The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 - “Something Really Must Be Done!”

  Chapter 2 - Miss Potter Flings Down the Gauntlet

  Chapter 3 - Ridley Rattail Arrives at a Conclusion

  Chapter 4 - At Sawrey School

  Chapter 5 - Caroline and Deirdre Make a Plan

  Chapter 6 - The Mystery Deepens

  Chapter 7 - Miss Potter Has an Encounter

  Chapter 8 - The Vicar Tells a Lie

  Chapter 9 - Caroline and Jeremy Make a Bargain

  Chapter 10 - Jeremy Discusses the Situation with Rascal

  Chapter 11 - Ridley Advertises

  Chapter 12 - Cats with Plain Names

  Chapter 13 - Miss Potter Delivers

  Chapter 14 - De Parvis, grandis acervus erit

  Chapter 15 - The Power of Advertising

  Chapter 16 - Evicted!

  Chapter 17 - The Professor Makes a Recommendation

  Chapter 18 - The Village Goes to a Party

  Chapter 19 - Raven Hall

  Chapter 20 - Half of One, Half of Other

  Chapter 21 - “She’s Destroyed the Luck!”

  Chapter 22 - Miss Potter Counts Her Sheep

  Chapter 23 - The Village Goes to Sleep

  Chapter 24 - Nocturnal Affairs

  Chapter 25 - Foul Murder Afoot

  Chapter 26 - Ridley Rattail Has a Dream

  Chapter 27 - Miss Potter Takes a Walk

  Chapter 28 - Ridley Finds a Fifteen Percent Solution

  Chapter 29 - The Vicar Hears a Story

  Chapter 30 - The Cat Who Went for a Ride

  Chapter 31 - Dimity Woodcock Cooks Breakfast

  Chapter 32 - The Village Gets Ready for a Celebration

  Chapter 33 - Major Kittredge Learns the Truth

  Chapter 34 - Lady Longford Receives Callers

  Chapter 35 - The Mysteries of May Eve

  Chapter 36 - The Last Word

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Resources

  Recipes from the Land between the Lakes

  Glossary

  “A stellar tribute . . . As charming as the ‘little books’ themselves.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  The TaLe of HoLLy How

  “Vivid descriptions . . . charming.” —Publishers Weekly

  “A most ingenious blend of fact and fiction.”

  —Judy Taylor Hough, author of Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman

  “[An] adorable amateur sleuth tale.” —The Best Reviews

  “Hard to resist, especially on a sleepy, sunny afternoon.”

  —Booklist

  The TaLe of Hill Top Farm

  “A perfectly charming cozy, as full of English country loam, leaf, and lamb as could be desired . . . as full of pinched schoolmistresses, vicar’s widows, and good-hearted volunteers as any Barbara Pym novel.” —Booklist

  “There is a historical essence to the tale . . . Fans feel they are in a quaint English village, circa 1905 . . . Fabulous.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Beatrix Potter fans will welcome the talented Susan Wittig Albert . . . Similar to [the works] of Rita Mae Brown.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Endearing . . . The English country village resonates with charm and humor, and sleuth Beatrix positively shines.”

  —School Library Journal

  Praise for Susan Wittig ALbert’s China BayLes Mysteries

  “Albert’s characters are as real and as quirky as your next-door neighbor.” —The Raleigh News & Observer

  “[Albert] improves with each successive book . . . Artful.”

  —Austin American-Statesman

  “Albert’s dialogue and characterizations put her in a class with lady sleuths V. I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The denizens of Pecan Springs are sympathetic and insightful, grand livers with flinty wit—a combination of the residents of Lake Wobegon and the Texas villages in Larry McMurtry’s novels. Albert’s writing and outlook suggest Molly Ivins, while China’s independence and sunbelt sleuthing will appeal to readers of Earlene Fowler’s Benni Harper series and Allana Martin’s Texana Jones novels.”

  —Booklist

  “A marvelous addition to the ranks of amateur detectives.”

  —Linda Grant, author of When I Lived in Modern Times

  China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THYME OF DEATH

  WITCHES’ BANE

  HANGMAN’S ROOT

  ROSEMARY REMEMBERED

  RUEFUL DEATH

  LOVE LIES BLEEDING

  CHILE DEATH

  LAVENDER LIES

  MISTLETOE MAN

  BLOODROOT

  INDIGO DYING

  AN UNTHYMELY DEATH

  A DILLY OF A DEATH

  DEAD MAN’S BONES

  BLEEDING HEARTS

  CHINA BAYLES’ BOOK OF DAYS

  With her husband, Bill Albert,

  writing as Robin Paige

  DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP

  DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN

  DEATH AT DAISY’S FOLLY

  DEATH AT DEVIL’S BRIDGE

  DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN

  DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL

  DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS

  DEATH AT DARTMOOR

  DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE

  DEATH IN HYDE PARK

  DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE

  DEATH ON THE LIZARD

  Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM

  THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW

  THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

  Nonfiction books

  by Susan Wittig Albert

  WRITING FROM LIFE

  WORK OF HER OWN

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any averse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Frederick Warne & Co Ltd. is the sole and exclusive owner of the entire rights titles and interest in and to the copyrights and trade marks of the works of B
eatrix Potter, including all names and characters featured therein. No reproduction of these copyrights and trade marks may be made without the prior written consent of Frederick Warne & Co Ltd.

  THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2007 by Susan Wittig Albert.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN: 9781101378274

  BERKLEY ® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Dedicated to

  the Gentle Readers who will always hold

  Beatrix Potter’s “Little Books”

  close to their hearts

  Can it be—it must be—that you are that embodiment of the incorporeal, that elusive yet ineluctable being to whom through the generations novelists have so unavailingly made invocation; in short, the Gentle Reader?

  HENRY JAMES

  Acknowledgments

  My grateful thanks go to Dr. Linda Lear, Senior Research Scholar in History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Research Professor of Environmental History at George Washington University, who has helped me resolve several problems of fact and emphasis and has been a generous and gracious friend since I began this project. Those who admire the work of Beatrix Potter are eagerly awaiting Dr. Lear’s forthcoming biography, to appear in 2007: Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature.

  Special appreciation also goes to my editor, Natalee Rosenstein, who has supported my work for over a decade, and to my husband, Bill Albert, who has cheerfully driven all over the Lake District—on the wrong side of very narrow English roads, in an English car with the steering and gearshift on the wrong side, in the pouring English rain. Many thanks, Natalee and Bill. If it weren’t for you, these Potter books would never have been written.

  Susan Wittig Albert

  When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true—such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.

  EDITH NESBIT

  The Enchanted Castle, 1907

  Cast of Characters (* indicates an actual person or creature)

  People

  Beatrix Potter,* renowned children’s author and illustrator, divides her time between her farm at Hill Top, in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey, and her parents’ home in London.

  Sarah Barwick lives in Anvil Cottage, where she operates the Anvil Cottage Bakery. Also known as Sarah Scones, she is the best baker in the Land between the Lakes.

  Dimity Woodcock lives with her brother, Captain Miles Woodcock, in Tower Bank House. Elsa Grape keeps house and cooks for the Woodcocks.

  Captain Miles Woodcock is Justice of the Peace for Sawrey District, and Dimity’s brother.

  William (Will) Heelis* is a solicitor who lives and has an office in Hawkshead. He is a good friend of both Captain Woodcock and Major Christopher Kittredge.

  Major Christopher Kittredge, master of Raven Hall, has recently returned to the Land between the Lakes with his new wife, Diana Kittredge, about whom there is much mystery.

  Mr. Augustus Richardson is a London property developer who plans to build villas along the western shore of Lake Windermere.

  Vicar Samuel Sackett is the vicar of St. Peter’s Church in Far Sawrey. He lives at the vicarage, which is tended by his housekeeper, Mrs. Thompson.

  Harold Thexton, an antiquarian and folklorist, is staying at the vicarage while he collects information about the Lake District. His wife, Gloria Thexton, is also a guest at the vicarage.

  John and Becky Jennings operate Hill Top Farm for Miss Potter and live in the new addition to the old farmhouse. They have three children.

  Lucy Skead, the village postmistress, lives at Low Green Gate Cottage, also the site of the village post office. Dolly Dorking, Lucy’s aged mother (known to the villagers as Auld Dolly), lives there as well.

  Mathilda and George Crook live at Belle Green. Mathilda boards guests; George owns and operates the village forge.

  Hannah Braithwaite is the wife of the village constable, John Braithwaite. They live at Croft End Cottage and have three children, Jack, Sally, and the baby.

  Grace Lythecoe is the widow of the former vicar. She lives in Rose Cottage and plays an influential role in village affairs.

  Margaret Nash is Head Teacher at Sawrey School. She lives in one of the Sunnyside Cottages with her sister, Annie, a piano teacher.

  Daphne Hammond, a widow, is the Assistant Teacher at Sawrey School, in charge of the infants class (children up to age 7).

  Dr. Butters, the much-loved village doctor, lives in Hawkshead.

  Deirdre Malone, eleven, lived in an orphanage before she came to help take care of the Suttons’ children at Courier Cottage.

  Caroline Longford, twelve, lives with her grandmother, Lady Longford, at Tidmarsh Manor, a large estate at the edge of Cuckoo Brow Wood. In The Tale of Holly How, both grandmother and granddaughter were rescued by Miss Potter from the skulduggery of Lady Longford’s personal companion.

  Jeremy Crosfield lives with his aunt Jane at Holly How Farm. Jeremy, thirteen, is an artist and naturalist and spends as much time as possible in the woods and fields. In The Tale of Hill Top Farm, Miss Potter defended him against a serious charge of theft and encouraged him to draw.

  Animals of the Village, Hill Top Farm, and Cuckoo Brow Wood

  Tabitha Twitchet is the senior village cat, respected for the quality of her ideas and advice. She lives with the Crooks at Belle Green.

  Crumpet, a sleek gray tabby cat, lives with the Stubbses in Lakefield Cottage, but is welcome in every kitchen in the village.

  Felicia Frummety belongs to the Jennings family at Hill Top Farm; she is a lazy mouser who has allowed a ragtag rabble of rats to overrun the farmhouse. To manage the rats, several other cats are hired: Max the Manx, Fang, Claw, Lion, Tiger, and The Cat Who Walks by Himself.

  Rascal is a Jack Russell terrier. He lives with the Crooks at Belle Green, but spends most of his time managing affairs in the village.

  Ridley and Rosabelle are the resident rats in the Hill Top attic.

  Tibbie, Queenie, and their lambs are Miss Potter’s Herdwick sheep.

  Professor Galileo Newton Owl, D.Phil., is a tawny owl who lives in Cuckoo Brow Wood. He studies celestial mechanics and the habits of small furry creatures, and keeps a watchful eye on things from the skies above the village.

  Bosworth Badger XVII lives in The Brockery, at the edge of Cuckoo Brow Wood. Bosworth is responsible for The Brockery Badger History and Genealogy. A wide assortment of residents and guests live in The Brockery.

  1

  “Something Really Must Be Done!”

  WEDNESDAY, 24 APRIL, 1907

  The tale I am about to tell you begins on a bright, clear, April-sweet morning in the Lake District village of Sawrey. The sun had just begun to work its magical morning alchemy, burnishing the blue surface of Esthwaite Water to a sparkling silver, turning the leaves of larch and willow to an iridescent opal, and tr
ansforming every apple blossom in the village to pure gold. The sky was scattered with white clouds, as if a playful breeze had tugged yesterday’s laundry from the drying-lines in the village gardens and flung them into the brilliant blue heaven, where they stuck, tattered and wind-torn.

  It was a magical morning, and the little village seemed more than ever to occupy a magical place in the world. To the east lay Lake Windermere, the longest, deepest, bluest lake in all of England, a barrier of sorts against any modern encroachments that might creep into the village, which proudly described itself as “old-fashioned.” To the west lay Esthwaite Water, a small but perfect jewel among the other sparkling lakes in the District. And beyond Esthwaite Water rose Coniston Old Man, its bald head in the clouds, its steep, stern shoulders covered with winter-brown bracken and heather. And beyond Coniston, right the way to the Irish Sea, there was nothing but desolate moorland and silent fell, and all still in winter’s unrelenting grip.

  But in the Land between the Lakes (as people like to call it), winter was magically turning to spring. If you have ever visited this part of England, of perhaps seen pictures of it, you can envision the hawthorn coming into bloom, and primroses, violets, and cowslips splashing the roadsides with pastel pink and purple and white and gold. The meadow grass is dappled with daisies and clover blossom, and the trees along the beck flaunt that joyful, optimistic green that belongs only to spring. On such mornings, even the breeze is in a celebratory mood, playing gently with the flowers, tossing their sweet scents into the air and whispering delightedly of even sweeter pleasures to come, as April becomes May and all the green land wakes from its winter sleep and comes joyfully alive.