The Garden That Was Desolate by Ulric Daubeny
“The Garden That Was Desolate” was first published in 1919 in the anthology The Elemental: Tales of the Supernormal and the Inexplicable. A forgotten gem, this collection of supernatural tales from a little-known author does not appear to have been reprinted until 2006, when Ash Tree Press took advantage of its public domain status. It was later republished by Black Heath Editions (2019) and Solar Press (2023).
Although “The Garden That Was Desolate” is an excellent work of speculative fiction that functions well on several levels, and has a surprise ending, the story is rarely picked up by editors putting together horror story anthologies. However, in 2024 The British Library (British Library Tales of the Weird #53) published “The Garden That Was Desolate” in The Haunted Trail: Classic Tales of the Rambling Weird. It has also been included in Great Horror Stories: 101 Chilling Tales (published by Fall River Press).
About Ulric Daubeny
Ulric Evan Daubeny (1888 — 1922) is an obscure British horror author many fans of the genre may not be familiar with. Information about him is lacking.
Daubeny only wrote one anthology of supernatural fiction—The Elemental: Tales of the Supernormal and the Inexplicable. He also wrote at least one other book called Ancient Cotswold Churches (1923), which he dedicated to his wife. The book contained pen and ink illustrations provided by Cecily Daubeny. Although Cecily may have been another family member, it seems likely she was his wife.
Daubney’s most successful work of fiction is “The Sumach“—a story about a vampire tree. It has been anthologized several times and was translated into Italian for the anthology IL Sangue e la Rosa (1988).
The Garden That Was Desolate
by Ulric Daubeny
(Online Text)
The country to the south of Birdlip, a Cotswold eyrie close on Roman Ermine Street, is, if scarcely wild, at least bleak, austere, and sparsely populated. It is a region of prehistoric burial mounds, of straggling British trackways, of Roman roads, Norman churches, ancient farm buildings, ruinous cottages; a dry-wall country,[1] sharply undulating, its bleak downs relieved by occasional secretive woods of larch or beech. In striking contrast is the Cotswold ‘Edge’, a precipitous drop of several hundred feet into the fertile Severn Valley, where a kaleidoscopic vista of irregularly shaped and parti-coloured fields spreads out in a level tract, for a distance of some thirty miles. Close to Birdlip, the high-road skirts this ‘edge’, and there, for the space of several minutes, Philip Cranham lingered, watching the play of sunlight over the jagged chine of Malvern, pale and beautiful in the shimmering distance.
‘What a position for a house!’ he mused, turning reluctantly, and continuing at a brisk walk, for the air on these heights is chilly, even towards the end of June. His way bore to the south-west, in the direction of the forgotten town of Painswick, which was to be the last stage of his tour.
A lover of the unconventional in walking, Philip deserted the usual high road through the woods, striking across a strip of common, and over several fields, until he met a narrow lane, which promised to lead him in the right direction. Deeply rutted by former traffic, it was long since grass-grown, scattered with mossy boulders, and enclosed on either side by a straggling bramble hedge. A veritable picture of desolation, thought Philip, glancing uneasily at the approaching heavy clouds, for the tremulous mutter of thunder had assailed his ears, and he looked in vain for a place of shelter. This was an upper rampart of the Cotswolds, a ridge bleak and desolate, set apart from all things hospitable, where there was no course but to throw one’s weight against the wind and face the threatened downpour. The lane, overgrown and serrulated, continued for some distance until, quite unexpectedly, the hedge was succeeded by a wall, dry-built [1] as is the custom of the district, and strengthened by a massive cornice. Philip marvelled at its height, for it stood at least twelve feet; it looked to be of recent building, and still retained that bright, cream colour peculiar to the local limestone when freshly dug. Near the middle, the wall was broken by a gateway, flanked by massive pillars, on which hung double doors, palpably amateurish in construction. One of these had been unhooked, and dragged into the enclosure, where an elderly man was busy strengthening it with pieces of rough timber.
‘Afternoon!’ he volunteered, after a nervous scrutiny of Philip, who had come to a halt before the gateway. ‘Going to have a storm!’
He needed to be no prophet, for already great, bloated drops of rain were falling, heralded by a resounding clap of thunder. Philip cast an apprehensive glance skywards, and commenced to unstrap his mackintosh.
“Yes. We are in for it,’ he agreed, with the pointed addition, ‘Unpleasantly exposed, up here. Not even a decently thick hedge to shelter under!’
There was a noticeable hesitation before the stranger answered, and when he did, it was with a certain shy reluctance.‘Come inside. You can shelter in my room, until the rain stops.’
Philip required no second bidding. Half-a-dozen steps, and he was viewing an extensive garden, consisting first of a rough lawn, backed by currant and gooseberry bushes, young fruit trees, a yew hedge industriously trimmed, and then divers beds and footpaths, disappearing over the sloping hillside. Signs of any habitable building, there were none.
‘Come along!’ enjoined the stranger, advancing hastily across the spacious lawn. ‘I live over there, in the lookout post.’
For the first time, Philip noticed, built against and forming part of the left-hand boundary wall, a kind of miniature watchtower, with pyramidal stone roof, terminated by a central chimney. A flight of steps led them to the doorway, for the place was built upon a mound, with floor-level half way up, and sloping roof considerably above the wall. Within there was a single room, possibly twelve feet square, having a fireplace in one corner, a narrow window cut through the outer wall, and another, a very large one, facing down the garden, and over the lovely Vale of Severn.
‘What a glorious view!’ exclaimed Philip, despite himself.
‘Damned view! Damned view! Wish I had never set eyes upon it!’
Philip turned in open mouthed astonishment, but his companion paid no heed, though he continued in a quieter tone.
‘I am a slave to that view. I can sit, and look at it for hours. I worship it—yet all the while I hate it! … Like to hear the story of all this?’ With rather an abandoned gesture, he swept his hand about, to indicate the tiny house, the garden, and the towering outer walls.
‘I should like to know why there are immensely high walls on three sides—or rather, two, for the third is incomplete, and yet—’
“To keep out undesirables, my dear Sir; to keep out undesirables!’ interrupted the stranger, with uncontrolled impatience. ‘The walls and the tall gates, which I am busy strengthening.’
‘But—excuse me,’ continued Philip, obstinately bent on satisfying his curiosity, ‘the third wall, as I say, is but partially built, while no barrier of any kind protects the bottom of the garden!’
A long silence ensued, broken only by the drumming of the rain upon the unceiled roof [2], and an occasional echoing burst of thunder. Philip lounged thoughtfully near the open window, while his companion stood irresolute, chewing at his moustache, and with close knit brows, as if striving to recapture some elusive or forgotten memory. Presently his expression cleared, and as quickly changed to one of crafty eagerness.
‘Come, come, Sir. Come, come! You cannot expect everything, all at once! Do you know, every stone of those walls—yes, even of this house—I built myself?’
Philip nodded encouragingly. At times the man seemed sane enough, and yet he was decidedly peculiar.
“The reason for all this,’ he continued, repeating the gesture which embraced the whole of the surroundings, and ended with the larger window. ‘The reason of it all, is that. The view. More than seven years ago, I camped here, while on a holiday from London. After all the noise and smoke and racket, this place seemed like Paradise; and the view—I simply could not tear myself away! It ended in my purchasing the land, for I had determined to erect a house here. There was some trouble with a woman, who held part as an allotment, and claimed the place as hers, but she could produce no legal title, so the lawyer and I bundled her out, between us. Vindictive old harridan, she was—’
He ceased abruptly, creeping across to the rickety door, which he slowly opened, and after a stealthy glance around, closed, with an exclamation of relief. Philip watched narrowly. The manner was so ridiculously furtive as to point without a doubt to lunacy; it was becoming distinctly creepy, this sheltering from a thunderstorm, in the cottage of a maniac!
“Where was I?’ the man resumed, seating himself by the empty fireplace. “What? Ah, yes! I had determined, as you say, to build a house here. Seven years ago, it was, this very day, that half a dozen labourers commenced to turn the sods, for the foundations. A month later I was all alone. Nobody would work for me, though I had men up from Stroud, Gloucester, Cheltenham, finally from London. Will you credit me, when I tell you that the beastly old hag who claimed the place had frightened ’em all away? I admit that there were several distressing accidents. The first day, a man was bitten by an adder, and another crushed beneath a heavy stone cart. The Cheltenham foreman tripped up in a rabbit hole, and broke a leg, and his successor suddenly went mad, but—Fools! Idiots! They actually believed the crude tales of the country folk, who said that the ranting old woman was a witch! They took to their heels, and ran, the dirty cowards!’
“What happened after that?’
‘They left me to build the house as best I might; and build it I swore I would, in face of Beelzebub! Witch or no witch, she did not frighten me, though often enough she came and threatened; yes, cursed and threatened. . . . So I started right away, to build the highest wall I could, to keep her out!’
‘Has it taken seven years to do all this?’
“Yes. I could only build at intervals, for the garden had to be planted, and I practically live on its contents. In two years’ time, I hope to have the defensive walls completed, and then the ill-omened old faggot will be shut out from my property for ever!’
‘But, pardon me once more,’ insisted Philip, bent on settling the question of the stranger’s sanity, ‘Why did you not run up a medium wall all round, sufficient to exclude unwelcome visitors, and then raise and strengthen it at your leisure?’
The recluse made no reply. Instead, he sprang towards the door, tore it open, and halted on the threshold, quivering with rage. Facing him was a wizened, bent old woman, clad in an assortment of dirty rags, leaning heavily upon a stick. Her face was stained and wrinkled like a winter walnut, and inexpressibly malignant was the look that shot from beneath the overhanging eyebrows.
‘What is it, you old devil?’ choked the man, his voice pitched high in apprehension. “Why do you stand gibbering at me like that?’
She made no immediate answer, but pointing a skinny talon, uttered a husky chuckle.
‘Ha, ha! Ralf Cook! What did I tell ’ee? What did I tell ’ee, these seven years agone?’
‘Stand back there. Stand back. Don’t you dare to molest me, woman!’
“Why don’t ye answer, Ralf Cook? Is it that ye are afeard, or can it be that ye don’t remember? Seven years I gev thee; seven years. I said, and then—Are ye leavin’, Ralf Cook, leavin’ here this very day?’
‘No. you old fool! You won’t frighten me by your threats and curses. I bought this land, and paid for it, and—by glory!—I mean to stay here, in face of you or anybody!’
‘Then, Ralf Cook, by all the Powers—’
Her arms were raised in vehement imprecation, but before the words could leave her lips the man had dealt her a smashing blow across the face. She swayed helplessly for a moment, and then staggered backwards, falling heavily to the ground. A sudden vivid flash of lightning transfixed the two men, but as the echoes of the thunder died away, Philip pushed through the open doorway, and bounded down the steps. One glance was sufficient to convince him that the old woman’s neck was broken. Awe stricken by the sight, he looked back to meet a pair of fiend’s eyes, madman’s eyes—homicidal maniac’s eyes. Then blank, unreasoning panic overtook him; he fled blindly, in his terror taking what appeared to be a different route across the garden. Here the grass grew rank, a yew hedge was pitifully unkempt, the fruit trees were old and straggling, the pathway all but indistinguishable. At last the boundary wall: but it was stained by the flight of many winters, and near a crumbling gateway lay one wooden door, rotting amid the weeds, while the other hung perilously upon its rusted hinges. When at last he checked his pace, Philip found himself in the grass-grown lane, and on looking back, felt relieved that the walls of the accursed garden were no longer visible.
With the memory so fresh upon him, Philip’s judgment lost its normal balance. To witness, perhaps in some measure to be a mute accomplice in the murder of an old woman by a maniac, might well upset the strongest nerves, and he could not forget that his own life must have hung in fearful jeopardy. So alarming was the thought of giving evidence in the witness box, that by the time Philip had reached Painswick, he was fully determined to say no word to the police. Instead, he gave himself to headlong flight, catching the late motor bus to Stroud, and the evening train to London. Months went by, but although he kept in anxious touch with local news, no hint came that the murder had been detected. At times Philip suffered considerable pangs of conscience, and on more than one occasion he was on the point of going to the police, only to be deterred by the anticipation of considerable official censure, for so long concealing knowledge of the crime. Later, his engagement, and then the happiness of marriage put a period to further vain recriminations, but the memory of that awful afternoon, a secret even from his wife, was seldom from him.
Two years passed before he again set foot in Cotswold, this time with his wife and sister, viewing the romantic beauty of the district from a comfortable motor. It had been entirely Philip’s proposition, this revisiting of scenes with which he had been familiar since his youth, and if the suggestion had not entirely sprung from sentiment, the other reason was such that he refused to admit it, even to himself.
It fell out that they stayed a while at Painswick, and then it was that Philip, throwing further self-deception to the winds, determined to satisfy his pent-up curiosity. Explaining that he wished to make enquiries of an old acquaintance, they one day motored over, approaching the garden from the direction by which he had so precipitately left it. A passable road led past the entrance to the grass-grown lane, and there, near a cottage, they drew up. Philip, in a happy moment of inspiration, crossed to the cottage, with a view to making some discreet enquiries.
A typical Cotswold woman answered to his knock, tanned and healthy, but prematurely grey.
‘Good afternoon,’ he greeted her. ‘Can you tell me anything about the house —that is, the garden up the lane? Mr Ralf Cook, I think, was the owner’s name,’ he added, seeing that the woman preserved a stolid silence.
‘I’ll ask father to come,’ she answered, regarding him with questioning eyes. ‘Will you step inside, Sir?’
Philip followed her into the neatly furnished parlour, and was presently joined by a corduroyed rustic, very old and lame.
‘Ralf Cook?’ repeated the latter, on becoming acquainted with the business. ‘Yes, zur, I can tell ’ee zurnmat about he, to be zure I can. Ralf Cook, o’ Cook’s Folly, we called un; ay, and fule he were right ’nough, when he tried to be upsides o’ Mother Gaskin! ’T’were a bad day for he when he went up theere, zur, an’ no mistake, not but what I allus said as how—’
‘Is the building complete?’ ventured Philip, breaking in upon the old fellow’s ponderous garrulity. ‘Are the walls finished?’
‘Nowe, o’ coourse not. She seed to that, bless ye! Why, I can yet mind the day, zur, when he began a-buildin. Six men he brought wi’ un, and what o’ that? One were crushed beneath a waggin, ’nother broke his leg, the foreman—’
“Yes. Yes. I know about that. What I really wanted to ask was, of Mr Cook himself. Is he still living there?’
The old man glared at Philip in open-mouthed astonishment.
‘Still theere?’ he at last gasped. ‘Lor’ sakes, an’ he old ’nough to be my own feyther when he came, mor’n forty years back!’
“What do you mean? Forty years! Mr Cook told me that he had been there about seven.’
“He—he towld you?’
“Yes. Don’t you understand? I was here the summer before last, and had a long conversation with him.’
Instead of making a direct reply, the old man shuffled to the door, and called his daughter. His voice was distinctly tremulous, when he began to question her.
‘Polly. Can ye mind the time when Ralf Cook were a-livin’ up at the Folly?’
‘Why, no, father,’ she replied, obviously puzzled. ‘You know, I wasn’t born then. Not till several years later.’
‘Ah, ye be thirty-vour, now, baint ye? This here gen’leman—but no matter, Polly. Ye can run along!’
Left alone, the two men regarded each other in moody silence.
‘What became of him?’ asked Philip presently.
‘Hung ’isself—leastways so t’were said, but people do hold as how Mother Gaskin did it vur un. She allus was a rum un, was Mother Gaskin. Folks don’t rightly know what became o’ her, though some vows she went off a-ridin’ upon her broomstick, and got took up inter the moon. O’ course that bain’t rightly possible, leastways, not to my way o’ thinkin’.’
There was no more to be learnt, so Philip, curiously unconvinced, hurried back towards the motor. This was empty, and realizing that the girls had wandered off alone, he decided to seize the opportunity, and put an end to further doubt by private personal investigation. Accordingly he set off up the lane, ruminating all the while on the extraordinary tales he had just heard. Could the old man have been weak-witted, and was he backed up by his daughter merely to preserve appearances before a stranger? It seemed quite probable, more probable than that he must disbelieve the evidence of his own senses. Yes, of course, how could he have doubted! There, ahead of him, stood the garden wall, bright and new looking, and the massive, dry-built gateway,[1] with one door still unhooked! A few steps more, and he had come to a standstill before the familiar entrance.
‘Afternoon!’ greeted an elderly man, who was at work mending the dismantled gate with pieces of odd timber. ‘Going to have a storm!’ A heavy echo of thunder came, as if to confirm his supposition, and then the rain began to fall, in isolated, swollen drops.
“Yes, we are in for it! Philip found himself repeating, as a person in a dream.
‘Unpleasantly exposed up here. Not even—’
Then he was running, racing madly away from the accursed spot. Horror in its most primitive form pursued him, and he fled until, soaked with perspiration and painfully short of breath, he found himself clambering on board the waiting motor. Presently his wife and sister came into view, approaching from the entrance to the grass-grown lane. Both were somewhat breathless, and a trifle pale.
‘Oh, Philip!’ the former panted, as soon as they had reached the motor. “We’ve found such a horrid place! Joyce suggested walking up that lane, just to see where it led, and we came across a kind of deserted garden, surrounded by enormous walls. They looked old and dilapidated, and there was a tumbled-down gateway Oh, all so sad and dreary. Everything inside was wild, and overgrown, and there was a curious little house, built against the wall, which looked as if it had not been touched for years.
‘Suddenly, as we were wandering around, we both had an impression that somebody was watching us. I don’t know why, but it quite gave us the horrors, and we simply had to run—What is the matter, dear? You look quite ill!’
‘Oh, nothing. Perhaps the thunder. It was quite a heavy clap.’
‘When? We heard nothing! Have you seen your friend?’
‘Yes—No, I mean. He has left this neighbourhood. Shall we be making a move homewards?’
Ulric Daubeny (1888 — 1922)
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1. Once common in many parts of the UK, such as Yorkshire, dry stone walls, or “dry-walls” are built using local stones, of various sizes, that are skillfully stacked togehter without the use of cement or concrete. Sadly, dry sone walling is quickly becoming a forgotten art. [How to Build a Dry Stone Wall] Small cottages and outbuildings were also sometimes built uisng the dry stone technique. ↩
2. Unceiled roof: A roof that lacks a ceiling. ↩
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