Victorian Ghost Stories by Mike Stocks

Author:Mike Stocks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd
Published: 2013-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

Out they came. Looking just as Tom had described him, if not even worse, John walked slowly past. I tried to catch his eye, but he glanced neither left nor right. He looked so ghastly that the crowd hesitated, not sure whether to throw their rice, and a mood of intense gloom seemed to settle over everyone, pervading the churchyard with a feeling almost of despair. It was at that instant that the cheery wedding peal petered out, replaced, within a few seconds, by a sound which made my heart stop: a single, mournful, tolling bell; the grim knell of a funeral…

I looked at May, holding onto John’s arm and staring down blankly at the ground. She was shivering, as though utterly freezing, and she was almost as ashen as he was. Her wedding dress of white silk added to the effect, so that the only part of her which wasn’t deathly-pale was her dark-brown hair. She looked as if she was in a state of shock.

Suddenly the bellringers came tumbling out of the church door, panic etched on their faces. In a confused scramble, they pushed the relatives of the bride and groom out of their way.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” someone in the crowd shouted at them.

“It’s not us!” one of them replied, his eyes wide with terror. “We don’t know what happened, we were just, we…the bells are playing themselves! There’s no one up there!”

Apparently unaware of the confusion and fear this claim provoked, John and May reached the carriage waiting to take them to the reception and climbed in. The door slammed shut behind them.

“May God have mercy on them,” I heard old Tom whisper in a hoarse voice.

Half the crowd began to babble and talk, while the other half walked away in frightened silence, some crossing themselves. I suddenly found Mr. Forster, May’s father, standing at my side.

“If I’d seen him in that state before the service I’d have called the whole thing off,” he muttered. “And you, Peter – how did you allow him to arrive in that condition? Why were you late?”

“I’m so sorry, I…”

“There’s no use in apologizing, man! The damage has already been done.” A mixture of anger and sadness flashed in his eyes. Then he turned his back on me, marched away and went to comfort his wife, who was crying quietly by the church door.

I was feeling quite ill from a mixture of emotions: shame and embarrassment at missing the service, and, well, outright fear about John and May. What on earth was going on? Even so, I decided that I had to do the best I could from that point on, and I began to escort people into the carriages that were to take them to the reception. Soon the carriages were full, and we were ready to set off.

The bride and groom’s carriage went first, with the other carriages following. However, the pace was so slow that it was like being in a funeral cortège rather than a wedding procession.

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