Cornish Tales Of Terror (1970)

[Gloomy Sundae]

R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Cornish Tales Of Terror (Fontana, 1970)

Introduction - R. Chetwynd-Hayes

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch - The Roll-Call Of The Reef
J. D. Beresford - The Misanthrope
R. S. Hawker - The Botathen Ghost
A. L. Rowse - All Souls' Night
R. Ellis Roberts - The Narrow Way
M. H. - The Phantom Hare
Eden Phillpots - The Iron Pineapple
A. H. Manhood - Wish Me Luck
Hugh Walpole - Mrs. Lunt
Daphne du Maurier - The Birds
Robert Hunt - The Spectre Bridegroom
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Bodmin Terror

Daphne du Maurier - The Birds: (Kiss Me Again, Stranger, 1952).

"Owing to the exceptional nature of the emergency, there will be no further transmission from any broadcasting station until 7a.m. tomorrow.

They played God Save The Queen. Nothing more happened."

Cornish coast. On the morning of December 3rd, disabled World War II veteran Nat Hocken wakes to find that winter has arrived and the birds are acting strangely. During the night they attack he and his family in their cottage and the next day there are reports on the radio that the same situation has been played out across the British Isles. At first the BBC announcer treats the story as an amusing aside to the real news, but within days there have been several casualties and the air force are sent in - to no avail. When Nat calls in at the farm where he's employed as a handyman, he finds the Trigg family slaughtered, literally pecked to pieces. Together with his wife, he gathers all the provisions he can, drives home with his well-stocked car (neatly avoiding the dead postman in the drive) and sets to boarding all his windows in readiness for the nights attack.

Published so soon after the war, the Luftwaffe's bombing sprees were still fresh enough in the memory of those who'd lived through it for this creepy, doom-laden story to strike a haunting and frightening chord. The Birds was famously adapted by Alfred Hitchthingy, although there was little left of Du Maurier in Evan Hunter's screenplay and the action was relocated to Botany Bay.

R. Ellis Roberts - The Narrow Way: Was it a black miracle, or did Father Lascelles poison his congregation and single-handedly "convert" the parish of Uny to Catholicism in August 1912? According to Lascelles, he prayed to the Lord on All Souls Night to visit the community as the Grim Reaper and, as a result, a plague decimated the population. To Lascelles, the end justifies the means as "all of those who died were reconciled to the Holy Church before death. Of those who remain, nearly all have adhered to the church." He has even converted Mr. Trengrowse of "the primitives." Dr. Marlowe and Sir Joshua confront the fanatic and he assures them there'll be no more deaths as he has prayed for them to cease.

Hugh Walpole - Mrs. Lunt: Runceman accepts an invitation from a novelist whose book he'd praised to spend Christmas with him at Penzance. Mr. Lunt is so pathetic in his gratitude and so desperate to befriend him that his guest is soon working on an excuse to high tail it back to London. It's not just his host; the dreary, depressing old house also affects him badly. And who's that silent, evil looking old woman in black who keeps showing up, usually preceded by an abominable stench?

R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Bodmin Terror: Artist James is warned by his doctor that he's on the verge of a nervous breakdown and must avoid stress at all costs. Being married to Lydia, James knows just how tall an order that is, but decides to take them both away on holiday to Cornwall. En route to the Lizard, the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, sending Lydia into a spasm of rage. An extraordinarily sprightly crone ambles out of the mist and leads them back to her home which turns out to be a foul-smelling cave. But her Good Samaritan act is just that: she's intent on serving up Lydia to Dunmore, the last of the Ice Age giants.

Reminiscent of his ghoulish It Came To Dinner (Pan Horror #14): Chetwynd-Hayes writes; "This is the result of taking people I know, casting them in bizarre situations, then allowing imagination to do the rest. I hope you like the end result."

[Calenture]

Near the end of The Bodmin Terror I had the impression that the story could have gone at least three different ways, but it’s probably one of his better ones.

Wish Me Luck by M A Mahood: Old Alice Pomeroy and her daughter-in-law Susan are enjoying a drink in the snug parlour of the “True-as-Stated”, waiting for Susan’s husband Dan to come home. Following his father’s death, Dan has returned to Tuffrand Cove and some gentlemanly landlording in the place of his birth and it seems that he and his family have truly found heaven on earth.

It amuses the other people in the village that the heavily-bearded Dan is the living image of Squire Haddicoat. The Squire doesn’t find their likeness so amusing and has asked Dan to shave off his beard. But Dan sees no reason why he should. Furthermore, Dan’s liking for riding about the lanes in an ass-cart seems to the Squire like a mockery of his own elegant thoroughbred and trap.

When a knock comes at the door, the women find the Squire waiting outside. There has been an accident and he has ridden down Dan Pomeroy. They must come at once. Susan goes running. But old Alice wonders if the Squire would take a brandy to settle his shocked nerves?

“A breath of old Cornwall, with a little twitch of terror,” writes RCH.

Now I know Dem' isn't keen on this one, but I liked the way it ended.

The Misanthrope by J D Beresford: Only a man who hated humanity would choose to build a house on Gulland Rock. From a distance, the house “stuck like a cubicle gall on the landward face of that humped, desolate island.” The narrator is fascinated by the man’s solitary existence. And the man is surprisingly pleased to have company. But the visitor notices that wherever they go on the island, the man always insists on walking behind him. Over a meal he reveals that he suffers from a bizarre astigmatism. It affects his sight only when he looks back over his shoulder...

All Soul’s Night by A L Rowse: The Dean is entertaining some colleagues when one of them asks about one of his “West-Country Clientele”.

Young Colenso’s subject for research had been the old Cornish family, the Lantyans of Carn Tyan, who had been the greatest land owners in Cornwall in the Middle Ages. Lady Jane Lucinda was an ancient termagant who reputedly hated her chaplains, feeding them mainly on rice and currant pudding and the excellent brandy of the house. When she dies, Sir Richard comes into succession and finds a muniment room full of documents and asks Colenso to help him go through it.

Colenso feels a little out of his depth. He’s given a state-bedroom with columns at each end and a bed big enough for four. Unable to rest the first night, he searches for something to read and finds the journal of a French priest who had neglected the charge of a small boy that he had been given in the early years of his career. The boy had died and the priest remained racked with guilt the rest of his life. And reading his journal is the worst thing that Colenso could do on All Souls’ Night in that room.

This story has a very leisurely pace, which RCH says "is the way a ghost story should be told: quietly with the old dean smoking his cigar, and breaking off now and again to send a junior fellow for a whisky and soda."

I'd have to agree; it's leisurely but doesn't feel at all slow. The structure is almost labyrinthine, with first the gathering of the Dean and his colleagues, the history of Lady Jane Lucinda, then the introduction of Colenso and Sir Richard, and finally the story of the French priest. Yet all very readable and sorted out in about a dozen pages.

I'm thorougly enjoying this anthology. It's great! ;D[/quote]