who came up was the local doctor, who knelt down and made a short examination. 'Must be heart. I believe he had a weakness there, poor Cyril!' Mr Baxter helped to carry the body back to the Dormy House; his burden was Cyril's left leg, a disgusting dangling thing . . .
'Will an inquest be necessary?' he asked the doctor.
'I think not; it's clearly a case of heart.'
'Did you notice his eyes?' asked the secretary.
The doctor gave him a quick glance. 'I did,' he replied, 'but these attacks are often very painful.'
Later in the story, when the dead body of Sybil Grant is found, Wakefield is equally reticent:
It was white, and someone was kneeling over it. When he saw what it was he was suddenly and violently sick. It was flung down the bank, it was naked, its head was lolling hideously. It was sprawling, one knee flung high, its face — but someone covered that face with his coat and told Mr Baxter to go for the doctor.
One of the best stories in this collection, the undeservedly overlooked '"And He Shall Sing . . ."', also demonstrates how such reticence is used to good effect. I will not give the game away: suffice it to say that it is the equal of any of the more anthologised tales in the book, and that Wakefield knows better than to explain too much. The ambience of a publishing-house in the 1920s, so effectively depicted, is obviously taken from Wakefield's own experience, and gives the tale a foundation of day-to-day normality, upon which the supernatural gradually intrudes. Like James, Wakefield realised that the more mundane the beginning of a story, the more terrifying the supernatural elements would appear when at last they took their place at centre-stage.
Were the malevolence of spectres, revenants, and demons to be the yardstick by which to judge writers of supernatural tales, then Wakefield and James would be at the top of the list, with little to separate them. Wakefield's ghosts, like James's, show no quarter: they are pure evil, and no gentle spirits need apply. Those who like ghost stories that send a shiver up the spine, and which are best not read at night, will find much to savour in They Return at Evening. A word of warning: read the book in a well-lit room. You will be glad you did.
Barbara Roden
Penyffordd
August 1995
Preface to the Second Edition
IT IS NOT, I THINK, an understatement to claim that H. R. Wakefield's 1928 collection They Return at Evening is one of the cornerstone works of supernatural fiction. The fact that between its original publication and the first Ash-Tree Press edition (published in 1995) the book had not been reprinted in full is little short of astonishing. It's true that many of the stories contained in the volume have been widely anthologised, and featured in the two Jonathan Cape `Florin Books' collections of Wakefield's stories (published in 1932 and 1935); but the absence of They Return struck us as a glaring omission, one which we were pleased and happy to rectify.
One difficulty we faced was the paucity of detail about Wakefield's life. The author had famously (or infamously) burned his papers shortly before his death in 1964, and, having agreed to introduce all five of his volumes of supernatural tales, I realised that I would soon run out of things to say about him. It was thus decided that each introduction would contain the known facts of Wakefield's life up to the date of original publication of the volume in question, and would then concentrate on the stories themselves. Fortunately, soon after we published They Return we were put in touch with Wakefield's niece, Eirene Beck, who was able to supply a good deal of fascinating information about her somewhat difficult uncle. This information was included in subsequent Wakefield volumes; and I have therefore decided to leave my original introduction untouched, reflecting as it does what was known about the author in 1995.
Of course, in 1999 an even greater discovery was made: seventeen previously unpublished Wakefield stories, subsequently published as Reunion at Dawn (which I thought made a nice parallel with the title of his first collection; a closure, if you will). That book was published in 2000, and I (somewhat sadly) bid adieu to Herbert Russell Wakefield; this despite his undoubted faults, some of which manifest themselves in his stories. However, it is necessary to separate the author from his or her work, and realise that although, as a person, one might not wish to be in the author's company at a party for any length of time, it is possible to appreciate his or her writing, and even enjoy it, without agreeing with, or at least endorsing, every sentiment expressed or every action taken.
Having said that I have left my original introduction untouched, I must discuss one point. I wrote that the 'accomplished, elegant, and assured' effort which is 'The Red Lodge' was Wakefield's first ghost story, an assertion which is almost certainly incorrect. Relatively few of Wakefield's stories — particularly so early in his career — appeared in magazine format prior to their book publication; a marked contrast with such contemporaries as A. M. Burrage and E. F. Benson. Wakefield, as a bookman himself, may well have looked down upon magazines as not being as permanent, and therefore worthy, as proper books; he had also, in 1928, had a successful first novel (Gallimaufry) published, and might have felt that that was the only introduction his collection of ghostly tales needed. Whatever the reason, only two of the stories in They Return at Evening have been traced back (by the indefatigable Jack Adrian) to a prior publication: 'Or Persons Unknown' appeared in Hutchinson's Adventure & Mystery Magazine in January 1928, while 'Professor Pownall's Oversight' appeared in the Royal Magazine (as 'The Unseen Player') in March 1928. The incident which inspired Wakefield to write 'The Red Lodge' occurred in 1917, and he may well have written the story before the others in the book; but unless an earlier magazine publication can be confirmed, it was not his first published story.
It was, however, the first Wakefield story I ever read, and its popularity amongst anthologisers means that it is probably many readers' introduction to the author. I encountered it in More Tales to Tremble By at the age of nine, and well remember shivering over it in the kitchen of my paternal grandparents' house in Toronto; an old farmhouse located beside a cemetery. As I sat at the kitchen table in the dim light of a December evening, all too conscious of what was on the other side of the fence which enclosed the property, I thrilled to the story and its atmosphere of menace, of strangeness, of something other breaking through into the seemingly comfortable world of the protagonist and his family. Surely there are few closing lines in supernatural fiction as apt, as evocative, and as terrifying as the final line of this tale. I envy readers coming to it for the first time; and am pleased that we are able to make this story, and the collection of which it is one of the crown jewels, available once more.
Barbara Roden
April 2005
They Return
at Evening
That Dieth Not
Part I
WELL, THAT’S OVER! I expected an ordeal and found almost a farce. There is something to be said for being a Local Notable. For example, deferential condolences and preferential treatment (and no awkward questions) from the Coroner when one's wife is found dead at the bottom of the steps into the garden. With what censorious disdain old Weldon brushed aside the curiosity of Mr Trench Senior! Now I have prosecuted Trench Junior for poaching three times; consequently Trench Senior does not love me. So I was none too pleased to see him on the Jury. I knew he would be nasty if he saw a chance, and he asked a very nasty and intelligent question. For if she had tripped on the top steps I doubt if she would have fallen so far, and if she had slipped lower down, why such shattering injury? Why indeed! You didn't deserve such a pulverising rebuke, Mr Trench, but I'm very glad you got it!
And now that it is all over I can reflect without anxiety. Reflect that I am a murderer and, as such, if I got my deserts, a doomed and execrated pariah. No more loose generalisation was ever made than that whoever commits adultery — and, of course, any other sin or crime — in his heart, is guilty of that offence. Every man of imagination who is tempted commits sins in his heart as often as he is tempted, but not one in ten thousand commits them with his hand. Myriads of men must have played with the idea of killing their wives, but I killed mine. Is there no difference? Consult the Shade of Ethel! No, I realise perfectly that I possess a kink which should have resulted in a six-foot drop. That I might never kill again, and that it was only by an acute combination of circumstances that I did so once, is beside the point.
A murderer should die — if he is sane and sober and selfish.
And am I so sure I could never commit another? I am not so sure. I have no remorse. There might be something to be said for a murderer who bitterly repents (though I'd hang him), but as for me — why shouldn't I murder again if someone again drove me to such an extremity of exasperation?
I rehearse all this — why and to whom? Why, because, murderer though I am, I feel compelled to tell the story of this repulsive episode impartially, and so rid my mind of it and, perhaps, forget it, for murderer though I am, otherwise I believe myself to be reasonably decent and civilised, and I want to see what sort of defence I can muster. And to whom do I address myself? Well, it has long been a theory of mine — more than that, a profound conviction — that the minds of men are far more complex, bifurcated, and stratified than is generally accepted or perceived. There is more than one 'I' pervading my consciousness. There is the 'I', the murderer, who is sitting here recalling, sifting, and writing down. 'I' number one, let us call him; but there is also 'I' number two, who is compelled to observe 'I' number one. It has been suggested that there is also a 'number three' watching 'number two', and so on ad infinitum. It may be so, but for me there is a limit set to the terms in the series, and it is fixed at 'number two'. I often feel compelled to explain to him the actions of 'number one', though I do not feel he is or wants to be a judge, but just an aloofly interested spectator; in no sense a 'conscience', but poised in another layer of consciousness. It is with such vague precision that this duality works in me. And I want to explain to this watcher just how I came to kill Ethel. He may or may not be particularly interested, but he is in the unfortunate position of being compelled to listen!
* * * * *
I was thirty-one, wanting an heir, an ingenuous lover of beauty, and Ethel was certainly beautiful, and, I thought, a destined mother of robust children. That is why I proposed to her. I am wealthy, 'a prominent local figure'; Ethel had an allowance of £40 a year — that is why she accepted me. She was highly intelligent in a debased feminine way, and she never used her brains to better purpose than in her behaviour to me during our engagement. A lovely piece of acting! Quite flawless. Such a lover of the country, adoring children, so docile, unselfish, and interested in everything which interested me! What a treasure I believed I was about to acquire! Before the end of our honeymoon I began desperately to doubt it. She let me know quite uncompromisingly that she intended to 'social push' with vigour and success. Now I am by nature a recluse, a detester of crowds, a loather of London: I make friends slowly and doubtingly, though most firmly now and again. But I flinch from 'acquaintances' and the claims upon one's time and nerves they entail. It was, therefore, with incredulous dismay that I discovered Ethel was determined that we should spend six months in London and three months in fashionable resorts, and that I was to spend those six months playing the sedulous host and involving myself in an incessant spate of fatuous entertainment. When I had somewhat absorbed this shock I told her that it was the tradition in my family personally to look after the estate during most of the year, that I must work very hard if my book on 'The Future of the Novel as an Art Form' was to be ready in time, that I wanted children, and that her programme was impossible. And then I had my first taste of that most wicked temper. Had I faced up to it and fought her, I believe I could have gained a precarious victory, but it was so horrible, so disgusting and intolerable that I gave way. It was a fatal blunder, for she then knew she possessed a most potent weapon against me. I did not capitulate unconditionally, but I felt exasperatedly certain that I should have to renew the battle before I should be able to enforce my side of the bargain.
Well, I agreed to do what she wanted for one year; to take a house in London for the Season and a Villa on the Riviera for the winter. I should have considered this quite reasonable if she had not been granted every opportunity before our marriage to understand what sort of person I am; and if she had not so cunningly and wickedly concealed from me what manner of woman she was. And though it is very plausible to say that my love for her should have made me delighted to please her, that is really vast rubbish, for the deep, dominating characteristics of a man's temperament can never be changed, while one can love and cease to love and love again.
Though it caused my vitality to droop and drain, I fulfilled my part of the contract. I took a monstrosity in Bruton Street, gave four huge parties, attended dozens of other huge parties, was forced to carry on disjointed chat through Tristan in a box, sit through Rigoletto in a stall, and poison my system in Night Clubs; so learning to despise humanity — or rather that brand of it — as no man should be taught. Had I possessed a constitution which would have allowed me to drink my critical sense to drowsing point, I might have tolerated such a régime, but, unfortunately, my grandfather had mortgaged the family liver.
As I withered Ethel bloomed. Her polluted sense of values and her intense social vanity made her revel in this frenetic round of snobbery, this eternal return of jostling, aimless futility.
I was not a success. My temperament nipped me below the armpits and dragged me round, the skeleton at the feast, though I never caused any awed hush to fall upon the assembly.
'Arthur, I do wish you'd make an effort to seem to enjoy things,' Ethel once said. 'The other night I overheard George Willard say that you were the World's Worst Flat-tyre at a party. It makes me feel so ashamed and embarrassed.'
'Do you think I care what that chinless, brainless, Bateman-drawing thinks about me?' I replied, knowing I was a fool to argue.
'Well, he's the son of a Duke,' said Ethel; 'and what do you mean by a "Bateman-drawing"?'
'Oh, he was a pupil of Rembrandt,' I replied inanely.
'You pretend to know all about Art, but the other day, when Lady Frowse was trying to discuss the Academy with you, you looked absolutely "gaga".'
'Lady Frowse,' I replied, 'was quoting verbatim from the notice in The Times, which, unfortunately, I had already read.'
Then Ascot, jostle, clothes, and equine interludes — then Cowes, jostle, different clothes, and the occasional belching of a decrepit cannon. And then Ethel went off to twitter in butts, and I, thank God, to Paradown and peace.
I made good progress with my book; my intense feeling of release fortunately stimulating my creative energy. I had also plenty of time to think, though nothing very pleasant to think about. I had the most bitt
er and smarting self-contempt. To think that I could have been such an utter flaming fool as to have ruined my life by a fatuous idealisation of a certain fortuitous combination of pigment, cuticle — and the way the blood shone through it, hair — and the way the light caught it, bones — and the way their envelope draped round them. A perilous privilege, 'a sense of beauty'. But had I ruined it? I considered the chances. Ethel was perfectly happy, rapidly stabilising her position amongst the Right People, with my cheque book as her entrenching tool and her temper to animate my fountain pen, with her beauty and her sexlessness and her unscrupulousness to get what she wanted from men and to keep her from ever repaying the debt. What a way to think about one's wife! Humbug! There was no other way to think about her. No, there would be no co-respondent to encourage and supplicate! And I could do nothing, unless I refused to fill my fountain pen, and I could not do that, for I had only myself to blame, and I was ready to blame myself. At present I could see no hope.
I lived a life of extreme asceticism, feeling feebly that by so doing I was defying and rejecting Ethel. Once I had been fool enough to regard women as mentally almost indistinguishable, and it had been merely by the physical criterion I had separated one from another in my mind. Now that I had been taught to despise the dangerous deceptiveness of eyes and breasts, colouring and curves and all those superficial stimulants which excite the featherless biped man to idealise the featherless biped woman, I realised what I should have known a year before — that I could only love someone with a mind I could respect. 'What care I how fair she be, if she's naught but fair to me?'