The Tale of Oat Cake Crag (29 page)

She lowers her gaze. “Yes?” she murmurs expectantly.

“I wanted to write this to you. In fact, I tried, but it didn’t really seem to be the sort of thing a fellow says in a letter.” He gulps and kneads his fingers together. “I mean, I wrote it down but it didn’t sound the way I wanted it to, and I gave it another go but finally decided I needed to say this face to face. So now I really have to tell you, Caroline. That is, I’ve been wanting to say that I—” He flounders again, and is lost again, and she feels she must help him out.

“Whatever it is, Jeremy,” she says gently, putting her hand over his, “you know you can tell me.” She glances down and sees that her hand looks delicate and lovely, the nails pink and shaped into ovals, and thinks that soon she may be wearing his ring. By this time, her breath is coming faster, and she is certain that he is going to say that he loves her. That he can’t live without her. That he wishes she would not go to London, but if she goes, that she will come back here to the Lakes just as soon as possible, so they can be together. Forever and ever.

“You can tell me anything,” she adds encouragingly, and leans toward him with a smile. “Anything in the world, dear Jeremy. It doesn’t matter what it is.”

“Oh, I am so glad to hear you say that, Caroline!” He squeezes her hand and lets it go as the words tumble out in a rush. “What a brick you are! I knew you would understand and be as happy for me as I am. You see, I am to be married.”

“M-m-married?” She stares at him, not quite believing what she has heard. Her heart seems suddenly frozen in her breast. “Married?”

“Yes!” he exclaims. He jumps up from the bench and begins to pace back and forth on the gravel path. “It happened just a fortnight ago, and I have been bursting to shout it out to the heavens, but I’ve waited to tell you first of all, since you are my oldest, dearest friend. Except for
her
,” he adds tenderly. “Of course.”

Stricken, she says, “Of course.” She swallows, finding it very hard to breathe. “Except for . . . who? Who is she, Jeremy?”

“Who?” He stops in front of her, blinks. “Why, you don’t know? You haven’t guessed?”

“No,” she says, swallowing a sob. “I haven’t . . . I haven’t guessed.” Her voice quavers and breaks. “Who is she?”

“It’s Deirdre, Caroline. Dear, dear, dearest Deirdre.” He throws back his head and laughs richly, the image of a young man who is beside himself with delight. “Deirdre has made me the happiest of men. We’re to be married in June, right after school is out.”

Deirdre? Deirdre Malone? Oh, my goodness! I must confess that I am completely and totally and entirely surprised. I thought . . . that is, I expected . . . Why, I had no idea that Jeremy was going to marry Deirdre! Although there was that little bit about a secret, when Deirdre and the Sutton crocodile met Miss Potter in the lane. Perhaps we should have guessed then that something romantic was afoot, although I don’t know how we could have supposed that it had anything to do with Deirdre and
Jeremy
. I still find it very hard to believe.

And so does Caroline. “Deirdre?” Up comes a sob she cannot swallow. “Deirdre Malone? You and Deirdre are to be . . . married?”

At last Jeremy comprehends that something is dreadfully wrong. He pulls off his tweed cap and drops to one knee in front of her as she sits on the bench. He seizes her hand. “Caroline? Caroline, what’s amiss? I thought you would be happy for me, and for Deirdre, too! I thought—”

“Then you don’t love
me?”
Caroline wails.

Jeremy stares at her, speechless. And then, just as he is beginning to fathom what has happened and attempt to find the words to answer her question (as if it
could
be answered!), he is interrupted.

“Up!” cried a loud, angry voice. “On your feet, young man! There will be no proposals at Tidmarsh Manor! Not as long as I am alive!” It was Lady Longford, fierce as a fiend and all in black, brandishing her ebony cane like a club. “Be gone, churl!”

“But I wasn’t—” Jeremy scrambled to his feet, clutching his cap. “I swear, Lady Longford, I didn’t—”

“No proposals, I say!” the old lady screeched, advancing on the pair. “Leave, rogue! Out of my sight, you wretched rascal!”

“But, Grandmama—” Caroline wailed disconsolately. “You’re wrong. You don’t understand! It’s not what you think.”

“Be gone, scoundrel!” And with that, her ladyship whacked Jeremy smartly across the shoulder blades with her cane, once, twice, three times. She raised her voice. “Beever, I want you. Come and eject this insolent, impertinent rogue from the premises. Immediately, Beever!”

For a moment, Jeremy stood, stunned. And then, understanding that nothing he could say would remedy this terrible situation, he picked up Caroline’s hand and kissed it gently. “Thank you for being my friend,” he said, and turned on his heel.

Caroline collapsed on the bench and began to cry in earnest, huge, wracking sobs that shook her slight frame.

Lady Longford bent over her, hands on hips, chin thrust out. “And you, you disrespectful, disobedient young miss,” she hissed, “you have deliberately deceived me! You knew that I consider this young man entirely unsuitable as a husband, and yet you entertained his suit. You are confined to your room until further notice. I do not want to see your face at table. Do you hear?”

Oh, cruelty heaped upon terrible cruelty! Jeremy’s heartless rejection, followed by Lady Longford’s spiteful misunderstanding. What a wretched outcome to Caroline’s romantic dreams of babies in white smocks and a nanny (Deirdre, of all people!) and a third-floor nursery and an artist’s studio in the garden.

Well, all love affairs do not end happily, as perhaps you know from your own experience. Young girls’ hearts are as fragile as the most delicate crystal goblet, and no doubt Caroline’s will be broken once or twice more before it is safe in the hands of someone who will cherish it and promise never to let it be broken again (which promise will not, of course, be any guarantee, for life itself is utterly unpredictable).

But it does seem appallingly cruel for her to be punished twice in the space of a minute or two: once by the young man who has just told her that he has proposed to and been accepted by another; and then by her grandmother, who wrongly assumes that this same young man is proposing to
her.
And cruel, as well, that this second punishment falls on her at this moment, when her tender spirit and her loving heart are both so broken. Oh, if only Miss Potter were here. I am sure that she could set things to rights! Lady Longford would surely listen to
her.

But Miss Potter is not here, and Lady Longford is in no mood to listen to anyone. I am afraid that Caroline will just have to linger in limbo until her grandmother learns that she has made a terrible mistake. Which she will, tomorrow, when Mrs. Beever visits her sister-in-law in the village and brings home the latest village news: that Jeremy Crosfield and Deirdre Malone are to be married.

Then her ladyship will realize that she has wronged poor Caroline and will find herself doing something that does not at all come naturally to her. She will confess that she acted hastily. She will beg Caroline’s pardon. But will she beg Jeremy’s pardon, as well? I very much hope so, although I’m not holding my breath. If it happens, I hope we are present to witness it. It would certainly be something to see.

And there are one or two other things I should like to know about. I should like to know how long Jeremy has been courting Deirdre, how it all came about, and what the Suttons—who stand
in loco parentis
for Deirdre, since she is an orphan—think about it. As I said at the beginning of this chapter, a great many important events are left out of stories for the simple reason that we aren’t let in on the secret. What happened between Jeremy and Deirdre was one of those things, and I suppose they had some very good reasons for behaving as they did, and for telling no one, including us.

Beatrix had just begun getting out the tea things when she heard a knock at the door. She opened it to find Deirdre on the doorstep, pink-cheeked and smiling. She welcomed the girl, then peered over her shoulder. “Where are the little Suttons?” she asked.

“Mrs. Sutton decided that it was too near their teatime to go visiting,” Deirdre replied. “So I came by myself.”

Beatrix was secretly glad that they would not have to keep an eye on the children playing in the barnyard, where they were bound to annoy the three old hens. Mrs. Boots, Mrs. Shawl, and Mrs. Bonnet did not like their tail feathers pulled. “Well, then,” she said cheerily, taking Deirdre’s coat and hat, “you and I will have longer to talk. I’ve been thinking about you since I saw you in the lane. Do sit down, dear, and tell me your news. The kettle’s boiling—tea won’t be a minute.”

Deirdre sat, looking extraordinarily happy. Her eyes were sparkling and her unruly red curls seemed to dance with sheer delight. Of course, you and I know her secret—the Jeremy part, at least. But Beatrix doesn’t, and as she set out bread and butter (she believed in simple teas), she was genuinely puzzled.

“Well,” she said finally, “I hope you are going to tell me, and not just sit there looking as pleased as a kitten who’s caught her first mouse.”

“Oh, Miss Potter, I
am
pleased!” Deirdre exclaimed. “But it’s not like catchin’ a mouse—oh, no, not at all! Jeremy Crosfield has asked me to marry him, an’ I have said yes!”

“Jeremy!” Beatrix exclaimed, astonished and a little dismayed. “Married!” And then she thought that perhaps it was like catching a mouse, after all, except that she wasn’t sure whether the mouse was Jeremy and the cat was Deirdre, or the other way around.

But Deirdre did not seem to hear the dismay. “Aye—isn’t it wonderful?” she crowed happily. “We’re to be wed in t’ garden at Courier Cottage in June, when Jeremy’s school is out. Mrs. Sutton has promised to help me make my dress, an’ there’ll be lots of flowers, an’ all our friends are invited, especially you!” She clasped her hands under her chin. “Dear Miss Potter,
do
say it’s wonderful! Oh, do!”

“Well, my goodness,” said Beatrix, by now feeling not just dismayed but envious. First it had been Grace and the vicar, and now Deirdre and Jeremy—free to pledge themselves, to follow their hearts, whilst she herself could not. Still, she managed a smile as she poured their tea. “Why, of course it’s wonderful, my dear. How did this all come about? And when?”

And with that encouragement, Deirdre’s story spilled out, embellished with girlish giggles and happy asides and enough starry-eyed happiness to soften even the hardest heart. She and Jeremy had realized their attraction to each other long ago, years ago, in fact. But they’d had precious little opportunity to spend any time together until he came back to the village to teach. He boarded at High Green Gate with the Llewellyns, just up the hill from Courier Cottage. This had made it convenient for him to accompany Deirdre and the little Suttons as they walked to Moss Eccles Tarn and along the shore of Esthwaite Water, supplying the children with paper and pencil stubs and showing them how to look at a plant and draw it.

“Drawin’ is his passion,” Deirdre said. Beatrix already knew this, for the first time she had met Jeremy, he had been drawing a cat, and quite a good one, at that. She had been working on her frog book at the time, and he had shown her where to go to find frogs to draw, so she had named her book
The Tale of Jeremy Fisher.

It hadn’t been long before the hours Deirdre and Jeremy spent together had become the highlight of their days. But it had been a much longer time before they could agree to be married, because, as she said rather shyly, “There was so much to be worked out.”

The “so much” was mostly money, Beatrix suspected. Two could not live as cheaply as one—that was a fallacy. Did they think they could manage to live on Jeremy’s salary as a teacher, assuming that he would stay on at the village school? But that was an impolite question. Instead, she asked another. “Have you spoken to Mr. and Mrs. Sutton?”

Deirdre, as you may remember, was an orphan, claimed five years before by Rose Sutton (such was the practice at the time) to help with the children, in return for room and board and the privilege of going to school. Sometimes, these arrangements did not work out well, and the orphan was sent back. But not this time. The Sutton children thought of Deirdre as their sister, and the Suttons considered her their daughter. And since she had no real parents, the Suttons would have to speak for her.

“They were a little surprised,” Deirdre admitted. “An’ they didn’t think it was a good thing—in the beginning. They feared I was too young, an’ we wouldn’t have enough money. But we kept talkin’ to ’em and lettin’ ’em know we were serious, and they finally agreed, especially after Jeremy was asked to stay on and teach at the school.” She grinned engagingly. “The Suttons like Jeremy, o’ course. An’ they married when they were young, even though Mrs. Sutton’s parents didn’t approve. And now just look at their fine family.”