What would you do if you inherited a haunted house?

This is the questions that Peter, Margaret, and Celia find themselves facing when they inherit “The Priory” from a distant uncle. Originally a monastery, the house is hundreds of years old and survived the Protestant revolution, the anti-Catholic purges of King Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell – damaged and then rebuilt charmingly, although the chapel just out of sight of the house didn’t fare so well. For the last five years, almost since the death of the elderly aunt who had lived there her whole life, it has stood empty. Despite having been occupied relatively recently, modern updates are missing – well, “modern” in 1932, when this book was written – there’s only one bathroom and it’s pretty much off the grid; no power, no telephone. But it’s a beautiful old home, with great trout fishing in the stream at the bottom of the garden, and very convenient to London.

So the three siblings decide to keep the place, despite an offer from someone who saw it from afar and made an unsolicited offer. Together with Celia’s husband, Charles, and their widowed Aunt Lilian Bosanquet move in for the summer, determined to make it work. But not long after they arrive, the men venture down to the pub where the publican tells them that the house had been rented five years ago, just before he arrived, but the family moved out claiming the house was haunted by a spectral monk. The publican also saw the monk and says he wouldn’t stay there for any amount of money.

The men laugh this off but their butler, who also visits the pub, tells the women about the ghosts. Celia is immediately nervous but Margaret and Aunt Lilian are also skeptical. Then mysterious things begin happening. There’s some rustling in the wainscoting. Oh, must be mice. They see the monk! Oh no, it’s a local tourist, down for the fishing, who asked a local for a shortcut to town and got turned around. No, there’s the monk! No, it’s a caped entomologist who moved to the neighborhood three years ago, searching for night-flying moths. And then there’s a crash late at night and something rolls down the stairs…

A skull.

And a priest’s hole¹ upstairs full of bones!

Celia is terrified. Aunt Lilian cautious about germs that could cause disease. Margaret is distracted by the handsome fishing tourist, so mysterious, and so slippery with his answers – could he be involved? Charles, and Peter remain skeptical. They bury the bones to lay the monk. But then a mysterious groaning resounds through the house, which they finally trace to a secret passage in the basement.

Mysteries keep happening. The local police do nothing. A drug-addicted artist, adrift in the country for three years (and three years too long) claims the last man who saw the monk’s face is dead – oh, but if only he could see the monk’s face… then he would be free!

Unfortunately, he’s the first to die.

Then Margaret disappears, no traces found. Could it be The Monk again?

Georgette Heyer’s mysteries are set in the golden age, in families with butlers and servants and manor houses in the country. The characters are fast-talking and perky like characters in a 1930’s movie – sometimes annoyingly so – and there’s always a thread of romance.

Which makes sense. I had always associated Georgette Heyer with romances, regency romances in particular, and – as it turns out – with good reason. Although she wrote mysteries, inspired by Jane Austen, Heyer practically invented the regency romance.

1. A hole where Catholic priests would hide when the house was attacked by protestant soldiers. ↩︎