The Tale of Castle Cottage (18 page)

“Oh, Miss Potter!” she exclaimed, putting the kettle back on the coal range. “How nice to see you again.”

Beatrix had first met Gilly when she was living with her uncle and his wife at Applebeck Farm. There, the girl had been made to work long, hard hours in the Applebeck dairy, until Beatrix helped her find another place and persuaded Gilly’s uncle, Adam Harmsworth, to release her. Altogether, it had been an ugly, unhappy business and revealed the darker, exploitative side of human nature. (You can read about it in
The Tale of Applebeck Orchard.
) But in the end, things had turned out surprisingly well. Mrs. Harmsworth got what was coming to her. Mr. Harmsworth, who never really wanted to be an orchardist, sold up and left. And Gilly was still happily working for Major Kittredge and his wife Dimity in the dairy at Raven Hall, the position Beatrix had found for her. She was now in full charge of the dairy, a very responsible position for a young woman who was not yet nineteen.

Jeremy opened a cupboard and got out a plate of tea biscuits. “Gilly and I were just talking about what happened next door,” he said soberly. “Have you heard, Miss Potter?”

“I ran into your aunt Jane a little while ago,” Beatrix replied. “She told me. It seems very hard to believe. And so very sad. I—”

She was interrupted by a knock. Jeremy disappeared. He was back in a moment with Mr. Heelis, whom he introduced to Gilly. Beatrix caught Will’s glance, and was glad that it was warm and welcoming, although there was still that sense of distance.

“Why, hello, Miss Potter,” he said formally.

“Hello, Mr. Heelis,” Beatrix replied.

If you wonder at “Miss Potter” and “Mr. Heelis,” please remember that both Beatrix and Will are thorough-going Victorians, raised in an era when even husbands and wives called each other “Mr.” and “Mrs.” Beatrix and Will always call each other by their first names when they are alone or when they are writing to one another, as they do quite often. But when they are in company, except with their closest friends, they feel obliged to be formal. They might even want to hold hands and kiss in greeting, but they would never do so in public. They save those intimacies for their private moments, which I daresay makes those moments even more pleasurable. There is something to be said, after all, for pent-up longing.

Gilly put sugar and milk on the table, with cups and saucers and spoons. Beatrix noticed with pleasure that the cups were part of the china set that she had given Jeremy and Deirdre as a wedding present—along with the blue rug on the floor. It was nice to see them being used.

“I’ll go look in on Deirdre,” Gilly said, “and leave you to your tea.”

“No, please, Miss Harmsworth,” Will said, rather to Beatrix’s surprise. “Actually, you’re the reason for my call. Captain Woodcock wanted me to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. About something you saw next door.”

This answered Beatrix’s unspoken question about why Will was here. He must be part of the investigation that the justice of the peace and the constable were conducting into Mr. Adcock’s death. Although why he should be involved, she couldn’t quite make out.

The four of them sat around the small table, which was spread with a blue checked cloth and centered with a jelly jar filled with daisies. Gilly poured tea and passed around a plate of chocolate biscuits. “I s’pose you want to know about the man I saw in the garden this morning,” she said.

Will nodded. “Do you remember what time that was, Miss Harmsworth?”

“About six thirty,” Gilly said. “A little while after the baby was born. But I’m afraid I didn’t see him very well, Mr. Heelis. Not his face, that is. He had on a hat—a brown hat with a wide brim. And brown trousers, I think.”

“How tall?”

She hesitated. “Medium height, I suppose.”

“Bearded? A moustache?”

She shook her head, then paused. “At least, I don’t think so. I really couldn’t see his face. There wasn’t much light, and his hat was pulled down.”

“Did he go into the shed?”

“If he did, I didn’t see him. I couldn’t linger, you know. The baby had just come, and I had things to do. And anyway, it didn’t seem important. He was just someone walking through the garden.” She glanced at Jeremy, frowning. “I thought . . . didn’t you say that Mr. Adcock killed himself, Jeremy?”

“That’s certainly what it looked like to me,” Jeremy replied in a low voice. He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that. I don’t want to see anything like it ever again.”

“The cause of death has yet to be determined,” Will said quietly, and Beatrix caught her breath, hearing the implications of his short sentence. There was something more here than she had thought.

Jeremy caught it, too. He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “This man Gilly saw—you think he might have had something to do with it, Mr. Heelis?”

“That’s not clear just yet,” Will replied. “We simply don’t know.” He turned back to Gilly. “Miss Harmsworth, I wonder—do you know a Mr. Bernard Biddle? He is a building contractor.”

“I’ve heard his name mentioned,” Gilly replied thoughtfully. “He did some building work for Major Kittredge last year, at one of the estate farms. If you’re asking me whether he was the man in the garden, I’m afraid I couldn’t say. I’ve never laid eyes on him.” She lifted her head alertly. “I think I hear the baby crying. If you don’t have any more questions, Mr. Heelis—”

“No,” Will said quickly. “Thank you. But if you remember anything else—anything at all—be sure and let Captain Woodcock or Constable Braithwaite know at once, will you?”

Gilly nodded, smiled at Beatrix, and left the room. A few moments later, Beatrix and Will took leave of Jeremy and left, too. They paused at the gate.

“I must apologize for my abruptness earlier this afternoon,” Will said a little stiffly. He scanned Beatrix’s face, looking for reassurance. “Is it . . . Are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” she said with a small smile. “I just wish things didn’t have to be so complicated. And I’m very sorry for Mrs. Adcock. I must stop in and tell her so.” She hesitated. “But I really do have to speak to Mr. Biddle about one or two important things, and I’d rather not do it alone. I wish you would come with me. Will you?”

“No,” he said, and then added, rather more urgently than the question seemed to call for. “And I don’t want you seeing him, either, Bea. Not until I can go with you. Please. Promise me.”

She frowned, wondering why he was so positively negative. “Is this because of what happened to Mr. Adcock?”

“No—at least, I don’t think so. It’s . . . It’s as you say, Beatrix. It’s complicated.” At that moment, the constable and Captain Woodcock came around the Adcock cottage, and Will took a step away. “I’m sorry. I have to go now. Don’t forget about dinner this evening with the Woodcocks. I’ll see you at seven.”

With that, he was gone.

And Beatrix had not promised.

12

The Secret Life of Bertram Potter

 

 

Beatrix dropped in at the Adcocks’ cottage to pay her respects to the widow. But Vicar and Mrs. Sackett were already there, and just about the time she arrived, Bertha Stubbs knocked on the door, clearly itching to know what had happened. So Beatrix said what she had come to say (and meant from her heart) and didn’t linger. Mrs. Adcock would have all she could do to cope with Bertha Stubbs, who was the worst gossip in either Sawrey.

Back at Hill Top, Beatrix tried to settle down to work at the project she had left when Sarah Barwick knocked at the door, some hours before. She sat down and looked at the table in front of her, sighing. It was littered with galley proofs, her drawing supplies, and the last pen-and-ink illustrations for
Pigling Bland
, to be pasted into the galley
.
She was hoping to get the drawings completed as soon as possible, so she could post the finished package to Harold Warne. His most recent letter had been rather urgent, because the catalog had announced the book for October, so that children could have it for their Christmas.

But now that she looked at what was yet to be done, Beatrix wasn’t sure that she could meet the deadline. It seemed that something was always getting in the way. Her father’s illness, her mother’s constant demands for attention, the need to run back and forth from Hill Top to Lindeth Howe, where her parents were spending the holidays. Not to mention the constant delays in the work at Castle Cottage, where she and Will had once dreamed of living out their lives together.

And in her lowest, darkest moments, that dream seemed utterly impossible. She now felt that it would be kinder to release both of them from it: Will, so that he could get on with the rest of his life; herself, so she could stop being pulled between two impossible poles. It was bad enough when she had been torn between her parents and her books and her farm, all competing for her full attention, her consideration, her devotion. Now, it was her parents, her books, her farms (for there was more than one)—and Will Heelis. There simply was not enough of her to go around, especially with this book deadline hanging over her head like an ominous cloud.

Beatrix put her elbows on the table and covered her eyes with her hands, feeling unspeakably weary. How many books was it, now? It was hard to keep track. Twenty-one or twenty-two, depending on whether she counted that first private printing of
Peter Rabbit
twelve years ago. She had spent a full year sending the manuscript out to one publisher after another and getting back nothing but curt rejections, until she had got so impatient and out of temper with the process that she had taken matters into her own hands and published the book herself. To everyone’s surprise, it had sold over four hundred copies. And then Norman Warne had read it and liked it and had urged his brothers to publish it. And the rest—as her brother Bertram liked to say, with a slightly envious smile—was literary history. Everyone, and most especially Beatrix, had been astonished by the public’s apparently insatiable eagerness for bunny books.

Beatrix rubbed her smarting eyes with her fists. Well, literary history or not, she was dreadfully behind with this particular project—and the way she was feeling, she was glad she hadn’t yet proposed another one. Perhaps it really was time to stop. In some ways, she hated the idea, but in other ways it seemed incredibly liberating. Yes. Yes, indeed. This book ought to be the last—especially given the problem of getting paid for her work.

While Norman was alive, there had never been any financial difficulties. Her royalties were always paid promptly and in an orderly way. But after his death, the accounting system at Warne seemed to have broken down. The payments had become increasingly erratic, and the royalty statements that accompanied the cheques were either incorrect or incomplete. She frequently had to send them back with questions that were almost never adequately answered.

The situation seemed to be getting worse, too—to the point where she had started keeping track of what was owed her. In fact, she was going to have to write a letter in the next day or two, asking about some money that was owed her. She hated to think it, but she was beginning to feel that she couldn’t trust Harold Warne—Norman’s brother, and now her editor. Something was going on there. What, she had no idea, but it was making her very uncomfortable, to the point where she sometimes found it difficult to do her work.

She dropped her hands and blinked until her vision cleared. Even though she had rushed the drawings, she felt they were good. She picked up the painting of the two little pigs, Pigling and his lady-friend Pig-wig, standing beside the grocer’s cart, which she had drawn from a photograph of Mr. Preston and his horse Blackie, who came round three times a week to deliver the village wives’ orders. But the suspicious grocer was laying a trap for the pigs, and the two little friends were lucky to escape with their lives.

And escape they did. It was the perfect ending to a getaway story, the dream of a child’s life. Boys and girls—especially the ones who dreamed about escaping from restrictive parents and starched collars and nursery puddings—ought to like it very much.

Beatrix looked for a moment at the last drawing, which she had just started to sketch. The two little runaway pigs, Pig-wig released from her imprisonment, were finally free, dancing ecstatically to a tune played by a trio of rabbits whilst the sun set over a lake.

She chuckled sadly. It wasn’t just little children who dreamed of getting away from their parents and from all the rules and restrictions that kept them from doing what they most wanted to do. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she and Will could simply clasp hands and run away? They would be free at last, and together. Together, forever and ever. They could dance to their own lovely tune, and nobody else’s.

But she knew better, of course. Running away and living happily ever after was a fairy story. Her little book was a fanciful tale about pigs, written for little children. She and Will were grownups with obligations. Running away wasn’t an option. Not now, not ever.

There was a hard, bitter lump in her throat. After a moment, she pushed back her chair, put on her garden gloves and her wide-brimmed straw hat, and went out to the garden. If she was too disheartened to work with her paintbrush, she could work with her trowel. Perhaps an hour’s weeding in the sunshine and clear air would relieve her mind so that she could get back to the book.