rushed to the door. He felt the thing touch his back and start to tear at his shirt... Things ... thi

Mr James Denton’s greatest love in life was books, old ones most of all. His collection grew bigger and bigger every year,

chapter 2 curtains

Mr Denton was in London one day to buy furniture for the

new house which he and his aunt were building, and he was on

his way to a shop to choose the curtains. His way took him, quite

by chance, past one of the best bookshops in London, and he

could not stop himself going in, just for a quick look, as he told

himself.

He was just walking round the shop, looking at all the

different books, when he noticed a small collection of books on

the part of England that he came from. Warwickshire. He spent

the next half an hour looking through these and finally decided

to buy one that really interested him, called The Diary of Mr

Poynter, I710. He paid for the book and then, looking at his

watch, he realized that he had very little time before his train

back to Warwickshire left, and he had to rush to the station. He

just caught the train.

That night, his aunt questioned him about his trip to London

and was very interested to hear about the furniture which was

going to arrive soon. Her nephew described everything in detail,

but still she was not satisfied. ‘And what about the curtains,

James?’ she asked. ‘Did you go to ...?’ Suddenly James

remembered. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he said, ‘dial’s the one thing I

missed. I am so sorry. You see, I was on my way there when, quite

by chance. I passed Robins ...’

‘Not Robins the bookshop, I hope,’ cried his aunt. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve bought more horrible old books, James.’

‘Well, only one,’ he said, feeling a bit guilty, ‘and it’s a very

interesting one, a diary of someone who used to live not far

from here ...’ But he could see that his aunt was not really

listening.

‘You can’t go to London again before next Thursday,’ she was

saying, ‘and really, James, until we decide on the curtains, there’s

nothing move we can do’

Luckily, she decided to go to bed soon after that and James was

left alone with his new book, which he read until the early hours

of the morning. He found this diary, with its stories of everyday

life at dux tune, very interesting. The next day was Sunday. After

church, James and his aunt sat in the living-room together.

‘Is this the old book that made you forget my curtains?’ asked

his aunt, picking it up. ‘Well, it doesn’t look very good ... The

Diary of Mr Poynter. Huh!’ But she opened the book and looked

at a few pages. Suddenly, much to his surprise, she began to show

some interest. ‘Look at this, James,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ It

was a small piece of paper, pinned to one of the pages of the diary.

On it was a beautiful drawing, made up of curving lines, which

somehow caught the eye. ‘Well, why don’t we get it copied for

the curtains if you like it so much?’ he suggested, hoping that she

would forgive him for his bad memory of the day before in

London. His aunt agreed and the very next day, James took the

piece of paper to a company in the nearest town, who agreed to

copy it and make it into curtains.

About a month later, James was called in to inspect the work

and was extremely pleased with the result. ‘Was it a difficult job?’

he asked the manager.

‘Not too difficult, sir. But, to tell you the truth, the artist who

did the work was very unhappy about it - he said there was

something bad in the drawing, sir.’ James was thoughtful but still

he chose the colours for the curtains and then returned home. A few weeks later, the curtains were ready and a man came to hang

them in several rooms of the new house, one of which was James’s

bedroom. That night he found that he could not stop looking at

them and, although it was a still night, he was almost sure that the

curtains were moving and that someone was watching him from

behind them. He told himself that this was impossible and not to

be so stupid. He explained to himself that the effect was caused by

the curving lines on the curtains, which looked just like long,

curling black hair.

The next day, a friend of James’s came to stay and after

dinner they sat up late, talking and laughing. At last they

decided to go to bed and James showed his friend to the guest

room, which was just along from his own. James, though, did

not want to go to bed immediately and sat in the chair by the fire in his room, reading. He fell asleep for a few minutes and,

when he woke, he realized that something was in the room

with him. Putting out his hand, he felt something covered in

hair and thought it was his dog, who always followed him

everywhere. ‘How did you get in here? I thought I left you

downstairs.’ he said, looking down. To his horror, he found it

was not his little dog, but something almost human. He jumped

and screamed and, as he did. the face of the thing came up

towards him: no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Only hair. He

screamed again and rushed to the door, but was so frightened

that he could not get it open. He felt the thing touch his back

and start to tear at his shirt. At last the door flew open and he

rushed to his friend’s room, terrified and breathing hard.

The nest morning, early. James went away to the seaside for a

few days to try to forget about his horrible experience. He took

with him The Diary of Mr Poynter. He wanted to read it again

carefully to find out anything he could about the pattern pinned

on to the page. When he turned to that part of the book he

found that there were several pieces of paper stuck one on top of

the other. He carefully pulled off the first two and found this

story, written by Mr Poynter in 1707.

‘Old Mr Casbury of Acrington told me this day of young Sir

Everard Charlett, at that time a student of University College.

The young man drank too much and broke the law many times,

but because he was from an important family, the university

never did anything about it. He used to wear his hair very long

and curling down his neck and he wore unusual, colourful

clothes. His behaviour made his father very unhappy. One day,

they found young Sir Everard dead in his room, with all his hair

pulled out. No one could explain why or how he died, but the

strangest tiling was that, the day after he died, the body

disappeared completely, leaving only a pile of long, curling black

hair on the floor of his room. His father kept some of this hair and had drawings made of it, part of which I have pinned to this

page.’

This is the strange story behind the curtains. Before he

returned home, James Denton ordered his servants to take them

all down and burn them