The Teacher's Tales of Terror (2 page)

BOOK: The Teacher's Tales of Terror
4.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Martha, her mother and her brother, Vernon, had been in Whitby for three days now and so far the holiday, such as it was, had been a joyless affair.

Martha’s father had died almost six months previously and they had been dressed in black ever since. Their mother had promised that Martha and her brother might each have a piece of jet jewellery as a memento of this holiday. Martha was to have a brooch, Vernon a pair of cufflinks.

Martha had loved her father dearly. He had been so unlike the fathers of most of her friends. He had been kind and sweet-natured. He had taken a genuine interest in what she was doing. She missed him terribly.

But still she longed to have some colour in her life again. A piece of scarlet ribbon would have been enough. And she knew her father would not have disapproved.

The shop bell did momentarily rouse Martha from her melancholy mood, but it quickly returned when she remembered that they were shopping for jet – black, black jet.

The sunless little shop was jammed with cabinets and those cabinets were in turn crammed with jet jewellery of all sizes and designs. But it was as though they were in a jewellery shop for undertakers.

The whole point of jewellery was to sparkle and delight, thought Martha. It was meant to be pretty. It was meant to be frivolous and divine, not morbid.

This jewellery, on the other hand, was more like a collection of dead beetles. A funereal display of black brooches, earrings, hatpins and necklaces glimmered darkly from dusty cabinets.

At one end of the room there was a counter behind which stood a plump man whose face was baby smooth. He patted his chubby, pink fingers together and said, ‘Good morning,’ as they entered the shop.

Martha’s mother bowed in reply and the man asked if there was anything he could assist her with.

‘Cufflinks!’ said Vernon excitedly.

The man eased himself out from behind the counter and showed Mrs Thriplow and her son a selection of cufflinks in a nearby cabinet. Martha sighed ostentatiously but was ignored.

Reluctantly she gazed about the shop, rocking back and forth, heel to toe. She thought she may as well pick out something not too ghastly so that she could be ready when her mother asked and thereby curtail the boredom of this tiresome expedition.

A cabinet stood only a foot away and Martha peered in with a sour expression, as though she was looking at a bucket full of cockroaches. To her surprise, her attention was immediately taken by a large brooch.

Whereas all the other jet pieces in the shop windows of the town were either plain or horribly ornate, this piece was quite the strangest thing she had ever seen. The shopkeeper was hovering in attendance as Martha’s mother pointed out another pair of grotesque cufflinks.

Martha leaned towards the case and squinted at the brooch. Suddenly the shopkeeper was at her side.

‘May I be of some assistance, miss?’ he asked, making her jump.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Erm – yes. Could I have a look at that brooch?’ Martha pointed to the brooch that had caught her eye.

Martha’s mother bristled. She disapproved of her daughter taking the initiative – a trait she blamed on the indulgence of her dear departed husband.

‘Of course,’ said the shopkeeper with a thin smile. ‘Let me unlock that cabinet for you.’

The man took a bunch of keys from his waistcoat pocket.

‘It’s that one,’ said Martha. ‘Do you see? The one with the sort of circle on it.’

‘Ah,’ said the man. ‘A very interesting piece indeed. You have a good eye, young lady.’

Martha was unused to flattery and blushed immediately. Vernon giggled. Their mother sniffed disapprovingly. She knew what ‘interesting’ meant: it meant expensive.

The man tried several keys before he eventually found the right one and opened the door. The hinges creaked so much that Martha thought she must be the first person who had ever asked for it to be opened.

The shopkeeper reached in and picked up the piece, and held his gloved hand out to Martha. Freed from the dusty cabinet, the brooch seemed to glisten like a raven’s eye.

‘It’s a lovely thing, is it not?’ said the shopkeeper.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Martha. ‘Isn’t it, Mother?’

Martha’s mother leaned over and peered down her long nose. Vernon sighed and made a great play of looking bored whilst waiting for his turn.

‘What about my cufflinks, Mama?’ whined Vernon plaintively.

‘It is a curious design,’ said Mrs Thriplow. ‘I can’t say I care for it.’

‘It is a snake,’ said Martha, taking up the brooch and studying it. ‘Do you see, Mother? It’s a snake eating its own tail.’

Mrs Thriplow’s expression made it quite clear that this did not make the object any more attractive to her.

‘That is correct,’ said the man approvingly. ‘It is called a uroboros.’

‘Urob—’ began Martha.

‘It is an ancient symbol of the cyclical nature of the universe, of infinity, of eternity.’

‘Oh,’ said Martha.

‘Heathen nonsense,’ snorted her mother.

‘Quite,’ said the shopkeeper with a bow.

‘Heathen,’ repeated Vernon disapprovingly.

Martha turned the brooch over in her hands.

‘Ow!’ she said. The pin had pricked her finger. A tiny bead of blood twinkled on her fingertip.

‘Yes,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘That is rather sharp, I’m afraid.’

‘Please may I have it, Mother?’ asked Martha, using the unnaturally sweet voice she saved for such occasions.

‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Thriplow with a sniff.

‘But I thought we were to have a souvenir of our holiday, Mother. I could wear it in remembrance of Papa,’ said Martha.

‘I hardly think –’

‘But, Mother,’ persisted Martha, her voice trembling a little as she sucked at the blood on her finger. ‘Don’t you see how perfect it is? It reminds me of the cufflinks Father used to wear.’

Mrs Thriplow looked puzzled. Martha stifled a sob.

‘Yes – you remember,’ she said. ‘The snake’s head ones.’

Mrs Thriplow did remember those cufflinks. They were ghastly and she seldom let her husband wear them. It had often been a struggle taming his vulgar tendencies when it came to cufflinks and tiepins. She would certainly not be allowing any such outlandishness in her son’s choice of adornment.

‘I suppose there is a vague similarity . . .’

Martha burst into pitiful sobbing.

‘Martha, really,’ said her mother. ‘I do wish you might find some way of restraining these outbursts. If it really means that much to you, I suppose –’

‘Oh, thank you, Mama,’ said Martha, from behind a large handkerchief.

The handkerchief was lowered as soon as Martha’s mother went to the counter to pay. Martha smiled. Vernon scowled. Martha frowned threateningly and Vernon backed away.

‘What about my cufflinks?’ asked Vernon as his mother put her money away.

‘I think I’ve spent quite enough money for one day,’ she said, looking at the shopkeeper. ‘Good afternoon.’

‘Good afternoon, madam,’ he replied. He bowed to Martha as she left. ‘Good afternoon, miss.’

Once they were outside, Martha held the brooch up and inspected it properly. It looked so different in the daylight. The highlights glistened in the sunshine but, if anything, the blackness of the jet seemed even deeper, even blacker.

She had not appreciated how detailed the carving was on the snake as it curved its way round the brooch: each scale was painstakingly inscribed and the face – particularly the needle-sharp fangs and the cruel eyes – was astonishingly lifelike.

Martha pinned her new brooch to the collar of her coat and the family continued on their way up the narrow lane to the long flight of stone steps that led to the church and abbey on the cliff top.

‘It’s not fair,’ said Vernon once they were ahead and out of earshot of their mother.

‘Life isn’t fair,’ said Martha, looking at her brooch.

‘Anyway, it’s horrible,’ said Vernon.

‘What would you know?’ said Martha.

‘I know something’s horrible when I see it,’ he said.

‘So do I,’ she replied, glowering at him.

Brother and sister glared at each other until their mother puffed up the last of the steps to stand beside them.

‘Come along,’ she panted. ‘Come along.’

The Thriplow family explored the abbey ruins and visited the church of St Mary with its odd, ship-like interior. Then they walked among the rows of eroded, salt-scarred headstones of the graveyard.

Martha was fascinated by the way some of the graves seemed to be plunging right over the cliff, as the wind and tides gnawed at its foundations. Would the church tip into the sea one day, she wondered. Or the abbey? Nothing stayed the same. Everything changed. She looked at her black-clad mother peering at a headstone.

‘Why does everything have to change?’ she said. She looked down at her brooch and had an urge to take it off and hurl it into the sea. She missed her father terribly all of a sudden. She blinked and a tear trickled down her cheek.

The family returned to their hotel on the opposite side of the bay and ate their supper in near silence. They retired early, and even Martha’s outrage at having to share a bedroom with her brother did not get its usual outing. She was simply too tired. She was asleep in an instant.

 

When Martha reached for her coat to look at the jet brooch the following morning, she found instead only the silver backplate and pin it had been attached to. Her surprise was replaced by anger almost immediately.

Martha strode over to her brother’s bed and shook him roughly awake.

‘What?’ said her brother sleepily. ‘What’s the matter? What –’

‘You know exactly what’s the matter, you horrid little sneak!’ said Martha. ‘What have you done to my brooch?’

‘Your brooch?’ said Vernon. ‘I haven’t touched your silly brooch. It’s ugly and vile and I wouldn’t touch it for all the world.’

Martha slapped him across the face.

‘Liar!’ she hissed.

‘I shall tell Mother!’ said Vernon, holding his face.

‘Of course you will, you little weasel,’ said Martha. ‘You always do!’

Martha’s mother had been passing their door and walked in to find Martha looming threateningly over her brother.

‘Martha!’ she hissed, having the foresight to close the door behind her in case another guest might happen by. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘He has taken my brooch,’ she said. ‘He’s broken it and stolen it!’

‘Martha, control yourself!’ said Mrs Thriplow. ‘Is this true, Vernon? Have you taken the brooch?’

‘No,’ wailed Vernon. ‘And she slapped me!’

Mrs Thriplow closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

‘Do be quiet, Vernon,’ she said. ‘What will the other guests think? Martha you will not strike your brother. Do you understand?’

‘But –’

‘Enough!’ their mother commanded, clapping her hands together. ‘I expect the brooch has simply fallen off somewhere in the room. Have you even looked?’

Martha was forced to admit that she had not.

 

A thorough search was undertaken but no brooch was found. To make matters worse, when asked by her mother, Martha was unable to say, without any doubt, that the brooch had been intact when they arrived back at the hotel after their walk.

Martha had been so tired she had taken her coat off without registering whether the brooch was still in one piece.

Mrs Thriplow explained the situation to the hotel manager and the hotel staff were quizzed without much success until another guest overheard and said that she had seen Martha arrive back and had noticed that the brooch seemed to be broken. She had been about to say something at the time, but her husband had called her away.

Martha was forced to croak a begrudging apology to her brother for wrongly accusing him. Mrs Thriplow puffed herself up into a state of outrage about shoddy craftsmanship.

‘We shall go back to that shop this very morning!’ she declared. ‘We shall demand that he replace that brooch forthwith.’

Mrs Thriplow had seen an opportunity to make her daughter come away with a more suitable piece of jewellery. Martha sighed and pushed her chair back from the table noisily.

‘I don’t want another brooch, Mother,’ said Martha. ‘That was the only thing in that horrid shop that was not vile.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Mrs Thriplow.

‘Could I look at the cufflinks, Mother?’ asked Vernon.

‘I don’t want to go back there,’ said Martha grumpily.

‘They have no right to sell shoddy goods, Martha,’ she replied. ‘It is precisely because so few people return and complain that these people continue to behave so abominably. I blame you, Martha.

‘I was on the point of leaving but you would insist on my buying you that frightful brooch. I knew there was something suspect about that awful man. Well, he will rue the day he decided to try to swindle Cornelia Thriplow!’

BOOK: The Teacher's Tales of Terror
4.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Audition by Tara Crescent
The Governess and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell
Exiled by J. R. Wagner
Me Before You by Moyes, Jojo
Ship's Surgeon by Celine Conway
Just One Season in London by Leigh Michaels
Surrender to Love by J. C. Valentine