The young lady sitting opposite him clung to the velvet strap as the train jerked noisily to a halt. She adjusted her bonnet, agreeing with the older man.
“That’s what my papa always says, too, sir.”
Obadiah plastered a few strands of hair into position on his red, perspiring brow. Standing, he adjusted his black-tailed frock coat and donned a silk top hat.
“Sensible man, your father, ’twas him and I who persuaded the powers that be to install this branch line to Chapelvale. Progress, y’know, this town needs t’be dragged into modern times, been a backwater too long. Can’t stop progress, m’dear.”
Maud Bowe hated being referred to as “m’dear,” or “young lady.” However, she smiled sweetly at Mr. Smithers. “Indeed, sir, progress and modernity go hand in hand.”
But Obadiah was not paying much attention to her observation. He was struggling to get the door of the private compartment open, without much success. Lowering the window, he bellowed officiously at a porter. “You there! Get this confounded door open this instant!”
Both engine and leading carriages had overshot the platform by twenty feet or more. Recognizing Chapelvale’s most prominent citizen, the porter came running and snapped the door open with alacrity. Obadiah fumed as he allowed himself and Maud to be helped down onto the sleepers and rough limestone pebble. “What’s the matter with you people, eh? Can’t you stop the train in its correct position?”
Bridling at the unjust accusation, the porter complained. “Ain’t my fault, sir, I don’t drive the engine, y’know!”
Obadiah Smithers’s face went brick red in its frame of muttonchop whiskers. He shook his silver-mounted walking cane at the man and almost tripped over a sleeper. “Damn your impudence! Get along to the guard’s van an’ pick up this young lady’s luggage before the train goes an’ it ends up who knows where. Go on, get along with you!”
A towheaded lad aged somewhere between thirteen and fourteen years, accompanied by a big, black Labrador dog, emerged from the guard’s van. Over one shoulder the boy toted a canvas bag with a drawcord neck. He dug into his pocket and passed a silver sixpence to the guard, winking. “Thanks for the ride, Bill!”
The guard, a cheery-looking young man, grinned as he returned the wink and patted the dog’s head. “Now, don’t go shoutin’ to everyone that I let you ’n’ Ned ride without a ticket. You’ll get me in trouble, Ben. ’Bye, you two!”
The porter came scurrying up. “Baggage for the girl in the private compartment, you got it there, Bill?”
A lady’s traveling valise and a fancy carpetbag were slung out onto the platform by the guard. “There y’are, two pieces!”
Black smoke wreathed up from the engine into the hot blue summer sky. All along the platform train doors were slamming shut. The dog Ned stood patiently at Ben’s side as they took stock of their surroundings. A uniformed stationmaster waved them away from the train with his folded flag as, whistle in mouth, he checked the length of the platform. Hissing noises emanated from the engine as it dripped water on the track. Suddenly, it emitted a rushing cloud of steam. Maud screamed shrilly, hobbling up onto the platform in her long, fashionably narrow skirt.
Shooshing steam enveloped Obadiah Smithers as he stamped onto the platform, roaring, “Engine driver, what’s your name, man? Near scalded us both t’death, you idiot. I’ll report this to your superiors!”
His speech was drowned by a long blast from the train whistle combined with the noise of the stationmaster’s whistle and a grinding of wheels and gears. Chuffing noisily, the train rumbled away up the branch line. Whilst Smithers harangued the stationmaster, a local carrier bore Maud’s luggage to a horse-drawn cart outside the station fence.
With the train’s departure, Chapelvale resumed its customary calm. Ben communicated a thought to his black Lab. “Come on, let’s take a look at the village.”
Ben was opening the white picket gate of the station when he found himself in competition to get out of the gate with the impatient Smithers. “Out o’ me way, silly young ass!”
Ben was trapped in the gateway by the man’s bulk as he tried to push past, brandishing a silver-mounted stick angrily and shouting, “Make way for your elders an’ betters, or I’ll . . .”
“Grrrrrrrr!”
Ned was beside Smithers’s leg, the Labrador’s hackles bristling as it bared its teeth. Obadiah Smithers froze in his tracks. The dog took a step aside, allowing the man an escape route, but Smithers stepped back a pace, too, allowing both boy and dog to pass through the gate. His confidence returned once he was clear of the pair, Obadiah closed the gate and ranted at them in high bad humor. “That beast should be destroyed—it nearly attacked me! I’ll call a constable if you set it on me again!”
The boy turned to face him, smiling at first. Then the smile went from his face. With eyes like two chips of blue ice, he stared at the big, stout man. Smithers was lost for words. Those eyes. He shuddered, transfixed by the strange lad. There was neither fear nor respect in the boy’s silent gaze, only contempt. Dismissing him, the boy turned away and walked off with the dog loping alongside him.
Snorting indignantly, Smithers turned to the girl. “Did y’see that? Impudent young blaggard. If he crosses my path again I’ll lay this stick about him, and that growlin’ cur, too, see if I don’t!”
Ignoring his bluster, Maud went to stand by the cart, and Smithers turned his wrath upon the driver. “What’re you standing there gawking at? Let’s get going!”
Outside the station, Ben and Ned stood at the top of the lane looking down toward the village, which nestled snugly in a valley between two hills. Roads leading in and out were little better than broad tracks of well-trodden, hard-packed earth, old and dusty. None of them straight paths, they meandered and rambled quaintly. Some were skirted by hedges of privet and hawthorn, overhung by elm, beech, and holm oak trees. Others had dry stone wall edgings, the soft greystone chinked with moss and bordered by hogweed, dandelion, and yarrow. The far hill had a spired church on its brow. Cottages and small landholdings dotted patchwork fields where sheep, cows, and horses grazed. Ben stared at the not-too-distant village square with its black and white Tudor shops and buildings, none over two stories high. He passed a thought to his friend.
“There’s the chapel on the hill and the village in the valley. Chapelvale. What do you think, Ned?”
The Labrador’s tail wagged idly. “Sleepy little place. I hope the people are nicer than that big, blathering lard barrel we met at the station. I like it, Ben, but what are we supposed to be doing here?”
Ben scratched behind the dog’s ear. “It’s got me stumped. We both had the same feeling—this was the place to get off the train. Let’s go and take a look at the village. If nothing comes up, we might just move on to somewhere else.”
A boy and girl, obviously brother and sister, were walking up the lane toward the greystone station. The girl was about Ben’s age, the boy slightly younger.
Ben waved cheerily at them. “Hello there, wonder could you help us?”
They immediately warmed to Ben’s friendly manner. He looked a carefree type, with his unruly blond hair and blue eyes, long white canvas pants and a crewneck cream sweater, and a coat that appeared slightly large. There was an air about him, as if he had some sort of seafaring experience. The big, black Labrador with him was wagging its tail, a nice, companionable dog. The boy stroked it.
“We haven’t seen you two around Chapelvale before, are you new here? How can we help you? This is a fine dog you’ve got!”
“What an intelligent boy, he recognized quality right off!”
Ben cut across the Lab’s thoughtful remark. “We’re straight off the train, never been here before. I’m Ben, which is Neb backwards, short for Nebuchadnezzar. This fellow is Ned, which is Den backwards, short for Denmark. Bit of an odd name for a dog, ain’t it?”
The girl, who had dark hair and brown eyes, was very pretty, even prettier when she smiled. “Nebuchad . . .
what? Sorry, my name’s Amy, Amy Somers. This is my brother Alex. I’m quite nice, but he’s fairly dreadful sometimes. What is it you want, Ben?”
“Er, someplace we can get something to eat. We’re absolutely famished, aren’t we, Ned?”
The dog nodded. Alex looked startled.
“Ned, your dog . . . he just nodded his head?”
Ben scratched Ned’s neck roughly. “It’s just his collar, it bothers him on warm summer days. Now, is there anywhere we can buy some food?”
Alex thought a moment, frowning. “I think you’ll be out of luck, Ben, shops are closed today, but take a stroll around the village square. Maybe you’ll find something, though I doubt it. Good luck anyway.”
Ben and Ned moved off.
Amy called after them hopefully. “Will you be staying in Chapelvale, Ben?”
He winked at her and smiled secretively. “Who knows, maybe.”
Alex called out rather anxiously. “Be careful, Ben, watch out for the Grange Gang!”
The strange boy shrugged carelessly. “Who are the Grange Gang?”
“A gang of rotten bullies who go about trying to make people’s life a misery. Particularly strangers and old people.”
Amy warned, “I’d steer clear of them if I were you.”
Ben turned to look at Amy. She felt her skin prickle at the sudden iciness in his strange blue eyes. Then it was gone, and he chuckled quietly.
“Don’t worry about us, pals. We’ve met gangs before!”
Amy watched Ben and his dog wander off down the lane. “I’ll bet they have, too. He’s the oddest boy I’ve ever seen, but I like him.”
Alex found himself agreeing with his older sister. “I do, too, I don’t know why. And that black Labrador . . . I wish we had a dog like it. I hope they stay. D’you think they will, Amy?”
His sister repeated the strange boy’s words. “Who knows, maybe.”
Alex had been right—all the shops in the market square were closed for the afternoon. It was as if Chapelvale were taking a long siesta in the summer heat. The worn cobble-stone paving, whitewashed walls, and heavy black beams, combined with blue-grey slate roofing and dark green roller blinds in shop windows, accentuated the lazy noontide stillness and the absence of folk out shopping.
The boy and his dog crossed the square together and made their way up the big, sloping hill behind the village. Shops thinned out, and so did the houses after a while. Ned gave Ben a sad look. “Please tell me we’re not looking for another barn to spend the night in.”
Ben passed his thoughts back to the Labrador. “We never asked to turn up in this village. I’m sure the angel has guided us here. Just thank your lucky stars it’s a peaceful little country place.”
The dog raised his eyes mournfully. “Oh, it’s peaceful enough.”
Ben tickled his ear fondly. “Stop grumbling, a barn is better than a dry ditch beneath a hedge. We’ll get a good breakfast tomorrow morning, as soon as everywhere is open. Bacon, sausage, toast, eggs . . .”
Ned let his tail droop. “D’you mind, my tummy’s rumbling!”
12
A FAT PEAR, BROWN WITH ROT, SPLATTERED against the parlor window, causing the black cat inside to leap down from the sill, where it had
been sunning itself. Old Mrs. Winn watched the overripe pulp slide down the glass, then heard the chanting begin. It came from behind the thick fringe of purple-and-white rhododendron bushes growing at the bottom of her sloping lawn.
“Winn Winn, Winnie the Witch! Winnie the Witch and her big black cat! Winn Winn, Winnie the Witch!”
This was followed by barely stifled giggling and the hollow boom of a wet earth clod striking the old lady’s front door.
She spoke to the cat, who was her only companion. “Those children are back again, Horatio. Why do they persecute us? We’ve never harmed them, have we?”
Horatio jumped lightly into her lap, staring at his mistress with magnificent amber eyes, meowing faintly as he stroked his head against her open palm. Mrs. Winn sighed.
“If Captain Winn were still alive, they wouldn’t be so quick to bother us then, eh, Horatio?”
She stared sadly at the oval framed portrait hanging above the fireplace mantelpiece. Captain Rodney Winn, R.N., stood frozen in time there, dapper as a new pin in his number-one dress uniform, complete with medals, braid, and bars. His peaked cap was tucked under one arm, a strong right hand resting on a table that contained a potted aspidistra and a Moroccan leather-bound Bible. Not a hair of his white goatee was out of place. Square-jawed and resolute, the captain had steady blue eyes that commanded all he surveyed, a man among men. Hero of the Sevastopol blockade and many other naval encounters in the Crimean War of the 1850s. Now sadly deceased.
The parlor window shuddered under the impact of a bloated dead toad, which fell onto the outside sill. Chanting broke out anew as Mrs. Winn rose stiffly from her chair and made for the door.
“Winnie the Witch with the wrinkly face, come on out and give us a chase!”
She collected her cleaning equipment and opened the door slowly. Horatio slid by her, his tail curling sleekly. He watched as the old lady placed mop and bucket to one side. Taking a straw-fringed brush, she began sweeping the broken soil clod from her porch onto the flower bed below.
“Look, Winnie the Witch is going to chase us on her broom. See, I told you she was a real witch!”
Shaking her broom at the rhododendrons, Mrs. Winn called out. “Don’t be so silly, go away and leave us alone, you naughty children. Have you nothing better to do?”
Derisive laughter hooted out from behind the bushes. “There’s her black cat, all witches have got a black cat!”
Dipping her mop in the bucket of soapy water, Mrs. Winn began cleaning mud smears from her neat green door with its polished brass knocker and letter box, crying out as she did, “If you don’t go away, I’ll fetch a policeman!”
“Haha, fetch the bobbies. We don’t care, old pruneface!”
Wearily the old woman carried her cleaning stuff down to the front lawn. Flicking the bloated toad carcass from the sill, she started in mopping the filth from the parlor windowpanes. Again a voice challenged her.
“Hurry up, Winnie, fly off and bring the bobby, hah. Fat lot of good that’ll do you!”
She knew they were right. Her tormentors would leave the moment she made a move for the police, but once the constable had come and gone, they would return to renew the persecution. It was an all-too-familiar pattern during the last months. Her house was isolated, standing alone on the far hill slope outside the village. She had no neighbors to call upon for help. Clamping her jaw resolutely, she grabbed her pail of soapy water and hurled it at the bushes. It fell short, splashing on the lawn. This caused great hilarity from the gang in hiding. They rattled the bushes until several clumps of rhododendron blossoms fell to the ground.
“Hahaha! Silly old witch, you missed! Witchie, witchie!”
Horatio’s tail swirled around the doorjamb. He stalked smoothly back into the house. Mrs. Winn watched him go. She swayed slightly in the hot afternoon sun, wiping a bent wrist across her forehead, then, gathering up her cleaning implements, she trekked wearily in after the cat. As she closed the front door, a fresh battery of rubbish rattled against the panels outside.
“Winn, Winn, Winnie the Witch! Hahahahaha!”
Striving to ignore the children, she boiled a kettle and made tea, pouring some into a saucer and adding extra milk for the cat. Horatio liked the drink of milky tea. She stroked the back of his head as he bent to lap it up.
“They won’t leave us alone, Horatio. If it’s not those youngsters, then it’s Obadiah Smithers with his legal notices, trying to get me out. Oh dear, Horatio, only one week left after today. Those lawyers from London will be here to enforce the clearance notices—I could lose my house! Unbelievable! And the village, oh, Horatio, the poor village.”
Horatio licked a paw and wiped it carefully over one ear, staring solemnly at her,
as if expecting an answer to the problem. However, it never came. Mrs. Winn sat looking at her work-worn hands, a tidy, plump little old lady, with silver hair swept into a bun, her slippered feet scarcely touching the rustic, tiled floor from the chair she sat in.
Outside the golden afternoon rolled by, punctuated by the guffaws and mocking comments from behind the rhododendrons. Mrs. Winn toyed absently with her thin, gold wedding band, turning it upon her finger. From out in the mosaic-tiled hallway, flat chimes from a walnut-cased grandfather clock announced the arrival of half past three. A shaft of sunlight from the kitchen window, which illuminated the old woman’s chair, had shifted slightly, leaving her face in the shade. Her half-filled teacup stood on the table in its Crown Derby saucer, a wedding present from her favorite aunt. The tea had grown cold.
She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the din from outside. It was no use, an afternoon nap was out of the question. Horatio prowled about for a while, choosing finally to settle at her feet. Mrs Winn was seldom prone to feeling sorry for herself, but now she dabbed away a threatening tear with her apron corner. Clenching a fist in a sudden show of temper, she spoke to her cat. “Ooh! If only somebody would happen along and teach those wretches outside a lesson! . . . If only . . .”
Then she sat staring at the white-and-blue flower-patterned tiles around her kitchen sink. Some summer afternoons could be very lonely for an old widow and her cat.
13
BEN AND NED WERE WALKING ALONG together, still discussing the merits and drawbacks of barns. In the absence of anything better, the dog was warming to the idea. “I like lots of nice deep straw in a barn. Good fun, straw is. You can roll about in it and jump off bales.”