The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood (5 page)

“Sawrey is a bit out of the way of things,” Beatrix remarked. “And as Dimity says, it’s very old-fashioned. No electric lights, no telephone, no entertainments. It suits me exactly, but I wonder whether Mrs. Kittredge might find life dull here.”

“I doubt it,” Dimity said stoutly. “Mrs. Kittredge could not possibly find it dull. Christopher—Major Kittredge—is a very interesting person. Marriage to him would be—”

She stopped abruptly, coloring, and looked away, but not before Beatrix—who often noticed what others might like to hide—understood that Dimity Woodcock had once cared a very great deal for Christopher Kittredge and was forcing herself to set her feelings aside and accept the fact that he now had a beautiful new wife. Realizing this, Beatrix felt a great sympathy for Dimity, for she herself knew what it was like to lose the one person you loved. Married, Major Kittredge was as irretrievably lost to poor Dimity as Norman was to herself.

“That’s as may be, Dim,” Sarah said, tossing her head carelessly. “But p’rhaps you’ll forgive me if I am just a tiny bit glad that the villagers have happened on something new to keep their tongues wagging—besides my trousers and my bicycle, that is.” She smiled at Beatrix. “You won’t want to miss the reception, Bea. Saturday afternoon, at Raven Hall. The whole village plans to turn out to ogle the mysterious Mrs. Kittredge and stuff themselves with sandwiches and sweets.
My
sweets,” she added proudly. “The Raven Hall cook isn’t up to such a large crowd, it seems. I’ve been asked to provide cakes and tarts and other sweets.”

“Oh, yes, you must come, Beatrix,” Dimity said in a rush, obviously relieved to leave the subject of the Kittredge marriage. “Raven Hall may look forbidding on the outside, but the interior is really quite spectacular, with a minstrel gallery and a view over Lake Windermere, and some fine old pieces of art. Including the Luck, of course, which is quite famous.” She fell silent again, and Beatrix guessed that she was thinking of a time when she had seen herself as the mistress of Raven Hall.

“I’m not sure I’ll go,” Beatrix said apologetically. She was shy and self-conscious in crowds, and avoided large social gatherings when she could. “There’s so much to be done here, and I promised my mother that I would only stay away a fortnight. If the weather is fine, I should very much like to get into the garden.”

“Nonsense,” Sarah said decidedly. “You have to go, and that’s all there is to it.” She glanced at the clock and stood up. “My buns have risen, so I’m off to put them into the oven. Lovely to have you back, Bea. Do get another cat, will you, before I have rats in my bread bin? Ta, Dim. See you at Raven Hall.”

“I’m off, too,” Dimity said, as Sarah bustled out the door. “I must go down to the school this morning and look for the May box.”

“The May box?” Beatrix asked curiously.

“The crowns and May Pole ribbons,” Dimity said. She sighed. “Mrs. Peachy always manages the May Pageant, which is just a week away. But she’s gone to Edinburgh to help her sister, who’s ill. So I agreed to take her place.”

“That’s no surprise,” Beatrix said with a smile. Dimity was always agreeing to do this, that, or the other thing, usually on very short notice. But perhaps the May Pageant was good for her. It might keep her mind off Major Kittredge and his mysterious new wife.

“I know.” Dimity made a face. “But the children always look forward to the May Pole. I couldn’t find it in my heart to say no.” She picked up her basket. “So you’re staying just a fortnight?”

“Yes,” Beatrix said, going with her to the door. She glanced out at the stone wall, where Crumpet was perched, victorious, with her prize. “And it looks as if I shall have to spend a good part of it dealing with
rats.
”

3

Ridley Rattail Arrives at a Conclusion

At the same moment that Miss Potter was asserting her determination to do something about the rats, Ridley Rattail was pacing around his parlor in the northwest corner of the Hill Top attic, his hands clasped beneath his coattails. He and Miss Potter were puzzling over the very same problem.

Ridley, a stout, mild-tempered gentleman rat from the Midlands, had come to live at Hill Top at the invitation of his friend Rosabelle, just about the time Miss Potter had purchased the place. His introduction to the Lake District had been most unpleasant, as you will remember if you read a book called
The Tale of Hill Top Farm.
If you’ve not read it or have forgotten the story, perhaps I ought to tell you that Ridley had been cheated out of some money (never mind how he acquired it) by a pair of very disagreeable rats, and that he had just missed being snatched up by an enormous owl, and had lost most of his clothes when he was forced to swim across Wilfin Beck in the middle of the night. He had arrived in Rosabelle’s attic wet, miserable, and thoroughly frightened.

But Rosabelle was a most gracious and hospitable friend. Various guests who had stayed with her over the years had left one thing or another behind, and Ridley was able to outfit himself quite handsomely in the way of trousers, shirtfronts, waistcoats, slippers, and a fine briar pipe, to which he added his own possessions, forwarded from his previous residence. The Jennings family, who occupied the rooms downstairs, were also generous (or careless—it amounted to the same thing in the end), and there was a regular supply of beans, bacon, and cheese, with the occasional savory bubble and squeak, and no end of delicious cake and pie. In fact, Ridley had never before enjoyed such substantial provender, and as a result, his already stout figure had grown several sizes stouter, and he could no longer button his waistcoat and jacket.

It wasn’t just the fine dining that Ridley enjoyed, either. For when the renovations to the farmhouse were completed and Miss Potter took up residence in the older part of the house, she brought with her a great number of handsome leather-bound books, gilt-framed paintings, pieces of antique china and porcelain and silver, and so many other fascinating treasures that Ridley felt he was living in what might fairly be called an art museum—exactly the right sort of residence for a gentleman of fine taste.

What’s more, Miss Potter was an artist and children’s author of wide reputation, and she liked to do her artwork on the table in front of the window in what had once been Mrs. Jennings’s kitchen. So Ridley had the rare opportunity to enjoy her little books before they were seen by the public. He often lurked in the chimney corner until she went up to bed, so he could have an admiring look at her current project. He very much liked the one she was working on now, which involved a pair of rats, something like himself and Rosabelle, who captured an impertinent young kitten and tied him up with string, preparatory to wrapping the saucy fellow in pastry and steaming him like a roly-poly pudding.

Miss Potter had not yet got to the end of her book, so Ridley could not be sure how the story came out. But if it went as it seemed to be going, he knew he should like it very well. It included a stunning passage that made him shiver with fright and grin with delight at the very same time, for in it he recognized Hill Top itself, with its staircase hidden in the wall:

 
Miss Potter’s fictional Hill Top seemed dark, somehow, and sinister, as though its walls and passages might hide macabre secrets beneath the serene ordinariness of everyday life. This description made Ridley shiver because it gave him the sense that disruptive powers might lurk behind any respectable façade, and since he was so comfortably contented, this little
frisson
of horror was pleasurable indeed.

And all taken together, Ridley Rattail enjoyed every domestic pleasure that any rat might wish. He and Rosabelle lived a sedate, self-satisfied, and entirely pleasant life, rich in civil discourse and the pleasures of gentility, always careful not to call attention to themselves in any way. Of course, had there been a mouser downstairs who paid the proper attention to larder or dairy, it might not have been so easy to escape notice, and get away with the cheese and bacon. But the only cat was a young, inexperienced feline named Miss Felicia Frummety, who belonged to Mrs. Jennings but liked to boast that she was Miss Potter’s cat. Felicia, a vain creature who spent a great deal of time grooming herself, could not be bothered to notice, so the rats’ forays into the kitchen and dairy went unchallenged.

But Ridley’s contentment was short-lived. It happened that Rosabelle’s sister Bluebell and Bluebell’s husband and four children had been left without a home when a storm blew the roof off their barn on the other side of Esthwaite Water. Rosabelle, generous to a fault, hospitably offered them refuge.

And that was when things had turned sour, Ridley thought darkly, taking another turn around his comfortable, nicely furnished parlor. He could not in good conscience object to a brief visit from Rosabelle’s homeless relatives. But then Bluebell’s husband Rollo, a brash, brutish fellow with menacing whiskers and bad breath, had invited three or four of his bachelor friends—ne’er-do-well rogues from Hawkshead—for a fortnight’s holiday. They had set up a dartboard and a billiard table at the east end of the attic, rolled a keg of ginger beer and a round of ripe yellow cheese up the spiral stairs in the kitchen wall, and commenced to enjoy themselves long and loudly.

Ridley deeply resented this intrusion into his tranquil life, the life of a self-satisfied gentleman rat settled in comfortable lodgings, which heretofore had been altogether civilized and enjoyable. Finally, one midnight, when the gaiety had reached an unendurable pitch, he went to the east end of the attic (he had taken to calling it the Hill Top Saloon) to remonstrate. But Rollo took immediate offense.

“Wot’s all this, eh?”
he growled, raising himself up on his back legs and glaring down his whiskery nose at Ridley, who found himself feeling suddenly rather short and out of trim.
“Interferin’ wi’ me gennulmen friends, are ye?”

“Well, no,”
replied Ridley nervously.
“I only—”

“Stow it,”
Rollo growled. His tail twitched threateningly.
“Give me any more o’ yer lip, Rattail, and I’ll punch ye in the nose.”

In the circumstance, Ridley thought it just as well to allow the party to continue. He took himself off to his room and comforted himself with the reminder that this was only a temporary situation. Rollo’s riotous friends would be gone soon, the Saloon would be closed, and attic life would return to its normal, decorous state.

But the fortnight came and went and Rollo’s friends showed no signs of departing. Instead, they invited
their
friends to join them. More cheeses were pilfered from the Hill Top dairy and supplemented by mutton, bacon, bread, and scones from the Jenningses’ kitchen, as well as apples from the apple barrel and corn from the barn. When the ginger beer ran out, it was replaced by bottles of stout pinched from the nearby Tower Bank Arms. And all the while Felicia Frummety slept on the warm hearth below, allowing the renegade rats to run rampant wherever they liked.

So, just when Ridley had hoped that these unwanted guests would be gone and the attic restored to its former broad expanse of dusty peace, the party in the Saloon only grew louder and larger. One of the rats had engaged a concertina player, who sat on a stool and entertained the crowd—the
growing
crowd—with bawdy songs he had learned from veterans of the war in South Africa. After a few days, the concertina player invited a trio of can-can dancers, who kicked up their heels on a wooden crackerbox stage that their admirers had cobbled together, with curtains made of scraps stolen from Mrs. Jennings’s workbasket.

Poor Ridley. He who had preferred the quiet life and liked to retire early to his chambers found himself kept awake almost until dawn by the sound of rats enjoying themselves in his attic.
His
attic, he thought resentfully, as he lay sleepless through the night, with bits of cotton wool stuffed in his ears and the covers pulled over his head.

Bad as the situation was, it was about to get worse—oh, much, much worse. Quite a few of the fellows noticed with approval that the Hill Top attic was clean and dry and undisturbed (Miss Potter had better things to do than bother about the attic), and decided to bring their wives and children and all their family furnishings to take up lodgings there. And of course, rats—as Tabitha Twitchit has already pointed out—multiply faster than rabbits. In no time at all, there were some six dozen rat families in permanent residence. (This was according to the January census, which could not be relied upon as accurate, for several large litters had been produced since the count was made and more were on the way.) The roomy attic no longer seemed roomy at all, and Ridley—who valued his privacy more than anything else in the world—could scarcely manage a ten-minute nap in his favorite chair without having his slippered feet tread upon or his tail pulled by rowdy, ill-behaved rat children.

“We would not have this problem,”
Ridley grumbled to Rosabelle when they had a private moment in the kitchen,
“if you were not so obliging.”

“You are making too much of it, Ridley,”
Rosabelle said mildly, rolling up her sleeves in preparation for the washing up.
“You should be a little forgiving, and allow the children to have their play.”

“I could tolerate the children during the daytime,”
Ridley retorted,
“if I could get my sleep at night. It’s the music and dancing and laughing and the crack of billiard balls
—crack! crack! crack!—
on and on until the wee hours. That’s what’s got me down, Rosabelle.”

“You might speak to Rollo,”
Rosabelle suggested, stacking the dirty dishes.
“I’m sure he’d be willing to—”