Easily Distracted: Like the tremor of an impalpable bell: The Lycurgus Cup and Other Stories by Ron Weighell

….Whatever universal masterpiece of tomorrow may be wrought from phantasm or terror will owe its acceptance rather to a supreme workmanship than to a sympathetic theme. Yet who shall declare the dark theme a positive handicap? Radiant with beauty, the Cup of the Ptolemies was carven of onyx.1

Readers unfamiliar with The Lycurgus Cup and Other Stories by Ron Weighell may prefer to read these notes only after reading the collection.

The Lycurgus Cup and Other Stories by Ron Weighell

China Rose (1992)

It's hard for me not to fall in love with stories that begin like this:

It was the French detective Vidocq, I think, who used to say that every act of evil had its own distinctive odour; that in a crowd of a thousand persons he could tell transgressors of the moral law by the sense of smell alone. What would a man of such singular olfactory accomplishments have made of Nicholas Hallam and Rose Seaford, I wonder? Nothing redolent of brimstone or corruption: rather a subtle whiff of something clinical masked by a sweet incense. And about Rose, of course, always the troubling fragrance of hibiscus....

The erudition, mixed with an easeful and retrospective tone, intoxicates. It's just the right amount of in media res braided with subtle menace. It is also kin to the authorial voice of every writer I return to: Conan Doyle and P. G. Wodehouse would sense fraternity in the lines.

"China Rose" is a blackly magic story set in a precisely observed decadent milieu, swift and efficient in the telling. Weighell excels with the material and the characterizations.

Carven of Onyx (1991)

"Carven of Onyx" takes its sweet time, for which any reader of world-building historical fiction will be grateful. It is a richly imagined horror novella spread over several locations and with a large number of characters.

Somewhere in Medieval England, at the Benedictine nunnery of Longlenn Priory, troubles mount: architectural renovations have uncovered a secret chamber and its impedimenta of worship. At one time the site was home to a band of Templar Knights after their return from a crusade.

Alas, they "brought something back."

The Lycurgus Cup (1989)

What was it? A wild cat, or something stranger?

A contemporary archeological thriller, "The Lycurgus Cup" finds freelance journalist Vallance, a "slight, crop-headed girl in fashionably unkempt clothes" spending one bitter November afternoon on the trail of a large black cat in the "'wide, wild houseless downs' of Hampshire".

The trail leads to abandoned pillars opening onto Rodhope Manor's ruins. Sifting clues in newspaper archives, and shunned manuscripts left to rot by a local vicar, Vallance learns a cup (and its guardian) were once shipped home from Greece by a wealthy grand-touring resident of the manor.

Penetrating the ruins:

....She drew out into the light the most beautiful object she had ever seen. It was a bowl rather than a cup, with a shallow foot and a rim of silver, and it threw back the candlelight with a bloody sheen. The glass was covered with raised images almost oriental in their richness. A vine-crowned youth pointing, at his feet a running beast like a huge cat. A figure entangled in vines surrounded by satyrs.

Vallance is a winning and spirited protagonist. Her predicaments, which include fighting headwinds imposed by older, jaded male colleagues, mark her as a cunning and intrepid character.

The Greater Arcana (1992)

"The Greater Arcana'' is a pitch-perfect antiquarian horror novella. It unfolds from its snug framing into a finely orchestrated show-down with black magic. Hillyer, amateur photographer and post-graduate, is victim of a nicely delineated "it could have happened to anyone" Jamesian logic.

He even gets fair warning from a character I can only assume is Montague Summers:

During the night the first snow of the year fell on the city. Hillyer awoke to a morning of slush on the roads and intermittent sleet on the grey air; but so great was his enthusiasm that he wrapped up well, took up his photographic equipment and set off early to take some preliminary studies. At that hour the cloisters were deserted, the snow on the grass still unmelted. Quite unconsciously he began to photograph the most grotesque of the monsters, had completed studies of three and was setting up his tripod before a fourth, when he became aware of a plump priest in cloak and wide-brimmed hat, observing him from the cloister. Hillyer thought the figure not unlike the silhouette of Father Brown on the spine of a book he had once owned. The priest approached, and Hillyer's heart sank. He had pursued the hobby of photography long enough to anticipate some such inane comment as 'taking pictures, are you?' so he was surprised when the old priest—it priest he was—called to him in a high-pitched, cultivated voice.

'That is not wise, sir, not wise at all.'

'I am sorry,' Hillyer replied. 'I don't understand—'

'Photographing Ripley's Arcana. I would not advise it.'

'Oh really, and whyever not?'

'Because, sir, they are the glyphographs of a pernicious alchemy.' The ponderous solemnity with which these last words were spoken only served to amuse Hillyer the more, but he concealed his mirth with a show of sincere interest.

'You called them Ripley's Arcana. Who was Ripley?'

'Their creator, a disciple of Adam Grimswade.'

'Wasn't he an architect?'

'He was much more than that, young man. Have you never heard the tale of Ripley's disappearance? One night a clergyman was walking down a lane not far from here when he saw a dark figure dragging someone out of a window. Thinking they were engaged in a drunken revel he went to remonstrate with them, but as he drew near he made out the face of the cloaked figure and fled. He never revealed what he had seen, except to say that it was so loathsome as to he utterly unhuman. The house was one in which Ripley conducted his Black Masses, and after that night he was never seen again. Oh, and the window through which Ripley had been pulled was found to have a solid grille over it; a grille on which flapped a few rags of cloth. The lane was thereafter known as Devil's Den. Yes, Ripley was Grimswade's disciple in more than architecture. If you would know more, read his books, sir, read his books!'

With that the priest raised his head and shouted 'Faustus!' at the top of his voice. Hillyer thought he was dealing with a madman, but when the priest added 'Heel boy, heel!' a large black dog padded up and followed him out of the cloister.

This encounter was very suggestive, for it added a little to Hillyer's information about the link between Bellman and the Arcana....

As well as being an outstanding supernatural story, "The Greater Arcana" is also an adventure that takes place at Christmas. It climaxes near midnight on 24 December, as Hillyer battles to keep closed a recently uncovered, bricked-shut window.

Weighell's droll wit is well displayed in "The Greater Arcana". Hillyer's landlady is described thus:

....a woman named Fowler, but he secretly referred to her as Mrs Watt, for she had a way with her tenants' letters that gave an entirely new meaning to the phrase 'the age of steam'.

* * *

Ron Weighell (1950-2020) was clearly a writer of great skill and erudition. As his obituary in Locus Magazine [Issue #728, September 2021] notes:

[....] Weighell began publishing genre fiction in 1986, with stories appearing in magazines and anthologies, including year's best volumes. Most of his work was supernatural horror, and his major inspirations include M.R. James and Arthur Machen. Some of his short fiction is collected in The Greater Arcana (1994), The White Road (1997), The Irregular Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (2000), Tarshishim (2011), and Summonings (2014). Anthology Pagan Triptych (2016) includes one of his stories along with pieces by John Howard and Mark Valentine. Weighell also wrote occasional essays and reviews….

As well as a deep knowledge of genre literature, readers of The Lycurgus Cup and Other Stories will quickly realize Weighell was familiar with history and folklore. His curiosity, and a talent for the craft of puzzle-plot construction, shine through in all four of this collection's stories. Like once bricked-up windows, each tale is a portal opening and closing: admitting, sharing, releasing, confounding, damning, and delighting us.

Jay

24 April 2023