"There'll be a few more ghosts around if they try it on. But I'm thinking your lordship's as cracked as an old jug to play a game like this. You were flashing your gold around in there and that's enough reason for us to be quickly dispatched and our bodies thrown to the fishes. And I doubt if your pistol and old Betsy here would do more than account for a few."
* * *
Readers unfamiliar with "She Walks on Dry Land" may prefer to read these notes only after reading the story
R. Chetwynd-Hayes wrote hundreds of short stories. I have never read one that did not at least entertain. Today most of the late master's collections out of print. Happily, in 2021 PS Publishing issued Gaslight, Ghosts, & Ghouls: A Centenary Celebration, a superb collection. And still, in out-of-the way books and ebooks, the seeker after unread Chetwynd-Hayes stories is sometimes lucky.
Stories To Make You Shudder: Book I (2019) edited by Cornelius Clarke, for instance, includes the 1980 story "She Walks On Dry Land."
Our narrator, Edward Devereux, Fourth Earl of Montcalm, begins:
....In the year of our Lord 1812, early on the morning of October 5th, being tired of the excesses practised at the Regency Court, I ordered my body servant Patrick to saddle two horses, and after informing my people I would be absent for an unspecified period, departed for an unknown destination.
I travelled north, leaving London by way of The Strand, then proceeded into the county of Essex, determined to follow the coastline until a whim prompted me to do otherwise. Calling myself Charles Beverley (this being my mother's maiden name) I put up at various inns and places of entertainment and on the fifth day after my departure from London arrived at the small fishing village I will call Denham.
Edward Devereux is an arrogant, privileged cuss. He is insulted when the owner of the inn at Denham and all its customers refuse him shelter for the night. His motto: "I am prepared to be a generous guest, but a ferocious outcast."
A village elder explains, "Come nightfall, it bodes ill for any stranger found within the confines of this village and I implore you to ride from hence and give thanks to Almighty God that you do so with body and soul intact."
Naturally, Devereux does not take this as an adequate explanation.
"It ill becomes you, sir, to treat with levity advice given by those who speak from bitter experience. We who live here have nothing to fear and if so inclined could take pleasure from watching your sinful pride crumble before the wind of abject terror. A year or so ago there came one like unto yourself, who refused to heed our well-intentioned warning, and now his bones lie rotting in the churchyard. Ask not why, sir, but get you gone with our blessing."
Eventually, Devereux does get an explanation for Denham's hostility to overnight guests:
The old fellow positively glared at me.
"It is doubtful if words of mine will do more than evoke scorn, but if so be your wish, I will tell you what I know, which is little, for there is no man living who can do more than repeat what his father told him, as indeed did his father before him. But you must accept that long ago, perhaps during the reign of him they now call Charles the martyr, there lived in this place a maiden called Elizabeth Coldwell. 'Tis said she was possessed of great beauty, a face to tempt a man to sin. A stranger came to these shores. One of noble birth, in a ship that anchored off Needles Point and he did what no fisherman, be he master of his own vessel or a humble caster of nets, had ever hoped to do. He enslaved her heart with fine promises and fulsome words. No one knew what took place on the sleek white ship. Maybe after satisfying his own lust, he gave her to the crew, or again perhaps she stumbled across some secret that threatened his safety and so was murdered. But one fact is certain. After his ship had sailed, her body was washed up on to the beach yonder, so mutilated, no man could look upon it unmoved."
The old man paused, whether to regain his breath or reinforce his imagination, I could not determine, but I nodded and said : "Very sad. But I wager some variation of that tale is related in every inn along this coast. And now I suppose you will tell me her unhappy shade comes drifting over the rocks on a moonlit night and he who sees it will die within a year and a day."
The old man shook his head sadly. "No, sir. We never see her from one year's end to the next. But let a stranger spend one night within the boundaries of this village, then, sir — she comes up from the sea and walks on dry land."
"For what purpose?" I enquired.
"To show him her face, sir. No man can look upon it without going mad — a singular madness, for he'll run screaming down to the sea and drown himself."
The Denhamites ultimately relent, and offer Devereux and his servant Patrick an abandoned hut for the night. Patrick, like the valet in "The Haunters and the Haunted," is a jokey character:
Patrick shrugged and spoke with the familiarity that had come into being over the years.
"If you had any sense you'd do what they say and ride out of here. But if stay you must, then so will I. And I can't see how any wraith can steal our sanity, seeing there's not a spoonful between us."
* * *
"She Walks On Dry Land" is a droll historical tale, and one with real power in several respects. Class and urban-rural social distinctions are finely sketched. When the climax comes, its implications are far-reaching, and not just for our narrator.
....something — someone — was standing just beyond that splurge of darkness, looking in. And all the while that hoarse scream went on and on, gradually receding, accompanied by the crunch-crunch of pounding feet, until both sounds finally merged with the endless murmur of waves surging over rocks.
But I was wrapped in a mantle of fear that drained the last vestige of warmth from my body and I could only stare at the black screen that was the window, sick to my very soul, knowing that the mere sight of whatever was watching me would shatter my sanity and send me, like poor Patrick, screaming down to the beach to seek oblivion in the restless sea.
The candle flickered and the shadows leapt up the walls, did a mad dance over the ceiling, then froze into terrifying immobility when the wind died and the world seemed to be holding its breath. I caught a suggestion of movement in the window-frame, before I closed my eyes and prayed that I might have the strength of will not to open them again until the danger had passed — if it ever did....
"Violent death," Devereux observes, "may leave scars on the road of time."
Jay
19 June 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment