Christmas Tales of Terror (5 page)

As was tradition, the servants were relieved of their duties after they had received their presents and it was his mother who brought out the cold cuts and cheeses for their supper.

All day, John had noticed that Charles was constantly looking at him and smirking to himself as though he was enjoying some secret joke at John’s expense. But it was not until supper that John found out what the source of this amusement was.

‘Charles and I have some news,’ said Uncle Henry as he pushed his plate away and poured himself another glass of port. ‘Charles and John are to be schoolmates!’

John stared at Charles, who grinned back at him darkly.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful, isn’t it, John?’ said John’s mother hesitantly.

John could think of nothing to say. There seemed to be a roaring in his ears. He felt as though he might vomit.

‘You’ve been very happy at Furnchester,’ said John’s father. ‘Haven’t you, my boy?’

John was very happy at Furnchester. He had friends there. He was popular. But now this was all going to come crashing down around his ears. Charles would humiliate him in front of everyone. He would lose all status in the school. He would be a laughing stock.

‘No!’ shouted John.

Even Charles stared at him in surprise.

‘John?’ said his mother.

‘No!’ shouted John, getting to his feet. ‘He’s not coming to my school. It’s my school and I won’t have that . . .’

He couldn’t think what to say. He couldn’t find the words to sum up his loathing of the boy who was leaning back in his chair now, staring at him in amused disbelief.

‘Swine!’ yelled John.

His mother gasped in horror and his father jumped angrily to his feet, grabbing hold of John’s arm tightly and shaking him.

‘You will apologise immediately!’ he said.

John stared at Charles with gritted teeth.

‘
I will not!
’ he hissed.

John’s father pushed him towards the door and pointed without looking at him.

‘Then you will go to your room!’

John took one last hate-filled look at the smirking Charles and then turned and left the room, stomping up the stairs, choking back tears.

John’s room was over the lounge and he could hear Uncle Henry and his father talking as they settled down with their cigars and brandy, their deep voices rumbling up through the floorboards.

There was a knock at his door and he opened it, expecting to see his mother come to check on him, but it was Charles. He burst in before John could stop him, grabbing him by the throat with one hand and closing the door behind him with the other.

‘Swine, am I?’ he said, staring into John’s eyes. Charles punched him hard in the stomach. John winced and groaned.

‘If you’re thinking of crying to your mummy about me, think again,’ said Charles. ‘I’m already enrolled at the school. I will make your life hell there.’

You make my life hell anyway
, thought John. Charles had pushed him up against the bedroom window and John turned away and looked out. The snowman was illuminated by the light from his room and almost seemed to be staring up at them. Charles followed his gaze.

‘And tomorrow I’m going to smash that thing to little pieces. We have to keep these family traditions alive, eh?’

Just at that moment, the door opened and they both turned to see his mother standing in the doorway. Charles, with practised ease, had released John even as the door handle was being turned.

‘Charles?’ she said. ‘What are you doing in John’s room?’

‘I was just telling him there were no hard feelings,’ he replied.

‘John?’ said his mother.

John nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Charles has been very decent about it.’

John’s mother eyed the boys suspiciously.        

‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘That’s good. Though it still doesn’t excuse your outburst, John. But back to your own room now, Charles.’

‘Yes, Aunt,’ said Charles, walking towards her. He turned as he reached the door. ‘Goodnight, John.’

‘Goodnight,’ mumbled John.

John’s mother moved out of the way to let Charles past, and then looked at her son, but he would not meet her gaze and she left the room.

John felt numb. He got undressed in a trance and looked out at the snowman one last time before closing his curtains and getting into bed. He could not sleep and was still awake when, two hours later, his father appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the landing light.

‘I am very disappointed in you, John,’ he said. His voice was slurred slightly and a little hoarse. ‘Very . . . very disappointed.

‘Not content with disgracing yourself earlier, I also find out that you struck your cousin in the nose this morning. Your uncle tells me that Charles has already spoken to you, which says a lot for the boy’s character, I must say. You, on the other hand, have failed to show any sort of remorse for your behaviour.

‘I ought to thrash you, John, but you know that is not my way . . . and so I’m afraid that I’m going to confine you to your room until I decide that you have learned your lesson.’

John’s father fumbled with a set of keys, dropping them on to the carpet and stooping down to pick them up. He sounded out of breath when he spoke again.

‘You have a chamber pot in here for your needs and I shall send Mary up with a sandwich tomorrow. Goodnight.’

With that, he shut the door and locked it behind him.

John wished his father had thrashed him. Anything would have been better than the terrible disappointment he could hear in his father’s voice. It chilled him to the bone.

John climbed out of bed and went to the window. It was dark outside. All the house lights were out now on this side of the house, but the snow gave off a spectral glow.

He looked forlornly down at the snowman, who now seemed less to be looking up at his room, but at the room next door – Charles’s room.

Charles would go out tomorrow and set about destroying it. This would be the last time John saw it intact and he burned with anger at the thought. Charles seemed to be systematically poisoning every part of his life. He was a disease.

‘No!’ said John quietly – bitterly – to himself.

John woke after a disturbed sleep and, looking at his watch, he saw it was already gone eight o’clock. He jumped out of bed and went to the window. The snowman was still there. But standing beside it was Charles. He was leaning on a spade he must have found in the gardener’s shed.

John wondered how long his cousin had stood there in the freezing cold, waiting for John to open his curtains. His face was red and he was blowing into his hands for warmth.

Grinning, Charles lifted the spade and swung it at the snowman’s head. He had clearly intended to knock the head off but mistimed his swing and only caught it a glancing blow.

John had closed his eyes as soon as the spade was swung, unable to watch, but when he opened them, he was puzzled to see no more than a small chunk removed from the top of the snowman’s head and Charles doubled up, holding his own head with both hands.

John wondered what had happened. Had Charles somehow hit himself with the spade? John grinned. Served him right! Charles looked up, rubbing his head, and saw John smiling. Furious, he took up the spade again and rammed the blade into the snowman’s body.

As soon as he did so, he let out a great groan that seemed to echo round the stillness of the snow-covered garden, and then he fell backwards into the snow, staring up at the grey sky above.

John watched in amazement as Uncle Henry burst out through the french windows.

‘Charles!’ he yelled, picking his son up and shaking him. ‘Charles, my boy!’

But even from his vantage point, John could see that Charles was dead.

John’s father ran out and joined Uncle Henry in bringing Charles inside. He could hear his mother crying and servants running this way and that.

John was about to turn away from the window when he noticed the spade lying in the snow next to the wounded snowman. Torn and hanging from the edge of its shining blade was Charles’s blood-soaked handkerchief.

The doctor said that Charles’s heart had given out, but could offer no explanation as to why. Some hearts were simply weaker than others, he said. Perhaps standing in the cold for so long had been the trigger.

Charles’s attack on the snowman had been witnessed by a servant from an upstairs room and Uncle Henry admitted that this spiteful behaviour had not been completely out of character for his son. He told them tearfully that he had been forced to move Charles from his previous school because of his appalling conduct.

John’s confinement was forgotten and he was free to leave his room once more. He repaired the snowman and it stood sentinel right up until the day of Charles’s funeral, when the weather turned unseasonably mild and it melted away entirely, leaving only a few pieces of coal to mark its passing.

It was a sad day, but John bore it bravely.

4

Frost

Aubrey Baxter walked briskly along the road, taking care not to slip on the frosted cobbles. The air was damp and malodorous in the gloom beneath the railway arch. He was trying to keep up with his father, Reverend Baxter, who had insisted that he accompany him on a visit to one of his parishioners. On Christmas Day!

‘Come now, Aubrey,’ his father had said when the boy protested. ‘Surely there can be no better way to celebrate Christmas Day than by visiting those less fortunate than ourselves.’

Aubrey could think of a dozen ways without effort. Less fortunate, they might be, thought Aubrey, but at least they would not have to trail across town in the freezing cold. Even the wretched quarry workers were allowed to do as they wished on Christmas Day.

Aubrey stepped into the relative brightness of the open street beyond the arch, squinting through his wire-rimmed spectacles. He sniffed twice and, pulling out a handkerchief, wiped his nose. He wondered if he was getting a cold. There had been so much coughing and sneezing in the church at the morning service, it could only be a matter of time.

Looking down the rows of terraced houses, he marvelled, as he always did, at the incredible change there was between this side of the railway tracks and his own.

They lived in the old heart of the sleepy market town of Deeping Bradbury, or what had been its heart before the railway had arrived and the quarry had opened. That part of town could have been a different place altogether, a different country.

Aubrey knew his father felt troubled by how comfortable their lives were, when so much of his real work was here, on the other side of the tracks, among the quarry workers and their families. He was keen for his son to understand how lucky they were. But Aubrey did understand. Unlike his father, though, he was content to enjoy that luck without guilt.

‘Merry Christmas, Reverend.’

‘Merry Christmas, Jim,’ Reverend Baxter replied, acknowledging an old man’s tip of the hat with a nod and a brief tug at the brim of his own.

‘Not too cold,’ said the old man.

‘Not too bad,’ said Reverend Baxter, as they passed each other on the pavement.

Bad enough,
thought Aubrey to himself with a shiver. Even the coldness seemed to be different here. It was damper. It seemed to slip into your lungs and cool you from the inside.

To make things worse, Reverend Baxter and his son had been invited to have Christmas dinner later with Major and Lady Harcourt. This was the third such invitation and he was dreading it. Had they really been in this awful town for three years? Had it really been that long since his mother had died?

Aubrey’s father stopped in front of one in a long row of small, near-identical houses and rapped at the door with his gloved knuckle.

‘Reverend Baxter!’ said the large, red-faced woman who opened the door. ‘How lovely of you to visit. Today of all days. And this must be your son. Ain’t he the spit of you? Come in, come in.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Barker,’ said Reverend Baxter. ‘It is frightfully cold out there.’

‘Ain’t much warmer in here, Reverend,’ said Mrs Barker, showing them through to the tiny front room. ‘What with the price of coal and such.’

‘Quite,’ said Aubrey’s father. ‘Indeed.’

This turned out to be no idle warning, for Aubrey was sure that it might actually be slightly colder in the house than it was outside, given how dark and damp it was.

A small boy, younger than Aubrey, skinny and in short trousers despite the time of year, sat at a table, ignoring them as they walked in.

‘And here’s my nephew, Arthur. Ain’t you going to wish the vicar merry Christmas, you little tyke?’ said Mrs Barker. ‘Arthur? Arthur?’

‘Merry Christmas,’ mumbled the boy without looking up.

Aubrey could see now that he was drawing.

‘Sit down, Reverend,’ said Mrs Barker. ‘Sit down, er . . .’

‘Aubrey,’ said Reverend Baxter.

‘Sit down, Audrey,’ said Mrs Barker. ‘Ain’t never heard that for a boy.’