The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood Read Online Free PDF

to Fern Vale Tarn, and had glimpsed the house through the trees, a forbidding pile of stone, with turrets and towers and a darkly unpleasant look, although someone had told her that it had been designed by David Bryce, the architect who built Balfour Castle.
    “Raven Hall is where the servant girl drowned last year,” Sarah put in. “And where the housekeeper went mad and shut herself in the pantry.” She shuddered. “The villagers say it’s haunted by a woman in a gray silk dress, who drifts about, jangling a great lot of old-fashioned keys.”
    “The villagers say all sorts of silly things,” Dimity said sharply. Softening her tone, she added, “There’s been no one living there—except for the staff, of course—since Major Kittredge’s parents and his older brother were killed in a carriage accident five years or so ago. The major had just gone off to South Africa at the time, to fight the Boers.” She sighed. “There’s been a great deal of misfortune in the family, I’m afraid, in spite of the Raven Hall Luck.”
    “In spite of—” Beatrix frowned in confusion, thinking that something didn’t make sense. “I don’t understand.”
    “That’s Luck with a capital L,” Sarah told her. “The Luck is a fancy glass goblet, said to have been handed over to one of the Kittredge ancestors by the Fairy Folk who live in Cuckoo Brow Wood. As long as it stays in one piece, the place is supposed to have good fortune.” She snorted contemptuously. “A lot of good that magic Luck has done ’em. If the Folk offer me a goblet, I’ll tell ’em they can jolly well keep it for themselves.”
    Dimity sighed. “One can hope that having the master at home will change the luck of the place, even if his new wife—” She broke off.
    “Even if she what?” Beatrix prompted. This was the second time the new Mrs. Kittredge had been mentioned with hesitations and odd looks, and she was getting curious.
    “Nobody quite knows who she is, you see,” Dimity said lamely.
    “And if there’s anything that this village can’t abide,” said Sarah, “it’s not knowing who somebody is, when they think they ought. And in the case of the mysterious Mrs. Kittredge, they smell a rat.”
    “I am confident,” said Dimity loyally, “that Major Kittredge would not have married someone who is not perfectly nice, in every imaginable way.”
    “Oh, no doubt,” Sarah said. “But the real difficulty is that she has red hair, you know. Well, we don’t know, actually,” she amended, “because none of us have seen her. But that’s what the head housemaid at Raven Hall told her sister, and her sister told Lydia Dowling. Although of course, it’s not just the red hair. It’s her manner. Mrs. Kittredge’s manner, that is.”
    “What’s wrong with red hair?” Beatrix asked with interest, reflecting that her own, while mostly brown, had rather a reddish hue.
    Sarah lowered her voice dramatically. “The ghost of Raven Hall is supposed to have red hair. Some are saying that the new Mrs. Kittredge is the Raven Hall ghost, come back to life. And Lydia Dowling says she must be a witch. Witches always have red hair.”
    “A witch?” Tabitha inquired with immediate interest, not surprisingly, since it is widely known that cats are quite familiar with witches. “We haven’t had a witch in the District since my grandmother’s days, when old Mrs. Diggle practiced the Craft. I wonder what kind of witch Mrs. Kittredge is, and whether she—”
    She stopped suddenly and grew very still, her eyes narrowing, her whiskers twitching. “Look, Crumpet,” she said, very low. “There, in the corner, just by the cupboard door!”
    Crumpet crouched, every muscle tensing. “Not to worry, Tabitha. I’ll take care of him.”
    “No!” Tabitha put out a warning paw. “Remember the Rule!”
    “That witch business is nothing but old-fashioned superstitious rubbish,” Dimity said heatedly. “I do wish Lydia Dowling would keep her opinions