The Tale of Hill Top Farm (5 page)

But Norman was dead, Bertram unavailable, her father unapproachable. She was going to have to face these difficulties, however unpleasant, all by herself. She sighed and pulled the blanket up to her chin. She had hoped that she was opening a fresh new chapter in her life—but it was certainly full of unwelcome complications. And with that ambivalent thought, and a murmured goodnight to her animals, she fell asleep.

3

A Town Mouse Meets a Country Cat

The moon had shifted so that its beams silvered the shelf where Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Josey and Mopsy, and Tom Thumb were napping. Mrs. Tig, who looked very like a stout, bristly little person, stirred, blinked, and sniffled. The sniffling turned to snuffling, and in a moment she was seized by a loud
a-chew
!

“My pocket handkerchief,”
she muttered, rooting around on the floor of her wicker hamper, which had a convenient window let into it so that she could see out.
“Where is my pocket handkerchief?”

“Where are we?”
shrilled Tom Thumb, startled out of a sound sleep.
“Are we back in London? Oh, please tell me that we’re back in London!”

“No, we’re not back in London,”
Josey said in an irritated tone, and rolled over against Mopsy.
“We’re in Sawrey Village. Stop that squeaking and go back to sleep!”

The door opened noiselessly and a small terrier slipped into the room. He studied the shelf for a moment, then got up on his hind legs and sniffed at Tom’s cage.

“Oh, my whiskers, it’s a dog!”
Tom cried frantically, running in circles around his cage
.

The door opened again, and a shadow slipped into the room.

“And a CAT!”
Tom shrieked, jumping up and down
. “We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you! Doomed, doomed, doomed!”

“For pity’s sake, stop that racket,”
said the dog in some disgust
. “I don’t eat people’s pets. That’s as distasteful as eating their shoes, which I’ve never been fond of. And I certainly wouldn’t eat a guest.”
He sat down on his haunches and looked at the cat
. “What about you, Tabitha Twitchit?”

“I never eat anything I’ve been introduced to,”
the cat replied. A handsome calico, she sat down as well, and gave her paw a suggestive lick.

“My name is Tom Thumb,”
said the mouse, hurriedly recollecting his manners,
“and these are my traveling companions, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle Hedgehog, and Josey and Mopsy Rabbit. We’ve come from London with Miss Potter.”
With another uneasy glance at the cat, he pointed to a pillowy mound in the middle of the bed, lowering his voice to a whisper.
“That’s Miss Potter, asleep
.
”

“I’m Tabitha Twitchit,”
the cat said, and licked the other paw.

“I’m Rascal,”
the dog said, surveying them with some curiosity
. “And if you don’t mind my asking, why does your mistress travel with you lot? Seems a bit strange to me.”

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle came to the window in her basket and looked out.
“There’s nothing at all strange about it,”
she said haughtily.
“Miss Potter is a widely respected illustrator, and we are her models. She draws pictures of us and puts them into the books she writes for children. Although,”
she added with a condescending sniff,
“I very much doubt that you’ve read them, here in the country.”

“Well, you’re wrong about that,”
Tabitha Twitchit replied, annoyed by the hedgehog’s aristocratic manner. “
I used to sit on the back of Miss Tolliver’s chair whilst she read Miss Potter’s books out loud to the village children.
The Tale of Two Bad Mice,
I think, was the name of one of them
.”

“Two Bad Mice!” cried Tom Thumb excitedly,
“why, that’s my book! My very own little book! My wife Hunca Munca and I are in it!”
A large tear squeezed out of his right eye and trickled down his fat, furry cheek.
“My wife, sadly, fell from a chandelier. She’s dead, and I am all alone.”
He began to sob un-restrainedly.
“Woe, oh woe.”

“I am truly sorry, Tom.”
Tabitha put out a consoling paw to the mouse.
“My dear Miss Tolliver died quite unexpectedly only last week, and I am left without a family. I know just how you feel.”

Tom Thumb ducked nervously away from the cat’s paw, consoling or not, for it had claws in it, and sharp ones, at that. His mother had admonished him from his earliest days to beware of cats, all cats, but most especially country cats, who had no breeding and could not be trusted. This one seemed well-mannered and good-natured enough, to be sure, and her sympathy appeared genuine, but one never knew what dark intentions might lurk in a cat’s heart.

“How did Miss Tolliver die?”
asked Mopsy curiously.

“It happened as she was eating some teacakes and reading a letter,”
Tabitha said with a sigh.
“She seemed very sad and cried a bit, and then she clutched at her heart, and then she was dead. I sat with her all that night, until Miss Woodcock came the next morning, and then the Justice of the Peace, and the village constable.”

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle gave a loud gasp.
“The constable?”
she whispered in a hollow voice.
“Was it foul play? A poisoned cake?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Tig,”
Josey said scornfully. In an explanatory aside, she added,
“Our Tiggy likes to dramatize events. She does it so that people will notice her.”

“Rubbish!”
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle exclaimed inelegantly.
“I am by nature dramatic. My book,”
she added smugly, bringing the conversation back to herself,
“has my name on it.”
Her smile faded.
“Unfortunately, it’s about a silly old washerwoman.”
She raised the stiff prickles on her back until she looked like a brown clothes-brush.
“I do so wish Miss Potter had drawn me as I really am. I am nothing at all like a washerwoman.”
She sneezed again, and got down from her window to look for her handkerchief.

Josey chuckled.
“Tiggy would rather have been drawn as a duchess with a diamond tiara than a washerwoman with a basket of clothes to be ironed.”
She came to the front of the rabbit cage and glanced curiously at the dog.
“Since you’re a villager, maybe you can tell us about Hill Top Farm. That’s where we’re going to stay when we come up from London. Miss Potter has purchased the place.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to stay there,”
Rascal said in a musing tone,
“unless the Jenningses move out. There are quite a few of them. The house is full to overflowing already.”

“Oh, there you are, you old thing!”
Mrs. Tig crowed triumphantly, having found her handkerchief (made of delicate pink lawn, with the initials
TW
embroidered in one corner) under a lettuce leaf. She blew her nose twice, hard, then got up and looked through her window at Rascal.
“You mean,”
she said, as the dog’s words sank in,
“we have nowhere to stay?”

“Nowhere to stay?”
echoed Tom Thumb with a squeak, his whiskers twitching
. “Nowhere to stay? Then we shall have to go back to the city. Hurrah! I am definitely not cut out to be a country mouse. I loathe open fields and haystacks. The possibility of owls terrifies me.”

On the bed, Miss Potter stirred and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. When she saw the dog and the cat, she swung her bare feet out of bed and onto the floor. “What are you two doing here?” she asked, pushing the hair out of her eyes. She got out of bed and shooed Rascal and Tabitha Twitchit out the door, closing it behind them. Taking up a gingham cloth, she spread it over the three cages on the shelf.

“And as for you,” she said firmly, “it’s time to stop chattering and go to sleep.” With that, she got into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

And then all was silent, except for Tom Thumb, who whispered to himself over and over, in a small and disconsolate voice,
“Not cut out to be a country mouse, no, never, never, never,”
until he, too, fell asleep.

4

Losses, Mix-Ups, and Confusions

Dimity Woodcock looked up with a smile as her brother, Captain Miles Woodcock, came into the breakfast room at Tower Bank House and sat down at the table across from her with a cheerful “Good morning, my dear.” Dimity did not have to ask what he would like; she poured tea, passed toast and Elsa Grape’s freshly made orange marmalade, and dished up a plate of eggs and bacon from the warming pan.

Dimity had never for a moment regretted her decision, some ten years before, to come to live with Miles when he retired from the Army and set up housekeeping in the Lakes. Her choice had not seemed entirely wise at the time; she had lived at home in Plymouth the whole of her twenty-four years and had seen very little of the world. When their parents were both killed in a train wreck on the south coast, there had been enough money for her to spend a year or two globe-trotting, as her cousins urged her to do, and then take up residence in London, with the aim of finding a husband, preferably rich.

But globe-trotting did not appeal to Dimity. Furthermore, she had her own income and was not in want of a husband, rich or otherwise; in fact, she had the idea that men (except for her brother, of course) were more bother than they were worth. To placate her cousins, Dimity had taken two sight-seeing trips, one to Italy and the other to Switzerland, and then accepted Miles’s invitation to visit him at the house he had just purchased in the village of Sawrey. A few weeks later, he broached the subject of her staying permanently.

“I’m afraid there isn’t much excitement,” he had said, “but it’s a pretty place, and quiet. Rather ideal, actually.” He sighed and rubbed the bad leg he’d got in Egypt, along with malaria and the Victoria Cross. “I’ve no great yearning for society, and quiet and peace have a many charms, at least for me.” And Dimity, who had very much enjoyed her walk down to Esthwaite Water, with the view of Coniston Old Man shrugging its mountainous shoulders beyond, had happily agreed.

But although life had been on the whole peaceful, it had not been very quiet, for either of them. Captain Woodcock soon found himself serving as Justice of the Peace for Sawrey district, a post that required him to hear complaints, witness documents, certify deaths, and the like. And his sister, when it became known that she was a sensible woman with abundant goodwill and energy, found herself asked to volunteer for all manner of village and parish activities. She had finally to say no to some things, simply in order to have time to garden and take the long tramps across the fells that she so much loved.

Dimity poured herself another cup of tea. Miles had attended a meeting of the Hawkshead Bell Ringers the night before, and she had not seen him since breakfast the previous day. “Miss Potter arrived yesterday afternoon,” she said, adding two lumps of sugar. “I met her as we waited for the ferry.”

“Ah, Miss Potter,” Miles said dryly. “The worthy London authoress who aspires to become a tiller of the soil. Where’s she putting up whilst she’s here?”

“With the Crooks, at Belle Green.”

Frowning, Miles put down his cup. “Belle Green, eh? I hope George Crook will keep a civil tongue in his head, at least in Miss Potter’s presence. He’s fairly well put out with her. Says ladies have no business farming. Not to mention that this particular lady outbid Silas Tadcastle for Hill Top.” He chuckled without amusement. “Fancy you, Dimity, trying to manage a farm. You’d have it all topsy-turvy in a minute. And so, no doubt, will she.”

If this patronizing remark had come from the lips of anyone but her brother, Dimity would have taken offense on her own behalf and that of Miss Potter, who would surely not undertake such an extraordinary project had she not felt qualified. But since it was Miles, she merely smiled.

“It’s hardly a farm, is it? Just thirty-four acres.”

Miles frowned. “She could have bought twice that amount of land, and more, for what she paid.”

“P’rhaps she didn’t want twice the land,” Dimity persisted. “P’rhaps she’s earning enough from her books so that it doesn’t matter. They’re in all the shops, you know, and selling as fast as ices on a hot afternoon.”

“It’s not the size of the farm that matters.” Miles spread marmalade on his toast. “It’s the idea of a ‘lady farmer’ that galls Crook and the others. That, and her buying it out from under Tadcastle’s nose.”

“If Mr. Tadcastle had wanted Hill Top badly enough, he should have paid Mr. Jepson’s price,” Dimity retorted tartly. “I don’t understand why anybody should hold that against Miss Potter.”

Miles gave his sister a generous smile. “I can see that the lady has one friend, anyway.” He went on to something else. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard, Dimity. Miss Tolliver’s will turned up a day or two ago. It’s to be read out tomorrow.”

“But I thought there
wasn’t
a will,” Dimity said, surprised. “At least, that’s what her nephew told me.” The nephew, a fat, red-faced draper named Henry Roberts, from Kendal, was the only relative to come to the funeral. Dimity had found the man to be a blustery sort, very different from the modest Miss Tolliver, and not altogether pleasant. He had spoken about selling Anvil Cottage and using the money to open yet another draper’s shop, an idea that Dimity found repugnant. She was sure that Miss Tolliver would have thought so, too.

“Well, there was a will,” Miles replied definitively. “Is, rather. Willie Heelis—Miss Tolliver’s solicitor—was away in Scotland for a fortnight, fishing. When he got back to his office and heard the news, he sent word straightaway that he had the original in his possession, all properly signed and witnessed.”

“Well, then,” Dimity remarked, “that should please Mr. Roberts. He was unhappy about the idea of having to go through the intestate process to prove his claim.”

“I’m not sure it
will
please him,” Miles replied offhandedly. “According to Heelis, Miss Tolliver didn’t much like the fellow. Maybe she left her estate to somebody else altogether. Of course, Heelis didn’t give me any of the details,” he added, forking up another rasher of bacon. “Wouldn’t’ve been professional of him.”

“I see,” Dimity said, and then trailed off, distracted by the thought of the robust Mr. Roberts, who had been so sure of his inheritance and might be inclined to make an unpleasantness should he lose it. She picked up her coffee cup. “There’s a young woman friend, Sarah somebody-or-other. Lucy Skead mentioned her. She lives in Manchester and sends little parcels to Miss Tolliver from time to time. The last one came just before she died—homemade teacakes, Lucy said.”

“Lucy Skead is a snoop and a gossip,” Miles said, and went back to his eggs. “What are your plans for the morning?”

“I’m going down to Sawrey School, to hand in the money the ladies collected for the School Roof Fund. Two whole pounds, which is quite a lot, really. I’m sure Miss Crabbe will be glad to see it. Bertha Stubbs says she’s been awf’lly upset over the leaks in the roof. One of them is right over her desk.”

“Miss Crabbe,” Miles replied, “seems to be having a difficult time of it lately. If she can’t find one thing to be upset about, she finds another.” Miles was involved with the county school board, and took a personal interest in Sawrey School. “But I’ll speak to Joseph about seeing to the roof as promptly as possible. Two quid won’t do nearly the whole job, but at least it will be a start.”

After breakfast, Dimity consulted with Elsa, their cook and housekeeper, about dinner. Since today was Harry the Fish Man’s day, they would be having fish.

“See if you can get some char, Elsa,” Dimity said, “and we’ll have it with gooseberry sauce.” Char, a favorite local fish, came from Lake Windermere, and the gooseberries from the bushes at the foot of the garden. Dimity and Elsa had bottled enough during the summer to last most of the winter. “And for this afternoon’s tea,” Dimity added, having reminded Elsa that Miss Potter and one or two others would be dropping in, “please make some of those wonderful jam tarts.”

“And the sponge that the vicar likes,” Elsa said. “We have to have the sponge.”

“And the sponge,” Dimity agreed.

This done, she put on her jacket, hat, and gloves and walked the half-mile to the school in Far Sawrey, timing her visit to coincide with the morning exercise period. The children were in the yard, playing “Three Tinkers” under the supervision of Miss Nash. Miss Crabbe was at her desk in the junior room. Her gray hair was coming down around her ears and her expression, Dimity thought, was distraught. She seemed to be searching for something. She shut the drawer of her desk with a bang as Dimity approached.

“I’ve stopped in at a bad time, I’m afraid,” Dimity said with some reluctance. She always felt like a slothful scholar in Miss Crabbe’s presence, and had the sense that if she held out her hands, the headmistress would take out a ruler and whack her fingers soundly.

“Yes.” Miss Crabbe frowned. “No. I mean, of course not. I was only—” She bit her lip. “I seem to have mislaid my spectacles. I had them just a moment ago, but I—”

“I think they might be there, on the windowsill,” Dimity said with some diffidence.

Miss Crabbe rose, snatched up the spectacles, and put them on. She turned. “Well?” she asked in a peremptory tone, looking down her very long nose. “What can I do for you, Miss Woodcock?”

Feeling as if she were eight years old again, Dimity reached into her purse and took out an envelope, which contained one gold sovereign, two half-crowns, three florins, and nine shillings. “Actually, I’ve come about the School Roof Fund,” she said apologetically. “After Miss Tolliver’s funeral, the Sawrey Ladies’ Society collected two pounds. It’s not enough to pay for the entire roof, of course, but it ought to manage the repairs.” She put the envelope on Miss Crabbe’s desk.

Miss Crabbe actually smiled. “Oh, thank you,” she said, and snatched up the envelope. “I must say, I am really very glad to see the money. When it rained last, there was a very bad drip directly over my desk, and—”

But Dimity did not get to hear the rest of the tale, for the door burst open, and a boy came in, weeping loudly. He was small and thin, with a delicate, almost pretty, face, and he had a bloody nose. He was accompanied by Miss Nash.

“Jeremy Crosfield!” Miss Crabbe exclaimed, rising. “What on earth is the matter with you? Stop that blubbering this instant! Eleven is much too old for such childish noises.”

“Harold pushed him off the coal pile,” Miss Nash said sympathetically. “He’s scraped his arm rather badly, and his nose is spouting.”

“Get a wet cloth and clean him up and make him stop crying, then,” Miss Crabbe said tersely. “I’ll tend to Harold.” She stalked to the door. “Harold!” she shouted. “Harold, come here this instant! I want to see you!”

Dimity left hastily, feeling that she would rather be the unfortunate victim, bloody nose and all, than the culprit who had to face Miss Crabbe’s terrifying wrath.

The Reverend Samuel Sackett, vicar of St. Peters, was not a man who paid a great deal of attention to his physical surroundings. On the whole, he was far more interested in the life of his parish and the lives of his parishioners than in the landscape around him. This morning, for instance, the Reverend Sackett was oblivious of the fact that the sky was cloudless, a light southern breeze was shaking a shower of golden leaves from the trees, and the bittersweet berries gleamed like rubies in the hedge. He was deeply occupied with a minor but nonetheless disturbing parish problem.

The vicar had been out for a walk and was on his way back to the vicarage, carrying his favorite rosewood walking stick, which was carved in the shape of a snake. He would have been recognized throughout the parish, even without his collar and black vest, by his habit of carrying carved sticks from his collection, a different one each day. One, elaborately carved from a gemsbok horn and given to him by a missionary friend in Kenya, had provoked an awed Sunday School child into asking if it mightn’t be Aaron’s rod that parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could cross over. Samuel Sackett could have wished for such a rod today, to part the sea of parish troubles that would open before him if he were not able to find—

“Good morning, Vicar,” said a bright voice. “A glorious day, isn’t it?”

Startled, the vicar looked up from his musings to find that the sun was shining, the trees were golden, his path had intersected the Hawkshead road, and one of his favorite parishioners was standing before him.

“Good morning, Miss Woodcock,” he said, lifting his hat. “Yes, it is indeed a pretty day. And so nice to see you.” He especially liked Dimity Woodcock, who always had a good word to say about everyone. She and her brother Miles were willing volunteers for the many necessary little tasks that kept the parish sailing on an even keel through occasional storms of difficulty and disharmony.

And at this moment, Miss Woodcock was reporting on one of those tasks. “You’ll be glad to hear,” she said with a smile, “that I’ve been to the school to give Miss Crabbe the money that the Ladies’ Society collected for the School Roof Fund. It came to exactly two pounds.”

“Two pounds!” the vicar exclaimed, greatly surprised. “Well, now, that is a fine accomplishment, I must say!”

“Yes,” Miss Woodcock said. “Lady Longford gave a sovereign, in memory of Miss Tolliver.” She paused, her smile widening, and added, “It’s one of those funny old Young Victoria sovereigns—1838, if you can believe it, although it looks newly minted. She must have had it for ages.”

The vicar could believe it. Her ladyship, who lived in seclusion at Tidmarsh Manor, did not make it a practice to give to charitable causes, as he well knew, having suffered her rebuffs in the past. But he didn’t say this, of course. Instead, he said, “Lady Longford was indeed generous. And I’m sure Miss Crabbe was pleased. The leaks in the roof have upset her.”

The vicar frowned, for “upset” was too mild a term to describe Miss Crabbe’s feelings. She had complained bitterly to him at least twice about having to put a bucket on her desk to catch the drips. In fact, she had spoken of leaving her post if something were not done about the situation straightaway. She had heard, she said, of a position at a school near Bournemouth, on the south coast, where the winters were much warmer and, presumably, the roofs did not leak. She had even said that she intended to ask Miss Tolliver, who was acquainted with a member of the Bournemouth school council, for a letter of reference.