The Step

Fiction ~ short story
Published in the Windsor Magazine, December 1926
Collected in More Spook Stories (1934)
5,505 words
(First read 04/11/2012) 

The Step is unusual for being set in Egypt (Alexandria), and for leaving the reader on the edge of his seat, literally staring into the face of an unspeakable and inexplicable horror.  It also contains a very large well-baked red herring, not something EFB generally went in for much.  These make it, in my opinion, a decidedly superior spook offering¹.
The moment we learn that the protagonist John Cresswell is 'a big plethoric man' we suspect things won't end well for him; when Benson goes on to tell us he practises that absolute-bottom-rung-of-the-ladder profession of money-lending², we know he's doomed.  Anyway, the plot: After a particularly profitable bit of usury, the result of which is his being cursed by the victim's crone of a mother, our 'hero' Cresswell finds himself being followed through the dark streets of the city.  Given that the story has a genuinely surprise twist (for once), I'll say no more about it.
It's available online here.

¹ Mind you, that's not to say it doesn't suffer from the usual defects: it's overlong, the pace is too leisurely, and it's a tad repetitive.
² See also The Money Market (1898). 

The Temple

Fiction ~ short story
Published in Hutchinson's Magazine, November 1924
Collected in Spook Stories (1928)
6,655 words
(First read 30/10/2012) 

A distinctly long, leisurely, rambling journey into the wilds of northern Cornwall, not far at all from Ravens' Brood and The Inheritor country.  Unnamed Narrator, who's a writer, and his chum Frank Ingleton, who's an archaeologist, tip up in the village of St Caradoc's for one of those work-cum-golf-cum-piquet holidays of which U.N. was such a fan, provided he could find the right chap to accompany him.  Anyway, they eventually stumble across a vacant cottage; they rent it so as to avoid the hotel crowds; they discover it stands in the centre of a prehistoric stone circle (the temple of the title), and that it and the house come with one of those barmy curses Benson specialized in.  Still, it all ends happily.
Though the idea at the heart of The Temple is singularly gruesome (the yarn is more 'horror' than 'spook'), the story itself sadly contains about as much tension as a pan of spaghetti you've accidentally left on the boil for an hour and three quarters.
It's available online here.



QUOTABLES
There is, I feel, a certain air of unseemly relish in U.N.'s description of the temple's sacrificial stone:

It was on that stone that young boys and maidens, torn from their mother's arms and bound hand and foot, were laid, while the priest, with one hand over the victim's eyes, plunged the flint knife into the smooth, white throat, sawing through the tissue till the blood spurted from the severed artery ... 

"Does it come with chips?"

Corstophine

Fiction ~ short story
First published in Hutchinson's Magazine, September 1924
(Collected in Spook Stories, 1928)
5,315 words
(First read 07/10/2012) 

EFB makes one of his exceedingly rare forays into the world of the North of England ~ Yorkshire, to be precise.  His Yorkshire has towns with names like 'Corstophine' and 'Helyat', but is otherwise more or less fairly authentic-ish.  Our Unnamed Narrator's pal Fred Bennet tells the tale of a vision he had of himself stranded for an hour between trains in a backwoodsy Northern town: the place is totally without any sign of life (other than the station porter) but he goes for a stroll which ends in a cemetery at a certain recent grave.  I'll not give the plot away, though it's pretty guessable for anyone who's ever read one of EFB's vision yarns.
On the plus side: the description of the 'netherworld' Yorkshire town is very nicely done.  On the other side: the story is far too long ~ there's really only enough material for a story half this length; too much of it is repetition; the plot is 'corseted' into the idea rather than flowing out of it; and the final 'sewing-up' robs it of all its power, as well as being a tad on the incoherent side.  Verdict: good stab, wide miss.
It's available online here.  TIP: read as far as "He paused, and I supposed the story was over" then stop.   Nah, just kidding.

QUOTABLE:

What is the use of communications between this world and some other world inaccessible to the ordinary perceptions of mankind if these communications contain nothing that is of value or interest?

P.S. Fans of the Titanic might enjoy EFB's references to that ship in Corstophine.

 

'And No Bird Sings ...'

Fiction ~ short story
Published in Woman, December 1926
Collected in Spook Stories (1928)
5,225 words
(First read 30/09/2012) 

Our roving Unnamed Narrator goes to visit his old pal Hugh Granger, his dogs and his wife (yes, in that order).  In a stroke of typically Bensonian good fortune, the cove Hughie has just inherited a delightful little Queen Anne manor-with-estate in Surrey¹.  Within the bounds of his demesne stands a (pardon the terminology) doughnut-shaped wood which, we soon discover, harbours something live, vile and evil which, so as to put his dogs' and wife's (in that order) minds at rest, Hugh resolves to destroy with the aid of the trusty if somewhat lily-livered U.N.  So they do.  The End.

Even the inclusion of Granger's theory² about what the beast actually is³ doesn't do much to dispel the story's essential humdrummery.
It's available online here.





¹ Current [2014] estimated market value £35bn.
² He does like his theories, does Hughie.  See also (e.g.) The Bus-Conductor.
³ As usual, H.G. is far more clued-up on this kind of twaddle than U.N.  It should really have been him writing the spook stories.



THE CRITICS

[Benson's ghost] stories are extremely varied in content, ranging from the horror of vampires, homicidal ghosts and monstrous spectral worms and slugs (in the classic Negotium Perambulans and 'And No Bird Sings') to the satire of humorous tales which poke fun at charlatan mediums and fake seances (Spinach and Mr Tilly's Seance). 

~Richard Dalby in introduction to The Collected Ghost Stories of E. F. Benson, 1992

Unlike the uniquely Gothic disaster of The Face, the subsequent contributions [to Spook Stories] “And No Bird Sings” (which features an estate rather than a house), Bagnell Terrace, and The Temple are jolly frontier tales in which the bourgeoisie successfully impose their suburban will on to a place which is still haunted by ancient forces. Significantly, after the monstrous spectral slug is exterminated in “And No Bird Sings” (even this is more of a gardener’s nuisance than a mythical dragon), Daisy spies a pair of robins and she chirps that they are “Evidently house-hunting.” Perhaps songbirds are the original little middle-class citizens, or else we have found the bourgeois desire for pleasant houses which recurs throughout Spook Stories residing in the bosom of Mother Nature herself.

~James Mooney at “Tychy”, 25/07/2011. Quoted from here

Hugh Lamb* once observed: "the narrator of A Tale Of An Empty House not only hears and sees the ghost of a murderer, but finds himself wrestling with it. And here we come to one of the keys to Fred's success in this field: his ghosts are very physical". In other frequently anthologised stories - The Face, 'And No Bird Sings', The Temple - the threatening entities are also vengeful, tactile, malign.

~Alexis Lykiard. Quoted from his review of Ash-Tree Press' The Face, first published in All Hallows magazine, 10/2003. *Mr Lamb is an anthologist of ghost stories

Home, Sweet Home

Fiction ~ short story
Published in Woman, June 1927
Collected in Spook Stories, 1928
5,605 words
(First read 23/09/2012) 

Really the only interesting thing about this story is that the unnamed narrator actually turns out to have a name ~ he's called Ted.  He goes to visit his sister Margery and her husband Walter¹ at their rented house on an isolated stretch of coast in Sussex².  Walter is convalescing after a near nervous breakdown.  There are ghostly things going on in their music room, and a fishy gardener.  In the end the mystery is solved neatly, to this reader's infinite boredom.
The story's available online here.


¹ Absolutely no relation to the hero and heroine of Juggernaut (1911).  See my forthcoming essay* "Hi Jack, this is Jack, how's little Jack and your wife Jack?": On the Curious Lack of Imagination in E. F. Benson's Character Names.
² Well, one assumes it's Sussex ~ the nearest town is 'Hastings' ~ though I find it difficult to imagine any part of that coast being isolated, even in 1927.

*Not reeely.

Expiation

Fiction ~ short story
Published November 1923
6,850 words
(First read 09/09/2012)

Naboth's Vineyard

Fiction ~ short story
First published in Hutchinson's Magazine,  December 1923
Collected in Spook Stories, 1928
5,935 words
(First read 02/09/2012) 

Seven years after failing to acquit a client of embezzlement, solicitor Ralph Hatchard retires to Scarling*.  He hankers after a particular house there but the female occupant isn't interested in selling, or even talking to anyone.  Shortly afterwards her husband returns from 'India'; Hatchard goes to see if he'd be willing to sell up; discovers that the old chap is none other than his embittered embezzler newly released from prison; and extorts the house out of him; the old chap drops dead of a heart attack the same day and Hatchard promptly moves into his new home ...
If you can't guess what happens next, you've obviously never read a ghost story by E F Benson.  This is humdrum beyond your wildest imaginings, and the whole thing could've been told in 2,000 words max, and been the better for it.
It's available online here. 


*I've absolutely no idea where this place is based on ~ it could be pretty much any coastal town in the south of England.

P.S. The title relates to an Old Testament story which appears to have been something of a favourite with EFB as I've come across it several times in his writings.  I should warn you, though ~ as Bible stories go, it's pretty dull.