The Mezzotint
‘In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all-fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back.’
The Mezzotint – M. R. James
Welcome to my M. R. James countdown to Halloween.
The Mezzotint was a disappointment.
I know I’m not meant to say that any M. R. James story is a bit ‘meh’, but this one is. There is an excellently creepy description of the creature that includes the classic James technique that makes something infinitely worse by withholding and ends “The legs of the appearance alone could be plainly discerned, and they were horribly thin.”
Its a haunted-object-no-don’t-inspect-it-at-night–idiot affair. Quite why the haunted picture decides to give up it’s secrets to the golf obsessed Mr Williams is beyond me and apparently the author didn’t know either because we never find out.
Verdict
** (2 screaming nightmares out of 5)
A creepy M. R. James creature but one stuck firmly on the page.
M. R. James bingo
No academics on holiday I’m afraid, everyone is hanging around in the college rooms instead talking about golf.
Ditching friends or offers of company on holidayGetting into trouble on said holidayBook abuse- Ignoring the blindingly obvious hints of others
- Golf
Interfering with an archaeological site- 19th century snobbery
The Story
The story can be found in James’s anthology Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) and is included in most later collections of his stories. Depending on your country and copyright restrictions, you may be able to access the book legally and for free via Project Gutenberg.
The lovely people at literature wiki have put together a frighteningly detailed synopsis here.
K.M. Cooke 