The Beggar's Curse Read online

  The Beggar's Curse

  Ann Pilling

  DEDICATION

  For Benjamin and Thomas

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Afterword

  Keep Reading

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The Ballad of Semmerwater

  Deep asleep, deep asleep,

  Deep asleep it lies,

  The still lake of Semmerwater

  Under the still skies.

  And many a fathom, many a fathom,

  Many a fathom below,

  In a king’s tower and a queen’s bower

  The fishes come and go.

  Once there stood by Semmerwater

  A mickle town and tall;

  King’s tower and queen’s bower,

  And the wakeman on the wall.

  Came a beggar halt and sore:

  “I faint for lack of bread.”

  King’s tower and queen’s bower

  Cast him forth unfed.

  He knocked at the door of the eller’s cot,

  The eller’s cot in the dale.

  They gave him of their oatcake.

  They gave him of their ale.

  He has cursed aloud that city proud,

  He has cursed it in its pride;

  He has cursed it into Semmerwater

  Down the brant hillside;

  He has cursed it into Semmerwater,

  There to bide.

  King’s tower and queen’s bower,

  And a mickle town and tall;

  By glimmer of scale and gleam of fin,

  Folks have seen them all.

  King’s tower and queen’s bower,

  And weed and reed in the gloom;

  And a lost city in Semmerwater,

  Deep asleep till Doom.

  William Watson

  CHAPTER ONE

  Someone was hammering on the Blakemans’ front door. Prill ran to open it, and tripped over a half-filled suitcase in the middle of the hall carpet. Her best friend Angela Stringer stood outside in the pouring rain. Her bubbly black curls had turned into limp ringlets, her anorak steamed, and there was a dewdrop on the end of her nose.

  “I’ve come for the address,” she announced, shaking herself all over the doormat, like a dog. “Can’t write if I’ve no address. And you’re off tomorrow, aren’t you?”

  “Shut the front door!” Prill’s father bellowed from the top of the stairs. “It’s blowing a gale up here. Come on, Colin, give me a hand with this will you.” All that was visible of David Blakeman were two legs sticking out of the loft. Colin went up the stairs and grabbed one end of a battered trunk, and Prill steered Angela into the kitchen.

  “Don’t tell me about the riding lessons,” she said, taking a pile of letters off the top of the fridge, “or I’ll be jealous.”

  “Oh, I should think you’ll be able to ride up there, it sounds very rural.” Angela tried to sound encouraging. “Better than sticking to roads all the time – that’s what I’ll be doing. That’s the trouble with a place like this, it’s not the real country.”

  But Prill was determined to be miserable. The one compensation for having to spend the entire Easter holiday at home, being looked after by their grandmother, was the promise of a few riding lessons with her friend. Now it was all off, and Angela was going with someone else, because Prill had to go to Cheshire with her brother Colin, and their ten-year-old cousin, Oliver Wright.

  It was all a big mistake, and Prill blamed her father. He was an art teacher who really wanted to earn his living painting portraits, and when he got a chance to spend his Easter holiday doing a retired judge, up in Scotland, it sounded too good to be true.

  It was. There’d been a misunderstanding somewhere. The children liked the sound of the pine forest and the moors; there was even a river with salmon in it. But Judge Cameron’s last letter had ended with a firm “P.S.”: “By all means bring your small toddler, but we regret that we cannot accommodate the older children, or dogs, as we have dogs of our own.”

  Dad’s second plan had been to ask Grandma Blakeman over to “live in” for three weeks. But that fell through too. At the last minute she phoned to say she couldn’t come because the old friend she lived with had broken her hip and gone into hospital. Mr Blakeman was stuck. He couldn’t persuade Grandma to leave her little house locked up, she was too worried about burglars and burst water pipes, and besides, there were two cats to feed, not to mention all the hospital visits. But he didn’t want to give the portrait up, and he couldn’t really afford to.

  Then Oliver’s parents came to the rescue. Grandma spoke to Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Phyllis spoke to Uncle Stanley. Why didn’t Colin and Prill go to Cheshire for the holidays, with Oliver? He was going to stay with a relative called Molly Bover, who took paying guests and would be delighted to have all three of them. And it would be so nice for Oliver.

  “Here’s Uncle Stanley’s letter,” Prill said glumly. “And here’s the address. Use the back of the envelope.”

  Angela nibbled her pencil and copied carefully, “Miss Priscilla Blakeman, c/o Mrs Bover, Elphins, Stang, near Ranswick, Cheshire.” Colin had come into the kitchen and was reading the address over her shoulder.

  “I wonder who ‘Elphin’ was?” he said.

  “A saint.” (Well, Angela’s father was a vicar.)

  “Really? It sounds more like a goblin to me. And Stang Ugh, nothing very saintly about that. It’s a horrible name.”

  “It isn’t in the guidebooks,” said Prill. “Dad looked. So it can’t be very interesting. It looks quite pretty though, on these.”

  They spread Uncle Stanley’s postcards out on the kitchen table. They were brown and faded, and had a faintly musty smell, like everything he sent them. Oliver lived in a shabby London terrace overlooking the Thames, in a small flat on top of a tall, thin house occupied by elderly people in bedsitters. Aunt Phyllis, his mother, was the housekeeper. She cooked their meals, made them take their pills, and ruled them all with a rod of iron, including Oliver.

  “It’s very pretty,” Angela murmured. “It’s got a duck pond with real ducks. And look at those nice old cottages. . . and those are stocks, aren’t they? It’s quite oldey worldey. What are you moaning for? I wish I was having the last week of term off, to go on holiday.”

  But Colin had turned one of the postcards over, to examine the back. Suddenly he gave a loud snort. “Stang Village,” he read, “1938. These pictures are nearly fifty years old. Isn’t that typical! Oliver’s father’s really stingy you know, he’s probably been hanging on to these for years, ‘just in case’. Honestly.”

  “Those ducks have probably died of pollution by now,” Prill said gloomily. “There’ll be a motorway running through the middle, I expect, and they’ll have a petrol station, and a great big supermarket.”

  Angela laughed loudly. It was such a hearty cackle that even Prill smiled. Then she caught sight of the ironing board and pulled a face. “Oh heck, I promised Mum I’d have a go at that lot whi
le she was out. She’s got to pack up the minute she gets back, and just look at it.”

  “It’s not too bad. You can just skim through it all, cut a few corners. . .”

  “Angela,” Prill shrieked, “we’re leaving home at eight tomorrow morning, and the ironing in that basket goes back to the ice age.”

  Euston Station was like Oxford Street on Christmas Eve, and the train was even worse. Half the people in London seemed to be trying to get on, shoving and pushing and wandering grumpily up and down, looking for seats. And to cap it all, The Blakemans were late. The train was so full the guard agreed to let them put their dog in his van. She was a large Irish setter, lovable but mad, and crowds excited her. They were still trying to settle her down with all the parcels and packages when the train left the platform, and she was barking furiously at whoever walked past.

  “Quiet girl, quiet,” coaxed Colin. He felt sorry for the poor dog, squashed in between two bicycles with nothing to lie on and nothing to eat. “Molly Bover must be OK,” he said to Prill. “She said she liked dogs, when she wrote to Dad. Gorgeous walks round the village she said, too. It could be all right.”

  Prill remembered the note, written on what looked like the back of a butcher’s bill, in the most beautiful, flowing handwriting. “Yes, she did sound nice. Not a bit like a relation of Oliver’s. Where is he by the way?”

  “Up at the front. In a reserved seat. I bet Aunt Phyllis got him to Euston at about five o’clock this morning. We’d better go and find him, I suppose.”

  They followed their parents down the train. Prill soon lost sight of her mother, but there was no danger of losing Alison, her little sister. She hated the jolting carriages, the noise, and the big sweaty faces thrust up against her as people squeezed past. She howled solidly till Mrs Blakeman found a spare seat and sank down into it with a sigh of relief.

  “I’ll take the kids up to Oliver,” Mr Blakeman said. “There might be a couple of spaces, you never know.”

  Alison bawled louder as Prill disappeared, and the sight of that crumpled little face made Prill want to bawl too. Her mother had told her to look on the bright side about this holiday. Alison had been a good baby but she was going downhill fast, and now she could walk nothing and nobody was safe. She broke things, pulled things apart, and yelled for hours when she couldn’t get her own way. Grandma said she was getting herself ready for the Terrible Twos.

  But Prill loved Alison. She was twelve and her sister was one, but they were friends. She’d much rather put up with a bit of howling and mess than be dumped in some lonely village all on their own for three weeks. Colin was OK, but Oliver. . .

  There he was, installed in his corner seat, with his neatly labelled suitcase in the rack over his head, a small packet of sandwiches on his knees, and his nose deep in a book. “Hi, Oll,” Colin said cheerfully.

  “Oh, hello. You made it then. Good job I kept these.” Across the aisle were two empty seats, one occupied by a yellow bobble hat, the other by an anorak.

  “Thanks, Oliver,” Mr Blakeman said. “That was clever of you.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” the boy said coolly. “My mother did it. She knew you’d be late.”

  “Well, you saved our bacon anyway. I had visions of us all standing up for three and a half hours. Now I’m going back to your mother,” Mr Blakeman told Colin and Prill. “I’ll pop back, but you know we get off at Crewe, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” Oliver said quite irritably. “That’s where Molly’s picking us up.” And he pointedly turned the page of his book.

  Mr Blakeman vanished. The brother and sister exchanged looks, then they both glanced across at Oliver. “He’s not improved much, has he?” Prill whispered. “He looks as weedy as ever. And why does he always dress up for an antarctic expedition? It’s not that cold.”

  They hadn’t seen Oliver since last summer, but he was much the same; a bit taller perhaps, but still pale and droopy-looking and thin to the point of boniness. The glasses were new. Behind them his pale bulgy eyes gobbled up the print. They were large eyes, a curious washed-blue colour, with the hardest, coldest stare they had ever seen in anybody. “What are you reading, Oliver?” Colin said.

  There was no answer. He simply held the book up so they could see the title. Cheese and Churches – Rural Traditions in Cheshire.

  “Any good?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ve only just started. It’s my father’s.”

  Uncle Stanley was a schoolteacher like Mr Blakeman, but the kind that specialised in being boring. Oliver’s school had long holidays, a whole month at Easter which his father usually filled with special projects. It was his own fault that his son was such a swot.

  Cheese and Churches was obviously much more interesting than talking to the Blakemans, and Oliver clearly planned to read for the whole journey. To a normal person Colin might have said something like “Don’t speak, will you,” or “I’m used to being ignored.” But this was Oliver. He could be friendly when it suited him, even fun, now and again, but most of the time he was a loner.

  It took a long time to get to Crewe. At every halt the train lost more and more time, and Dad’s idea of a fond farewell before they all split up faded gradually into nothing. The connecting train to Scotland would not be kept back, and the guard reckoned it was “a fair old walk” to the next platform.

  So goodbyes were said hurriedly in the corridor as the train slowed down, and it was just as well. Prill was in a black depression about the whole thing, she wanted to go to Scotland with her parents, and Oliver seemed worse than ever. At least it had been their holiday, last summer, and he’d been a guest. But this Molly Bover was his father’s cousin, Oliver had been to Stang once before, and the Wrights had farmed in Cheshire for years and years. He’d be bound to make the most of it, parading his knowledge. He was such a little know-all.

  Prill shut her ears to the last goodbye and turned her back on the final glimpse of her parents, rushing after a man with a trolley. After all the fuss of getting off, Crewe Station seemed strangely quiet and she stood alone, feeling like a little lost boat washed up on a sunless beach.

  Then a voice said, “Oliver, hello dear. I was late, as usual. But I’m here now. And this must be Prill? And you’re Colin? I’m Molly Bover.” An irate railway official was coming towards them with Jessie on the end of a lead. He thrust it irritably into Colin’s hand. “Here, take it will you. I’ve had enough of this dog. It’s been a perishing nuisance. Noisy devil.”

  Jessie was overjoyed to be free. She barked loudly and leaped up at the three children, wagging her tail and slobbering.

  “Steady on,” said Molly Bover, taking a step back. She was a large lady but Jessie was almost knocking her over. “Gorgeous dog, but whose is it? And where’s that man gone? Surely someone’s looking for it?”

  “It’s ours,” said Colin.

  “Oh, but – yours dear? This?”

  “Well, yes; she wasn’t allowed to go to Scotland, you see, and you said. . .”

  Molly Bover’s round moon face clouded slightly. She said nothing for a minute, but took refuge in the three young faces. She liked children. The two Blakemans looked alike, freckled and gingery with curly reddish hair and dark brown eyes. Prill was pretty, a good subject for a portrait. But Molly didn’t paint these days, she had to concentrate on making her pots, to bring a bit of money in. Next to his cousins poor Oliver looked a real shrimp. Colin was a head taller, broad-shouldered and powerful-looking. Oliver was pale-faced and spindly.

  Molly thought he spent far too much on his own, shut away in that damp little flat with his mother always pumping pills into him. A week or so in the country would do him a power of good. . . Her reverie was shattered by a shaggy wet face being thrust under her nose, and by more mad barking. “Jessie, of course, yes, I do remember now. Only there are the poodles. . . Oh well, let’s sort that out when we get home. Come on.”

  They followed her out of the station towards an old blue estate c
ar, Oliver carrying his tidy little case, Prill hanging on to the dog, Colin gloomily lugging a trolley with their old trunk on it. He had that sinking feeling. Molly Bover had obviously forgotten about Jessie and the dog wasn’t used to other animals. She’d eat Poodle One for dinner and Poodle Two for tea. It wasn’t a very promising start.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The minute the car door was opened all hell broke loose. Two toy poodles in the back hurled themselves against the battered dog guard in their effort to get at Jessie. She barked back, leaped on the nearest seat, and pushed her long nose through the bars.

  “Jessie!” Colin yelled, yanking her outside. He could see the guard collapsing and the whole thing ending in a bloody free-for-all.

  “Get in, get in, will you,” Molly said, vaguely alarmed. “I’ll put the cases in the back. Can she sit with you, do you think? It might be easier.”

  Oliver settled himself by a window and the others clambered in after him. Jessie scrambled up on to the three pairs of knees and squirmed round trying to get herself comfortable. She liked being with people.

  Oliver was almost suffocated. It had taken him all last summer to get used to this dog, and she’d obviously gone backwards in the last six months. The Blakemans just didn’t discipline her. And he didn’t like having the tail end either. He gave Jessie a sly shove and she moved over slightly, making herself into a miserable russet heap on Prill’s lap.

  Colin thought Molly Bover was a bit odd-looking. Dad had told them she was over seventy, but in spite of the thick white hair straggling out of its untidy bun, she had a young face. She wore a dusty black cape with a hood lined in bright red. The hem was falling down and pinned up with a few safety pins. The artistic effect was further ruined by some mud-spattered wellington boots.

  Uncle Stanley had warned them to expect bad weather up here, he’d advised rubber shoes, hats, gloves and hot water bottles. Oliver, who always wore three times as many clothes as anyone else, was obviously well-prepared.