Curious Warnings - The Great Ghost Stories Of M.R. James (31 page)

“Certainly, certainly, Mr. Humphreys. My time is your own, up to any hour you please.”

“Till dinner-time, Father, you mean,” said Miss Cooper. “Don’t forget we’re going over to the Brasnetts. And have you got all the garden keys?”

“Are you a great gardener, Miss Cooper?” said Mr. Humphreys. “I wish you would tell me what I’m to expect at the Hall.”

“Oh, I don’t know about a
great
gardener, Mr. Humphreys: I’m very fond of flowers—but the Hall garden might be made quite lovely, I often say. It’s very old-fashioned as it is: and a great deal of shrubbery. There’s an old temple, besides, and a maze.”

“Really? Have you explored it ever?”

“No-o,” said Miss Cooper, drawing in her lips and shaking her head. “I’ve often longed to try, but old Mr. Wilson always kept it locked. He wouldn’t even let Lady Wardrop into it. (She lives near here, at Bentley, you know, and she’s a
great
gardener, if you like.) That’s why I asked Father if he had all the keys.”

“I see. Well, I must evidently look into that, and show you over it when I’ve learned the way.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Humphreys! Now I shall have the laugh of Miss Foster (that’s our rector’s daughter, you know; they’re away on their holiday now—such nice people). We always had a joke between us which should be the first to get into the maze.”

“I think the garden keys must be up at the house,” said Mr. Cooper, who had been looking over a large bunch. “There are a number there in the library.

“Now, Mr. Humphreys, if you’re prepared, we might bid good-bye to these ladies and set forward on our little tour of exploration.”

As they came out of Mr. Cooper’s front gate, Humphreys had to run the gauntlet—not of an organized demonstration, but of a good deal of touching of hats and careful contemplation from the men and women who had gathered in somewhat unusual numbers in the village street.

He had, further, to exchange some remarks with the wife of the lodge-keeper as they passed the park gates, and with the lodge-keeper himself, who was attending to the park road.

I cannot, however, spare the time to report the progress fully. As they traversed the half-mile or so between the lodge and the house, Humphreys took occasion to ask his companion some question which brought up the topic of his late uncle, and it did not take long before Mr. Cooper was embarked upon a disquisition.

“It is singular to think, as the wife was saying just now, that you should never have seen the old gentleman. And yet—you won’t misunderstand me, Mr. Humphreys, I feel confident, when I say that in my opinion there would have been but little congeniality betwixt yourself and him. Not that I have a word to say in deprecation—not a single word.

“I can tell you what he was,” said Mr. Cooper, pulling up suddenly and fixing Humphreys with his eye. “Can tell you what he was in a nutshell, as the
saying goes. He was a complete, thorough valetudinarian. That describes him to a T. That’s what he was, sir, a complete valetudinarian. No participation in what went on around him.

“I did venture, I think, to send you a few words of cutting from our local paper, which I took the occasion to contribute on his decease. If I recollect myself aright, such is very much the gist of them. But don’t, Mr. Humphreys,” continued Cooper, tapping him impressively on the chest—“don’t you run away with the impression that I wish to say aught but what is most creditable—
most
creditable—of your respected uncle and my late employer.

“Upright, Mr. Humphreys—open as the day; liberal to all in his dealings. He had the heart to feel and the hand to accommodate. But there it was: there was the stumbling-block—his unfortunate health—or, as I might more truly phrase it, his
want
of health.”

“Yes, poor man. Did he suffer from any special disorder before his last illness—which, I take it, was little more than old age?”

“Just that, Mr. Humphreys—just that. The flash flickering slowly away in the pan,” said Cooper, with what he considered an appropriate gesture, “the golden bowl gradually ceasing to vibrate.

“But as to your other question I should return a negative answer. General absence of vitality? Yes. Special complaint? No, unless you reckon a nasty cough he had with him.

“Why, here we are pretty much at the house. A handsome mansion, Mr. Humphreys, don’t you consider?”

It deserved the epithet, on the whole: but it was oddly proportioned—a very tall redbrick house, with a plain parapet concealing the roof almost entirely. It gave the impression of a town house set down in the country. There was a basement, and a rather imposing flight of steps leading up to the front door. It seemed also, owing to its height, to desiderate wings, but there were none. The stables and other offices were concealed by trees. Humphreys guessed its probable date as 1770 or thereabouts.

The mature couple who had been engaged to act as butler and cook-housekeeper were waiting inside the front door, and opened it as their new master approached. Their name, Humphreys already knew, was Calton. Of their appearance and manner he formed a favorable impression in the few minutes’ talk he had with them.

It was agreed that he should go through the plate and the cellar next day with Mr. Calton, and that Mrs. C. should have a talk with him about linen, bedding, and so on—what there was, and what there ought to be.

Then he and Cooper, dismissing the Caltons for the present, began their view of the house.

Its topography is not of importance to this story. The large rooms on the ground floor were satisfactory, especially the library, which was as large as the dining room, and had three tall windows facing east. The bedroom prepared for Humphreys was immediately above it. There were many pleasant, and a few really interesting, old pictures. None of the furniture was new, and hardly any of the books were later than the seventies.

After hearing of and seeing the few changes his uncle had made in the house, and contemplating a shiny portrait of him which adorned the drawing room, Humphreys was forced to agree with Cooper that in all probability there would have been little to attract him in his predecessor.

It made him rather sad that he could not be sorry—
dolebat se dolere non posse
—for the man who, whether with or without some feeling of kindliness toward his unknown nephew, had contributed so much to his well-being; for he felt that Wilsthorpe was a place in which he could be happy, and especially happy, it might be, in its library.

And now it was time to go over the garden: the empty stables could wait, and so could the laundry. So to the garden they addressed themselves, and it was soon evident that Miss Cooper had been right in thinking that there were possibilities. Also that Mr. Cooper had done well in keeping on the gardener.

The deceased Mr. Wilson might not have, indeed plainly had not, been imbued with the latest views on gardening, but whatever had been done here had been done under the eye of a knowledgeable man, and the equipment and stock were excellent.

Cooper was delighted with the pleasure Humphreys showed, and with the suggestions he let fall from time to time. “I can see,” he said, “that you’ve found your meatear here, Mr. Humphreys: you’ll make this place a regular signosier before very many seasons have passed over our heads.

“I wish Clutterham had been here—that’s the head gardener—and here he would have been of course, as I told you, but for his son’s being horse
doover with a fever, poor fellow! I should like him to have heard how the place strikes you.

“Yes, you told me he couldn’t be here today, and I was very sorry to hear the reason, but it will be time enough tomorrow.

“What is that white building on the mound at the end of the grass ride? Is it the temple Miss Cooper mentioned?”

“That it is, Mr. Humphreys—the Temple of Friendship. Constructed of marble brought out of Italy for the purpose, by your late uncle’s grandfather. Would it interest you perhaps to take a turn there? You get a very sweet prospect of the park.”

The general lines of the temple were those of the Sibyl’s Temple at Tivoli, helped out by a dome, only the whole was a good deal smaller. Some ancient sepulchral reliefs were built into the wall, and about it all was a pleasant flavor of the grand tour.

Cooper produced the key, and with some difficulty opened the heavy door. Inside there was a handsome ceiling, but little furniture. Most of the floor was occupied by a pile of thick circular blocks of stone, each of which had a single letter deeply cut on its slightly convex upper surface.

“What is the meaning of these?” Humphreys inquired.

“Meaning? Well, all things, we’re told, have their purpose, Mr. Humphreys, and I suppose these blocks have had theirs as well as another. But what that purpose is or was (Mr. Cooper assumed a didactic attitude here), I, for one, should be at a loss to point out to you, sir.

“All I know of them—and it’s summed up in a very few words—is just this: that they’re stated to have been removed by your late uncle, at a period before I entered on the scene, from the maze. That, Mr. Humphreys, is—”

“Oh, the maze!” exclaimed Humphreys. “I’d forgotten that: we must have a look at it. Where is it?”

Cooper drew him to the door of the temple, and pointed with his stick. “Guide your eye,” he said (somewhat in the manner of the Second Elder in Handel’s
Susanna
—

Far to the west direct your straining eyes

Where yon tall holm-tree rises to the skies).

“Guide your eye by my stick here, and follow out the line directly opposite to the spot where we’re standing now, and I’ll engage, Mr. Humphreys, that you’ll catch the archway over the entrance. You’ll see it just at the end of the walk answering to the one that leads up to this very building.

“Did you think of going there at once? Because if that be the case, I must go to the house and procure the key. If you would walk on there, I’ll rejoin you in a few moments’ time.”

Accordingly Humphreys strolled down the ride leading to the temple, past the garden-front of the house, and up the turfy approach to the archway which Cooper had pointed out to him.

He was surprised to find that the whole maze was surrounded by a high wall, and that the archway was provided with a padlocked iron gate. But then he remembered that Miss Cooper had spoken of his uncle’s objection to letting anyone enter this part of the garden.

He was now at the gate, and still Cooper came not. For a few minutes he occupied himself in reading the motto cut over the entrance, “
Secretum meum mihi et filiis domus meae
,” and in trying to recollect the source of it.

Then he became impatient and considered the possibility of scaling the wall. This was clearly not worthwhile. It might have been done if he had been wearing an older suit. Or could the padlock—a very old one—be forced? No, apparently not. And yet, as he gave a final irritated kick at the gate, something gave way, and the lock fell at his feet.

He pushed the gate open, inconveniencing a number of nettles as he did so, and stepped into the enclosure.

It was a yew maze, of circular form, and the hedges, long untrimmed, had grown out and upward to a most unorthodox breadth and height. The walks, too, were next door to impassable. Only by entirely disregarding scratches, nettle-stings, and wet, could Humphreys force his way along them. But at any rate this condition of things, he reflected, would make it easier for him to find his way out again, for he left a very visible track.

So far as he could remember, he had never been in a maze before, nor did it seem to him now that he had missed much. The dankness and darkness, and smell of crushed goose grass and nettles were anything but cheerful. Still, it did not seem to be a very intricate specimen of its kind.

Here he was (by the way, was that Cooper arrived at last? No!) very
nearly at the heart of it, without having taken much thought as to what path he was following. Ah! There at last was the center, easily gained. And there was something to reward him.

His first impression was that the central ornament was a sundial; but when he had switched away some portion of the thick growth of brambles and bindweed that had formed over it, he saw that it was a less ordinary decoration.

A stone column about four feet high, and on the top of it a metal globe—copper, to judge by the green patina—engraved, and finely engraved too, with figures in outline, and letters.

That was what Humphreys saw, and a brief glance at the figures convinced him that it was one of those mysterious things called celestial globes, from which, one would suppose, no one ever yet derived any information about the heavens.

However, it was too dark—at least in the maze—for him to examine this curiosity at all closely, and besides, he now heard Cooper’s voice, and sounds as of an elephant in the jungle. Humphreys called to him to follow the track he had beaten out, and soon Cooper emerged panting into the central circle.

He was full of apologies for his delay; he had not been able, after all, to find the key. “But there!” he said, “you’ve penetrated into the heart of the mystery unaided and unannealed, as the saying goes.

“Well! I suppose it’s a matter of thirty to forty years since any human foot has trod these precincts. Certain it is that I’ve never set foot in them before. Well, well! What’s the old proverb about angels fearing to tread? It’s proved true once again in this case.”

Humphreys’ acquaintance with Cooper, though it had been short, was sufficient to assure him that there was no guile in this allusion, and he for-bore the obvious remark, merely suggesting that it was fully time to get back to the house for a late cup of tea, and to release Cooper for his evening engagement.

They left the maze accordingly, experiencing well-nigh the same ease in retracing their path as they had in coming in.

“Have you any idea,” Humphreys asked, as they went toward the house, “why my uncle kept that place so carefully locked?”

Cooper pulled up, and Humphreys felt that he must be on the brink of a revelation.

“I should merely be deceiving you, Mr. Humphreys, and that to no good purpose, if I laid claim to possess any information whatsoever on that topic. When I first entered upon my duties here, some eighteen years back, that maze was word for word in the condition you see it now, and the one and only occasion on which the question ever arose within my knowledge was that of which my girl made mention in your hearing.