The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales Read online

  A new century began. England was at war once more, this time in Europe. The sons and fathers of the villages, where once my Lovell searched, were sent to die at Boar’s Head and the Somme. With so many lying dead, how could the loss of one young bride so many years ago count for much? I heard tell that red poppies blossomed on the fields of Flanders and France where their bodies fell.

  Here, each year, the berries of the mistletoe bough still bloomed white at Christmas and the leaves of the holly are green.

  I continue to sleep.

  When next I wake, it is summer.

  Bramshill House has been sold. Since 1699, there have been Copes here. Now, the last of the family has relinquished his possession of the estate and its three hundred acres of land. Soon, a new owner will come and another story will begin.

  The last of the boxes are going today. I can hear the footsteps on the gravel and a strange thrumming sound, the vibrating of an engine. No horses now, but rather rubber wheels and the ability to travel great distances.

  These things I see and I don’t see.

  The echo of my heart starts to beat faster. They are making a final sweep of the house, moving from room to room. Now I can hear someone outside my door. Men’s voices – always men’s voices – searching and asking for instructions.

  I catch the memory of my breath.

  The door to the room is opening, I hear its judder as the wood sticks on the floor, then releases itself and swings back. This is the sound I have prayed for. Footsteps crossing the bare floorboards, coming towards me. Hands resting on the old oak chest.

  It is too heavy for one man to move. I hear him grunt with the effort, then call for assistance. Now other footsteps. Four feet, not two. Then, I feel the lurch and heave as the chest is picked up, lower at my feet, higher at my head. Like a ship at sea, it rocks to and fro as they try to find purchase, but the weight and bulk defeats them. They cannot hold it. A curse, a shout, fingers slipping.

  I am falling.

  One end goes down and I am thrown sideways, an odd lurching sensation as the chest hits the floor with a thud. The metal gives, the clasp breaks and the lid, finally, cracks open.

  At last.

  A moment of silence, then one of the men screams. He shouts for help as he runs from the room. Gibbering about a skeleton in a bridal gown, bones tumbling out of an old oak chest.

  I am smiling.

  Now I can smell lilies of the valley once more.

  And I can feel the sweet memory of happiness and I remember what it was to laugh and to love and to hope. My smile grows stronger as I think of my husband and how soon – after so very long – we shall be reunited.

  Lovell and his mistletoe bride.

  Author’s Note

  When I was little, my parents had a book – Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain. Published by Reader’s Digest in 1973, it had a black cloth cover and a gold embossed image of a Viking, with beard and horned helmet. Inside, a cornucopia of stories that had endured for two thousand years. Divided into three sections – the ‘Lore of Britain’, the ‘Romance of Britain’ and ‘People of Myth’ – I was so entranced with the book, I flirted with the idea of applying to read Folklore Studies at university instead of English. My parents – sensibly – took no notice and the moment passed.

  And yet . . .

  It was in Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain that I first came across the story of ‘The Mistletoe Bride’. Several places in Britain claimed to be the historical setting for the story – Skelton in Yorkshire, Minster Lovell Hall in Oxfordshire, Marwell Old Hall in Hampshire, Castle Horneck in Cornwall, Exton Hall in Rutland, Brockdish Hall in Norfolk, and Bawdrip Rectory and Shapwick in Somerset. The Cope family of Bramshill House claimed to be able to produce the famous oak chest, in which the young bride was supposed to have suffocated. Grisly, oddly compelling, it is the sort of story that sticks in the imagination.

  The story of the Mistletoe Bride first appeared in 1823 as a blank verse poem, ‘Ginevra’, in Samuel Rogers’ book Italy. He made claim for the story to be ‘founded on fact, though the time and the place are uncertain.’ However, its popularity can be laid at the door of the nineteenth-century songwriter Thomas Haynes Bayly, who set the story to music by H. R. Bishop, and published it as ‘The Mistletoe Bough’ in his 1844 volume Songs, Ballads and Other Poems. It was an instant hit and became one of the most popular Victorian and Edwardian Christmas music hall songs.

  My parents’ book is long gone. I managed, some years later, to find an old replacement copy which sits now – the spine missing and in pride of place – in my study where I write. In idle moments, I take it down and let it fall open at a page of its own choosing. Lose myself for an hour or two.

  In memory of those long and happy teenage days reading back in the 1970s, I wrote two versions of the story of the bride who vanished on her wedding day for this collection. This, the first of them – a ‘white lady’ story – is dedicated to my wonderful mother and my beloved father, who died in 2011.

  DUET

  Pinewalk Heights, Bournemouth

  October 1965

  Duet

  True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad?

  from ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’

  EDGAR ALLAN POE

  ‘It was the smell.’

  ‘The smell?’ I say.

  ‘No reason for it and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t notice it, not at first. I was that busy. Working all the hours God sent, looking for a promotion. First step on the ladder. And I had a girl – nothing serious, but nice enough. Willing enough, if you know what I mean – so I wasn’t much home.’ He stops to sigh. He enjoys sighing. ‘Those days, I did all the right things. Fitted in. Making my way, then. Going up in the world.’

  I nod. ‘Yes.’

  He meets my eye, then his gaze slips away again. Embarrassed, though here there’s no need for that. Within this room, there’s no need to worry about what people might think. Past all of that now. He licks dry lips. Another glance that slips over me and away. Easier like that. Less personal.

  ‘So, what with one thing and another, I was barely there. That’s the situation. Why I hadn’t got around to it.’

  I nod again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘On the up, I was. Had big plans. So, yes, as I was saying, what with one thing and another, I hadn’t got round to moving the stuff down to the cellar. After he’d gone—’

  ‘Who’d gone?’ I ask, just to keep the story on the straight and narrow.

  ‘Man in Number Three. Turner.’ He pauses, to check that I’m following. ‘She was that put out, his things got dumped in the hall and left. He had no relatives.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I ask.

  He’s shocked by the question, surprised at us varying from our script, and he’s right to be. It is a new question. I’ve never asked it before, but we need to make progress today. He considers, then answers.

  ‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? If there’d been anybody, they’d have got in touch. Come to see what was theirs by rights. He had no children, she told me that. No brothers or sisters. She put something in the paper, but not a soul turned up. No one. Stands to reason.’ He pauses, as another thought jabs at him. ‘His “effects”, the lawyer called them.’

  I can think of all sorts of reasons why no one but he and the landlady knew the old man in Number Three was gone, but it’s not my place to argue. My job is to listen. Prompt, from time to time, but only as and when.

  ‘What sort of things, these “effects”?’ I mime the speech marks, intending to set him and me against the sort of jumped-up phrases the lawyers use. The trick doesn’t work. He doesn’t join in. He doesn’t want to be on my side. There’s no ‘us’ in his mind.

  Instead,
the same slippery glance.

  ‘Such as, such as . . .’ He stops and it’s not a pause, as if he’s working out what to say next, but more the kind of deep silence that means he’s withdrawn from the conversation. I wonder if I’ve strayed too far from our usual script, done things in the wrong order. Or triggered some new memory which is getting in the way of his story. The story that matters. But then he meets my eye and I realise he’s grateful for the chance to speak about other things first. Not what happened in the cellar.

  ‘An oil painting,’ he says. ‘A village in the Pyrenees, I reckon it was. Turns out Turner spent the summers back in the day bicycling around France.’

  He’s talking fast now, the words tumbling over one another. ‘Mrs Nash told me. Wouldn’t have thought that to see him. Gone to seed, if you know what I mean.’

  I nod, but choose not to speak. I don’t want to disturb the fragile balance. And it was the right decision because he carries on, now letting the words run away with him.

  ‘Worked at the same firm, man and boy. Forty years, give or take.’

  ‘Give or take,’ I nod. ‘I like that.’

  He smiles, then clears his throat to disguise the fact he’s pleased with the compliment. ‘It’s what Mrs Nash said.’

  ‘What did Mr Turner do then, this job of his?’

  He pauses, then shrugs. ‘Never talked to him myself more than to pass the time of day.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he says loudly. Sharp, now. Annoyed, now. ‘The odd “how do” or “turned out nice again”, on the stairs, that’s all.’

  ‘You and he, you weren’t what you’d call friends. Pals.’

  He shakes his head. ‘He was up on the second floor. I had the ground floor. Nice enough room, own sink and a hotplate. Had to share a toilet, but it was always clean, I’ll give her that. I look out over the esplanade. Nice in summer, day trippers coming and going.’

  ‘Better in the autumn,’ I offer. ‘Quiet.’

  ‘Quiet.’ He nods. ‘That’s it, quiet.’

  He runs his hands over his hair, fingers pushing hard into his skull, then shakes them out. Flicking imaginary drops of water into the space between us. He licks his lips.

  ‘All right for some. The rest of us slaving away.’

  He stops and stares at me and, though I’m not sure if he’s talking about the tenant in Number Three or Mrs Nash or someone else altogether, I realise he’s waiting for a response.

  ‘You said it.’ I pull a man-of-the-world face. ‘All right for some.’

  ‘All right for some, you can say that again. Never a truer word spoken.’

  Now he’s smiling, but the smile never reaches his eyes. There’s something off about his expression, calculating, as if he’s tricked me. Got me on the run. But it’s hard to be sure and I don’t want to judge. Not my job to judge. My job is to listen. Let him do the talking.

  ‘You’re telling me, you’re telling me,’ he says, ‘never a truer word spoken. I like that.’ He stops. Takes a breath. Lets his shoulders drop. ‘I like that.’

  He starts picking at a thread on the sleeve of his jacket, a heavy twill much too warm for the overheated room we’re sitting in. The picking turns to scratching. Now he’s rubbing at the material as if trying to rub away the weave, faster and faster.

  ‘Lucky sod,’ he says, ‘lucky lucky lucky—’

  I can’t let him drift away from me, so I jump in. ‘As well as the painting, what else?’

  My voice is loud and he’s startled, of course he is. It’s not like me to raise my voice. His head jerks up and he stares, blind eyes seeing something else. Not me. I can feel him slipping out of my company again.

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He doesn’t acknowledge the apology. He’s still staring, looking right through me, but then the moment passes and he swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs. His skin there is sore and red, raw. I raise my hand to my throat in sympathy, imagining the cold water in the bowl and how the old razor, blunt through lack of use, stings and, for a moment, we are the same, him and me.

  ‘I was wondering what else was in the box,’ I say.

  Now his eyes focus and he is laughing, embarrassed again now, and we are both returned to this hot and claustrophobic room, with the fixed table and everything painted that same green. The bed and the radiator that knocks and the clock that ticks and the words that rattle between us, turning the air black.

  ‘The painting, I told you about the painting? I don’t know much about art, but it didn’t look up to much. No more than average. What else? A pair of cufflinks. Silver plate, nice if you like that sort of thing. A carriage clock. Engraved. Retirement, that sort of thing. But it . . .’

  He’s seeing the box in his mind’s eye, the size and the shape of it. The way it blocked the hall in the drab boarding house. Then he’s remembering the smell. Cupping his hands over his nose, breathing in stale air. And he does not want to go further, though that’s the reason we are here.

  ‘. . . the smell,’ he says. ‘There was no reason for it.’ His hands are fluttering again. ‘Outspan oranges.’

  ‘Written on the side, yes you told me,’ I say. I know all of this. It’s what comes after that’s the mystery.

  He closes his eyes. ‘If it hadn’t been for the smell . . .’ And he says it again and again, as he presses his hands between his knees, palm to palm, as if praying, though there is no peace here. ‘My fault.’

  Now he is rocking backwards and forwards. This too is a new development and I don’t like it. Even so, I notice the plucked threads on his sleeve, caught in the pale November sun coming in through the small locked window, set high up in the wall. A sickly yellow light. I rub the sleeve of my jacket in sympathy and pull the snagged thread.

  ‘So you moved the box, as soon as you had the time,’ I said. ‘Like you promised, moved it from the hall.’

  He shakes his head. ‘Couldn’t leave it there.’

  This part of our duet is familiar too. We’ve had this part of our conversation before. The damp hall, the stale October air, the raincoats on the hooks by the door and the lino peeling, the table with its layer of dust and bills mounting up, the front doormat grown bald with years of boots and wiped soles and sand. But we haven’t gone further. We’ve got no further than the top of the cellar stairs.

  ‘Her legs are bad. Can’t get up and down the stairs, too steep. Never went down there.’

  I swallow.

  ‘Too much for her,’ he says again. ‘Mrs Nash. Not been down there for years.’

  ‘So why that day?’ I say. This, when all’s said and done, is what I want to know. ‘What was special about that day in particular?’

  ‘I told you.’ Stubborn, this time. Resentful. ‘The smell. Getting worse.’ He looks up at me, then away. ‘Every time I went past, couldn’t ignore it.’

  For a moment, there’s silence. I wonder if he’s going to stop here. Sometimes, he wants to talk. Other times, he clams up.

  ‘It was a Thursday,’ I say.

  ‘Yes.’ He takes the bait. ‘Thurs – day,’ he says, two staccato beats. Today, there is something living and breathing in the word. The whole story contained there, in that moment, and I think we might be getting somewhere.

  ‘Mrs Nash goes to the bingo Thursdays, isn’t that right?’

  He doesn’t answer. His gaze slips away from me and towards the world outside the room and he starts mumbling. ‘Slip, slide, perish, cannot take the strain. Slip, slip, slide, perish.’

  I’m caught on the hop this time, I admit it. Coming out with poetry. He’s never struck me as the type. Never done it before.

  ‘Thomas Sterns,’ he says, ‘that’s what T. S. stands for. Not many people know that.’ And he’s smiling the same sly smile because he thinks he’s bested me. Won another round. ‘Four Quartets.’

  ‘I know,’ I snap, though I shouldn’t let my feelings show.

  His face is ablaze with cunning.
He wags a finger at me. Points. ‘But which one? Guess. Air, Water, Earth, Fire? Guess.’

  I can’t indulge him any further in this. It’s no good for him, can’t be. Won’t get us anywhere.

  ‘Why didn’t she go to the bingo that Thursday?’

  My voice is level, but there’s enough displeasure in it and he hears and withdraws again, angry I’m not playing along. The praying hands, the bowed head, the crumpled shoulders, the swallowing and swallowing. My throat is dry too.

  For an age, he is silent. The room is heavy with disappointment, with misunderstanding. He feels I have let him down and he might be right, but it can’t be helped. We need to get somewhere. Make progress. The water gurgles in the old iron radiator. Beyond the door, the monotonous rattle of a trolley and the slide of a bolt somewhere further along the corridor.

  We don’t have much time.

  I swallow. ‘Why didn’t Mrs Nash go to bingo that Thursday?’

  ‘She did,’ he says, sullen again. ‘Forgot her purse. Came back.’

  ‘Or she guessed.’

  ‘No.’

  He shrugs, the shifty fidget of a child. A quick up and down of the shoulders. Guilt? Is it guilt? I can’t tell. Feigning uninterest, certainly.

  I help him on his way. A firm hand in the small of the back. ‘She was suspicious, wasn’t she? Pretended to go, then came back to spy on you.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘No.’ I change tack. ‘An accident, when all’s said and done. Her fault, not yours. Stairs were too steep.’

  And he looks at me for a moment with such gratitude that I feel happy. Actually happy.

  ‘She’d no cause to go on at me all the time,’ he says. ‘I said I’d move the box, just not got round to it, but . . . the smell, you see. Like seaweed or fish. Rotting fish. Thought it was coming from the box, she did.’