With his arm round Muriel, who was white-faced, he went out into the hall. They did not look long at the scorched and beaded stains at the foot of the panelling, for even the scars of fire seemed gentle now. Instead, they stood in the doorway looking out, while the house threw its great blaze of light across the frosty Weald. It was a welcoming light. Over the rise of a hill, black dots trudging in the frost showed that Jack Bannister’s party was returning; and they could hear the sound of voices carrying far. They heard one of the party carelessly singing a Christmas carol for glory and joy, and the laughter of children coming home.
THE STRANGE AFFAIR AT UPTON STONEWOLD
Frederick Cowles
Frederick Cowles was a librarian and antiquarian whose books on folklore and travel achieved a wide popularity in the thirties. Whereas these non-fiction works are still easy to locate on the secondhand market, the extreme rarity of his two collections, The Horror of Abbot’s Grange (1936) and The Night Wind Howls (1938), has ensured that his horror stories are now largely unknown. These range from some memorable ‘shockers’ and Jamesian tales (including ‘The Cadaver of Bishop Louis’) to pieces of a gentler fantastic quality. In all he wrote over sixty short stories, including several between 1938 and his premature death in 1948 that never saw publication. Among these is ‘The Strange Affair at Upton Stonewold’, and we are very grateful to Mrs Doris Cowles for supplying this story.
During my four years at Cambridge I made many acquaintances, but only one really intimate friend. He was Jocelyn Bourne and, unlike the majority of our contemporaries at St Hugh’s, was a man with a mind above the usual frivolities of youth. I do not mean to imply that he was anything of a pedant. In those days we both enjoyed our leisure to the full and amused ourselves in our own fashion. But we did not lose sight of the fact that the brief years at the University were intended to fit us for the battle of life, and that the business of living was likely to be a serious affair. We had many things in common, not the least of which was a keen interest in ecclesiastical archaeology. He was, and still is, a convinced and sincere Anglo-Catholic with a love for the dignified beauty of advanced ritual. I belong to a family whose members have always clung to that older Faith which, in my opinion, has the sole right to the title Catholic. In spite of our theological differences, which seemed to amount to little more than the question of the validity of Anglican Orders, Bourne and I were the best of friends and no futile arguments or senseless bickerings marred the harmony of our companionship.
After we had taken our degrees Bourne went on to a theological training college and was eventually ordained. I went abroad for a time and then settled down to my job as an architect in the small West of England town where my family has held property for generations. We kept up a fairly regular correspondence and occasionally met in London when he was serving his first curacy in one of the suburbs. Then I accepted a commission from the Italian Government, to supervise the restoration of some ancient buildings in Umbria, and was away from England for nearly three years.
I came home in 1932 and one of the first things I noticed in The Times was an announcement that Bourne had been appointed vicar of Upton Stonewold—one of those pleasant fenland villages in the diocese of Ely. I immediately penned a few lines of congratulation, for I remembered that, although I had never seen it, Upton Stonewold church was accounted a gem of fifteenth-century architecture. It was a living in the gift of St Hugh’s and was looked upon as a sure step to preferment. Within a couple of days I had Bourne’s reply and a suggestion that I should visit him in his new home as soon as he had settled down. A month or so passed and then I received another letter containing a very definite invitation.
‘The church is literally a medieval treasure-house,’ he wrote. ‘You will be delighted with it. You may have seen, in some of the journals, a report of our recent find. We have discovered that St Walstan’s, unlike the majority of fenland churches, possesses an interesting crypt. The entrance to this has been walled-up for centuries and I only came across it by a lucky accident. The undercroft contains a holy well which I think may have been a pilgrimage centre. I intend to set about a complete restoration as soon as I can secure the necessary faculty, and shall be grateful for your expert advice. There is a peculiar tomb which will have to be moved before I can set up an altar.’
At that time I was busy with plans for a new art gallery in a town in the South Midlands, and had seen no report of the finding of the crypt. I looked up back numbers of the Architects’ Journal, the Architectural Review, and the Church Times and found that the discovery of the crypt at Upton Stonewold was regarded as an event of some importance. Experts were of the opinion that it ante-dated the present church by at least two hundred years, and that the well was pre-Roman.
Another month passed before I was able to arrange my visit to Bourne. I then wrote suggesting a date, and received an enthusiastic reply in which he informed me that the faculty had been granted and the restoration work would commence as soon as I had approved the plan.
‘Will you do me the favour of breaking your journey at Cambridge, he added. ‘I am under the impression that the library at St Hugh’s possesses a manuscript relating to this parish and it may have something to say about the crypt. I am particularly anxious to have some information about the tomb I mentioned in my previous letter. The only inscription on the slab is—“J.S. 1628” and there is also a crude outline of a monstrous cat. If you can spare the time to look this up for me, and see if there is any reference which may be helpful, I shall be very much obliged.’
So, on the 14th of September, I travelled up to Cambridge, and spent the night at the ‘Castle’ where I had booked accommodation. In the morning I went along to the library at St Hugh’s. Massey, the librarian, is an old friend of mine and appeared very pleased to see me. After the usual small-talk I asked about the Stonewold manuscript. He vaguely remembered something of the kind but, as at that time the manuscripts had never been properly catalogued, it was not easy to locate the book. At last we found it tucked away in a cupboard, and a perusal of it proved rather disappointing. The volume was a small octavo, consisting of some fifty pages bound in calf. It bore regrettable evidences of ill-treatment and some of the leaves were missing—obviously ripped out by a careless hand. The manuscript recorded a few minor episodes in the history of the village, and there were two brief references to the crypt.
On the second page I read: ‘Some here do still resort to a popishe holy welle in ye crypt of ye church whych, so it is sayd, was blessed by Etheldreda, the Ely abbess whych some call Awdrey. Whether those who go to ye welle do so for healing I cannot say. But many do believe that those who meet in the crypt are wytches and do there worship the devil.’
Later on was this entry: ‘There hath recently come amongst us the Lady Joanna Stanning who seemeth to have grete wealth at her command and hath bought the house of ye Hadwickes. None knoweth who she is or from whence she hath come.’
The missing leaves, which seemed to be five in number, had been torn from the end of the book, and then came the final entry: ‘Thys daye, 15 Januari 1628, was J.S. buryed in ye crypt and God grant that ye terrible thyngs of which I have written may now have an end. We have consulted wyth ye byshop and he hath ordered that ye crypt shall be walled up that, in tyme maybe, its very existence shall be forgotten.’