When Darcy, recuperating from a serious illness, goes to stay with an old friend of his, Frank, in the New Forest, he discovers a puzzling change in the man. He appears to have become significantly younger and is also filled with exuberance and joy. Frank explains that he has spent the last six years studying Nature and has discovered a new philosophy of life around the joy of nature.
After devoting himself to Nature, he has started hearing a strange wonderful pipe music in the woods and he knows that the final revelation is about to come to him. But Darcy has serious misgivings about his friend's situation and his fears are not unfounded.
Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost and horror stories.
Hugh and Margaret Grainger have rented a lovely old house near an excellent golf course. At the bottom of the garden is a strange, well-kept, but untenented thatched cottage.
A visitor to the Graingers has a strange and overwhelming presentiment on passing the cottage that the house is actually not empty. Indeed, on several occasions he seems to see a light in the cottage. And one evening he thinks he sees a figure entering the house. But every attempt to investigate confirms that the cottage is abandoned.
Margaret Grainer is an enthusiast for communicating with the spirit world via the planchette. When she starts receiving peculiar messages from someone calling himself the gardener everyone is intrigued but sceptical. But then the gardener announces his wish to enter the house... and catapults the inhabitants of the house into a strange and terrifying spiral of events.
The Cat is an odd story about a young man who suffers a severe shock reaction to the unexpected ending of his engagement. Initially he is thrown into a deep depression which lasts several months, but then all of a sudden something snaps in his brain and he undergoes a phenomenal transformation.
Not only does his depression leave him, but he becomes suddenly upbeat and sees the world in richer colours and with greater clarity. Moreover, he develops an unprecedented genius for portrait painting which makes him famous overnight. But then his ex-fiancée asks him to finish the portrait he has started of her.
At first he copes well with the renewed acquaintance, but he becomes increasingly frustrated at his inability to capture the cat-like quality of his former beloved's eyes. He repairs to his retreat in the country to concentrate on the background of the portrait, but there he encounters a grey cat whose eyes are uncannily reminiscent of those of his lover.
Edward Frederic Benson (1867 - 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, best known as the true master of the gothic ghost story.
Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost stories.
The Bath Chair is a sinister tale of Alice Farraday who harbours an obsessive hatred of her selfish brother Edmund. Alice is a believer in occult powers, and she well knows that a hatred, nurtured and fed, will take on a life of its own and bring about disaster for its object.
She herself will not have to lift a finger to harm her brother. She must merely be patient and continue to hate. And indeed, before long Edmund begins to see a stranger with a limp wherever he goes. At first he is unable to get a clear view of the strange man... but when finally he sees him close up, the man's face fills him with terror, as he realizes the ghastly significance of the apparition.
Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost stories.
Bagnell Terrace is the tale of a very strange but highly desirable house. The narrator who lives on the same street, has always coveted it because of its fine square front room, and when the property is unexpectedly offered for sale, he jumps at the chance to buy it. Oddly enough, nobody has ever observed the previous enigmatic owner leave. The house has an odd dusty aromatic smell. But much more sinister still are the strange footsteps which appear on the wet pavement and lead straight to the front door. The events which follow are both fascinating and terrifying.
