Short Fiction M. R. James (good book recommendations TXT) 📖

“And next day Mr. Sampson was gone: not to be found: and I believe no trace of him has ever come to light since. In thinking it over, one of the oddest things about it all has seemed to me to be the fact that neither McLeod nor I ever mentioned what we had seen to any third person whatever. Of course no questions were asked on the subject, and if they had been, I am inclined to believe that we could not have made any answer: we seemed unable to speak about it.

“That is my story,” said the narrator. “The only approach to a ghost story connected with a school that I know, but still, I think, an approach to such a thing.”

The sequel to this may perhaps be reckoned highly conventional; but a sequel there is, and so it must be produced. There had been more than one listener to the story, and, in the latter part of that same year, or of the next, one such listener was staying at a country house in Ireland.

One evening his host was turning over a drawer full of odds and ends in the smoking-room. Suddenly he put his hand upon a little box. “Now,” he said, “you know about old things; tell me what that is.” My friend opened the little box, and found in it a thin gold chain with an object attached to it. He glanced at the object and then took off his spectacles to examine it more narrowly. “What’s the history of this?” he asked. “Odd enough,” was the answer. “You know the yew thicket in the shrubbery: well, a year or two back we were cleaning out the old well that used to be in the clearing here, and what do you suppose we found?”

“Is it possible that you found a body?” said the visitor, with an odd feeling of nervousness.

“We did that: but what’s more, in every sense of the word, we found two.”

“Good Heavens! Two? Was there anything to show how they got there? Was this thing found with them?”

“It was. Amongst the rags of the clothes that were on one of the bodies. A bad business, whatever the story of it may have been. One body had the arms tight round the other. They must have been there thirty years or more⁠—long enough before we came to this place. You may judge we filled the well up fast enough. Do you make anything of what’s cut on that gold coin you have there?”

“I think I can,” said my friend, holding it to the light (but he read it without much difficulty); “it seems to be G. W. S., 24 July, 1865.”

Mr. and Mrs. Anstruther were at breakfast in the parlour of Westfield Hall, in the county of Essex. They were arranging plans for the day.

“George,” said Mrs. Anstruther, “I think you had better take the car to Maldon and see if you can get any of those knitted things I was speaking about which would do for my stall at the bazaar.”

“Oh well, if you wish it, Mary, of course I can do that, but I had half arranged to play a round with Geoffrey Williamson this morning. The bazaar isn’t till Thursday of next week, is it?”

“What has that to do with it, George? I should have thought you would have guessed that if I can’t get the things I want in Maldon I shall have to write to all manner of shops in town: and they are certain to send something quite unsuitable in price or quality the first time. If you have actually made an appointment with Mr. Williamson, you had better keep it, but I must say I think you might have let me know.”

“Oh no, no, it wasn’t really an appointment. I quite see what you mean. I’ll go. And what shall you do yourself?”

“Why, when the work of the house is arranged for, I must see about laying out my new rose garden. By the way, before you start for Maldon I wish you would just take Collins to look at the place I fixed upon. You know it, of course.”

“Well, I’m not quite sure that I do, Mary. Is it at the upper end, towards the village?”

“Good gracious no, my dear George; I thought I had made that quite clear. No, it’s that small clearing just off the shrubbery path that goes towards the church.”

“Oh yes, where we were saying there must have been a summerhouse once: the place with the old seat and the posts. But do you think there’s enough sun there?”

“My dear George, do allow me some common sense, and don’t credit me with all your ideas about summerhouses. Yes, there will be plenty of sun when we have got rid of some of those box-bushes. I know what you are going to say, and I have as little wish as you to strip the place bare. All I want Collins to do is to clear away the old seats and the posts and things before I come out in an hour’s time. And I hope you will manage to get off fairly soon. After luncheon I think I shall go on with my sketch of the church; and if you please you can go over to the links, or⁠—”

“Ah, a good idea⁠—very good! Yes, you finish that sketch, Mary, and I should be glad of a round.”

“I was going to say, you might call on the Bishop; but I suppose it is no use my making any suggestion. And now do be getting ready, or half the morning will be gone.”

Mr. Anstruther’s face, which had shown symptoms of lengthening, shortened itself again, and he hurried from the room, and was soon heard giving orders in the passage. Mrs. Anstruther, a stately dame of some fifty summers, proceeded, after a second consideration of the morning’s letters, to her housekeeping.

Within a few minutes Mr. Anstruther had discovered Collins