Ghost Story of an Antiquary

"Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the stairs and the gas meter ticked."—Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales

For the past three years, I've been using this blog to promote the revival of a fine old holiday tradition: the Christmas ghost story. I haven't succeeded yet, but I have collected enough stories to continue posting one or two a year until such time that I myself become a candidate for ghosthood.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to Montague Rhodes James. You can't talk about Christmas ghost stories without mentioning the name M. R. James. A respected medievalist scholar and provost at King's College, Cambridge, he is better remembered for his "antiquarian ghost stories," which redefined the genre and influenced such later writers as H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King.

Although James famously read his stories to friends and students on Christmas Eve, the only one of his published stories which actually takes place at Christmastime is The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance. It features that most charming of traditional English entertainments, the Punch and Judy show, wherein one hideous puppet gleefully bludgeons other hideous puppets to death.

Happy Christmas, and pleasant dreams!

Punch Kills Judy (artist unknown)

The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance
by M. R. James (1913)

The letters which I now publish were sent to me recently by a person who knows me to be interested in ghost stories. There is no doubt about their authenticity. The paper on which they are written, the ink, and the whole external aspect put their date beyond the reach of question.

The only point which they do not make clear is the identity of the writer. He signs with initials only, and as none of the envelopes of the letters are preserved, the surname of his correspondent — obviously a married brother — is as obscure as his own. No further preliminary explanation is needed, I think. Luckily the first letter supplies all that could be expected.

LETTER I

GREAT CHRISHALL, Dec. 22, 1837.

MY DEAR ROBERT — It is with great regret for the enjoyment I am losing, and for a reason which you will deplore equally with myself, that I write to inform you that I am unable to join your circle for this Christmas: but you will agree with me that it is unavoidable when I say that I have within these few hours received a letter from Mrs. Hunt at B—— to the effect that our Uncle Henry has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and begging me to go down there immediately and join the search that is being made for him. Little as I, or you either, I think, have ever seen of Uncle, I naturally feel that this is not a request that can be regarded lightly, and accordingly I propose to go to B—— by this afternoon’s mail, reaching it late in the evening. I shall not go to the Rectory, but put up at the King’s Head, and to which you may address letters. I enclose a small draft, which you will please make use of for the benefit of the young people. I shall write you daily (supposing me to be detained more than a single day) what goes on, and you may be sure, should the business be cleared up in time to permit of my coming to the Manor after all, I shall present myself. I have but a few minutes at disposal. With cordial greetings to you all, and many regrets, believe me, your affectionate Bro.,

W. R.

LETTER II

KING’S HEAD, Dec. 23, ‘37.

MY DEAR ROBERT — In the first place, there is as yet no news of Uncle H., and I think you may finally dismiss any idea — I won’t say hope — that I might after all “turn up” for Xmas. However, my thoughts will be with you, and you have my best wishes for a really festive day. Mind that none of my nephews or nieces expend any fraction of their guineas on presents for me.

Since I got here I have been blaming myself for taking this affair of Uncle H. too easily. From what people here say, I gather that there is very little hope that he can still be alive; but whether it is accident or design that carried him off I cannot judge. The facts are these. On Friday the 19th, he went as usual shortly before five o’clock to read evening prayers at the Church; and when they were over the clerk brought him a message, in response to which he set off to pay a visit to a sick person at an outlying cottage the better part of two miles away. He paid the visit, and started on his return journey at about half-past six. This is the last that is known of him. The people here are very much grieved at his loss; he had been here many years, as you know, and though, as you also know, he was not the most genial of men, and had more than a little of the martinet in his composition, he seems to have been active in good works, and unsparing of trouble to himself.

Poor Mrs. Hunt, who has been his housekeeper ever since she left Woodley, is quite overcome: it seems like the end of the world to her. I am glad that I did not entertain the idea of taking quarters at the Rectory; and I have declined several kindly offers of hospitality from people in the place, preferring as I do to be independent, and finding myself very comfortable here.

You will, of course, wish to know what has been done in the way of inquiry and search. First, nothing was to be expected from investigation at the Rectory; and to be brief, nothing has transpired. I asked Mrs. Hunt — as others had done before — whether there was either any unfavourable symptom in her master such as might portend a sudden stroke, or attack of illness, or whether he had ever had reason to apprehend any such thing: but both she, and also his medical man, were clear that this was not the case. He was quite in his usual health. In the second place, naturally, ponds and streams have been dragged, and fields in the neighbourhood which he is known to have visited last, have been searched — without result. I have myself talked to the parish clerk and — more important — have been to the house where he paid his visit.

There can be no question of any foul play on these people’s part. The one man in the house is ill in bed and very weak: the wife and the children of course could do nothing themselves, nor is there the shadow of a probability that they or any of them should have agreed to decoy poor Uncle H. out in order that he might be attacked on the way back. They had told what they knew to several other inquirers already, but the woman repeated it to me. The Rector was looking just as usual: he wasn’t very long with the sick man — “He ain’t,” she said, “like some what has a gift in prayer; but there, if we was all that way, ‘owever would the chapel people get their living?” He left some money when he went away, and one of the children saw him cross the stile into the next field. He was dressed as he always was: wore his bands — I gather he is nearly the last man remaining who does so — at any rate in this district.

You see I am putting down everything. The fact is that I have nothing else to do, having brought no business papers with me; and, moreover, it serves to clear my own mind, and may suggest points which have been overlooked. So I shall continue to write all that passes, even to conversations if need be — you may read or not as you please, but pray keep the letters. I have another reason for writing so fully, but it is not a very tangible one.

You may ask if I have myself made any search in the fields near the cottage. Something — a good deal — has been done by others, as I mentioned; but I hope to go over the ground tomorrow. Bow Street has now been informed, and will send down by to-night’s coach, but I do not think they will make much of the job. There is no snow, which might have helped us. The fields are all grass. Of course I was on the qui vive for any indication today both going and returning; but there was a thick mist on the way back, and I was not in trim for wandering about unknown pastures, especially on an evening when bushes looked like men, and a cow lowing in the distance might have been the last trump. I assure you, if Uncle Henry had stepped out from among the trees in a little copse which borders the path at one place, carrying his head under his arm, I should have been very little more uncomfortable than I was. To tell you the truth, I was rather expecting something of the kind. But I must drop my pen for the moment: Mr. Lucas, the curate, is announced.

Later. Mr. Lucas has been, and gone, and there is not much beyond the decencies of ordinary sentiment to be got from him. I can see that he has given up any idea that the Rector can be alive, and that, so far as he can be, he is truly sorry. I can also discern that even in a more emotional person than Mr. Lucas, Uncle Henry was not likely to inspire strong attachment.

Besides Mr. Lucas, I have had another visitor in the shape of my Boniface — mine host of the “King’s Head” — who came to see whether I had everything I wished, and who really requires the pen of a Boz to do him justice. He was very solemn and weighty at first. “Well, sir,” he said, “I suppose we must bow our ‘ead beneath the blow, as my poor wife had used to say. So far as I can gather there’s been neither hide nor yet hair of our late respected incumbent scented out as yet; not that he was what the Scripture terms a hairy man in any sense of the word.”

I said — as well as I could — that I supposed not, but could not help adding that I had heard he was sometimes a little difficult to deal with. Mr. Bowman looked at me sharply for a moment, and then passed in a flash from solemn sympathy to impassioned declamation. “When I think,” he said, “of the language that man see fit to employ to me in this here parlour over no more a matter than a cask of beer — such a thing as I told him might happen any day of the week to a man with a family — though as it turned out he was quite under a mistake, and that I knew at the time, only I was that shocked to hear him I couldn’t lay my tongue to the right expression.”

He stopped abruptly and eyed me with some embarrassment. I only said, “Dear me, I’m sorry to hear you had any little differences; I suppose my uncle will be a good deal missed in the parish?” Mr. Bowman drew a long breath. “Ah, yes!” he said; “your uncle! You’ll understand me when I say that for the moment it had slipped my remembrance that he was a relative; and natural enough, I must say, as it should, for as to you bearing any resemblance to — to him, the notion of any such a thing is clean ridiculous. All the same, ‘ad I ‘ave bore it in my mind, you’ll be among the first to feel, I’m sure, as I should have abstained my lips, or rather I should not have abstained my lips with no such reflections.”

I assured him that I quite understood, and was going to have asked him some further questions, but he was called away to see after some business. By the way, you need not take it into your head that he has anything to fear from the inquiry into poor Uncle Henry’s disappearance — though, no doubt, in the watches of the night it will occur to him that I think he has, and I may expect explanations tomorrow.

I must close this letter: it has to go by the late coach.

LETTER III

Dec. 25, ‘37.

MY DEAR ROBERT — This is a curious letter to be writing on Christmas Day, and yet after all there is nothing much in it. Or there may be — you shall be the judge. At least, nothing decisive. The Bow Street men practically say that they have no clue. The length of time and the weather conditions have made all tracks so faint as to be quite useless: nothing that belonged to the dead man — I’m afraid no other word will do — has been picked up.

As I expected, Mr. Bowman was uneasy in his mind this morning; quite early I heard him holding forth in a very distinct voice — purposely so, I thought — to the Bow Street officers in the bar, as to the loss that the town had sustained in their Rector, and as to the necessity of leaving no stone unturned (he was very great on this phrase) in order to come at the truth. I suspect him of being an orator of repute at convivial meetings.

When I was at breakfast he came to wait on me, and took an opportunity when handing a muffin to say in a low tone, “I ‘ope, sir, you reconize as my feelings towards your relative is not actuated by any taint of what you may call melignity — you can leave the room, Eliza, I will see the gentleman ‘as all he requires with my own hands — I ask your pardon, sir, but you must be well aware a man is not always master of himself: and when that man has been ‘urt in his mind by the application of expressions which I will go so far as to say ‘ad not ought to have been made use of (his voice was rising all this time and his face growing redder); no, sir; and ’ere, if you will permit of it, I should like to explain to you in a very few words the exact state of the bone of contention. This cask — I might more truly call it a firkin — of beer —”

I felt it was time to interpose, and said that I did not see that it would help us very much to go into that matter in detail. Mr. Bowman acquiesced, and resumed more calmly:

“Well, sir, I bow to your ruling, and as you say, be that here or be it there, it don’t contribute a great deal, perhaps, to the present question. All I wish you to understand is that I am prepared as you are yourself to lend every hand to the business we have afore us, and — as I took the opportunity to say as much to the Orficers not three-quarters of an hour ago — to leave no stone unturned as may throw even a spark of light on this painful matter.”

In fact, Mr. Bowman did accompany us on our exploration, but though I am sure his genuine wish was to be helpful, I am afraid he did not contribute to the serious side of it. He appeared to be under the impression that we were likely to meet either Uncle Henry or the person responsible for his disappearance, walking about the fields — and did a great deal of shading his eyes with his hand and calling our attention, by pointing with his stick, to distant cattle and labourers. He held several long conversations with old women whom we met, and was very strict and severe in his manner — but on each occasion returned to our party saying, “Well, I find she don’t seem to ‘ave no connexion with this sad affair. I think you may take it from me, sir, as there’s little or no light to be looked for from that quarter; not without she’s keeping somethink back intentional.”

We gained no appreciable result, as I told you at starting; the Bow Street men have left the town, whether for London or not, I am not sure.

This evening I had company in the shape of a bagman, a smartish fellow. He knew what was going forward, but though he has been on the roads for some days about here, he had nothing to tell of suspicious characters — tramps, wandering sailors or gipsies. He was very full of a capital Punch and Judy Show he had seen this same day at W—— and asked if it had been here yet, and advised me by no means to miss it if it does come. The best Punch and the best Toby dog, he said, he had ever come across. Toby dogs, you know, are the last new thing in the shows. I have only seen one myself, but before long all the men will have them.

Now why, you will want to know, do I trouble to write all this to you? I am obliged to do it, because it has something to do with another absurd trifle (as you will inevitably say), which in my present state of rather unquiet fancy — nothing more, perhaps — I have to put down. It is a dream, sir, which I am going to record, and I must say it is one of the oddest I have had. Is there anything in it beyond what the bagman’s talk and Uncle Henry’s disappearance could have suggested? You, I repeat, shall judge: I am not in a sufficiently cool and judicial frame to do so.

It began with what I can only describe as a pulling aside of curtains: and I found myself seated in a place — I don’t know whether in doors or out. There were people — only a few — on either side of me, but I did not recognize them, or indeed think much about them. They never spoke, but, so far as I remember, were all grave and pale-faced and looked fixedly before them. Facing me there was a Punch and Judy Show, perhaps rather larger than the ordinary ones, painted with black figures on a reddish-yellow ground. Behind it and on each side was only darkness, but in front there was a sufficiency of light. I was “strung up” to a high degree of expectation and listened every moment to hear the panpipes and the Roo-too-too-it. Instead of that there came suddenly an enormous — I can use no other word — an enormous single toll of a bell, I don’t know from how far off — somewhere behind. The little curtain flew up and the drama began.

I believe someone once tried to re-write Punch as a serious tragedy; but whoever he may have been, this performance would have suited him exactly. There was something Satanic about the hero. He varied his methods of attack: for some of his victims he lay in wait, and to see his horrible face — it was yellowish white, I may remark — peering round the wings made me think of the Vampyre in Fuseli’s foul sketch. To others he was polite and carneying — particularly to the unfortunate alien who can only say Shallabalah — though what Punch said I never could catch. But with all of them I came to dread the moment of death. The crack of the stick on their skulls, which in the ordinary way delights me, had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as they lay. The baby — it sounds more ridiculous as I go on — the baby, I am sure, was alive. Punch wrung its neck, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality.

The stage got perceptibly darker as each crime was consummated, and at last there was one murder which was done quite in the dark, so that I could see nothing of the victim, and took some time to effect. It was accompanied by hard breathing and horrid muffled sounds, and after it Punch came and sat on the foot-board and fanned himself and looked at his shoes, which were bloody, and hung his head on one side, and sniggered in so deadly a fashion that I saw some of those beside me cover their faces, and I would gladly have done the same. But in the meantime the scene behind Punch was clearing, and showed, not the usual house front, but something more ambitious — a grove of trees and the gentle slope of a hill, with a very natural — in fact, I should say a real — moon shining on it. Over this there rose slowly an object which I soon perceived to be a human figure with something peculiar about the head — what, I was unable at first to see. It did not stand on its feet, but began creeping or dragging itself across the middle distance towards Punch, who still sat back to it; and by this time, I may remark (though it did not occur to me at the moment) that all pretence of this being a puppet show had vanished. Punch was still Punch, it is true, but, like the others, was in some sense a live creature, and both moved themselves at their own will.

When I next glanced at him he was sitting in malignant reflection; but in another instant something seemed to attract his attention, and he first sat up sharply and then turned round, and evidently caught sight of the person that was approaching him and was in fact now very near. Then, indeed, did he show unmistakable signs of terror: catching up his stick, he rushed towards the wood, only just eluding the arm of his pursuer, which was suddenly flung out to intercept him. It was with a revulsion which I cannot easily express that I now saw more or less clearly what this pursuer was like. He was a sturdy figure clad in black, and, as I thought, wearing bands: his head was covered with a whitish bag.

The chase which now began lasted I do not know how long, now among the trees, now along the slope of the field, sometimes both figures disappearing wholly for a few seconds, and only some uncertain sounds letting one know that they were still afoot. At length there came a moment when Punch, evidently exhausted, staggered in from the left and threw himself down among the trees. His pursuer was not long after him, and came looking uncertainly from side to side. Then, catching sight of the figure on the ground, he too threw himself down — his back was turned to the audience — with a swift motion twitched the covering from his head, and thrust his face into that of Punch. Everything on the instant grew dark.

There was one long, loud, shuddering scream, and I awoke to find myself looking straight into the face of — what in all the world do you think? — but a large owl, which was seated on my window-sill immediately opposite my bed-foot, holding up its wings like two shrouded arms. I caught the fierce glance of its yellow eyes, and then it was gone. I heard the single enormous bell again — very likely, as you are saying to yourself, the church clock; but I do not think so — and then I was broad awake.

All this, I may say, happened within the last half-hour. There was no probability of my getting to sleep again, so I got up, put on clothes enough to keep me warm, and am writing this rigmarole in the first hours of Christmas Day. Have I left out anything? Yes, there was no Toby dog, and the names over the front of the Punch and Judy booth were Kidman and Gallop, which were certainly not what the bagman told me to look out for.

By this time, I feel a little more as if I could sleep, so this shall be sealed and wafered.

LETTER IV

Dec. 26, ‘37.

MY DEAR ROBERT — All is over. The body has been found. I do not make excuses for not having sent off my news by last night’s mail, for the simple reason that I was incapable of putting pen to paper. The events that attended the discovery bewildered me so completely that I needed what I could get of a night’s rest to enable me to face the situation at all. Now I can give you my journal of the day, certainly the strangest Christmas Day that ever I spent or am likely to spend.

The first incident was not very serious. Mr. Bowman had, I think, been keeping Christmas Eve, and was a little inclined to be captious: at least, he was not on foot very early, and to judge from what I could hear, neither men or maids could do anything to please him. The latter were certainly reduced to tears; nor am I sure that Mr. Bowman succeeded in preserving a manly composure. At any rate, when I came downstairs, it was in a broken voice that he wished me the compliments of the season, and a little later on, when he paid his visit of ceremony at breakfast, he was far from cheerful: even Byronic, I might almost say, in his outlook on life.

“I don’t know,” he said, “if you think with me, sir; but every Christmas as comes round the world seems a hollerer thing to me. Why, take an example now from what lays under my own eye. There’s my servant Eliza — been with me now for going on fifteen years. I thought I could have placed my confidence in Elizar, and yet this very morning — Christmas morning too, of all the blessed days in the year — with the bells a ringing and — and — all like that — I say, this very morning, had it not have been for Providence watching over us all, that girl would have put — indeed I may go so far to say, ‘ad put the cheese on your breakfast table ——” He saw I was about to speak, and waved his hand at me. “It’s all very well for you to say, ‘Yes, Mr. Bowman, but you took away the cheese and locked it up in the cupboard,’ which I did, and have the key here, or if not the actual key one very much about the same size. That’s true enough, sir, but what do you think is the effect of that action on me? Why it’s no exaggeration for me to say that the ground is cut from under my feet. And yet when I said as much to Eliza, not nasty, mind you, but just firm like, what was my return? ‘Oh,’ she says: ‘Well,’ she says, ‘there wasn’t no bones broke, I suppose.’ Well, sir, it ‘urt me, that’s all I can say: it ‘urt me, and I don’t like to think of it now.”

There was an ominous pause here, in which I ventured to say something like, “Yes, very trying,” and then asked at what hour the church service was to be. “Eleven o’clock,” Mr. Bowman said with a heavy sigh. “Ah, you won’t have no such discourse from poor Mr. Lucas as what you would have done from our late Rector. Him and me may have had our little differences, and did do, more’s the pity.”

I could see that a powerful effort was needed to keep him off the vexed question of the cask of beer, but he made it. “But I will say this, that a better preacher, nor yet one to stand faster by his rights, or what he considered to be his rights — however, that’s not the question now — I for one, never set under. Some might say, ‘Was he a eloquent man?’ and to that my answer would be: ‘Well, there you’ve a better right per’aps to speak of your own uncle than what I have.’ Others might ask, ‘Did he keep a hold of his congregation?’ and there again I should reply, ‘That depends.’ But as I say — Yes, Eliza, my girl, I’m coming — eleven o’clock, sir, and you inquire for the King’s Head pew.” I believe Eliza had been very near the door, and shall consider it in my vail.

The next episode was church: I felt Mr. Lucas had a difficult task in doing justice to Christmas sentiments, and also to the feeling of disquiet and regret which, whatever Mr. Bowman might say, was clearly prevalent. I do not think he rose to the occasion. I was uncomfortable. The organ wolved — you know what I mean: the wind died — twice in the Christmas Hymn, and the tenor bell, I suppose owing to some negligence on the part of the ringers, kept sounding faintly about once in a minute during the sermon. The clerk sent up a man to see to it, but he seemed unable to do much. I was glad when it was over. There was an odd incident, too, before the service. I went in rather early, and came upon two men carrying the parish bier back to its place under the tower. From what I overheard them saying, it appeared that it had been put out by mistake, by some one who was not there. I also saw the clerk busy folding up a moth-eaten velvet pall — not a sight for Christmas Day.

I dined soon after this, and then, feeling disinclined to go out, took my seat by the fire in the parlour, with the last number of Pickwick, which I had been saving up for some days. I thought I could be sure of keeping awake over this, but I turned out as bad as our friend Smith. I suppose it was half-past two when I was roused by a piercing whistle and laughing and talking voices outside in the market-place. It was a Punch and Judy — I had no doubt the one that my bagman had seen at W——. I was half delighted, half not — the latter because my unpleasant dream came back to me so vividly; but, anyhow, I determined to see it through, and I sent Eliza out with a crown-piece to the performers and a request that they would face my window if they could manage it.

The show was a very smart new one; the names of the proprietors, I need hardly tell you, were Italian, Foresta and Calpigi. The Toby dog was there, as I had been led to expect. All B—— turned out, but did not obstruct my view, for I was at the large first-floor window and not ten yards away.

The play began on the stroke of a quarter to three by the church clock. Certainly it was very good; and I was soon relieved to find that the disgust my dream had given me for Punch’s onslaughts on his ill-starred visitors was only transient. I laughed at the demise of the Turncock, the Foreigner, the Beadle, and even the baby. The only drawback was the Toby dog’s developing a tendency to howl in the wrong place. Something had occurred, I suppose, to upset him, and something considerable: for, I forget exactly at what point, he gave a most lamentable cry, leapt off the foot board, and shot away across the market-place and down a side street. There was a stage-wait, but only a brief one. I suppose the men decided that it was no good going after him, and that he was likely to turn up again at night.

We went on. Punch dealt faithfully with Judy, and in fact with all comers; and then came the moment when the gallows was erected, and the great scene with Mr. Ketch was to be enacted. It was now that something happened of which I can certainly not yet see the import fully. You have witnessed an execution, and know what the criminal’s head looks like with the cap on. If you are like me, you never wish to think of it again, and I do not willingly remind you of it. It was just such a head as that, that I, from my somewhat higher post, saw in the inside of the show-box; but at first the audience did not see it. I expected it to emerge into their view, but instead of that there slowly rose for a few seconds an uncovered face, with an expression of terror upon it, of which I have never imagined the like. It seemed as if the man, whoever he was, was being forcibly lifted, with his arms somehow pinioned or held back, towards the little gibbet on the stage. I could just see the nightcapped head behind him. Then there was a cry and a crash. The whole show-box fell over backwards; kicking legs were seen among the ruins, and then two figures — as some said; I can only answer for one — were visible running at top speed across the square and disappearing in a lane which leads to the fields.

Of course everybody gave chase. I followed; but the pace was killing, and very few were in, literally, at the death. It happened in a chalk pit: the man went over the edge quite blindly and broke his neck. They searched everywhere for the other, until it occurred to me to ask whether he had ever left the market-place. At first everyone was sure that he had; but when we came to look, he was there, under the show-box, dead too.

But in the chalk pit it was that poor Uncle Henry’s body was found, with a sack over the head, the throat horribly mangled. It was a peaked corner of the sack sticking out of the soil that attracted attention. I cannot bring myself to write in greater detail.

I forgot to say the men’s real names were Kidman and Gallop. I feel sure I have heard them, but no one here seems to know anything about them.

I am coming to you as soon as I can after the funeral. I must tell you when we meet what I think of it all.

(From the collection, A Thin Ghost and Others, by M. R. James. This and other collections of James's stories are in the public domain and can be downloaded free of charge from Project Gutenberg.)

Not Exactly a Ghost Story

When I began this blog seven years ago, it was my intention to write a post every week. Over the years, as I ran out of things to write about, the posts have steadily dwindled. These days if I post anything (other than the occasional rant about something in the news), it's generally at Christmas, and it's generally a ghost story.

I began collecting and posting Christmas ghost stories three years ago, thinking it a fine old tradition that deserved to be revived. In that first post, I mentioned the following story by Sir Andrew Caldecott. At the time, the only version of it I could find was incomplete, but I have since found the complete story. Due to the vagaries of copyright law, it is in the public domain in other countries, but not in the United States. I may actually be breaking the law by posting it here. Considering he's been dead for sixty-seven years, I doubt Sir Andrew will complain. But who knows? He may decide to haunt me. If he does, it will make a good story for next Christmas.

Back in the days when the sun never set on the British empire, Caldecott served as a colonial administrator in British Malaya (now Malaysia), Hong Kong, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He also wrote a number of supernatural stories in the tradition of M. R. James. In fact, Christmas Re-union is an homage to James, suggested by a passage in one of his books. It's from a collection of stories titled Not Exactly Ghosts, which also happen to be the final three words of the story. As those three words suggest, it is not a typical ghost story. However, I think you will find it suitably creepy—and not without a modicum of uniquely British humour.

Creepy Vintage Santa

Christmas Re-union
by Sir Andrew Caldecott (1912)

1

'I cannot explain what exactly it is about him; but I don't like your Mr Clarence Love, and I'm sorry that you ever asked him to stay.'

Thus Richard Dreyton to his wife Elinor on the morning of Christmas Eve.

'But one must remember the children, Richard. You know what marvellous presents he gives them.'

'Much too marvellous. He spoils them. Yet you'll have noticed that none of them likes him. Children have a wonderful intuition in regard to the character of grown-ups.'

'What on earth are you hinting about his character? He's a very nice man.'

Dreyton shuffled off his slippers in front of the study fire and began putting on his boots.

'I wonder, darling, whether you noticed his face just now at breakfast, when he opened that letter with the Australian stamps on?'

'Yes; he did seem a bit upset: but not more so than you when you get my dressmaker's bill!'

Mrs Dreyton accompanied this sally with a playful pat on her husband's back as he leant forward to do up his laces.

'Well, Elinor, all that I can say is that there's something very fishy about his antipodean history. At five-and-twenty, he left England a penniless young man and, heigh presto! he returns a stinking plutocrat at twenty-eight. And how? What he's told you doesn't altogether tally with what he's told me; but, cutting out the differences, his main story is that he duly contacted old Nelson Joy, his maternal uncle, whom he went out to join, and that they went off together, prospecting for gold. They struck it handsomely; and then the poor old uncle gets a heart-stroke or paralysis, or something, in the bush, and bids Clarence leave him there to die and get out himself before the food gives out. Arrived back in Sydney, Clarence produces a will under which he is the sole beneficiary, gets the Court to presume old Joy's death, and bunks back here with the loot.'

Mrs Dreyton frowned. 'I can see nothing wrong or suspicious about the story,' she said, 'but only in your telling of it.'

'No! No! In his telling of it. He never gets the details quite the same twice running, and I'm certain that he gave a different topography to their prospecting expedition this year from what he did last. It's my belief that he did the uncle in, poor old chap!'

'Don't be so absurd, Richard; and please remember that he's our guest, and that we must be hospitable: especially at Christmas. Which reminds me: on your way to office, would you mind looking in at Harridge's and making sure that they haven't forgotten our order for their Santa Claus tomorrow? He's to be here at seven; then to go on to the Simpsons at seven-thirty, and to end up at the Joneses at eight. It's lucky our getting three households to share the expenses: Harridge's charge each of us only half their catalogued fee. If they could possibly send us the same Father Christmas as last year it would be splendid. The children adored him. Don't forget to say, too, that he will find all the crackers, hats, musical toys and presents inside the big chest in the hall. Just the same as last year. What should we do nowadays without the big stores? One goes to them for everything.'

'We certainly do,' Dreyton agreed; 'and I can't see the modern child putting up with the amateur Father Christmas we used to suffer from. I shall never forget the annual exhibition Uncle Bertie used to make of himself, or the slippering I got when I stuck a darning-needle into his behind under pretence that I wanted to see if he was real! Well, so long, old girl: no, I won't forget to call in at Harridge's.'

2

By the time the festive Christmas supper had reached the dessert stage, Mrs Dreyton fully shared her husband's regret that she had ever asked Clarence Love to be of the party. The sinister change that had come over him on receipt of the letter from Australia became accentuated on the later arrival of a telegram which, he said, would necessitate his leaving towards the end of the evening to catch the eight-fifteen northbound express from King's Pancras. His valet had already gone ahead with the luggage and, as it had turned so foggy, he had announced his intention of following later by Underground, in order to avoid the possibility of being caught in a traffic-jam.

It is strange how sometimes the human mind can harbour simultaneously two entirely contradictory emotions. Mrs Dreyton was consumed with annoyance that any guest of hers should be so inconsiderate as to terminate his stay in the middle of a Christmas party; but was, at the same time, impatient to be rid of such a skeleton at the feast. One of the things that she had found attractive in Clarence Love had been an unfailing fund of small talk, which, if not brilliant, was at any rate bright and breezy. He possessed, also, a pleasant and frequent smile and, till now, had always been assiduous in his attention to her conversation. Since yesterday, however, he had turned silent, inattentive, and dour in expression. His presentation to her of a lovely emerald brooch had been unaccompanied by any greeting beyond an unflattering and perfunctory 'Happy Christmas!' He had also proved unforgivably oblivious of the mistletoe, beneath which, with a careful carelessness, she stationed herself when she heard him coming down to breakfast. It was, indeed, quite mortifying; and, when her husband described the guest as a busted balloon, she had neither the mind nor the heart to gainsay him.

Happily for the mirth and merriment of the party Dreyton seemed to derive much exhilaration from the dumb discomfiture of his wife's friend, and Elinor had never seen or heard her husband in better form. He managed, too, to infect the children with his own ebullience; and even Miss Potterby (the governess) reciprocated his fun. Even before the entry of Father Christmas it had thus become a noisy, and almost rowdy, company.

Father Christmas's salutation, on arrival, was in rhymed verse and delivered in the manner appropriate to pantomime. His lines ran thus:

To Sons of Peace
Yule brings release
From worry at this tide;
But men of crime
This holy time
Their guilty heads need hide.
So never fear,
Ye children dear,
But innocent sing 'Nowell';
For the Holy Rood
Shall save the good,
And the bad be burned in hell.
This is my carol
And Nowell my parole.

There was clapping of hands at this, for there is nothing children enjoy so much as mummery; especially if it be slightly mysterious. The only person who appeared to dislike the recitation was Love, who was seen to stop both ears with his fingers at the end of the first verse and to look ill. As soon as he had made an end of the prologue, Santa Claus went ahead with his distribution of gifts, and made many a merry quip and pun. He was quick in the uptake, too; for the children put to him many a poser, to which a witty reply was always ready. The minutes indeed slipped by all too quickly for all of them, except Love, who kept glancing uncomfortably at his wrist-watch and was plainly in a hurry to go. Hearing him mutter that it was time for him to be off, Father Christmas walked to his side and bade him pull a farewell cracker. Having done so, resentfully it seemed, he was asked to pull out the motto and read it. His hands were now visibly shaking, and his voice seemed to have caught their infection. Very falteringly, he managed to stammer out the two lines of doggerel:

Re-united heart to heart
Love and joy shall never part.

'And now,' said Father Christmas, 'I must be making for the next chimney; and, on my way, sir, I will see you into the Underground.'

So saying he took Clarence Love by the left arm and led him with mock ceremony to the door, where he turned and delivered this epilogue:

Ladies and Gentlemen, goodnight!
Let not darkness you affright.
Aught of evil here today
Santa Claus now bears away.

At this point, with sudden dramatic effect, he clicked off the electric light switch by the door; and, by the time Dreyton had groped his way to it in the darkness and turned it on again, the parlour-maid (who was awaiting Love's departure in the hall) had let both him and Father Christmas out into the street.

'Excellent!' Mrs Dreyton exclaimed, 'quite excellent! One can always depend on Harridge's. It wasn't the same man as they sent last year; but quite as good, and more original, perhaps.'

'I'm glad he's taken Mr Love away,' said young Harold.

'Yes,' Dorothy chipped in; 'he's been beastly all day, and yesterday, too: and his presents aren't nearly as expensive as last year.'

'Shut up, you spoilt children!' the father interrupted. 'I must admit, though, that the fellow was a wet blanket this evening. What was that nonsense he read out about reunion?'

Miss Potterby had developed a pedagogic habit of clearing her throat audibly, as a signal demanding her pupils' attention to some impending announcement. She did it now, and parents as well as children looked expectantly towards her.

'The motto as read by Mr Love,' she declared, 'was so palpably inconsequent that I took the liberty of appropriating it when he laid the slip of paper back on the table. Here it is, and this is how it actually reads:

Be united heart to heart,
Love and joy shall never part.

That makes sense, if it doesn't make poetry. Mr Love committed the error of reading 'be united' as 'reunited' and of not observing the comma between the two lines.'

'Thank you, Miss Potterby; that, of course, explains it. How clever of you to have spotted the mistake and tracked it down!'

Thus encouraged, Miss Potterby proceeded to further corrective edification.

'You remarked just now, Mrs Dreyton, that the gentleman impersonating Father Christmas had displayed originality. His prologue and epilogue, however, were neither of them original, but corrupted versions of passages which you will find in Professor Borleigh's Synopsis of Nativity, Miracle and Morality Plays, published two years ago. I happen to be familiar with the subject, as the author is a first cousin of mine, once removed.'

'How interesting!' Dreyton here broke in; 'and now, Miss Potterby, if you will most kindly preside at the piano, we will dance Sir Roger de Coverley. Come on, children, into the drawing-room.'

3

On Boxing Day there was no post and no paper. Meeting Mrs Simpson in the Park that afternoon, Mrs Dreyton was surprised to hear that Father Christmas had kept neither of his two other engagements. 'It must have been that horrid fog,' she suggested; 'but what a shame! He was even better than last year:' by which intelligence Mrs Simpson seemed little comforted.

Next morning—the second after Christmas—there were two letters on the Dreytons' breakfast-table, and both were from Harridge's.

The first conveyed that firm's deep regret that their representative should have been prevented from carrying out his engagements in Pentland Square on Christmas night owing to dislocation of traffic caused by the prevailing fog.

'But he kept ours all right,' Mrs Dreyton commented. 'I feel so sorry for the Simpsons and the Joneses.'

The second letter cancelled the first, 'which had been written in unfortunate oversight of the cancellation of the order'.

'What on earth does that mean?' Mrs Dreyton ejaculated.

'Ask me another!' returned her husband. 'Got their correspondence mixed up, I suppose.',

In contrast to the paucity of letters, the morning newspapers seemed unusually voluminous and full of pictures. Mrs Dreyton's choice of what to read in them was not that of a highbrow. The headline that attracted her first attention ran 'XMAS ON UNDERGROUND', and, among other choice items, she learned how, at Pentland Street Station (their own nearest), a man dressed as Santa Claus had been seen to guide and support an invalid, or possibly tipsy, companion down the long escalator. The red coat, mask and beard were afterwards found discarded in a passage leading to the emergency staircase, so that even Santa's sobriety might be called into question. She was just about to retail this interesting intelligence to her husband when, laying down his own paper, he stared curiously at her and muttered 'Good God!'

'What on earth's the matter, dear?'

'A very horrible thing, Elinor. Clarence Love has been killed! Listen;' here he resumed his paper and began to read aloud: "The body of the man who fell from the Pentland Street platform on Christmas night in front of an incoming train has been identified as that of Mr Clarence Love, of I I Playfair Mansions. There was a large crowd of passengers on the platform at the time, and it is conjectured that he fell backwards off it while turning to expostulate with persons exerting pressure at his back. Nobody, however, in the crush, could have seen the exact circumstances of the said fatality."'

'Hush, dear! Here come the children. They mustn't know, of course. We can talk about it afterwards.'

Dreyton, however, could not wait to talk about it afterwards. The whole of the amateur detective within him had been aroused, and, rising early from the breakfast-table, he journeyed by tube to Harridge's, where he was soon interviewing a departmental sub-manager. No: there was no possibility of one of their representatives having visited Pentland Square on Christmas evening. Our Mr Droper had got hung up in the Shenton Street traffic-block until it was too late to keep his engagements there. He had come straight back to his rooms. In any case, he would not have called at Mr Dreyton's residence in view of the cancellation of the order the previous day. Not cancelled? But he took down the telephone message himself. Yes: here was the entry in the register. Then it must have been the work of some mischief-maker; it was certainly a gentleman's, and not a lady's voice. Nobody except he and Mr Droper knew of the engagement at their end, so the practical joker must have derived his knowledge of it from somebody in Mr Dreyton's household.

This was obviously sound reasoning and, on his return home, Dreyton questioned Mrs Timmins, the cook, in the matter. She was immediately helpful and forthcoming. One of them insurance gents had called on the morning before Christmas and had been told that none of us wanted no policies or such like. He had then turned conversational and asked what sort of goings-on there would be here for Christmas. Nothing, he was told, except old Father Christmas, as usual, out of Harridge's shop. Then he asked about visitors in the house, and was told as there were none except Mr Love, who, judging by the tip what he had given Martha when he stayed last in the house, was a wealthy and openhanded gentleman. Little did she think when she spoke those words as Mr Love would forget to give any tips or boxes at Christmas, when they were most natural and proper. But perhaps he would think better on it by the New Year and send a postal order. Dreyton thought it unlikely, but deemed it unnecessary at this juncture to inform Mrs Timmins of the tragedy reported in the newspaper.

At luncheon Mrs Dreyton found her husband unusually taciturn and preoccupied; but, by the time they had come to the cheese, he announced importantly that he had made up his mind to report immediately to the police certain information that had come into his possession. Miss Potterby and the children looked suitably impressed, but knew better than to court a snub by asking questions. Mrs Dreyton took the cue admirably by replying: 'Of course, Richard, you must do your duty!'

4

The inspector listened intently and jotted down occasional notes. At the end of the narration, he complimented the informant by asking whether he had formed any theory regarding the facts he reported. Dreyton most certainly had. That was why he had been so silent and absent-minded at lunch. His solution, put much more briefly than he expounded it to the inspector, was as follows.

Clarence Love had abandoned his uncle and partner in the Australian bush. Having returned to civilisation, got the Courts to presume the uncle's death, and taken probate of the will under which he was sole inheritor, Love returned to England a wealthy and still youngish man. The uncle, however (this was Dreyton's theory), did not die after his nephew's desertion, but was found and tended by bushmen. Having regained his power of locomotion, he trekked back to Sydney, where he discovered himself legally dead and his property appropriated by Love and removed to England. Believing his nephew to have compassed his death, he resolved to take revenge into his own hands. Having despatched a cryptic letter to Love containing dark hints of impending doom, he sailed for the Old Country and ultimately tracked Love down to the Dreytons' abode. Then, having in the guise of a travelling insurance agent ascertained the family's programme for Christmas Day, he planned his impersonation of Santa Claus. That his true identity, revealed by voice and accent, did not escape his victim was evidenced by the latter's nervous misreading of the motto in the cracker. Whether Love's death in the Underground was due to actual murder or to suicide enforced by despair and remorse, Dreyton hazarded no guess: either was possible under his theory.

The inspector's reception of Dreyton's hypothesis was less enthusiastic than his wife's.

'If you'll excuse me, Mr Dreyton,' said the former, 'you've built a mighty lot on dam' little. Still, it's ingenious and no mistake. I'll follow your ideas up and, if you'll call in a week's time, I may have something to tell you and one or two things, perhaps, to ask.'

'Why darling, how wonderful!' Mrs Dreyton applauded. 'Now that you've pieced the bits together so cleverly the thing's quite obvious, isn't it? What a horrible thing to have left poor old Mr Joy to die all alone in the jungle! I never really liked Clarence, and am quite glad now that he's dead. But of course we mustn't tell the children!'

Inquiries of the Australian Police elicited the intelligence that the presumption of Mr Joy's death had been long since confirmed by the discovery of his remains in an old prospecting pit. There were ugly rumours and suspicions against his nephew but no evidence on which to support them. On being thus informed by the inspector Dreyton amended his theory to the extent that the impersonator of Father Christmas must have been not Mr Joy himself, as he was dead, but a bosom friend determined to avenge him. This substitution deprived the cracker episode, on which Dreyton had imagined his whole story, of all relevance; and the inspector was quite frank about his disinterest in the revised version.

Mrs Dreyton also rejected it. Her husband's original theory seemed to her more obviously right and conclusive even than before. The only amendment required, and that on a mere matter of detail, was to substitute Mr Joy's ghost for Mr Joy: though of course one mustn't tell the children.

'But,' her husband remonstrated, 'you know that I don't believe in ghosts.'

'No, but your aunt Cecilia does; and she is such a clever woman. By the way, she called in this morning and left you a book to look at.'

'A book?'

'Yes, the collected ghost stories of M. R. James.'

'But the stupid old dear knows that I have them all in the original editions.'

'So she said: but she wants you to read the author's epilogue to the collection which, she says, is most entertaining. It's entitled "Stories I have tried to write". She said that she'd side-lined a passage that might interest you. The book's on that table by you. No, not that: the one with the black cover.'

Dreyton picked it up, found the marked passage and read it aloud.

There may be possibilities too in the Christmas cracker if the right people pull it and if the motto which they find inside has the right message on it. They will probably leave the party early, pleading indisposition; but very likely a previous engagement of long standing would be the more truthful excuse.

'There is certainly,' Dreyton commented, 'some resemblance between James's idea and our recent experience. But he could have made a perfectly good yarn out of that theme without introducing ghosts.'

His wife's mood at that moment was for compromise rather than controversy.

'Well, darling,' she temporised, 'perhaps not exactly ghosts.'