Shiverton Hall, the Creeper

Shiverton Hall, the Creeper by Emerald Fennell

Book: Shiverton Hall, the Creeper by Emerald Fennell Read Free Book Online
Authors: Emerald Fennell
Ads: Link
encouraging.’
    ‘They’re very –’ Arthur struggled to find something complimentary – ‘arresting.’
    ‘Yes,’ Mrs Todd said with half a smile. ‘So the school has sent you oldie-wrangling, then? Bad luck. Not much fun for a boy your age to have to spend his afternoons with an old bat like me.’
    Arthur didn’t know how to respond.
    ‘How is Shiverton, then? Is Long-Pitt still the headmistress?’
    ‘She is,’ Arthur replied.
    ‘Is she still as grim as ever? Why on earth that woman wanted to teach at a school, I’ll never know. Hates children!’
    ‘She certainly doesn’t like me,’ Arthur agreed.
    ‘Oh, she doesn’t like anyone. I wouldn’t worry about it. Cake?’
    Soon Arthur and Mrs Todd were chatting like old friends. Mrs Todd had been an actress, and her mantelpiece was filled with photographs of her as a young woman.
    ‘Absolutely gorgeous, wasn’t I?’ she said, looking wistfully at a black and white photo of herself dressed as an Egyptian queen. ‘Ah, to be young.’
    She turned her mascara-caked eyes to Arthur. ‘Tell me about yourself, Albert. Tell me about school. Do you have a girlfriend? Boyfriend?’
    ‘Er . . . girlfriend ,’ Arthur stressed. ‘No, I don’t. The last girl I liked turned out to be . . . well, a bit of a monster.’
    ‘Oh, there are a lot of monsters at Shiverton Hall,’ Mrs Todd said with a shudder. ‘Haven’t been to that place for years – gives me the creeps.’
    ‘It can be pretty creepy,’ Arthur admitted.
    ‘You know an acquaintance of mine, an author, went there to write a book once.’ She looked down at her lap. ‘An awful business,’ she said quietly.
    ‘What happened?’ Arthur asked.
    ‘I probably shouldn’t . . .’ Mrs Todd replied. ‘It’s not a very nice story.’
    ‘I have a friend who would kill me if he knew I’d passed up an opportunity to hear a Shiverton story,’ Arthur said.
    ‘Well, all right,’ Mrs Todd said, clearly thrilled to have the opportunity to perform. ‘Maybe just this once. You’re not easily frightened, are you?’

Payment Please
    Antony Richmond was a genius. Everyone agreed. His first book, Under Her Feet , was published when he was only nineteen, and he had become an overnight sensation in 1950s London. Under Her Feet was swiftly followed by Ladybird , another hit that took America by storm and made him tremendously rich. But, as with many young men who have seen success too early, Antony Richmond panicked. Every time he sat down to write, he froze. His hand would cramp around his pen and his mind would turn as white and empty as the page in front of him. Soon a year became two, and two became five, and the literary circles in London began to joke about him. A bout of writer’s block became ‘having an Antony Richmond’, and even Richmond’s publisher was beginning to lose patience with him.
    Richmond decided that he needed to get out of London, away from his sneering so-called friends and the flashy flat he had bought with his ever-diminishing Ladybird fortune. He chose a place called Deia, a small village on the Spanish island of Majorca. Many beautiful stories had been written about the place and Richmond felt that a bit of warmth in his bones would be just the thing to unblock the ink in his pen.
    He took a small, spartan house on a hill, overlooking the glittering sea and the honey-coloured village, and spent his days wandering around the hillside, jotting little notes in a book and drinking wine in the local bar. He had tried to write a few sentences sitting at his desk with the cool breeze blowing the muslin curtains romantically about him, but no matter how glorious the setting, he could not think of a single thing to write.
    At his wits’ end, and with the summer turning into a drizzly autumn, Richmond started to pack up his things. He would have to get a job teaching at some provincial university, he thought miserably, and eke out the rest of his life as a punchline, occasionally

Similar Books

The Hourglass

Casey Donaldson

Continuum

Susan Wu

DANCE WITH THE DEVIL

Sherrilyn Keynon

When Sparks Fly

Autumn Dawn

Unbreakable Bonds

Aliyah Burke, Taige Crenshaw