The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood (24 page)

“I see,” he said. “So you’re thinking—”

She interrupted him firmly. “I don’t know what I think, Mr. Heelis.” She paused. “I did not mention this to Miss Woodcock or Miss Barwick, but I am convinced that Mr. Thexton knows, or believes he knows, who this lady is. And she, for her part, understands, and fears him for it. I could read it in her face.”

“Fears him?”
Rascal said with interest. The whole thing was beginning to seem quite melodramatic. He could hardly wait to tell Tabitha Twitchit and Crumpet this interesting news.

Will pulled in his breath, startled. “Oh, come now, Miss Potter—”

“I am not overstating the matter, Mr. Heelis,” she said decidedly. “The look that Mrs. Kittredge gave to Mr. Thexton was a look of great fear. And before Major Kittredge took his wife away, Mr. Thexton had attempted to get her to agree to receive him, privately. He said that he wanted to apologize, but I doubt whether an apology is what he has in mind.”

Will thought for a moment. “Perhaps I should speak to Mr. Thexton, then—although of course, I’ll leave you out of it.”

Miss Potter frowned. “Out or in, it’s up to you. I doubt, however, that Mr. Thexton will tell you what he knows. If he is hoping to use it to somehow gain an advantage—” She stopped. “I’m not sure what I mean, Mr. Heelis. It’s just a feeling I have.”

“I take your point. I’m to talk with Major Kittredge late next week. Perhaps it would be better to speak to him first. By then—”

“Yes. By then, the situation may be clearer.” She paused and added, emphatically, “I hope you’ll be able to dissuade the major from allowing villas to be built along the lakeshore.”

“I shall do my best,” Will said, “but I am afraid that the business may have gone too far to be stopped now. Mr. Richardson implied that the funds have already been raised. The matter may rest on Kittredge’s agreement.”

They had reached the top of the hill, a point from which they could see across Wilfin Beck and Sawrey Fold, to Far Sawrey and St. Peter’s Church. Will glanced around. “There are some more sheep,” he said, pointing to a corner of the meadow, where several were grazing together, heads down in the green grass. He counted. “Four, I make it.”

“Thirteen,” Miss Potter said, and frowned. “I haven’t seen Queenie. She’s the other ewe I bought from Mr. Hornby.”

“There’s something on the other side of that coppice,”
Rascal barked.
“I’ll just pop around for a look.”
And with that, he was off, bounding through the grass.

Miss Potter paused. “You said you wanted to discuss two things, Mr. Heelis? What’s the other?”

“It has to do with Jeremy Crosfield,” Will replied.

“Jeremy Crosfield?” She glanced at him, concerned. “Is something the matter?”

“Dr. Butters tells me that Jeremy is going to have to leave school at the end of this term. He’s to apprentice to Mr. Higgens, the apothecary in Hawkshead.”

“Apprentice?” Miss Potter’s china-blue eyes grew dark. “That would be unfortunate,” she said gravely. “It’s hard for me to imagine Jeremy being happy as an apothecary. He has a fine artistic talent, and he’s very interested in natural history. He should continue his education. I wonder—have the papers been signed?”

“Dr. Butters says that’s planned for next week,” Will replied. “He tells me that Jeremy has already passed the entrance examination for the grammar school at Ambleside, but there are no funds for tuition or board and room. You know, I suppose, that his aunt is a spinner and weaver. Not much money for extras, I should imagine.”

“I do know.” Miss Potter passed her hand over her woolen skirt. “She wove this for me, from Herdwick wool. It’s so sturdy, I’ll probably be wearing it forever.” She gave Will a sideways glance. “Do you have something to suggest about Jeremy?”

Will nodded. “The idea came to me after I talked to Butters, and I wanted to discuss it with you before I thought further about it. I wonder if you and I might prevail upon Lady Longford to underwrite the boy’s education. She can certainly afford it, and since she owns the manor farm where the boy and his aunt are living, it seems appropriate to ask her.”

Surprised, Miss Potter turned to face him. “You and
I
? You’re asking me to help with this, Mr. Heelis?”

Will met her gaze. “Her ladyship continues to believe that you were responsible for saving her life last year. She might be more easily persuaded if—”

“I didn’t save her life,” Miss Potter protested. “I knew she was ill, and thought of arsenic poisoning, especially when her maid told me about that dreadful companion of hers brewing up some sort of ‘medicine.’ ”

“Don’t be so modest,” Will replied, thinking that it was like Miss Potter to refuse to take credit. “You thought of it when no one else did, not even Dr. Butters, and she was his patient. If her ladyship wants to believe she owes you her life, why not allow it?” He grinned mischievously. “In fact, why not trade on it? On Jeremy’s behalf, of course.”

Miss Potter gave him a dubious glance. “You don’t think the vicar would be a better emissary than I?”

“Lady Longford doesn’t feel that she owes the vicar anything, Miss Potter,” Will said candidly. “To tell the truth, her reputation as a skinflint is well deserved. I’ve seen her count out pennies when pounds would have better answered. But if anyone can convince her that she ought to be generous with the boy, you are that person.”

“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 married 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.