The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales Read Free Page A

and his mistletoe bride.

Author’s Note

    When I was little, my parents had a book – Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain . Published by Reader’s Digest in 1973, it had a black cloth cover and a gold embossed image of a Viking, with beard and horned helmet. Inside, a cornucopia of stories that had endured for two thousand years. Divided into three sections – the ‘Lore of Britain’, the ‘Romance of Britain’ and ‘People of Myth’ – I was so entranced with the book, I flirted with the idea of applying to read Folklore Studies at university instead of English. My parents – sensibly – took no notice and the moment passed.
    And yet . . .
    It was in Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain that I first came across the story of ‘The Mistletoe Bride’. Several places in Britain claimed to be the historical setting for the story – Skelton in Yorkshire, Minster Lovell Hall in Oxfordshire, Marwell Old Hall in Hampshire, Castle Horneck in Cornwall, Exton Hall in Rutland, Brockdish Hall in Norfolk, and Bawdrip Rectory and Shapwick in Somerset. The Cope family of Bramshill House claimed to be able to produce the famous oak chest, in which the young bride was supposed to have suffocated. Grisly, oddly compelling, it is the sort of story that sticks in the imagination.
    The story of the Mistletoe Bride first appeared in 1823 as a blank verse poem, ‘Ginevra’, in Samuel Rogers’ book Italy . He made claim for the story to be ‘founded on fact, though the time and the place are uncertain.’ However, its popularity can be laid at the door of the nineteenth-century songwriter Thomas Haynes Bayly, who set the story to music by H. R. Bishop, and published it as ‘The Mistletoe Bough’ in his 1844 volume Songs, Ballads and Other Poems. It was an instant hit and became one of the most popular Victorian and Edwardian Christmas music hall songs.
    My parents’ book is long gone. I managed, some years later, to find an old replacement copy which sits now – the spine missing and in pride of place – in my study where I write. In idle moments, I take it down and let it fall open at a page of its own choosing. Lose myself for an hour or two.
    In memory of those long and happy teenage days reading back in the 1970s, I wrote two versions of the story of the bride who vanished on her wedding day for this collection. This, the first of them – a ‘white lady’ story – is dedicated to my wonderful mother and my beloved father, who died in 2011.

DUET

    Pinewalk Heights, Bournemouth
October 1965

Duet

True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad?
    from ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’
EDGAR ALLAN POE
    ‘It was the smell.’
    ‘The smell?’ I say.
    ‘No reason for it and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t notice it, not at first. I was that busy. Working all the hours God sent, looking for a promotion. First step on the ladder. And I had a girl – nothing serious, but nice enough. Willing enough, if you know what I mean – so I wasn’t much home.’ He stops to sigh. He enjoys sighing. ‘Those days, I did all the right things. Fitted in. Making my way, then. Going up in the world.’
    I nod. ‘Yes.’
    He meets my eye, then his gaze slips away again. Embarrassed, though here there’s no need for that. Within this room, there’s no need to worry about what people might think. Past all of that now. He licks dry lips. Another glance that slips over me and away. Easier like that. Less personal.
    ‘So, what with one thing and another, I was barely there. That’s the situation. Why I hadn’t got around to it.’
    I nod again. ‘Yes.’
    ‘On the up, I was. Had big plans. So, yes, as I was saying, what with one thing and another, I hadn’t got