The Tale of Hill Top Farm (6 page)

The vicar had replied, and not entirely out of politeness, that he would be very sorry to see her go. It was true. Although Miss Crabbe’s manner was often peremptory and impatient and her students feared rather than loved or even admired her, they did their work and there were few discipline problems in her class. And what would Viola and Pansy Crabbe do if their sister should decide to leave the village? Would they go with her, or stay at Castle Cottage, where they had lived for most of their lives? It would be terribly disruptive, all the way round, and Vicar Sackett was not a man who welcomed disruptions. But one way or another, he had to admit that Miss Crabbe was in serious need of a change. If she felt that Bournemouth was the answer, he would ask the Lord to bless her going.

“She did seem very concerned about the leaks,” Miss Woodcock said. “I mentioned it to Miles, and he said that he would speak to Joseph about getting the roof mended.”

“I’ll speak to him, too,” the vicar said, and paused, thinking of his own troubles. “I’m reluctant to bring this up, Miss Woodcock, but I wonder if—” He took a deep breath and forged ahead. “You were in charge of decorating the church for the Harvest Festival, I believe.”

“I was indeed,” Miss Woodcock said brightly. “I thought the volunteers did quite a splendid job, didn’t you? Lydia Dowling’s pumpkins were extraordinary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such large ones.”

“Oh, my goodness, yes,” the vicar said, although he himself had thought Mrs. Dowling’s pumpkins, piled in orange heaps around the base of the altar, rather overwhelming. “But I was wondering if you happened to . . . that is, if you might know . . .” He hesitated, finding it difficult to bring himself to give voice to what was occupying his thoughts. “Actually, it’s the Parish Register,” he said at last. “I discovered it missing when I went to record Miss Tolliver’s burial. I was hoping that you might . . . well, that you might have an idea where it has got to.”

“Missing?” Miss Woodcock asked blankly. “How can the Parish Register be
missing
?”

The vicar tried to swallow his disappointment. “Then you didn’t happen to . . . oh, perhaps, just put it away somewhere? To get it out of the way of the decorations, I mean.”

The Parish Register—the record of all the marriages, baptisms, and burials at St. Peter’s—was a handsome leather-bound book with a gold-colored clasp. It was not the sort of thing that one put away somewhere and forgot, since everyone who had anything to do with the parish knew of its importance. Still, he had hoped—

“No, of course I didn’t put it away somewhere,” Miss Woodcock said. “When I saw it last, it was—” She frowned. “Well, I don’t know when I saw it last, exactly. But I’m sure it was on the shelf beside the baptismal font. Have you asked Joseph?”

Joseph Skead, the sexton, put things right after services, swept the leaves out of the entry, and mowed the churchyard. He did not do any of these things speedily and without complaint, of course, but he did them, most of the time.

The vicar sighed. He had asked Joseph first thing, of course. “He has no idea of its whereabouts, I’m afraid,” he replied, adding anxiously, “I trust I don’t sound accusatory, Miss Woodcock. It’s just that I can’t think where it might have got to. It’s a worry, I must say.” He blamed himself, as he usually did when things went wrong. It was easier to shoulder the blame and the responsibility than to hand it off to someone else, even when that might have been appropriate.

“Yes, of course it’s a worry,” Miss Woodcock said consolingly. “I’m sure it will be found, though. It’s not the sort of thing that anyone would . . . well,
take
.” She paused. “Actually, I’m glad to have run into you this morning, Vicar. Miss Potter is coming to tea this afternoon, and I thought you might like to come along and meet her.”

“Miss Potter? Miss Potter? I don’t believe I—” The vicar’s mind cleared, and he raised his walking stick in salute. “Oh, Miss
Potter
! Miss
Beatrix
Potter! Why, bless my soul, Miss Woodcock, of course I should like to meet her. I was delighted when I heard that she had purchased Hill Top. I readily confess to being an ardent devotee. In fact, when I was visiting in Ulverston yesterday, I purchased a copy of
The Pie and the Patty-pan
for my brother’s daughter—the two-shilling edition, in blue cloth binding with a little medallion printed on the cover, quite handsome and in the shops just this week, I believe. I shall bring it, and if Miss Potter is willing, I should like her to write her name in it, and an inscription to my niece.” He paused. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the book yet, have you? It is set in Sawrey, and there are a great many pictures of familiar things.”

“There are?” Miss Woodcock asked. “How nice.”

“Oh, indeed, yes,” the vicar said, happily punctuating his words with his stick. “I recognized Bertha Stubbs’s sitting room, and the path that slopes down to the Lakefield cottages, and Mrs. Kellythorn’s wooden pattens, sitting beside the cottage entrance.”

Miss Woodcock blinked. “Mrs. Kellythorn’s pattens?”

“The wooden shoes are a sweet, homely little detail,” the vicar went on enthusiastically, “although perhaps from Mrs. Kellythorn’s point of view, a trifle too homely.” Mrs. Kellythorn was interested in fashion, and might not be entirely happy that her pattens—old-fashioned clogs used by farm wives to go about the barnyard when there was mud—had been painted for posterity. “And there is the fan light over the post office door,” the vicar continued, “except that Miss Potter drew Mrs. Dowling’s splendid tiger lilies in the front of the post office, which is bound to disappoint Mrs. Dowling. The two main characters are a cat named Ribby Pipstone, and Duchess.”

“Duchess? Miranda Rollins’s brown Pomeranian?”

“Yes, that’s the one.” Mrs. Rollins had two Pomeranians, one black and one brown. The vicar sighed. “It’s rather unfortunate that Miss Potter made a mix-up of the names, for she has drawn Darkie, but called her Duchess. There are no people in the book,” he added hurriedly, feeling that this might be a good thing. If Miss Potter had drawn Darkie for Duchess and misplaced Mrs. Dowling’s favorite tiger lilies, the residents of Sawrey would probably consider it a very good thing that she had not drawn any of
them
.

“I think,” Miss Woodcock said, “that I should like to take a look at the book. Would you mind if I borrowed it? I could take it now, and give it back when you come to tea tomorrow.”

“Oh, by all means, indeed yes,” said the vicar warmly. “I am delighted to share the treasure. Come along, and I’ll get it for you.” And when he sent Miss Woodcock on her way, she had in her bag a small two-shilling book with a picture of a cat on the blue cover.

5

Miss Potter Surveys Her Domain

Beatrix got up with the sun that morning to take Mrs. Tiggy for a ramble among the dewy, sweet-smelling roses. The little hedgehog had served as a model for the drawings in
The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
The book, Beatrix’s sixth, had been published just last month, and a second printing was already planned, so it seemed clear that it would enjoy the same success as the others—a success that still continued to amaze Beatrix. She somehow could not quite believe that so many people wanted to read stories about rabbits, mice, and squirrels, and every time she received a royalty check she was astonished to see how all those shilling purchases had added up. She was earning quite a respectable sum.

The money was wonderful, in itself, of course, and she was using the income from the first books to purchase Hill Top Farm. But even more wonderful than the money or what she could do with it was what it represented: “It is pleasant to feel I could earn my own living,” she had written to Norman, in a triumph of conscious understatement. In fact, she rejoiced at the idea that her writing might allow her to lead an independent life, hugging the glorious thought to herself with a kind of incredulous jubilance several times a day, like a young woman with a letter in her pocket from a secret lover. Her books not only gave her many pleasant tasks with which to fill the empty hours; they were her ticket to independence, to a life of her own, away from Bolton Gardens.

Beatrix always felt very much at loose ends when she had finished a project. She felt this now, perhaps because
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle
was the last book she would do with Norman. She would have to find a new way of working, and she had come to Sawrey, in part, to sketch. Before Norman died, they had discussed the possibility of a book that would feature a frog named Jeremy Fisher. She already had some drawings, mostly modeled from her pet frog Punch, who had died some years before. But if she could find another frog to draw, particularly a large, self-satisfied green frog, that would be a help.

Having stowed Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle in her basket upstairs, Beatrix went down to the dining room. Mr. Crook and his helper had already gone to the smithy, and Beatrix sat down to a bowl of steaming oat porridge and a boiled egg. Edward Horsley was there, finishing his meal. He smiled at her and offered to build a small hutch for her animals in the back garden.

“I’m sure they’d like that very much,” Beatrix said, surprised by his kindness. “It will be a nice change for them. They do so like to be outdoors in fine weather.”

Mrs. Crook frowned. “Put it in the corner by the hedge out of the way,” she said shortly. “I don’t want to be fallin’ over it. And mind you make the door fast, Edward. If they get out, they’re bound to be lost.” She gave Beatrix a dark glance that said, plain as day, that she wouldn’t have been so quick to rent her the room if she’d known about the animals.

But Edward only grinned and winked at Beatrix. “Oh, aye,” he said easily. “I’ll make it so they woan’t ’scape.” He took his hat and went off to work with a cheerful whistle.

At seven-thirty, Beatrix put on her tweed jacket and wide-brimmed felt hat. With the Crooks’ dog Rascal tagging along behind, she walked down Market Street, then through the wicket gate beside the Tower Bank Arms and up the path to Hill Top Farm. She paused as the house came into view, savoring the moment and thinking how absolutely amazing it was that Hill Top was actually
hers
—or would be, when the papers were signed the next month.

It was hard for Beatrix to explain to herself, much less to anyone else, how much she wanted her very own house. She had always loved houses—oh, not grand mansions, like her cousins’ Melford Hall in Suffolk; or gloomy, respectable houses like her parents’ three-story brick house in South Kensington. What Beatrix loved more than anything else were tiny cottages with crooked roofs, their stone-flagged floors brightened by rag rugs, the ceilings hung with braids of onions and fragrant herbs, the rooms furnished with old-fashioned oak sideboards and grandfather clocks and chairs with woven rush seats. Farm houses with no pretensions to grandeur, with mullioned windows and thick walls and narrow passages turning and twisting every which way. Houses that reminded her of the rooms and hallways in her uncle’s house at Gwaynynog in Wales, or the room she slept in at Camfield Place, her grandmother’s yellow-brick house. Houses that made her want to reach for her pencil and
draw.

Yes, perhaps it was her artist’s heart that coveted the warm glow of firelight reflected from copper-bottomed pans, or her artist’s soul that longed for shafts of dusty sunlight falling through windows bright with blooming flowers. She sketched these whenever she could, and in a way, these sketches of cozy rooms and sunlit windows and comfortable furniture, peopled with cats and mice and little dogs, substituted for a home of her own and a family that didn’t sulk and glower at her. But Beatrix knew that she could never be entirely happy until she lived in her own house, a real house, exactly the
right
house. It didn’t matter that she would have to put all of the royalties from her little books into it, along with the small legacy Aunt Burton had left her. And it didn’t matter that she had paid more for it than anyone else thought it was worth. It was worth the world to her.

Beatrix had admired the farm house at Hill Top since she first saw it some years before. The modest two-story house, over two hundred years old, was simple and almost severe. The exterior was covered with a pebbly mortar, painted with limewash; the roof was made of blue slate; and the chimneys wore peaked slate caps, as did most of the chimneys in the village. A staircase wing and a larder had been built on the rear a hundred years ago, along with a one-story kitchen on the side nearest the barn. And there was a little porch, with two large, flat slates for the sides and two more for the peaked roof. But these few additions could not detract from the house’s lovely simplicity. It was all perfect. Perfect in every way—or it would be, if she could sort out the difficulties.

At that moment, two of the major difficulties—Sammy and Clara Jennings—came dancing around the corner of the house and nearly collided with her and Rascal. Clara, the six-year-old, stopped and put her thumb into her mouth, but Master Sammy, eight, came forward and regarded her soberly as she introduced herself.

“Clara and me wuz on our way to school,” he said, “but I’ll tell m’fadder tha’s come.”

Clara’s large brown eyes filled with tears. “Ye’re t’ lady who’s come t’ take our house away?” she whispered fearfully, around her thumb.

Beatrix knelt down, dismayed. “Take your house? Why, whoever says so, Clara?”

“Our mum.” The tears brimmed over and spilled in twin rivulets down the child’s cheeks. “She sez we’ve got to find us another house to live in, ’cause Miss Potter is comin’ t’ live in ours.”

Oh, dear! Beatrix thought in alarm. “Your mother and I must have a talk,” she said out loud, but her words did not sound comforting, even to her own ears.

A ginger-colored cat sauntered out from behind a large rose bush and joined them, ignoring the terrier at Beatrix’s heels. Clara dropped her thumb and scooped up the cat, which was nearly as large as she was.

“And who is this?” Beatrix asked, rubbing the cat’s ears.

“She doan’t have a name,” Clara said.

“All cats have names,” Beatrix replied. “Otherwise, how could they answer when we call them? Let’s see.” She put her head to one side, studying the cat. “What would you think of calling her Miss Felicia Frummety?”

The little girl began to giggle, her fears momentarily forgotten. “But frummety is what I eat,” she said. “Barley and milk, cooked up together.”

“I daresay Miss Felicia likes frummety, too,” Beatrix said. “And she likes her new name. See her twitch her whiskers?”

Rascal pranced forward.
“Frummety, eh?”
he teased.
“What kind of a name is that?”

“It’s a very nice name,”
Felicia replied with some asperity.
“Nicer than Rascal, and much nicer than having no name at all.”
She jumped out of Clara’s arms.
“P’rhaps you can tell me what’s going on at Anvil Cottage. Crumpet and I were out hunting mice late last night, and we saw—”

Her story was interrupted when a man came around the corner of the house. He was tall, brown-haired, and brown-bearded, and he had a gruff voice. “T’ boy told me you were here, Miss. Come to walk over t’ place?”

“If you have the time to go with me this morning, Mr. Jennings,” Beatrix said. “I’ve been looking forward to it very much.”

The man glanced down at Beatrix’s feet. “T’ missus can make t’ loan of her pattens,” he said curtly. “T’ barn yard’s a mire, and tha’ll spoil thi town shoes.”

Beatrix colored. She should have thought to provide herself with something suitable to country walks. “I’d be glad of the loan,” she said, and followed him around to the front of the house.

The sturdy leather clogs, Mr. Jennings told her as she took off her town shoes and slipped her feet into them, were made by a cobbler in Hawkshead from an old pattern that was favored by the local country women. They fit perfectly, and as Beatrix walked down the farm lane beside Mr. Jennings, the terrier and the ginger cat trailing behind, she felt very much like a country woman herself. As she looked around, an ecstatic joy welled up inside her, and perhaps she might be forgiven for thinking that Hill Top Farm was the most beautiful farm in the whole world. After all, it was
her
farm, and the grass was like emeralds, the sky an azure blue, the wind off the fells was as fresh and clean as if it had been newly laundered, and smoky London and her mother and father were quite far away.

For the next several hours, as the morning sun lifted the mist from Esthwaite Water and the clouds wandered across the fells and moors beyond, Beatrix and John Jennings made their way around the small acreage, through the stone-built barns and the muddy barnyard, along a narrow cart-track through the grassy meadows, past the stone quarry and stacks of hay and the little autumn-colored coppice. They paused on the lane at the foot of the farm, so that Beatrix could look out over the green meadow toward Esthwaite Water, where a flock of white geese sailed on the placid surface. As they walked, Beatrix inquired about the farm carts and farm tools, the garden soil, the health of the animals, the state of the winter grass, the size of the summer’s hay crop, and the availability of quarry stone for walls and walks. Mr. Jennings replied in an increasingly respectful tone that revealed his surprise at the breadth and depth of her questions. Beatrix found pleasure in their conversation; for her, at least, the time passed quickly—and if Mr. Jennings would rather have been doing something else that morning, he didn’t reveal it. And Rascal, who was trotting along close behind, was as surprised as Mr. Jennings at the questions Miss Potter asked. Who would have thought that a famous lady author from London could care so much about a little farm in the Lake District?

As they walked down the lane that marked the southern edge of the farm, Beatrix noticed a whitewashed cottage beneath an overhanging willow tree, some little distance away, in the direction of the lake. Looking at it, she suddenly felt the tingling in her fingers that always signaled an irresistible desire to draw a beautiful object—and the tiny cottage
was
beautiful, with its clean white walls and slate roof and chimney cap, and a tumble of roses in the door yard.

“What’s that place?” she asked curiously, pointing to the cottage.

“That’s Willow Cottage,” Mr. Jennings said. “Miss Crosfield and her nephew Jeremy live there. She spins and weaves for folk and keeps a few sheep for t’ wool. But since t’ steam looms ’ve come, times is bad for t’ likes o’ her. Bad for t’ sheep, too, now that linoleum’s come in to replace carpet.”

“Linoleum is bad for the sheep?” Beatrix frowned, thinking of the linoleum on the floor of the Bolton Gardens servants’ quarters. “Why is that?”

“T’ native sheep are Herdwicks, suited to t’ harsh winters in t’ fells. Their wool is coarse and springy, and best used to make carpets. But modern folk wants linoleum in their houses, and there’s no market for t’ fleece, so sheep farmers are turnin’ to other breeds.” He paused. “Pity, too. Herdwicks are a fine sheep for the fells, strong and hardy. They’re heafed to their home places and thrive on even a poor pasture.”

“Heafed?” Beatrix asked.

“They know where they belong, and they doan’t wander.”

“An admirable quality,” Beatrix murmured. She thought to herself that it was a gift to know where home was, whether you were a sheep or a person.

“Aye. And when t’ winter storms come roarin’ down t’ fells, they can live in a snowdrift for nigh on a fortnight—on their own wool, if need be.”

Still thinking about the Herdwicks whose wool was no longer wanted, Beatrix followed Mr. Jennings through the meadow and up the slope to the garden, or, rather, where she hoped to put the new garden. The existing garden, with its raggedy flay-crow (the Lakelanders’ name for a scarecrow), was small and terribly untidy. There were disappointingly few animals, too, although that could be easily remedied. Hill Top seemed to have specialized in pigs that year, for there had been quite a number. Most had already been sold—and a good thing, too, Mr. Jennings remarked with a wry smile, since the pigs had eaten nearly all the potatoes. Any that remained should have to go on short rations.

“What do you think, Mr. Jennings?” Beatrix inquired seriously, as they paused at the barnyard fence. “Shall we have pigs again next year?”

“Oh, aye,” Jennings agreed, not looking at her. “Allus good to have pigs. If they does well, tha can get a name, sellin’ pigs here and there.” Leaning against the fence, he took his pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it with tobacco from a leather pouch. “But afore tha has more pigs, tha’ll need to put some money into fixin’ t’ broken boards on t’ pigsty. Can’t have pigs runnin’ loose and frettin’ t’ village, now, can we?”