Christmas with the Book Lovers

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Don’t you remember the church door?’ Frank asked his son. ‘I took you out to Blythburgh with me on a job and we stopped to look at the church on the way home.’

  Josh frowned. ‘You mean those marks on the door?’

  ‘What marks?’ Polly asked.

  ‘Big black marks on the old wooden door,’ Frank told them. ‘Said to be Shuck’s from an attack during a storm when he crashed into the church and killed a man and a boy.’

  ‘Wasn’t there a huge dog skeleton found recently in Suffolk?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sam said. ‘Out at Leiston Abbey. The bones of a seven-foot-long dog were found in a grave. That’s not far from Blythburgh with those claw marks on the church door, or Bungay where there was another fatal attack.’

  ‘You think those bones really belonged to some kind of hell hound?’ Callie asked.

  ‘Who knows?’ Sam said. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth...’

  ‘Oh, my god!’ Lara said. ‘I don’t like the thought of a seven-foot dog prowling in our shrubbery.’

  ‘There’s nothing out there,’ Josh said.

  Just then there was a loud bang on the front door, making everyone leap up from where they were sitting.

  ‘What on earth?’ Frank shouted, on his feet and out in the hallway quicker than you could say Ebenezer Scrooge.

  Everyone except Grandma Nell followed him again. Sam grabbed hold of Callie’s hand and she was glad of the comforting gesture because she couldn’t help feeling a little nervous as Frank opened the door.

  ‘There’s nobody there,’ he said.

  ‘That was definitely a bang on the door. We didn’t imagine that, did we?’ Josh said.

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ Frank said, stepping out into the night.

  ‘Please come back in, Frank,’ Eleanor called.

  ‘This is beginning to freak me out now,’ Lara said.

  A handful of dead leaves chased each other through the door and made Callie shiver.

  ‘I should go out after him,’ Sam said, stepping forward to grab his coat again just as Frank came back inside.

  ‘Couldn’t see a thing,’ he said. ‘We could get torches and do a proper sweep of the garden.’

  ‘We could call the police,’ Lara said.

  ‘Or we could all just go back to the fire,’ Grandpa Joe said. ‘If it’s anything urgent I’m sure we’ll hear about it in good time.’

  ‘But who would knock on a front door on Christmas Eve and then run off? Eleanor asked.

  ‘It was a bang rather than a knock,’ Polly said.

  Grandpa Joe gently ushered everyone back into the living room.

  ‘There’s a gap in the curtains,’ Bryony said, moving towards them to close them tightly.

  ‘Well, that’s ruined a nice cosy evening,’ Polly complained. ‘I feel all on edge now.’

  ‘I was already feeling that way after Grandpa’s Black Shuck story,’ Lara admitted.

  ‘I think we’d better get on with the ghost stories,’ Josh said. ‘That’ll be the best way to forget whatever might or might not be going on outside. Who’s next?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m in the mood anymore,’ Bryony said.

  ‘How about a nice cheery story?’ Polly said.

  ‘Do we know any of those?’ Josh asked with a laugh.

  ‘I know one,’ Lara said. ‘Actually, Callie’s snowdrop story reminded me about it. It’s a kind of romantic ghost story.’

  ‘It’s not scary, is it?’ Eleanor asked her daughter. ‘I think I’m done with scary for tonight.’

  ‘It’s not scary, I promise.’

  ‘Well, let’s hear it,’ Bryony said and so Lara began.

  5

  ‘There’s a little church of brick and flint with a round tower that overlooks fields and woods,’ Lara began. ‘The church is deserted and the graveyard is overgrown with cow parsley, willowherb, brambles and ivy but it’s still visited by those who know of its existence.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Polly asked.

  ‘No interruptions!’ Bryony reminded her.

  ‘Sorry. Just curious.’

  ‘Could be any number of East Anglian churches,’ Frank said.

  ‘And it doesn’t really matter,’ Lara said. ‘But this one is special because there’s a tomb in the church.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t like tombs,’ Eleanor said. ‘I thought you said this wasn’t going to be scary.’

  ‘It isn’t scary!’ Lara insisted. ‘I promise.’

  Callie watched Lara’s bright eyes glitter in the firelight as she continued her story.

  ‘The church is plain inside. The beautiful old stained glass windows are long gone and the wooden screen and statues.’

  ‘Basher Dowsing,’ Grandpa Joe said, referring to the tyrant who’d done so much damage to the churches of East Anglia during the Civil War.

  ‘But there was one piece he didn’t touch,’ Lara continued. ‘The tomb of the fourteenth-century knight. Maybe it was because the knight was a fellow soldier. Maybe Dowsing took pity upon him and left him to his rest.’

  ‘What does he look like?’ Grandma Nell asked and Lara smiled.

  ‘I was just getting to that. He lies by the altar, his head on a pillow and his feet resting on his faithful dog. He is wearing a helmet and there is chain mail around his face. He has a kind, gentle face with a long straight nose and full lips. He looks earnest, sincere,’ she paused, ‘handsome.’

  There were collective sighs of appreciation from the women.

  ‘His hands touch in prayer and there’s a detail in his armour at the elbows which looks like a heart with a sweet seven-petalled flower at its centre.’

  ‘He wears his heart on his sleeve!’ Bryony cried.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Josh said, shaking his head in despair. ‘Can’t we read another M R James story?’

  ‘No!’ Lara told him.

  ‘I like this one,’ Eleanor said. ‘Go on, Lara.’

  ‘It is said that he had a sweetheart waiting for him at home but she was ill when he left her and died before his return. He never got over her death and he never loved another. The legend goes that he will rise again one day, but that it will take the kiss of a very special maiden at midnight on Christmas Eve.

  ‘Scores of maidens have made their way to the church on Christmas Eve over the centuries, pushing each other aside so they can kiss those stone lips, but none has ever woken him. Then, one night, on a cold and frosty Christmas Eve, a young woman was visiting an elderly relative who told her the legend of the knight. The girl laughed at the story but she couldn’t shake it from her head and lay awake in bed that night thinking about the little church and the knight who slept there.

  ‘Finally, at half past eleven, she got out of bed and got dressed, leaving the house and walking across the fields towards the church. It was a bitterly cold night and she kept telling herself that she was crazy to even think of doing such a thing but it was as if she didn’t have any say in the matter – she had to go there. She had to see the knight.

  ‘She almost doubled back when she saw the church in the thin beam from her torch because its tower was wrapped in mist, but something kept her moving forward and she entered the porch and approached the big wooden door and opened it. Of course, it was pitch black in the church and she moved slowly to the altar where she’d been told the tomb was.

  ‘Just then, a great light shone through one of the glassless windows. It was the moon. She hadn’t realised there was a full moon out that night because it had been hidden behind cloud until that moment. Now, it guided her to the tomb of the knight to the left of the altar and she saw him for the first time.

  ‘She reached a hand out and touched the carved belt of his armour, noting the beautiful round medallions on it, and then her fingers stroked the wavy lines of the chain mail and rested on his face.

  ‘She looked at her watch. It was five minutes to midnight. Five long, cold minutes but they seemed to flash by in a
heartbeat as she looked at the knight’s gentle face.

  ‘Finally, the time had come to test the legend and she bent forward and lowered her lips to the cold stone lips of the sleeping knight, closing her eyes and kissing him.’

  Lara paused and glanced around the room at the rapt faces watching her.

  ‘Go on!’ Callie urged. ‘What happened?’

  ‘What she had been expecting to happen,’ Lara continued. ‘She’d been ridiculous leaving her bed in the middle of the night and traipsing across a cold field. Looking down into the lifeless stone, she couldn’t help laughing at having dared to believe the legend. Even if the knight had somehow come to life, he was from the fourteenth-century. He’d probably speak a form of English which she wouldn’t understand – something between Chaucer and Shakespeare. For a few brief moments, she’d truly let herself believe in a silly story. Maybe she’d watched Sleeping Beauty too many times as a child.

  ‘Turning to leave the church, she gasped as she saw a man standing in the church doorway.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in panic, suddenly feeling very vulnerable alone in a church at midnight.

  ‘I came to see the knight,’ he said.

  She gave him a quizzical look. ‘Were you going to kiss him?’

  ‘No!’ the man cried. ‘But I was wondering if there’d be a fair maiden here who was going to. I brought my camera,’ he said, lifting it up from around his neck to show her.

  She studied him for a moment.

  ‘So, did you?’ he asked her.

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Did you kiss him?’ he asked.

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly feeling very foolish.

  ‘I might have.’

  The man, who’d walked out from the shadows so that the moonlight fell upon him, smiled at her.

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she confessed. ‘I’d better get home.’

  ‘The village?’

  She didn’t want to tell the stranger where she was heading in the dark but there was something about him that made her trust him.

  He cleared his throat. ‘I’m staying at my mother’s for Christmas,’ he told her. ‘Maybe you know her. Isabel Knight?’

  ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘You’re Isabel’s son?’

  ‘Alex Knight,’ he said, giving her his hand to shake.

  ‘Knight?’ she repeated. ‘Really?’

  ‘As I live and breathe,’ he said.

  Lara gave a little bow from the waist and everybody applauded.

  ‘Is that a true story?’ Polly asked.

  Lara smiled a knowing smile. ‘Erm, not exactly.’

  ‘Where did you read it?’ Eleanor asked. ‘I’ve never heard it before.’

  ‘I didn’t read it. I wrote it.’

  ‘You made that up?’ Bryony asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’ Frank asked his daughter.

  ‘This term at uni.’

  ‘When you’re meant to be studying?’

  ‘It was in my spare time. I was all inspired after reading Romeo and Juliet. I couldn’t help imagining a scene where Romeo kissed Juliet and she awoke in time. Wouldn’t that have been a better ending?’

  ‘Not better,’ Sam said. ‘Happier.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been a tragedy then,’ Grandpa Joe said.

  ‘I don’t like the tragedies,’ Lara said. ‘Give me a comedy that ends in at least three weddings!’

  ‘Me too,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘And then I remembered something else. We’d read a bit of Chaucer and I remembered a knight’s tomb we’d once seen in the church at Stonham Aspal. Remember him?’

  ‘The legless knight?’ Josh said.

  ‘Yes, poor man had had his legs smashed.’

  ‘Probably by Basher Dowsing,’ Grandpa Joe said.

  ‘Probably,’ Lara said. ‘Well, I wanted to make him all complete in my story. Give him his legs back.’

  ‘Sweet girl!’ Bryony said, giving her a little hug.

  ‘But you made the church derelict,’ Frank said.

  ‘Atmosphere!’ Lara said.

  ‘Well, looks like you’ve got competition on the story writing front, Callie,’ Sam told her.

  ‘It sounds like I have!’ Callie replied, smiling first at Sam and then at Lara.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Lara said modestly.

  ‘I tell you,’ Eleanor began, ‘Lara’s wasted doing admin for the Castle Clare literary festival – she should be one of the guest speakers.’

  ‘I think I’m a little way off that, Mum!’ Lara said.

  Polly got up from her place on the sofa and walked towards the window, drawing back the curtains a little and peering outside.

  ‘What is it, Polly?’ Frank asked his daughter.

  ‘I can’t see anything, but I thought I heard someone on the gravel,’ she replied.

  ‘Yes, I thought so too,’ Frank said, joining her at the window. ‘This is getting tiresome, isn’t it?

  Bryony got up, poking her head through the curtains between them and gasping a moment later.

  ‘It’s a man!’ she cried.

  ‘Where?’ Frank and Polly asked together.

  ‘He just walked out from behind the beech tree – there!’

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Lara asked, her voice raised in panic as she got up from the floor.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Bryony’s continued as she fiddled anxiously with her silver scarf. ‘Oh, he’s heading this way. He’s coming to the front door!’

  Sure enough, there was a knock on the front door a moment later.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Eleanor asked, looking genuinely scared.

  Frank turned to look at her. ‘We answer it,’ he said.

  6

  For the third time that evening, Frank Nightingale opened the door but, this time, Callie could see he was ready to give whoever it was who was disturbing their peace a good ticking off if need be.

  As the light from the hallway fell on the interloper, they saw it was a tall, thin man with a pale face. He was wearing a woolly hat with a great fat bobble on the top and he looked anxious.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he began. ‘I’m Mr Parker. I’ve been lookin’ for Emily Parker’s cottage. She’s my sister.’

  Eleanor came forward. ‘You mean Honeysuckle Cottage? That’s just along the road here. You’re not far from it. About another mile.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Mr Parker said. ‘I’ve been goin’ round in circles for hours on these country lanes. Then Felix kept whining so I let him out and he ran off afta somethin’.’

  ‘Felix?’ Frank asked.

  ‘My dog.’

  ‘Would that happen to be a big black dog?’ Grandpa Joe asked, coming forward.

  ‘A black collie, aye. He just took off. I was chasing him round your garden, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘It was you who knocked on the door earlier?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Aye, but then I caught sight of Felix and ran to get him.’

  Grandpa Joe started to chuckle. ‘You gave us a bit of a start,’ he told Mr Parker. ‘We’d been reading ghost stories and we imagined Black Shuck was stalking our shrubbery.’

  ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear!’ Mr Parker said, shaking his head. ‘I didn’t mean to scare anyone. I didn’t knock at first because I was scared of disturbing you, what with it being Christmas Eve and everything, but then I was gettin’ a bit desperate.’

  ‘Where’s Felix now?’ Polly asked.

  ‘Safe in the car with his blanket.’

  ‘Where are you parked?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Just down the lane.’

  ‘Why don’t you come in and get warm for a moment?’ Eleanor said. ‘You could have frozen to death out there.’

  ‘I thought I had at one point,’ Mr Parker said, clapping his hands together as he came into the hallway. ‘You sure I’m not disturbing you any?’

  ‘No, no!’ everyone insisted.
r />   ‘Cup of tea?’ Polly asked him as Eleanor offered to take his coat and hat.

  ‘Very kind of you.’

  Polly went to the kitchen to make the tea and everyone else went through to the living room with Mr Parker.

  ‘Have a seat by the fire,’ Eleanor said and Mr Parker sat down on the sofa.

  ‘Where’ve you come from?’ Frank asked as he put a couple more logs onto the fire.

  ‘Yorkshire. Wensleydale’

  ‘A fair old drive,’ Frank said, returning to the sofa next to his guest.

  ‘It is that.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ Eleanor said. ‘We’ve had quite a few holidays in the Yorkshire Dales.’

  ‘Aye, it’s a popular spot,’ Mr Parker said. ‘Quiet at this time of year, mind. Not much in the way of tourists.’

  ‘How’s the weather been up there?’ Grandpa Joe asked.

  ‘We’ve had snow on and off since October.’

  ‘Goodness!’ Eleanor said. ‘We’re having our first little flurry tonight.’

  ‘The perfect night to be sat around a fire,’ Mr Parker observed.

  ‘So, as Grandpa Joe was saying, we were just telling a few ghost stories,’ Frank said. ‘It’s a bit of a tradition at Christmas by the fire.’

  ‘And you mentioned Black Shuck,’ Mr Parker said. ‘Can I ask what that is?’

  Grandpa Joe leaned forward in his chair, happy to have an ear as he told their guest about the legendary black hairy dog which rampaged the East Anglian countryside.

  ‘And you thought my Felix might be-’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid we did,’ Frank said with a laugh, now that it was safe to laugh.

  ‘We have our own big dog legend in the north. Gytrash,’ Mr Parker said.

  ‘Oooo!’ Lara cried. ‘Doesn’t he get a mention in Jane Eyre?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Sam said. ‘The scene where Jane spooks Rochester’s horse.’

  ‘I wonder what is it about big black dogs that captures the imagination in legends?’ Callie asked.

  ‘Well, Gytrash is often thought to be a horse,’ Mr Parker said.

  ‘Really?’ Callie said.

  ‘He’s sometimes thought to be feared, sometimes thought to be gentle. He can lead people away from a footpath or guide them to one from the moors. There are so many stories, it’s hard to know what to believe.’