12. Telling Tales
Chapter 12
Telling Tales
M rs Thompson cleared her throat and began her story. The boys stopped working on their gingerbread decorations to listen.
‘Well, now. That little cottage you’re staying in was built for John Thompson and his bride, Eliza Greenwell. John and Eliza Thompson, as they would have been. J.E.T., those are the carved initials. You know what happened to poor John, he fell in love with his parents’ servant girl, Lovina, and they drowned themselves on the morning of his wedding. Now.’ She settled back into her chair, rocking slowly. ‘His bride-to-be, Eliza, was the daughter of a farmer from up beyond the village. On the morning of the wedding, she’d come down from her home, in her marriage clothes; a new grey cloak of finely spun wool her sisters had made for her with a bunch of apple blossom in her hand, for it was springtime then.’ She glanced towards one of the windows, as if to behold the young bride coming down the path. ‘As she approached the church a great cry went up from inside. Then her younger brother – no older than you two lads – comes running out of the church to tell her news had been sent from Elder Fell. John wouldn’t be coming to marry her after all and her wedding plans were turned to a funeral. So, she runs up the path, and by the cottage that was to have been hers and John’s, she meets the men bringing down the bodies. They laid her husband-to-be in the parlour, and she kisses him and hugs him, in the hopes he might waken up. It was the first and the last kiss she ever had from his clay-cold lips, and he didn’t waken for all her trying. The little servant girl’s body wasn’t allowed to come inside the cottage; they took her down to the church, for Eliza wouldn’t have her body in the house. You see, she still loved John, even though he’d forsaken her for another, and they say her heart broke in two when he died.’
The kettle whistled shrilly, and Amy jumped.
‘I’ll make the tea,’ said Mrs Thompson, ‘and I’ll finish the story after. How are those gingerbread men coming along?’ The boys turned back to their decorating as she poured the water into a huge brown teapot with a chipped spout. It was big enough to make tea for a whole farmhouse full of people. ‘Don’t use this much these days,’ she said. ‘Used to be we had a houseful of folk, when Reg’s old dad had the farm. These days, it’s usually the three of us at the most, and more often than not Peter’s out and about. He works so hard, does our Peter. Reg does what he can, but we’re getting on a bit now, and he can’t do as much as he’d like. I keep saying he should take on a lad to help him out, but he won’t have none of it. Says he can manage, what with the hired help at lambing time and shearing. Students and that. Some of ‘em have been pretty lasses and all, and I did wonder if our Peter might take a shine to one of ‘em, but he’s too old now, and there was never another woman for him after your mam left.’ She poured tea, in a mismatched assortment of elderly mugs.
‘More story, please!’ Harry demanded. His gingerbread man was, by now, nearly all covered with icing. She sat back down in the rocking chair.
‘Ay. Are you sure it isn’t too scary for you two young ‘uns? Don’t want to give you nightmares, now.’
‘I don’t get nightmares. Harry does though, because he’s only eight and I’m nine!’ Oliver said bullishly.
‘Do not. And I’m nearly nine.’
‘You so do! And you’re not nine until May. I was nine in November, that makes me nearly ten .’
‘Come on, boys, don’t argue,’ Matt said.
‘I’ll maybe leave it there, then,’ Mrs Thompson said.
‘No! I want to know the end. Does the dead body on the kitchen table wake up, and is it a zombie?’ Harry said, hopefully.
‘A zombie? No, none of that kind of thing. This is a real story, not a comic-book. So, if you’re sure?’
Both boys nodded, though Amy had her doubts about whether Oliver meant it. For all his cleverness, he was still much more sensitive than his best friend.
‘Well then. Where was I? Oh yes. When Eliza can’t wake John up, she falls down to her knees, raises her eyes to heaven, and she calls down a curse upon the cottage he built for her. She says “If my heart is split in twain, and I may not have my joy here, then neither shall no man nor woman. May no bride be happy here until these apple branches bear fruit.” Then she stands, holds up the branches as if to the old gods who still reside in these hills, and she makes a curse. “Cursed be the path, cursed be the hearth, cursed be the bed.” And she ran away from the house that he’d built for her, and she never went back inside again.’ Mrs Thompson was clearly relishing her story.
‘So, was she a witch?’ Harry asked, spellbound .
‘Who’s to know? They say she was strange for a few years after that, and she walked the fells alone, wrapped in her fine grey cloak, always carrying the withered apple blossom, grieving for the man who she loved who never loved her. In time, of course, she laid that old cloak and the apple boughs aside and she got married – an old, rich man over Cockermouth way who could keep her in comfort – but she never had any children. And she never walked the fells again in her lifetime.’
‘And? Is that it? That’s not a ghost story!’ Harry protested.
‘I said she never walked the fells again in her lifetime.’ Mrs Thompson lowered her voice and leaned forward. ‘After she died, people began to see things. In the wildest of weather and the darkest of nights, a figure carrying a bundle of twigs was seen out on the hills, on the same paths Eliza used to tread, after she lost John. And that isn’t all. Over the years, many people have lived in that little cottage of yours, and several of ‘em have seen her walking the fells. A thin figure in a fine grey woollen cloak, a-moaning and crying for her lost love. And if you see her best beware, for her curse will surely fall on anyone who sets eyes on her. They say her appearance leads to a death. A drunkard of a husband who disappeared without a trace on his way home from market. A mysterious fever carried off three children in one month. A wife who couldn’t bear her husband a living child. Cursed be the path, cursed be the hearth, cursed be the bed.’
‘Goodness me, that is a sad story,’ Amy said as a shiver ran down her spine.
‘I don’t like it,’ said a pale Oliver, his gingerbread man forgotten on the table in front of him.
‘Just an old story, my dears. I had it off my mother-in-law, she was a great teller of tales. She told it much better than I can. I can still hear her now – Cursed be the path, cursed be the hearth, cursed be the bed. Winter nights are best for ghost stories, and she would have us too terrified to go up to bed in the dark sometimes. Eh, it’s just an old tale – don’t you pay any heed to it,’ she said to Oliver.
‘It’s just a stupid old story,’ Oliver said, but he twisted his fingers together under the table. It wasn’t surprising, given what had happened to his poor mother. Amy was unnerved too. Cursed be the path, cursed be the hearth, cursed be the bed . What if the story was true?
‘Have you ever seen the ghost?’ Harry asked.
‘Nay, lad. I’ve never seen her. I’ve lived here well more than fifty years and if there was anything to see, I’d’ve seen it by now. I don’t believe in ghosts, though I’m fond of stories. Eh, I’m sorry if I’ve scared you, lad. It’s just an old tale, it doesn’t mean nowt. Superstitious nonsense, that’s all. Don’t those gingerbread men look bonny? I think you’ll be taking them home for your tea.’
‘Yes … please.’ Harry remembered to be polite at the last minute.
Mrs Thompson sent them home with gingerbread men, a loaf of home-made bread and even some marmalade she’d made earlier in the year. A Christmas box, she told them.
‘Did you find the kissing bunch?’ she asked as they were putting their coats and boots back on.
‘Kissing bunch?’ Matt asked.
‘The mistletoe and that. Meant to be romantic, like. Our mam used to make them – she was from Derbyshire way, so maybe it’s an incomer thing.’
‘It’s beautiful – thank you,’ Amy said.
‘I hope you’ll make the most of it, the pair of you,’ Mrs Thompson said with a wink to Matt, as he held open the door for the boys and Amy.
‘Thank you,’ Amy said.
‘Will you tell us when Jess has her puppies?’ Harry asked Mrs Thompson.
‘You’ll be the first to know. Though they’re ugly little things when they’re new-born, mind you. Wriggling black-and-white sausages.’
‘I’d like a sheepdog one day.’ Harry looked at Jess with undisguised enthusiasm. ‘I want to teach it how to round up the sheep like Peter does. There aren’t many sheep where we live, there are lots of pigeons. Perhaps I can teach it to do pigeons. Would a sheepdog do that?’
‘There’s a lass as trained hers to round up ducks. See her at the village shows sometimes in the summer. So, if ducks, I don’t see why not pigeons,’ Mrs Thompson replied seriously.
‘Would Peter show me how to do it? Could he teach me the whistles the dogs understand?’
‘It’s not quite as simple as that. You have to teach the dogs too – they don’t understand ‘em when they’re born, and it takes a long time to train a sheepdog. Lots of time and patience, and not all sheepdog pups are good at it.’
‘I see. Like doing maths. We all have to do it, but some of us are better than others,’ Oliver said with a glance at Harry, who was not good at maths.
‘Or sport,’ Harry retorted, glaring at Olly, who wasn’t the most athletic of boys.
Mrs Thompson seemed to sense that an argument was brewing and changed the subject. ‘Maybe our Peter would take you out with the dogs one day. He’d probably like a hand taking the hay up, especially if it snows.’
‘Really? We could help with the sheep? Awesome!’ Harry’s face lit up with enthusiasm, which wasn’t mirrored by Oliver’s.
‘I’ll ask him when he gets in,’ Mrs Thompson promised.
It wasn’t much past midday when they arrived back at the cottage for lunch, but already the day was growing darker. The sharp, clear, frosty sky of the early morning had been replaced by clouds, and the temperature had risen by a couple of degrees. The frost had melted, and the slate roof of the cottage had turned to gleaming pewter, in contrast to the copper of the dead bracken on the steep fell behind the cottage. Amy checked to make sure there were no mysterious grey-cloaked ladies up there. All was as it should be, and they went inside, shut the door and lit the fire.