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Ghost Story:
'Mulctatus per Presidenttm propter neglectum obsonii, Car. Bellasis.'
That was the end of the Everlasting Club. From that day until at least 1920, and possible
twenty years after that, the rooms remained tenantless. They were used, as I have said, for
storage. The legend persisted that, annually on the night of 2 November, 'sounds of unholy
revelry' were heard from Bellasis's chambers. That, I believe, is a fiction. No one has been able
to pin down any witness who can swear that he heard any sounds from the room on the night of
any 2 November. Indeed, if one reads the Minute Book, it is quite clear that no provision was
made for the holding of the Annual Dinner after the last Everlasting had become an Incorporeal.
As for the Minute Book itself, Arthur Gray says:
'The Minute Book was secured by the Master of the College, and I believe that he alone
was acquainted with the nature of its contents. The scandal reflected on the college by the
circumstances revealed in it caused him to keep the knowledge rigidly to himself.'
He adds: 'And though, so far as I am aware, it is no longer extant, I have before me a
transcript of it which, though it is in a recent handwriting, presents in a bald shape such a singular
array of facts that I must ask you to accept them as veracious.'
For myself, having known and loved Cambridge for more than half a century, I can affirm
that this tale is a living legend. It endures to this day. Not one, but many members of Jesus
College and of its staff have assured me that the rooms at the head of Cow Lane, the last meeting
place on earth of the Everlasting Club, are not the rooms in which they would choose to sleep.
Why else were they left untenanted for nearly two hundred years?
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