The Door Ajar ~ Virginia Milward

The Door Ajar by Virginia Milward was published in 1912 by William Rider & Son, Ltd. It's never been republished, and copies come up for sale so rarely that I imagine few have read the book. This is a shame because it's a very good—very atmospheric—collection of short stories. It was described by Old Moore's Monthly Messenger as containing tales 'of passion and crime in which the weird and uncanny form a fascinating background to scenes of high dramatic power and throbbing human interest'.

Two of the tales are premonitory, three involve haunted items, and all of them have female characters who have, in some way, suffered as a result of their interaction with men, for 'where men go pain follows—pain and misery of mind.'

In 'The Door Ajar', the wife of charming Algernon Black lives in constant fear, forever looking over her shoulder for some half-seen assailant who, in her visions, enters through a part-open door and stabs her to death.

'The Knife' in this story is a surgeon's, and it's what Rachel Du Cane expects to die under after she experiences a premonition of her own death. Not that she wants to live, as she exists in constant pain, both physical and mental.

In 'Between the Leaves', Virginia buys a book she doesn't really intend to purchase (I've done that). In fact, she finds the thing utterly loathsome and wants to return it straight away (I haven't done that). It is a book that existed when the plague swept through London... when the city burned... and it can reveal the true fate of Barbara Floyd, mistress of a fickle king and enemy of a jealous royal mistress. 

In 'The Mills of God', Christine Dupen, while an inmate in a Swiss asylum for consumptives, describes her tortured existence at the hands of her wicked husband. He was a good, honest, decent, honourable fellow—everything a girl could wish for—during their courtship. But once he managed to get Christine down the aisle, he revealed himself to be a dishonest, immoral brute, and she has been living with the consequences of having married him ever since.

'The Little Silver Box', purchased in an old curiosity shop in Versailles, once belonged to Madame du Barry, and, as its new owner soon discovers, it (when in the right place) is haunted by the remembrance of that lady's final days during the French Revolution.

'Das Kind' is another haunted object, this time a fifteenth-century painting of a young child that reveals the tragic end of its sitter.

'A Minor Third' is set inside a church, the Brompton Oratory of St. Philip of Neri in South Kensington to be precise, where the Roman Catholic narrator of the tale encounters a crying woman, a 'lilac figure', every day just prior to her own marriage. This is a religious tale. Actually, all of the characters of these stories who profess a religion are Catholic.

My favourites?... I like all of them, but two stand out for me. One is 'The Door Ajar'. Not a lot of people know this, but I have a fear of doors left slightly open, and I will not sit with my back to one; I've felt this way all my life. If someone leaves one slightly open, I have to shut it or open it right up. And, strangely, I do so for the same reason as Meg Black in the tale; I imagine an assailant creeping up on me and doing me to death. The second is 'Between the Leaves'. I rather like the idea of haunted books, especially ones that reveal secrets. I love finding unusual things inside dusty old volumes, but with me it tends to be tram tickets or till receipts.

It's never a good idea to assume that an author's life is reflected in the contents of his or her fiction. It's fiction after all. But I'm inclined to think that, like Christine Dupen in 'The Mills of God', Virginia Milward did indeed dislike men and have no use for them... well, the normal run of them, anyway... and that she was badly treated by one (or more). The men in her stories have a tendency to be faithless—in some cases they're downright wicked—and it is always the women who love them who pay the price... 'woman suffers and the man sins, and the man shares all the sin, but not the suffering.'

UPDATE ~ 30 May 2025

A new hardback edition of this collection is now available from Nezu Press (see cover image right). For more information, please click here.