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A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

Narratives of the Anglo-Zulu War

and many others

The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of D. H. Lawrence

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The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of D. H. Lawrence
Leonaur Original
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Author(s): D. H. Lawrence
Date Published: 2009/08
Page Count: 252
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-843-8
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-844-5

Eight tales of unease from one of the finest English writers of the 20th century

D. H. Lawrence wrote a large body of work as an author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic. His most famous (perhaps infamous) work was 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' and among his other highly regarded novels are 'Women in Love,’ 'Sons and Lovers,’ 'The Rainbow' and 'The Plumed Serpent.’ Lawrence's focus on human sexuality may have brought about a scandal and an undeserved reputation as a pornographer, but nevertheless upon his death E. M. Forster referred to him as 'the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.’ Lawrence's huge capacity for writing fortunately guided him towards many subjects including a concise and exquisitely crafted collection of shorter works concerning ghosts, hauntings, dark places and macabre scenarios within which his often troubled characters must live. This special Leonaur collection—by an unusual exponent of the genre—includes 'Glad Ghosts,’ 'Smile,’ 'The Last Laugh,’ 'The Lovely Lady,’ 'The Man who Died,’ 'The Border Line,’ 'Sun,’ 'The Woman who Rode Away' and the highly regarded classic, 'The Rocking Horse Winner.’ Available in softcover and hardback with dust jacket for collectors.

So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and Paul's mother touched the whole five thousand. Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor. He was really going to Eton, his father's school, in the following autumn. There were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the luxury Paul's mother had been used to. And yet the voices in the house, behind the sprays of mimosa and almond-blossom, and from under the piles of iridescent cushions, simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: "There must be more money! Oh-h-h! There must be more money! Oh, now, now-w! now-w-w—there must be more money!—more than ever! More than ever!"<br>
It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away at his Latin and Greek with his tutors. But his intense hours were spent with Bassett. The Grand National had gone by: he had not "known", and had lost a hundred pounds. Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn't "know", and he lost fifty pounds. He became wild-eyed and strange, as if something were going to explode in him.<br>
"Let it alone, son! Don't you bother about it!" urged Uncle Oscar. But it was as if the boy couldn't really hear what his uncle was saying.<br>
"I've got to know for the Derby! I've got to know for the Derby!" the child reiterated, his big blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness.<br>
His mother noticed how overwrought he was.<br>
"You'd better go to the seaside. Wouldn't you like to go now to the seaside, instead of waiting? I think you'd better," she said, looking down at him anxiously, her heart curiously heavy because of him.<br>
But the child lifted his uncanny blue eyes.<br>
"I couldn't possibly go before the Derby, mother!" he said. "I couldn't possibly!" <br>
"Why not?" she said, her voice becoming heavy when she was opposed. "Why not? You can still go from the seaside to see the Derby with your Uncle Oscar, if that's what you wish. No need for you to wait here. Besides, I think you care too much about these races. It's a bad sign. My family has been a gambling family, and you won't know till you grow up how much damage it has done. But it has done damage. I shall have to send Bassett away, and ask Uncle Oscar not to talk racing to you, unless you promise to be reasonable about it: go away to the seaside and forget it. You're all nerves!"<br>
"I'll do what you like, mother, so long as you don't send me away till after the Derby," the boy said.<br>
"Send you away from where? Just from this house?"<br>
"Yes," he said, gazing at her.<br>
"Why, you curious child, what makes you care about this house so much, suddenly? I never knew you loved it!"<br>
He gazed at her without speaking. He had a secret within a secret, something he had not divulged, even to Bassett or to his Uncle Oscar.<br>
But his mother, after standing undecided and a little bit sullen for some moments, said:<br>
"Very well, then! Don't go to the seaside till after the Derby, if you don't wish it. But promise me you won't let your nerves go to pieces! Promise you won't think so much about horse-racing and events, as you call them!"<br>
"Oh no!" said the boy, casually. "I won't think much about them, mother. You needn't worry. I wouldn't worry, mother, if I were you."<br>
"If you were me and I were you," said his mother, "I wonder what we should do!"<br>
"But you know you needn't worry, mother, don't you?" the boy repeated.<br>
"I should be awfully glad to know it," she said wearily.<br>
"Oh, well, you can, you know. I mean you ought to know you needn't worry!" he insisted.<br>
"Ought I? Then I'll see about it," she said.<br>
Paul's secret of secrets was his wooden horse, that which had no name. Since he was emancipated from a nurse and a nursery governess, he had had his rocking-horse removed to his own bedroom at the top of the house.<br>
"Surely you're too big for a rocking-horse!" his mother had remonstrated.<br>
"Well, you see, mother, till I can have a real horse, I like to have some sort of animal about," had been his quaint answer.
"Do you feel he keeps you company?" she laughed.<br>
"Oh yes! He's very good, he always keeps me company, when I'm there," said Paul.<br>
So the horse, rather shabby, stood in an arrested prance in the boy's bedroom.<br>
The Derby was drawing near, and the boy grew more and more tense. He hardly heard what was spoken to him, he was very frail, and his eyes were really uncanny. His mother had sudden strange seizures of uneasiness about him. Sometimes, for half an hour, she would feel a sudden anxiety about him that was almost anguish. She wanted to rush to him at once, and know he was safe.<br>
Two nights before the Derby, she was at a big party in town, when one of her rushes of anxiety about her boy, her first-born, gripped her heart till she could hardly speak. She fought with the feeling, might and main, for she believed in common-sense. But it was too strong. She had to leave the dance and go downstairs to telephone to the country. The children's nursery governess was terribly surprised and startled at being rung up in the night.<br>
"Are the children all right, Miss Wilmot?"<br>
"Oh yes, they are quite all right."<br>
"Master Paul? Is he all right?"<br>
"He went to bed as right as a trivet. Shall I run up and look at him?"<br>
"No!" said Paul's mother reluctantly. "No! Don't trouble. It's all right. Don't sit up. We shall be home fairly soon." She did not want her son's privacy intruded upon.<br>
"Very good," said the governess.<br>
It was about one o'clock when Paul's mother and father drove up to their house. All was still. Paul's mother went to her room and slipped off her white fur cloak. She had told her maid not to wait up for her. She heard her husband downstairs, mixing a whisky-and-soda.<br>
And then, because of the strange anxiety at her heart, she stole upstairs to her son's room. Noiselessly she went along the upper corridor. Was there a faint noise? What was it?<br>
She stood, with arrested muscles, outside his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy, and yet not loud noise. Her heart stood still. It was a soundless noise, yet rushing and powerful. Something huge, in violent, hushed motion. What was it? What in God's Name was it? She ought to know. She felt that she knew the noise.
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