Last night we had a power cut and were in darkness for nearly three hours. I lit various candles and rather enjoyed the soft light they produced and found that when I clustered several together I had enough light to read by. I certainly could not sit there doing nothing while we waited for the light to be restored.
And so I decided, as it was flickering candles and all was dark outside, to finish reading a book I started last week: late Victorian Gothic Tales (probably not a good idea under the circs). This was sent to me by OUP and is a simply terrific collection of stories guaranteed to make your hair curl.
It starts with 'Dionea' by Vernon Lee, the pen name of Violet Paget (1856-1935). The story is set in Italy involving the traditional setting of gothic romances and in a nunnery no less. A baby is rescued from the sea, nobody knows from whence it came and the nuns take her in and name her Dionea. She grows up to be a beauty with a fatal allure for men who all pine for love of her. There is the hint that dark forces are at work and in the end she is found murdered by a sculptorfor whom she has been modeling and who, as all the others, has formed a passionate desire for her which he knows can only end one way. She is found murdered with the body of Waldemar at the foot of the cliff... ' we speak of her as little as we can, some say they have seen her on stormy nights wandering along a cliff...'
Next up, a really witty funny story by Oscar Wilde - Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. And though this is featured in this collection and is a gothic tale, it is written in Wilde's inimitable style and made me chuckle, it is so absurd. Lord Arthur Savile has his palm read at a social function '.. when Mr Pdoger saw his hand he grew pale and said nothing. A shudder seemed to pass through him ...... huge beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead like a poisonous dew and his fingers grew cold and clammy'
Lord Arthur leaves the ball, a broken man. MURDER has been seen in his hand - he is to commit a murder. Lord Arthur is engaged and being of an honourable nature, postpones the wedding until this murder has been committed as he feels he cannot ask his fiance to marry him until he has fulfilled this prophecy. We then enter the realms of silliness when Lord Arthur decides who he is going to murder and tries to do so and each time his victim escapes by accident - his aunt who he thought he had poisoned turns out to have died of natural causes and his attempt to blow up his uncle with an exploding clock descends into farce. Lord Arthur is in despair - what is he to do? And then going home one night he spots somebody he knows on a bridge by the Thames.....
We then have a story set in India where a drunken Englishman stumbles into a temple and treats the god and priests with contempt. A mysterious being takes over his body turning him into a werewolf and his friends have to fight this off and cast out the demon.
By now you will see that this is a gorgeous and wonderful mixture of stories, but the best one of the lot, as far as I am concerned and the one I read again by candlelight last night (I must have been mad), is Lot No. 249. The story is set in Oxford: 'In a certain wing of what we will call Old College there is a corner turret of an exceeding great age. The heavy arch which spans the open door has bent downwards in the cedntre under the weight ot its year....a stone stair curves spirally its steps all shapeless and hollowed by the tread of so many generations of the seekers after knowledge'
oo-er
In one of the sets of rooms leading off this staircase is a student called Bellingham who has an unprepossessing appearance and manner. One night he is taken ill with a strange fit and his fellow students rush to his aid and make a discovery, they see the contents of Lot 249: 'it was a mummy ...the features, though horribly discoloured, were perfect and two little nut like eyes still lurked in the depths of the black, hollow sockets....in its crouching position with bent joints and craned head,there was a suggestion of energy about the horrid thing that made Smith's gorge rise'
As the weeks go by, Bellingham becomes more of a recluse and as he quarrels with his colleagues and when his friend, Lee, insists that he breaks off his engagement to his sister for unexplained reasons, horrid things start happening to those who have offended him. A strange dark figure has been seen abroad at night and Smith begins to suspect what his happening and tells Bellingham that the mummy must be destroyed.
And then one night Smith goes to visit a friend: 'it was a lonely and little frequented road which led to his friend's house. Early as it was he did not visit a single soul on the way. He walked briskly along until he came to the avenue gate and in front of him he could see the cosy red light of the windows glimmering through the foliage.....he glanced back at the road along which he had come. Something was coming swiftly down it. It moved in the shadow of the hedge, a dark, crouching figure ...even as he gazed back it had lessened the distance by twenty paces...out of the darkness he had a glimpse of a scraggy neck and of two eyes that will ever haunt his dreams. He turned and with a cry of terror ran for his life up the avenue..'
Now, how can you resist this? Well, you can't simple as that. A gloriously wonderful book in which I revelled wholeheartedly. I cannot recommend that you read them by candlelight as I did last night as I got a bit jumpy towards the end, particularly when one of the little lights I was using, flickered and went out and suddenly shadows loomed from the corner of my living room, but it certainly added to the atmosphere. When I had finished reading and was nerving myself to get up and go to bed and determined to look under it before I climbed in, wonderful moment the lights went back on and I was saved.
Loved this, simply loved it and my thanks to those generous folk at OUP who, not only sent me this one, but about a dozen others in the new Classics Collection, some of which are going on holiday with me this week and I am looking forward to tackling them while lolling on the beach. I will admit that I do prefer the 'older' cover but as I am well known for not wanting my favourites to be changed you can safely ignore me on this one. The two covers are shown here and really it does not matter what the outside is like when the inside is so wonderful.
