THE TRAVELLING GRAVE
by L. P. Hartley, 1948

If it is one of the aims of the horror tale to question certainties and to hint at the mysterious world below the surface of everyday reality, then L. P. Hartley showed himself to be a master of the genre. In no other story did he tackle the conundrum with such wit and gusto as in "The Travelling Grave," a late piece resting on an understanding that the visible world is surrounded by unknown forces of malignancy and evil.

The awareness of this is immediately apparent in the uneasy atmosphere of the opening paragraphs. Hugh Curtis, a foppish yet diffident young man, has received an invitation to spend the weekend with Dick Munt, an acquaintance of one of his friends, the vain and voluble Valentine Ostrop. Although he is intrigued by the invitation, he senses a sinister undertone that he cannot explain to himself. As the time of departure approaches, his anxiety increases, and he begins to think up absurd excuses to justify a change of plan. His natural diffidence, however, prevents him from doing anything other than proceeding with his preparations, even though a second sense warns him that all might not be well.

Hartley handles Hugh Curtis's indecision with masterly under-statement. Although we recognize Curtis's alarm, there is also a strong hint that his trepidation might be caused by nothing other than nerves, to which he seems to be prone. Hartley has already set the seal on the man's personality by describing him as "a vague man with an unretentive mind." In other words, he takes the world for granted, and it is this lack of curiosity that almost leads to his undoing.

In contrast, his friend Ostrop is all sensation and bombast. Having arrived early at Munt's country seat—remote country houses are favored settings in Hartley's gothic short fiction—Ostrop meets the sinister Tony Bettisher, who allows him to make a fool of himself by prattling too eagerly about Dick Munt and his curious interests.

This is a richly comic scene in which Hartley counterpoints Bettisher's taciturnity with Ostrop's foolish questions about their host. During the course of their conversation, in answer to a question about Munt's hobbies, Bettisher allows Ostrop to believe that their mutual friend collects perambulators. Tellingly, both men agree that all collecting is a form of vice.

At this point Munt makes a silent entrance and demands to know what they have been discussing. Ostrop blusters about hobbies and starts discussing the matter of perambulators. They are good for carrying bodies, he says. They perform a useful function, but he tries to avoid them because he does not "care to contemplate lumps of human flesh lacking the spirit that makes flesh tolerable." Above all, they need to be occupied yet need someone to push them.

Little does he know that Munt is a collector of coffins and that he has brought back from foreign parts one that can pursue its victims and bury them without any external assistance. Although the conversational contrast between perambulators and coffins has been carried along with great wit and humor, Hartley allows a darker mood to intrude. While the men talk, dusk falls on the house, and they are given a demonstration of the sinister coffin's abilities to chase after its victims.

What follows next is Hartley at his best. Munt encourages his two guests to play hide-and-seek before Hugh Curtis arrives, the better to surprise him. The symbolism is clear: the children's game becomes a motif for the coffin's purpose, a dark hint of the mysterious evil that Munt has brought into his house and means to use. (He has already ascertained that Curtis is a bachelor without close family, in other words the ideal victim.)

Ostrop, however, overhears Munt plotting to let the coffin loose on his unsuspecting guest and is thoroughly terrified by what he hears. Hartley underscores the horror of the scene by making Munt's voice seem "unfamiliar," "greedy," and "peevish," almost as if he has split into two incompatible halves. The sense of otherness and foreboding is increased by the fact that all of the lights in the house have been switched off at the main line so that the entire action takes place in darkness. Everything in the house might seem familiar, but there is evil at the heart of normality.

Just before Curtis arrives, Ostrop carries the dreaded coffin into a neighboring room, locks the door, and goes downstairs to warn his astonished friend. On one level the conclusion is anticlimactic: the men dress for dinner but cannot find Munt. But the real horror is still to come. In Curtis's room a pair of shoes are found, the soles uppermost but set fast in the floor. Try as they will, Curtis and Ostrop fail to move the shoes until they decide to unlace one of them. Inside is a sock with a human foot attached. Munt has been snapped up by the very coffin he was attempting to set on his unsuspecting guest. A further touch of irony is provided by the fact that Ostrop placed the coffin in the room meant for Curtis, not knowing that Munt was already hiding there.

Although the plot of "The Travelling Grave" is far-fetched, there is a satisfying metaphysical conceit in the symbolism of the man-eating coffin that eventually kills its devious owner. What began as a game ends in death. This is no isolated slaying but a reminder that evil has its own laws and that in disobeying them Munt has met a deserved end.

—Trevor Royle