The Tale of Hawthorn House (4 page)

“Perhaps.”
Tabitha paused delicately.
“But if Miss Woodcock truly loves the major, she might forgive him.”

“
If
she were left to her own devices, she might,”
Crumpet acknowledged
. “But Captain Woodcock has made up his mind against it, and she would never oppose her brother in something as important as the choice of a husband.”
And then, with the air of a cat who knows a great deal more than she is at liberty to tell, she added,
“There’s something else, but it is highly secret. If I tell you, you must promise not to tell a soul.”

“I promise,”
Rascal said eagerly.

Tabitha’s mahogany ears pricked forward. Every fiber of her feline being was screaming out to hear the secret, but promising was an admission that Crumpet knew something she didn’t.

“Oh, all right,”
she said at last, crossly.
“I promise.”
But she crossed her forepaws under her furry white bib, as the Big Folk crossed their fingers when they told a lie.

Crumpet purred, feeling that she had finally got the best of Tabitha.
“Captain Woodcock,”
she said,
“has already chosen his sister’s husband.”

“But who?”
Rascal asked, puzzled.
“The major is the only suitable candidate in the village. And Miss Woodcock would never leave. Who would do all the things she does?”
Miss Woodcock was never too busy to knit stockings for the poor or take food to the sick. Without her, everyone said, the parish would simply fall apart.

“Yes, a husband,”
Crumpet said authoritatively.
“And I shouldn’t be surprised if the engagement were to be announced within the fortnight.”

Tabitha abandoned her efforts to appear nonchalant.
“Who is he?”
she cried.
“Who? Who?”

Crumpet gave a hard, triumphant laugh, the laugh of a cat who has the upper paw. She leaned forward and whispered a name, just loud enough for Tabitha and Rascal to hear—but not loud enough for us, I’m afraid. (I suppose we might have moved closer, but I shouldn’t like to be accused of eavesdropping.)

Rascal blinked.
“Really? Are you sure, Crumpet?”

Tabitha tossed her head.
“I suspected it all along,”
she said airily.

“You didn’t!”
Crumpet snarled, arching her back.

“I did!”
Tabitha hissed. Her tail puffed out.

“Now, now, ladies,”
Rascal soothed, raising a cautioning paw.
“Let’s not fight.”

But the cats paid no attention. Crumpet’s claws flashed. Tabitha bared sharp teeth. And then, in a fine fury of fur and fierce whiskers, they tumbled off the bench, biting and scratching and shrieking and slashing. Tabitha escaped and ran yowling through the crowd, the furious Crumpet snarling at her heels. They were last seen disappearing over the stone wall.

 
In a village, it is naturally ordained that nothing, not even the smallest bit of business, escapes attention. The cats’ quarrel was witnessed by Misses Potter and Barwick, who happened past at that moment.

“Just look at that,” Sarah Barwick said. “Tabitha and Crumpet after each other, hammer and tongs. Wonder what it’s about.”

“A difference of opinion about mice, perhaps,” replied Beatrix Potter with a chuckle. In London, where she lived with her parents, quarrelsome cats were beneath notice. But in Sawrey, small doings like this one merited comment, and villagers found them endlessly amusing.

Sarah nodded. “Like good friends who get into rows. Or family members.” In honor of the fête, she had forsaken her usual corduroy trousers (you can imagine what the village had to say about those trousers!) for a neat gray serge skirt of practical length.

“Indeed,” Beatrix agreed regretfully. “Family squabbles are every bit as fierce as cat fights.”

At least, hers were. She had just left her parents at Stock Park, their holiday house, some fifteen miles away at the southern end of Lake Windermere. Her brother Bertram had joined them for a fortnight, but it had not been a happy time. Their parents had constantly nagged and grumbled at their son about his decision to leave London and live year-round on a farm in Scotland. It had been quite tiresome. Quarreling made Beatrix unhappy.

“P’rhaps it’s better not to have any family,” Sarah mused. “No family, no family rows—although one does hit a lonely patch now and then.”

Sarah, whom the villagers called “Sarah Scones,” operated a bakery out of her kitchen at Anvil Cottage. Old enough to be considered a spinster, she always said she doubted she would ever take a husband. She would have to put up with his going to the pub and spending weekends with gun or rod. He would have to put up with her cigarettes and trousers, her business hours (up before dawn to bake, and open to customers on Sunday), and her habit of saying exactly what she thought. Neither would be suited.

“To tell the truth, I shouldn’t mind a little loneliness,” Beatrix replied wistfully. “It’s tedious to continually explain where one is going, or where one has been, and with whom and why.” She made a rueful grimace. “When one is a fully grown adult, one can surely be counted on to find one’s way without losing parcels or being run over by cabs.” She looked up at the western sky, which had grown quite dark and ominous. “Do you suppose it’s going to rain?”

“Of course not,” Sarah declared staunchly. “It can’t rain today. Not with all these trippers about, and the foot races still to be run, and the dance tonight.”

As if in answer, a bolt of lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and the scent of wet grass sweetened the rain-cooled breeze. A few large drops splatted onto the warm ground, creating dust cones like tiny volcanoes. Ladies put up their parasols and stall-keepers scurried to cover their wares.

“I think I had better go home and close my windows before it doesn’t rain,” Beatrix said with a laugh. She had intended to stay for the Morris dancers, because she especially enjoyed watching Mr. Heelis. He danced with a grace and lightness that she admired. But someone mentioned that he had not been able to come, so she didn’t mind missing them.

Sarah giggled. “And I should take my laundry off the line before it doesn’t get wet. Goodbye, Bea.” She picked up her skirts for the short dash to Anvil Cottage.

Beatrix hurried in the other direction, crossing the Kendal Road and climbing the path to the top of the hill above the Tower Bank Arms. She didn’t mind the rain, for the plants and animals needed it and the coolness was refreshing. And best of all, she was going to Hill Top Farm. She was going home, and the thought of it swept her, as it always did, with a sweet wonder.

She was going
home.

3

“No More Babies!”

Deirdre Malone, who worked for the Suttons at Courier Cottage, had been eagerly looking forward to the fête, for she and her friend Caroline Longford had planned to go together. But I am sorry to say that their plans didn’t work out.

Caroline sent a note saying that she was in bed with a summer cold and couldn’t leave Tidmarsh Manor, where she lived with her grandmother. So when Mrs. Sutton asked Deirdre to take Libby, Jamie, and Nan, the three older Suttons, Deirdre agreed. The other five Suttons were too young for such excitements, and would have to stay at home.

By the time Deirdre had combed her hair and put on her hat, the children were waiting at the door, hands scrubbed and faces shining, hair ribbons and shoelaces neatly tied, pocket money knotted into handkerchiefs. “We’re ready!” they chorused, dancing up and down.

“Off we go, then,” Deirdre said cheerfully, and marched her troops down the path in the direction of Post Office Meadow.

I daresay you’re thinking that Deirdre’s cheerfulness must be pretended, but I am glad to tell you that it is entirely genuine. An orphan and just thirteen, Deirdre had worked for the Suttons at Courier Cottage for nearly two years, and felt very lucky to have a comfortable place with a congenial family. It might just as easily have been otherwise, of course. If someone else had come to the orphanage and chosen her, Deirdre might have found herself on an isolated farm where she did double duty in the nursery and in the kitchen, or in a large manor house where she was the most junior of the nursery staff, charged with lighting fires and carrying hot water for baths and ironing endless ribbons and ruffles for a tyrannical head nurse. Instead, she had a good place where the work was shared, the grownups were civil, the children were reasonably well mannered, and she could go to school.

Courier Cottage was large but not fancy and was always in something of a state, owing to there being so many little Suttons. But Deirdre loved the children dearly. And now that Mrs. Sutton had hired Mrs. Pettigrew as cook-housekeeper and Deirdre had finished her studies at the village school, she could spend all her time with them, serving as nursery-maid, minder, and nanny. For their part, the children viewed Deirdre as something akin to an older sister, which didn’t mean that they always did what she told them, just that they always felt very sorry afterward, and promised to do better.

There were enough Suttons to keep Deirdre on her toes, especially because they were all so adventurous. The eldest, eleven-year-old Libby, had dark eyes and raven hair and a fiercely independent spirit. Jamie, at ten, was always thinking up larks that got his sisters into trouble. Nine-year-old Nan (whom everyone called Mouse) was next, and after her came Lillian. The younger ones weren’t in school yet: the twins, Andrew and Phillip, whom only Deirdre could tell apart; Edwina, not quite three; and Gillian, whom everyone called Baby. As Margaret Nash (head teacher at Sawrey School) occasionally pointed out, there were enough Suttons to fill their very own classroom.

The fête was even more exciting than the children had dared hope. Libby scraped both elbows when she tumbled off the whirligig, but was rewarded with a lollipop by the operator, for refusing to cry. Jamie got into a scuffle with Jack Braithwaite and managed to do enough damage to his opponent’s nose to feel that he had come out on top. Mouse lost her best yellow hair ribbon, but dried her tears when Deirdre gave her the stuffed bear she’d won at the ringtoss—especially gratifying, because she had beaten Harold Beechman, who always teased her about her red hair and Irish accent.

These excitements were followed by others. The children took a rattling ride in the pony cart, until the pony decided it was too hot to work and went to stand in the shade of a tree. Mouse got her finger nipped when she stuck it in front of Rhubarb the prize-winning rabbit, who nearsightedly mistook it for a carrot. Libby spent sixpence on a beaded egg cozy for her mother (one of the last items on the jumble table), an embroidered bookmark for her father, and jacks for herself. All three children ate so much candy that Jamie went behind a bush and was sick, and Mouse put some of her caramels into the pocket of her apron, where they melted into a gooey mess. And if this sounds rather tedious to you, I can only say that it was great fun for
them
, perhaps because there were so many things to do and see and no grownup to tell them that they couldn’t do and see
everything.

That is, until Deirdre heard an ominous rumble of thunder and noticed that the sky had suddenly gone very dark.

“It’s time we started home,” she announced in a grown-up voice. “There’ll be rain soon.”

“But the egg race is just starting,” Jamie protested.

“I want to buy more candy!” Mouse said, digging the last caramel out of her pocket.

Libby pushed out her lower lip. “Let’s stay until the Morris dancing is over.”

There was a jagged flash of lightning. This time, Mouse, who was always nervous about storms, edged close to Deirdre.

“I’ll tell you what,” Deirdre said, taking Mouse’s hand. “On our way home, we’ll stop at the Hill Top barn and look in on Jemima Puddle-duck. How does that sound?”

“I say,” said Jamie excitedly, “I’d like that, rather!”

“Yes, let’s,” Libby agreed. “Jemima’s eggs must have hatched by now. It’s been days and days!”

If anything could have lured the children away from the fête, it was the promise of a visit to Jemima. And although Miss Potter did not encourage the other village children to make free of the farm’s barnyard, she allowed Deirdre to bring the older Suttons, as long as they didn’t harass the cows or annoy the sheep. So, shooing Libby and Jamie in front of her and holding Mouse by the hand, Deirdre shepherded her little group through the crowd.

You might have smiled at the sight. Deirdre wore a plain brown dress that had been let down several times but was still too short and tight around the middle, and a straw sailor hat with a ragged brim that had once belonged to Mrs. Sutton’s sister. Her red hair was pinned up, but it was thick and heavy and preferred to hang in damp tendrils down her neck. Her hat was askew, and dust smeared her freckled cheek.

But such niceties as tidily pinned-up hair and a clean face did not much matter to Deirdre Malone. Her previous life in the orphanage had taught her to do without things other girls might count as necessities, such as pocket money and Sunday shoes. Hers was not an easy life, for Mrs. Sutton (while kind and doting) was a somewhat casual mother who liked to read books even more than she liked to direct the household. Dr. Sutton, a veterinarian and an amiable person, regrettably paid more attention to other people’s animals than he did to his own boys and girls. Deirdre, who had very nearly made herself indispensable, got up early, managed the children all day, and went to bed late at night.

But you must not feel sorry for her, oh, not at all! She was allowed to read as many of Mrs. Sutton’s books as she had time for. And every night before bed, Deirdre read aloud to the children—
The Back of the North Wind
and
Alice in Wonderland
, and
The Wouldbegoods
, and (of course) Miss Potter’s books. Their favorite just now was
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
, because they were acquainted with Jemima, admired Kep the collie (who had saved the foolish duck), and had even met the fox one evening as they were coming home from the lake.