The Tale of Castle Cottage (10 page)

Rooker and his gang of reprobates have perfected the art of moving from town to town, staying just one leap ahead of the law. When they’ve picked a place clean, they send their scouts out into the district, looking for the richest target of opportunity. When a promising neighborhood or village is found, word is sent back, and the whole gang up sticks and moves, bag and baggage.

Their first task is to find a secure hiding place where they will be safe from discovery. It must be large enough for all of them to eat, sleep, and recreate, with adequate space to store their ill-gotten goods. It should have both a front door and a back door—several back doors, in fact, for the gang has occasionally found it necessary to make a hasty exit. The Brockery, of course, has a great many exits (more than even the badgers can count). Rooker had this in mind when he visited the place, reconnoitering it as a possibility for the gang’s hideout while they invaded Sawrey. To his disappointment, however, he found that the sett was too great a distance from the village. Rats are fundamentally lazy creatures and prefer not to haul their takings very far.

But fortunately for Rooker and his felons, they quickly discovered the barn at Castle Farm, which is right at the top of the village and convenient to the cottages, the shop, and the pub. They explored the barn’s many nooks and crannies and discovered that once upon a time, a very long time ago, another clan of rats had excavated a sizeable cavern under the floor of the stall that now belongs to Brown Billy. There was even a rather ingenious trapdoor over the opening, designed to look like a wooden shingle lying on the floor. When the trapdoor was closed and covered with straw, you would never in the world guess that an entire gang of thieves was living underneath the floor. And even if you did, there would be nothing you could do about it, for when the new gang moved in, they installed a latch on the underneath side of the trapdoor. If you want to get in, you have to know the secret code—a predetermined number of brisk raps, a silence, then more raps. And Thursday’s code won’t do you any good on Friday, because the rats change it every day.

It was from this clever hideout that the rats went out to raid the best larders, fruit and grain bins, bakery shelves, jewelry chests, money boxes, bookcases, and wine and liquor cabinets in the village. Once the Big Folks had turned down their gas lights or snuffed their candles and gone to bed, the thieves set about their jobs as systematically as any welltrained gang of workmen, making whatever forced entries were required, raiding private premises all over town, and silently departing with their loot, which they carried off to the Castle Farm barn. There they divvied up their spoils, feasted on their stolen foods, and counted their ill-gotten coins and jewels. Some of them went to bed to sleep through the day, whilst others (the more ambitious of the thieves) took only a short nap before venturing out into the daylight. They planned to keep on repeating their chicanery until Sawrey was well and truly stripped and there was nothing left to steal.

These robbers are already making inroads into the village. We have heard that Miss Potter has reported the theft of ten turkey eggs. Sarah Barwick missed a half-dozen sticky buns from her bakery, and now she can’t find the leather purse with her initials stamped on it, where she keeps her earnings. There might be as much as ten or twelve shillings in it! (She has not yet got this matter quite sorted, since her accounts are so badly muddled.)

There’s more, however, and the picture is not a pretty one. In the kitchen at the Tower Bank Arms, Mrs. Barrow noticed the absence of two fine cheddars and a round of goat cheese from the dairy cupboard. In the pub bar, Mr. Barrow became very cross when he took out the full can of salted nuts and found that it is now nearly empty. Both the Barrows have a tendency to blame the hired help when things get lost or misplaced, but both the kitchen maid and the bar boy protested their innocence, and of course there was no proof.

At the village shop on the other side of the Kendal Road, shopkeeper Lydia Dowling counted and recounted the sausages hanging from the overhead line that stretches across the corner above the vegetable bins and concluded that the two largest sausages were missing—or perhaps three, since she couldn’t remember exactly how many there were. And as she recalled, the marrow bin was full when she shut up shop the previous evening. It now appeared to be half-empty. Where had all the marrows gone?

And at Belle Green, across the lane from the barn, Mrs. Crook was frantic, for she could not find her emerald-cut crystal pendant, the one that had belonged to her grandmother. She could swear that she put it into the rose-colored china dish on the top of her bedroom dresser (although, as a matter of fact, she had left it on the kitchen table). In the event, the pendant was in neither place, and no one in the house would confess to having seen it.

Now, as we learnt in Chapter Two, Crumpet (in her role as the president of the Village Cat Council) makes it her business to be aware of everything that happens in Sawrey. As you will recall, she had been listening when Sarah Barwick asked Miss Potter what she would do if she suspected that somebody was stealing from her. However, at that moment, a loud commotion had erupted in the Hill Top chicken coop, and Crumpet had to rush off and see what it was. (Nothing urgent, as it turned out: Mrs. Bonnet, who is slightly myopic, had mistaken one of Mrs. Shawl’s newly hatched chicks for her own and attempted to chick-nap the little one.) The brief flurry of feathery disagreement was settled by the time Crumpet arrived on the scene, and complete harmony was restored to the barnyard.

But while Crumpet had not heard Miss Potter’s answer, she had certainly heard Miss Barwick’s question, and she began to wonder whether there was some serious trouble afoot. So after she left the Hill Top garden, she popped in at various cottages, asking the resident cats whether they had anything to report. She did this quite casually, because she didn’t want to alarm any of her colleagues before she completely understood what was going on.

But by the time she had completed her canvass, it appeared that nearly every house in the village was missing something of greater or lesser value—a box of almond-flavored biscuits, a tin of tea, a bracelet, a book, a paper of pins, even a halfknitted sock (although the yarn and needles had been left behind). Thoroughly troubled by what she had learned, Crumpet retired to the storage shed at the foot of the Rose Cottage garden, where the Council held its weekly meetings, and began making notes on the missing items and the cottages from which they had been taken.

Now, Crumpet is a clever cat. She knew that two and two generally made four (unless decimals were somehow involved), and she could see that all these multiple pieces of evidence added up to a larger and very unsettling truth: a gang of professional thieves was at work in the village. She also knew that they must be found and caught and brought to trial as swiftly as possible.

But this task was easier said than done. For one thing, Crumpet had no idea how many thieves were at work (one? two? a dozen?) or how small or how large they might be (the size of a mouse? bigger than a breadbox?). She didn’t know where they were hiding out, either. But she knew that they must be outsiders, since the village mice, rats, and voles were generally law-abiding and understood the need for cooperative co-existence. They might steal an occasional bite from a sticky bun left unattended, but they would never make off with a full half-dozen. No. There was only one creature in the whole wide world bold and brazen enough to organize and mount such a series of robberies as these.

A rat. It had to be a rat—no, a whole gang of the vile beasts—running loose in the village! Of course, it would be helpful if one of the cats had actually caught one of the thieves in the act and confirmed Crumpet’s speculation. But even without a positive identification, she knew what they were faced with. What
she
was faced with, as the new president of the Village Cat Council.

The thought sent cold fright shivering up Crumpet’s spine, but she knew she couldn’t give in to her fear. Obviously, there would have to be a plan, some sort of organization. But what sort of organization? What kind of plan? And who would carry it out?

She found a scrap of brown wrapping paper and a pencil and began to make a list of names of those she could call on for a possible police force—printed in block letters, because Crumpet had never mastered the art of cursive. She found that her pen obstinately refused to make the lines and curves that were required, and the flourishes of a fine hand (or paw, rather) were beyond her.

But when she had printed all the names of the cats in the village (with her own at the top of the list, of course), she could only stare at them in dismay. Every one of them was as mild-mannered and law-abiding as the village mice, rats, and voles. Felicity Frummety was frightened of her shadow. Tabitha Twitchit (the former Council president) was too old and slow and anyway, she lived in the Vicarage now, although she liked to stick her nose into village business. Treacle had just produced another litter of kittens (the father, as in previous instances, was unknown); she could not be expected to leave them unless a minder could be found. Max the Manx had moved to Far Sawrey to live in Teapot Cottage, and anyway, he was a gentle soul, a lover of art and music who could barely bring himself to swat a fly. There were at least a dozen other cats in the village, but they were all similarly impaired.

Crumpet put down her pencil. Except for herself, there was no one, not a single cat, who had the strength and ferocity necessary to go up against this lot. And even though she was an unusually confident and determined cat, she did just wonder whether she was up to the task. One rat, yes. Two rats, probably. A gang of rats? To be quite honest, not likely.

At this, Crumpet sighed, remembering with a certain amount of envy the Cat Who had been hired to clear an infestation of rats out of the Hill Top attics a few years before. This creature had grown into a legendary figure remembered in stories whispered around the winter firesides in the village. He was reputed to have been an exceedingly large fellow, almost two stone in weight and black as the back side of midnight, with saber-like claws and teeth as sharp as needles. He had taken the name of the Cat Who Walked by Himself (after a character in one of Kipling’s Just So stories) and boasted that he was the most efficient professional ratter available for hire anywhere in the Land Between the Lakes. He had an insatiable appetite for rats, he declared, and told Miss Potter that he was not ashamed to own that he took a very great pleasure in killing as many as possible.

As events transpired, these claims proved to be true and accurate. (You can read about them in
The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood
.) But while the Cat Who Walked by Himself did the job he promised to do, he had not been amenable to any sort of restraint. He refused to take orders from Miss Potter, and when he set about clearing the Hill Top attics, he wreaked a horrible havoc, slaughtering the good rats (yes, there were some!) right along with the bad. That could never be allowed to happen again.

Crumpet twitched her whiskers. She was beginning to feel desperate. Something would have to be done. What? And who was going to do it?

Well. I am very glad this is Crumpet’s problem, and not mine, for I confess that I don’t have an idea in the world for solving it.

6

Lady Longford Is at a Loss

Tidmarsh Manor is the home of Lady Longford, who (Lord Longford being deceased) lives there alone, clinging stubbornly to the hope that her headstrong, willful granddaughter Caroline will stop gallivanting all over the globe and hurry home to take the burden of the Longford estates from her grandmother’s shoulders.

But I am afraid that Caroline Longford has no intention of doing anything of the sort. A talented pianist and composer, she has grown from a shy and unassuming girl into a beautiful and fiercely independent young woman. A young woman of means, to boot, since she inherited enough money from her father to allow her to do pretty much as she pleases for the rest of her life. And to judge from the frequent letters she exchanges with her dear friend Miss Potter (who encouraged her to apply to study at the Royal Academy of Music) that is exactly what she means to do.

This week, for example, Caroline is on her way to Prague to give a piano recital, and after that, Vienna for another recital and Rome for a holiday. Of course, things might have been different if Jeremy Crosfield had fallen in love with her, as she hoped, rather than with Deirdre Malone. But that was not to be. Jeremy and Deirdre are married now and settled at Slatestone Cottage, with a baby on the way. Caroline is fiercely determined to make the very best of her talent—and the most of her freedom. Times are changing for women, and she eagerly embraces every tempting possibility that crosses her path. Who knows what the world will offer her, or what she will do with it?

But Lady Longford, I am sorry to say, is a different story. She has not changed one iota since the day we met her, nor do possibilities tempt her. She is not a cheerful woman by nature. She continues to dress in deepest black, although Lord Longford—a generous and jolly man who enjoyed a great many friends and was as unlike his wife as it was possible to be—passed on to his reward some decades before. Some people think that living at Tidmarsh Manor has made her ladyship gloomy, for the house, built some three centuries ago at the edge of Cuckoo Brow Wood, is curtained in heavy draperies and shadowed by a row of dark yew trees. On the other hand, perhaps it is her ladyship who has darkened the house, for it would be easy enough to tear down the draperies, trim the yew trees, and bring sunlight and life into the house.

But whether Tidmarsh Manor has darkened her ladyship’s gloomy view of the world or the other way around, the forbidding old place certainly matches her determined inhospitality. She distrusts most people, has almost no friends, and receives very few callers, with the exception of the vicar (who comes because he feels it is his Christian duty) and Mr. Heelis, who comes because he is her ladyship’s solicitor and truly has her best interests at heart.