The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood by Susan Wittig Albert

expected, then?”
    “Oh, good heavens, no!” said Mrs. Kittredge, with a flutter of eyelash and a gay little laugh. “It’s just that . . .” She gave him a sideways glance. “He hopes, you see.”
    “And I hope,” Mr. Richardson said significantly, “that you will be able to persuade him to agree to the villas. Soon, Diana. Very soon.”
    Mrs. Kittredge tossed her head in a careless way. “Oh, I shall, Augustus, never fear. I have a way, you know, of working on him. And now that you are here to explain the whole business to him—especially the part about how much money the Sandiford Syndicate will pour into the Kittredge purse—I am sure that the affair will move more smoothly.”
    “I daresay, Diana. I have every confidence in your skills of persuasion.” He chuckled. “I’ve often said that you are a witch, you know. An enchantress.”
    Whatever Mrs. Kittredge might have said to this remark was unfortunately lost in the shrill whistle of the approaching steam ferry, and the two prepared to board.
    As they left the spot where they had been standing, however, Beatrix noticed that something had been left behind: a white calling card, dropped, perhaps, when Mr. Richardson pulled the spyglass out of his pocket. She stooped, picked it up, and then, without the slightest twinge of guilt, tucked it into the pocket of her gray woolen skirt and went to lead her pony onto the ferry.

8
    The Vicar Tells a Lie
    At the same moment that Miss Potter was boarding the ferry, Vicar Samuel Sackett sat down at his desk in the vicarage at Far Sawrey, took up his pen, and returned to the essay he was writing: a scholarly work on the sufferings of Job. The piece was nearly finished. Only the conclusion remained, in which he would argue that life constantly presents us with unexpected and unwelcome challenges, and that while we may never understand the purpose of suffering, we can only do our best. It was an argument that the poor vicar was taking to heart, for he himself had been suffering greatly for the past several months.
    The week before Christmas, Vicar Sackett had received a letter from a distant cousin, Harold Thexton, saying that he and his wife Gloria were traveling through the Lake District and would be delighted to drop in for a brief visit at any time that was convenient to the vicar. However, since they planned to be in the area on the following Tuesday, it seemed that time would be the most convenient for themselves, if it would not too terribly inconvenience the vicar.
    Now, it happened that the following Tuesday was Christmas Eve, a dreadfully inconvenient time to entertain guests at the vicarage, what with the carol singing and the festive decorations and the choir party and the gifts to be collected and distributed to the village poor. Since there was no Mrs. Sackett—the vicar had lost his dear wife to scarlet fever shortly after their marriage—all these duties fell upon him, in addition to the burden of several additional holiday worship services. If the vicar were honest, it was most definitely not the best time of the year to receive guests. Nor could he recall a branch of the family that went by the name of Thexton, although it was to be admitted that the Sackett family tree had a great many odd branches and there might have been a Thexton offshoot or two among the distant twigs on his father’s mother’s side.
    However, the vicarage had several guest rooms and the vicar’s housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Thompson, could just as easily turn out dinner for three as for one. So Vicar Sackett swallowed his reluctance and extended a cordial invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Thexton to join him for a few days over the holidays. When they arrived, he learnt that Mr. Thexton, a burly gentleman of middle age with a drooping mustache and an affected manner, was a great-great-nephew of the vicar’s grandmother’s sister, that is, on the Lessiter side of that family. In the course of their conversation, it emerged that he