When Arthur Jephson wrote to me to join his Christmas party at
Northavon Priory, I was set wondering where I had heard the name of
this particular establishment. I felt certain that I had heard the name
before, but I could not recollect for the moment whether I had come
upon it in a newspaper report of a breach of promise of marriage or in a
Blue-Book bearing upon Inland Fisheries: I rather inclined to the belief
that it was in a Blue-Book of some sort. I had been devoting myself some
years previously to an exhaustive study of this form of literature;
for being very young, I had had a notion that a Blue-Book education
was essential to any one with parliamentary aspirations. Yes, I had,
I repeat, been very young at that time, and I had not found out that a
Blue-Book is the _oubliette_ of inconvenient facts.
It was not until I had promised Arthur to be with him on Christmas Eve
that I recollected where I had read something about Northavon Priory,
and in a moment I understood how it was I had acquired the notion that
the name had appeared in an official document. I had read a good deal
about this Priory in a curious manuscript which I had unearthed at
Sir Dennis le Warden’s place in Norfolk, known as Marsh Towers.
The document, which, with many others, I found stowed away in a
wall-cupboard in the great library, purported to be a draft of the
evidence taken before one of the Commissions appointed by King Henry
VIII. to inquire into the abuses alleged to be associated with certain
religious houses throughout England. An ancestor of Sir Dennis’s had, it
appeared, been a member of one of these Commissions, and he had taken a
note of the evidence which he had in the course of his duties handed to
the King.
The parchments had, I learned, been preserved in an iron coffer with
double padlocks, but the keys had been lost at some remote period, and
then the coffer had been covered over with lumber in a room in the east
tower overlooking the moat, until an outbreak of fire had resulted in an
overturning of the rubbish and a discovery of the coffer. A blacksmith
had been employed to pick the locks, which he did with a sledge-hammer;
but it was generally admitted that his energy had been wasted when the
contents of the box were made known. Sir Dennis cared about nothing
except the improvement of the breed of horses through the agency of race
meetings, so the manuscripts of his painstaking ancestor were bundled
into one of the presses in the library, some, however, being reserved by
the intelligent housekeeper in the still-room to make jam-pot covers--a
purpose for which, as she explained to me at considerable length, they
were extremely well adapted.
I had no great difficulty in deciphering those that came under my hand,
for I had had considerable experience of the tricks of early English
writers; and as I read I became greatly interested in all the original
“trustie and well-beelou’d Sir Denice le Warden” had written. The
frankness of the evidence which he had collected on certain points took
away my breath, although I had been long accustomed to the directness
with which some of the fifteenth-century people expressed themselves.
Northavon Priory was among the religious houses whose practices had
formed the subject of the inquiry, and it was the summary of Sir
Denice’s notes regarding the Black Masses alleged to have been
celebrated within its walls that proved so absorbing to me. The
bald account of the nature of these orgies would of itself have been
sufficient, if substantiated, to bring about the dissolution of all the
order in England. The Black Mass was a pagan revel, the details of which
were unspeakable, though their nature was more than hinted at by the
King’s Commissioner. Anything so monstrously blasphemous could not be
imagined by the mind of man, for with the pagan orgie there was mixed
up the most solemn rite of the Mass. It was celebrated on the night of
Christmas Eve, and at the hour of midnight the celebration culminated
in an invocation to the devil, written so as to parody an office of the
Church, and, according to the accounts of some witnesses, in a human
sacrifice. Upon this latter point, however, Sir Denice admitted there
was a diversity of opinion.
One of the witnesses examined was a man who had entered the Priory
grounds from the river during a fearful tempest, on one Christmas Eve,
and had, he said, witnessed the revel through a window to which he had
climbed. He declared that at the hour of midnight the candles had
been extinguished, but that a moment afterwards an awful red light had
floated through the room, followed by the shrieks of a human being at
the point of strangulation, and then by horrible yells of laughter.
Another man who was examined had been a wood-cutter in the service of
the Priory, and he had upon one occasion witnessed the celebration of
a Black Mass; but he averred that no life was sacrificed, though he
admitted that in the strange red light, which had flashed through the
room, he had seen what appeared to be two men struggling on the floor.
In the general particulars of the orgie there was, however, no diversity
of opinion, and had the old Sir Denice le Warden been anything of a
comparative mythologist, he could scarcely fail to have been greatly
interested in being brought face to face with so striking an example
of the survival of an ancient superstition within the walls of a holy
building.
During a rainy week I amused myself among the parchments dealing with
Northavon Priory, and although what I read impressed me greatly at the
time, yet three years of pretty hard work in various parts of the
world had so dulled my memory of any incident so unimportant as the
deciphering of a mouldy document that, as I have already stated, it was
not until I had posted my letter to Arthur Jephson agreeing to spend a
day or two with his party, that I succeeded in recalling something of
what I had read regarding Northavon Priory.
I had taken it for granted that the Priory had been demolished when
Henry had superintended the dissolution of the religious establishments
throughout the country: I did not think it likely that one with such a
record as was embodied in the notes would be allowed to remain with a
single stone on another. A moment’s additional reflection admitted of my
perceiving how extremely unlikely it was that, even if Northavon Priory
had been spared by the King, it would still be available for visitors
during the latter years of the nineteenth century. I had seen many
red-brick “abbeys” and “priories” in various parts of the country, not
more than ten years old, inhabited mostly by gentlemen who had made
fortunes in iron, or perhaps lard, which constitutes, I understand, an
excellent foundation for a fortune. There might be, for all I knew, a
score of Northavon Priories in England. Arthur Jephson’s father had
made his money by the judicious advertising of a certain oriental rug
manufactured in the Midlands, and I thought it very likely that he had
built a mansion for himself which he had called Northavon Priory.
A letter which I received from Arthur set my mind at rest. He explained
to me very fully that Northavon Priory was a hotel built within the
walls of an ancient religious house.
He had spent a delightful month fishing in the river during the
summer,--I had been fishing in the Amazon at that time,--and had
sojourned at the hotel, which he had found to be a marvel of comfort in
spite of its picturesqueness. This was why, he said, he had thought
how jolly it would be to entertain a party of his friends at the place
during the Christmas week.
That explanation was quite good enough for me. I had a week or two to
myself in England before going to India, and so soon as I recalled what
I had read regarding North-avon Priory, I felt glad that my liking for
Jephson had induced me to accept his invitation.
It was not until we were travelling together to the station nearest to
the Priory that he mentioned to me, quite incidentally, that during the
summer he had been fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a young
woman who resided in a spacious mansion within easy distance of the
Priory Hotel, and who was, so far as he was capable of judging,--and he
considered that in such matters his judgment was worth something,--the
most charming girl in England.
“I see,” I remarked before his preliminary panegyric had quite come to
a legitimate conclusion--“I see all now: you haven’t the courage--to
be more exact, the impudence--to come down alone to the hotel--she has
probably a brother who is a bit of an athlete--but you think that Tom
Singleton and I will form a good enough excuse for an act on your part
which parents and guardians can construe in one way only.”
“Well, perhaps----Hang it all, man, you needn’t attribute to me any
motives but those of the purest hospitality,” laughed my companion.
“Isn’t the prospect of a genuine old English Christmas--the Yule log,
and that sort of thing--good enough for you without going any further?”
“It’s quite good enough for me,” I replied. “I only regret that it is
not good enough for you. You expect to see her every day?”
“Every day? Don’t be a fool, Jim. If I see her more than four times in
the course of the week--I think I should manage to see her four times--I
will consider myself exceptionally lucky.”
“And if you see her less than four times you will reckon yourself
uncommonly unlucky?”
“O, I think I have arranged for four times all right: I’ll have to trust
to luck for the rest.”
“What! you mean to say that the business has gone as far as that?”
“As what?”
“As making arrangements for meetings with her?”
My friend laughed complacently.
“Well, you see, old chap, I couldn’t very well give you this treat
without letting her know that I should be in the neighbourhood,” said
he.
“Oh, indeed. I don’t see, however, what the----”
“Great heavens! You mean to say that you don’t see----Oh, you will have
your joke.”
“I hope I will have one eventually; I can’t say that I perceive much
chance of one at present, however. You’ll not give us much of your
interesting society during the week of our treat, as you call it.”
“I’ll give you as much of it as I can spare--more than you’ll be likely
to relish, perhaps. A week’s a long time, Jim.”
“‘Time travels at divers paces with divers persons,’ my friend. I
suppose she’s as lovely as any of the others of past years?”
“As lovely! Jim, she’s just the----”
“Don’t trouble yourself over the description. I have a vivid
recollection of the phrases you employed in regard to the others. There
was Lily, and Gwen, and Bee, and--yes, by George! there was a fourth;
her name was Nelly, or----”
“All flashes in the pan, my friend. I didn’t know my own mind in those
old days; but now, thank heaven!--Oh, you’ll agree with me when you see
her. This is the real thing and no mistake.”
He was good enough to give me a genuine lover’s description of the young
woman, whose name was, he said, Sylvia St Leger; but it did not differ
materially from the descriptions which had come from him in past days,
of certainly four other girls for whom he had, he imagined, entertained
a devotion strong as death itself. Alas! his devotion had not survived a
single year in any case.
When we arrived at the hotel, after a drive of eight miles from
the railway station, we found Tom Singleton waiting for us rather
impatiently, and in a quarter of an hour we were facing an excellent
dinner. We were the only guests at the hotel, for though it was
picturesquely situated on the high bank of the river, and was doubtless
a delightful place for a sojourn in summer, yet in winter it possessed
few attractions to casual visitors.
After dinner I strolled over the house, and found, to my surprise, that
the old walls of the Priory were practically intact. The kitchen was
also unchanged, but the great refectory was now divided into four rooms.
The apartments upstairs had plainly been divided in the same way by
brick partitions; but the outer walls, pierced with narrow windows, were
those of the original Priory.
In the morning I made further explorations, only outside the building,
and came upon the ruins of the old Priory tower; and then I perceived
that only a small portion of the original building had been utilised
for the hotel. The landlord, who accompanied me, was certainly no
antiquarian. He told me that he had been “let in” so far as the hotel
was concerned. He had been given to understand that the receipts for the
summer months were sufficiently great to compensate for the absence
of visitors during the winter; but his experience of one year had not
confirmed this statement, made by the people from whom he had bought the
place, and he had come to the conclusion that, as he had been taken in
in the transaction, it was his duty to try to take in some one else in
the same way.
“I only hope that I may succeed, sir,” he said, “but I’m doubtful about
it. People are getting more suspicious every day.”
“You weren’t suspicious, at any rate,” said I.
“That I weren’t--more’s the pity, sir,” said he. “But it’ll take me all
my time to get the place off my hands, I know. Ah, yes; it’s hard to get
people to take your word for anything nowadays.”
For the next two days Tom Singleton and I were left a good deal
together, the fact being that our friend Arthur parted from us after
lunch and only returned in time for dinner, declaring upon each occasion
that he had just passed the pleasantest day of his life. On Christmas
Eve he came to us in high spirits, bearing with him an invitation from
a lady who had attained distinction through being the mother of Miss St
Leger, for us to spend Christmas Day at her house--it had already been
pointed out to us by Arthur: it was a fine Georgian country house, named
The Grange.
“I’ve accepted for you both,” said Arthur. “Mrs St Leger is a most
charming woman, and her daughter--I don’t know if I mentioned that she
had a daughter--well, if I omitted, I am now in a position to assure
you that her daughter--her name is Sylvia--is possibly the most
beautiful----But there’s no use trying to describe her; you’ll see her
for yourselves to-morrow, and judge if I’ve exaggerated in the least
when I say that the world does not contain a more exquisite creature.”
“Yes, one hour with her will be quite sufficient to enable us to
pronounce an opinion on that point,” laughed Tom.
We remained smoking in front of the log fire that blazed in the great
hearth, until about eleven o’clock, and then went to our rooms upstairs,
after some horse-play in the hall.
My room was a small one at the beginning of the corridor, Arthur
Jephson’s was alongside it, and at the very end of the corridor was Tom
Singleton’s. All had at one time been one apartment.
Having walked a good deal during the day, I was very tired, and had
scarcely got into bed before I fell asleep.
When I awoke it was with a start and a consciousness that something
was burning. A curious red light streamed into the room from outside. I
sprang from my bed in a moment and ran to the window. But before I had
reached it the room was in darkness once more, and there came a yell of
laughter, apparently from the next room.
For a moment I was paralysed. But the next instant I had recovered my
presence of mind. I believed that Arthur and Tom had been playing some
of their tricks upon me. They had burnt a red light outside my window,
and were roaring with laughter as they heard me spring out of bed.
That was the explanation of what I had seen and heard which first
suggested itself to me; and I was about to return to bed when my door
was knocked at and then opened.
“What on earth have you been up to?” came the voice of Arthur Jephson.
“Have you set the bed-curtains on fire? If you have, that’s nothing to
laugh at.”
“Get out of this room with your larking,” said I. “It’s a very poor joke
that of yours, Arthur. Go back to your bed.”
He struck a light--he had a match-box in his hand--and went to my candle
without a word. In a moment the room was faintly illuminated.
“Do you mean to say that you hadn’t a light here just now--a red light?”
he cried.
“I had no light: a red light floated through the room, but it seemed to
come from outside,” said I.
“And who was it laughed in that wild way?”
“I took it for granted that it was you and Tom who were about your usual
larks.”
“Larks! No, I was about no larks, I can promise you. Good Lord! man,
that laugh was something beyond a lark.” He seated himself on my bed.
“Do you fancy it may have been some of the servants going about the
stables with a carriage-lamp?” he continued. “There may have been a late
arrival at the hotel, you know.”
“That’s not at all unlikely,” said I. “Yes, it may have been that, and
the laughter may have been between the grooms.”
“I don’t hear any sound of bustle through the house or outside,” said
he.
“The stables are not at this angle of the building,” said I. “We must
merely have seen the light and heard that laughter as the carriage
passed our angle. Anyhow, we’ll only catch cold if we lounge about in
our pyjamas like this. You’d best get back to bed and let me do the
same.”
“I don’t feel much inclined to sleep, but I’ll not prevent your having
your night’s rest,” said he, rising. “I wonder is it near morning?”