Every evening before bedtime, Lady Overton had come to her daughters’ room to brush their hair. One hundred strokes every night, with the lovely brush backed with mother-of-pearl that had belonged to Lady Overton’s grandmother.
Eleanor had endured this ritual because she knew her mother enjoyed it so, but she was without any great vanity about her appearance. Lydia on the other hand had been obsessive in this regard and in particular about her beautiful, long red hair.
Lady Overton had always told herself that she did not favour one girl above the other, but the truth was that she had always favoured Lydia. Eleanor knew it, and Lydia knew it.
To their mother, Lydia was like an angel come down to earth. This was, however, an act that Lydia had perfected for Lady Overton alone. To everyone else she was more devil than angel – and particularly to her poor sister.
It was Eleanor who was the real angel. She knew that her mother was not capable of thinking ill of Lydia and so saw no point in upsetting her mother with the truth about her wayward twin.
Despite the fact that Lydia showed her nothing but disdain and cruelty, Eleanor protected her sister and covered for her, even on occasion taking the blame for some of her more unsavoury activities.
This kindness did not endear Eleanor to her sister. Far from it. Lydia despised her for what she saw as weakness and was happy to see sweet Eleanor ignored or chastised by their foolish, deluded mother.
But all this passed Lady Overton by. Or at least it did for many years.
Then one day she caught Lydia stealing from her – only the day after a servant had been dismissed for a number of petty thefts about the house.
Lydia had been caught red-handed, taking money from the locked box in which Lady Overton kept cash for household expenses – something Lydia did on a regular basis, having long since acquired a copy of her mother’s key.
Suddenly a veil seemed to be pulled aside in Lady Overton’s mind and Lydia’s true character was now revealed in all its naked guile. Instead of begging her mother’s forgiveness, Lydia simply began to giggle.
Lady Overton’s world came tumbling down. She could say nothing. She turned from her daughter and walked briskly up the grand marble staircase heading for her room.
Lydia, seeing that the game was up, felt no further need to disguise her true nature. She followed her poor mother up the stairs, shouting one piece of foul abuse after another.
Lady Overton put her hands over her ears to try to block out the sound, but Lydia caught up with her mother and grabbed her arms to pull those hands away.
Lady Overton pushed her daughter aside. It was just one push. But it was a violent one, powered by a savage sense of disappointment and hurt.
There was a cry and a terrible succession of thuds, each more sickening than the last. Lady Overton turned to see her daughter at the foot of the marble stairs, a pool of blood spreading out from beneath her lovely hair.
‘Help!’ she cried. ‘Oh God. Help!’
Servants came rushing out. Daisy, the under-parlourmaid, dropped to the floor in a faint when she saw the blood, cracking her own head open in the process.
The scene was utter chaos until Higgins, the butler, arrived, and sent for the doctor. Lady Overton sat on the top step in a state of shock, hugged by Eleanor.
It occurred to no one that Lydia had suffered anything more than an accident. Everyone knew how much Lady Overton doted on Lydia and no one could have suspected her of any involvement in the girl’s fall. Lydia had not been popular among the servants and, though none would have wished her dead, none mourned her with any great conviction.
When Lady Overton finally came out of her daze, she had managed to suppress the unpleasantness leading up to her daughter’s death and her own part in it, at least to the watching world. At night, however, those moments revisited her, clawing at her sleeping mind.
Lady Overton devoted herself to the funeral arrangements and Lydia was laid to rest beside her ancestors with all the gravitas the surviving Overton family could muster.
A shrine to her memory was erected in the hall with an alabaster likeness on a small table and a vase which Lady Overton kept constantly stocked with freshly cut flowers.
Eleanor bore her mother’s devotion to her dead twin sister with all the good-humoured fortitude she had shown when Lydia was alive.
She would have happily foregone the nightly ritual of the hair brushing, but she knew that – though her mother could never have voiced it – the exercise gave her mother a brief moment to imagine that Lydia was still alive and looking back from the gilded mirror.
And so it was that Lady Overton stood, half entranced by the repetitious action, her heart aching with a boundless melancholy. The sadness she felt at Lydia’s death was tinged with a bitterness she could not acknowledge, a bitterness born of the revelation of Lydia’s true character and her own part in her daughter’s death.
The brush slid down the long red hair and it seemed to flow like liquid, like a long waterfall of red and gold.
Her daughter smiled at her from the mirror and Lady Overton smiled back, before looking out into the night once more, away to the resting place of her other daughter.
Lady Overton was startled to hear a piercing shriek. It was surely an owl, but it sounded so human. It was difficult to tell from which direction it came and there were owls all over the estate. But it did seem as though it came from the direction of the family mausoleum.
Lady Overton was sure she detected some movement in the blackness at the base of the trees, near to the wrought-iron entrance gate. She stopped brushing and peered into the darkness.
‘Mother?’ said her daughter. ‘Is something the matter?’
Lady Overton looked back at the mirror and at Eleanor’s concerned face.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not.’
She resumed her brushing. But moments later there was another shriek. She looked out of the window and this time there could be no doubt.
‘Did you hear that?’ she asked.
‘What, Mother?’ asked Eleanor.
‘You heard nothing?’ Lady Overton said with a frown.
‘No, Mother,’ she replied. ‘What is it?’
‘An owl,’ said Lady Overton. ‘I think I heard the old barn owl. You know what an unearthly din they make. You didn’t hear it?’
‘No, Mother,’ said Eleanor.
‘Never mind,’ said Lady Overton. ‘It was an owl. Nothing more.’
Lady Overton looked out of the window again and was alarmed by what she saw. There was something moving. Something – somebody – dressed in white was moving down the path towards the house.
Though it was dark, Lady Overton could see that the figure stopped occasionally to look back towards the trees, towards the family tomb, and then carried on towards the house.
The clouds parted and the opal moon shone weakly across the grounds. Lady Overton could see the figure clearly now. It made no sense and yet she could not doubt the evidence of her own eyes.
The stranger (it was a woman, surely – no, no, a young girl) looked up at the window at which Lady Overton stood, stopped and stared. Then she turned to run with great determination to the door of the house.
‘Mother?’ said her daughter again. ‘What is the matter?’
‘I don’t know, my darling,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I thought I saw something outside . . .’
‘Saw something?’
But whoever had been outside was now inside. Lady Overton had heard the door slam, and feet were pattering up the very marble stairs poor Lydia had tumbled down just months before. She could hear those same feet coming towards her along the hall. She could see the door handle move and the door slowly open.
‘Oh my God,’ she said, dropping the brush to the floor as the door creaked open. Her daughter walked in, her white gown edged with dampness. Lady Overton grabbed the back of Eleanor’s chair for support.
‘Mother,’ said her daughter, standing in the doorway. �
��Do you not know me?’
Lady Overton’s grip on the chair tightened. She felt as though it was the only thing keeping her upright.
‘Lydia!’ said Lady Overton. ‘God forgive me. I am so sorry. I did not mean to do it. It was an accident. I –’
‘Please, Mother!’ said her daughter. ‘For pity’s sake: Lydia is dead. I am Eleanor – Eleanor, Mother.’
Lady Overton seemed to struggle to take in this information and she blinked as though dazed. Eleanor? Eleanor?
‘Something terrible has happened, Mother,’ said Eleanor. ‘I have sent Higgins to deal with it.’
Lady Overton turned and saw some figures running off towards the cypress trees, dissolving into the darkness as if consumed by it.
‘Someone has broken into the crypt. Oh, Mother. Grave robbers! They have taken Lydia’s body!’
‘Lydia’s body,’ repeated her mother mechanically. ‘Grave robbers.’
‘Mother!’ said Eleanor. ‘Please. You must lie down – you must . . .’
Eleanor did not finish the sentence. She could see something reflected in the mirror. What was that behind her mother? There was something sitting on the chair. She moved to get a better view and gasped in horror.
‘Mother!’ she cried, putting her hand to her mouth and recoiling in horror. ‘What have you done? What monstrous thing have you done?’
Lady Overton’s mind seemed to have fogged and she was finding it unaccountably difficult to concentrate on what was happening. How could this be Eleanor, when she had been brushing Eleanor’s hair the past half hour?
‘Look at what you’ve done,’ screamed Eleanor. ‘Look at yourself!’
Eleanor ran from the room and Lady Overton looked at her hands as she reached out to call her back. They were covered in mud, her fingernails broken and bleeding. Her dress was likewise filthy and torn, stained with mould and laced with dusty cobwebs.
Slowly, slowly she turned to look in the dressing-table mirror. It was not Eleanor who looked back. It had never been Eleanor; she understood that now.
The face that stared back at her – if the word face could properly describe the grinning horror that lolled atop that shroud-covered corpse – was Lydia’s.
Lady Overton remembered now: remembered how she had gone to the mausoleum in a madness born of grief and guilt; remembered how she had opened up the grave with her own bare hands and carried her daughter’s rotting corpse to the place where it now sat, revealed for what it was, just as Lydia’s true nature had been revealed before her death.
But Lady Overton’s heart could not bear the weight of that dreadful recollection and struck its last beat as the clock in the room sounded the first stroke of midnight. She fell dead to the floor, a few strands of Lydia’s long red hair still clenched between her fingers.
Mr Munro took a deep breath and surveyed the room full of upturned faces. How pale they seemed, he thought with satisfaction. A bell suddenly rang out and Mr Munro put his book down on the desk.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘There we have it. I hope that you have not found the stories too disquieting.’
‘Oh no, sir,’ said a girl on the front row enthusiastically.
‘I am very pleased to hear it,’ said Mr Munro.
He put the book back in his briefcase, clapped his hands together and took a deep breath.
‘Well, it was a pleasure to meet you all,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘Perhaps we shall meet again.’
‘For more stories, sir?’ said a boy.
‘Perhaps,’ said Mr Munro. ‘Perhaps. Well – goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, sir!’ shouted the class in unison.
Mr Munro picked up his briefcase and, nodding to the class, he opened the door and walked out into the corridor.
The other pupils were milling about, changing classrooms and teachers. He winced at the noise of scraping chairs and loud voices. He would go to the office and find out which classroom he was in next.
‘Mr Munnings?’ said a voice behind him.
It was Mrs Nesbitt, the head teacher.
‘Munro,’ he corrected.
‘Where have you been?’ she said sternly.
‘I’m not sure I appreciate your tone of voice,’ he replied.
Two girls sniggered as they passed by.
‘Well, I am very sorry to hear that,’ said Mrs Nesbitt. ‘But I’m afraid this is unacceptable.’
Mr Munro sighed.
‘Is there a problem?’ he asked. ‘I realise my stories are quite challenging, but I find that most childr—’
‘Mrs Mildew had to cover for you whilst you disappeared to wherever you disappeared to,’ said Mrs Nesbitt. ‘She was supposed to supervise the music hall rehearsals and –’
‘Cover for me?’ said Mr Munro. ‘What on earth do you mean? I was with 7UM as you requested.’
Mrs Nesbitt took a deep breath.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I have no idea what you think you are trying to achieve by this nonsense. If you were not able to do the job, then why come to the school?’
‘But, my dear woman –’
‘I am not your dear woman,’ said Mrs Nesbitt. ‘I am not anyone’s dear woman!’
‘Really?’ said Mr Munro. ‘You do surprise me.’
‘Very well,’ said Mrs Nesbitt. ‘If you were teaching 7UM, then I’m sure they will remember you.’
Mr Munro smiled.
‘Oh – I’m sure they will.’
‘Then let’s go and ask them, shall we?’ said Mrs Nesbitt. Mr Munro shook his head and followed her.
‘Did you even bother to come into the school?’ said Mrs Nesbitt.
‘As I have already explained,’ said Mr Munro with a sigh, ‘I followed your instructions. I walked past the hall and went into the first classroom on the right and –’
‘On the left,’ corrected Mrs Nesbitt.
‘Right,’ said Mr Munro. ‘You definitely said right.’
‘I can’t have done,’ said Mrs Nesbitt.
‘I assure you that you did,’ said Mr Munro. ‘And more to the point, perhaps that is the source of the confusion. What I do not understand is that in my whole time teaching the class, no teacher came in. Who would have looked after those children had I not been there?’
Mrs Nesbitt had now come to a stop and was listening to Mr Munro’s speech with the expression she was often wont to use on pupils when they made their excuses about missing homework.
‘Could I ask you to just pop inside the classroom you say you were teaching in, Mr Munro?’ she said.
There was something about Mrs Nesbitt’s tone of voice that made him suspicious, but Mr Munro agreed and opened the door.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
The room was filled with rows of desks, each with a computer on it.
‘No,’ said Mrs Nesbitt. ‘Neither do I.’
‘But I taught in this classroom not more than a few minutes ago,’ he said. ‘It had a blackboard, a globe over there. It was very convincingly decked out as a Victorian classroom. There was a map on the wall showing the British Empire . . .’
‘This room hasn’t been used as a classroom for years,’ said Mrs Nesbitt. ‘It is our IT room, as you can see.’
‘But I don’t –’
‘I think it’s best if you leave, Mr Munro,’ said Mrs Nesbitt coldly.
Mr Munro stared at the classroom one last time and then walked into the hallway. In desperation he grabbed the door handle of the opposite classroom and opened the door.
But he knew he had not turned that way when he first walked to the classroom. Mrs Billings, the class teacher, looked concernedly at him, and the class stared until Mrs Nesbitt pulled him by the arm and coaxed him away.
‘Mr Munro,’ she said. ‘I really must insist.’
Mr Munro nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course, of course.’
Mrs Nesbitt walked him to the office and said that she would have to make a formal complaint. Mr Munro nodded. She walked him all the
way to the gates. She seemed eager to make sure he was off the property.
‘Goodbye, Mr Munnings,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said absent-mindedly, too distracted to correct her. ‘Goodbye, goodbye.’
What a very peculiar man, thought Mrs Nesbitt to herself as she returned to her office. The Victorian class photograph caught her eye as she was checking her emails. She stood up and walked across, peering at the photograph.
‘That’s impossible,’ she said to herself.
There in the photo, looking out of the window behind the children and their teachers, was the pale face of the man to whom she had just said goodbye.
Mr Munro decided to walk home rather than catch the bus. It was a long way but he felt that the fresh air might help. It didn’t.
All the way home he thought about the classroom. In some thoughts it would be full of children, in others, full of computers.
‘How?’ he mumbled to himself. ‘How could something like that happen? How could I be so wrong?’
An old lady who was walking past smiled benignly at him as if she saw a kindred muttering spirit. He scowled at her and quickened his step.
‘You’re exhausted,’ he told himself. ‘When was the last time you took a holiday? A proper holiday, I mean.’
He stopped and took a deep breath. Yes – that must be it. He had worked himself to a state of such exhaustion that he was actually seeing things. He would take some time off. Take a cottage in the country, perhaps?
Mr Munro decided to visit the library on his way home. He always felt comforted by the presence of books. He decided that some Romantic poetry might calm his mind and settled down at a desk with a collection of Keats.
After a while, he did feel a little better. The incident at the school still seemed horribly vivid though. Could he really have imagined those children? He shivered at the thought. Was this how madness began, he wondered.
Mr Munro called in at his favourite café and had a soothing cup of tea. Everything always felt better after a pot of Earl Grey.
But neither the tea, nor the poached egg he had with it, worked its magic today and though he tried to lose himself in The Times crossword, those children would insist on derailing his train of thought. He decided to give up and go home. An early night, that was what he needed.
The Teacher's Tales of Terror Page 4
