This story in Women's Weird 2 was mentioned in my one-post review of a recent collection of Croker's tales. Published in 1919, it's one of several tales drawing on Croker's life in the British Raj. It's worth repeating that the story is deeply disturbing, not least because of the horrific consequences of an apparently trivial decision. And, yet again, we are in the realms of horrific domesticity. Editor Melissa Edmundson has done a fine job of amassing a host of Gothic-ky tales that eschew conventional Gothic settings.
A young family consisting of a British officer, his wife, and two small children move to a small town. They stay with the sister-in-law who narrates the tale, but the wife is keen to have a place of her own. There's a shortage of suitable houses (some things never seem to change) until the newcomers rent the eponymous bungalow. It has an unpleasant reputation, but nobody can say why, and the Brits are dismissive of mere native legends. Then something truly terrible happens, and the survivors return to England, never to see India again.
An invisible yet deadly presence is at the heart of the supposed haunting. Children, the epitome of innocence, are the victims. There is no pat explanation of the phenomenon, merely that something very bad happened on the site a long time ago. There are ruins of a temple nearby, or so it is claimed. Do Croker's characters fail to appreciate the perils of an older and more complex culture than their own? Does the horror hint at rebellion - past or future - against British rule? Much can be read into this tale. It lingers in the mind, in large part because Croker doesn't set out to make your flesh creep in a crass way.
More from this enjoyable anthology soon, if I'm spared...
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