by Brian John
She gave a little curtsey, and I think she smiled beneath her veil. I invited her to join me for a cup of tea, and to say a little about this memoir of hers -- for I think this “friend” is nothing but a little artifice or conceit -- and she was remarkably forthcoming. We talked of this and that for near two hours, in a perfectly easy fashion. During our conversation, she summarized her narrative for me. Absolutely extraordinary! I must say, my dear Pickersniff, that we might have a very big thing here, if we can just get our hands on it!
The lady courier says that the story ranges right across Europe, and that in order to protect anonymity Mrs Ravenhill has changed the names of people and places. But she admitted to me, on being politely pressed on the matter of authenticity, that several places in Wales feature large in the tale -- with names that are carefully disguised. One, so I gather, is a town called Newport and the other is a mountain that goes by the name of Karren Iggly or some such thing. The tale is truly remarkable, and if it is as fluent and fascinating as the abbreviated verbal narrative given to me by The Woman in Black, it will surely weave a charming web around her readers and leave them trapped and entranced. “But you say this is a memoir, Madam?” said I. “It is a truly fantastical one, in the tradition of the great Gothick tales of years gone by, but with a modern slant to it. Be honest with me if you please -- this is a product of a vivid imagination, is it not?”
“Sir, you do my friend and myself a grave disservice,” she replied. “I give you my word that when you read this narrative from first page to last, you will be reading a true narrative of real events, recalled and described faithfully by the author.”
Then without another word, she rose to her feet, gave another curtsey, and indicated to young Martin with a nod of her head that she would take her leave. She would take no assistance in the hailing of a phaeton, so I kissed her hand, and down the stairs she went. I chanced to look out through the window as she went out into the street, and I saw that she met up with another mature lady, with whom she strode off towards Piccadilly, arm in arm.
I await developments. Get well again as soon as may be, my dear fellow. In truth it would be a fine thing to have you here again in the office, in case any more angry coalmen or exotic ladies in mourning dress come calling. There is too much blackness about for me to cope with all alone.
I send fond greetings to your good lady, and remain your dear friend
Jebson
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Russell Square
June the 7th 1858
My dear good friend,
Thank you indeed for your kind felicitations and for your encouragement for me to return to the rudest of health as soon as God may permit it. In his infinite wisdom He has decreed that Dr Abraham’s Patent Lemon and Balsam Medicament should work miracles for other gentlemen but should do nothing whatsoever in the calming of my own troubled breast. I am therefore still confined to bed with a horrid cough and a fevered brow, and fear that it will be some days yet before I can return to work. In the meantime, I advise you to lay in cudgels and a few bottles of unpretentious wine so as to deal with irate coalmen and exotic tellers of tall tales.
In all seriousness, my dear fellow, things are not looking too good. I fished out the ledger from beneath my bed and discovered that we have thus far paid only for parts one to five of “Mystery of the Flaming Galleon”, and that parts six to fourteen are still to be paid for. If Gobbings calls again, or sends round his attorney, for God’s sake convince him that parts fifteen to twenty must be printed, if we are to prevent revolution and mayhem; that the eager reading public is more and more absorbed with the mystery as week succeeds week; and that when the full book is published there will be fortunes to be made by all three of us -- Gobbings, Pickersniff and Jebson. Tell him that the word among both critics and publishing gentlemen of discernment is that sales will be truly enormous! I fear that I do not believe a word of that myself, and I suppose that neither do you; but when the wolves are at the door some small exaggeration is required if one is to encourage them to go away. I confess to feeling somewhat depressed with regard to our prospects, my dear old friend. But one must battle on, must one not?
Now then, to this exotic lady and her fanciful memoir called “The Ghost of Inglestone”. Is there anything further to report? Why should her book be any better than the dross which pours in, week after week, from aspiring novelists, and which washes across our office floor? It would indeed be a miracle if her memoir was to be the very thing to rescue us from penury. But there have been miracles before, as the Good Book assures us.
By the way, Newport I know about. A big sea-port, so I believe, with coal and iron coming and going, and dark and dismal streets where dastardly deeds are probably commonplace. A good place for a novel, if I am not mistaken. Next, this peak you call Karren Iggli. Is it a place of beetling crags, swirling mists and tumbling glaciers and snowfields, where sturdy mountaineers faint with terror and disappear without trace, and where fearsome demons or monsters lurk? Is the Abominable Snowman stamping about across the pages? If so, I suppose we are in with a chance of giving the modern reader what he or she wants.
Grateful thanks for the currant cake, which I shall consume when I am better. My beloved Ellen sends her kindest regards, as do I.
Your old friend
Pickersniff
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Bow Street
The 14th day of June, year of our Lord 1858
My dear Pickersniff
I have more news for you, and I trust this finds you in your convalescent wicker chair in the garden rather than in your sick bed.
The coal-man and his two friends from Merthyr Tydfil came for their money, so I paid him £8 on account, and gave each of them a glass of red wine. That seemed like a more sensible strategy than defending myself with a cudgel, as I hope you will agree. While we were chatting amiably, who should come knocking on the door than my aspiring author! My clerk Martin let her in, and -- blow me down with a breeze -- when she was introduced to those thugs from South Wales she forgot all about her mourning, lifted her veil and started chatting to them nineteen to the dozen, in Welsh, just as if they were all lifelong friends! Perhaps they were, for she called them Twm and Ianto. I had no idea what it was all about, but very soon they were rolling about and hooting with laughter. It was very infectious, and I admit to having a giggle myself. The lady was kind enough to explain, after they had gone, that they were reminiscing about good old times.
With the return of sobriety, I noticed what a handsome woman Mrs Ravenhill is. (I shall call her that, although she still claims that she is someone else, and is acting as an agent for our mysterious author.) She has the most beautiful brown eyes, a straight nose and lips that are still full in spite of her age. Her high cheek-bones and a ruddy complexion suggest a liking for the fresh air and sunshine. Her brown hair has a touch of grey in it. She has her fair share of wrinkles, but I estimate that they are more to do with laughter than with sadness, and I declare that I cannot for the life of me decide whether she is a lady who has seen and done everything in her sixty years, or a lady who is remarkably well preserved at eighty. It matters not, my dear fellow; I judge that she has a good deal of life left in her yet, and that is an important consideration if she is to be our next big author. She seems to know London very well, and to have good connections. To tell the truth, I have more faith in this dear lady than I do in Mrs Gaskell.
Apologies, Samuel. I ramble on, and must get to the point. Mrs Ravenhill did not stay long. She left me a bundle, and took her leave, having promised to return in one week. So now I have the manuscript in my possession. On the first page these words are inscribed: “The Ghost of Inglestone: Being the memoir of a phantom or lost soul whose destiny it is to wander the earth and to find redemption for a wicked life through the completion of good works, the prevention of evil and the saving of that which is sacred.” A strange title, and somewhat pretentious, don’t you thi
nk? We can probably advise her of the merits of something shorter.
However and notwithstanding, it is an unusual pleasure to be given something complete, instead of receiving a few pages at a time, for our next weekly episode, from some aspiring author who probably has not the faintest idea how his story is going to end. I am truly tired of penny dreadfuls and turgid episodes of “Mystery of the Flaming Galleon”, and long for a good tale, well told, fit to make us a fortune. As I have indicated, I know the outline of this dear lady’s tale already. All I need now is good writing.
I will read the tale, and report to you again in some days. On the matter of tumbling glaciers and fearsome demons at the heart of the narrative, I am at present uncertain; but you may rest assured that I will look out for them.
I remain
Your ever faithful friend
Jebson
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Russell Square
16th day of June 1858
My Dear Jebson
I have received your narrative of laughing coalmen and the beautiful old lady -- I am truly glad to see that you are bearing up well in spite of the fact that we still face a financial disaster. I wish I could share your eternal optimism, my dear fellow. As for me, optimism does not come easily just now, since my doctor has just told me the dismal news that this bother on my chest has turned into pneumonia. I wish that I was younger and stronger. So I fear that I am out of action for a good while yet -- a matter of great regret to me, in view of the hard times that are upon us and because a great weight is now pressed upon your shoulders alone.
I declare that your mysterious lady author has made a profound impression upon you! Beware, Master Jebson! An old bachelor like you should look to his laurels. You always did have a tendency to be swept away by a shapely figure, a flashing smile and a furtive glance. I see bunches of red roses coming on. However, I will not complain so long as you retain objectivity in all things, especially when it comes to publishing decisions; and I trust that when you read this lady’s manuscript, you will see before you her words rather than her brown eyes.............
Now Ellen tells me that I must sleep, and I always obey instructions
Your dear friend
Pickersniff
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Bow Street, on the 22nd day of June 1858
Dearest Pickersniff,
I received news of your deteriorated condition from our lad Martin, and also from your beloved Ellen when she called in at the office this very morning, and I write this with a heavy heart. I am mortified that no visitors are allowed to your sick room, for I was intent upon calling in to see you with a little box of things designed to bring you good cheer, and a manuscript for you to read. But you must remain brave, my good fellow, and hold to the belief that the great advances in medical science that mark our era will shortly enable you to cast off the shadow of that dismal disease and turn the corner into a bright new day and a full recovery. You have in Doctor Snugget a skillful and wise practitioner, and I have it on the soundest authority that there is no better man on this side of the Thames.
Now then, news to cheer you and to speed you to a full recovery. Mrs Susanna Ravenhill is the woman who holds our future in her hands! I have no doubt about it. She writes good English, and her tale is even more remarkable than I had perceived from that conversation of some weeks back. I know, my dear old friend, that your instinct has always been to find a genius of tender years who will write us a never-ending stream of episodes and a three-part novel each year for the next twenty years; but bright young things such as Miss Austen and the Bronte sisters tend not to reproduce, and to die young. Then I know that your instinct tends towards the Gothick. I fear that on that score I must disappoint you, since there appears not to be a trace of a dragon or a demon, or a glacier or a sturdy mountaineer, in the narrative which I have recently perused; neither is there an insane murderer on the loose, or a ravished heroine, or a vampire desperate for the blood of virgins. But never fear -- there are many compensatory virtues in this tale, and in any case it is my judgement that the taste for Gothick nonsense is now greatly reduced. Is that not shown already by the success of the tales of Mr Dickens, Mr Collins and others who write about poverty, injustice and strange and convoluted family histories? They may fill their books with caricatures, but they know how to spin their yarns and to weave pretty tales, and it is our misfortune that we have no such writer on our publication list.
But now all that is about to change, my dear fellow. I feel it in my creaky old bones................
Damnation! I was about to elaborate. But young Martin tells me that that fellow Gobbings is at the door again, with a countenance as black as thunder. I will get out the best bottle of red wine I can find, and try to placate him. I will send this off to you with a view to bringing you a little comfort; and I will continue my hopeful narrative later.
Take care, my dear old friend, and hurry along to a full and speedy recovery. I need you to be well again. I recommend a slice of that moist currant cake, which is now mature enough to have reached perfection. Give my kindest regards to your beloved Ellen.
Your ever affectionate
Jebson
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That is where the correspondence stopped. When I reached the last words of the gentle Jebson, I was just beginning to develop a real affection for him and his ailing friend, and to become more than a little involved in their struggle to keep their ancient publishing house afloat far out in a sea of troubles. I was irritated that I had no further news of Pickersniff’s illness, or of Mrs Ravenhill’s narrative, or of the further twists and turns in the fortunes of the Pickersniff and Jebson publishing enterprise. So I rang Carol on her mobile phone, to find that she was still packing up books and dusty piles of documents in the office in Gabriel Lane.
I thanked her for the copied bundle of letters, and confirmed that I had read them and become quite attached to these elderly gentlemen from another age. “Was that all the correspondence that passed between them?” I asked. “It’s frustrating that it all stops, just as it’s getting interesting......”
“That’s all there is,” said Carol. “When I read it myself, I was just as hacked off when I could find no more letters from either gentleman. Then I did some digging about, and discovered why. When James Jebson wrote his last letter, on the afternoon of 22nd June, poor Samuel Pickersniff was already dead. I found an Obituary in The Times. In his letters he clearly didn’t want to admit how seriousness his illness really was. He must have gone downhill very fast towards the end, and he died around mid-day, with his devoted wife Ellen at his side.”
“Oh, what a sad tale! That’s really terrible...........”
“I know. I shed a tear when I discovered the truth too. I admit that like you I’ve grown very fond of this eccentric little publishing house and the colourful gentlemen who tried to pay their bills and keep up some sort of publication programme that would tickle the fancy of the reading public. I think the two old fellows really loved one another, and from what I can see of the early days of their business they worked very well together and made a good living for almost fifty years. But by 1858 their debts were too large for them to survive.”
“So bankruptcy followed, and the business fell apart?”
“After Pickersniff’s death, Jebson seems to have become very dispirited,” said Carol. “As an honourable man, he didn’t want the company to become bankrupt, so he tried to sell out to another publisher. He did a deal with Hyde Park Publishers, which included a guarantee that all creditors would be paid in full. So Gobbings the printer, and the coalman from Merthyr Tydfil, and everybody else, got the money that was owing to them. Hyde Park finished publishing the serialized Mystery of the Flaming Galleon, but it was rubbish. Sales figures were mediocre, and it never appeared in book form. Then Hyde Park Publishers itself fell upon hard times, and the bosses shut up the office in Gabriel Lane with a view to reop
ening it for the publication of illustrated magazines when matters improved.”
“And matters never did improve?”
“Well, they did, and Hyde Park went on the become one of the greatest publishers in London. But the men in charge were very busy and ambitious. Some editors left and others came to take their places, and somehow or other the Gabriel Lane office was forgotten about. Rent was coming in from the other offices in the building, which was after all a pretty good capital asset. From the company’s point of view, the situation was stable, and quite satisfactory.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment; it felt to me as if we were both mourning for something special, something lost. Then Carol, who was a very pragmatic and efficient young lady, reminded me why it was that we had started talking in the first place. “Don’t you wonder what happened to Mrs Ravenhill and her memoir?” she asked.
“Of course I do. Have you found anything else in your searches through cupboards and along shelves?”
“Not yet. There are boxes galore of unpublished manuscripts in the office. I’ve no idea whether The Ghost of Inglestone might be among them. It’s quite possible that the strange Welsh lady came and collected her manuscript following Pickersniff’s death, when she realized that her chosen publisher was about to cease trading. She might have called in and might indeed have had further chats with Mr Jebson -- but there’s no trace of such meetings in his appointment books or papers for the months following the death of his old friend.”
“Well, that might be a good sign,” I concluded. “Maybe she went back to Wales, or died, or lost interest. Whatever the truth of the matter may be, the manuscript may still be there!”
“Now it’s you who’s bubbling with enthusiasm! So what happened to your scepticism?”
“Shall we say that it’s still there, but in the background. I’m rather attracted by the sad tale of these two old gentlemen, and fancy a trip to London so that I can see for myself where their little drama was played out. May I call in and help you with your task of hunting for treasures and throwing away rubbish?”