The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  “So nice to meet you, Captain,” Mrs. Kittredge murmured, looking at him demurely from under her long, dark lashes. She turned to Beatrix. “And is this Mrs. Woodcock?”

  Captain Woodcock’s eyes met Beatrix’s with a cheerful twinkle, and he shook his head. “Allow me to present my neighbor at Hill Top Farm, and quite a famous author, Miss Beatrix Potter.”

  “Miss Potter,” said the major, bowing. “Oh, yes, indeed. I had heard that Hill Top has been purchased and is being restocked. We’re delighted that you could join us this afternoon.”

  “An author!” Mrs. Kittredge exclaimed, raising her eyebrows. “And what sort of books do you write, Miss Potter? Do they sell well?”

  Captain Woodcock took a step backward and even the major seemed to blink at that last remarkably ill-mannered question. Beatrix regarded her for a moment, and then, with a purely wicked intent, said, “My best-known work is The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It’s about a very naughty rabbit who wants what he must not have.”

  Mrs. Kittredge drew herself up, as though she thought perhaps Beatrix was poking fun at her. “I don’t believe I’ve heard of it,” she said, adding, with barely disguised disdain, “A children’s book, I suppose.”

  “It is only the most beloved children’s book in all of England,” Captain Woodcock retorted sharply, but Mrs. Kittredge had already turned away to offer her hand and her smiles to someone else.

  The major looked distressed. “You’ll forgive Mrs. Kittredge, I hope, Miss Potter. I’m sure she intended no rudeness.”

  “Of course,” Beatrix murmured, although she knew exactly what Mrs. Kittredge had intended, and felt thoroughly snubbed. It wasn’t the first time. A great many people seemed to feel that children’s books were somehow less significant than books for grownups, and did not hesitate to say so.

  Captain Woodcock put a sympathetic hand on her arm, seemed about to say something, then caught sight of Will Heelis, standing by the window. “Excuse me, Miss Potter,” he said hurriedly. “I need to speak with Mr. Heelis. I shall return.”

  A moment later Beatrix saw the two of them with their heads together, casting furtive glances at Mr. Richardson, so she assumed that the captain was passing along her information about the Sandiford Syndicate. And from the distasteful look on Mr. Heelis’s face, she thought he might be acquainted with the man. She was glad Mr. Heelis was involved in the matter. She knew that his law firm handled most of the property sales in the area, and when it came to property, she had every confidence in him.

  Relieved to be left alone, Beatrix found a corner where she could watch the gathering, which included many people she recognized. There was Dr. Butters, from Hawkshead, whom all the villagers thought must be the finest doctor in the world. And the Braithwaites and Crooks, huddled together like sheep, looking as if they were overawed by the greatness of the place. Lester Barrow, the owner of the Tower Bank Arms, was hovering like a harrier over the refreshment table, as if comparing its offerings to his own less ample bill of fare. And Miss Nash, recently appointed head teacher of Sawrey School, and her sister Annie, who taught piano lessons to the Sawrey children, were chattering as gaily as two robins with Sarah Barwick, who had forsaken her trousers for a feminine white shirtwaist with puffy sleeves and a high lace collar and a beige skirt with a dressy flounce. Sarah looked pleased with herself, and well she might, for many of the baked goods on the table had come from her kitchen, and her Tipsy Cake (made from Mrs. Beeton’s famous recipe) was fast disappearing. Bertha and Henry Stubbs were there, and Elsa Grape, and Lucy and Joseph Skead, and the Jenningses and the Suttons and even Lydia Dowling, who had said she intended to send her regrets.

  And there was the vicar, Samuel Sackett, looking unaccustomedly merry as he greeted Major Kittredge. Beatrix was close enough to hear him introduce his cousin, Mr. Thexton, and Mr. Thexton’s wife, who had been staying with him for several months—the guests, she assumed, who could not be budged from their comfortable accommodations at the vicarage. She smiled to herself when she heard the vicar, with an unmistakable cheeriness, repeat the news that they were planning to depart on the following Monday.

  “I’ve just learned about the Luck of Raven Hall, Major,” said Mr. Thexton. He was a burly man with a pink face; small, dark eyes; and a bulbous nose over a bushy, drooping mustache. He put Beatrix in mind of a walrus, and she had to suppress a giggle at the thought.

  “Oh, really,” said the major, without much enthusiasm.

  “Oh, yes,” Mr. Thexton replied earnestly. “I am, you see, a collector of folk tales, with a very special interest in all things Fairy. I am presently engaged in writing a book about the folk tales of the Lake District. My dear cousin, the vicar”—with a bow in the vicar’s direction—“who has extended the greatest hospitality to my wife and myself, has been so kind as to relate to me the remarkable story of your Luck. I should delight in examining it, truly I would, and hearing once again, and in greater detail, the astonishing tale of its fairy origins. And I should be even more pleased to hear about the good fortune it has brought to your family. I intend to include it in my volume, you see.” He stroked his mustache and smiled in an ingratiating way. “I hope I am not being immodest when I say that this will amplify the quite natural public interest in your goblet, and will very likely increase its worth as an objet d’art.”

  Major Kittredge grunted. “You may certainly have a look at the blasted thing.” He waved a hand in the direction of the oaken cabinet. “It’s right over there, for all to see. As to worth, I have no idea. But where good fortune is concerned, I can’t say that Raven Hall has been blessed. Quite the contrary, in fact. The family has had a dismal streak of bad fortune ever since it appeared. My father always said he wished the wretched thing would be broken. Perhaps things might change.”

  Mrs. Kittredge was having a conversation with Lady Longford, Caroline Longford’s grandmother. She turned and, over her shoulder, tossed her husband a pretty little pout. “Oh, but Christopher, my sweet, don’t you think our marriage signifies a change in the Kittredge luck?”

  “Of course, my dear,” the major said in a repentant tone. “But we’ve been married for only a few months—and the damnable Luck has been in the family ever since this house was built.”

  “Well, well, well,” Mr. Thexton said eagerly, rubbing his hands together. “I must say, this is all extremely interesting, Major Kittredge.” He glanced at Mrs. Kittredge in a casual way, then bent forward, as if to give her a closer look.

  “Some people seem to think so,” said the major, in a tone that suggested he didn’t think so himself and wished that Mr. Thexton would go away and stop bothering him.

  “Oh, yes!” Mr. Thexton exclaimed, in a loud, booming voice, still looking at Mrs. Kittredge. “Oh, I am anxious—anxious indeed, sir!—to see this marvelous relic of a magical past. Perhaps your wife would be so good as to show it to me.”

  “Diana, our guest would like to examine the Luck,” Major Kittredge said dryly. “Would you be so kind as to oblige him, my dear?”

  Mrs. Kittredge did not appear pleased to have been given the assignment. Reluctantly, she excused herself to Lady Longford and, scarcely looking at the man, said, “Come with me, Mr. Sexton.”

  “Thexton,” the vicar’s cousin corrected her. “With a th.” In a lower voice, as the pair passed directly in front of Beatrix, he remarked, “My dear Mrs. Kittredge, I can’t help wondering if you and I have met before.”

  Mrs. Kittredge tossed her head lightly. “I do not think so, sir.”

  “Oh, but I am confident of it,” Mr. Thexton persisted. “Just give me a moment, and I’m sure it will come back to me. I have a quite remarkable memory, you know. I have committed entire books and plays to memory. And I never forget a face, especially a beautiful face, if I may be pardoned for expressing my admiration.”

  Mrs. Kittredge did not answer. The pair paused in front of the oaken cupboard, where the lady reached up to take down the heavy goblet.

  At Beatrix’s e
lbow, Lady Longford spoke imperiously. “Fairies,” she scoffed, snapping her black lace fan. “And Mr. Thexton a grown man. How very embarrassing for the vicar. If I were Reverend Sackett, I would not tolerate such behavior, not for a moment.”

  “I must own to having believed in fairies myself, as a young person,” Beatrix said mildly. “And sometimes I think I still do believe.”

  “Allowances can be made for you, Miss Potter,” her ladyship said in an acid tone, “because you make books for children. It is to your advantage to believe in magic, or to pretend that you do. How else could you write with conviction about speaking animals and the like?” She gave a complaining sniff. “However, such beliefs do not at all become a gentleman of Mr. Thexton’s obvious education and breeding. I simply cannot think why he should persist in such—”

  Beatrix, however, was not listening to Lady Longford’s complaint. Her attention had been attracted to the drama unfolding in front of the oaken cupboard, although afterward, when she thought about it, she had a distinctly different impression from the one she formed as she watched.

  What she saw was Mrs. Kittredge, handing the goblet to Mr. Thexton. He was reaching for it but did not quite have it in his grasp when he stopped, peered intently into her face, and exclaimed, loudly and impulsively, “By thunder, I remember now! I do know you, of course I do! You are Irene—”

  Mrs. Kittredge’s eyes opened wide and her face turned dead white. The Luck slipped from her fingers, fell to the floor with a splintering crash, and shattered into a thousand brightly colored pieces.

  20

  Half of One, Half of Other

  As the party-goers were arriving at the Raven Hall reception, eager to see the mysterious Mrs. Kittredge, the children—Caroline, Deirdre, and Jeremy—were making their way through Cuckoo Brow Wood in search of fairies. They were accompanied by Rascal, the village dog, who was guiding them with the aid of a map provided (yes, it’s true) by Bosworth Badger.

  At mid-morning on Saturday, at Belle Green, where he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Crook, Rascal received a caller: the badger boy Thorn, who handed him a roll of paper and a note from Bosworth Badger. Bosworth wrote that he had searched the History and found several entries recorded by his grandfather, documenting the location of a fairy village on the bank of Fern Vale Tarn. He could not, of course, be sure that the village still existed and he rather thought that it had actually been occupied by a family of dwelves, which were a different and more problematic sort of creature than the conventional Oak Folk. But he hoped that the map would be of some use to Rascal and the children, and wished them every success in their expedition.

  “Dwelves?” wondered Rascal, who had never heard the word. It suggested its own meaning, of course. A dwelf must be something between a dwarf and an elf—although what the badger meant by “problematic,” he couldn’t guess. Still, he supposed it didn’t matter what they were, at least as far as the children were concerned. A fairy was a fairy, be he elf, dwarf, dwelf, Folk, goblin, or any of the myriad nature spirits who occupied the Land between the Lakes long before humans came on the scene.

  “You’ll stop for a bite of something?” Rascal asked the badger boy politely.

  Thorn shook his head. “I’ve another errand,” he said, and grinned. “Good luck!”

  When Thorn had gone, Rascal unfolded the map and studied it until he had all the details by heart—not having any pockets, he couldn’t take it along. On the map, Fern Vale Tarn, a smallish lake, lay cupped in a hollow near the top of Claife Heights, not far below Raven Hall. This was the darkest, oldest part of Cuckoo Brow Wood, which was itself the oldest and darkest forest in the area, a remnant of the old, dark forests that had once covered all of the Land between the Lakes. The path leading to the tarn began from just beneath Holly How. It forked several times, with branches shooting off in different directions, but Rascal thought he could make out the way to the tarn. Badger had drawn an X at the south end of the small lake, and printed Supposed site, Fern Vale Village beneath.

  Well, thought Rascal, as he folded up the map, this was quite encouraging. The Folk or dwelves or whatever they were might not live there any longer, but at least he knew that they had lived there, once upon a time.

  The drizzle was just ending when the group met at the gate at the bottom of the Tidmarsh Manor garden, after Lady Longford had gone off to the Raven Hall reception. When Rascal joined them, Deirdre was distributing a handful of herbs and flowers.

  “Rue, yarrow, lavender, thyme, primrose, and rosemary,” she said. “We won’t be needin’ these herbs today, for we’re not likely t’ see fairies in daylight. But it won’t hurt to have them with us. We can always leave them as an off ’ring, when we get to a place where we think fairies might live.”

  Jeremy poked a blue-green sprig of rue into his buttonhole. “Where’d you find all this?”

  Privately, Jeremy was thinking that believing in fairies was not going to be enough to stave off the inevitable. Just this morning, Dr. Butters had dropped in to talk with Aunt Jane about the Hawkshead apothecary, Mr. Higgens, who wanted an apprentice. The doctor believed the apothecary to be a man of good character, and Aunt Jane thought that working in a shop would be more pleasant than working in a joinery.

  But within himself Jeremy could feel the resentment seething, like a boiling kettle. He didn’t want to work in either place. He wanted to go to school at Kelsick. But that was impossible. And no matter how much he wanted things to be different, they weren’t. So he had tried to smile—Aunt Jane was watching him with such concern—and said he would do whatever they thought best.

  “It’s agreed, then,” Dr. Butters had said, with a sympathetic look at Jeremy. He promised to bring the indenture papers the following week, and he and Jeremy would go to the Justice of the Peace, where the indenture would be signed, witnessed, and sealed. It was final and inevitable, and Jeremy had to resign himself. He would be grown up shortly, and go to work as a man. So his last, or nearly last, expedition as a boy might as well be in search of fairies. And if by some magic a fairy happened to pop out of a tree or a bush, he thought bleakly, he knew exactly what he would wish for.

  “I brought the rosemary from the Manor garden,” Caroline said, in answer to Jeremy’s question.

  “An’ I got the yarrow an’ rue an’ lavender from Miss Potter’s garden,” Deirdre added, kneeling down to weave lavender and thyme into Rascal’s leather collar. “It’s the queerest thing, but she felt like a friend. I asked her t’ go with us on May Eve.” She straightened and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “She told me a poem she’s written about a fairy lady, and gave me a primrose. I know she’s a grownup, but she’s diff ’rent from the others. I think she believes.”

  “Of course she does,” Rascal yipped.

  “I hope she said yes,” Caroline remarked, tucking a yarrow leaf behind one ear and trying not to think about the difficulty of getting out of the house on May Eve.

  Caroline glanced at Jeremy to see if he was feeling silly about looking for fairies, but if he was, he didn’t show it. Deirdre, of course, didn’t seem to feel silly at all. She obviously believed wholeheartedly. Although, Caroline reflected, if you thought you had the gift of seeing fairies, you’d have to believe in fairies, or you couldn’t believe in your gift. And once you had the gift (or thought you did), you’d surely want to hang on to it as long as possible, which meant that you had to keep on seeing and believing, whether you actually did or not.

  “I wouldn’t agree to any of the other grownups going with us,” Jeremy remarked, “but Miss Potter’s a bit of all right. Did she say yes?”

  “Only if you agreed,” Deirdre said, and smiled. “I’ll tell her, then. I’m glad.” She looked at Jeremy. “Any idea where we should go? Caroline said you’d know the best places to look.” She paused and added wistfully, “I ain’t seen a fairy since me mother died, y’know. I’m hopin’ we’ll find where they live, so we can go back on May Eve an’ see ’em.”

  “From everyth
ing I’ve read,” Jeremy said, “they like old trees, and moss and clear water, and ferns. I think we should go to the top of Claife Heights.”

  “I’ll show you!” Rascal barked authoritatively, and trotted off, glancing back over his shoulder and barking again, as if to be sure that they were coming after.

  “Looks like he knows where he’s going,” Caroline said.

  “He probably does,” said Jeremy. “He runs all over these woods.” He grinned. “And if we’re to believe in fairies, we might as well believe in a dog who knows where to find ’em.”

  “Then let’s follow,” Deirdre said. She tossed her braids over her shoulder and set out after Rascal.

  So the children followed the terrier, who headed at first for the foot of Holly How, then turned to the right up a narrow ravine, and when they reached the top, took a fork in the path that led them up another steep climb and deeper into Cuckoo Brow Wood. The little dog seemed to feel confident that he was taking the right path, even though it branched out in a great many confusing directions.

  But as far as Caroline was concerned, the direction itself didn’t matter, as long as it was away. The earlier rain had stopped and the gray mist that trailed like wisps of tulle through the trees seemed to wreathe the woods in an ancient mystery. It was easy to pretend that she was worlds away from her normal existence, from lessons and etiquette and Grandmama telling her what to do, even though they had come only a little way up the hill from Tidmarsh Manor. In fact, if she turned and looked back, she’d see the roofs of the manor house and barns not far below—except that when she tried it, she found to her surprise that she couldn’t, for the pearly mist had fallen like a curtain, and everything behind them had disappeared. They might have been journeying through a completely unknown land, somewhere back at the beginning of time, with nobody else around them for hundreds of miles—and hundreds of years.