Free The Tale of Holly How by Susan Wittig Albert

people.”
    This time, Annie couldn’t think of anything comforting to say.

7

    Word Gets Around

    Naturally, the news of Dr. Gainwell’s candidacy for the position of head teacher did not remain a secret for very long. Fifteen minutes before Bertha Stubbs was making her unwelcome announcement to Margaret and Annie Nash, Elsa Grape was passing the news along to Grace Lythecoe, the widow of the former vicar, whom she met on the street just outside the door of Rose Cottage. From inside the cottage came the vibrant sound of Caruso, Mrs. Lythecoe’s canary, warbling a series of complicated trills up and down the scale. Elsa knew, of course, that Grace Lythecoe, having been the wife of a vicar, was not one to gossip, but she was the first person Elsa encountered, so she was the first to hear Elsa’s news.
    “I’m sorry that her ladyship has seen fit to intervene in the selection process,” Mrs. Lythecoe said gravely. “And I very much hope, Elsa, that you will keep this information to yourself. The school trustees will have a difficult enough time dealing with the facts of this matter without having to deal with the inevitable gossip, as well. I’m sure you don’t want to cause them any more anxiety than necessary, do you?”
    “Oh, no, Mrs. Lythecoe,” Elsa vowed, her eyes widening. “Of course not, Mrs. Lythecoe.”
    And then, without hesitation, Elsa hurried to the Tower Bank Arms, the village pub, which sat on a hill on the opposite side of the main road through the village. There, she went looking for her friend Mrs. Barrow, the wife of the pub’s proprietor. She found her in the grassy garden behind the Arms, folding freshly dried bed sheets from the clothesline into a wicker laundry basket, and told her story.
    Frances Barrow listened with a growing apprehension, and was much distressed by the implications of Elsa’s report. She hurried into the pub to inform her husband, who had just brought up a fresh keg of beer from the cellar and was tapping the bung, that Miss Nash would not be the new head teacher, after all. Lady Longford had just overruled the trustees’ appointment and awarded the position to her own man, a Dr. Harrison Gainwell, a missionary from Borneo. Mrs. Barrow was highly incensed at her ladyship’s intervention in school affairs, since her very own Margaret had just been promoted to the junior class, which her mother had expected would be taught by Miss Nash.
    It did not much matter to Mr. Barrow who taught his daughter, as long as the girl learnt her lessons and behaved herself, but he quite naturally believed that this news might be of some interest to the other parents in the village. So that evening, when the men began to gather at the Arms for their nightly half-pints and the monthly dart tournament (which always drew a much larger than usual crowd), he mentioned it to three or four of the early arrivals, who mentioned it to those who came later, and so on. Of course, there was always a great deal of noise in the pub, singing and shouting and clinking of glasses and such, and it wasn’t always possible to hear exactly what was being said. But by closing time, most of the dart players in both Near and Far Sawrey—that would be at least half of the men in the twin villages—had heard the facts of the matter, at least in a general way. They knew that a gentleman of outstanding education, character, and amazing courage (they were a little unclear as to whether his name was Gainfellow or Galsworth) had been unanimously appointed by the school trustees to take over Sawrey School, his entire salary being underwritten by Lady Longford out of gratitude for his having rescued the three children of a fellow missionary from the cooking pot of a savage tribe of head hunters.
    It was this thrilling tale that the wives of the village learnt from their husbands at breakfast, and which they shared amongst themselves, with further embellishments, as they met one another in the street or the post