Old English Bar - Chapter 1

the first chapter to a murder mystery. still not sure if i should continue

Chapter 1

 

The darkened room met her eyes as she awoke at what she thought must have been, dew to an inability to find her watch, four o’clock in the morning, where in reality two thirty in the morning. But she always thought clocks and watches where frightening, so there probably was a reason for why she couldn’t find it.

 

She sat up in bed, her thick quilt supplying no resistants at all, for it had come un-tucked dew to the nights tossing and turning she had become accustomed to. Many times during the week she had this sudden need to wake up, to the point she had large bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. Something she had not been accustomed to. This time there was a sent in the air, and un-known smell of iron witch she couldn’t think of the source, this smell, she had only one other recollection of it. When she went to see young Dr. Tessler science show, but nun of her street had electricity yet. In fact no one in the aria had it at all, so where could this come from.

 

Her skin prickled as if she had just pulled a large woollen jumper from her bare skin, and a taste lingered in her mouth of copper and fostfurous like she had just drunk from the taps at a bathhouse.

 

The room still and pitch black, only the slight change in the darkness outlining the details of the room. Silent, only the sound of her heavy breathing keeping a rhythmic beat of a blacksmiths bellows. Her eyes where fixated on a non-point, as they normally where wile she thought, like she was looking right through the wall.

 

 

She stood up dressed in her night wear, leaning over to strike a match to light the lantern, the flame burn her fingers as it always did. She stepped aside to let the flames light lace the room in moving shadows, as it danced in its glass container. She liked her fingertips and glanced around the room, scanning for the source of these odd sensations. The carbon on her fingers, overpowering the slight hint of copper. On first glance she saw nothing out of the normal revolution against cleanliness, which was her room.

 

The stars still twinkled through the still and lifeless cretins of her opened window, no breeze nor movement outside. She sat on the edge of her bed, still gazing into nothing. There was a bang on the floor, and a voice yelled out that shocked her out of her daze. The sounds seem to hurt from the sudden thudding noise sound hitting relaxed ears. “Turn that light out, you’ll attract the insects!” the shrill voice of her mother reverberating off the inside of her scull. “Jacquelyn Harris Murdoch! I know you can hear me… Snub out that lantern” Jacquelyn could hear her mother mumbling to herself in hushed tones below her.

 

“It will be out soon mother,” she said, her voice hurting slightly from inactivity.

 

“It better be or….” her voice to trail off, she had fallen back into her slumber from witch she was woken by the light a few moments ago. Pondering to herself for a few more minuets before she put out the light again and resting on her head in the pillow, finally slipping into doze again after a few moments, not to awaken again until light brakes through her window.

 

 

The morning came like an unwanted friend knocking on your door, or in this case slapping you in the face, but when is that wanted?  Dredging herself out of bed Jacquelyn found herself adequately tired enough to go back to sleep, but she had chorus to do. Many tedious little jobs that where hardly necessary in her mind but she would do it anyway, or mother would take her books.

 

She had learnt to read in the workhouse, to try and teach the other young girls that found them destitute or orphaned. She thought, if the men could work so could she, but this never really prevailed, she would just get laughed at buy the men in the street when ever she tried to lift something or fix the broken shutters. She never said this out loud for fear of ridicule or belittlement. But she always knew it to be true.

 

Stepping over the mess on the floor and stepping lightly to the door, she opened it lightly. And started ti walk down the hall. The doors on either side where filled with young girls all orphaned lost or left at the door. Most of them had grown up in the workhouse like her, and they all called madden Turnbull, mother. This was life.

 

Jacquelyn walked down the hall rapping on the doors before opening them; all the girls where getting up or sitting getting dressed, she continued down the hall saying, “breakfast in half an hour.”

 

Jacquelyn walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Madden Turnbull was standing at the far end of the table in the large dining room adjoining the small kitchen. She was slicing bread for the girls. There was 16 girls including Jacquelyn, but there was never enough food for them all. Some needed to just have bread and milk. This made her sad, but that’s all they could do for these poor girls. She went to help mother, slicing the bread wile she buttered it. Sleepy footsteps came quietly down the stairs shortly after she had placed the milk and bread.

 

As the girls got seated, there seemed to be one too many girls. This didn’t strike her at first… but slowly Jacquelyn started to realise they had a new girl in the house, but this also didn’t come as a shock, there was always new girls coming in and out, they just all needed to adjust.

 

“Let me get you a chair young one” mother said in the fake love filled voice she uses to impress people. She walked into the next room and wobbled back in to dining room holding the big wooden chair that sat in the fire room. She put it down next to the new girl who smile peeked on her lips, almost like an involuntary twitch but there was a small smile. “There you go” Jacquelyn continued, “just like everyone else.” The girl sat down shyly and looked at all the girls nibbling at the peaces of bread they had, trying to save it like it was there last crumb.

 

By this time mother had finished buttering her bread, she laid it out on a plate and sat it down in front of the new girl just sitting down.

 

As Jacquelyn sat down she said “so what brings you about our little house?”

 

The young girl just looked at her with a look on her face that could only be described as terror and ultimate sorrow, almost instantly her eyes went rose red, and puffed up liked small a small girls does when her cat had died, Jacquelyn felt such sorrow for this young girl, “oh my god, I’m so sorry.” She said as she went to get up to comfort the young girl but it was too late, she got up and ran hysterically towards the front door. She dove at the big brass handle and the door flung open and she left into the freshly laid snow outside.

As Jacquelyn got to the door she was nowhere to be seen, she had disappeared. She lent on the door frame, and looked out onto the street, there the roofs atop all the houses and buildings where covered in a thin layer of snow, with specks of black through out it, from the coal dust. She looked down at the floor to see small foot prints from the young girl, they led out to the street in front of her, Jacquelyn followed them carefully, and perhaps she hadn’t gone far.

 

The footprints were light in the thin layer of snow on the floor. So the were hard to follow, but Jacquelyn was good at this sort of thing, she once found one of the girls when they had gotten stuck in a snowdrift. The tiny little footprints led her off down the small street, but they strayed off down a smaller cat ally way that past just under Jacquelyn’s window. ‘She must of panicked trying to find a place to hide’ she thought, but when she tuned to look down the small road to find the small girl completely paralysed in the middle of the road, Jacquelyn ran to her to catch her as she fell, making it just in time.

 

As she picked the girl up she felt that same feeling, the hair on the back of her neck prickled like she had just been shocked, the taste of copper… it was all very odd. She picked the girl up and started to carry her to the front door, she took her to a bed up stairs where the girl passed out. 

 

Reviews

[Matthew Ian Herrawood W]

ok i found the first paragraph a little hard to understand when it came to the nitty gritty details but i get that she has odd sensations. Alot of the words are spelt wrong but not because its got the wrong letters is missing one or somthing like that but because its the wrong word like nun insteade of none or witch instead of which once again mostly in the first half though there were a couple words missing a letter but they were clearly accidentle. i was woundering about "mother" is it Madden or Madam. madden sounds like a electronic rugby or grid iron game. i also have to ask what time this is set in because i got the feeling from "An old english bar" the murder took place in a time without watches. apart from that i found this very interesting and i would like to read more but be sure to start the Mystery solving soon. nice write