The Tale of Hill Top Farm (4 page)

“Dog?”
Mopsy moaned.
“Did someone say ‘dog’?”

“Dog? Dog? Oh, woe!”
twittered Tom Thumb, who had come all the way across the lake with his head buried under a heap of wood shavings in his traveling cage.
“Where in the world have we got to? The ends of the earth? Oh, rural life will never do, never do at all, at all! I’m a town mouse! A town mouse, I tell you!”

“We’ve reached Sawrey village, Tom,”
Josey said briskly
. “And don’t fret about the dog. He’s just being friendly.”

The charabanc pulled up behind the coach, and Dimity Woodcock climbed down. “Welcome to Sawrey, Miss Potter,” she called. “Shall I see you up to Belle Green?”

Beatrix hesitated. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Miss Woodcock’s company; it was rather that she preferred to see the lovely little village alone, without the distractions of polite conversation. On another, earlier day, she would likely have agreed, rather than hurt Miss Woodcock’s feelings. But in the few months since she had accepted Norman’s proposal and endured all that difficult business with her parents, she had begun to learn how good it felt to say what she wanted, rather than what someone else wanted for her.

“Thank you,” she replied, “but I shan’t trouble you. It’s twilight, and I’m sure you have things to do at home.”

Dimity Woodcock seemed to understand. “Of course,” she said warmly. “But you must agree to come to Tower Bank House for tea tomorrow. The late roses are glorious just now, and the first sharp frost will put an end to them.”

“I should be glad to,” Beatrix replied. She was not a very sociable person by nature, but she thought she would like Miss Woodcock.

“Wonderful,” Dimity Woodcock said. She laughed. “Now that I know you’re coming, perhaps it will give me an incentive to do something unspeakably rash, such as clearing out the groundsel along the path. And if I’m going to the trouble of pulling the groundsel, I’ll invite a few friends, so you can get acquainted. I promise not to overwhelm you, though. Would four o’clock suit?”

“Of course,” Beatrix said, admiring Miss Woodcock’s easy friendliness and casual manner. Apart from her cousin Caroline Hutton and Norman’s sister Millie, she did not have friends in the usual way. It might be comforting to have someone to talk with from time to time—not on this first day, but later. And no doubt Dimity Woodcock knew everything about the village and its inhabitants, for she and her brother had lived here for quite a long time.

Beatrix turned now, and went along the road, past Buckle Yeat Cottage, which had a lovely garden within a fence made of large slabs of slate, standing on end. In the twilight, the village looked just as she remembered it from her earlier visits, and the sight of the little cluster of slate-roofed cottages tucked into the lap of a gentle green hill brought her a quiet calm, a peaceful at-home feeling that was difficult to explain—especially to her parents, who professed to find everything about her decision completely inexplicable. They had enjoyed their visits to the Lakes as much as they liked visiting anywhere, but having exhausted all the local distractions, professed to find Sawrey frightfully dull. And while her father reluctantly acknowledged that a farm might be a prudent way for Beatrix to invest her growing income, her mother was aghast at the thought of her daughter actually spending time away from Bolton Gardens.

To be sure, there was nothing very extraordinary about the hamlet. As Beatrix turned from the main road into Market Street, she could look to her right and see Meadowcroft Cottage, which housed the village shop, and through the open door glimpse Lydia Dowling in her embroidered apron, having a cup of tea with her niece Gladys, who helped out twice a week. Across the narrow lane was Miss Tolliver’s Anvil Cottage, where a disconsolate-looking calico cat sat on the stoop, and High Green Gate Farm was just up the hill, with Tower Bank House behind it. Next door to the shop was Rose Cottage, where Grace Lythecoe had lived since Vicar Lythecoe died some ten years ago, and then George Crook’s smithy and after that Roger Dowling’s joinery (Roger was Lydia’s husband). Off to the right, up a narrow lane, was Low Green Gate Cottage and the village post office. The streets were deserted, except for Spuggy Pritchard toiling away with his cart at the top of the lane. There was no village green, and St. Peter’s Church and Sawrey School were a ten-minute walk away, in Far Sawrey. Altogether, it had to be said that Near Sawrey was not a very prepossessing village, although comfortable in its way, with an almost eighteenth-century air about it.

But as Beatrix turned to look westward, toward the majestic Coniston fells rising against a sunset sky painted with lavender and gold, she knew very well what had brought her here. This was October, the trees of Cuckoo Brow Woods were as richly colored as a medieval tapestry, and the meadows along Esthwaite Water, still green, were dotted with serenely grazing sheep and black-and-white cows and flocks of white geese. When she first visited the village with her parents some ten years before, she had thought it as nearly perfect a little place as one might imagine, the people hard-working and earthy and old-fashioned. The whole place had seemed somehow to speak to a deep and compelling sense of home and hearth, deep inside her. She felt that same sense again now, and she pulled in a deep breath, thinking with pleasure that finally, at last, she had come home.

Then, as she walked up Market Street to Belle Green, Beatrix reflected that perhaps a large part of her pleasure in coming here lay in the fact that she was not
known
in the village. Oh, she had visited here several times, and sketched some of the cottages, and made the acquaintance of a few of the villagers, but they knew very little about her, other than the fact that she wrote and illustrated books for children. After everything that had happened—Norman’s death, and the increasing difficulties with her parents—the idea of a new beginning had a powerful appeal. A fresh start was what she wanted, and a place to get away from her mother and father, and from the city, and from the wreckage of her lost dreams. And though she couldn’t have the love that she had hoped for, she could still have her work, and Hill Top farm, and Sawrey. And that, she thought as she gazed at the enchanted landscape around her, would do. It would do very well.

A little while later, Beatrix was installed at Belle Green. She found her second-floor room to be a clean and agreeable accommodation, even more pleasant for its view of the garden, where she had taken Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and the rabbits for a brief outing before it grew very dark. Then she unpacked her clothes, set the animals’ boxes and basket on a low shelf, and glanced with satisfaction at the fresh white curtains, the quilt-covered bed, the old oak dresser, and the faded landscape prints on the wall. She had looked forward to staying with Miss Tolliver in Anvil Cottage, but Belle Green was an acceptable substitute.

Mr. and Mrs. Crook, however, were another matter. Mathilda Crook, a narrow, middle-aged woman with a ferret-like nose and sharp eyes, was disconcertingly curious about Beatrix’s plans. And George Crook, as Beatrix discovered when they all sat down to supper together in the large, comfortable kitchen, seemed to have something against her, although she couldn’t think what. He scowled fiercely at her and muttered something into his black mustache. Charles Hotchkiss, Mr. Crook’s forge helper, was as surly as his employer, but Edward Horsley, the other boarder, was nicer, and managed a shy smile and a handshake as they were introduced.

For supper, Mrs. Crook had made a tatie pot, a large oven-baked dish made of lamb, black pudding, and potatoes, served with pickled cabbage, mashed turnips, and fresh bread. Despite Beatrix’s weariness, she ate with a greater appetite than she did at home, where meals were a trial, especially when her mother was cross and her father preoccupied. Tonight, the supper-table conversation mostly consisted of speculation about poor Miss Tolliver’s will (which had not yet been found), the tale of a cow that had strayed from High Green Gate Farm, and the news that the ferry would be out of service tomorrow for a repair to its steam boiler, and that anyone who wanted to go to Windermere should have to go round by Ambleside. The idea that there was a lake between her and London rather comforted Beatrix. If her parents demanded that she return home, she could plead the extra travel occasioned by the repair of the ferry.

Mrs. Crook also managed to put a few questions to Beatrix, sometimes unsubtly concealed, sometimes asked straight out. What had made her think to buy Hill Top Farm? What did she plan to do with the place? Would she be living there? What about the Jennings family? Would they be staying on? Beatrix didn’t want to be rude, but she didn’t want to answer, either. She was glad when the uncomfortable meal was over and she could escape upstairs.

In her room, Beatrix settled her animals for the night, stroking Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, tickling the rabbits’ ears, and dropping a kiss on the end of Tom’s twinkling nose.

“I know that some of you don’t enjoy traveling,” she whispered to them, “but I’m very glad you’re with me. I’ve wanted this so much—the farm at Hill Top, I mean—but now that I almost have it, I’m afraid I’ll lose it, the way I lost . . .” She stopped and stood quietly for a moment, stroking the little mouse. “You understand, don’t you, Tom? You lost someone you loved.”

“She’s thinking of Norman,”
said Mrs. Tiggy, an incurable romantic who always spoke from her heart.
“She misses him awf’ly.”

“You’re right, Mrs. T.”
Mopsy licked a paw and smoothed her gray whiskers.
“A terrible tragedy, and so soon after they were engaged.”

Tom sniffed.
“She’ll never love anyone else. Just as there’ll never be anyone for me but my dear, sweet Hunca Munca. My precious little mouse-wife.”
He began to sob loudly
.

“Oh, piffle!”
exclaimed Josey with an impatient stamp of her hind foot.
“She’ll find someone else to love, someone who’ll love her just as much as Norman did.”
She twitched her nose at Tom.
“You will, too, Tom. Just you wait and see.”

“Never!”
cried the little mouse dramatically
. “Never, never, never! My heart belongs to Hunca Munca!”

“What a conversation you’re all having,” Beatrix said with a smile. “But you’ve had a long day, and it’s time you went to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll have lots of adventures.”

She gave them each another quick kiss, then sat down and wrote a dutiful letter to her parents—not so much because she wanted to, but because she knew they would telegraph if they didn’t hear that she had arrived safely. That chore done, she took out the exercise book in which she kept her journal, turned up the wick in the paraffin lamp, and began to write.

Beatrix had begun her journal when she was fourteen. Because she was a very private person and didn’t want her brother or the nursery maids to read what she wrote, she had invented her own secret code inscribed in miniature, a kind of cipher shorthand. The writing was entirely secret and she never expected that it would be read, so she always wrote with complete honesty, about all her feelings. Tonight, she wrote about the tiring journey, and the sad, shocking news of Miss Tolliver’s death, and her discomfort at dinner. But she also wrote about her hope for the future, and her plans for an exciting day tomorrow.

After a while, Beatrix put down her pen, put away her journal, and got ready for bed. But she didn’t go to sleep right away. Instead, she pulled the curtains open so that the moonlight spilled over the wooden sill and onto the braided rag rug on the floor. Then she lay very still, watching the flickering shadows and thinking.

Tomorrow, she would walk over Hill Top Farm’s fields, get a good look at the barns and the animals, and try to formulate some sort of plan for the future of the place. She felt very much at sixes and sevens where the farm was concerned. She had long wanted a little place of her own, and she had no doubt that Hill Top was exactly right. But there were a great many puzzles yet to be sorted out, and they all seemed rather daunting, especially since she was not used to making such important decisions.

For one thing, she had hoped to take possession of the farmhouse as soon as the final papers were signed next month, so she could begin to furnish the house and arrange it against the day when she would no longer have any obligation to her parents and could choose for herself where to live. But it was currently occupied by a tenant farmer named John Jennings, his wife, and their two children, with another on the way. She had considered asking the Jenningses to leave, but she knew nothing about farming and could not hope to be here often or long enough to learn properly, at least while her mother demanded so much of her time and attention. She had also considered keeping the Jenningses on to manage the farm, but asking them to move so that she could have the house. But she knew it would be difficult for them to find a nearby place at a rent they could afford, and she hated the thought of turning them out, especially with a baby on the way.

But if the rapidly multiplying Jennings family filled up every room of the little farmhouse, where could
she
stay? She had thought perhaps she might arrange a more or less permanent lodging with Miss Tolliver, but that was no longer possible. Would she have to lodge here at Belle Green every time she came, with the ferretty Mrs. Crook prying into her business and Mr. Crook scowling at her over every meal, like an irate walrus whose territory she had invaded? She could not ask her father for advice, for he thought the entire idea was ludicrous. Her brother Bertram generally supported her efforts, but he was preoccupied with his own life these days, having just this year bought a farm in Scotland and married a neighboring farmer’s daughter—all without saying a word to anyone but Beatrix. Norman would have helped, of course, generously and without question. He had always been able to suggest clever ways out of the dilemmas that had come up with her little books, and over the five years of their collaboration and friendship, she had come to rely on his sound advice, always offered with regard for her feelings.