Uncanny Margaret Irwin

Uncanny Margaret Irwin: Tales from Bloodstock and Other Stories (1953)

Perhaps an indicator of excellence in the writing of weird fiction in its golden age (1880-1940) is an author's passionate engagement with history. (Examples need not be limited to: Buchan, James, Walpole, etc).

Margaret Irwin (1889-1967) was an example. She wrote a host of historical novels. Some, like Still She Wished for Company (1924), employ the fantastic. Her short fiction, however, most clearly displays her engagement with subject matter in the weird mode.

The Book (1930)

Mr. Corbett finds a strange hand-written book on the dining room shelf. Each day it is appended with fresh advice, which allows him to prosper in his business dealings. But.

...."I am not a bad man," he kept saying to himself. "I have never done anything actually wrong. My clients are none the worse for my speculations, only the better. Nor have I spent my new wealth on gross and sensual pleasures; these now have even no attraction for me."

     Presently he added: "It is not wrong to try and kill a dog, an ill-tempered brute. It turned against me. It might have bitten Jeannie."

     He noticed that he had thought of her as Jeannie, which he had not done for some time; it must have been because he had called her that tonight. He must forbid her ever to leave her room at night, he could not have her meddling. It would be safer for him if she were not there at all.

     Again that sick and cold sensation of fear swept over him: he seized the bed-post as though he were falling, and held on to it for some minutes. "I was thinking of a boarding school," he told himself, and then, "I must go down and find out—find out—" He would not think what it was he must find out.

     He opened his door and listened. The house was quiet. He crept on to the landing and along to Nora's and Jean's door where again he stood, listening. There was no sound, and at that he was again overcome with unreasonable terror. He imagined Jean lying very still in her bed, too still. He hastened away from the door, shuffling in his bedroom slippers along the passage and down the stairs.

     A bright fire still burned in the dining-room grate. A glance at the clock told him it was not yet twelve. He stared at the bookcase. In the second shelf was a gap which had not been there when he had left. On the writing-bureau lay a large open book. He knew that he must cross the room and see what was written in it. Then, as before, words that he did not intend came sobbing and crying to his lips, muttering, "No, no, not that. Never, never, never." But he crossed the room and looked down at the book. As last time, the message was in only two words: "Infantem occide." 

I have written previously about "The Book" here. Morgan Scorpion has done an excellent audio version.

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Monsieur Seeks a Wife (1934)

A luxurious historical tale set in the 18th century, about a prospective groom's narrow escape.

The opening is worthy of Kersh or Raven.

....I flicked my boots with my whip and did my best to conceal my impatience, for there was a hunt in the woods at Meudon and I feared I might miss it.

     Presently he said: "There was no one in England with whom you might have wished to form an alliance?"

     "No, sir. The English actresses are charming."

     This time he seemed better pleased for he repeated, "Good, good. That is an admirable safeguard to your filial duty in marriage."

     He then threw me over a letter from an old friend of his, the Comte de Riennes, a man of little fortune but of one of the oldest families in the kingdom. I skimmed two pages of compliments and salutations which seemed tedious to me after the shorter style of English correspondence, and got to the body of the letter. It was in answer to a proposal from my father that the two houses should be united by my marriage with one of the three daughters of the Comte.

     He expressed warmly his gratitude and pleasure and told my father that as he had only enough fortune to bestow a dot on one of his daughters, the two others would enter a convent as soon as their sister was married; the choice of the bride he very magnanimously left to my father, and my father with equal magnanimity now left it to me. As I had seen and heard of none of them, I was perfectly indifferent.

     "My motives are entirely disinterested," I said to my father. "I only wish to make a match that will be in accordance with your wishes and those of such an old friend of the family as Monsieur le Comte de Riennes. We had better therefore refer the choice back to him."

     As I said this, I turned the last page of the letter, and saw that Monsieur le Comte suggested that I should pay a visit to the Château de Riennes in the country of the Juras and see the three daughters for myself before deciding which I should marry. The generosity of this offer struck me forcibly and I at once accepted it. My father also remarked on the openness and liberality of his old friend, and observed that as in the usual course the eldest would have been appointed to the marriage, it would show justice and delicacy in me to choose her, unless of course she had a hump back or some other deformity; "though in that case," he remarked, "she would surely have been placed in a convent long before."

     I went out to find that I was too late for the hunt at Meudon. It was the Regent1 who informed me of this, for I met him strolling up and down one of the corridors in the Palace and gaping out of the windows for all the world like an idle lacquey. He was then very near the end of his life, though he was not old, and I remember being struck by his bloated aspect and thinking to myself, "If that man should have a fit, I would not bet a button on his life."

     He did me the honour to ask me many questions about England, especially the rapid advance of scientific discovery in which he took a great interest.

     "How times have changed!" he remarked. "When I was young, I was regarded as a monster and a poisoner because I was an atheist and dabbled in chemistry. Also in black magic; it was the fashion then," he added. "One must have some superstition, though I dare say you find it inconsistent to discard the superstition of religion, yet to retain that of sorcery."

     As he liked nothing so much as plain speaking, I owned to this, and added in explanation that in England the superstition of magic had for some time been confined to the ignorant and vulgar.

     "But in Paris," I continued, "it is no doubt easier to believe in the Devil than in God. In London they are equally démodés.'

     "It is monotonous now all the world is atheist," he complained, yawning. "I used to shock my old friend St. Simon by reading Rabelais in church. Now, I think I shall confess and take the Sacrament. It is the only way left to cause a sensation."

     He then remarked on my approaching marriage (for my father had spoken of it to him) and, turning back just as he was leaving me, he said, "The French Juras were a dangerous country once. Take care of yourself there."

     His voice always sounded as though he were joking, but his melancholy and bloodshot eyes looked serious. I knew that a savage country like the Juras was likely to be infested with robbers, but I should ride well attended and said so. The Regent only smiled, and it suddenly struck me as he walked away that the danger he was thinking of was not connected with robbers, and I could not guess what it was. I did not see him again before his sudden death, and three days later I set out on my journey.

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The Earlier Service (1935)

"The Earlier Service" is a masterful story of antiquarian diabolism. Irwin unfolds it before the reader in an elegant series of moments of increasing uncanniness.

....On the Sunday morning after the Confirmation, the day of her first Communion, Jane rose early, dressed by candlelight, met her mother and sister in the hall, and followed them through the raw, uncertain darkness of the garden and churchyard. The chancel windows were lighted up; the gargoyles on the church tower could just be seen, their distorted shapes a deeper black against the dark sky.

     Jane slipped past her mother at the end of the pew. Except for the lights in the chancel, and the one small lamp that hung over the middle aisle, the church was dark, and one could not see who was there. Mr. Lacey was already in the chancel, and the Service began. Jane had been to this Service before, but never when the morning was dark like this. Perhaps that was what made it so different. For it was different.

     Her father was doing such odd things up there at the altar. Why was he pacing backwards and forwards so often, and waving his hands in that funny way? And what was he saying? She couldn't make out the words—she must have completely lost the place. She tried to find it in her prayer book, but the words to which she was listening gave her no clue; she could not recognize them at all, and presently she realized that not only were the words unknown to her, but so was the language in which they were spoken. Alice's rebuke came back to her: "You shouldn't quote Latin in your sermons, Father." But this wasn't a sermon, it was the Communion Service. Only in the Roman Catholic Church would they have the Communion Service in Latin, and then it would be the Mass. Was Father holding Mass? He would be turned out of the Church for being Roman. It was bewildering, it was dreadful. But her mother didn't seem to notice anything.

     Did she notice that there were other people up there at the altar?

     There was a brief pause. People came out of the darkness behind her, and went up to the chancel. Mrs. Lacey slipped out of the pew and joined them. Jane sat back and let her sister go past her.

     "You are coming, Janey?" whispered Alice as she passed.

     Jane nodded, but she sat still. She had let her mother and sister leave her; she stared at the two rows of dark figures standing in the chancel behind the row of those who knelt; she could not see her mother and sister among them; she could see no one whom she knew.

     She dared not look again at the figures by the altar; she kept her head bowed. The last time she had looked there had been two others standing by her father—that is, if that little dark figure had indeed been her father. If she looked now, would she see him there? Her head bent lower and sank into her hands. Instead of the one low voice murmuring the words of the Sacrament, a muffled chant of many voices came from the chancel.

     She heard the scuffle of feet, but no steps came past her down into the church again. What were they doing up there? At last she had to look, and she saw that the two rows were standing facing each other across the chancel, instead of each behind the other. She tried to distinguish their faces, to recognize even one that she knew. Presently she became aware that why she could not do this was because they had no faces. The figures all wore dark cloaks with hoods, and there were blank white spaces under the hoods.

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Mistletoe (1953)

On Christmas Eve Nell must choose between the dashing, worldly Mr. Montagu and Tom, a third son with no prospects or expectations. Irwin displays a fine gift for historical mimicry here, reminiscent of Patrick O'Brian and sharing his light touch.

....Mr. Montagu was still quite young and very good-looking, but when one had recovered from the effect of his clothes, one could see that he was rather fat. His eyes were very brilliant, even wild, as they darted from one to another of the company.

     In no time he was telling old Miss Pettigrew that his shoe-buckles were of real diamonds; and Squire Pettigrew that his wig was of real iron, spun into the finest wire. "It caused a furore in Paris. I was mobbed at the opera. I assure you, sir, this will mean revolution in France."

     But to Nell Pettigrew he talked only of herself.

     He kissed her hand, then stood back amazed at her appearance. He was horrified, he said low to her, that anyone so young, exquisite and espiègle should be mudlogged in this barbarous countryside instead of spreading her dragonfly wings in the sunshine of the courts of Europe.

     Nell stood suddenly shy and gauche. She did not believe she was a dragonfly; she was a gipsy, a hoyden, a tomboy, a romp, and her father looked like a bumpkin farmer; and Tom, yes even Tom, so tall and lean and quiet, seemed homespun and austere beside this glittering stranger.

     She wished Tom were not so plainly dressed, so silent in company. Why could he not tell Mr. Montagu, as he had told her, about the Yankees and their country, more wild and remote than any that Mr. Montagu had visited, on the other side of the world.

     But, for an instant, Mr. Montagu was waiting for a reply. She must not just giggle and go dumb like any country wench.

     She said simply, "Lord, sir, I cannot think any foreign court would welcome a natural."

     "But nature," cried Mr. Montagu, "has begun to be the rage in France. It is even modish at the moment to forgo—or at least not to display—the use of rouge in the daytime. Imagine the disaster to any face less fresh and fair than your own! Lapdogs and monkeys are out of favour and every fine lady aspires to be a shepherdess. King Louis himself would tie blue ribbons round the necks of your lambs. In a hat à la bergère you would cause La Pompadour to commit suicide. When you sat in a swing the whole court would lie in the grass at your feet to watch your flying grace. And I …" again his voice dropped to a murmur, saying things that only she could properly hear, but was too dazed to take in.

     Could he really mean that he had fallen in love at first sight of her, or was it only modish to talk like that?

     He talked—how he talked! She sat bewildered, excited, staring into a new enchanted world. They ate, they drank, the meek cousins gaped, the led captain glared bulbously; the storm died down as if even the elements wished to listen in silence to Mr. Montagu.

     Yet a chorus of faint whispers began to grow round the full-throated solo.

     "This young man is a fop," old Miss Pettigrew rustled to her brother like a dead leaf; and he replied, "What odds? He must walk at least £2,500 in the clothes he's wearing at present."

     It was clear that the present Mr. Montagu was ousting the absent George, future Lord Fanshawe, as a prospective son-in-law.

     And as a bridegroom? Nell found an opportunity to tell Tom that it would be pleasanter to visit the courts of foreign kings than to run away to the savages of America and a few white settlers who were all equal and wearing their own hair instead of an iron wig.

     Tom replied sardonically that her father's money might be attracting Mr. Montagu at least as much as her youthful charms; Mr. M. had dropped more than one unwise hint of his parents" niggardliness and even a casual boast that he had often been "down to his last shirt and guinea."

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The Country Gentleman (1966)

Fascinating story from the period of Cromwell's invasion of Ireland. Very well done.

....Here he was, just thirty, faced with the miracle he had always dreamed of; he was in a country where not a soul knew him for John Elworthy the prentice lad behind the counter at Dan Tebbit's the chandler in Cheapside; and he was riding to take possession of a great estate owned by a family that had come to Ireland under Strongbow three centuries ago. It was hard on the owner, poor devil, but his race must long since have degenerated from contact with the mere Irish. Besides, Elworthy could not help himself, he was only acting under orders from General Cromwell, who had settled the Irish question, and his own debts, by giving two-thirds of the country to his English followers. Captain Elworthy congratulated himself on his truly gentlemanly tact in having sent on his little troop of horse in advance to give the orders to Mr. Craig and thus allow him to get over his first shock before he was confronted with his supplanter.

     The new owner was a sturdy well-set-up fellow with a face almost as round and fresh-coloured as when he had first tramped out of the little cobbled yard in Cheapside ten years ago, with his master's fat nasal voice calling after him to be a good lad and come back to his work the minute the war was over. And Mrs. Tebbit had kissed him good-bye on both his chubby red cheeks, for though her husband said it was only a holiday picnic for the lad, yet he was sadly young to be going to the wars, and she waved her handkerchief after him along with all the other shopkeepers" wives who had helped pack cart after cart with mutton pies and loaves of bread and great flagons of ale and red wine, all for the brave lads going to defend their city from that bloodthirsty foreigner Prince Rupert. And John Elworthy fell into line with London's trained band of prentices and marched down the west road to Hammersmith.

     He had been marching west ever since. At Turnham Green he had been with Brooke's regiment when they succeeded in checking the Royalist advance; he had marched across Cotswold under Waller and helped bear the brunt of Prince Rupert's charge at Newbury; his pluck and resource had helped him to transfer to a small troop of horse under the coming man, Cromwell, whom Elworthy finally followed in his Irish campaign. And now here he was to settle at last in the extreme west of this western island.

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Jay

1 February 2021