Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror

by Chris Priestley

  'How did she die, Mama?' asked Christina, sitting up. Her mother looked away for a moment and clenched and unclenched her fingers.

  'She had a fall, my darling,.' she said. 'I had warned her so many times about that staircase but she would not . . .'

  Christina's mother closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them a tear ran down her cheek. Christina got up from the bed and ran over to her mother, hugging her. Her mother stroked her hair and Christina clung on tightly, rejoicing in this new closeness between them.

  Perhaps it was not too late to make amends. Christina had had a small taste of what it must feel like to be good, to be Agnes, and she liked it. Maybe it was not too late for her to change.

  Agnes came back to the bedroom a little later to find Christina still sitting where she had left her. To her surprise, Christina opened her arms wide and said how sorry she was.

  'Can you ever forgive me, Agnes?' she asked.

  'Of course I can,.' said Agnes, embracing her.

  'You're my sister. And I should not have hit you.'

  'I deserved it,.' said Christina. 'I was being beastly. I've been beastly for a long time but I'm going to change, Agnes, I promise.'

  The two girls clung tightly to each other until Agnes said that she felt tired and lay down on her bed. Christina sat by her, stroking her hair until she fell asleep.

  Christina was suddenly aware of a harsh ringing sound - a sound she took a little while to identify as the doorbell. The room seemed to have become suddenly darker. How long had she been sitting there? She went dreamily to the landing to see Bertha, the new maid, answering the door.

  Christina looked down the stairs as Bertha, looking very serious, went to fetch Mrs Webster, leaving two dour-looking men standing on the doorstep.

  Christina's mother went to the door and, after a good deal of talking, showed the men through to the morning room. Christina tiptoed downstairs. She wondered who the men were, but only for a moment. It did not matter. Nothing mattered.

  She stood in the hall and edged towards the photograph in the gilt frame. She knew exactly what she would wish for. She stood in front of the girl and the girl smiled back.

  'You do not look very happy,.' she said.

  'I wish,.' said Christina, ignoring the girl. 'I wish that everything was as it was before my mother brought you back from the auction.' Christina closed her eyes as she made her wish, but opened them almost immediately when she heard the girl giggle.

  'You look silly,.' she said.

  'Why haven't you granted my wish?' said Christina with a frown.

  'I have granted you three wishes, as I promised,. ' said the girl. Like a flash of lightning exploding in her head, Christina remembered her wish to have a room of her own and a scream rang out through the house, hanging in the air like gun smoke.

  The morning-room door burst open and one of the men ran through, followed by Mrs Webster. They ran pell-mell up the stairs as Bertha appeared on the landing, screaming once again and pointing hysterically. The second man stood over Christina, an odd expression on his face, his hands clenched and the muscles of his jaw twitching.

  Christina could hear footsteps and muffled voices coming from her and Agnes's bedroom. Why was that silly maid screaming so? She put her hands over her ears. Then she saw the photograph in its gilt frame. It became suddenly clear what she had to do if she was going to keep her promise to Agnes, if she really was to be a better person.

  Christina lurched forward and grabbed the photograph, smashing it against the banister. The crash shocked the maid into silence. Christina's mother stood at the top of the staircase and gasped as she saw her daughter standing in the hallway, the gilt frame in her hands and shards of glass strewn about the floor.

  'That will be enough of that, Miss Webster,.' said the man standing with Christina's mother. 'Please ensure that she does not hurt herself, Sergeant.'

  'Sergeant?' said Christina, as the man next to her stepped forward, towering over her ominously. 'Mother? Who are these men?'

  'They are policemen,.' said Mrs Webster, her body shaking, her face chalk white, her fingers clenching themselves repetitively into fists. 'Christina,.' she said, her voice dry and rasping. 'What have you done? What in heaven's name have you done? These men came to tell me such awful things and now . . . now your dear sister Agnes is . . .'

  'Me?' said Christina. 'Nothing, Mama. It was the photograph. It was evil and I have destroyed it.'

  'What photograph?' asked her mother, edging towards her down the stairs. 'What are you talking about?'

  'The photograph!' said Christina, getting angry. Her mother could be so infuriating sometimes. 'The one you brought back from that stupid auction. In a way all this is your fault, Mother. If you had not been so . . .'

  'But I never bought a photograph,.' she said. 'I bought a mirror.'

  Christina looked at her mother in utter confusion and then down at the floor, at the dozens of jagged pieces of glass reflecting back at her. There was no photograph. There had never been a photograph.

  She took this fact in just as the men came forward and grabbed her, holding her wrists and making her drop the gilt frame to the floor. As they led her away she began to remember.

  It had been her that had sent the note to the police about Eva not having the correct papers to stay in the country. She had overheard her mother and Eva talking about it.

  She remembered, too, how she had secretly visited her grandmother, getting in by the garden door, and persuaded the old woman to show her something in her bedroom, only to push her down the stairs and sneak out before any of the servants realised she had even been there - or so she had thought. But a neighbour had seen her and called the police.

  She remembered holding the pillow down on Agnes's face and how her hands had searched blindly for Christina's arms and clutched at them, trying to pull them off, until finally they had grown limp and fallen lifeless at her sides.

  Christina did not hang for her crimes as she might have done. It was decided that she was not of a sufficiently sound mind to be labelled a murderess. Her mother's inheritance was put to good use providing the best care at the very best asylum, and Christina's last wish was granted. She had a room of her own for the rest of her life.

  Uncle Montague leaned forward, the firelight dancing in his eyes, smiling rather inappropriately considering the grimness of the tale he had just finished.

  I looked across to the gilt frame hanging on the wall. If my uncle truly did believe that this frame was haunted in some way - that this frame was really the frame in the story and that story was true - then why on earth would he choose to have it on the wall of his study? I told myself that it spoke more of the irrational state of my uncle's mind than it did of the object, and yet once I turned away from the gilt frame, I had no desire to look again.

  I licked my lips, my mouth feeling strangely dry, and my uncle offered me another cup of tea, which I gratefully accepted. All this tea, though, had its inevitable effect, and I excused myself in order to pay a visit to the lavatory.

  In truth, I was never very keen on leaving my uncle's study alone and so put off such visits until I was on the point of doing myself some sort of mischief and almost had to run down the dark corridor to what my uncle always called the 'water closet'.

  Uncle Montague gave me a light to guide my way, of course, but though this banished some of the darkness ahead of me, I was all too aware of the awful blackness behind me.

  And locked inside the cramped lavatory I did not feel any more secure. There was a hole under the washbasin that I always found unsettling, having always had the foolish impression that something was peeping out and then retracting back into the shadows when I glanced down. A large web per- petually occupied a corner of the ceiling, though I never saw its maker.

  As soon as I was done and my hands washed as well as they could be in the coffee-coloured water that ran from my uncle's taps, I moved to unbolt the door - I always ensured the bolt was fu
lly home - and make the return journey with as much urgency as the outward bound one.

  But just as I was about to pull back the bolt, the door handle was given a vigorous rattle from the outside. The noise and sudden movement of the handle startled me to such a degree that I almost fell backwards on to the lavatory seat.

  'Hello?' I said. 'Uncle?'

  Again the door handle was given a shake and the door was pulled with such strength I feared the bolt would not hold.

  'Franz?' I said. 'I shall only be a moment.'

  A long period of silence followed where I pressed my ear to the door and tried to detect any activity outside. I could not rightly say what disturbed me more - the rattling at the door, or the fact that it seemed so disembodied. What I did know was that I could not stay in the lavatory for ever.

  I slid the bolt and opened the door. Peeping nervously out, I looked one way up the long corridor and then the other. For as far as I could see - which was not far - there was nothing to see. I stepped out and began at once to march off in the direction of my uncle's study.

  As ridiculous as it may sound, I was invariably seized with a strange dread of losing my way in that house. This sense of foreboding was heightened by the fact that I would be pursued by the mournful noise that came from the house's ancient plumbing when the chain was pulled on the huge and grotesquely ornate cistern. I was followed along the hallway by a noise that sounded as though a large animal had been caught in some kind of steam-driven machinery.

  The enormous shadow I cast seemed to be racing me, trying to overtake me as I sped along, and a scuttling sound - which may have been Franz, though I never did look round to see - echoed around the corridor, as if something were running up and down the walls. I burst rather dramatically back into my uncle's study, panting with relief.

  'Is everything all right?' asked Uncle Montague.

  'Yes, Uncle,.' I said. 'Of course. That is, there did seem to be someone trying the door of the lavatory.'

  'Was there now?' said my uncle, staring off at the study door and frowning. 'Did you see anyone, Edgar?'

  'No, sir,.' I said. 'I expect it was Franz.'

  Uncle Montague nodded.

  'It could have been.'

  'After all, sir,.' I added, 'you said we were alone in the house.'

  'Did I?' Uncle Montague murmured.

  I put the lamp on the small table by the door and was about to join my uncle by the fire when I noticed something I had not seen before: a framed pen and ink drawing of some foreign landscape.

  It was the kind of drawing that pulls you in to look at it and my uncle joined me in my examination of its skilful cross-hatching.

  'Ah,.' said my uncle. 'That is an Arthur Weybridge.'

  The name meant nothing to me, but I raised my eyebrows and tried to look impressed.

  'Where is it a picture of?' I asked.

  'A small village in south-eastern Turkey. Have you been to Turkey, Edgar?'

  'No, Uncle,.' I said. I had been nowhere but to school and back, and though my uncle should have known this by now, I rather liked the way he always asked.

  'Well, you must,.' he said. 'You really must. Does your father have no interest in travel?'

  'He likes to go fishing in Scotland,.' I said after a moment's thought. 'But he never takes me. He says I would get bored.'

  'And he is probably correct,.' said Uncle Montague with a half-smile.

  'Do you still travel, sir?' I asked.

  Uncle Montague shook his head.

  'No, Edgar,.' he said. 'I used to, once upon a time.

  But now I must stay here.'

  It seemed an odd thing to say - that he must stay in that house. My uncle had always struck me as a man of some means and I could think of nothing that should prevent his leaving. But then I wondered if he was referring to a medical condition I was unaware of. It might certainly explain much of his curious behaviour. I began to wonder if it had been he who had rattled the lavatory door handle.

  'Are you quite well, Uncle?' I asked.

  To my enormous surprise, after an initial silence he burst into a sustained bout of laughter. I could not think why what I had said caused my uncle such unrestrained amusement and it only confirmed my suspicion that his mind was troubled.

  'You think me deranged, do you not, Edgar?' he said, taking me by surprise by his apparent access to my thoughts.

  'No, Uncle,.' I said a little unconvincingly. 'You are tired perhaps?'

  Uncle Montague grimaced.

  'Yes, Edgar,.' he said almost under his breath. 'I am very tired indeed.'

  'Should I go and fetch Franz?' I suggested, moving towards the door.

  'No!' said Uncle Montague forcefully, grabbing my arm. 'Franz does not like . . . visitors.' He let go of my arm and I was lost as to what I should do for the best. Uncle Montague looked at me and sighed.

  'My apologies, Edgar,.' he said with a weak smile. 'I did not mean to startle you. Perhaps if we sat awhile by the fire?'

  'Of course, Uncle,.' I said, and we both walked to our respective chairs.

  We sat there in silence, the fire gasping and hissing, the clock ticking. My uncle began to drum the ends of his long fingers together rhythmically and I stifled a yawn.

  'Since we are here, Edgar,.' he said suddenly, making me jump, 'I could tell you about the drawing.'

  'The drawing on the wall? Very well, Uncle,.' I said. 'If it would not exhaust you.'

  Uncle Montague sank back into the shadows.

  'No, Edgar,.' he said. 'Thank you. I would rather be occupied. If you are willing to listen, then I am willing to tell the tale.'

  Francis Weybridge was bored. His father, Arthur Weybridge, found this boredom intensely annoying, but being a mild-mannered Englishman, he expressed his annoyance by humming a little tune to himself and tapping his shoes on the gravel beneath their table.

  The Weybridges, father and son, were seated in the tea garden beside the sacred carp pools in the town of Urfa in south-eastern Turkey in the twilight days of the Ottoman Empire. The sun had already disappeared over the nearby minarets and swallows were gathering to roost among the branches of the surrounding trees, squabbling noisily over their perches.

  'I fail to see how anyone could be bored,.' said Mr Weybridge. 'You are at the city once known as Edessa, the birthplace of Abraham, a place mentioned in both the Bible and the Qur'an. Look about you,.' said Mr Weybridge with a theatrical flourish. 'Do you really mean to tell me that you find this dull?'

  Francis made no reply but closed his eyes and sighed deeply, causing his father to hum once again, but this time a little faster. When Francis opened his eyes he saw a cat stealing up the tree beside them, disappearing behind the trunk and reappearing ten feet above their heads in the crook between two branches.

  'So far on this journey,.' said Mr Weybridge, 'you have been privileged enough to see Istanbul - the fabled Constantinople, jewel of Byzantium. You have stood beneath the great dome of Haghia Sophia. You have sailed along the Black Sea to Trebizond. You have travelled in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Was it all "boring"?'

  'Not all,.' said Francis.

  'Well, then,.' said his father. 'I'm pleased to hear that, at least.'

  It had not all been boring. Near Van he had seen a shepherd with a huge dog that wore a terrifying spiked collar. His father had told him it was probably to protect it from wolves. But this had been a small reward for such a tedious trip.

  Francis looked up again. The cat edged along the branch above their heads. Now Francis could see the reason for the frantic jostling for position of the roosting swallows: none of them wanted to be at the end near the tree trunk. The cat lunged forward, grabbed a swallow in its teeth and scurried down the tree with its prize.

  'This land is extraordinary, Francis,.' said his father, lighting one of the noxious Turkish cigarettes he had developed a taste for. 'Wave after wave of civilisations have washed across its surface, and yet there is still something primeval about it.
r />   'Jews, Christians and Muslims have all lived here and left their mark, but there is always the pull of something older, darker, more mysterious. Do you know there were pagans in Harran until the twelfth century?'

  Francis had learned that any answer resulted in a lecture, so he kept quiet. Harran was a town nearby they had visited the week before. It was full of beehive-shaped houses and was mentioned in the Bible. Francis had sat in the shade, watching his father draw while children buzzed about them asking for sweets.

  It was here that Arthur Weybridge had been told of a village that was just as ancient and just as picturesque, but that no one ever went to. They would be visiting the village tomorrow, and Francis was not keen.

  His father paid for their drinks and they walked back to the hotel. They ate well and Arthur Weybridge drank two gin and tonics, as was his custom, after which he began to tell Francis a long anecdote about his journey through the Russian steppes. It involved a Cossack and a three-legged dog and Arthur had already told it in Erzerum.

  'I'm tired, Father,.' said Francis, rising to his feet.

  'I think I'll turn in.'

  'Good idea,.' said his father, downing the rest of his gin. 'We have a tiring day ahead. Goodnight then, Francis.'

  'Goodnight, Father.'

  They left in the morning after a breakfast of bread, honey and olives, the hotel manager's brother-in-law, Mehmet, driving them out of Urfa at bone-jarring speed in a rather ornate black carriage Mehmet told them he had won from a Frenchman two years earlier in a game of backgammon.

  The village was on a track branching off from the main desert road to Syria. Francis's father had intended to draw the traditional houses and the nearby Roman ruins, but as they arrived they saw policemen standing around.

  Mehmet told them to stay in the carriage and went to find out what was happening. Moments later he returned with a man who introduced himself as the chief of police and told them that there had been a terrible accident: a boy had been attacked by a wild animal - a wild dog probably - and had been tragically killed. He could not be responsible for their safety while the beast was at large. He respectfully advised Mr Weybridge to draw somewhere else.