The Tale of Hill Top Farm (12 page)

She gave up trying to fight the hot, bitter tears and simply lowered her forehead onto her knees and gave way to wrenching sobs. She cried for what seemed like a long time, and then, exhausted with the effort of dealing with so many problems and facing so many facts, lay down on the grass, pillowed her head on her arm, and fell asleep.

11

Freedom!

As their mistress was sleeping the sleep of discouragement and despair, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Josey, Mopsy, and Tom Thumb were in quite a different frame of mind. The four of them were exploring their comfortable new hutch, which Edward Horsley had built of freshly sawn boards and wire netting and placed between the chicken coop (occupied by a dozen self-satisfied red hens and a cocky red rooster) and the lilac hedge, in the farthest corner of the back garden at Belle Green.

“This is quite a lovely cage, I must say,”
Mopsy remarked with pleasure. She nipped a dainty sprig of clover and nibbled it contentedly. Mr. Horsley had not built a floor for the hutch, but had merely set it down on the ground, so that the animals could enjoy a bit of fresh grazing.

“Oh, yes, indeed,”
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle said happily, above the sound of a chicken cackling. She spoke with her mouth full, for she had pushed aside a clod of fresh earth and discovered a plump, wriggling worm nearly three inches long, a perfect mid-morning snack.
“It’s pleasant here under the hedge. I do enjoy the cool shade.”

“I would prefer more sun,”
Tom Thumb said in a complaining tone.
“My dear wife Hunca Munca felt that if we were going to the trouble of exercising out of doors, we should get a bit of warm sunshine whilst we were at it.”
His eyes brimmed with tears.
“Dear, darling Hunca Munca. She may be dead and gone, but she will live on in my heart.”
He began to sob, so loudly that the words were almost swallowed by his weeping.
“I shall always be true to her.”

A large blue-black magpie wearing a tidy waistcoat of white feathers landed on the top of the hutch.
“What’s this noise?”
he cried, with a saucy show-off flutter of his iridescent wings.
“What’s all this squeaking? Who are you?”

“We’re visitors from London,”
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle said haughtily
. “We’re here with Miss Potter.”

“Tourists,”
said the magpie, with a disgusted squawk.

Josey, in her usual lively search for adventure, had been poking her nose into various corners of their new outdoor quarters.
“Look at this,”
she called excitedly, over her shoulder.
“Mr. Horsley forgot to fasten the wire netting!”
She pushed at the netting with her nose, and by the time the others had come over to see what was happening, she had shoved her head and shoulders through the flap of loose netting.

“Josey,”
Mopsy said, quite alarmed
, “stop that this minute! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m escaping from this cage, that’s what I’m doing,”
Josey said, pushing with her back feet and wriggling her hindquarters energetically.

“Oh, no!”
Mopsy exclaimed, horrified
. “You mustn’t!”

“Oh, but I must,”
Josey said, caught up in the sheer delight of her own happy mischief. And with a gleeful shake of her fat white tail, she slipped under the wire.
“I’m free!”
she cried, hopping back and forth in great delight.
“I’m free!”

“So you are,”
said the magpie.
“Free to make trouble—for yourself and everybody else.”

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle stood up on her hind legs and regarded the rabbit with displeasure.
“Josephine,”
she said sternly,
“you must come back into the hutch. You know you’re not allowed out unless Miss Potter is with you.”

Tom covered his eyes with his hands.
“Oh, do come back, Josey! It’s dangerous out there in the wilderness! You’ll be snapped up by a dog or a fox.”
And then, overcome by his own fearful prediction, he began running about in mad circles, squeaking tremulously,
“A dog, a dog, a fox, a fox, a dog!”

“Come back,”
Mopsy cried, in an imploring tone, pressing her pink nose against the wire netting
. “Oh, Josey, do come back where it’s safe, please, please do! You’ll get tangled in a gooseberry net, like Peter. Or Mrs. McGregor will put you in a pie!”

“Mrs. McGregor?”
Josey gave a derisive laugh.
“Don’t be silly, Mopsy. That’s Miss Potter’s make-believe.”
And with that, she hopped through the hedge and was gone.

“She’ll be eaten,”
cried Tom in despair
. “We’ll never see her again, never more, never more!”

With a shake of his feathers, the magpie flew into the air, cackling crazily
. “Of course not, you silly mouse. She’s free, free as a bird! And once free, only a fool would go back to a cage.”

“I’m afraid the magpie is right,”
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle said sadly
. “Josey is no fool. She’s a clever and resourceful rabbit. She has abandoned us.”

But Josey was back again in a minute or two.
“I didn’t see anything that looks even remotely like a gooseberry net,”
she reported,
“or a dog or a fox or Mrs. McGregor.”
She rolled her eyes ecstatically and wiggled her ears.
“But I did see a lovely patch of wild salad burnet. And there’s a glorious golden haystack, and an orchard full of the most beautiful red fallen apples.”

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s brown eyes became suddenly bright, and she rubbed her little clawed forepaws together.
“Fallen apples?”
she whispered reverently.
“Fallen apples, you say? And where there are fallen apples, one might just find a worm or two, mightn’t one?”

“Oh, I should think so.”
Josey gave her ears a careless toss.
“Worms and beetles and grubs and snails.”

“Snails,”
said Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
“Worms! Beetles!”

“But we can’t leave the hutch,”
Mopsy said desperately
. “We can’t leave Miss Potter! She’s our friend!”

“We’re not leaving forever, silly.”
Josey lifted up the corner of the wire netting, squeezed under it, and was back inside the hutch in a flash.
“You see? We’re just going on holiday. We can slip out with no trouble and duck right back in whenever we feel like it.”
She grinned at Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
“You can come back here after you’ve eaten all the worms and beetles and grubs your little hedgehog heart desires. Well, Mrs. T? What do you say?”

“Just say no!”
Mopsy implored wildly
. “It’s the voice of temptation, dear Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle! You must not yield!”

“It’s the voice of freedom,”
cried the magpie with a raucous laugh, and flew to the top of the hedge.

Josie pushed back out through the loose wire netting
. “Come on, Tig,”
she beckoned.
“Consider the worms!”

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, her eyes dancing, considered them for all of five seconds. Then she cried joyously,
“I shall have worms! Indeed I shall! And beetles and snails!”
And with that, she pushed her way through the flap. In an instant, the little brown hedgehog had scampered through the hedge and was running through the green grass and into the orchard, just as fast as her small feet could carry her.

“Well away!”
shrilled the magpie from the top-most twig of the hedge.
“Hoop-hoop, tally-ho! Never say die!”

Josey turned to look at Mopsy and Tom, who were still sitting inside the hutch.
“Well?”
she asked cheerfully.
“Who’s next?”

“Certainly not I,”
Tom said. He picked up the tip of his tail and began to nibble it in a forlorn sort of way.
“I am a town mouse, and have no use for the country. I’ll just stay here in this cage and be true to Miss Potter and to my dear Hunca Munca.”
He sighed deeply.
“True, true, always true.”

Mopsy sat up on her haunches and folded her forepaws, her teeth chattering, her whiskers twitching fearfully.
“I’m not coming either, Josey. It’s simply too dangerous. There are too many risks. Bears and panthers and wolves—”

“Don’t be silly,”
Josey said
. “There have never been any wild bears in England, or panthers. And the wolves have been gone for centuries.”

“How do you know?”
Mopsy persisted. She shivered
. “Just because you’ve never seen one—”

“Personally, I don’t much care whether you come or not,”
said Josey, with a shrug of her shoulders
. “You’re such a nervous Nellie that you’re likely to spoil the fun, anyway. But you’ll be lonely all by yourself.”

“I have Tom,”
Mopsy said, moving closer to the mouse.

Josey smiled
. “Tom,”
she said, lowering her voice to a whisper
. “Come here, Tom. I want to tell you something. Something important.”

Mopsy put out a paw to restrain him, but Tom, who was always more curious than was good for him, crept close to the wire. Josey whispered in his ear. Tom’s eyes widened as he listened, and he took a step back.

“You’re making it up,”
he cried
. “It can’t be true.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,”
said the rabbit
. “The spitting image of Hunca Munca. Could be her twin. She’s sitting right beside the haystack. I saw her with my very own eyes.”

“Hunca Munca’s twin sister!”
cried Tom, now so giddy with joy that he turned two flying cartwheels.
“Can it be true? Can it be true, true, true?”

“Come and see for yourself,”
Josey said, and lifted up the flap of netting.

And with that, Tom Thumb was gone, streaking through the hedge in the direction of the haystack, his white tail straight out behind him.

Josey smiled mischievously.
“Any time you’re ready, Mop, old girl,”
she said over her shoulder.
“You’ll find me in the salad burnet patch.”
And with that, she hopped through the hedge.

It took Mopsy quite a time to work up her courage, but at last, driven by loneliness and an overwhelming desire to be with Josey, she wriggled through the netting flap. For a moment, she crouched just outside the hutch, gazing back at its comfort and safety with longing. Then, her ears flat against her head, her eyes wide with fear, she crept through the hedge.

From the topmost twig of the hedge, the magpie surveyed his wide domain. In the orchard, seized by a joyful ecstasy, the hedgehog was rooting gaily among the fallen apples, crying
“Worms, grubs, and beetles, beware! Worms, grubs, and beetles, beware!”

Beside the haystack, the mouse was murmuring romantic poetry into the ear of another mouse, who appeared to be impressed by his courtship.

And in the salad burnet patch, the two rabbits, shoulder to shoulder, were munching in oblivious pleasure.

“Well, they won’t last long in the wild,”
the magpie said to himself, and gave a raucous, mocking laugh.
“Tourists, every silly one of them.”

12

Miss Tolliver’s Will Is Read

As Miss Potter’s fugitive animals were enjoying their newly won freedom, Dimity Woodcock was setting out with her brother for Hawkshead. Dimity planned to do some shopping, and Miles had business with the solicitors’ firm of Heelis and Heelis. Dimity had arranged to meet him at noon and drive back to Sawrey together in time for lunch.

“You’ll be in the solicitors’ office during the reading of Miss Tolliver’s will, won’t you?” Dimity asked, as she climbed into the waiting gig.

“Probably,” Miles replied, lifting the reins. Topaz, his young filly, pricked her ears and stepped out smartly.

“Please do see what you can find out about it,” Dimity said, and smashed her felt hat more firmly on her head. “It’s such a mystery, you know. I am absolutely
mad
to know whether that awful man is to have Anvil Cottage after all.”

Miles laughed. “You and the entire village. Elsa gave me a special commission this morning—seems as anxious as you to know about the cottage. And Grace Lythecoe button-holed me as I was waiting for you. She wants me to find out about a miniature Constable that used to hang in Miss Tolliver’s sitting room.”

“A
Constable?
” Dimity asked, surprised, as they turned onto the Hawkshead Road. It was a lovely morning, the sky was so brilliant that it almost hurt one’s eyes to look at it, and the trees made a graceful golden arch over the narrow road. “Miss Tolliver had a genuine Constable painting? I don’t remember seeing anything like that. Where was she hiding it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Dim,” Miles said, raising a hand to Spuggy Pritchard, who was leading Biscuit, his billy goat, down the road. “I never noticed it, although I do seem to recall some muddy little painting in a gilt frame that hung in a corner. It seems, however, that our observant Miss Potter saw it when she was visiting Miss Tolliver several years ago. She’s the one who pointed out to Grace that it was gone.”

“I suppose Miss Potter would notice such things,” Dimity said thoughtfully, “being an artist, I mean. But when did it go away? And
how?
Surely not since Miss Tolliver died, for the house has been locked.”

Miles pulled Topaz and the gig onto the grassy verge, to make way for a draft horse hitched to a heavily loaded hay wagon, coming from the other direction. “Good morning, Mr. Everett,” he called, to the craggy, gray-bearded farmer driving the wagon. To Dimity, he said, “As to how and when, Grace hadn’t a clue. She seemed to think the painting was there when Miss Tolliver had her birthday party. Anyway, she sent a boy with a note to Heelis yesterday evening, letting him know it’s gone missing. She thought Miss Tolliver might have given him an inventory of her possessions.”

Dimity folded her white-gloved hands in her lap. “Well, then,” she said decidedly, “you can find out about
that,
too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Miles said dryly. “I shall add it to my list.” His tone become sterner. “You didn’t mention that there was talk at tea yesterday of Miss Tolliver’s having died of poison.”

“Poison!” For a moment, Dimity was startled. Then she recalled. “Oh, yes. It was Rose Sutton who mentioned it. She’d been reading Sherlock Holmes, I think. She said something to the effect that when somebody died unexpectedly, one ought to consider all angles.” She paused. “It seemed an innocent enough remark. No one took it up, at least not in my hearing.” She frowned. “Why do you ask?”

“Because Constable Braithwaite came to see me this morning, very early. He was at the pub last night, and heard several of the men talking about it. It seems that there is a general consensus of village opinion that she died of an excess of foxglove, self-administered or . . .” He lifted the reins and Topaz stepped faster. “Otherwise.”

“Oh, dear,” Dimity said. Soberly, she added, “There’s no truth to it, is there?”

“To be perfectly honest,” Miles replied, “I don’t suppose there’s any way of knowing. Dr. Butters saw no reason to perform any toxicological tests.” He gave his sister a sideways glance. “You knew Miss Tolliver rather better than most, Dim. Did she dose herself regularly with foxglove?”

“Foxglove?” Dimity asked, feeling suddenly apprehensive. “She did talk to me about it once. She grew it in her garden, and made up her own ‘heart tonic,’ as she called it. But knowing Miss Tolliver, I’m sure she was very careful.” She drew in her breath sharply. “Oh, Miles, this is dreadful! If there’s no way of knowing for certain how she died, people will simply go on talking forever!” Then something else occurred to her, and she felt even more apprehensive. “They aren’t mentioning the names of . . . suspects, are they?”

“The constable said that the men at the pub were inclined to believe that the nephew had something to do with it. Of course, he’s the one who’s expected to benefit from his aunt’s death.” He chuckled wryly. “Unfortunately, he appears to fit people’s idea of a proper villain. He is said to have accosted Grace Lythecoe and Miss Potter yesterday, rather aggressively.”

“That must have been the business about the key,” Dimity said. She sighed. “What are you going to do?”

“There’s not much I can do,” Miles said. “I’m seeing the magistrate this morning, and I’ll mention the matter to him. And to Heelis, as well.” He raised his voice. “Get along a little faster, there, Topaz.”

Dimity had always thought that Hawkshead—named after the tenth-century Norseman “Haukr” who established it—was a perfectly wonderful little town, so clean and neat and friendly. She loved to stroll through the narrow streets, which bore names like Leather, Rag, Putty, and Wool, reflecting the medieval crafts and trades that had flourished in earlier times. Wool was especially important, of course, for it was the fleece that had been marketed and processed here for shipping to the weavers at Kendal that brought prosperity to the town and surrounding countryside.

The buildings were quaintly medieval, too, none of that solemnly pretentious red-brick Victorian stuffiness here! The pebbly walls were whitewashed, and buckets and pots of chrysanthemums, Michaelmas daisies, and lobelia sat on every sill. The south end of town was dominated by St. Michael’s Church, sitting “like a throned lady” on a hill, as the poet William Wordsworth had described it. And on her way to Miss Stanley’s millinery shop, Dimity walked past the little grammar school, still open to the local children, where Wordsworth himself had studied in the late 1700s, and where he had carved his name on his wooden desktop.

Miss Annabelle Stanley kept her tiny shop between the cobbler and the chandler, under a wooden sign that bore the faded painting of a ruffled bonnet, first displayed by her mother, Mrs. Ada Stanley. That worthy woman, now some ten years departed, had opened the shop in the same year that Victoria ascended the throne. A few of her serviceable straw bonnets were still on the shelf at the rear of the shop, while Miss Stanley’s modish hats, lavished with lace and silk flowers and swathed with yards of tulle, were prominently displayed in the window.

The fashionably dressed Miss Stanley, who had two gold teeth and wore black false hair and daintily rouged cheeks, brought out a tray of satin ribbons, averting her eyes from Dimity’s unfashionable felt hat. When Dimity had chosen two yards of a narrow yellow ribbon and a yard of green, Miss Stanley wrapped the purchase in a bit of tissue paper. As she handed it to Dimity, she remarked, with a delicately affected lisp, “You’ve heard, I suppose, about Miss Tolliver’s will.”

“Heard what?” Dimity asked, startled. It was no surprise that Miss Stanley had been acquainted with Miss Tolliver, of course. She and her mother, between them, had constructed hats and bonnets for three generations of Hawkshead women. But Dimity hadn’t known that the business about the will was common knowledge so far away from Sawrey. Of course, three miles was not far by London standards, where one might flit here and there by Underground and drive here and there by motor car. But in the countryside, where the roads toiled up and down and around the stony hills, three miles was still a substantial journey.

Miss Stanley leaned closer, nearly submerging Dimity in a wave of lilac perfume. “My sister keeps Ivy House, you know,” she said, in a voice meant to convey an important secret. “Miss Sarah Barwick arrived late yesterday, from Manchester. She said she came for the reading of Miss Tolliver’s will, which is to be this morning.” She added, with a meaningful look, “I doubt if she’d have come all that way if she hadn’t been a beneficiary, do you?”

Dimity stepped back and took a breath of clearer air. “From Manchester?” She hadn’t known that Miss Tolliver had any relations there—or anywhere other than Kendal, for that matter.

“Just so,” said Miss Stanley. “And when she was asked if she was related to Miss Tolliver, Miss Barwick said no, although she might have been, if things had been different.” She frowned. “Now, what do you make of that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Dimity replied. “Is she an . . . older lady?” Given Miles’s stature in the community, Dimity usually felt that it was inappropriate for her to gossip. In this case, however, she felt rather justified, since so little information was available that really, one owed it to oneself to latch onto whatever odd bit one could.

“A younger lady, my sister says, scarcely out of her twenties. Quite pretty, in a hoydenish sort of way, but modern.” (The last word was spoken with marked disapproval.)

Dimity tucked her purchase into her handbag and stepped back, wondering what “hoydenish” and “modern” might mean, in this context. “I’m sure she must be very nice,” she said primly, recollecting her role as the sister of a Justice of the Peace.

“But who
is
this Miss Barwick?” Miss Stanley asked, stepping forward and speaking urgently. “I’ve always understood that Miss Tolliver had no relations, other than that draper fellow from—”

“I’m sure I shall find the ribbon quite delightful, Miss Stanley,” Dimity said, making her exit. “Thank you so much.” Once on the street, she took a deep breath to clear her lungs of lilac perfume, concluding that perhaps she should be grateful that Miss Stanley had not mentioned anything at all about poison.

A cup of tea, several errands, and a half-dozen variously sized parcels later, Dimity arrived in the street outside the office of Heelis and Heelis. Miles emerged, swinging his stick jauntily and whistling between his teeth.

“Well, that’s all settled,” he said as they went off round the corner to Holtby’s Stable, where Topaz had been left to enjoy a ration of oats.

“What?” Dimity demanded. She plucked at Miles’s sleeve. “What’s settled? Were you there when the will was read?”

“I was,” Miles said, and gave the stableman a half-shilling to hitch the gig and bring it around to the lane. “Just inside the door, on a very hard chair. Willie Heelis wanted me as a witness. Can’t think why, though. There were only two bequests, both very straightforward.”

“Did the draper get the cottage?” Dimity asked breathlessly. “Who is Sarah Barwick? And what about the Constable?”

Miles’s eyebrows went up. “How did you find out about Sarah Barwick?”

“She’s staying at Ivy House,” Dimity replied, not very informatively.
“Did he?”

“Roberts, from Kendal?” Miles chuckled. “No, he didn’t, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, my,” Dimity said faintly.

“Oh, yes.” He chuckled again. “You never saw a man so heated, Dim. Heelis hadn’t even finished with the reading when Roberts jumped out of his chair and began to rant and rave. I thought he was going to explode, just like a volcano—as indeed he might, if Heelis hadn’t stopped and calmed him down.” He paused as the stableman brought out horse and gig. “Ah, here’s Topaz, combed and curried and bright as a new penny. Climb in, my dear, and let’s be off. I’m ready for lunch.”

“
I’m
going to explode just like a volcano,” said Dimity fiercely, as she got into the gig, “if you don’t tell me who got the cottage.
This minute!
”

When Miles wanted to tell a story, he could tell it swiftly and without embellishment, and since Dimity really wanted to hear it, she did not interrupt him. Miss Tolliver’s will had been short, simple, and quite specific about the disposition of her property. She had bequeathed Anvil Cottage and all its contents to Miss Sarah Barwick of Manchester. To Mr. Henry Roberts of Kendal, she had left the sum of one farthing—the smallest coin in the realm—as well as a box of letters that had been written to Miss Tolliver by Mr. Roberts’ mother and a funeral locket containing his mother’s hair. There was indeed an inventory, made the year before, which listed a gilt-framed miniature painting, with no artist mentioned and no value assessed. Willie Heelis had told Miss Barwick that he had been advised by a neighbor that the painting might have some value, and that it seemed to be missing. He suggested that Miss Barwick undertake an immediate search for it and offered to drive her over to Sawrey that afternoon, so this could be done straightaway.

“But
who
is this Miss Barwick?” asked Dimity, helplessly, feeling that whilst one mystery had been solved, another now rose before them.

“A friend of Miss Tolliver,” Miles said. “That’s all I know, Dim. Every bit of it.”

“But if she was Miss Tolliver’s friend,” Dimity persisted, “why didn’t she—”

“You’ll have to ask her,” Miles said shortly. “And with regard to that gossip about poison, I mentioned it to the magistrate and to Heelis. Neither of them think poison at all likely, since Dr. Butters seems not to have considered it. And both agree, there’s nothing to be done unless some specific evidence comes to light.”

“Which means,” Dimity said regretfully, “that there’s no way to stop people from talking.”

“Too true, I’m afraid.” Miles gave a little shrug. “They’ll talk about it until something else comes along they’d rather talk about.”

Dimity shivered. She hated to think what
that
might be.