(Thunderclap)
(Chimes)
(Howling wind)
(Thunderclap)
The sale room of an old and famous firm of book auctioneers in London
is of course a great meeting place for collectors, libraries and dealers.
And it was in such a sale room that the remarkable series of events began
which were detailed to me not many months ago
by the person whom they principally affected,
namely Mr James Denton, MA, FSA, etc, some time of Trinity Hall,
and now of Rendcomb Manor in the county of Warwick.
On a certain spring day, he was in London for a few days' business,
which principally concerned the furnishing of the house
which he had just finished building at Rendcomb,
and with time on his hands he thought he'd spend an hour in the sale room.
He was making good progress with the catalogue,
when he was interrupted by a friend
asking if he was looking for anything in particular.
'I thought there might be some Warwickshire collection,' said Denton,
'but I don't see anything under Warwick.'
'I believe I noticed something like a Warwickshire diary,' said his friend.
'Yes, yes, here it is. Poynter: Lot 486.'
At that moment, Mr Denton discovered that he could spare no more time
before going for his train.
But he was able to confirm that there were four largish volumes of the diary
and that it concerned the years about 1710.
So it seemed worthwhile to leave a commission of £25 for it
which he proceeded to do.
The following morning, he laid before his aunt
a statement of the results of his visit to town,
particulars of carpets, of chairs and of wardrobes.
'But I don't see any chintzes here,' said his aunt. 'Did you go to...?'
'Oh! I am sorry,' said Denton quickly,
'but the fact is I was on my way there and I happened to be passing Robins.'
'l suppose that means another parcel of horrible old books!' replied his aunt.
And indeed a parcel containing the four volumes of Poynter's diary
arrived a few days later.
On the Sunday morning after church, Mr Denton's aunt came into the study
and was diverted from what she'd been going to say
by the sight of the four brown leather quartos on the table.
'Are these the things that made you forget my chintzes?' she said.
She picked up one of the volumes and opened it at random,
dashing it to the floor the next instant with a cry of disgust
as an earwig fell from between the pages.
But in picking it up, they noticed a piece of patterned stuff had been fastened
to one of the pages by an old-fashioned pin.
James detached it and handed it to his aunt.
Now I don't know exactly what the fabric was,
but it had a design printed upon it
which completely fascinated Miss Denton.
'It is a most charming pattern,' she said.
'Look how delightfully the lines ripple. It reminds one of hair.
And then these knots of ribbon at intervals,
they give just the relief of colour that's wanted. I wonder...'
'Erm...l was going to say,' said James with deference,
'I wonder if it would cost much to have it copied for our curtains.
I suppose you could have a block cut from it in wood or metal.'
'Now, really, that is a capital idea,' said his aunt.
After she'd gone, James examined the pattern more closely.
It ran in vertical bands,
and there was some indication that these were intended to converge at the top.
She was right, too, in thinking that these main bands
resembled rippling tresses of hair.
The thing now was to find out what firm would undertake the reproduction
of an old pattern of this kind.
After two unsuccessful inquiries,
he entrusted a firm in Bermondsey with the job.
'It's 'eart-rending, isn't it, sir,' said their Mr Cattell,
'to picture the quantity of really lovely mediaeval stuff of this kind
that lays well nigh unnoticed in many of our country 'ouses?
Much of it in peril of bein' cast aside as so much rubbish.
What is it Shakespeare says? "Unconsidered trifles."
I often say, sir, Shakespeare 'as a word for us all.'
About a month later,
being advised that some samples were ready for his inspection,
Mr Denton met Mr Cattell again and had, it seems, reason to be satisfied.
'Do you think it would be popular if it were generally obtainable?'
asked Mr Denton.
'I 'ardly think it,' said Mr Cattell pensively.
'It wasn't popular with the man that cut the block.
It was as if he scented something almost evil in the design.'
By October, sufficient quantity of the stuff had been manufactured
to furnish curtains for the three or four bedrooms which were to be fitted with it.
On the feast of Simon and Jude,
the aunt and nephew returned from a short visit
to find all completed and their satisfaction at the general effect was great.
Dressing for dinner that night and taking stock of his room
where a large amount of the chintz was displayed,
Mr Denton congratulated himself on the luck
which had first made him forget his aunt's commission.
At breakfast, however, he was induced to qualify his satisfaction.
'I rather regret,' he said, 'that we allowed them
to join up the vertical bands of the pattern at the top.
As I was reading in bed last night, they kept catching my eye rather.
There was an effect as if someone kept peeping out.
Perhaps it was the wind that made it seem so.'
'l thought it was a perfectly still night,' said his aunt.
'Well, there was enough to sway my curtains
and rustle them more than I wanted,' said James.
That night, a bachelor friend of his came to stay
and was lodged in the room on the same floor as his host.
Miss Denton retired first, and the two men at about eleven.
But James, not yet inclined for bed,
sat down in an armchair to read for a time.
Then he dozed and later woke and bethought himself
that his brown spaniel, which ordinarily slept in his room,
had not come upstairs with him.
Then he thought he was mistaken.
For happening to move his hand which hung down over the arm of the chair,
he felt on the back of it just the slightest touch of a surface of hair.
And stretching it out, he stroked and patted a rounded something.
But instead of a responsive movement, absolute stillness greeted his touch,
making him look over the arm.
What he'd been touching rose to meet him.
It was in the attitude of one that had crept along the floor on its belly,
and it was, so far as could be recollected, a human figure.
But of the face now rising to within a few inches of his own,
no feature was discernible, only hair.
Shapeless as it was, there was about it so horrible an air of menace
that, moaning with fear, he bounded from his chair and rushed from the room.
Forgetting the baize door in the corridor outside opened towards him,
he beat against it with all the force in him,
feeling all the time a soft tearing at his back,
which seemed to be growing in power with the pursuer's rage.
Then at last, he was through the door, shutting it behind him
and had gained his friend's room.
It seems curious that during all the time that had elapsed
since the purchase of Poynter's diary,
James Denton should not have sought an explanation
of the presence of the pattern that had been pinned into it.
Now he examined the relevant volume more closely,
what he suspected about it turned out to be correct.
Two or three leaves were pasted together but written upon,
and they yielded easily to steaming.
The entry was made in 1707.
'Old Mr Casbury of Accrington told me this day,
much of young Sir Everard Charlett,
whom he remembered Commoner of University College.
This Charlett was a personable young gent,
but noted for his extravagances,
and if the full history of his debaucheries had been known,
no doubt would have been expelled.
He was a very beautiful person,
and constantly wore his own hair which was very abundant.
Note that Mr Casbury said that he remembers not the year
of Sir Everard Charlett's death,
but it was 1692 or '93.
He died suddenly in October
when he was found in the town ditch,
the hair plucked clean off his head.
He was buried next night in St peters-in-the-East.
But two years after, being moved to his country estate by his successor,
it was said that the coffin proved quite full of hair.
His chambers being afterward stripped,
Mr Casbury came by part of the hangings of it,
which it was said this Charlett had designed expressly
for a memorial of his hair,
giving the fellow that drew it a lock to work by.
And the piece which I have fastened in here
was parcel of the same which Mr Casbury gave to me.
He said he believed there was a subtlety in the drawing
but had never discovered it himself nor much liked to pore upon it.'
The money spent upon the curtains might as well have been thrown into the fire,
as they were.
Mr Cattell's comment upon what he heard of the story
took the form of a quotation from Shakespeare.
You may guess it without difficulty.
It began with the words:
'There are more things...'