The Tale of Holly How (9 page)

11

Rascal Has a Tale to Tell

“Rascal—riding in a motorcar?”
cried Tabitha Twitchit, her amber eyes widening with incredulous surprise.
“You’re lying, Crumpet. I don’t believe a word of it!”

The gray tabby licked her right forepaw and smoothed down her ear.
“Believe it or not, however you like, Tabitha,”
she replied with careless disdain.
“What you think doesn’t change what I saw.”

It was nearly supper time and the two cats were enjoying the balmy evening on the back steps of Belle Green. The afternoon rain had failed to arrive, the evening sun was just dropping through a wispy veil of peach and lavender clouds above the western fells, and the twilight was filled with the drowsy calls of birds on their way to roost. Belle Green was the large white farmhouse at the top of Market Street where Rascal lived and Miss Potter boarded when she came to the village. Tabitha, a calico with an orange and white bib, now lived there too, Mrs. Crook having offered her a home upon the death of her mistress the previous October. And Crumpet spent a great deal of time at Belle Green, where the mousing was first-rate. Tabitha was far less energetic than she had been in her younger days, and was content to let the mice do as they liked.

“I’m telling you that I saw him myself, just a few minutes ago,”
Crumpet went on.
“He was sitting in the rear of Captain Woodcock’s new Rolls-Royce, behind the Captain and Miss Potter. I don’t see how you missed it, Tabitha. The motorcar was making an appalling clatter. It sent every chicken in the village into cackling fits.”

“Hello, ladies.”
The two cats turned to see the subject of their conversation come trotting around the side of the house. Rascal’s tail was up, his eyes were bright, and he was looking very pleased with himself.

“Tabitha missed seeing the Captain’s motorcar,”
he said,
“because she was having a nap on the top shelf in the pantry. That’s where she always goes after tea.”

“I was not asleep in the pantry!”
Tabitha exclaimed defensively.
“I was keeping a close eye on a pair of impertinent mice who have been making free with the cheese.”

“Is that so?”
Rascal barked sarcastically.
“Well, then, Tabitha old girl, if you’ve been watching those mice so closely, perhaps you can tell us just how it is that they managed to—”

“Oh, hush,”
Crumpet said, feeling that she was losing control of the conversation.
“We’ve more important things to do than bicker amongst ourselves. I want to hear about your ride in the motorcar, Rascal.”
She stood and stretched, fore and aft, her jealousy overcome by her eagerness to hear the details.
“Did it go awfully fast? Did the tires kick up dust? Was it exhilarating? Was it spine-tingling?”

“It wasn’t nearly as exhilarating and spine-tingling,”
Rascal said, lifting one paw and studying his toenails with a maddening calm, “
as finding old Ben Hornby dead.”

“Dead!”
the astonished cats chorused.
“Ben Hornby?”

“Dead as a doornail,”
Rascal said.
“Found him myself, on Holly How, beyond the sheepfold.”

“You found him?”
Tabitha cried.

Crumpet frowned, feeling annoyed. Dogs always had more exciting adventures than cats did. They were invited to go to agricultural shows and fairs and foxhunts, not to mention being asked to ride in motorcars. There was something fundamentally unfair about—

“That’s right, I found him,”
Rascal said proudly.
“One of the Herdwicks—Tibbie, it was—showed me where he’d fallen off a cliff, but I was the one who reached the body first. And that took some doing, let me tell you, because he was lying at the foot of an appallingly steep slope. Miss Potter only came later, and after her, Mr. Jennings. Then Captain Woodcock and Constable Braithwaite finally arrived, to begin the official investigation.”
He shook his ears and gave a heavy sigh.
“And now, if you two will excuse me, I think I’ll go and see if there’s any food in my bowl. It’s been quite a day, and I’m tired and hungry. Finding bodies is hard work, believe me.”

But Crumpet had planted herself in front of the kitchen door.
“Not so fast, Rascal,”
she said firmly.
“You’re not getting a bite to eat until you’ve told us everything, in great detail.”
She scowled.
“And without exaggeration.”
Rascal was known to embroider his tales from time to time, to the point where it was sometimes hard to distinguish the facts from the fiction.

Rascal insisted that he was giving them the facts, but his story actually seemed like an invention. He started with the pony cart trip up to old Ben’s farm, then told them about the climb to the sheepfold on Holly How and the conversation with Tibbie, and concluded with the finding of old Ben’s twisted body at the foot of the cliff and Miss Potter’s discovery of a clay pipe in the dead man’s fingers.

“That gave Captain Woodcock and the constable something to puzzle over, you can be sure,”
he added.
“The question is, where did it come from?”

“A clay pipe?”
Tabitha lifted her head, blinking.
“But why should that be puzzling? Lots of people smoke clay pipes. Maybe Ben was standing at the top of the slope, having a smoke, when he missed his footing and fell.”

“But Ben didn’t smoke, you see,”
Rascal replied.
“At least, that’s what Mr. Jennings said. So they’re wondering—”

“So they’re wondering if somebody was with him when he fell?”
Crumpet broke in. She was beginning to feel the prickle of rising fur across her shoulder blades, a sure sign that something significant was under discussion.
“Was he . . . pushed?”

“Really, Crumpet.”
Tabitha wrinkled her nose crossly.
“You always imagine the very worst about every situation. You’re never happy unless you’ve conjured up some mystery or another to poke your nose into.”

“Well, was he?”
Crumpet demanded. Old Ben Hornby was known around the village as a difficult man to get on with. He’d alienated a great many people over the years and made enemies of several, some fairly recently. Crumpet herself could name names, if it came to that, and doubtless everyone in the village could, too. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if somebody had finally decided to take matters into his own hands.
“Come on, Rascal,”
she said urgently.
“Answer the question. Was he pushed?”

Rascal sighed.
“I have no idea, Crumpet. The sheep are the only ones who might have seen what actually happened. I intended to talk to them and find out if they could tell me anything. But Miss Potter insisted on staying with old Ben’s body, and I felt I had to stay with her. And by the time Mr. Jennings got back with the constable and Captain Woodcock, the sheep were nowhere in
sight. You know how those Herdwicks are, always on the move. They probably went over the top of Holly How.”

“And you wanted to ride in the captain’s motorcar, so you didn’t go looking for them,”
Crumpet said in an accusing tone.

Rascal frowned.
“I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly.”

“Well, I would,”
Crumpet muttered darkly, although she had to admit to herself that she probably would have done the same thing. There was no doubt about it, the first chance she got, she was going for a ride in that motorcar. For a moment, she forgot all about the matter at hand and began to picture herself whizzing along at the astounding speed of fifteen miles an hour, the horn tooting merrily, the wind ruffling her beautiful gray fur, the chickens fluttering out of her way, everyone in the village enviously watching her progress, just as if she were a Royal.

“Oh, I wish,”
she began dreamily.
“I wish I could—”

“And
I
wish,”
Tabitha interrupted in a sharp tone,
“that the two of you would stay with the subject, instead of flying off in a dozen different directions. Forget the motorcar. What we need to know is what really happened to Ben Hornby. So how are we going to find out?”

“I suppose we could go back to Holly How and look for those sheep,”
Rascal said.
“Tibbie might know something, if we can get her to tell.”
He frowned.
“But I don’t know what good it will do for us to know. Even if we find out what happened, it’s impossible to tell the Big Folk. They can’t understand what we say.”

“Be that as it may,”
Tabitha replied in a lecturish tone,
“it’s important to know what happened. It sounds as if there were no witnesses other than the sheep, so let’s go up to Holly How and find them. Come on!”
And with that, she jumped off the step and onto the path.

Stubbornly, Rascal shook his head.
“I am not going anywhere until I’ve had my supper. Finding dead bodies is hungry work, and I haven’t had a bite to eat since—”

“Well, go and do it, then,”
said Tabitha bossily, tossing her head and switching her tail.
“Crumpet and I will wait right here.”

Crumpet sighed and rolled her eyes. Really, if you gave Tabitha Twitchit an inch, she would take a mile.

12

Miss Potter Makes Up Her Mind

While Crumpet, Tabitha, and Rascal were having their conversation on the back steps of Belle Green, Beatrix had gone to her room to freshen up for supper. The motorcar ride—her first ever—had been highly interesting, but she had to comb and pin up her hair, which had been blown every which way, and wash the dust from her face. And, of course, her friends were waiting to be fed: Josey and Mopsy Rabbit, Tom Thumb the mouse, and Tuppenny, the guinea pig, all of whom lived in large, comfortable cages on a sunny shelf in her second-floor room.

She filled their dishes with food and water, spoke gently to them as she stroked their soft fur with her finger, and knelt beside their cages as she watched them settle down happily to eat. She still enjoyed having little pets to care for and make stories about, and they were always good company and a relief from her mother and father, who were constantly telling her what to do and how to think and feel. Peter and Mrs. Tiggy and Benjamin Bunny and her other pets had brightened her life and made her smile during some very dark times, and she would always be grateful.

These days, however, the Hill Top Farm barnyard animals—the pigs and cows and sheep and horses—called out for her attention. The sheep on Holly How, for instance.
Her
sheep, the ewes and lambs that had been bought and paid for, who had been grazing on the fellside when she and Mr. Jennings went to look for them, but who had disappeared by the time the constable and Captain Woodcock arrived. Tomorrow morning, she and John Jennings would have to go up to Holly How and see if the Herdwicks could be found and taken down to Hill Top, where they now belonged.

She sighed. Also tomorrow, she had to talk to Mr. Biddle and try to get him to hurry up the work on the house, and most especially to do something to stop out the rats. And then she would have to find Tabitha Twitchit and get a few sketches for the new book, a very simple story about three naughty kittens who lost their clothes to a family of ducks. But simple or not, the drawings required time and attention, when there was Mr. Biddle and the house to worry about, and the missing sheep and—

But downstairs, Mrs. Crook was putting supper on the table and it would soon be time to eat. Beatrix stood up, unpinned her curly brown hair in front of the mirror, and brushed it smooth again, thinking all the while. Her pets had been an enormous comfort to her, and she knew that Lady Longford’s granddaughter, who must be lonely in that huge, dark house, would benefit from having a quiet, loving companion. Tuppenny, for instance, who was well-mannered and always very cheerful. On her way to Holly How in the morning, she’d be driving right past the Manor. If she appeared at the door with Tuppenny and offered to lend the little creature to Caroline for a few days, her ladyship couldn’t really say no, could she?

Beatrix didn’t usually do this sort of thing, appearing without invitation on somebody’s doorstep and handing in a guinea pig, as if it were fresh laundry or a cod from the fish man’s cart. But she knew she had something of a local reputation—“that lady writer from London who publishes ever so many of those sweet little books for children”—and she was willing to trade on it when there was good reason. Lady Longford was reputed to be an irascible old woman who liked nothing better than to have her own way, but surely she couldn’t be so mean and petty as to deny her granddaughter the pleasure of a quiet, clean little animal in a cage—especially if it was offered by a well-known children’s writer.

Beatrix slipped the last pin into her hair and turned around. She had made up her mind. “Enjoy your dinner, Tuppenny. Tomorrow, you’re going to have an adventure. A young girl needs help, and you are exactly the right sort of creature to help her.”

“The right sort of creature?”
Tuppenny was not a very brave guinea pig, and he hadn’t had much experience of the world. Miss Potter’s announcement struck him as more than a little ominous.
“What d’you suppose she means by ‘going to have an adventure’?”
he whispered worriedly to Josey Rabbit, who was nibbling a fresh green lettuce leaf.
“Who is this girl? What kind of help does she need? Where am I going?”

Josey, who hated to be bothered with silly questions, especially when she was eating dinner, flicked her ears impatiently.
“I couldn’t hazard a guess.”

“An adventure, Tuppenny,”
Mopsy Rabbit said, very seriously,
“is something like a quest.”

“What’s a quest?”
Tuppenny asked, feeling that they might be going in circles.

“An expedition undertaken by a knight to achieve something or other very important, such as slaying dragons, or rescuing damsels in distress.”

“Slaying dragons?”
Tuppenny repeated, dismayed.
“The kind that breathe fire, you mean? That sounds . . . dangerous.”

“Probably,”
said Mopsy, in a practical tone.
“Well, if there’s danger, you shall simply have to face up to it. Be as brave as possible and do the best that you can in the circumstance. We’re in the countryside now, and it’s not at all civilized, you know. We have to be prepared for anything.”

“Anything, anything!”
twittered Tom Thumb the mouse, who had a nervous disposition and was inclined to fly into hysterics at the slightest provocation.
“Stoats, ferrets, badgers, weasels—all sorts of appalling anythings, and all appallingly fierce!”
He flung his paws and his tail into the air and began to run in circles.
“We’re doomed, I tell you, doomed! Oh my whiskers, if only we were back in London, safe, luxurious London, where I could comfort my poor soul with concerts and museums and champagne suppers and balls. Stoats and badgers! Weasels and stoats!”

“Stoats?”
Tuppenny asked, his nose twitching.
“What’s a stoat? And what’s a badger? Are they creatures I’ll have to . . . to fight off?”
His nose twitched harder, his fear almost overcome by the unhallowed imagination of battle, and a vision of himself as a Very Brave Guinea Pig, arrayed against a thronging crowd of badgers and stoats (whatever those were), with a fire-breathing dragon just on the other side of the hill.
“Do you step on a stoat? Should I carry something to swat them with?”
He suddenly brightened.
“I suppose I shall need a sword, shan’t I? One can’t have a go at a dragon without a proper sword.”

Tom stopped running in circles and stared at Tuppenny.
“Step on a stoat?”
he scoffed.
“I’d like to see you step on a stoat. It would swallow you whole in one bite, it would. And what good do
you think a sword would be against a dragon? Why, a dragon would breathe on you and turn you into a tuppenny’s worth of toast.”

At that, Josey laughed. But Mopsy scowled at the mouse.
“Tom is just trying to frighten you, Tuppenny. Dragons are entirely imaginary. And there are no stoats or ferrets or weasels anywhere nearby.”

Tuppenny might not be the bravest (or the brightest) guinea pig in the world, but he was by nature an optimistic fellow, and he was determined not to lose heart, no matter how many weasels and badgers might be lying in wait for him. He swallowed his fear, sat up on his haunches, and began to comb his fur with his paws, brightening as he did so, and thinking how orange and sleek and attractive it looked, exactly the right sort of fur for a Very Brave Guinea Pig to wear when he went on a quest.

“Well, well, well,”
he mused,
“perhaps there will be danger, and wild animals, and even a dragon or two. But never mind. A guinea pig must persevere, especially when there are damsels that require rescue.”
He paused, and scratched his ear, and frowned.

“Mopsy,”
he said,
“what’s a damsel?”