Short Fiction - M. R. James (mobile ebook reader .txt) 📗

“No, sir, nothing reely wrong, only these books. Every time, pretty near, that I come in to do up the place, I shuts ’em and spreads the cloths over ’em to keep off the dust, ever since Mr. Clark spoke about it, when I first come; and yet there they are again, and always the same page⁠—and as I says, whoever it can be as does it with the door and winders shut; and as I says, it makes anyone feel queer comin’ in here alone, as I ’ave to do, not as I’m given that way myself, not to be frightened easy, I mean to say; and there’s not a rat in the place⁠—not as no rat wouldn’t trouble to do a thing like that, do you think, sir?”

“Hardly, I should say; but it sounds very queer. Are they always open at the same place, did you say?”

“Always the same place, sir, one of the psalms it is, and I didn’t particular notice it the first time or two, till I see a little red line of printing, and it’s always caught my eye since.”

Mr. Davidson walked along the stalls and looked at the open books. Sure enough, they all stood at the same page: Psalm 109, and at the head of it, just between the number and the “Deus laudum”, was a rubric, “For the 25th day of April.” Without pretending to minute knowledge of the history of the Book of Common Prayer, he knew enough to be sure that this was a very odd and wholly unauthorized addition to its text; and though he remembered that April 25 is St. Mark’s Day, he could not imagine what appropriateness this very savage psalm could have to that festival. With slight misgivings he ventured to turn over the leaves to examine the title-page, and knowing the need for particular accuracy in these matters, he devoted some ten minutes to making a line-for-line transcript of it. The date was 1653; the printer called himself Anthony Cadman. He turned to the list of proper psalms for certain days; yes, added to it was that same inexplicable entry: For the 25th day of April: the 109th Psalm. An expert would no doubt have thought of many other points to inquire into, but this antiquary, as I have said, was no expert. He took stock, however, of the binding⁠—a handsome one of tooled blue leather, bearing the arms that figured in several of the nave windows in various combinations.

“How often,” he said at last to Mrs. Porter, “have you found these books lying open like this?”

“Reely I couldn’t say, sir, but it’s a great many times now. Do you recollect, father, me telling you about it the first time I noticed it?”

“That I do, my dear; you was in a rare taking, and I don’t so much wonder at it; that was five year ago I was paying you a visit at Michaelmas time, and you come in at teatime, and says you, ‘Father, there’s the books laying open under the cloths agin’; and I didn’t know what my daughter was speakin’ about, you see, sir, and I says, ‘Books?’ just like that, I says; and then it all came out. But as Harry says⁠—that’s my son-in-law, sir⁠—‘whoever it can be,’ he says, ‘as does it, because there ain’t only the one door, and we keeps the key locked up,’ he says, ‘and the winders is barred, every one on ’em. Well,’ he says, ‘I lay once I could catch ’em at it, they wouldn’t do it a second time,’ he says. And no more they wouldn’t, I don’t believe, sir. Well, that was five year ago, and it’s been happenin’ constant ever since by your account, my dear. Young Mr. Clark, he don’t seem to think much to it; but then he don’t live here, you see, and ’tisn’t his business to come and clean up here of a dark afternoon, is it?”

“I suppose you never notice anything else odd when you are at work here, Mrs. Porter?” said Mr. Davidson.

“No, sir, I do not,” said Mrs. Porter, “and it’s a funny thing to me I don’t, with the feeling I have as there’s someone settin’ here⁠—no, it’s the other side, just within the screen⁠—and lookin’ at me all the time I’m dustin’ in the gallery and pews. But I never yet see nothin’ worse than myself, as the sayin’ goes, and I kindly hope I never may.”

In the conversation that followed (there was not much of it), nothing was added to the statement of the case. Having parted on good terms with Mr. Avery and his daughter, Mr. Davidson addressed himself to his eight-mile walk. The little valley of Brockstone soon led him down into the broader one of the Tent, and on to Stanford St. Thomas, where he found refreshment.

We need not accompany him all the way to Longbridge. But as he was changing his socks before dinner, he suddenly paused and said half-aloud, “By Jove, that is a rum thing!” It had not occurred to him before how strange it was that any edition of the Prayerbook should have been issued in 1653, seven years before the Restoration, five years before Cromwell’s death, and when the use of the book, let alone the printing of it, was penal. He must have been a bold man who put his name and a date on that title-page. Only, Mr. Davidson reflected, it probably was not his name at all, for the ways of printers in difficult times were devious.

As he was in the front hall of the Swan that evening, making some investigations about trains, a small motor stopped in front of the door, and out of it came a small man in a fur coat, who stood on the steps and gave directions in a rather yapping foreign accent to his chauffeur. When he came into the hotel, he was seen to be black-haired and pale-faced, with a little pointed beard, and gold pince-nez; altogether, very