The Cottage in the Woods (11 page)

“NO!” was on the tip of my tongue. My mouth had shaped the word and my vocal cords had begun the sound when I stopped myself. Papa. What of Papa and all his fond hopes and expectations? What of my own pride? And what of Teddy? If
I were sent away, I would be replaced by a new governess, of course, but would she appreciate his budding spirit as I did?

My throat constricted, and I felt tears welling up. Savagely I drove them back. I must not—MUST NOT—cry. Quickly, I weighed the obvious evil of having my every move overseen by Nurse against the alternative of accepting total failure. In those moments a resolve was born: Nurse would not get rid of me so easily. Whatever was set before me to do, I would somehow do.

“For how long, sir?” I managed to ask, hoping he would set some limit on my suffering and give me something to work toward.

“We shall review the situation in one month’s time, but I make you no promises. If you demonstrate that you are willing to improve yourself, you will not find me unreasonable.”

“As you wish, sir,” I said, my heart sinking to my feet.

“Very good,” he responded. “As Seneca, the great philosopher and Stoic, once said, ‘True happiness is to understand our duties to God and Bear.’ Remember, Miss Brown,
vincit qui se vincit
. Proceed with your plans for the afternoon, and remember your duties, and let there be no more reason for me to be disturbed.”

I curtsied as he left the room. I quickly packed a bag with binoculars, a bird book, and a bag of seed for our outing. Throwing a shawl over my shoulders, I hurried to meet Teddy and the Horror.

Out on the drive, I approached Nurse with my head held high. It was my policy not to give her the satisfaction of seeing me upset, so I decided to act as if nothing had happened. “Good afternoon,” I forced out. “We’ll be studying birds today. Would you be good enough to choose a destination for our walk?”

“Huh!” she snorted. “You can quit your nicey-nice talk with
me
, chickie.
I’m
in charge now, right and square, and don’t you forget it!”

With an effort that I thought might kill me, I mildly observed, “Yes, you’re quite right, Nurse.” My voice sounded unnatural to me, and I felt no connection to the words. “And I must continue to teach,” I went on. “I’m sure you could take us to some likely spots for bird-watching?”

“Hmph,” Nurse mumbled. Whatever reaction she had expected, I had apparently disappointed her, and I rejoiced at this small triumph. She countered by making an elaborate show of ignoring my existence. “Come, Teddy,” she commanded, turning
her back on me. She took him by the paw and waddled down one of the pathways branching off from the drive. “
We
know where the birds is.” As I straggled along behind them, Teddy stole glances at me over his shoulder, and for his sake I tried to smile reassuringly. And so we progressed.

The path wound around hillocks and rock formations, and carried us deep into the old growth of the forest. Teddy looked up to me and said reverently, “This is the Giant’s Walk. That’s what we call the old trees.”

I gazed about me. Venerable oak columns soared skyward, topped by a many-layered canopy that tinged the muted light a silvery green. There was a momentary hush as we entered the woods, and, on Nurse’s signal, we went off the path and sat quietly down to wait. I marveled, briefly, that she should know of such a lovely place.

First one, then another, and then in chorus, the birds began chirping and trilling in the uppermost reaches of the foliage. I scattered some seed at a little distance from us to tempt them down where we could see them, and then we waited. Within a few minutes, we were observing delightedly as the little jewel-toned creatures fluttered down and took turns feasting and chasing one another away from the banquet.

Teddy and I were whispering to each other the names of birds we recognized. Each time we identified a bird, we would try to pick out its call. As we were absorbed in this activity, Nurse sat with her back against an enormous tree trunk, arms folded, radiating boredom, her worn red shawl wrapped about her like a blanket, and her ruffled dustcap slipping down over one eye. It was not long before I heard guttural snores emanating from her snout. Since I had just been demoted to a place
under her supervision for the crime of napping, the irony was not lost on me.

For the next hour, we sat on the forest floor, very still, and waited and watched. Gradually birds came to investigate: a yellow wood warbler, a nuthatch with its long black beak, a little chiffchaff with its distinctive tail wagging, and many others. Teddy fairly glowed with pleasure. After a time, we returned to Nurse’s tree and packed up our things, then contemplated what to do about Nurse.

“YOU wake her up, all right?” Teddy asked, standing behind me.

“Why, Teddy?” I asked.

“I don’t like to wake her up,” he said evasively.

“I’ll do it, Teddy. Stand back.”

I leaned in and tapped her shoulder. Getting no result, I pushed her shoulder gently, then shook it. She reacted as if stung, leaping to her feet, jaws wide open, with that same guttural hiss and hateful glare she had frightened me with the night before. I stepped back, nearly tripping over Teddy, who was hiding behind my skirts, and waited for her to come to her senses.

“Nurse?” came Teddy’s tight little voice as he peered out from behind me. “Can we go home now? I want to go home.”

Nurse’s glare softened as she focused on Teddy, and as her ruffled fur settled, she seemed to make herself smaller and denser. “Home?” she repeated. Then, as if something had just occurred to her, she licked her chops and said, “Did you catch anything?”

With sudden clarity I understood why Nurse had come to know this place. Refusing to think about it, I answered in the negative and, taking Teddy’s paw, headed back to the path.
Nurse quickly caught up and grabbed Teddy’s other paw, pulling him away from me. Unwilling to put Teddy in the impossible position of being tugged in two directions, I relinquished his paw and took up my place behind them.

As a climax to our trip, a tiny house sparrow left the cover of the woods and darted directly ahead of us. Our eyes were naturally drawn to its motion. I told myself later that there was no way I could have prevented what happened next, or Teddy’s seeing it. Almost instantaneously a sparrow hawk shot out of the upper canopy and plunged down on the little bird, snatching it from the sky and flying off with it clutched in its talons. As a few loose feathers drifted to the ground, my eyes went to Teddy. His mouth hung open in shock, and his eyes were tearing up. Nurse immediately turned and said, “Well, now you see what happens to BAD little birds, eh?” and laughed.

“I’m not bad, right? I’m good! Ain’t I, Nurse? I’m good,” quavered Teddy.

I was appalled. Uncaring of what Nurse might do to me, I knelt down to the cub, and, looking straight into his big, tear-filled eyes, said, “Yes, you’re very good, Teddy, but if little ones are bad sometimes, we do not kill them. We teach them how to do better, and we give them another chance.”

I was expecting a counterattack from Nurse—a verbal tirade, or a threat. She merely looked away, with what might have been embarrassment, and went, “Hmph!” Then her whole demeanor changed. She turned to Teddy and said, “There, there, duck. You didn’t think I meant it, did you?” She stroked his paw as she continued. “Why, of course I didn’t mean it. It was just a little joke between
you
and
me
—and now your nasty governess has gone and scared you!” She returned my glare here, as if I had
been responsible for the whole thing. “Now just you come with Nursie, and we’ll go home and have cake with our tea. Won’t that be nice?” Without waiting for a reply, she gripped his paw firmly, and set off down the path again.

Teddy managed to recover some equanimity, and I was left to wonder, as I followed them along, how often scenes like this took place. Was Teddy so perfectly behaved because he had grown up terrorized by Nurse’s thinly veiled threats? I could see that he loved her, but with his warm heart and innocence, it seemed that he loved her even when she mistreated him. Perhaps Nurse even loved him, in her way, and, like the sparrow hawk, simply couldn’t help her own predatory impulses, but I found I couldn’t exonerate her that easily. Everyone has their animal nature to overcome, after all.

Whatever the case, our school day was over, and since I had no choice but to entrust Teddy to Nurse’s care, I took an affectionate leave of him, managed a stiff “Good day” to her, and returned to my chamber to freshen up before tea.

Back in my own room, I was once again reminded of my locket, and felt the pang of its loss anew. My paw went to my heart, where I was accustomed to feel it hanging, and I blinked back tears. Mrs. Vaughn had said it might take some time to find it, but I had allowed myself to hope that it would be found swiftly. I felt sorely in need of a sympathetic soul to pour out my troubles to, yet I could not bring myself to tell Papa about the stolen locket, or how I had been demoted, or Nurse’s humiliating conduct toward me. There was no one else in whom I could confide—no one but my faithful journal.

Forgetting tea, I sat down at my desk to write. The supper hour came and went, but it was my wounded spirit more than
my body that needed ministering to. My pen traveled across many a page before at last it rested, and my mind felt purged and quiet. With a familiar melody floating through my head, I put away my writing things and prepared early for bed. The dark was coming again, but I told myself that this night I would be exhausted enough to sleep through anything. I carefully locked the door and set a lonely little candle in a shallow dish of water for a night-light, as Papa used to do. Only after I had said my prayers and climbed into bed did I recognize the tune that I had been humming: “Abide with Me.” It was Papa’s favorite hymn, and I knew it by heart. I closed my eyes and repeated the words while I waited for sleep to come:

Peace descended on me, and I slept a long and dreamless sleep.

The days seemed to crawl slowly by. Nurse had become the bane of my existence, but I had expected no less. She exercised her grandiose authority at every opportunity, and seemingly with the intention of driving me to the madhouse. If I opened a window for some fresh air, she said it must be closed again so that Teddy wouldn’t get caught in a draft. If I kept the windows closed, she insisted they must be opened to provide Teddy with
healthy fresh air. She might say our afternoon walks were too strenuous for Teddy, and we must go home; or she’d assert that our walks were not strenuous enough, and we must continue. She even had the audacity to comment on my teaching methods, and correct the stories I read to Teddy. In these and a hundred other ways, she bullied and, yes, badgered me until my teeth ground against each other, but I held my tongue. Exercising control I didn’t know I had, I continued with my teaching as if she had not spoken, feeling that I owed as much to Teddy. No less important, it was the surest way to deprive her of any satisfaction. All of her outrageous conduct I stored away for an imagined time when she and I would come to a day of reckoning.

Despite Nurse’s tyrannical attentions, Teddy and I continued to forge a bond of trust and affection, and though he was frequently distracted by her interference, I was relieved to see that it did not affect his sunny nature. I concluded that her intolerable behavior was quite normal to him. Still, he seemed aware of the raging tensions that surrounded him, often looking from one to the other of us as if to check both authorities before acting.

Mercifully, it soon became obvious that Nurse was bored to distraction by Teddy’s lessons. At such times she often sat apart from us, sullen and silent, attending to her knitting—or her flask, when she thought no one was looking—or pacing restlessly by the windows. Better yet, she sometimes napped for hours at a stretch, during which time the very air seemed transmuted—cleaner, lighter, and sweeter—and I sometimes succeeded in forgetting about her altogether. These were the times that sustained me through her insufferable campaign
against me, and gave me hope that a brighter future was coming—a future that would be worth the pain and humiliation I endured every day.