Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror

by Chris Priestley

  'A famous murderer lived here,.' she said. 'They hanged him and everything.'

  'Gosh, Em,.' said one of the girls. 'Is that true?'

  'Of course it's true,.' hissed Emily. 'Are you calling me a liar, Annabel?'

  'No, Em, I . . .'

  'Well, then,.' she continued. 'It is true. You ask anybody. Bartholomew Garnet, his name was. He was evil, they say - pure evil. They hanged him at Newgate in London. Papa told me all about it.'

  'And the house is really haunted?' asked one of the smaller girls tremulously.

  Emily nodded. 'As true as I'm standing here.'

  'Have you seen the ghost, Em?'

  'No,.' she said. 'But lots of people -'

  Suddenly there was flash of lightning, followed by a crack of thunder. The storyteller nearly jumped off the ground in panic and Victoria giggled. Emily glared at her. Rain began to fall in big, lazy drops, and then in a torrent that sent the ladies shrieking into the marquee, holding on to their hats.

  'I say,.' said Emily, recovering her demeanour and exchanging a sly look with her sister. 'Let's play hide-and-seek in the house.' Emily's sister grinned.

  'But what about the ghost?' asked one of the girls.

  'That will just make it all the more exciting!' said Emily. 'We'll play in teams of two,.' she added bossily. 'Come on, Liz,.' she said to her sister. 'We'll be "it". We'll count to a hundred in the library.'

  The girls ran giggling for the house, leaving Victoria alone. She had seen Emily wink and knew they had done it on purpose to get away from her. If there was one thing worse than having to play with her dreadful cousins, it was those same cousins refusing to let her play. Victoria looked away towards the lake, the rain pelting the surface.

  She was about to trudge back to her mother, when she noticed a thin girl a little younger than herself who had likewise been left behind. She was dressed even more drably and unfashionably than Victoria.

  Victoria smiled. In those few short seconds, rain had already soaked the girl's clothes and was running down her face, dripping from her nose and chin. The girl smiled back and shook the water from her hair. Victoria would never normally have even considered talking to such a creature, but on this occasion she thought she might be useful.

  'We ought to get out of the rain,.' said Victoria.

  'Rain?' said the girl, as if she had not noticed before.

  Victoria laughed.

  'Yes, rain,.' she said. 'You're soaked.' Victoria realised she too was getting drenched as the downpour increased in intensity. She ran into the house and stood in the hallway. The girl followed, leaving drips and puddled footprints.

  'What's your name?' said Victoria, wiping her face with her hands.

  'Margaret,.' said the girl.

  'I'm Victoria. I suppose we're cousins,.' said Victoria. 'Everybody here seems to be my cousin.'

  'Yes,.' said the girl.

  'You're nothing to do with Emily, are you?' asked Victoria, peering at her. Margaret shook her head.

  'Good,.' said Victoria. 'I hate her. She is such a . . . such a . . .' Victoria could not find a word sufficient for her feelings. 'I hate her.' Margaret smiled and nodded. 'Let's be a team and play hide-and-seek,. ' said Victoria suddenly. Emily and her sister could be heard counting in the distance. They were already up to seventy-four.

  'I'd like that,.' said Margaret.

  'Come on,.' said Victoria, making for the stairs. 'Let's hide upstairs. There's bound to be somewhere up there.'

  The two girls ran upstairs. Victoria had never been in this house before, but she had been in many like it. They all seemed horribly familiar in their scale and décor - all so much bigger and grander than her own house.

  The first two places Victoria tried to hide were both taken and she was shoved and hissed away. She stood in the corridor, looking right and left, not knowing where to go next, when Margaret suggested they go to the door at the end.

  When Victoria opened the door, she realised that it must be the master bedroom and wondered if they ought not to go somewhere else. But they could hear Emily and Elizabeth on the stairs, shouting, 'Coming, ready or not!' and Margaret had found the perfect hiding place: a huge blanket chest by the window.

  Victoria lifted the lid and smiled when she saw it was empty. Margaret climbed in, and Victoria climbed in after her, closing the lid behind them as Emily came clumping down the corridor and found two of the cousins who had hidden behind the curtains near the landing.

  The chest was huge. There was ample room for the two girls to sit, though they did have to bow forward a little awkwardly. Victoria's neck was already beginning to ache, but she was buoyed by the thought that she might get one up on the awful Emily.

  'They'll never find us here,.' whispered Victoria.

  'No,.' said Margaret and giggled.

  'Shhh,.' said Victoria, but then she giggled herself. 'Emily talks such rot,.' she said eventually. 'I bet she's never been here before in her life. She always has to pretend she knows something about every- thing. Did you see the look on her face when the lightning flashed?' She giggled again. 'I wish he really was wandering about the house - that murderer who was supposed to live here . . .'

  'Don't say that,.' said Margaret.

  'Oh come now, silly,.' said Victoria. 'Emily was just trying to frighten everyone.'

  Victoria found that if she craned forward a little she could just see through the keyhole of the chest, but there was nothing to see but the side of the bed. She could feel Margaret's wet dress against her leg and shivered.

  Victoria listened to the muffled comings and goings of children on the other side of the bedroom door, as Emily and her sister hunted through the house. The rumble of footsteps would every now and then be interrupted by shouts and shrieks and girlish laughter as another pair of cousins was discovered. And each time Victoria and Margaret giggled, certain that they would be the last to be found. But as time went by, Victoria began to wish that someone would come in and open the chest. It was very dull in there with this girl she barely knew, though she was thoroughly determined not to give herself up.

  It was uncomfortable. It was stuffy and musty and surprisingly cold. Margaret's clothes had not dried out at all, and everywhere that Victoria touched seemed to be wet. She was sure she could feel water seeping through her dress.

  Victoria put her eye to the keyhole again and gasped as something suddenly passed by, blocking her view. She instinctively pulled back. Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered Emily's ghost story, but the view quickly cleared to reveal white dresses and petticoats. It was Emily and the other girls, climbing on to the bed.

  'Shut the door, Susanna,.' hissed Emily. 'We'll get shot if we're found in here.'

  'So come on, Emily,.' said one of the girls. 'You promised to tell us the rest of the story.'

  Victoria was filled with rage, clenching her fists until her fingernails sank into her palms. They had never been looking for her at all. Emily and the others had assumed Victoria would not get a partner and would simply go back to her mother. How she hated them. How she hated them.

  She was about to jump out of the chest there and then and give them a piece of her mind, when another option presented itself. She would let Emily tell her ghost story, and when her audience was good and scared she would leap out and give them the shock of their lives. It did mean she would have to listen to Emily's tedious tale, but it would be worth it. She would have to hope that Margaret could keep quiet.

  'So tell us about the murderer, Em,.' said one of the girls.

  'Well,.' said Emily, settling back against the headboard. 'He was called Bartholomew Garnet, as I said. He wasn't a relative or anything.' There was a collective sigh of relief. 'He married into the family for money.' The girls tutted and murmured.

  Victoria sneered inside the chest. How she hated these stuck-up little princesses. She could not wait to see their faces when she jumped out.

  Emily, meanwhile, went on to tell the cousins how Garnet was a doctor, bu
t not a very successful or wealthy one, who hadn't got a penny of his own. The woman who married him - a distant relative of Emily's father, called Charlotte - was his patient.

  'She was a widow, very plain, Papa says, and was much older than he was. She was flattered by all the attention she was getting from the young Dr Garnet.

  'She was already ill when they met - he was treating her. He was devoted to her and used to come at all hours of the day and night if she called. Everyone thought him a saint and any suspicions they had that his interest was solely in her money were extinguished over time. They married at Charlotte's insistence and she died not long after.'

  'Murdered!' said one of the girls excitedly.

  'Actually,.' said Emily, 'she really was ill.'

  'But I don't understand,.' said Annabel, who was sat at the end of the bed. 'You said he was a murderer. You said he was hanged. Not much of a scary story, Emily.'

  Victoria stifled a chortle inside the chest. Emily was such a terrible storyteller. This must be the least frightening ghost story she had ever heard. She was tempted to jump up there and then but she would give Emily one more chance to explain how this pathetic-sounding doctor came to be hanged and haunting the house.

  'I haven't finished yet,.' said Emily crossly. 'He was hanged all right. And I've seen a photograph of him I'll have you know, and if you'd seen his face, you wouldn't be so smug. He had awful, cold, piercing eyes. Even in a newspaper picture you could see how horrid he was.'

  'Maybe he was wrongly hanged, horrid eyes notwithstanding,.' said another girl.

  'He was not wrongly hanged,.' said Emily in an exasperated voice.

  Garnet had confessed to murder, Emily told them. He was tried and convicted and, apparently, when he was hanged outside Newgate prison he appeared to look into the crowd and turn his face away, screwing up his eyes and begging the hangman to get on with the job. Witnesses said it was as if he saw his victim standing in front of him.

  'Shhhh!' said Annabel. 'What was that?'

  The girls became instantly silent and their eyes were wide open like startled deer. Victoria held her breath inside the blanket chest; she felt sure they could all hear her beating heart. But it was not Victoria whom Annabel had heard.

  The sound of slow and heavy footprints could be heard in the corridor outside the bedroom door. They were some way off, but were coming closer. The girls stared at the door handle. The footsteps came to a halt. A floorboard creaked plaintively.

  'I don't like it,.' wailed one of the younger girls. 'Make it stop.'

  Instantly the footsteps sounded again - faster this time and louder as they approached the door. Again there was a horrible silence. Then the handle rattled and the girls shrieked as the door creaked open.

  'What on earth?' said the slightly flustered middle-aged man who appeared in the doorway. 'I'm not sure you should be in here, you know.'

  'Sorry, Uncle Giles,.' said Emily, recovering her wits and smiling coyly. 'We just talking, sir. We will leave if you want.' Uncle Giles smiled, embarrassed by the attention of so many females.

  'I'm sure you are doing no harm, ladies,.' he said knowingly, and tapped the side of his nose. 'You carry on. Adieu, my lovelies.'

  Uncle Giles fingered his moustache rakishly and left with a bow. Emily made a vomiting face and everyone did their best to stifle their giggles. They all began to settle themselves down once more.

  'Where was I?' said Emily.

  'You were saying that old what's-his-name was really guilty and really hanged -' began Annabel.

  One of the girls interrupted to suggest that perhaps if Garnet had been wrongly hanged, that was probably why he haunted the house, because she had heard that ghosts are always annoyed about something. Another girl agreed, saying that her mother went to spiritualist meetings in London and had told her that ghosts were unhappy spirits.

  'What are you talking about?' said Emily finally. 'I never said Garnet was the ghost.'

  All the listeners, including Victoria, gave Emily a puzzled look.

  'If not him, then who?' Annabel asked.

  'His victim, silly,.' answered Emily with a sigh.

  'But you said Charlotte really was ill - so did he kill her or didn't he?'

  'Well,.' said Emily with another sigh, 'if you would just let me finish, for goodness' sake. The ghost wasn't Garnet, or his wife.'

  Emily went on to explain to her puzzled listeners that the victim was an orphan girl the kindly Charlotte had taken in from a local orphanage. Charlotte could not have children herself and doted on the girl. She was even going to be a bridesmaid at the wedding.

  Charlotte already had a bad heart, but it was the mysterious disappearance of this girl that sent her into the illness that killed her. She and Garnet married as planned, but after Charlotte's death, when he had finally inherited all her money, Garnet turned himself in to the Justice of the Peace, admitting everything.

  'But why did he kill the girl?' asked Annabel.

  'It turns out that the girl saw the good doctor with the governess, canoodling in the shrubbery,. ' said Emily.

  'Canoodling?' said one of the smaller girls.

  'Kissing and cuddling,.' said Emily, hugging herself and puckering her lips obscenely. The girls rolled around, giggling.

  Emily went on to explain that the doctor had been pretending his love for Charlotte just to get her money all along. He sent the governess away, promising they would be together after Charlotte died. But Charlotte's adopted daughter threatened to tell her mother what she had seen. Garnet panicked and killed her.

  He got away with the murder completely. The girl was wayward and unruly and everyone but Charlotte thought she had simply run away. Garnet helped to encourage the impression by stealing some jewellery and trinkets to make it appear as though the girl were a thief as well as an ingrate.

  'What a beast!' said Emily's sister. Victoria shifted uneasily inside the chest. Her skirts and petticoats were uncomfortably wet now and she had become less sure about jumping out in that state, for fear that the effect would be more amusing than frightening. Perhaps she would wait until they had gone.

  'Why did he own up?' said one of the girls.

  'He said the girl started to haunt him,.' said Emily quietly. 'She would appear suddenly, staring at him accusingly. In the end his mind snapped and he handed himself in.'

  'How did he kill her?'

  'He smothered her and hid her in a blanket chest until he could carry her out and dump her in the lake. They found her body tied to a big boulder by a rope. They say she wanders the house to this day, water still dripping from her clothes . . .'

  Victoria burst from the chest like a crazed jack-in-the-box. As she had hoped, the girls in the room were suitably terrified. Two of them needed smelling salts to bring them out of a faint and one of them required laudanum to calm her when she came round.

  It took two servants to restrain Victoria while another was sent to fetch her parents. She was screaming continually, only stopping when her voice would no longer function, huddled in a ball by the bed, staring at the empty chest.

  I looked down at the photograph once more and saw this time that the smudge was no fault or fingerprint, but the blurred image of a young girl in a white dress; and the expression on the man I now knew was Garnet, which I had taken for arrogance, was actually more like the expression of someone holding their hand over a candle flame.

  It really did look as if Garnet could see Margaret while no one else could, although something about his expression suggested that he was desperately trying to pretend that she was not there.

  'The fog seems finally to be lifting,.' said Uncle Montague, who was now standing by the window. 'You really ought to think about leaving, Edgar, while it is still light.'

  I had been growing a little concerned about the approaching dark myself. It had only been my resistance to walking home in the fog - and my concern for my uncle's well-being - that had kept me so long. Besides, I was starting to feel as though I
myself might become unhealthily influenced by my uncle's mental state were I to stay.

  'Yes, Uncle,.' I said, getting to my feet. 'Perhaps I should be getting along. I do not wish to worry Mother.' I winced a little at this transparent lie. My mother would barely have noticed my absence.

  'Of course, Edgar. I am flattered that you would listen to the ramblings of an old man for quite so long.'

  'Not at all, sir; I have been fascinated to hear your stories,.' I said. 'And I shall look forward to coming back and hearing more.'

  I stood a little self-consciously. I was of an age when I was still unsure of myself in such formal matters as greetings and partings. I had decided that I would shake my uncle's hand, but it didn't feel correct to do so while he was still seated and he showed no signs of getting up. Instead Uncle Montague smiled and picked up an old brass telescope that had been standing on the table next to his chair. Holding it to his eye he looked out of the window towards the woods. The smile seemed to disappear from his face as if he had seen some scene of great sadness to him.

  'Uncle?' I enquired.

  'It's nothing,.' he said rather unconvincingly.

  'I could not help noticing the telescope, sir,.' I said. 'It looks like something a ship's captain might use.' Uncle Montague looked at the telescope in his hand but made no response. He merely looked back towards the woods.

  'Uncle?' I said again.

  'Forgive me, Edgar,.' he said. 'I should not detain you. I have taken up enough of your time.' Still he did not stand, and once again looked down at the telescope.

  'Does the telescope have a story?' I asked.

  'Everything has a story.' Uncle Montague sighed. 'Everything and everyone. But, yes,.' he said, cradling the telescope in his hands. 'This does have a particular tale to tell. But it can wait for another time.'

  I looked down at my uncle, who seemed suddenly older, and I had not the heart to leave him.

  'Please tell me, sir,.' I said, sitting back down.

  Uncle Montague smiled again.

  'You may not thank me for telling you, Edgar.'