The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales (4 page)

“
I should be pleased to allow you access to my books, should you so desire it, but on one condition,” he said, smiling below his dead eyes.

“
Which is?” I asked.

“
That you consider joining a club of which I have the honour to be the current President.”

The look on my face must have betrayed my thoughts.

“
It is not a club of Uranian aspect, if that is what causes you to pale so,” Condor said.

“
Then what is it?” I responded.

“
It is called ‘The Lost Club’, doubtless you have heard the name before, or even seen it written down?”

I nodded assent, and recalled that the tale had been cut out from the copy of
The Cosy Room and Other Stories
, so I had not read it. I vaguely wondered whether this act of vandalism had been the work of Condor himself and, if so, to what purpose?

“
Well and good, then,” he said.

After we finished our drinks, we got up from the table and he suggested that I accompany him to his flat just off the north end of Judd Street, where I could see for myself what a treasure-trove of Machen items were in his possession. I readily agreed, having convinced myself that ‘The Lost Club’ was nothing more than a strangely secretive Arthur Machen Appreciation Society.

The weather was wintry, and the gusting wind icy-cold. Condor laboured along the pavement. He was out of breath after having walked little more than a hundred yards and so I was not surprised when he suggested we take a black cab, at his expense, rather than walk to our destination. We hailed a passing vehicle and I climbed in first. Condor followed behind, and wheezed out his address in Judd Street to the taxi driver. We arrived at our destination within the space of five minutes.

His flat was located in the basement of a nondescript house with tatty net curtains showing through dirty paned windows. As we went inside, I was taken aback by the musty odour that wafted from his living quarters. Cracks ran up and down the walls, his carpet was threadbare and there was the constant suggestion of mice scratching and running up and down behind the skirting boards. We passed along a dimly-lit corridor and he opened the door at the end with a theatrical flourish.

“
My inner sanctum, pray enter,” he said.

The room was lined on all four sides with bookshelves. As I glanced around at the titles of the volumes, my heart leapt. It contained hundreds of books by Machen, as well as directly related titles by other authors. Here was a shelf dedicated entirely to varying editions of
The Secret Glory
and another to
The Hill of Dreams
. My gaze could scarcely take it all in at once, and the titles of all the other works by Machen flashed by as I tried to absorb the extent of his library.

Condor crossed the room and casually selected a book, apparently at random. It was the Carbonnek 1888 edition of
The Chronicle of Clemendy, or The History of the IX Joyous Journeys
.

“
Look at this, won’t you?” he said, smiling and showing off his perfectly even but nicotine-stained teeth.

I eagerly sought the title page and there, in a flowing hand, was the inscription:

I marvelled at the thing for the briefest of moments, before Condor replaced it on the shelf and took down another volume. It was a leather-bound copy of a fabulously rare 1904 book called
The House of the Hidden Light
.

“
I had the pages bound at my own expense, since Welby, the publisher, did not trouble to do so,” he said.

My head was swimming, and Condor smirked, pressing home his advantage.

“
But really, these are mere trifles. Perhaps you would care to see some of the more obscure items that I own?”

“
Trifles? Do you mean to say you have things rarer still?” I replied.

He didn’t respond but pointed to an antique bureau in the corner of the room beside a pile of mouldering copies of
Horlicks Magazine
and
The Academy
, and taking a key from his pocket proceeded to unlock a drawer bearing a label with the legend “Obscure Machenalia”. As he rattled the key in the lock, I saw some sepia photographs scattered on the top of the bureau, seemingly left there for filing at a future date. One pictured a man in a frockcoat and a top-hat. His black beard was of Rasputin length. By his side was a taller thin woman with dark hair in a white wedding dress. The lady was attractive, and appeared to be several years older than her bridegroom. The man’s eyes and expression made me think it was Machen, but before I had time to dwell upon the matter further, Condor called my attention to the contents of the drawer.

“
Here,” he said, “is a clipping from a society journal of a tale entitled ‘The Resurrection of the Dead’, long thought lost by Machen scholars. Here too, the Eyre and Spottiswoode proofs for
Fleet Street Memories and Recollections
, as well as A.M.’s private
Clarendon Road Diaries
. Doubtless chapters five, six and seven, the unpublished chapters that is, of
The Secret Glory
will have some interest for you. The seventh provides an unexpurgated account of Ambrose Meyrick’s ‘Red Martyrdom’ in the East and the final destiny of the Sangraal. Perhaps though, it is with Machen’s earlier work that your enthusiasm is most fired? Here is a little pamphlet of his poetry printed in Hereford in 1881; its title is
Eleusinia
.”

“
Incredible!” I said. “How on earth did you manage to obtain all these things? I can scarcely believe my own eyes! You have a positive mania for collecting rarities.”

A frown gripped Condor’s face at the mention of the word “mania”. His eyes narrowed and he closed the drawer behind him.

“
It is true that my quest has been single-minded, since I have allowed no obstacles to stand in my way, even the law.”

“
Come, come,” I said, trying to lighten his mood, “surely there must be other private collections of a comparable, if not an equal, comprehensiveness.”

“
I have done my best to absorb from other collections what I require for my own. Where resistance has been met, it has been quashed utterly, usually with cash or blackmail, only rarely more extreme methods. You see, I am not a man to cross,” Condor replied.

At that moment, I realised for the first time he was leading up to something.

“
For instance,” he said, “you possess a signed copy of the 1923 Richards Press
The House of Souls
with the original dust jacket. I have all the other editions of that title, signed, but not that one. You wonder how I know this? Let me confess. I take a keen interest in all those who consult the Machen titles held by the British Library. I employ a man on the inside to pass me the number of the desk they use, as well as a record of their home addresses. Then I follow them around until I have all the information I require. Landladies, like servants, can be must obliging in noting down the contents of personal libraries, provided they are recompensed liberally for their efforts.”

“
This has been a most interesting evening,” I said, “but it’s late and I must be getting back to my place in Soho.”

He screeched at me: “You’ll not find your way home. Don’t you understand? From the moment you found the black page, a certain process has been set in motion.”

I left Condor standing there and staring at me with his dead eyes, watching my back, I suppose, as I made my way along the smelly corridor and up the flight of stairs to the streets outside.

I wasn’t on Judd Street. In fact I had no idea where I was. After several minutes of wandering around in circles I decided to have a drink in a pub before last orders. My watch showed fifteen minutes before ten. Obviously what had happened had affected me more than I realised. Eventually I found a place, The Quill, on Accrington Street.

By the time I next checked my watch, it was gone eleven, last orders had come and gone, and the few remaining customers were beginning to file out. The landlord had already been around twice, collecting glasses and ashtrays, telling diehard stragglers to
please
drink up. I was sat in a corner booth and looked around at the snug interior of the pub, taking it in a final time before leaving. The ceiling had browned with the exhalations of thousands of smokers, the flock wallpaper had been up for decades and, where it had peeled away, framed posters dating from the 1940s had covered the gaps. The electric wall-lamps were ornately wrought and their coloured glass bowls filtered the light, providing a cosy orange hue to the surroundings. Over on the other side of the bar, in the snug, they kept a welcoming coal-fire burning in the winter months. It consisted of just a few smouldering embers at this late hour.

The landlord abruptly turned off the background music that had been playing. I downed the last of my pint and pulled on my long woollen scarf and overcoat. I nodded at the landlord as he passed by, but got no response, and I thought better of asking him for directions to Soho. Instead I braced myself for the darkness and freezing cold that waited outside.

Accrington Street was deserted. It was one of those recondite by-ways, with terraced houses on both sides dating from the early 1800s. Each number had a railed “Area”, an open drop at the front of the building used as an entrance or exit by downstairs servants, by tradesmen, or to collect the coal from cellars under the pavement.

I still had no clear idea of my route home. I knew vaguely that I should strike south, but was unsure which streets would lead me in the right general direction.

Ahead was a street leading up a hill that seemed very out of place in the otherwise flat district. I climbed and found myself in a circular series of tall and dilapidated buildings with an overgrown garden in the centre. The hand painted street name high up on one of the houses told me I was in a place called Percival Round. It was constructed on the slope of the hill and the buildings at the top end were on a much higher level than those further down. Frost was biting hard now, and I wrapped my long scarf another loop around my neck. The Round was a survival from another age, like Accrington Street probably dating from the early 1800s, but here there was scarcely any sign of occupancy. It was as if the entire place had been abandoned decades ago and then utterly forgotten by everyone until I had stumbled across it.

I had the bizarre notion of having entered into occult territory.

Even the streetlamps seemed dimmer here, as if working from an antique electrical supply. In contrast, the stars were maddeningly bright, punctuating the darkness with an icy glare, strong enough even to cast dim shadows.

Had I then, lost my mind? Was everything around me some grotesque hallucination brought on by a disordered brain?

Well then, I thought, should I turn back or go forward? As far as I was able to determine I was in no actual danger.

So I went forward.

Percival Round became Predoit Place, a little street just as deserted and desolate as before, but containing two-storey stucco villas with crumbling front porticos, instead of tottering four-storey hulks. I could make out the villas’ flaking paintwork, long neglected, and the interminable series of cracks and fissures that time had wrought on the exteriors. Still there was no sign of any living soul, even when I came into a larger space called Layburn Square. Here the buildings were grander, more respectable than the middle-class dwellings in the streets that surrounded them. These Georgian edifices had been built for the well-to-do and even window taxes had caused no casement to be bricked up for reasons of economy. I entered one of them and made myself a bed as best I could.

I awoke the following day at dawn. The first rays of the rising sun illuminated the rooftops, turning their tiles and ramshackle chimneys a vivid shade of unearthly red. As the sun climbed higher in the sky I wandered through the deserted streets, watching windows light up like the opening of innumerable furnace doors. The desolate region was transfigured and, as if in sympathy with the change being wrought around me, a revelation burst forth from the depths of my soul.

For centuries have visionaries trod the ancient streets of the capital, even unto an age before records began. When the Roman legions carried their banners through the paved streets, they were here. When the Anglo-Saxon tribes had set up their encampments within the ruins, after the Romans had withdrawn, they were here. Down through the centuries, unmarked in the annals of history, during the Black Death and the Great Fire, when London turned from the Old Faith to fanatic Protestantism, even from belief to unbelief, when the Nazis rained down death from the skies, they had been here, unyielding, immovable, unchanging, holding fast to the Old Land buried beneath brick, stone, concrete and tarmac—the Old Land that could not be forsaken.

And the Old Land stretched forth its limbs in the trees on the heaths, and the forests, and the woods that were dotted across the city. They were reminders that the Old Land is not dead, but merely slumbers.

In Layburn Square, poised on the mount above the mystic metropolis, I saw a mighty tumulus suffused with a gold and crimson glory; and I saw the mysteries through magical eyes. I smelt rare spices carried on the breeze, along with the fragrances of the apple trees and the myriads of wildflowers stretching as far as the eye could see.