Review of “Brickett Bottom” by Amyas Northcote Halloween Countdown

Plot:

Reverend Arthur Maydew takes a well-deserved vacation of sorts by swapping parishes with an elderly Mr. Roberts. His two daughters, Alice and Maggie, go with him.

Both girls are social and attractive. They like going for strolls in the area. On one of their walks, Alice comes upon an old-fashioned brick house with a lovely garden she hadn’t noticed before. In the poor light, near-sighted Maggie can’t be sure she sees anything. They decide to return later, but Maggie sprains her ankle and walking is out of the question for a while. Alice walks alone. She tells Maggie of meeting a friendly older woman with a lovely garden and an invitation to stop by the next day. She’ll be back at half past four at the latest.

She isn’t.

Thoughts:

Alice is twenty-six and Maggie twenty-four. Alice is described as “inclined to be absent-minded and emotional and to devote more of her thoughts and time to speculations of an abstract nature than her sister.” She later dreams of the cottage. Maggie wonders if she isn’t going a little crazy.

Maggie cautions her sister against accepting invitations from strangers. If the couple were “desirable or attractive neighbours,” Mr. Roberts would have told them.

This is a warning about defying social conventions. It concludes with stories of other young women (…no young men…) who have gone astray—some happily recovered, others never to be heard from again.

Nothing Alice does is evil or ill-intentioned, but she is unwary. At the same time, she is new to the area and doesn’t have all the information. The moral of the story is that she should have behaved better or at least heeded the advice of her sister.

Well, this was depressing all around.

The story can be read here:

An audio version can be heard here: (approximately 45 minutes)

Bio: Amyas Northcote (1864-1923) was a British writer, justice of the peace, and for a time, small businessman in Chicago. He came from an aristocratic family. His only known writing was collection of ghost stories, In Ghostly Company, published in 1921 shortly before his death.



Title: “Brickett Bottom”
Author: Amyas Northcote (1864-1923)
First published: In Ghostly Company, 1921