The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood by Susan Wittig Albert Read Free Book Online Page B

the way of interesting academic challenges. And Mrs. Daphne Holland, who had assumed Margaret’s place as teacher of the infants class, was an energetic and highly qualified young lady who had been widowed the year before and was glad of a job and a little money coming in. Mrs. Holland always presented a bright, cheerful countenance to her small charges and (perhaps because of her youth) seemed to like nothing better than to romp with them at the recess interval.
    Just now, Mrs. Holland joined Margaret in the pantry, for the cup of tea and the bit of talk they always shared after the children had gone home for the day.
    “Oh, Miss Nash,” she said, “I wonder if you and your sister will be going to tea at Raven Hall on Saturday. I’ve been invited and thought perhaps the three of us might go together.” She smiled. “Not that I’m shy, of course. But I did think there might be strength in numbers.”
    Margaret filled the kettle, put it on the gas ring, and reached for the biscuit tin. “Annie and I should like that.” She smiled. “I suppose I’m as curious as the next person to see the inside of Raven Hall, which has always struck me as a gloomy, forbidding old place.”
    “It’s the new Mrs. Kittredge I’m dying to see,” Mrs. Holland confided gaily. “You know what they’re saying in the village.” She leaned closer, her eyes sparkling in her round, girlish face. “They’re saying the lady’s a witch. Or maybe she’s the ghost of Raven Hall, come to life.”
    “Mrs. Holland!” Margaret exclaimed in a scandalized tone. “You shouldn’t repeat such wicked things.”
    “Oh, pooh,” Mrs. Holland said breezily. “It’s all balderdash, and of course one doesn’t believe it. But it’s what the villagers are saying.”
    Margaret gave her a severe look. “You and I, as teachers, are supposed to be above common superstition. And if we are heard to repeat such idle nonsense, the children and their parents might think we’re giving them leave to do the same. We have to set an example, you know.” And then, because she sounded like a scold, and since she hadn’t heard the gossip herself, she added, in a softer tone, “Who’s saying this?”
    “Bertha Stubbs,” Mrs. Holland replied, getting down the cups and saucers from the shelf.
    “Oh, Bertha,” Margaret said dismissively. “She’s liable to say anything that comes into her mind.” Bertha Stubbs was the school’s daily woman, and an inveterate gossip. Even worse, she was a cantankerous complainer. No part of her work suited her, from scrubbing the floors to stoking the stoves and cleaning the blackboards. Margaret often found herself wishing that Bertha would give in her notice (as she regularly threatened to do) so they could find someone more compatible.
    “And then I heard it again on my way home from school yesterday,” Mrs. Holland added, “when I stopped at Lydia Dowling’s shop to get some apples. I suppose it’s because she—Mrs. Kittredge, that is—has red hair. She’s said to be frightfully smashing.”
    Margaret frowned at Mrs. Holland’s schoolgirl slang. “I suppose it’s because she’s a mystery. People don’t know her, so they make up all sorts of things about her.”
    “Of course,” Mrs. Holland said. She turned a serious face to Margaret. “It’s all rubbish, I grant you, and people ought to know better. But there is quite a lot of talk, silly or otherwise. And Deirdre Malone, poor child, has flaming red hair. She’s being tarred with the same brush.”
    “Oh, dear,” Margaret sighed. “So that’s what it’s all about. I saw Harold teasing the girl. She seemed to be holding her own, though.”
    Deirdre Malone was the young orphan who had come to help out in the Sutton household while Mrs. Sutton was entering the last months of her . . . seventh pregnancy, was it? or was it her eighth? It was hard to keep count of the burgeoning Suttons, who, when they were all old enough to go to school, might fill