The Tale of Castle Cottage (9 page)

But Will had never been shy with Beatrix, perhaps because she was as reserved, modest, and shy as he. And because both of them were passionate about the same things, which allowed them to build a strong working relationship that, over the course of time, had ripened into an even stronger affection.

“I only just got here myself,” Beatrix replied. She waved a hand at the garden. “I was looking at all this construction mess and thinking that perhaps—after we’ve walked through the house—you and I ought to find Mr. Biddle and have a word with him. I’m sure that the lumber should be stored in the barn, rather than out in the weather. And there ought to be something productive that these workmen could be doing, instead of wasting time sitting around.” She thought of what Sarah had told her and frowned. “But there’s more, Will. I had a talk with Sarah Barwick a little while ago. She said that Henry Stubbs had bought a pair of brass door handles—”

“I’m sorry, Beatrix, but I’m afraid I can’t stop now,” Will said apologetically. He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away, not quite meeting her eyes. “Didn’t want you to stand around wondering what had become of me. Just motored up to tell you that something’s come up. Dodgy bit of business, I’m afraid—nothing for you to worry about. I’m on my way to see Woodcock this afternoon.” He took a breath and managed a crooked smile. “It would be best to delay any talk with Mr. Biddle until I am able to go with you. You’ll do that, will you?” Without waiting for her answer, he added, “Sorry, my dear. Hope you won’t mind.”

“Oh,” Beatrix said, suddenly deflated. “No, of course I don’t mind.”

As she spoke, she suddenly found that she minded a very great deal—but what she minded was the fact that Will had to leave. She hadn’t seen him for over a fortnight, and she had been looking forward to spending this afternoon together. She stole a look at him, wondering what the “dodgy bit of business” might be and why he had to see Captain Woodcock so urgently.

“Splendid,” Will replied, with what seemed to her a forced cheerfulness. “And I haven’t forgotten about this evening. You and I are having dinner at Tower Bank House. I’ll call for you at . . . oh, say, seven?”

“Of course,” Beatrix said.

He leaned forward and brushed her cheek with his lips. “Well, then, cheerio, my dear. I’ll just clear off.” He turned to go.

She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “But I really feel we must have a talk with Mr. Biddle
soon
, Will. Perhaps later this afternoon, after you’ve had your talk with the captain? We’d have to find the man, but—”

“This afternoon?” He shook his head. “Afraid not. Truly sorry, my dear. I have to see a client back in Hawkshead. But we’ll do it soon. I promise. And I’ll see you tonight.” Then he was gone, hurrying out to his motorcycle, kicking it into life, and driving back down the hill with a great cloud of dust hanging in the still air behind him.

Beatrix stood stock-still, feeling herself unable to move. Will had a mild temperament and was slow to show worry or impatience. In all the many hours she had spent with him, he had never seemed quite so hurried and brusque—and evasive—as he had just now. Whatever was troubling him, it must be serious.

She opened the gate. It couldn’t be . . . It couldn’t be something between the two of them, could it? Between herself and Will? She thought back to the last time they had been together, in early July, when he had come over to Lindeth Howe for a brief Sunday afternoon visit with her parents. It wasn’t the first time he had called. After all, the two of them
were
engaged. And she insisted on treating it as if it were a real engagement, even though her mother and father tried very hard to pretend it didn’t exist.

She and Will had made every attempt at normal conversation. But despite their efforts, her father had been mostly silent and her mother had been hostile and rude. Both had made it clear that their daughter’s friend was not a welcome caller. The visit had been almost unbearably uncomfortable, and she had actually been glad when Will looked at her with a despairing sigh, said goodbye, and left. Since then she had scarcely heard from him, except for one or two short notes to explain that he was very busy with some matters at the law office and couldn’t get away. She hadn’t thought anything of it, for she herself had been busy with the drawings for
Pigling Bland
. But now—

Now she had to wonder. Perhaps Will was coming to realize what she had felt for some time, that there was really no use in trying to create something out of nothing, to build a future where none was likely to exist. The thought made her stomach hurt and her head ache, but the possibility had to be faced, didn’t it? It would certainly be better to end the engagement sooner, rather than later, so that Will could find what he needed.

Beatrix had no heart now to go inside the house, its old life pulled out of it and spread like so much rubbish all over the garden, its new life not yet—and perhaps not ever to be—realized. It loomed behind her like a metaphor for a failed relationship, for an unrealized dream. And even if she could find Mr. Biddle, facing him in her current frame of mind was out of the question.

She went through the gate, leaving Castle Cottage and its mess behind, and began to walk slowly down the hill.

5

In the Castle Farm Barn

 

 

It’s probably a very good thing that Miss Potter did not go into the barn. If she had climbed the ladder and looked into the loft, she would have been surprised and very bewildered by what she saw. But she might have been even more surprised if she had gone into the second stall on the right, the winter home of the Cottage Farm draught horse, a big, burly fellow named Brown Billy who was spending the summer working with Mr. Jennings in the hayfield.

But Miss Potter, disheartened by her brief exchange with Mr. Heelis, did neither of these things, going instead down the hill toward the village. Since that is the case, I will take the liberty of telling you what she would have seen. She would have been very much puzzled by the stacks of lumber and other building supplies, which would have seemed to her to be a duplicate of the materials that were heaped outdoors, being spoilt in the weather. And in Brown Billy’s stall, she would have noticed a great many unusual comings and goings amidst the rustling of crisp hay and the squeaking and chirping of rats.

Yes, rats. Rats with caps pulled low over their eyes, rats carrying baskets of pilfered produce and cheeses, rats staggering under heavy loads of booty. And if Miss Potter could have made herself very small (like Alice, who followed the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland), I have no doubt that she, too, would have followed these rats and discovered that every one of them was going through a trapdoor in the floor under Brown Billy’s manger.

Through a trapdoor in the floor? Yes, indeed, and down a wooden ladder, craftily built of willow wattles lashed with binding twine, and thence into a large cavern that had been carved out under the floor of her barn. But since Miss Potter didn’t do this, we will, exercising the special privilege extended to writers and readers of stories. For as you know, we are entitled to see through walls and listen at keyholes and generally poke our noses into all sorts of odd and out-of-the-way places where real people cannot go—for example, down Alice’s rabbit hole or through a trapdoor and under the floor of the Castle Farm barn.

This barn had been built over two centuries before and was in serious need of repair when Miss Potter bought it. She planned to use it to provide the cows and farm horses and pigs and chickens with a warm and cozy shelter from the snows and rains of a north England winter, so she had engaged several workmen to replace the broken slates on the steep roof, replace the rotted timbers, and strengthen the stone walls. Now, during the summer and while the house was being renovated, it was empty.

But if you have ever visited a farm, you will appreciate the fact that, while it is very easy to put cows and horses and pigs and chickens
into
a barn, it is most assuredly impossible to keep other creatures
out
. Give a mouse or a vole or even a bat the smallest opening, and the creature will enlarge it to the size of a proper front door, hang a rope bell-pull beside it, and send out hand-printed cards announcing that he (or she) will be at home every afternoon (except Wednesdays) at three. Then she (or he) will put up fresh curtains, stock the larder, set out the tea things, and receive callers.

Unfortunately, however, not all barn residents are quite so well-mannered and genteel as this. Both you and I know that the animal world contains just as many individuals of a low and despicable character (that is to say, scum and riff-raff) as does our human world. These are creatures—rats, mostly, of the vilest and dirtiest sort—who have no respect for the bourgeois niceties of bell-pulls and fresh curtains and stocked larders and would never think of inviting anybody to tea.

Oh, no, no indeed. These creatures are social pariahs, gangsters, mobsters, and desperados who live outside the law, making a career of burglary, shoplifting, housebreak, bagsnatch, and assault. Give these ratty rascals the smallest opening in an otherwise respectable barn, and they are likely to turn it into a pub of the sort one finds in the slums of London and Liverpool. Pretty soon, there will be a billiards table and dart board; somebody will install a keg of beer and set up a row of dirty glasses and a cash box; and others will bring in as many sticky buns and cheeses and cigarettes and cigars and such as they can filch from the neighborhood. Before you know it, there’ll even be entertainment: concertina players and vaudeville dancers and burlesque comics, with a new and bawdier show every night. If you think I am making this up, I suggest that you read
The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood
, for something very similar took place in the attics at Hill Top Farm several years before the time of our story, when Rosabelle Rat invited her homeless relatives, who invited their friends and cronies, who invited any rat who happened along. It wasn’t long before the entire place had been taken over and very harsh measures indeed were required to evict the interlopers.

I am sorry to tell you, however, that the gang that has moved into the hole under the floor of Brown Billy’s stall in the Castle Farm barn is worse—yes, far worse—than those rowdy rats at Hill Top. The latter were merely good-time Charlies who let their unwise appetites for entertainment get the better of them. These rats are what the police call “professional criminals”: hard-looking, foul-mouthed toughs whom you would never allow to darken your kitchen door—if you could keep them out, that is, which perhaps you could not. They are led by old Rooker, a wily, scruffy-looking gray rat with needle-like claws, fierce whiskers, and a reputation as a dangerous fellow and a master thief.

Yes, Rooker Rat. The same Corporal Rooker who appeared, homeless and bedraggled, at The Brockery, where he was hospitably fed and lodged. The rat who took advantage of his gracious hosts, devoured Parsley’s birthday cake, and then made off with three silver spoons in his pocket. Rooker Rat. The very same.

Now, there are rats and rats. There are lovely white rats with pink eyes and twittery noses who live in a cage and feed from one’s hand and are altogether compliant and agreeable creatures. Miss Potter once had a rat like this. She called him Samuel Whiskers, named a book for him, and dedicated it warmly to “ ‘Sammy,’ The Intelligent pink-eyed Representative of a Persecuted (but Irrepressible) Race, An Affectionate little Friend and most accomplished thief.”

Then there are field rats who live out their wild, free lives, roaming at large through the great woods and refusing to come near human habitation because they find us Big Folk to be too dirty and smelly (and because we harbor cats, whom field rats find to be a great nuisance).

And then there are incorrigible rats like old Rooker, who has been apprehended and hauled off to the jug (that is to say “gaol”) more times than you can count. But this sort of rat never stays in prison long, for he always manages to bribe, bully, or bite his way out in very short order. Rooker will go anywhere and steal anything from anybody at any time. He is a clever rat who can appear in many beguiling disguises. He can masquerade as the innocently playful rat (sweet Sammy Whiskers) that Miss Potter enjoyed as a pet. Or the pathetically crippled Army veteran rat (old Corporal Rooker) who was welcomed at The Brockery. Or the brash, enterprising rat (Rooker the Rascally Rogue) with a cartload of goods—stolen, of course—that he will be glad to sell you if you’ve got a couple of spare bob about you. But beware: Rooker is also a dexterous pickpocket, so if you don’t fork over your shillings, you’re likely to lose them, willy-nilly.

Now, all by himself, Rooker constitutes a veritable one-rat crime wave. But he is also a first-class executive, what is called in today’s common parlance a “godfather” rat. He has gathered about him a villainous crew of more than a dozen criminal specialists, each of whom has a reputation for doing one very bad thing very, very well. Some of his gang members are adept at breaking into locked pantries, closed closets, and chicken coops, whilst others are talented forgers, frauds, robbers, imposters, counterfeiters, and swindlers. Some (like Rooker and his lieutenant, Bludger Bob) are old and experienced; others (Cracksman Charlie and Jumpin’ Jemmy, for example) are young rats, nimble and fleet of foot, who can outrun and outjump anyone who is fool enough to give chase. Most are male, but there are a few females: Plymouth Polly, who is very good at sniffing out the most expensive jewelry, however cleverly it is hidden in m’lady’s boudoir; and notorious Newgate Nell, who has a talent for shoplifting. No shopkeeper dares to turn his back on Nell. She will rob him blind in an instant.