The Year's Best Horror Stories 10 Read online

  Rowlands began to write a series of stories dealing with the reminiscences of Father D. O’Connor, “to wile away boredom of college lectures when one had to be seen to write.” Many of these appeared in student mimeographed publications during the period 1958-1963; a number subsequently appeared in The Holly Bough, a Christmas magazine published by the Cork Examiner. More recently, two Father O’Conner stories have appeared in Ghosts & Scholars, whose editor, Rosemary Pardoe, this past year published six of the stories as a booklet, Eye Hath Not Seen ..., handsomely illustrated by David Lloyd. “Wyntours” was written in 1962 as a tribute to the late John H. Ahern, whose model of the Madder Valley Railway was the inspiration of this story. “Wyntours” was submitted to Model Railway News at that time; however, the story was rejected, and Eye Hath Not Seen ... marks its first publication two decades later. Ironically, Model Railways (as it is now titled) has since accepted the story for its Christmas number. The Father O’Connor stories are very much in the classic English ghost story tradition. After twenty years, it’s time they were received by a wider readership.

  Our village pub (or one of them) was under new management. In the course of my daily ramble I had met Fr O’Connor doing his rounds and we paused to watch the hive of activity. One gang of workmen demolished appurtenances appropriate to the old, sagging walls and timbers, while another carried inside, from a lorry, a horrifying procession of glass, chromium plate and imitation woodgrain plastic sheeting. Until the previous day a splendid old oak, encircled with a wooden seat, had stood patriarchally before the building and dropped its acorns on the grass ... now there was just the sawdust and a fast-setting new concrete plinth on which it was obviously intended to mount the replica stage-coach which stood to one side, garishly painted and decked with fairy lights. A new sign, ‘The Coachman’, leaning against one of the wheels, indicated the aptness of this ‘prop’.

  We moved on sadly, remembering the many flagons we had quaffed beneath the old tree. I bent to turn over a metal sign propped against the gatepost. “Coach Parties Welcome”, it read. I dropped it like a hot potato.

  Fr O’Connor turned to me. “You really ought to use your skill as a model railway enthusiast to preserve a memory of the old ‘Horseshoes’,” he remarked. “You build the engines, the wagons and the tracks; everything but the setting; you could make a splendid model of that old pub.”

  I smiled wryly. “You have found me out, Father. I have a rooted dislike of recreating a scene in miniature.”

  He looked sideways at me. “Aha”, he said slowly, “Something like ‘The Haunted Dolls’ House’, eh? I shall expect to hear all about it, mind.”

  “Tonight then, Father,” I said, “If you insist; for I shall need to dig out some ‘visual aids’ as modern jargon has it.”

  “Splendid,” he replied, “We can fit it in after dinner then, before my confirmation class.”

  Our pipe and cigar were going well when I handed the old fellow the battered manila folder I had brought. He looked briefly over the contents.

  “Articles from the Model Railway News from 1940 to 1954”, he commented. “The Madder Valley Railway”. He mused a moment or two, turning over the cuttings culled from that magazine. “Yes, yes—quite delightful, especially the buildings and scenery. Do continue.”

  “The author and builder”, I said, “was a pioneer in both landscaping a model railway and creating an entirely imaginary system that embodied features from minor railways and places all over the world. Anything that took his eye was carefully photographed, measured and sketched, and—sooner or later—would fill a corner of his ‘Madder Valley’ location. As you can see from pictures of it, so excellent was his photography, so pleasing the subjects selected for modelling and so evocative his whimsical prose, that to my boy’s mind, the Madder Valley became almost a real place. Over the page there (I leaned forward and pointed) you’ll see a detailed map of the layout he created, with all the prominent buildings marked. His text combines the instructive and fantastic. Look here, a description of an imaginary train ride through the valley, written in the style of Karl Baedeker ...”

  The good priest read in silence for a few minutes, nodding gently and giving vent to the occasional chuckle. “I see what you mean,” he said, “A captivating style, and as for the pictures, well—it’s a cameo of rural English life where the clock has stopped fifty years ago.”

  “From the first, then,” I continued, “Those articles captured my imagination. I pored over the map, studied the photos—matching them into the map, and with each other—and read and re-read the text until I came to know the delineated by-ways of the Madder Valley by heart. Why, I even based my own childish attempts at creating a model village and landscape (with my Hornby Trainset) upon this imaginary valley. In the course of two or three years, I actually dreamed on occasion, most pleasantly, that I was afoot in the Madder Valley, walking along the banks of the River Madder beside the ‘Moonraker’s Inn’ at Much Madder, or lingering (as boys will) about the boat yard, or even the village dump. (How many model railways since have run to a model rubbish dump, complete with tin cans and old hip baths?)

  “Once or twice when travelling, or on holiday with my family, I actually recognised an original of one of the buildings I knew so well—perhaps a station in Oxfordshire, a clay works in Dorset, a rocky tunnel from Snowdonia—and this added to my pleasure and—oddly enough!—to the authenticity of the imagined setting.

  “Gradually I became aware that my hitherto occasional dreams were becoming perceptibly more frequent Over the span of years when my interest in railways had to compete with school interests; cricket and the like; there had been times when I all but forgot it Now however, the dreams were forming into a sequence of events. My rambles along the river were taking me downstream, past the island with its ruined Doric temple, the boat yard, the ‘Moonrakers’ and toward the harbour, Madderport.” (As I mentioned these landmarks the old priest was following them on the map with his finger).

  “Although my waking interest was in the railway, this was merely a detail in the dreams. True, as I walked along, a train might rattle by, behind the Darjeeling-Himalaya locomotive or the little Manx tank engine, but my objective—in which I was conscious of a growing reluctance—was evidently to get to Madderport. Eventually I abandoned the river and waited by the mill for a rattling, old open-topped omnibus that bumped and jolted me into the town. I alighted by the Harbour Offices (had I once seen them in Poole?) where the river ran out to sea. Ignoring the busy little port with railway sidings, ‘Tin Lizzie’ lorries, etc, I started back through the town to the riverside; passing the wine vaults, estate agent, ‘China Clipper’ pub and a warehouse; and came to what in the photos had been called ‘An old house by the river’, on the bank opposite a timber yard.

  “The house was perched above the river on to which it backed. There was a small landing stage with room to tie up a skiff or small launch, and a flight of old stone steps up to the boathouse, coach-house and a walled garden. However I approached the house from the road via the wide front gate and weed-grown pathway. The name ‘Wyntours’ was only just discernible on the gate post; indeed the whole aspect was desolate and forlorn.

  “As I walked up the drive I was aware that I did not want to enter; I was being impelled against my will. The front door swung open and I reluctantly went inside. It was dark and dank, smelling of mildew and old lobster pots. From the gloom a disembodied voice said, ‘Your room is upstairs’, and I found myself—even more reluctantly—climbing the uncarpeted stairs and crossing the landing to a back room. As I approached the door, I heard a dragging sound from within—a scuffing of the floor—and sounds of a sash window being raised or lowered. Terribly afraid now, I nonetheless opened the door and peeped in. The room was void of persons or furnishings, apart from a bare brass bedstead and a chipped washstand with ewer. However two lines—rather like bicycle tyre-marks—were made through the dust on the floor leading either to, or from, the window. This was dirty
and fly-blown; the gauze curtains yellowed with age and full of dust. I parted them slightly and rubbed the grimy pane, looking out over the river from above the boathouse. Down below there were a number of people busy about something on the landing stage.

  “I swung about, as at a sound in the room, convinced that I could hear breathing. I listened carefully, noting that my own respiration fell into the same rhythm. It seemed to come from an alcove, where I saw there was a linen press. Heart-in-mouth, I tiptoed across and suddenly pulled at the door. It was stuck fast; but now there came an ominous stirring from within and a horrible wave of fishy odour. The door creaked as if something were swelling against it ... and began to open. At that my last vestige of bravado faded and I backed across to the landing door and fumbled at the handle ... it was locked. Just as I could see a sort of whip-like antenna appearing round the cupboard, I mercifully woke up, panting and frightened.

  “I had this dream twice more that week, the same in detail and sequence, but if anything serving to increase my helpless terror; so I told my mother something of the problem and was sent to a doctor. Being a practitioner of the old school, bless him, I got no pills but a fresh-air-and-exercise regime, and a milk nightcap, which seemed to do the trick. In the circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that my enthusiasm for the Madder Valley decidedly waned.”

  (I paused to select another cigar, snip off the end and light the fragrant leaf with a spill from the fire.)

  “Our holiday that year took us to Cornwall, to the seaside village of ... well, let’s call it Poltrepen. My parents, sisters and I walked from the station with our suitcases up a narrow winding street, and arrived—I can see you’ve anticipated me, Father!—yes, at a house that was all-too-familiar! I was horrified. The place was freshly painted, the garden weeded and the name on the gate said ‘The Moorings’, but there was no doubt it was the original ‘Wyntours’. Only a foolish dislike of making a spectacle of myself and of embarrassing my parents, prevented me from running away on the instant. My family noticed nothing ... then.

  “A cheerful old lady opened the door and made us welcome with tea, but I knew what she was going to say (and so do you) ... my room was to be upstairs, at the back, overlooking the river. To avoid difficulties, and with legs of lead, I found myself going up behind the housekeeper. The room was freshly decorated—it still smelled of paint—and was as gay in the afternoon sun as were the poppies of its wallpaper. I swiftly ascertained that if there was a linen press in the alcove, it was well papered over. The window was open, with fresh gingham curtains on either side, and I was mildly surprised to see other Cornish houses opposite and not the Madderport timber works.

  “At any rate, I had resolved not to sleep in that room, and after the housekeeper had retired to bed in the room opposite, I would nightly creep downstairs to the sofa. Its sheer discomfort enabled me to get back to my room upstairs before she rose again, where I disordered my bed and re-made it badly, to give the impression I had slept there.

  “So the days passed uneventfully. Some I spent with my family, others in fishing trips. I caught nothing, but enjoyed myself. With increasing immunity from the incursion of any events from my dreams, my curiosity returned. The Cornish are polite, but uncommunicative, and the best I could get from my boatman was an admission that the house had been called ‘Wyntours’ years ago, after a previous occupant. ‘The old Cap’en’, he called him; stories about whom his grandfather, and his before him, had passed on. Further enquiries in local pubs and on the Quay served to inform me only that the old ‘Cap’en’ had been a freebooter, fisherman and privateer in Napoleonic times, when the French were fought by day and traded with by night; though I clearly inferred that Captain Wyntour’s cargoes were human contraband.

  “Then I thought of the library in the nearby town and caught the twice-daily bus. I was lucky enough also to catch the genteel Lady Librarian at a moment of leisure. By chance, she was herself from Poltrepen and, being educated, was less inhibited by prejudice toward strangers than the fishermen. She knew little of the history of the family, save that the last of the line—a James Wyntour—was known as a scholar and recluse, and had died around 1900. He had left substantial writings on Cornish archaeology (which were in the library) and a volume of memoirs. This last—a leather-bound tome like an account book—she produced from a locked cupboard. It was written in clear, copperplate longhand.

  “There and then, in that prosaic library, I sat down to copy out the last entry, which seemed relevant to my quest; and here, Father, is that copy.” (So saying, I produced a folded wadge of paper from my pocket.)

  “You read it, please,” said Fr O’Connor, leaning forward and reaching beneath his cassock for his tobacco pouch. So I smoothed out the folded sheets on my knee and began to read from James Wyntour’s memoir:

  “Of the doom of the Wyntours it is now time to speak, shameful though it be; for I am the last of the line, and my time too, is at hand. It all began with my great-great-grandfather, Capt Royston Wyntour, master of the smack ‘Judith Lee’. He was a fisherman of some repute and import in the 1800s, but, like many others of his ilk, he was carrying out more profitable trade after dark, notably trafficking between the Channel Islands or Brest. From his private diary it is clear that in May of 1802 he was contacted at the ‘Running Tide’ in Poltrepen and paid well to collect a nameless traveller from Brest, who was desirous of reaching these shores without attracting too much attention.

  “Off the coast near Brest their longboat picked up the passenger, a repellently fat Cardinal who spoke French, with a huge iron-bound box that at once attracted attention. That the priest seemed on edge, and to be perpetually looking about him, was not perhaps to be wondered at in the circumstances, though later it took on other significance.

  “Once aboard” (I continued reading), “it was a simple matter for my great-great-grandsire and his Mate to slit the unfortunate Cardinal’s throat. Such deeds were clearly, I regret, not uncommon to my kinsman at that period, and he was disconcerted more by the priest’s demeanour, than by the murder. ‘The Frog saw death coming, but he died laughing’, recorded the old seadog’s diary. ‘He muttered something in French’—that I have deciphered as probably ‘et sur votre heritieres’, which I take to be the origin of the story of our family curse. The Captain and Mate broke open the chest. As they suspected, it was full of richly-jewelled church furnishings and gold-embroidered vestments; candlesticks, plate, chalices, urns, reliquaries and the like. These they appropriated and thought it a rich jest to bundle the murdered man (after some necessary mutilation) into the chest for delivery; sure that the illegality of the original operation would screen them from retribution. They divided the spoil into three sacks and the Mate took one to the crew as a price for silence; the other portions were to be his and the Captain’s. My kinsman locked the door and sat at the cabin table, gloating over the loot. In one of the old gold reliquary boxes he found, not the expected fragments to tip on the floor in disgust, but a piece of gutta percha, or similar fabric, on which was crudely delineated a menacing beast; presumably heraldic and from Neptune’s realm—for it resembled a crayfish more than anything else, and the artist had, despite his poor materials, somehow managed to convey a sense of menace, which the line ‘Punitor sum’ did nothing to dispel.

  “The Captain turned abruptly at a touch on his neck and saw (well I have now seen the thing myself and can understand his horror ...) in the corner of the cabin, big as a man, the grey crayfish-like creature crouching; one of its long hair-like feelers actually reaching out to the Captain’s neck; the very creature of the parchment drawing. Despite its air of menace it did nothing ... then; but thereafter was always to be reckoned with.

  “He became a haunted man, forever looking around—never seeing it, except when least expected, and more often at night when it had a pale phosphorescence. That was the last voyage for the Captain. Instead of delivering the chest and its gruesome contents, the Mate and he put it over the side. In the
morning the Mate had vanished too—it being surmised that he had gone overboard. There was general unrest and further depletion among the crew; something uncanny was aboard, of that all were sure. The Captain retired to his riverside villa with his family. One night, six months later, he apparently cast himself from the upper window to the river below, striking the landing stage and dying there. The Coroner’s court brought in a verdict of suicide. Of the religious booty taken by the Officers and crew there has been no subsequent trace; none of it turned up in Poltrepen. That the ship’s log showed a detour off-course to Sark may have some bearing on the matter.

  “The tale of the doom is handed down from father to son, and is often discounted and laughed at (as I did, heaven help me!) since the danger does not become apparent until about middle age, and has something therefore of a mythical quality. However, in my unhappy position I can affirm the reality of the successive deaths of the heirs, and of the creature’s existence. It has been with me these ten weeks past; always behind me. I feel its touch, though I see it but rarely.”

  “So much for James Wyntour’s history of his family curse”, I said, folding up the paper. “I caught the evening bus back to Poltrepen and tea, brooding on the tale and rereading my transcript. It was singularly unpleasant in its suggestion, for the creature that dogged the Wyntours tallied closely with that long, probing antenna I had seen from the cupboard in my dreams. I fervently cursed my wretched curiosity for reawakening all my forebodings.

  “That night I was naturally more reluctant than usual to go upstairs to the back bedroom, and stopped down as late as my parents would allow. Finally I perforce retired, to sit on the bed until such a time as I could creep down again by torchlight. At long last I heard the housekeeper come upstairs and cross the landing; so down I went, with all possible stealth.