The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood (7 page)

And now she had a new friend. Deirdre was a year or so younger than she, and new to Sawrey. She was small for her age, with a great mass of red-gold hair that she wore in thick braids and blue-green eyes that could be lit by a dancing amusement or a fiery indignation. There was a certain dreaminess about her expression, and she had a vivid imagination that made the other village girls seem dull and stolid in comparison, or awful prigs. It was Deirdre’s imagination that appealed to Caroline, who hated being told that something had to be done or thought because it was “practical” or “the usual thing.” And her grandmother’s refusal to let her be Deirdre’s friend only made her more stubborn. It wasn’t fair. She ought to be able to choose her own friends!

When Caroline had finished her story, Deirdre sighed. “Just be glad ye’ve got a grandmum,” she said, “whether ye like her or not.” She spoke in a soft Irish brogue, and her words seemed to lift at the end. “When me own mum died, there wa’n’t nobody t’ take me and no place in the world t’ go ’cept St. Mary’s Orphans Asylum.” She shuddered. “Mrs. Sutton needed a girl t’ lend a hand with her babes, an’ came an’ looked us all over. She picked me ’cause I look strong, an’ I picked her ’cause she said I could go to school. And ’cause she di’n’t look like she’d take a stick t’ me very oft’n,” she added matter-of-factly. “I don’t mind hard work, but I despise bein’ thrashed.”

Caroline shivered, not liking to think of the contrast between her own private luxuries—books and pets and presents and pretty clothes—and Deirdre’s work-a-day world, filled with too many tasks and the threat of thrashings.

“I shouldn’t think Mrs. Sutton would thrash anybody,” she ventured. The Sutton boys and girls wore merry faces, and never seemed to care if their clothes weren’t clean. Mrs. Sutton was clearly overwhelmed with the task of caring for house, children, and the business end of her husband’s veterinary practice. “Do you like living at Courier Cottage?”

Deirdre chuckled grimly. “Livin’ is fine, it’s the workin’ that’s hard. There’s always heaps of laundry an’ piles of washin’ up after meals. Might’ve stayed at the asylum if I’d known there was six babes already, soon to be seven, an’ Lizzy—she’s the oldest—not yet nine.” She shrugged. “But I’ve me own pallet in the attic an’ a candle t’ read by and me own scrap o’ mirror, which is more’n I had at the asylum. An’ tatie pot for supper is more’n the bread and treacle I had at home with me mum.”

Laundry and dirty dishes and a pallet in the attic, Caroline thought guiltily, remembering the servants at Tidmarsh Manor, and the quantity of food on her grandmama’s table, and her own spacious bedroom, with a bed that was wide enough for two, and a paraffin lamp, and a mirror with two wings on her dressing table.

“Now, don’t ye be feelin’ sorry for me,” Deirdre warned, with a quick glance, as if she had read Caroline’s mind. “I’m stronger ’n I look, and I’m glad t’ have a place. I don’t need nobody t’ pity me.” She turned quite remarkable blue-green eyes on Caroline and added fiercely, “Or call me a witch, neither.”

“They don’t mean it,” Caroline said uneasily. “They’re just teasing because you’re new.” She had experienced her own share of teasing, especially because she spoke with a New Zealand accent. And because she never quite came up with the right answer when she was called on—most of the time because she wasn’t listening. But even when she listened, she didn’t seem to get it right, and so the others teased her constantly.

“O’ course they mean it,” Deirdre retorted. She pulled her strong, thick brows together and stuck her balled fists into the pockets of her gray pinafore. “It’s ’cause I have red hair an’ my eyes’re green an’ I’m as freckled as a red pig. It’s also ’cause I have an Irish name they can’t get their fat tongues around. And,” she added astutely, “it’s ’cause everybody’s talkin’ about that red-headed witch at Raven Hall. Or maybe she’s a ghost.”

Caroline nodded, having heard about the mysterious Mrs. Kittredge.

Deirdre tossed her head. “But they’re all a lot of ign’rant heathens. They c’n eat worms, ’spesh’ly Harold Beechman. I’m even with him, though.” She grinned slyly. “Told him I’d spell him into a frog if he di’n’t leave off.”

“So that’s what you said to him,” Caroline exclaimed, with a horrified delight. Harold Beechman was a notorious bully who loved to pull hair and tweak noses. Everyone longed to see him get his comeuppance.

Deirdre’s mischievous grin widened. “An’ then I yelled out some gibberish an’ waved my arms an’ the cowardy custard ran away, he did.” The grin again. “He di’n’t look where he was runnin’ an’ stumbled over the water bucket an’ whacked his nose proper an’ smeared blood all over his shirt.” The grin became a chuckle, and then a hearty laugh. “Which pleased me ever’ bit as much as if he’d turned into a frog, it did. If he likes t’ think I’m a witch, that’s just jolly good.”

Deirdre’s Irish laughter was infectious, and Caroline found herself joining in without reservation. “Maybe,” she said, when she could get her breath, “you could catch a frog and bring it to school and—”

“—An’ tell everybody he used t’ be a lad that called me a witch an’ I turned him into a frog!” Deirdre finished, with a giggle. “Aye, that’s grand, that is. Do y’know whereabouts I c’n find one?”

“Ask Jeremy Crosfield,” Caroline replied. “He’ll show you lots of frogs, down at Cunsey Beck.”

“Jeremy’s nice,” Deirdre replied thoughtfully. “He doesn’t tease.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Caroline said. Jeremy and his aunt had moved into the cottage at Holly How farm, one of the Tidmarsh Manor farms, and they often walked to school together. He always surprised her with what he knew, for he seemed to have a personal acquaintance with almost every animal in the Land between the Lakes, and he was an accomplished artist. But for all that, Jeremy never made a show of what he’d learnt, or made her feel that he was smarter than she, the way the others did.

“He’s clever, Jeremy is,” Deirdre added in a respectful tone. “I’ll wager he’s the clev’rest lad in the village.”

“Oh, yes,” Caroline said, and sighed. “This is his last year at Sawrey School, you know. He passed the exams for the grammar school in Ambleside with high marks. But he can’t go.”

Deirdre turned a surprised glance on her. “He can’t? Whyever not?”

“It costs too much. His aunt can’t afford it.”

“Well, I call that a shame, I do,” Deirdre said definitively. “Them that wants t’ go t’ school should have their chance. If I could really do spells, I’d spell it so Jeremy could go.” Leaning over the nettles at the foot of the stone wall, she broke off a twig of delicate white hawthorn blossoms and tucked it over her ear. “I ain’t a real witch,” she added over her shoulder, picking another sprig. “But I c’n see fairies. I don’t tell that t’ just anybody, an’ it’s not for spreadin’ around. But it’s true. Or it used to be, anyway.”

Caroline eyed her. “See fairies?” She herself had never seen one, although she had read enough stories about them to know that quite a few people thought they were real. For Christmas, Miss Potter had sent her a book called
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens,
by Mr. J. M. Barrie, who had also written a play about Peter Pan. Mr. Barrie (who obviously believed in fairies, which was unusual for a grownup) said that children sometimes declared that they had never once seen a fairy when they were looking right at one, who was at that moment pretending to be a flower, or a tree, or something else. So Caroline wasn’t quite ready to state categorically that Deirdre could never have seen one.

“Stand still,” Deirdre commanded, and stuck the hawthorn over Caroline’s ear. “Me mum gave me the gift, she did. She was Irish from the top o’ her red hair down t’ the tips o’ her toes, an’ y’ know how the Irish are about fairies an’ elves an’ leprechauns an’ the like. She got the gift from her mum, who got it from hers, so I got a good strong dose—although, sad t’say, I ain’t seen a fairy since me mum died. I’d like t’ see one, just to know I’ve still got it.” With light fingers and a half-sad smile, she rearranged Caroline’s hair. “There. Hawthorn keeps away evil, it does. Ye c’n walk through storms an’ the lightnin’ won’t strike ye. Me mum told me so.”

Caroline regarded her new friend, thinking how sad it would be if Deirdre had lost not only her mother, but some special gift her mother had passed along to her. She herself hadn’t got a special gift from her mother, just a pair of eyes and a nose. When she looked into the mirror and saw those familiar features, she sometimes pretended she was looking into a magic window, and what she saw wasn’t her reflection, but her mother looking out at her, and smiling, and sending love and kisses.

And then it occurred to her that perhaps Deirdre was pretending, too—or both pretending and believing, at the same time. Perhaps her gift was like the mirror, a way of holding on to her mother, who was gone.

Well, if that’s what it was, Caroline thought with compassion, she could help Deirdre pretend. “Your mother knew that hawthorn was magic?” she said tentatively.

Deirdre laughed with delight. “Why, o’ course, silly. Ye’ve never heard the old saying? ‘Beware the oak, it draws the stroke. Avoid the ash, it courts the flash. Creep under the thorn, it’ll save ye from harm.’ Hawthorn’s magic, for sure. In Ireland, the fairies use the wood t’ build cradles for their fairy babies, an’ wear the blossoms for hats, an’ sew them into skirts.”

“And you’ve seen the fairies.” Caroline tried to sound convinced, for she truly wanted to help Deirdre pretend.

Deirdre slanted her a reproachful look. “Ye’re doubtin’, aren’t ye?” And then she suddenly straightened and said, with intensity, “Well, then, Caroline Longford, ye’re in for a surprise. May Eve is comin’ up next week, an’ that’s the very best time t’ see fairies. So we’ll just go out on May Eve, and we’ll find us some fairies.”

Deirdre’s seriousness—her eyes were narrowed and her mouth was screwed up tight—was almost comic, but Caroline knew that if she laughed, she’d lose a friend forever. And there were all those books about fairies, and the authors behaving as if every single word they wrote was true. If she couldn’t actually believe in them, she would pretend she did, which as far as Deirdre was concerned, was as good as believing.

“Where shall we go?” she said.

Deirdre pushed out her lips. “You know the land here- abouts better ’n me, I reckon. Fairies like oak trees an’ beech trees ’cause they’re ancient an’ magical. Mossy hummocks, too, an’ ferns an’ clear running water. An’ hawthorn, o’ course.”

“Well, there are lots of oaks and beeches in Cuckoo Brow Wood,” Caroline replied, trying to sound encouraging, yet feeling cautious and unsure. Cuckoo Brow Wood was not a very comfortable place. In fact, she was forbidden to go there—although that shouldn’t matter very much, since she was forbidden to go anywhere with Deirdre.

She took a deep breath. “And there’s moss, big cushiony pillows of it, and quite a few clear springs, and everything looks very green and dim and magical, as if you’d stepped back in time. It’s wild, though.” And scary, she added to herself, as they reached the stile that climbed over the stone fence, where the path to Tidmarsh Manor began.

“The wilder the better,” Deirdre said definitively. “Fairies don’t like t’ be around Big Folk. We’ll go t’ Cuckoo Brow Wood. It’s best t’ go at twilight, o’ course.”

“At twilight?” Caroline didn’t like the idea of wandering through Cuckoo Brow Wood after dark, although she didn’t want Deirdre to think she was a coward, like Harold. She tried to think of something. “But . . . but won’t you have work to do?” was the best she could manage.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find a way,” Deirdre said with a careless shrug. “We’ll need some wild thyme an’ rue an’ hawthorn—thyme an’ rue t’ help us see fairies an’ hawthorn t’ keep us safe. An’ I’ll hunt up some yarrow. Rosemary would be good, too.”

Caroline nodded. “We have rosemary in our garden. I’ll bring some.” She hesitated, trying to sound casual. “It might be better to find the right place beforehand, so we don’t waste time on May Eve. We could go scouting first.” Deirdre might decide that a twilight expedition wasn’t necessary, depending on what they found. Of course, it wasn’t that she was afraid of going out at night, Caroline told herself. But her grandmother would never allow it. She would have to sneak out of the house, and then sneak back in, which wasn’t as easy in real life as it was in books, where children were always climbing out windows and going off at night and getting back in again without anybody knowing.

“Jolly good,” Deirdre said approvingly. “Saturd’y afternoon? Mrs. Sutton lets me off from two to seven.”

“Saturday afternoon, then,” Caroline agreed. “If you’ll come to the garden gate behind the Manor, we can start from there.” She thought of something else. “Would it be all right if I asked Jeremy to go with us? He’s been much deeper into Cuckoo Brow Wood than I have. He might not believe in fairies,” she added, “but he believes in a great many things nobody can see. Germs and bacteria and microbes and wireless telegraphing. And the North Pole, which somebody has gone looking for but hasn’t found yet.”

“He don’t have t’ believe,” Deirdre asserted. “He just has t’ keep an open mind.” She frowned at Caroline. “The same with you, Caroline. You’re only pretending to believe, too, but there’s no harm in that. Just keep your mind open, and your eyes. That’s the only way you’ll ever find anything in this world, anyway.”

“Of course,” Caroline replied, feeling cross that Deirdre had seen through her, and thinking that the girl didn’t need to be so preachy, when she was only trying to help.

“Good.” Deirdre sighed heavily. “Well, then, I s’pose I’d better get on. Mrs. Sutton is sure t’ have a long list of chores for me, an’ there’s the children’s tea, and baths, and bedtimes.” She pulled a face. “Sometimes I think the asylum would’ve been an easier place.”

But as Caroline climbed over the stile and looked back, she saw that Deirdre was skipping as she went up the lane. And if the anticipation of Saturday’s fairy hunt lightened her step, Caroline was glad.