The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  “I really don’t—”

  “And I’ll be with you,” Will interrupted. “She is my client, you know, and does on rare occasions take my advice. Between the two of us, we may actually be able to do Jeremy some good.” He paused, grinning. “What do you say, Miss Potter? Are you up for it? Shall we have a go at the old girl?”

  At that, Miss Potter had to smile. “I’m not as confident as you are that the old girl will do what we ask. But I shall be glad to give it my best effort.”

  “Hurrah!” Will cried. “Bravo, Miss Potter. Shall we say Monday afternoon?”

  “Tuesday would be better for me,” she replied. “Mr. Jennings and I are to look at a heifer calf on Monday. She’s a bit dear, but her mother is said to be a fine milker, so I shan’t begrudge the cost.”

  “Tuesday, then,” Will said, amused at the idea that this well-known London artist, who could no doubt choose amongst all the entertainments that the City offered, chose instead to spend her time and money on cows and sheep.

  There was a flurry of motion off to the left, and the dog appeared, nipping at the heels of a slow-moving sheep.

  “Oh, Miss Potter!” Rascal barked. “Look what I’ve found! Your lost sheep!”

  “No nipping, now!” the sheep bleated. She glanced over her shoulder. “Come along, laaambs. Look smaaart, and don’t laaag behind. Miss Potter waaants to meet you!”

  Miss Potter turned. “Oh, see, Mr. Heelis!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Rascal has found Queenie. And she has twin lambs with her! The flock is larger than I expected, by two!”

  “Sixteen Herdwicks.” Will chuckled, now vastly amused. “Well done, Miss Potter. I congratulate you.”

  “I think,” Miss Potter said crisply, “that you had better congratulate Queenie. She produced the lambs.”

  But Rascal saw that she was smiling.

  23

  The Village Goes to Sleep

  Saturday evening slipped quietly into Saturday night, and the villagers, quite worn out with the day’s many excitements and surprises, were preparing to go to sleep.

  At Belle Green, at the top of Market Street, George Crook finished winding the alarm clock and climbed into bed, while Mathilda Crook, wearing her flannel nightgown, put her hair up under her pink-ribboned sleeping cap.

  “I cudna b’lieve my eyes,” she said, for the seventh or eighth time since they had come home. “Dropped t’ Luck, she did, reet on t’ verra floor. Broke it all to smithereens.”

  “Aye, Tildy,” said George wearily, closing his eyes and pulling the covers up under his chin. “Tha’st said that a’ready, more’n onct, Tildy.”

  “And then t’ major says, ‘Nivver mind, m’dear,’ like t’ sweet gen’leman he is,” Mathilda went on in a satisfied tone. “Fancy that, George. Just fancy that! Why, if I’d dropped thi Luck and broke it, tha wud’st thwacked me a gud ’un.”

  “Aye, Tildy,” said George darkly, and pulled the covers up over his head. “Aye, that I wud.”

  Mathilda wasn’t listening. “ ‘Nivver mind, m’dear,’ t’ major says, sweet as cud be.” She got into bed beside her husband, shaking her nightcapped head in wonderment. “Even though t’ lady is wearin’ a gray silk dress, and has broke his Luck.”

  “What’s a gray silk dress got to do with it?” George asked, his voice muffled by the covers.

  “What’s a gray silk dress got to do with it?” Mathilda laughed. “Why, silly man! T’ ghost of Raven Hall wears a gray silk dress. Everybody was talkin’ about it, and wonderin’ if she wore it on purpose. But our major didna care, did he? He leads her off to sip champagne, just like a prince and princess in a fairytale, and all t’ while, t’ music playin’ so sweet, and all t’ candles twinklin’ like stars.” She gave a gusty sigh. “Canst tha think of anything more beautiful, George? Canst tha?”

  “Nay, Tildy,” cried long-suffering George. “Nay, nivver.”

  “Oh, George,” Mathilda said dreamily, and lay back on the pillow, gazing up at the ceiling. “If we cud only live like that, George! If we cud only have champagne and cake at ever’ meal and music whilst we eat and a big house and maids and a cook and—”

  “If we cud only go to SLEEP, Tildy!” George roared, from under the covers. “If we cud only go to sleep!”

  In the upstairs bedroom at Croft End, Hannah Braithwaite was tucking her eldest daughter into bed and enumerating (not for the first time) all the astonishing things that had been set out on the refreshment table at Raven Hall.

  “There was cold chicken an’ smoked salmon an’ ham an’ pickled tongue, an’ t’ tongue had a paper ruffle round it, an’ it was glazed an’ sliced ever so dainty, an’ had cloves an’ bits of parsley stuck all over. An’ there was oyster patties an’ sausage rolls an’ lobster mayonnaise an’ cold boiled prawns with their tails all stickin’ up in a circle. An’ cakes an’ custards an’ Sarah Barwick’s tipsy cake an’ raspberry cream an’ all sorts of things to drink an’—”

  As Hannah ran out of breath, she saw that her daughter’s eyelids were drooping. “So we ate an’ we ate,” she said, finishing the tale, “until we was so verra full we thought we’d pop all our buttons, an’ listened to music an’ admired t’ lake, and then we came home. An’ your dad looked splendid in his suit, he did, an’ all t’ ladies were ever so beautiful, an’ especially Mrs. Kittredge, who had t’ most beautiful dress of all, an’ jewels all over her.”

  Hannah paused, thinking about that gray dress. The ghost of Raven Hall was said to wear a gray silk dress, a fact that had not escaped the village ladies this afternoon. Hannah herself had heard them whispering about it, saying that—

  The little girl’s eyes had popped open. “Will I ever have a beautiful dress an’ jewels an’ be a lady, Mum?”

  “Oh, tha’lt have ever so many pretty dresses,” Hannah said, and tucked the covers under her daughter’s chin. “Go to sleep, now, dear. Tomorrow’s church.”

  In the kitchen at Anvil Cottage, Sarah Barwick had finished putting her sticky buns to rise for an early morning baking. There were always Sunday day-trippers going up and down the road past her cottage, and though there were a few old stick-in-the-muddish villagers who thought shops ought to be closed on Sunday, Sarah wasn’t one of them. She was in business to make a living, not to please her neighbors, and she’d sell whenever a customer rang her bell. At the moment, she was smoking a cigarette and sipping a cup of hot milk as she finished a letter to her second cousin Lydia in Manchester, telling her all about the reception at Raven Hall.

  “But the queerest bit of all,” she wrote, after listing the cakes and delicacies she had been hired to provide and describing the rest of the food and the drink and the ladies’ dresses and the doomed Luck, “was Mrs. Kittredge dropping the Luck, which Miss Potter says was meant to cover up Mr. Thexton calling her Irene, when her husband thinks she’s Diana. Whatever her name, Lydia Dowling still says she’s a witch and not a white one, either. Myself, I suspect she’s the ghost of Raven Hall, come to life. The place is supposed to be haunted by a woman in a gray silk dress. And guess what she was wearing at the party? A gray silk, cut very low, which got everyone talking, believe you me.”

  Sarah paused, scratching her nose with the end of her pen. It was altogether a queer thing, when she thought about it. She would never pretend to know much about the manners and breeding of gentry-folk, and she certainly laughed her fill at the way they put on airs and graces and acted like they were better than anybody else. But it was clear to her that Major Kittredge was a fine gentleman, even if he did have just one arm and one eye, and that there was something about his wife that made her not quite a lady, no matter how hard she tried to pretend.

  The major didn’t know that yet, of course. He was still frightfully keen on his wife, and might be, for a long time to come. But character was bound to come out, sooner or later, and what then? He had married her, and marriage was a final sort of business, which was one of the reasons Sarah had not considered it for herself. What if you mar
ried somebody and he turned out not to be the person you thought he was? What if he drank and used his fists on you, or spent all your bakery earnings at the betting parlor? You were lumbered with him forever, like him or not. So even if the major woke up and realized he didn’t want to be married to Mrs. Kittredge, there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

  Sarah sighed, thinking of her friend, Dimity Woodcock, who was bravely trying to hide her disappointment over the major’s marriage. Poor Dimity. Major Kittredge would have done much better to have married her. Sarah wished—

  But it was too late for wishing. There was nothing that could be done now. Not a blessed thing.

  At Tower Bank House, Miles Woodcock was lying in bed, unable to sleep. His hands clasped behind his head, he was staring at the ceiling and frowning. His conversation with Mr. Richardson had done nothing to ease his mind, and although he hadn’t been able to broach the matter with Major Kittredge, he had the feeling that the scheme to build the villas was all but signed and sealed.

  This was a calamitous business. The western shore of Lake Windermere was pristine and beautiful. Villas would not only mar its scenic beauty, but bring in a great many more people, along with their horses and carriages and delivery lorries and even motor cars. The ferry was already taxed beyond its capacity, and one often had to wait for an hour or more to get to the other side of the lake. And the road—well, the road didn’t bear thinking about. The road would have to be widened and paved, and the parish rates would certainly have to be raised.

  Miles sighed. If Kittredge himself was determined to build, there was little that could be done to dissuade the man. However, from what Miss Potter had told him of the conversation at the ferry landing, he guessed it was Mrs. Kittredge who was behind the scheme. And without any leverage, he doubted that she could be persuaded to drop her support—and of course, there was no leverage.

  With a groan, Miles rolled onto his stomach. Better to think of something more pleasant. Think of Dimity and Will Heelis, who had seemed so congenial a couple that afternoon. Why, even old Lady Longford had observed that they made a delightful pair, although Miles had overheard her remark that she hoped Mr. Heelis was about to replace the major in “poor, dear Dimity’s affections”—a remark that Miles had found both surprising and offensive. He hadn’t been aware that anyone other than himself might know of Dimity’s attachment to Kittredge, or imagined her as having been jilted by the major, in favor of a red-haired actress who was clearly no lady. And if Lady Longford knew, so did the rest of the village, which meant that it was probably being discussed at this very moment, as people settled down in their beds.

  But he refused to allow a little village gossip to tarnish his pleasure in the thought of his sister comfortably married to Will Heelis and established in a home of her own, not so far away that she could not continue to manage her bachelor brother’s household.

  And with that happy image shimmering in his mind and a pleased smile spreading across his face, he fell asleep.

  In the bedroom on the other side of the hall at Tower Bank House, Dimity Woodcock lay awake and restless. She was deeply troubled by the thought of Christopher Kittredge married to a woman who did not deserve him, who might even be capable of hurting him and making him unhappy. Poor Christopher had already suffered a great many misfortunes. It would be dreadful for him if he had married badly, for there was nothing he could do to change the situation.

  And did Dimity give any thought at all to Will Heelis? Well, yes, it must be said that she did, in a rather muddled, foggy, sleepy way. She thought of the shy smile that quirked one corner of his mouth, and the light in his brown eyes and the warmth in his voice, and she could not help but feel a certain comforting gratitude to him for being the sort of friend one could count on when other friends (or a person one had considered a friend, but who had married a person so much prettier than one, and with the most amazingly unnatural red hair) let one down.

  And borne upon that mazy and meandering reverie, Dimity drifted at last off to sleep.

  At Hill Top Farm, Miss Potter blew out the candle—gas was available but she did not choose to have it installed—and settled into her bed. She was thinking of all the interesting things that had happened that day: the business with the cats that morning, the reception at Raven Hall and the queer affair of Mrs. Kittredge and Mr. Thexton, her promise to recommend a governess for Caroline, Deirdre’s strange tale about a fairy riddle, Queenie’s new lambs, and Mr. Heelis’s concern about Jeremy’s education.

  She smiled to herself as she pulled the covers up close. If she were in London, she’d be troubling about the linen, the dinner menus, her mother’s cough, her father’s liver. And while an outsider might think this little village was a very peaceful place, it wasn’t, really. It was full of conflict and contradictions and secrets and, yes, riddles. It was full of life.

  And that was why she loved being here, she thought happily, as she lay watching the stars through her bedroom window, too full of contentment to welcome sleep just yet. It was why she belonged. It was why she never wanted to leave.

  At the vicarage, Vicar Sackett was not yet asleep, either. He was still at his desk in his study, having stayed up late to put the finishing touches on his Sunday morning sermon, the topic of which was “Thankfulness.” He had taken as his text Colossians 3:15: “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.” It was an appropriate sentiment, he had decided, with which to see his Thexton cousins on their way. He, for one, was certainly thankful.

  Reveling in the silence, the vicar believed that the rest of the house had gone to bed and so was greatly surprised when his study door opened without a knock and Mr. Thexton appeared, in slippers and a dark blue velvet dressing gown. He was carrying a largish plate of sandwiches and cake.

  “I wonder if I might interrupt you, Cousin Samuel,” he said diffidently.

  Remembering that this was the very last Saturday night he should have to suffer such unwelcome interruptions when he was writing his Sunday sermon, the vicar swallowed his annoyance and said with a small smile, “Yes? What can I do for you?” He glanced at the plate in some surprise. He had seen both Mr. and Mrs. Thexton helping themselves enthusiastically at the Raven Hall refreshment table and afterward, at the vicarage table, where Mrs. Thompson had left a cold supper. He had not thought it possible to be hungry after that.

  Mr. Thexton followed his glance. “Mrs. Thexton gets a bit peckish at night,” he explained, adding, in an offhand way, “I thought perhaps I should mention that we shall be staying on a few more days—past Monday, I mean.”

  The vicar felt as if he had taken a hard punch in his midsection. “A few more days!” he exclaimed.

  “Perhaps a little longer,” said Mr. Thexton. “Oh, and Mrs. Thexton wanted me to tell you that she has asked Mrs. Thompson to remove cod from the menu for the coming week. She is sure that you must be growing exceedingly weary of cod.” His smile became ingratiating. “If I may be allowed to say so, dear Mrs. Thexton is always more concerned for the tastes and welfare of others than for her own. Cod suits her perfectly, of course, but she realizes that it must be trying for you.”

  The vicar attempted to gain control of himself. “A few more days?” he repeated, in a strangled voice. “But I thought we agreed—”

  “Oh, yes, we did. Indeed, we did, Cousin Samuel,” said Mr. Thexton quickly. “And it was my full intention to bring our visit to an end on Monday morning, with regret, of course, for we are mindful of—and most grateful for—your hospitality. But I am sure you must recognize the extent to which the situation has changed.”

  “Changed?” asked the vicar feebly.

  “Of course.” Mr. Thexton seemed surprised that his cousin did not appear to understand. “I had only a brief opportunity to view the Luck before it was so disastrously destroyed. But my glimpse was sufficient to point me to several more areas of research which require investigation. I’m sure you’ll
agree that this is of vital importance, and will extend your hospitality through Monday week, at which time we can discuss the matter again.”

  Monday week! “But the Luck is broken!” the vicar protested. “Surely you can’t—”

  “I have an appointment to interview Mrs. Kittredge early next week,” Mr. Thexton went on in a businesslike tone. “She had quite an affinity for the piece, you see, and was of course the last person to have it actually in her hands. I am hopeful that she will be able to give me a few more particulars about it.” He glanced down at the plate in his hand. “I’d love to visit with you longer, but I really must take this up to Mrs. Thexton. She often feels quite faint if she is not able to have a little something at night. I wish you very pleasant dreams, dear Cousin Samuel.”

  The wretched fellow left, and the vicar buried his head in his hands. He sat in that manner for nearly a quarter of an hour, trying to think whether there was anything—anything at all—that might be done to persuade his horrid guests to leave. But he could think of nothing.

  Well, not quite. He reached for his sermon and made a notation at the top of the page. Tomorrow’s Scripture reading would begin with 1 Samuel, 28:38: “And Jonathan cried after the lad, Make speed, haste, stay not.”

  And with that, the vicar, filled with an enormous frustration, took himself off to bed.

  24

  Nocturnal Affairs

  By midnight, all the lamps and candles in the village—even the gaslights in the Tower Bank Arms, where the men had been drinking their Saturday night half-pints and tossing their Saturday night darts—had been extinguished, and all the residents of the Land between the Lakes were fast asleep.

  The humans, that is. The animal inhabitants of Sawrey—the cats and dogs, rats and field mice, garden voles and hedgehogs and shrews and bats—were mostly wide awake, for a great deal of their business was transacted after the sun went down and the Big Folk put out their lights and retired. (Horses, cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, of course, mostly kept the same hours as humans did, since they were often wanted for something or another in the middle of the day and saw no point in staying up half the night, as well.)