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WRITERS EYES / ASCRIBER Uniting Writers Around The World Online Writing Group
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by
Dollybird
THE CHIMNEY
The Cornish cottage was one hundred years old with a Delabole slate roof and a
chimney at each gable-end.
Their marriage spanned a mere three weeks.
`Unlock the front door, Allie.` Pete was paying off the taxi.
Alison took her eyes away from the birds perched on the television aerial and
caught the keys when her new husband tossed them to her. She knew why she was
given this job and so she opened the white painted door and stood waiting
outside.
`I`ve been looking forward to this.` Pete dumped their cases on the path and
gathered her up in his arms.
`My Knight-in-Armour.,` she managed to say before he set her down on the other
side of the threshold and kissed her until she was dizzy. How she loved him!
`Put on the kettle, Wench,` he told her. `We`ll unpack later.`
Pete`s parents had left milk and bread and home-cooked ham and salad, so the
“Wench” provided the “Knight” with a good meal after which she told him:
`You take the cases upstairs darling and I`ll clear up down here.`
Alison gave him a peck on the cheek and turned to open the window behind the
sink. She took off her engagement ring and put it on the sill; it twinkled in
the spring sunshine.
When she had cleared up the kitchen she joined Pete in their bedroom. He had unpacked his case and, being a tidy sort of chap, had put away his clothes in the large mahogany wardrobe and the chest of drawers. There was also a large double bed, a pair of bedside tables and an upholstered chair beside the fireplace. She had no time to unpack her case because her new husband claimed her undivided attention for a while.
Afterwards she opened the bedroom window and it was then that she remembered
her ring.
I had better go and get it and put it on again, she thought.
`Shalln`t be a minute,` she called as she ran down the stairs and back into the
kitchen. The window was still open, letting in the fresh air. But the window
sill was empty; her ring was not there. Her lovely sparkling diamond ring was
gone.
She looked at the ring finger on her left hand. Only the gold wedding ring was
on it and not the engagement ring.
I put it there while I washed up, she thought to herself.
Searching high and low and still not finding it, she tried to remember if she
had put it somewhere else.
`No, I put it there on the window sill,` she said aloud.
Time went by without Alison bringing herself to tell Pete about the missing
ring. What would he say? Would he be furious? She could not risk his anger;
in fact she had never ever seen him annoyed, at any rate not with her.
She had to go to bed every night with her secret. If Peter noticed that she
was worried, he said nothing to her. The loss weighed heavy on her; she could
not eat. Her husband seemed not to notice that she toyed with her food.
Perhaps it was because he knew his parents were coming to stay.
`We must get all those cardboard boxes unloaded before they come,` he said.
Some of the boxes were filled with Alison`s belongings from her flat. So she
threw herself into putting away her clothes and setting the few bits and pieces
of household items she possessed in the kitchen and dining room and sitting
room.
Strangely, she had the fancy that her diamond ring would be in one of these
cartons. She had looked high and low for the lost band of gold with its
precious stone set in platinum to no avail. Peter still did not know it was
missing.
Some days she went out into the garden. She had already looked under the kitchen window where her ring might be but she found nothing. She took to searching among the back garden grass and flowers. It was completely crazy, hunting in the outdoors. But it was not indoors so where on earth was it?
The black birds on the chimney seemed to be chuckling as they looked down upon
the silly girl.
`Chacck kyow` they seemed to call out to her.
`Don`t laugh at me, you stupid birds,` she shouted at them.
They went flying around the cottage roof most of the time but if she put out
some crumbs they alighted boldly quite close to her.
She saw they each had a black head, like a flat cap and grey on the back of
their neck. Their light-coloured eyes never missed a thing and their beaks
were short and sharp.
One night, the weather turned foul. A gale blew from the southwest and rain
hammered on the panes of the bedroom window. It was not shut tightly and it
flew open and the curtains flapped in the high wind.
Pete got up to stop the rain coming in and Alison pulled the bedclothes up
around her neck.
Suddenly there was a clatter, a rattle and a bang.
`Put on the light, Pete, something`s fallen down the chimney I think.`
The light would not work.
`Electric`s off,` Peter told her and he picked up the torch he kept on the
bedside table.
He shone the beam towards the fireplace.
An untidy mess of sticks and wool and paper had cascaded onto the carpet.
Everything was black with soot and the dust made the two people cough.
`A jackdaw`s nest,` said Pete.
`Those, cough cough black birds on the roof?`
`Yes, I understand that they make nests in chimneys, year after year.`
`Wait a minute! What`s that?`
Peter shone the ray of light on something among the debris.
`Something sparkly.`
Alison stared at the shaft of light picking out the glint in the untidy heap.
It could not be her ring could it? How did it get there? She had not been
near that fireplace.
Her husband put out his other hand and single out the piece of jewellery.
`It can`t be! Yes it is! It`s your engagement ring, Allie.`
Much later, after Alison had admitted that she had been worried sick about
losing it, they hugged each other over and over again.
`Those jackdaws! They steal your ring and decorate their nest with it and
cause a lot of trouble.`
How they laughed when they told Pete`s parents about the burglars.
Comments
Opening: 7
Character(s): 6
Dialogue: 7
Setting: 6
Plot: 7
Suspense: 5
Ending: 8
Enjoyment: 8
comments: Nice tale, warming and a pleasure to read.
Andy Bee