plaster ceiling rose, the great display case was raised from the ground to the height of an average
table. It must have been six metres long, four wide and one deep.
About the tableau, the walls were papered with the medieval design she had seen elsewhere on the unpanelled walls of the Red House, in a rich burgundy colour that sucked at the natural light.
There was a high wooden skirting board and a long cornice around the room’s edges, a simple iron fireplace, and one plain wooden stool at the head of the case, but nothing else. No other
furniture or decoration was allowed to impede or distract the viewer’s horrified fascination of what M. H. Mason had created and displayed in his home.
Catherine remained speechless long enough for Edith to visibly enjoy her mute gawping. Perhaps that was why Maude never spoke, and why Edith spent her life surrounded by a silent and captive
audience of rodents and woodland animals. Other personalities just interfered.
‘It often took my uncle years to finish a tableau. This one took ten, and one year of planning before he skinned the first rat.’
Catherine was still unable to respond.
‘There are six hundred and twenty-three individual figures inside the case. The dogs caught them all. Dogs taught not to mutilate their prey. And there haven’t been rats at the Red
House in decades. Perhaps they still remember.’ Edith grinned at her own jest. ‘My uncle became so proficient, he could set up a rat in sixteen hours. But he planned the pose of each
one to the minutest detail before he made the first incision. The legs of rats are terribly thin and they were the most difficult parts of the animals to position, but he became expert. And they
were all individually measured for their uniforms by my mother.’
Catherine wheeled Edith before her along one side of the great wooden case. After a series of darting glances that made her dizzy, she still failed to comprehend the complexity of the
diorama.
The viewing pane offered a window into hell. ‘I don’t understand . . . why has no one seen this?’ The wheels of the chair squeaked, the floor groaned, the sound felt as
unwelcome as her voice inside the space, as if the room had been asleep.
Edith smiled. ‘Oh they did, once. But you are privileged, Miss Howard. You are the first person, outside of this family, to see
Glory
in seventy years. Though many wished to, once
they’d heard of its existence from the few that actually did see it. That was before my uncle realized the futility of the piece as a warning. It was once displayed in Worcester before the
Second World War, but only briefly. He hoped it might act as a deterrent to another grand slaughter. But he wasn’t happy with the reactions to his work. The papers called him unpatriotic and
cruel. Someone wrote that he was deranged, dear. Schoolboys loved it for the wrong reasons. So my uncle brought it home. It divides into ten cases. I declined every request to see it once it came
into my care, on my uncle’s instructions, until people forgot about it. Now, I have little choice. But my uncle understands.’
‘He . . .’ But Catherine soon lost her train of thought, and also failed to ask Edith what might have caused the disturbance in the room she had just floundered through in the dark.
It had been paramount in her mind after she’d opened the blinds. But before
Glory
one could think of nothing else.
‘You must understand, my uncle came home from the front a changed man. His experiences in the Great War devastated him. He may have enlisted as a non-combatant, but he went to the front
line to be with his men. And to give them what little comfort was available in horrors we cannot imagine. He saw such sights . . . things. He lost his faith. Not just in God. But in men. In
society. In humanity. His loss of faith was colossal. You could say it was total. A terrible burden to endure for a chaplain.’
‘Chaplain? He was . . . ’
‘A man of God, yes.
table. It must have been six metres long, four wide and one deep.
About the tableau, the walls were papered with the medieval design she had seen elsewhere on the unpanelled walls of the Red House, in a rich burgundy colour that sucked at the natural light.
There was a high wooden skirting board and a long cornice around the room’s edges, a simple iron fireplace, and one plain wooden stool at the head of the case, but nothing else. No other
furniture or decoration was allowed to impede or distract the viewer’s horrified fascination of what M. H. Mason had created and displayed in his home.
Catherine remained speechless long enough for Edith to visibly enjoy her mute gawping. Perhaps that was why Maude never spoke, and why Edith spent her life surrounded by a silent and captive
audience of rodents and woodland animals. Other personalities just interfered.
‘It often took my uncle years to finish a tableau. This one took ten, and one year of planning before he skinned the first rat.’
Catherine was still unable to respond.
‘There are six hundred and twenty-three individual figures inside the case. The dogs caught them all. Dogs taught not to mutilate their prey. And there haven’t been rats at the Red
House in decades. Perhaps they still remember.’ Edith grinned at her own jest. ‘My uncle became so proficient, he could set up a rat in sixteen hours. But he planned the pose of each
one to the minutest detail before he made the first incision. The legs of rats are terribly thin and they were the most difficult parts of the animals to position, but he became expert. And they
were all individually measured for their uniforms by my mother.’
Catherine wheeled Edith before her along one side of the great wooden case. After a series of darting glances that made her dizzy, she still failed to comprehend the complexity of the
diorama.
The viewing pane offered a window into hell. ‘I don’t understand . . . why has no one seen this?’ The wheels of the chair squeaked, the floor groaned, the sound felt as
unwelcome as her voice inside the space, as if the room had been asleep.
Edith smiled. ‘Oh they did, once. But you are privileged, Miss Howard. You are the first person, outside of this family, to see
Glory
in seventy years. Though many wished to, once
they’d heard of its existence from the few that actually did see it. That was before my uncle realized the futility of the piece as a warning. It was once displayed in Worcester before the
Second World War, but only briefly. He hoped it might act as a deterrent to another grand slaughter. But he wasn’t happy with the reactions to his work. The papers called him unpatriotic and
cruel. Someone wrote that he was deranged, dear. Schoolboys loved it for the wrong reasons. So my uncle brought it home. It divides into ten cases. I declined every request to see it once it came
into my care, on my uncle’s instructions, until people forgot about it. Now, I have little choice. But my uncle understands.’
‘He . . .’ But Catherine soon lost her train of thought, and also failed to ask Edith what might have caused the disturbance in the room she had just floundered through in the dark.
It had been paramount in her mind after she’d opened the blinds. But before
Glory
one could think of nothing else.
‘You must understand, my uncle came home from the front a changed man. His experiences in the Great War devastated him. He may have enlisted as a non-combatant, but he went to the front
line to be with his men. And to give them what little comfort was available in horrors we cannot imagine. He saw such sights . . . things. He lost his faith. Not just in God. But in men. In
society. In humanity. His loss of faith was colossal. You could say it was total. A terrible burden to endure for a chaplain.’
‘Chaplain? He was . . . ’
‘A man of God, yes.
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