'Cold Harbour' by Francis Brett Young: A Guest Post by John Howard

Perhaps the 1920s was the golden age of leisure travel. That was when the covers of Ordnance Survey maps began to feature drawings of sturdy hikers and cyclists poring over maps working out the route which would see them safely to their destination, or car passengers sitting in comfort while their chauffeur intently studies another signpost. But away from cities and the widened and straightened arterial routes and new bypasses, the ‘open road’ could still be a trial for the motorist: clouds of dust in summer, rivers of the flood at any time. And the potholes… There are probably many who would say that British roads have scarcely improved in the hundred years since the publication in November 1924 of Cold Harbour, by Francis Brett Young.

Born in Halesowen, a Worcestershire town on the edge of the Black Country, Francis Brett Young (1884-1954) trained as a doctor but sold his practice and settled down to writing novels. Many were set in the English West Midlands and the border country of the Welsh Marches; through the consistent use of recurring place names and landscape features – for example, Birmingham became ‘North Bromwich’ and Halesowen ‘Halesby’ – Brett Young created his own ‘West Midlands Mythos’. The endpapers of the Severn Edition featured an attractive stylised map by Geoffrey Eyles which serves as an entrancing portal to Brett Young country – but all is not as serene as it appears. Several of the earlier novels, such as The Dark Tower (1915) and Cold Harbour itself, possess a gothic atmosphere of dark, sharp, urgent sensibility: driven people with brooding secrets in a troubled landscape which is not only the long result of human intervention but an ominous character in its own right.

Cold Harbour begins with an urbane ‘Prelude’ set far away from England, on Capri, and narrated by the nameless host, a former doctor and now expatriate author, entertaining his guests. Sitting out on the moonlit terrace after dinner is Ronald Wake, an old friend who still practiced medicine, and his wife Evelyn. Making up the foursome is Harley, the island’s new Anglican chaplain. To the host’s practised eye, it seems that all three of his guests are tasting freedom. The clergyman, invalided out of the army, has been given a cure in more than one sense; the Wakes are enjoying their first holiday in Italy since the end of the war. Although the Wakes had escaped an autumnal London, they were still ‘haunted by the tinkle of a phantasmal night bell’ (2). Also haunting the warm night is the calling of the island owls. A little more conversation makes it clear that the Wakes have a story clamouring for release, and the four decide to remain out on the terrace while Evelyn begins to tell it: ‘I feel as if this sweet house might be . . . how can one put it? . . . contaminated by a story like this. Under the open sky it’s different: safer, somehow’ (7).

Earlier in the autumn the Wakes had been driving home from a short break in Wales. Foul weather and repeated punctures on the main road to North Bromwich forced them to turn off near Halesby and take refuge in a small inn. The story that develops is a complex interwoven one, a series of oral recollections that not only strike off each other but open dialogues between past and present. Harley listens as the three discuss and piece together their accounts, which all centre on one man: Humphrey Furnival, whom the Wakes encountered at the inn. Furnival is now owner of an old house close by – Cold Harbour.

Humphrey Furnival is perhaps the most memorable character in Brett Young’s work. Discussing Cold Harbour in Supernatural Horror in Literature H.P. Lovecraft accurately summarised Furnival as a ‘mocking and well-nigh omnipotent fiend . . . [who] is redeemed from triteness by many clever individualities.’ Furnival had quickly become obsessed with his purchase and its history, which he reconstructed from Celtic times. Bloody violence, death, scandal: have they perhaps permeated the house itself? Furnival explains – even as he seems to stand apart from it: ‘I only offer you the material, the turnip and the candle out of which to build your bogey, if you want one, as most people do’ (169). In the meantime, Jane Furnival describes the dreadful and spiritually polluting effect of Cold Harbour as she assures Evelyn Wake that Furnival is in danger from the evil forces in and around the house – if not already possessed by them. The Wakes are glad to leave and continue their journey to London. After meeting the Furnivals it seemed to them that it was ‘as though the whole course of our lives had been changed, as if they’d been thrust out of their normal, peaceful orbit by a blow from something dark and invisible whirling out of space’ (186).

In the chapter ‘Symposium’ the host and his guests piece together the interlocking narratives and consider what they have found. Humphrey Furnival ‘has made himself king of a desert island. Napoleon on Elba’ (208); the Furnivals seem trapped by their house, seemingly unable to escape. Or have they somehow become willing collaborators and co-creators? There would seem to be only one way that Furnival’s reign could be ended and the couple gain release.

Writing in his Preface to the Severn Edition, Brett Young stated: ‘I can always feel “in my bones” whether a house is “good” or “evil,” and it seemed to me well worth while attempting to convey that sort of sensation or impression in words.’ Time has proved him right. After a century Cold Harbour remains, with its meticulous construction and attention to detail and character portraits, not only the chilling account of a haunted house and its inhabitants, but a truly regional horror story which encompasses an entire landscape and history. 

(John Howard)