For October 29
Plot:
The unnamed narrator, traveling across Europe, meets Alastair Colvin aboard a train. They will then board a ship. Alastair makes an unusual request to the narrator when the two know each other only casually: “Will you let me sleep in your cabin on the Osiris?” The narrator hems and haws and tries to put off giving a definite answer.
Colvin understands his reluctance. To explain himself, he tells the narrator a story about his friend Broughton, who inherited a place called Thurnley Abbey. It had been long neglected, and Broughton found it impossible to get workers to stay after dark. They believed the spirit of a nun who was once immured at the abbey now haunts the place.
Despite expressing his annoyance with the workers, Broughton says he can’t dismiss the possibility of ghosts. “My own idea,” said he, “is that if a ghost ever does come in one’s way, one ought to speak to it.”
The narrator agrees and adds that from little he knows of ghosts, he understands that a spook was, in honor, bound to wait to be spoken to.
After some months, the repairs are finished. Broughton marries.
A letter comes with a request for Colvin to come to Thurnley Abbey and render a service for Broughton.
The request puzzles Colvin. Broughton is a capable man. What could he possibly need?
Thoughts:
The frame within a frame slows the story, but if the reader can hang on and wait till the appearance of the big scary thing, it is worth it. Not only is the big bad thing apt to scare the bejesus out of the reader but watching the humans react to it is worth some time on the couch with a pencil and pad.
The story is gothic and nicely atmospheric, even before the good stuff hits the fan. Why does Colvin want to sleep in the cabin of a guy he just met? (This is 1907, long before one spoke openly of casual sex—let alone gay casual sex).
The story also turned a couple of conventions on their heads.
I liked it.
Bio: Perceval Landon (1869-1927) was an English journalist, war correspondent, and writer. He was friends with Rudyard Kipling. He traveled widely and wrote non-fiction accounts of his travels, such as The Opening of Tibet (1905). His one collection of short stories was Raw Edges (1908).
This story can be read here:
This story can be listened to here: (59:43)
Title: “Thurnley Abbey
Author: Perceval Landon (1869-1927)
First published: McClure’s Magazine, 1907
Length: short story
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 
That sounds like a good story. Thank you for the intriguing review.
Thanks for your kind words. It takes a while, but it gets better toward the end, then it scars the socks off the reader.