The Tale of Hill Top Farm (23 page)

23

Miss Nash Is Surprised

It was eight o’clock in the morning, and Miss Nash was walking from Sunnyside Cottage, where she lived, to Sawrey School. It was a pretty October morning, cool and crisp, with the fragrance of autumn. The golden trees seemed to shimmer against the blue sky and the blackberry briars along the lane were covered with red and yellow leaves, making brave patches of color in the sunshine.

But these sights brought Margaret little pleasure, for she was terribly anxious about what the morning would bring. If Miss Crabbe had made her accusations to Constable Braithwaite, it was entirely possible that Jeremy Crosfield had been arrested and taken to Hawkshead for arraignment before the magistrate. If Miss Crabbe had not yet gone to the constable, for whatever reason, there would no doubt be a great deal of turmoil and anxiety and mutterings about the money. And to add to the difficulties, there was no Bertha to clean and light the stove, carry coal and cinders and water, and sweep the floors. All those duties would fall upon Margaret’s shoulders. It was no wonder that her heart was heavy, her feet dragged, and the day ahead seemed filled with ominous storm clouds.

But Miss Nash was in for a surprise—several of them, in fact. She had just inserted the key in the lock and was preparing to open the school door, when she heard someone calling her name.

“Miss Nash, oh, Miss Nash!”

She turned to see Vicar Sackett hurrying across the school yard. His scarf was flying, and he thrust his walking stick into the air with a great energy.

“Good morning, Vicar,” Margaret said without enthusiasm, and turned the key. This was no time for a chat. She would barely be able to get Bertha’s work done before the children arrived.

“Oh, Miss Nash, I have news,” the vicar said breathlessly. He lifted his hat and put it back on. “Terrible news, I’m sorry to say. Miss Crabbe has broken her leg.”

Margaret turned, appalled. For a moment, she couldn’t catch her breath or speak. “Broken . . . her leg?” she managed at last.

“Yes, yes, her leg.” The vicar took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. “Dreadful. A very bad break. Very bad. Doctor Butters came, of course. She is confined to bed.” He eyed her and added, with deliberate emphasis. “Miss Crabbe is going nowhere.”

Margaret still could not quite comprehend. Miss Crabbe was such a
determined
person, so firm of purpose, so resolute. It was inconceivable that anything might arrest her forward motion. “But . . . but how? How could such a thing happen?”

“She fell on the stairs at Castle Cottage,” the vicar replied. “She says she stepped on the cat.” He cleared his throat, sketched a gesture with his walking stick, and cleared his throat again. “I believe that she was on her way to see Constable Braithwaite when it happened.”

Margaret found that she had been holding her breath. “Oh,” she said, with enormous relief. “Then she didn’t—”

“No,” said the vicar. “She didn’t.”

Margaret straightened her shoulders. “Well, then,” she said, and was surprised by the cheeriness in her voice. “Let’s make a cup of tea and talk about how we can handle her classroom. I have a suggestion or two to make.”

“Wonderful,” said the vicar, with obvious relief. He beamed. “I knew we could count on you, Miss Nash.”

In the little teachers’ pantry, while their tea brewed, Margaret told the vicar what she had in mind. First, the vicar might write a note to Bertha Stubbs, explaining what had happened and asking her to return to her work. Surely, Bertha would not reject the vicar’s plea—and in Miss Crabbe’s absence, there would be no reason for her to refuse. Second, the vicar might call upon Mrs. Holland, who had come in to take the infants’ class when Margaret’s mother had fallen ill two years before. If Mrs. Holland, who was very capable, could take the younger children, Margaret herself would take the older ones. The arrangement might be extended for the length of Miss Crabbe’s absence, if Mrs. Holland were available.

The vicar sipped his tea and put down his cup. “I might as well tell you the whole truth,” he said. “I very much doubt that Miss Crabbe will return to her post. She is . . . not well.” He hesitated, started to elaborate, then thought better of it. He settled for: “However, that is a bridge perhaps more easily crossed in future months. In the meantime, I am glad that you are willing to take Miss Crabbe’s place. I will contact Mrs. Holland and see when it is possible for her to come in.”

“And Bertha Stubbs,” Margaret said, thinking of those buckets of coal.

“And Bertha Stubbs,” the vicar agreed. “I shall get on it at once.” He finished his tea, took his hat, and went to the door, where he paused, his hand on the knob. “Oh, yes, one more thing I thought I would mention. I am glad to tell you that the Parish Register has been found and returned to its rightful place.”

“How wonderful!” Margaret exclaimed. “You must be very relieved that it has been returned. Where was it? Who found it?”

The vicar put on his hat. “I must be on my way,” he said vaguely, and was gone.

It was indeed a pity that the vicar left when he did, for he was not there when Margaret sat down at her desk in the infants’ room and opened the top drawer to take out her attendance book. But she paused with her hand raised, staring down at the drawer in surprise and bewilderment. On top of the book lay an envelope, chewed in one corner, with dirty smudges all over it and an odd, wavering column of tallies down one side, as though someone had used it to keep score. And even more puzzling were the three words penciled in a faintly written script:

NO MORE RATS.

But when she picked the envelope up and spilled the coins onto the desk, Margaret knew what she had found. Before her lay one sovereign, two half-crowns, three florins, and nine shillings.

The School Roof Fund had been returned.

24

Miss Potter Pays a Visit

As Margaret Nash was making her troubled way to Sawrey School that morning, Beatrix was seated in Mr. Heelis’ red-wheeled gig, behind a fine brown horse that pulled them swiftly along the seven-mile stretch of twisting road between Hawkshead and Ambleside. She was on her way to visit the Armitt sisters, who lived at Rydal Cottage, a short distance beyond Ambleside.

If she had been in London, Beatrix would have felt terribly uneasy and very shy about riding for miles with a strange man whom she had met just the day before—and a very good-looking man he was, too. Of course, her mother would have absolutely forbidden the journey, as she had so often forbidden Beatrix to be alone with Norman—a demand that, at the time, Beatrix had accepted without complaint and now wished with all her heart that she had disregarded.

Anyway, they were not in London, her mother had no idea what Beatrix was doing, and Mr. Heelis was no strange man, but the respected solicitor who was managing her purchase of Hill Top Farm. What was more, he seemed even more shy than she, and his tongue-tied shyness had the odd effect of making Beatrix more comfortable with him, rather than less. Most people, Beatrix had found, expected a person to make chit-chat and carry on a lengthy conversation about nothing at all, with no other purpose than to make appropriate social noises at the appropriate points:
“Is that right?”
and
“How very amusing!”
and
“Oh, you don’t say!”

But Mr. Heelis seemed to enjoy idle conversation no more than she, so the two of them maintained a companionable silence as they drove along the quiet road. A gauzy autumnal fog lay across the lake, but the sun was already drinking it up, and the blue sky promised another bright morning. It was still very early when they reached Hawkshead, and few were about, and once past the market town they were on the open road, with blue speedwell and white mayweed and pink campion hiding in the grass along the verge, and the cherry-red pips of the dog rose and the even brighter berries of the holly sparking like scarlet flames in the hedgerow, which was busy with finches feeding on the fruit. Mr. Heelis’s horse was fast, and before Beatrix knew it they had flown past Outgate and Clappersgate and over the River Rothay into Ambleside and out again. When they arrived at Rydal Cottage shortly after nine, Mr. Heelis remarked politely that he would return after lunch to pick her up. Then he smiled and touched his hat, lifted the reins, and was gone.

Beatrix had been looking forward with pleasure to her planned visit to the Armitt sisters. Louie and Sophia—Annie was away in London—shared many of Beatrix’s interests: she and Sophia enjoyed drawing and talking about the Lakeland fungi, and she and Louie held similar views about the importance of preserving the Lakeland customs and old ways. Both of the sisters knew and corresponded with many important people, entertained distinguished visitors, and were ardent supporters of women’s right to graduate from Oxford and Cambridge. Sophia was confident and sometimes imperious, while Louie was imaginative, and when Beatrix was with them, she often felt quite overwhelmed, since both sisters were far better educated than she.

But Beatrix should not have worried, for she was widely read in the literary classics and she had an extraordinary memory—she had once memorized six of Shakespeare’s plays for her own pleasure. She also read popular novels, her father’s political journals, and the newspapers, and when she was asked an opinion on politics or international affairs, she had one to offer. This happened rarely at Bolton Gardens, of course, for her father did not invite her thoughts on any subjects, and her mother talked of nothing but household business or social affairs. But the Armitt sisters treated Beatrix as an equal with opinions worth hearing and considering, and when the three women were together, they got on famously. There were dozens of subjects to discuss and they were never silent for an instant.

And so it was on this visit. The weather was fair and warm, and they walked through the garden, gay with chrysanthemums, dahlias, and Michaelmas daisies. Afterward, they ate a simple lunch of soup and bread and cheese, admired Sophia’s drawings, listened to Louie read a paper she had written about the woolen mills that used to operate up and down the river, and talked of the sisters’ dream of creating a library at Ambleside.

The Lake Country was known for its unspoiled natural beauty and the slow, sweet, seasonally defined pace of its rural life. But a great many artists, poets, and writers had called it home in the last hundred years, and it had a strong cultural tradition. Ambleside seemed to Louie and Sophia exactly the right place to establish a library for students and scholars, where papers and books that had literary, scientific, or antiquarian value could be housed. Beatrix enthusiastically agreed, and promised to subscribe when the Armitt sisters’ library became a reality.

The hours passed all too swiftly, and when in the early afternoon the red-wheeled gig pulled into the cottage drive and stopped, Beatrix felt a sharp pang of regret, for it seemed as if the visit had hardly begun. She bade Louie and Sophia good-bye, promised to write to them often, and hurried out to the gig to join Mr. Heelis, anxious not to keep him waiting.

“You had a good visit, I hope,” Mr. Heelis said, when she had settled herself.

“I did, indeed, thank you,” Beatrix replied with a smile, and that was all that was said for quite a few moments, as they drove back toward Ambleside.

The earlier part of the day had been sunny and pleasant, but in the last hour, the sky to the north and east had darkened, the thunderheads were piling up like mounds of blue and gray cotton, and gusts of chilly wind swirled the fallen leaves. She was surprised, then, when Mr. Heelis broke the silence to say that that there was something he wanted to show her.

“I hope you won’t mind,” he said with some diffidence, “if we take a short detour. It shouldn’t require more than a half hour.”

“Of course not,” she said, but she spoke uncertainly, with an eye to the threatening clouds. Another half hour might mean the difference between staying comfortably dry and getting soaked. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a bit hard to explain,” he said with some awkwardness. “I should rather wait until we get there, and let you see for yourself.”

And with that, Beatrix had to be content.

25

Sarah Barwick Shocks the Neighbors

Dimity had spent the morning tramping through the glorious woods and meadows of Claife Heights and up to the summit of Latterbarrow. There, she sat down and ate the sandwich and apple she had brought, enjoying the magnificent views. To the east, she could see the head of Lake Windermere; to the north, the cloudy slopes of Loughrigg, the Fairfield Horseshoe, Red Screes and Caudale Moor, and the town of Ambleside, with Wansfell Pike and the Ill Bell Ridge beyond; to the northwest, the near-vertical flanks of the Langdale Pikes. The view took her out and away from herself, and from the goings-on at Sawrey: the disconcerting business at Anvil Cottage, Miss Crabbe’s accident, the missing money—small matters to city people who were accustomed to murder and mayhem on a large scale, perhaps, but anxiety-provoking enough for those whose lives centered on a quiet village.

Having eaten and rested and filled herself with the sights of the distant fells, Dimity started home, taking the path past Moss Eccles Tarn, a quiet little lake bordered with woodland and brightened by late-blooming wild flowers. It was a good place to fish for trout, and watch red squirrels gathering acorns against the coming cold of winter, and glimpse the bright red flash of a fox, hurrying through the undergrowth.

Eons ago, the mountains of this part of England had been covered with ice, and the large lakes—Windermere and Coniston and Esthwaite—were the work of the glaciers, gouging and grinding the rock. The smaller tarn lakes, such as Moss Eccles and Lily Tarn and the others, lay in the hollows scraped out by the advancing and retreating ice. It somehow pleased Dim to think of those silent, massive, enduring glaciers, as high as the sky and more powerful than the resisting rock, carving and sculpting and shaping the landscape she saw now around her. It was all a great mystery, and she became somehow a tiny part of its vastness as she stood on the windswept height. Altogether, it had been a good morning’s walk, she thought happily, as she headed downhill and home.

Dimity was coming down Market Street when she saw the green bicycle leaning against the front of Anvil Cottage. The front door of the cottage stood open, as did all the windows, and several rugs were spread over the side fence for airing. Miss Barwick, whom Dimity had not yet met, must have ridden over from Hawkshead for the day.

Dimity paused, regarding the bicycle with a raised eyebrow. Bicycles were not a novelty in the village, of course. Two or three men rode them, and so did the boy who brought the newspaper from Hawkshead, and occasionally an intrepid woman could be found among the sports cyclists who rode through Sawrey on their way up to the fells and moors.

But although cycling might be all the rage for the New Woman in London, cycling women were still looked on with open suspicion in the rural areas. They were not quite respectable, somehow. They were thought to have loose morals or lack a sense of propriety, or were anxious to call attention to themselves. Dimity suspected, however, that what lay behind most of the criticism was the recognition that a cycling woman was a mobile woman, and the fear that a mobile woman would have a great deal more independence, and the absolute belief that independence in women was not a good thing. In any event, Miss Barwick’s bicycle was certain to shock a villager or two.

Dimity stepped up to the open door and knocked. She was not dressed for calling. In fact, she was wearing her stout old boots, a disreputable felt hat, and a tweed jacket and skirt rather the worse for having been worn on many muddy tramps. But it would only be neighborly to stop in and introduce herself—and besides, she was dying of curiosity. Who
was
this mysterious Miss Barwick, this bicycling Miss Barwick? And how in the world had she come to inherit Anvil Cottage?

But there was no answer to her knock. Instead, Dimity heard several fierce sneezes, each one louder than the other, followed by a shriek and a resounding crash. And then silence.

Alarmed, Dimity called, “Miss Barwick? Miss Barwick, are you there? All you all right?”

There were two more sneezes. A muffled voice said, quite crossly, “No, I’m not all right, blast it. I’m dead.”

Dead? Dimity pushed the door open wide and ventured into the sitting room. “Miss Barwick?” she asked tentatively, looking around. “Miss Barwick, where are you?”

“In here,” said the voice, somewhat strangled. There was another loud sneeze.

Dimity went into the room that Miss Tolliver had used as a dining room and stopped, shocked. Miss Barwick had apparently been standing on a heavy wooden chair in front of the window when she had fallen, for the chair was on the floor, Miss Barwick was flat on her face half under the chair, and the fringed chintz curtains were draped over her and wound around her legs—which were unmistakably clad, Dimity saw with a stifled gasp, in gray serge trousers.

Swallowing her shock, Dimity hurried forward. “Please, may I . . . may I help?”

“You might begin by taking the chair off me,” Miss Barwick said with some asperity. “I seem to be wound round in this horrid chintz.” She sneezed again, emphatically. “And the fringe is thick with cat fur. It’s sending me into fits. Hurry before I sneeze my head off.” And she sneezed again.

Dimity hurriedly tilted the heavy chair upright and pushed it against the wall. She helped Miss Barwick untangle her legs from the curtains, and then extended a hand to help her get up.

Disregarding the hand, Miss Barwick rolled over and scrambled nimbly to her feet. She had a horsey sort of face, long and narrow, her mouth was very wide, and her nose was definitely freckled. No one would ever call her pretty, but her eyes, dark and alert, held humor and a sharp intelligence. Her dark hair had come loose and tumbled in a disheveled way around her shoulders, and her white blouse, which had a blue-edged sailor collar, was smudged with cobwebs and dust. The gray trousers were cut full so that the outline of her legs was scarcely visible—but they were most definitely trousers. They looked, Dimity thought, as her surprise gave way to something like envy, rather comfortable. To tell the honest truth, they also looked quite practical, if one were riding a bicycle, or tramping across the fells, or climbing over a stone wall.

“Sarah Barwick,” the woman said, and held out her hand. “I say, thanks for unwinding me. If you hadn’t come along, I might have lain there wrapped in my chintz shroud till the last trumpet.” Her speech was clipped, with a brusque, downright quality that no doubt startled some, but which Dimity rather liked.

“I’m Dimity Woodcock,” Dimity said, finding that Miss Barwick had a firm, emphatic grip. “My brother and I live on the other side of the wall at the foot of your garden, in Tower Bank House.”

“Oh, yes, Captain Woodcock. I met him yesterday morning. Justice of the Peace, or something or other, isn’t he?” She straightened her hair and looked down at the cobwebs on her blouse. “Pardon my appearance. I’ve been cleaning house, and I look a dreadful fright.”

“Oh, please, no need for apology,” Dimity said hastily. She glanced around the room. The slate floor was bare—the carpet and rugs had been rolled up—and the pictures had all been taken down. “Miss Tolliver liked to do her own housekeeping,” she added. “I doubt that the cottage has had a good turning out in several years. There must be quite a lot of dust.”

“It’s not the dust,” Miss Barwick said, rubbing her nose. “I’m an indifferent housekeeper myself, and I’ve learnt to live with dust. It’s the wretched cat fur—sends me into sneezing fits. I’ll have to clean it up before I can stay here.” She looked down at the tangle of chintz curtains. “I say, Miss Woodcock, would you mind giving me a hand? These need to go outside for a good whip in the wind. Easier than beating them.”

Five minutes later, the curtains were hung over the clothesline in the back garden, in the company of a two motley coverlets, some rather shabby bed curtains, the upstairs brocade drapery, faded and patched, and several rugs. Since the wind was beginning to gust, the cat fur would soon be a thing of the past.

“It looks as if you’ve been hard at work,” Dimity said as they went back into the cottage. “Would you like to come over to Tower Bank House for a cup of tea and a scone?”

“Gosh, I don’t know,” Miss Barwick replied doubtfully, eyeing the sky, which was darkening to the east. “I think I had better stay here, where I can haul the lot in if it starts to rain. Tell you what, though. I’ve a fire in the range and the kettle’s just on. I haven’t yet looked around for tea, but I daresay we can find some. Or coffee, if you’d rather.”

“The tea is in the tin canister above Miss Tolliver’s sink,” Dimity said. “Your sink, I mean. But do let me run home and fetch a few of Elsa’s scones to have with our tea.”

Miss Barwick thanked her warmly, and Dimity went home to get the scones. Ten minutes later, they were settled comfortably in the kitchen, a plate of Elsa Grape’s delectable scones on the table in front of them and a china teapot keeping warm under a crocheted cozy.

“The first order of business,” Miss Barwick said firmly, taking out a cigarette and lighting it with a match, “is to shed all this stuffy old Miss-this, Miss-that business. My name is Sarah. Please use it. If you don’t mind,” she added hastily, as if to soften what might sound like a command. She got up and took a saucer from the shelf to serve as an ashtray. “It does seem rather ridiculous to insist on ceremony after you unwound me from that chintz wrapper.”

Dimity was pleased by this straightforwardness, which somehow seemed to go with the trousers and the bicycle—and the cigarette. Dimity had seen women smoke before, when she lived with her parents in the south of England, and many a rural farm wife enjoyed her fireside pipe of tobacco when her chores were done for the day. But cigarettes were generally thought “fast,” something that might be used by London’s Marlborough House set or women who fancied themselves artistic or emancipated. Sawrey would have yet another reason to be shocked.

“Well, then, you must call me Dimity,” Dimity said, eyeing Sarah’s cigarette with interest, admiring the casual way she held it between her fingers, so that the smoke curled in front of her face. It looked very attractive and . . . well, modern. “My brother sometimes calls me Dim, although I don’t think he means anything by it.” She paused. “You’re from Manchester, I think he said?”

Sarah nodded and began to talk about herself. Dimity soon found that the mystery of Miss Barwick was unraveling quickly and without a great deal of prompting.

Sarah, who was a few years younger than Dim, had grown up in Manchester, where she worked in the family bakery and confectioner’s shop and kept house for her father after her mother’s death, some four years before. Her father had recently died, her uncle (with whom she didn’t get along) had bought his brother’s share of the bakery, and she had decided to strike out on her own. She had floundered around, though, not knowing what direction to take and having only the little bit of money her father had left and what she’d got from her uncle for her father’s share of the shop. And then she had learnt, quite unexpectedly, that Miss Tolliver had died and left Anvil Cottage to her.

“I wasn’t sure, at first, what I ought to do,” she said, pouring Dim and herself a second cup of tea and lighting another cigarette. “My father grew up in this area—Hawkshead. But he left when he was twenty and never came back, and I’ve never had any cause to visit the Lake District. I’d no idea it was so beautiful, and of course I’ve never lived in a village. To tell the truth, I was planning to sell this place and use the money to set up a bakery in a city.”

“But you’ve changed your mind?” Dimity asked.

Nodding, Sarah settled back in her chair. “It came to me in a flash when I was here yesterday with Mr. Heelis. I’ll open a small bakery and confectioner’s shop right here. Nothing big, of course, not dozens and dozens of loaves every day. Just a bit of fresh bread and cakes, tea cakes, scones”—she glanced approvingly at Elsa’s—“and perhaps a few hot pies. And there’s a hive of bees in the garden, and I might put in another, to have a little fresh honey to sell. I don’t need a great income, you see, just something to supplement what my dad left.” She paused and asked, with an anxious look, “Will it do well here, do you think? A bakery business, I mean?”

Another surprise for the village, Dimity thought, with a private smile. A woman baker and confectioner, in Miss Tolliver’s cottage? But why not? The kitchen was large enough to accommodate two ranges, if that were necessary. And Sarah would not be the only woman working in her home. Lydia Dowling ran the village shop in the front of Meadowcroft Cottage, just across Market Street. Jane Crosfield was a spinner and weaver, Mrs. Jamison raised chickens, Betty Leach sold vegetables out of her garden at Buckle Yeat, and Agnes Llewellyn, next door at High Green Gate, sold milk and butter from her husband’s cows. So why not a bakery?

“I think you might do very well, actually,” Dimity replied thoughtfully. “The baker’s boy comes over from Hawkshead once a week, but I’m sure we’d rather buy closer to home. Quite a few families still make their own bread, of course, but some would prefer to buy cakes and pies and such. And there are the day-trippers coming through, and the cyclists, all of whom are good for a bun or two. Yes, indeed, I think you might do very well.”

“Hurrah, then,” Sarah said, with evident satisfaction, and added, as an afterthought, “I’m sure Miss Tolliver wouldn’t mind. In fact, I mentioned it to her once in a letter—the idea of going into the baking business for myself—and she encouraged me. She said that every woman ought to be able to make her own way in the world.” She tapped her cigarette ash smartly into the saucer. “Of course, I hadn’t an idea in the world that she intended to leave me her house. That came as a great surprise, let me tell you. Practically knocked me off my pins.”

“You and Miss Tolliver were friends, then,” Dimity remarked, in a tone designed to elicit a response without betraying her curiosity.

“I wish I could say that we were,” Sarah replied. Her dark eyes grew sad. “We were never able to actually meet, face-to-face, I mean. But I feel that I knew her through our letters. We’d been writing for a year or so, and I used to send her little packages of baked goods. You know, biscuits and sweets and the like. She said she enjoyed them, and sent me back all manner of crocheted and knitted things—doilies and pot holders and gloves. Things she’d made.”