\u201cIt is a street in Marylebone, London, running north from Cavendish Square to\u00a0the Marylebone Road beside Regent\u2019s Park; its current association with the\u00a0medical profession, through the opening there of many eminent practitioners\u2019\u00a0consulting rooms dates only from the late nineteenth century: at the time of\u00a0the main narrative of the tale this street was merely one of the many\u00a0fashionable residential streets in the area north of Mayfair. Later in the tale the street becomes, by metonymy, a reference to its occupant, the\u00a0governess\u2019s employer\u201d (Adrian Dover).<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t let this editor put you off the scent : the dead only return when there is\u00a0some terrible score to settle. Reason why they usually haunt their location of\u00a0(violent) departure.<\/p>\n
\nMoaning Myrtle from the second Harry Potter novel, for instance, finds her way back to the\u00a0first floor girls\u2019 toilets, because she hates the other girls for compelling her to seek refuge\u00a0there. The precise circumstances of her death, by the way, make a striking parallel with the\u00a0narrow escape by Hermione Granger in the first novel. And these two girls are very much of the\u00a0same feather indeed.<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And, beginning with a joke about dying of an excess of\u00a0respectability, Henry James is absolutely consistent in his step by step\u00a0unveiling why Miss Jessel returned to Bly instead. And her motive also suits\u00a0Peter Quint ; her sad true lover, who brooded on impractical revenge, and who\u00a0drowned his grief in liquor. Untill he joined her in the life here-after.<\/p>\n
The place where they met, is, for us mortals, a little more difficult to find.\u00a0Being derived from Northanger Abbey it should be somewhere near Cirencester,\u00a0but Henry James preferred to locate Bly in Essex. A much wider area to\u00a0search, which makes us to depend on the occasional clue about where to pin its\u00a0exact location down on the survey map with a little marking flag :<\/p>\n
It takes the coach from London \u201clong hours of bumping\u201d to reach the\u00a0house\u2019s nearest stopping-place in the late June evening. This places Bly at\u00a0roughly the same distance from London as Catherine Morland\u2019s home in\u00a0Fullerton (Wilts), but in the opposite direction. A detail that invites to draw a\u00a0straight line from one place to the other ; a line that has Harley Street\u00a0halfway. This attempt locates the scene in the middle of nowhere. Which, of\u00a0course, is the very place to locate a fictatious building. The nowhere in\u00a0question, by the way, is Hamfort Water National Nature Reserve, and what\u00a0would an English country-house be without such a copy of the Thames in its\u00a0private grounds? At Bly this copy takes about twenty minutes to\u00a0circumnavigate. Which seems impressive enough, but is in fact rather small for\u00a0the location, and a wetland is no proper building site anyway. We therefore need\u00a0to reconsider :<\/p>\n
The Morlands live in Fullerton. Which in reality is a couple of houses and\u00a0farms along Fullerton Road. And the nearest parish church is in Chilbolton (Hamps). No vicarage in Fullerton then. But by happy chance the Austen vicarage at nearby Steventon is just a little to the north of the line Fullerton – Hamfort Water.\u00a0Correct for the distance to Harley Street, and we find ourselves at Great\u00a0Bentley, correct for the deviation as well, and we arrive on Flag Hill, just to the\u00a0west of Riddles Wood. Where else should Bly be?<\/p>\n
A little to the northwest of Flag Hill we find Thorrington Hall. In itself a fine\u00a0old place which dates back to the early Tudor age. But as an estate not quite in\u00a0the same class as Northanger Abbey. Reason also to dismiss the other listed\u00a0buildings in the area. In fact the only country-house to the northeast of London\u00a0with grounds that match the Bly estate, lake included, is just south of\u00a0Sheringham. As it happens, its position at the Norfolk coast places it roughly\u00a0opposite Bly at the coast near St. Osyth. The house itself is not fully\u00a0compatible, because far from ugly. And it would be seriously understaffed if it were\u00a0to serve as James\u2019s private orphanage, but, at its double scale, it matches\u00a0Bly\u2019s general impression. It is also famous enough to take for granted that\u00a0Henry James knew the place. And he certainly would have known that the place\u00a0is haunted. By two ghosts actually, and because chance stops at nothing to\u00a0make the connection, the male appearance is a servant, the female a Lady.\u00a0Both are dreadful to see, despite agreeable looks, while the Lady was in her\u00a0time as infamous as Miss Jessel. And she definitely died of too much\u00a0respectability.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt is a street in Marylebone, London, running north from Cavendish Square to\u00a0the Marylebone Road beside Regent\u2019s Park; its current association with the\u00a0medical profession, through the opening there of many eminent practitioners\u2019\u00a0consulting rooms dates only from the late nineteenth century: … Continue reading