The M.R. James Megapack

by M. R. James

  “‘Have you the keys of these things, Mrs. Maple?’ said Uncle Oldys. His simple words let loose a torrent (not violent, but copious) of speech: had she been a shade or two higher in the social scale, Mrs. Maple might have stood as the model for Miss Bates.

  “‘Oh, Doctor, and Miss, and you too, sir,’ she said, acknowledging my presence with a bend, ‘them keys! who was that again that come when first we took over things in this house—a gentleman in business it was, and I gave him his luncheon in the small parlour on account of us not having everything as we should like to see it in the large one—chicken, and apple-pie, and a glass of madeira—dear, dear, you’ll say I’m running on, Miss Mary; but I only mention it to bring back my recollection; and there it comes—Gardner, just the same as it did last week with the artichokes and the text of the sermon. Now that Mr. Gardner, every key I got from him were labelled to itself, and each and every one was a key of some door or another in this house, and sometimes two; and when I say door, my meaning is door of a room, not like such a press as this is. Yes, Miss Mary, I know full well, and I’m just making it clear to your uncle and you too, sir. But now there was a box which this same gentleman he give over into my charge, and thinking no harm after he was gone I took the liberty, knowing it was your uncle’s property, to rattle it: and unless I’m most surprisingly deceived, in that box there was keys, but what keys, that, Doctor, is known Elsewhere, for open the box, no that I would not do.’

  “I wondered that Uncle Oldys remained as quiet as he did under this address. Mary, I knew, was amused by it, and he probably had been taught by experience that it was useless to break in upon it. At any rate he did not, but merely said at the end, ‘Have you that box handy, Mrs. Maple? If so, you might bring it here.’ Mrs. Maple pointed her finger at him, either in accusation or in gloomy triumph. ‘There,’ she said, ‘was I to choose out the very words out of your mouth, Doctor, them would be the ones. And if I’ve took it to my own rebuke one half-a-dozen times, it’s been nearer fifty. Laid awake I have in my bed, sat down in my chair I have, the same you and Miss Mary gave me the day I was twenty year in your service, and no person could desire a better—yes, Miss Mary, but it is the truth, and well we know who it is would have it different if he could. “All very well,” says I to myself, “but pray, when the Doctor calls you to account for that box, what are you going to say?” No, Doctor, if you was some masters I’ve heard of and I was some servants I could name, I should have an easy task before me, but things being, humanly speaking, what they are, the one course open to me is just to say to you that without Miss Mary comes to my room and helps me to my recollection, which her wits may manage what’s slipped beyond mine, no such box as that, small though it be, will cross your eyes this many a day to come.’

  “‘Why, dear Mrs. Maple, why didn’t you tell me before that you wanted me to help you to find it?’ said my Mary. ‘No, never mind telling me why it was: let us come at once and look for it.’ They hastened off together. I could hear Mrs. Maple beginning an explanation which, I doubt not, lasted into the furthest recesses of the housekeeper’s department. Uncle Oldys and I were left alone. ‘A valuable servant,’ he said, nodding towards the door. ‘Nothing goes wrong under her: the speeches are seldom over three minutes.’ ‘How will Miss Oldys manage to make her remember about the box?’ I asked.

  “‘Mary? Oh, she’ll make her sit down and ask her about her aunt’s last illness, or who gave her the china dog on the mantel-piece—something quite off the point. Then, as Maple says, one thing brings up another, and the right one will come round sooner than you could suppose. There! I believe I hear them coming back already.’

  “It was indeed so, and Mrs. Maple was hurrying on ahead of Mary with the box in her outstretched hand, and a beaming face. ‘What was it,’ she cried as she drew near, ‘what was it as I said, before ever I come out of Dorsetshire to this place? Not that I’m a Dorset woman myself, nor had need to be. “Safe bind, safe find,” and there it was in the place where I’d put it—what?—two months back, I daresay.’ She handed it to Uncle Oldys, and he and I examined it with some interest, so that I ceased to pay attention to Mrs. Ann Maple for the moment, though I know that she went on to expound exactly where the box had been, and in what way Mary had helped to refresh her memory on the subject.

  “It was an oldish box, tied with pink tape and sealed, and on the lid was pasted a label inscribed in old ink, ‘The Senior Prebendary’s House, Whitminster.’ On being opened it was found to contain two keys of moderate size, and a paper, on which, in the same hand as the label, was ‘Keys of the Press and Box of Drawers standing in the disused Chamber.’ Also this: ‘The Effects in this Press and Box are held by me, and to be held by my successors in the Residence, in trust for the noble Family of Kildonan, if claim be made by any survivor of it. I having made all the Enquiry possible to myself am of the opinion that that noble House is wholly extinct: the last Earl having been, as is notorious, cast away at sea, and his only Child and Heire deceas’d in my House (the Papers as to which melancholy Casualty were by me repos’d in the same Press in this year of our Lord 1753, 21 March). I am further of opinion that unless grave discomfort arise, such persons, not being of the Family of Kildonan, as shall become possess’d of these keys, will be well advised to leave matters as they are: which opinion I do not express without weighty and sufficient reason; and am Happy to have my Judgment confirm’d by the other Members of this College and Church who are conversant with the Events referr’d to in this Paper. Tho. Ashton, S.T.P., Præb. senr. Will. Blake, S.T.P., Decanus. Hen. Goodman, S.T.B.,Præb. junr.’

  “‘Ah!’ said Uncle Oldys, ‘grave discomfort! So he thought there might be something. I suspect it was that young man,’ he went on, pointing with the key to the line about the ‘only Child and Heire.’ ‘Eh, Mary? The viscounty of Kildonan was Saul.’ ‘How do you know that, Uncle?’ said Mary. ‘Oh, why not? it’s all in Debrett—two little fat books. But I meant the tomb by the lime walk. He’s there. What’s the story, I wonder? Do you know it, Mrs. Maple? and, by the way, look at your sawflies by the window there.’

  “Mrs. Maple, thus confronted with two subjects at once, was a little put to it to do justice to both. It was no doubt rash in Uncle Oldys to give her the opportunity. I could only guess that he had some slight hesitation about using the key he held in his hand.

  “‘Oh them flies, how bad they was, Doctor and Miss, this three or four days: and you, too, sir, you wouldn’t guess, none of you! And how they come, too! First we took the room in hand, the shutters was up, and had been, I daresay, years upon years, and not a fly to be seen. Then we got the shutter bars down with a deal of trouble and left it so for the day, and next day I sent Susan in with the broom to sweep about, and not two minutes hadn’t passed when out she come into the hall like a blind thing, and we had regular to beat them off her. Why her cap and her hair, you couldn’t see the colour of it, I do assure you, and all clustering round her eyes, too. Fortunate enough she’s not a girl with fancies, else if it had been me, why only the tickling of the nasty things would have drove me out of my wits. And now there they lay like so many dead things. Well, they was lively enough on the Monday, and now here’s Thursday, is it, or no, Friday. Only to come near the door and you’d hear them pattering up against it, and once you opened it, dash at you, they would, as if they’d eat you. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “If you was bats, where should we be this night?” Nor you can’t cresh ’em, not like a usual kind of a fly. Well, there’s something to be thankful for, if we could but learn by it. And then this tomb, too,’ she said, hastening on to her second point to elude any chance of interruption, ‘of them two poor young lads. I say poor, and yet when I recollect myself, I was at tea with Mrs. Simpkins, the sexton’s wife, before you come, Doctor and Miss Mary, and that’s a family has been in the place, what? I daresay a hundred years in that very house, and could put their hand on any tomb or yet grave in all the yard and give you name and age. And his account of t
hat young man, Mr. Simpkins’s I mean to say—well!’ She compressed her lips and nodded several times. ‘Tell us, Mrs. Maple,’ said Mary. ‘Go on,’ said Uncle Oldys. ‘What about him?’ said I. ‘Never was such a thing seen in this place, not since Queen Mary’s times and the Pope and all,’ said Mrs. Maple. ‘Why, do you know he lived in this very house, him and them that was with him, and for all I can tell in this identical room’ (she shifted her feet uneasily on the floor). ‘Who was with him? Do you mean the people of the house?’ said Uncle Oldys suspiciously. ‘Not to call people, Doctor, dear no,’ was the answer; ‘more what he brought with him from Ireland, I believe it was. No, the people in the house was the last to hear anything of his goings-on. But in the town not a family but knew how he stopped out at night: and them that was with him, why they were such as would strip the skin from the child in its grave; and a withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost, says Mr. Simpkins. But they turned on him at the last, he says, and there’s the mark still to be seen on the minster door where they run him down. And that’s no more than the truth, for I got him to show it to myself, and that’s what he said. A lord he was, with a Bible name of a wicked king, whatever his godfathers could have been thinking of.’ ‘Saul was the name,’ said Uncle Oldys. ‘To be sure it was Saul, Doctor, and thank you; and now isn’t it King Saul that we read of raising up the dead ghost that was slumbering in its tomb till he disturbed it, and isn’t that a strange thing, this young lord to have such a name, and Mr. Simpkins’s grandfather to see him out of his window of a dark night going about from one grave to another in the yard with a candle, and them that was with him following through the grass at his heels: and one night him to come right up to old Mr. Simpkins’s window that gives on the yard and press his face up against it to find out if there was any one in the room that could see him: and only just time there was for old Mr. Simpkins to drop down like, quiet, just under the window and hold his breath, and not stir till he heard him stepping away again, and this rustling-like in the grass after him as he went, and then when he looked out of his window in the morning there was treadings in the grass and a dead man’s bone. Oh, he was a cruel child for certain, but he had to pay in the end, and after.’ ‘After?’ said Uncle Oldys, with a frown. ‘Oh yes, Doctor, night after night in old Mr. Simpkins’s time, and his son, that’s our Mr. Simpkins’s father, yes, and our own Mr. Simpkins too. Up against that same window, particular when they’ve had a fire of a chilly evening, with his face right on the panes, and his hands fluttering out, and his mouth open and shut, open and shut, for a minute or more, and then gone off in the dark yard. But open the window at such times, no, that they dare not do, though they could find it in their heart to pity the poor thing, that pinched up with the cold, and seemingly fading away to a nothink as the years passed on. Well, indeed, I believe it is no more than the truth what our Mr. Simpkins says on his own grandfather’s word, “A withered heart makes an ugly thin ghost.”’ ‘I daresay,’ said Uncle Oldys suddenly: so suddenly that Mrs. Maple stopped short. ‘Thank you. Come away, all of you.’ ‘Why, Uncle,’ said Mary, ‘are you not going to open the press after all?’ Uncle Oldys blushed, actually blushed. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you are at liberty to call me a coward, or applaud me as a prudent man, whichever you please. But I am neither going to open that press nor that chest of drawers myself, nor am I going to hand over the keys to you or to any other person. Mrs. Maple, will you kindly see about getting a man or two to move those pieces of furniture into the garret?’ ‘And when they do it, Mrs. Maple,’ said Mary, who seemed to me—I did not then know why—more relieved than disappointed by her uncle’s decision, ‘I have something that I want put with the rest; only quite a small packet.’

  “We left that curious room not unwillingly, I think. Uncle Oldys’s orders were carried out that same day. And so,” concludes Mr. Spearman, “Whitminster has a Bluebeard’s chamber, and, I am rather inclined to suspect, a Jack-in-the-box, awaiting some future occupant of the residence of the senior prebendary.”

  10 Apparently the ichneumon fly (Ophion obscurum), and not the true sawfly, is meant.

  THE DIARY OF MR. POYNTER

  The sale-room of an old and famous firm of book auctioneers in London is, of course, a great meeting-place for collectors, librarians, dealers: not only when an auction is in progress, but perhaps even more notably when books that are coming on for sale are upon view. It was in such a sale-room that the remarkable series of events began which were detailed to me not many months ago by the person whom they principally affected, namely, Mr. James Denton, M.A., F.S.A., etc., etc., some time of Trinity Hall, now, or lately, of Rendcomb Manor in the county of Warwick.

  He, on a certain spring day not many years since, was in London for a few days upon business connected principally with the furnishing of the house which he had just finished building at Rendcomb. It may be a disappointment to you to learn that Rendcomb Manor was new; that I cannot help. There had, no doubt, been an old house; but it was not remarkable for beauty or interest. Even had it been, neither beauty nor interest would have enabled it to resist the disastrous fire which about a couple of years before the date of my story had razed it to the ground. I am glad to say that all that was most valuable in it had been saved, and that it was fully insured. So that it was with a comparatively light heart that Mr. Denton was able to face the task of building a new and considerably more convenient dwelling for himself and his aunt who constituted his whole ménage.

  Being in London, with time on his hands, and not far from the sale-room at which I have obscurely hinted, Mr. Denton thought that he would spend an hour there upon the chance of finding, among that portion of the famous Thomas collection of MSS., which he knew to be then on view, something bearing upon the history or topography of his part of Warwickshire.

  He turned in accordingly, purchased a catalogue and ascended to the sale-room, where, as usual, the books were disposed in cases and some laid out upon the long tables. At the shelves, or sitting about at the tables, were figures, many of whom were familiar to him. He exchanged nods and greetings with several, and then settled down to examine his catalogue and note likely items. He had made good progress through about two hundred of the five hundred lots—every now and then rising to take a volume from the shelf and give it a cursory glance—when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and he looked up. His interrupter was one of those intelligent men with a pointed beard and a flannel shirt, of whom the last quarter of the nineteenth century was, it seems to me, very prolific.

  It is no part of my plan to repeat the whole conversation which ensued between the two. I must content myself with stating that it largely referred to common acquaintances, e.g., to the nephew of Mr. Denton’s friend who had recently married and settled in Chelsea, to the sister-in-law of Mr. Denton’s friend who had been seriously indisposed, but was now better, and to a piece of china which Mr. Denton’s friend had purchased some months before at a price much below its true value. From which you will rightly infer that the conversation was rather in the nature of a monologue. In due time, however, the friend bethought himself that Mr. Denton was there for a purpose, and said he, “What are you looking out for in particular? I don’t think there’s much in this lot.” “Why, I thought there might be some Warwickshire collections, but I don’t see anything under Warwick in the catalogue.” “No, apparently not,” said the friend. “All the same, I believe I noticed something like a Warwickshire diary. What was the name again? Drayton? Potter? Painter—either a P or a D, I feel sure.” He turned over the leaves quickly. “Yes, here it is. Poynter. Lot 486. That might interest you. There are the books, I think: out on the table. Some one has been looking at them. Well, I must be getting on. Good-bye, you’ll look us up, won’t you? Couldn’t you come this afternoon? We’ve got a little music about four. Well, then, when you’re next in town.” He went off. Mr. Denton looked at his watch and found to his confusion that he could spare no more than a moment before retrieving his luggage and going for the tra
in. The moment was just enough to show him that there were four largish volumes of the diary—that it concerned the years about 1710, and that there seemed to be a good many insertions in it of various kinds. It seemed quite worth while to leave a commission of five and twenty pounds for it, and this he was able to do, for his usual agent entered the room as he was on the point of leaving it.

  That evening he rejoined his aunt at their temporary abode, which was a small dower-house not many hundred yards from the Manor. On the following morning the two resumed a discussion that had now lasted for some weeks as to the equipment of the new house. Mr. Denton laid before his relative a statement of the results of his visit to town—particulars of carpets, of chairs, of wardrobes, and of bedroom china. “Yes, dear,” said his aunt, “but I don’t see any chintzes here. Did you go to----?” Mr. Denton stamped on the floor (where else, indeed, could he have stamped?). “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said, “the one thing I missed. I am sorry. The fact is I was on my way there and I happened to be passing Robins’s.” His aunt threw up her hands. “Robins’s! Then the next thing will be another parcel of horrible old books at some outrageous price. I do think, James, when I am taking all this trouble for you, you might contrive to remember the one or two things which I specially begged you to see after. It’s not as if I was asking it for myself. I don’t know whether you think I get any pleasure out of it, but if so I can assure you it’s very much the reverse. The thought and worry and trouble I have over it you have no idea of, and you have simply to go to the shops and order the things.” Mr. Denton interposed a moan of penitence. “Oh, aunt——” “Yes, that’s all very well, dear, and I don’t want to speak sharply, but you must know how very annoying it is: particularly as it delays the whole of our business for I can’t tell how long: here is Wednesday—the Simpsons come to-morrow, and you can’t leave them. Then on Saturday we have friends, as you know, coming for tennis. Yes, indeed, you spoke of asking them yourself, but, of course, I had to write the notes, and it is ridiculous, James, to look like that. We must occasionally be civil to our neighbours: you wouldn’t like to have it said we were perfect bears. What was I saying? Well, anyhow it comes to this, that it must be Thursday in next week at least, before you can go to town again, and until we have decided upon the chintzes it is impossible to settle upon one single other thing.”