A pathological need for fame

I met Mr Priestley for a frappuccino in the centre of Cambridge today. He wanted to show me the cover for his new book, The Dead of Winter. It is not coming out until October but he seemed childishly excited about it and I felt it best to humour him. He also wanted to show me his latest piercing but I have a surprisingly weak stomach when it comes to that sort of thing and declined his invitation quite forcefully.

As I have mentioned previously, The Dead of Winter details the extraordinary life of Michael Vyner and in particular his fateful visit to Sir Stephen Clarendon's house - Hawton Mere. Michael left his own record of these events and Mr Priestley was asked to shape them into the form of a novel. Knowing that I had myself visited Hawton Mere and had heard Michael's tale from his own lips, Mr Priestley asked if we might collaborate one more time.

My contribution to the book seems to have been overlooked by the publishers, but I am happy to remain anonymous. Mr Priestley seems to have what I can only describe as a pathological need for fame and financial gain and I have few requirements that are not met by my modest accommodation at Pity's End and the contents of a warm tea pot.

I got chills

They're multiplying.

Even by the unnaturally frigid standards of Pity's End, it is bitterly cold. I can scarcely remember a time when I was quite so chilled, though it was possibly on a long distant winter visit to Hawton Mere, Sir Stephen Clarendon's moated manor house in the fen country.

The old house is gone now, of course. The circumstances of its destruction are detailed in Mr Priestley's upcoming novel, The Dead of Winter, as a matter of fact and his small but loyal readership will no doubt read all about it when it is published in October of this year.

Mr Priestley's account is a trifle sensationalised, but as he heard the story from me, I can vouch for its veracity. After all I heard the story from poor Michael Vyner himself.

But the cold deepens. It is almost as though it is gnawing at the very bones of my legs. Oh - it's you Franz. Come out from under there!

How many times must we have this conversation?

Some observations on a visit to the ruins of Hawton Mere

I decided to pay a visit to the ruins of Hawton Mere. I have not been there in years and immediately wished I had not returned. Franz accompanied me, as always.

It is a terrible thing to see such a great old house reduced to such a state. It was never what one might call a cheerful place, but it did have its own rather gloomy style. I must confess I always felt rather comfortable there - though I was in a small minority. If those stones could speak, what tales they could tell. Although some stories are perhaps better left untold.

I had hoped to find the ruins free of any. . .presence. But sadly that was not the case. A white form flickered past a gaping door mouth. I am all too used to the supernatural of course, but when I saw her walking along the moat's edge I was not tempted to tarry. Franz took no persuasion to quit that place.

Some places - some things - are too disquieting, even for us.

Lady Clarendon

I happened to be looking for some papers in my study and came across this. I thought I would share it with you as I happened to mention Hawton Mere yesterday. This is a photograph of the late Lady Clarendon standing beside the moat at Hawton Mere.

There is a curious prescience to this image, given what little we know of the events at the house. As well as being at school with Sir Stephen I was also there with Tristan Jerwood who would later become Sir Stephen's lawyer. Knowing my interest in the supernatural, Tristan did share some of his knowledge of what happened there that Christmas; the winter that Michael Vyner came to stay. In fact, I suppose I am now the only person living who knows the truth.

Until Mr Priestley's novel is published of course. . .

Hawton Mere

I was sitting in my study here at Pity's End, contemplating the futility of existence with a rather fine glass of Amontillado, when my thoughts carried me away to Hawton Mere, a place I have not thought about for many years.

Hawton Mere was an ancient and splendidly grim house in the fen district of East Anglia. It was the family seat of Sir Stephen Clarendon, a school friend of mine. The last time I saw him was at the funeral of his wife, Lady Margaret, whose life had been cut tragically short. A man of fragile sensibilities at the best of times, I am not sure he ever fully recovered from that blow. He was certainly acting rather oddly at the funeral. But grief affects us all in different ways.

Hawton Mere is quite ruinous now, destroyed by fire many years ago and wearing a thick cloak of ivy, the moat clogged with weeds. The events leading up to that fire are to be the subject of a novel, soon to be published I am told, telling the tale from the point of view of Sir Stephen's ward, Michael Vyner.