The Cottage in the Woods (15 page)

Safe at last in my own room, I tried to regulate my breathing. With my stays squeezing my middle, it was difficult to get one good, deep breath, and I longed to be free of the hated corset, but propriety won out over comfort as I wondered guiltily what my mama would have said.

As I did a dozen times each day, I unconsciously put my paw to the spot where my locket used to nestle against my fur. How I missed it! It had been like wearing a little essence of home, and keeping Mama’s and Papa’s love alive, and close to my heart. I longed to open its silver case and see their faces smiling out at me. A week ago I had entrusted Mrs. Vaughn with the task of finding the stolen locket, and though I had hoped daily for a reassuring word from her, there had been none at all. Wondering what else I could do, my gaze fell upon the magic mirror on the bureau. Could it possibly be worth another frustrating encounter with that eccentric apparition? He had said that he would take five or six days to come up with a riddle to tell me
where my locket was; if he was ever going to help me, it would be now. I rapped on the glass surface and called out, “Mirror? Mirror, do wake up!”

No response. I tried coaxing. “Mirror, I need your expert advice. You know you promised me a riddle.” Still no response.

I rapped smartly on the glass again and fairly shouted, “Wake up! Now! I need to talk to you!”

A disembodied voice cried, “All right! All right!” Then, after a slight pause, the carnival mask appeared, and added, “Say ‘please.’ ”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten, then forced out a “Please.”

“Well, that was a little insincere, but it will serve. I suppose you want something. They always do. The secret for turning straw into gold? A love charm? No doubt you expect me to tell you you’re the fairest in the land—which would be too much, you know, because you’re really not. Your snout is far too short, and there’s something too direct about the eyes—”

“I don’t care about any of that. I want to know where my locket is. You promised me a riddle.”

“Oh yes. The locket. Well, I’ve read the signs, and some of the signs say it is in the
top
floor of the
east
wing.”

“Well, that’s not very specific! Go on.”

“And some of the signs say it is in the
bottom
floor of the
west
wing. So the truth must be halfway in between! That would be on the
middle
floor of the
main hall
.”

“Halfway in between? How did you decide it must be halfway in between?”

“Well, silly, that’s what we call a
compromise
—and we must all learn to compromise.”

“I don’t care about that either,” I said, growing hot with frustration. “I want to know exactly where my locket is!”

“Well, let’s see … I know! We’ll put it to a vote!”

“A vote? And who will do the voting?”

“Why, anyone. That’s the beauty of it!”

“Anyone? But will they know anything about the matter?”

“No. But the vote will tell us where popular opinion believes it to be: upstairs in the east wing, or downstairs in the west. Whatever most people believe must be true.”

“But what if most people are wrong?”

“Hmm. In that case I will give you an obscure riddle, based on my personal opinion, and you will just have to make the best of it.”

“Well, I would rather have the truth, thank you all the same.”

“Oh, but the riddle is all prepared. Just listen to this. Ahem …”

“That sounds familiar,” I said, “and quite cryptic. But not very helpful. There are a million drawers in this house, and this ‘raven’ could have put it in any one of them. Can’t you give me a clue who the raven is?”

“That is your problem. I make up the riddles; you solve them. Or just admire their cleverness and beauty. I must admit that was one of my better ones. Did you notice the rhyming of
surreptitious
and
avaricious
? A masterstroke, really.”

“Yes, yes. You’ve made a marvelous little poem, and been no help whatsoever. Thank you all the same, Mirror. You may go back to whatever demon’s dream you came from.”

The carnival mask assumed a look of wounded dignity and vanished with a pop. I wondered if there had actually been any truth to his suppositions that the locket could be upstairs in the east wing, or downstairs in the west, but either possibility was so vague and vast that it was hardly worth contemplating. Was the Walker really the “raven,” stealing shiny things and hiding them away? How could I tell where its lair was? I could not fathom it. My spirits sank as I came to the conclusion that all my hopes now lay with Mrs. Vaughn and her good intentions.

The accumulated strain of recent events, of Nurse’s harassment, of not sleeping well, and sometimes forgetting to eat, had all taken a toll on me, and I hardly recognized the hollow-cheeked, dull-eyed creature in the mirror as myself the next morning. Somehow the school day was gotten through, and I was finally free to go to the vicarage. I easily found Mrs. Gudge’s shortcut from the kitchen garden through the pine grove to the churchyard. Folk wisdom was that pine trees had their own spirits that lent an atmosphere of healing and serenity. Whether it was that, or simply my relief at avoiding another encounter with the boy Gabriel, I felt the accumulation of so many burdens ease away in the fragrant ambience of the softly swaying pines. Off in the distance I heard children’s laughter, and thought I could make out their slight forms running about in the woods, and I smiled.

At the vicarage I found Mrs. Snover less exhausted than she had been of late. The patient was much improved, she said, though he was refusing the nutritious broth she had prepared for him, and he was asking for the next chapter of
Robinson Crusoe
. Upon entering the sickroom, I perceived that Mr. Bentley was very much awake, although still reclining weakly on the pillows, and that his attention was entirely focused on me. I suddenly felt unaccountably shy.

“Miss Brown!” he said hoarsely. “The very person I’ve been waiting for. I’m in terrible danger of my condition worsening on account of boredom. Have you come to rescue me?”

I suppressed a smile. “As it happens, Mr. Bentley, I have.”

“Ah,” he said. “Excellent girl. Do proceed with all possible speed. I fear I feel my fever returning.”

“No wonder your fever is returning if you refused Mrs. Snover’s broth. I could not even think about reading to you until you’ve taken some broth.”

Mr. Bentley scowled. “Tyrant! Bring it on, then. I’ll have it.”

Ten minutes later he had swallowed the last of it, and I made myself comfortable in the rocking chair, opened the book, and began to read. Soon we were deep in the adventures of Robinson Crusoe dauntlessly overcoming immense obstacles to save his own life, not once but many times, before he was finally shipwrecked on the Island of Despair. I marveled at his great intrepidity and inventiveness as he set about creating his island home and providing for all his needs.

The clock struck the hour, and then another, before I stopped and lifted my head. Then I realized that Mr. Bentley was staring at me in a most peculiar manner. “What is it?” I asked. “Are you tired?”

He shook his head. “I was just thinking about that day at the waterfall when I first saw you and made you so angry—”

“Don’t even think of it. It is my policy never to argue with invalids,” I interrupted. “However, if you’d still care to debate about it after you are all well, I’ll give you tit for tat. For the present, you must put it out of your mind. Now go to sleep, if you please. You need your rest, and I must be going.”

“But when will you come again? You can’t leave me here to languish—imagine having that on your conscience! I’m only thinking of you.”

“Yes, I see that,” I replied, putting on my bonnet and shawl. “I’ll come tomorrow if I can. Now, good night.” He bade me good night with a mock air of tragedy, and I took my leave.

I returned home by the shortcut, and settled in for a cozy evening in my chamber. Fall had come in earnest now, and I enjoyed a crackling fire in my fireplace. Cook had brewed up a hot toddy to warm me through, and I sat by the fireside thinking, too drowsy to work on Latin. As I stared at the yellow flames, my mind’s eye kept tracing the outline of a certain face with a wide brow and a sculpted snout; the face looked suspiciously like Mr. Bentley’s. But I disliked Mr. Bentley—didn’t I? Examining myself candidly, I found that my grudge against him had lost its rancor. If I was honest, I’d have to admit that I wasn’t just going to the vicarage to help Mrs. Snover, but that I took some satisfaction in nursing the patient for his own sake, and that I was happy to think of going back again on the morrow. And yet what did I know of him? I knew that he was a little older than I, probably just out of university. I knew his name was Jonathan, because I had heard Reverend Snover call him that. I knew that, along with the other members of the “men’s choir,” he had risked
himself to oppose an evil deed. I knew that he was profoundly protective of young Teddy. I knew too that he could be irascible and judgmental, or quite charming when he chose. And I knew there was someone named Amy who was so important to him that he had called her name repeatedly while in his extremity. I pictured her as a round-faced beauty, laughing gaily with him, her arm linked with his as he quoted poetry to her. Realizing that I actually knew very little about Mr. Bentley, I concluded that I must be careful to guard my feelings. Long ago, listening to my classmates’ endless accounts of love’s vicissitudes, I had vowed that my own head would always rule my heart, and this could be the first test of that resolve. Forcing myself to sit down at my desk and open the Latin grammar book, I ruthlessly blotted out Mr. Bentley with Latin verbs.

Several weeks passed, with little variation in my routine. Mr. Bentley was well on his way to recovery, so much so that he was bored and restless, and, now that he was able to take a little exercise about the room, it was proving difficult to keep him quietly hidden away at the vicarage. Though he was surely well enough to read on his own, he insisted to me that he felt too weak to do so, and that if I had any proper feeling of compassion, I would not deprive him of his sole entertainment. Telling myself that it was indeed an errand of mercy, and a temporary one at that, I went on with my trips to the vicarage despite my caution, and despite the continuing toll they took on my time and energy.

My walks through the shortcut remained undisturbed. I realized the grotesquely misnamed Gabriel might come looking for me there any day. I had had time to think over the encounter with the brute, and the more I thought, the more I came to doubt that he was employed in any capacity by Mr. Vaughn. Would Mr. Vaughn be likely to hire such a callow thug to patrol
his property? Surely “Gabe” would have nothing to fear from exposure if he were, in fact, legitimately employed? The villain had made it all up in order to claim that he had the master’s approbation, in a clumsy attempt to win me over. What was he really after? What information did he think I had? What was this “rat” he had demanded so angrily? The thoughts wore at me and worried me through my days and nights, try as I might to push them away.

My daily struggles with Nurse continued without abatement. It was now habitual for Nurse and Teddy to arrive to the schoolroom late. Since I had no hope of effecting any change in Nurse’s habits, I used the time to come up with new activities for Teddy. And so the days went by as I seethed inwardly and tried to learn patience.

As might have been predicted, however, the day came when patience was not enough. I had applied myself to the morning’s exercises for some time, inventing some simple counting games with colored buttons. The hour for lessons to begin came and went, and Teddy did not appear. The hallway clock struck the half hour, and still he did not appear. By the time the clock had struck ten, I made up my mind to go to the nursery myself and see what the matter was. There I found Teddy, with his sailor suit all awry, struggling to do up the buttons on his shoes. Seeing me in the doorway, he put his paw up to his lips and went “Shhh!” then pointed to the recumbent form of Nurse, dead asleep on her trundle bed. “Don’t wake her up!” he whispered. “She’s sick!”