Read Christmas Tales of Terror Online
Authors: Chris Priestley
Christmas Tales of Terror
For Ian
Contents
1
Stephen Levenson stood for some time looking at the house at the end of the long, tree-lined drive. It was the view he always pictured when he was at school, thinking of the Christmas holidays. But since his father’s death three years before, it was tinged with sadness.
Woodehouse End was as lovely as ever, with its high gables and ornate brick chimneys, from which tall columns of smoke rose into the cold, grey sky. It had always been more his father’s house than his mother’s, and it even seemed to have something of his father’s combination of quietude and confidence.
Stephen took a moment to remember how life used to be before his father died – and before his mother had remarried. He thought of these times fondly and without bitterness. He had adjusted to the new state of things with the good grace he knew his father would have expected of him. Besides, he was away at school most of the time.
Stephen took a deep breath of chill air and set off up the gravel drive.
‘Why, Master Stephen!’ cried Elspeth, the parlourmaid, when she opened the front door. ‘We wasn’t expecting you till three.’
‘I caught an earlier train,’ said Stephen.
‘You should have called. Mr James would have fetched you from the station.’
‘It’s all right. I like the walk.’
‘Madam will be pleased,’ Elspeth went on. ‘’T ain’t Christmas till you come, sir.’
Stephen smiled. It was good to be home.
‘Well, are you going to let me in, Elspeth?’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Is Mother about?’
Elspeth took his coat and bag.
‘She’s in the hall, Master Stephen, decorating the tree. You should see it, sir. It’s a giant!’
‘You say that every year, Elspeth,’ said Stephen.
‘Well, this year it’s truer than ever,’ she replied, as she walked away with his bag.
Stephen had to admit that the tree was indeed enormous. His mother was looking up at Hills, the butler, who was teetering precariously atop a tall stepladder.
‘No, no,’ Stephen’s mother was saying. ‘A little to the left.’
‘If he goes any further to the left, Mother,’ said Stephen, ‘poor Hills will fall and break his neck.’
‘Stephen!’ said his mother loudly, making Hills wobble even more and drop the bauble he had been trying to hang. It shattered into a thousand glittering fragments.
‘Sorry, madam,’ said Hills.
‘Never mind,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Come down, come down. I think that will probably do in any case.’
‘Very good, ma’am,’ said Hills, the relief evident in his voice. ‘I’ll get Elspeth to clear this up.’
Mrs Levenson turned to her son and put her hands to either side of his face.
‘It’s so lovely to have you home,’ she said. ‘You’re freezing, Stephen. Get yourself by the fire.’
‘I’m fine, Mother,’ he said. ‘Please don’t fuss.’
‘Your father will be so pleased to see you.’
Stephen did not respond. He was not willing to join in with his mother’s new conceit of calling his stepfather his father, but neither did he want to argue with her or upset her unnecessarily. It was Christmas.
‘You’ve gone rather overboard with the greenery,’ he said, changing the subject.
‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ his mother replied, clasping her hands together. ‘Lady Fairlove’s house was full of green leaves last Christmas and it looked marvellous. I can’t think why we’ve never done it before.’
Stephen shook his head in amazement. Swathes of ivy coiled up the banisters of the stairs and round the frames of the paintings on the walls. It wound round lamps and chairs and table legs and was pinned to architraves.
Wreaths of holly hung from every door and bunches of it had been strewn on shelves and ledges and gathered together with yew branches in vases and jugs. Every windowsill was decked with great clumps of leaves and berries.
‘Your father gathered it all,’ his mother added. ‘It took him an age, but you know how persistent he is.’
Stephen smiled. His stepfather was not such a bad sort, but persistence could not be counted among his most obvious characteristics. His main goal in life seemed to be to avoid any kind of confrontation with his wife, so Stephen was convinced that most of this alleged ‘persistence’ came from her. He was positive that, left to his own devices, his stepfather would have happily made do with a few sprigs here and there.
‘But where did it all come from?’ asked Stephen. ‘I can’t think there is a corner of our land that’s untidy enough to supply such a crop.’
Stephen noticed that his mother suddenly seemed a little nervous.
‘From Freya’s Hill,’ she said airily.
Stephen stared at her and she looked away, adjusting one of the vases of holly.
‘Freya’s Hill?’ said Stephen. ‘But you know that Father forbade anyone from –’
‘You have a new father now, Stephen,’ said his mother. ‘And he isn’t quite so superstitious.’
‘Father respected the –’
‘Respect?’ his mother said crossly. ‘Do not use that word in relation to such heathen practices.’
Stephen’s mother had taken solace in the Church after his father had died and Stephen had the distinct impression that she had begun to believe that her late husband’s interest in folklore and magic might have contributed to his early death. She would never have voiced this opinion to Stephen, but he felt it was there in the background, always. Stephen’s goodwill began to ebb.
‘If you think them heathen, Mother,’ he said, ‘why bring green leaves into the house at all? Surely that is heathen. It has nothing to do with Christianity, after all.’
‘Nonsense,’ she said.
‘How is it nonsense?’ said Stephen.
‘Well, the wreaths of holly represent the crown of thorns and the berries the drops of blood.’
‘Mother,’ Stephen said, shaking his head. ‘You know full well that –’
‘I won’t debate with you, Stephen,’ she said, waving him away as though he were a wasp. ‘You and your father were always too clever for me.’
Yes,
thought Stephen.
Father was always too clever for you. That’s why you chose such an amiable fool for your new husband.
And just as he thought that, Stephen’s stepfather walked into the hall.
‘Stephen!’ he cried with a grin. ‘Good to have you home, my boy.’
‘Hello, sir,’ said Stephen. ‘Mother was just telling me how you collected all this holly and ivy.’
‘No “sir”, boy,’ said his stepfather. ‘No need for all that. Yes – the greenery. Scratched myself to ribbons on brambles, don’t you know, but wouldn’t let that stop me. Once I get started on something . . .’
Stephen bit his lip.
It’s Christmas,
he told himself again. He smiled and said that he really ought to go up to his room and unpack. As he reached the top of the stairs, he looked back down, past the tree and the swathes of ivy, at his mother and stepfather standing talking below. It was almost like looking down into a forest glade.
Stephen wondered what his father would have made of it all. He suspected that he would have found it ridiculous rather than annoying, and so Stephen tried to embrace that idea himself, as he closed the door to his room and wallowed in the peaceful embrace of the familiar, of the unchanged.
The following day was Christmas Eve, when Stephen’s parents had always held a festive lunch, and the tradition continued – although the make-up of those attending had changed somewhat since his father’s death.
For one thing, far more of the guests were female. Stephen’s mother invited several ladies from the watercolour society she had founded years before, as well as members of the committee of the amateur dramatic and operatic clubs she was part of. Looking round the table, Stephen could see that the only men, in fact, were Reverend Ashcroft, Stephen’s stepfather and Doctor Meadows.
Doctor Meadows was the one person who could be counted as a close friend of Stephen’s late father. Doctor Meadows, like Stephen’s father, was an amateur antiquarian. They had both shared a fascination with folklore and ancient history, and had written a book together about a barrow they had excavated at the far end of the village many years earlier. Doctor Meadows was in the process of writing another about the customs and traditions of the local area.
It was not long before the subject of the greenery came up at dinner. Stephen’s stepfather was telling Mrs Darnley, who ran the post office in the village, in great detail, how he had gathered the holly and ivy for the decorations. Mrs Darnley listened with polite indifference until he mentioned the source of the foliage.
‘And you say you took it from Freya’s Hill?’ she said, a little aghast. Those nearby stopped their conversations to listen.
‘Yes,’ said his stepfather, oblivious to her tone. ‘Spooky kind of a place.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Darnley. ‘I wouldn’t go up there for all the tea in China. It’s . . . Well, it’s . . .’
Mrs Darnley struggled to find a suitable word.
‘I think it’s rather fascinating,’ said Reverend Ashcroft.
Stephen’s mother frowned. She had always thought Reverend Ashcroft far too liberal.
‘Really, Reverend?’ she said. ‘I would have thought the Church would take a dim view of such things. You know the villagers still go up there and leave things at the stones, when they want a baby or some such. It’s shocking.’
Reverend Ashcroft smiled.
‘I don’t find it so. God made the trees and the stones and everything we know. A worship of nature is, after all, a worship of God and all his works.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Stephen’s mother. ‘Well, I’m not sure the devil isn’t involved. It all smacks of witchcraft to me.’
‘Witchcraft?’ the vicar replied. ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’
‘We need to be on our guard,’ said Stephen’s mother. ‘Every time we fail to act against these blasphemies, the devil moves a little closer.’
‘I hope we have moved on,’ said Doctor Meadows, ‘from the days of persecuting anything we do not understand. Those people are no more agents of the devil than you or I, Beatrice. They may be foolish, but I don’t think they’re evil.’
Stephen’s mother pursed her lips but said nothing.
‘But I’m afraid you have made an error taking that greenery from Freya’s Hill,’ the doctor continued, with a frown. ‘It won’t go down at all well in the village.’
‘Pah!’ said Stephen’s mother. ‘Nonsense. My late husband used to pander to that sort of thing, but no more. Freya’s Hill is part of our land. Those people are trespassing! How dare they tell us what we can do on our own property!’
Stephen looked to the urn on the mantelpiece that contained his father’s ashes. He missed him so much.
‘Strange to say,’ said Stephen’s stepfather, ‘there was a chap watching me while I gathered the stuff.’
‘Really?’ said the vicar. ‘Someone from the village?’