The Tale of Hawthorn House (5 page)

And while it might be hard to be cheerful when the twins were shying pillows at one another, Jamie had knocked over the coal scuttle, and Edwina was smearing mashed peas in Baby’s hair, Deirdre did her best. She was gifted with an unusually energetic and fertile imagination that allowed her to transform quite ordinary events into exciting adventures, and to make up stories that distracted the children when they were otherwise inclined to be bored and tiresome.

So since it was rather poor fun to be leaving the fête before the egg race was run and the dancers had performed, Deirdre made up a story. “Here are the four brave explorers,” she said, as they went through the throng and across Post Office Meadow in the direction of Hill Top Farm. “They are fighting through the ranks of savage natives to reach the buried treasure before the flood comes and sweeps everything away.”

“Jolly good,” Jamie said approvingly, and picked up a stick to use as a weapon against the natives.

And when they had crossed Kendal Road and were climbing the stone wall on the other side, Deirdre said, “The four courageous climbers make their difficult way up the dangerous rock face, while the angry tribesmen far below rattle their spears and shout violently.”

This Libby amended, in ringing tones: “They’re not tribesmen, they’re awful cannibals, and they’ll eat us alive if we fall!”

Which made Mouse cry, until Jamie pointed out that they were safely over the mountain and nobody had been eaten alive just yet, and Deirdre added that they had better press on through the jungle as quietly as they could so as not to attract the lions and tigers.

The jungle wasn’t really a jungle at all, of course, but only the lilacs and ferns along the edge of Miss Potter’s garden. The lions and tigers were Miss Potter’s Herdwick sheep and Galloway cows, and the great mountain peak, which seemed only a stone’s throw off to their right, was really the slate roof of the Tower Bank Arms. However, it was just as well to be quiet. Miss Potter had given her permission to bring the older children to the farm, but Deirdre didn’t like to call attention to their visits, in case Miss Potter was working at one of her books or having a lie-down in her bedroom overlooking the garden.

The valiant band of explorers crawled out from under the lilac bushes and went along the path to the barn, where they said hello to Kep and Mustard, the two Hill Top dogs, and lay down on their stomachs to have a look at Jemima, who was sitting on a clutch of eggs under the feedbox. In fact, as Libby pointed out, the duck had been sitting there for quite some time, far longer than the twenty-eight days usually required to hatch a duckling.

“I wonder what’s taking so long,” Jamie said worriedly.

“Do you suppose the eggs have spoilt?” Libby asked.

Jemima gave several soft quacks, and Mouse smiled. “She promises they’ll hatch soon,” she said, and stroked Jemima’s snowy white feathers with a soft finger.

“Before we go back to school, I hope,” grumbled Jamie, and at the mention of school, the three of them groaned.

After a few minutes, Deirdre said, “We’d better get home before the rain starts.” The second time she said it, the children clambered reluctantly to their feet, brushed the straw off their clothes, and followed Deirdre out of the barn. They had gone only a little way on the path toward home when there was a clap of thunder so loud it made all of them jump, and a gust of wind so fierce it nearly bowled them over.

“My goodness,” gasped Deirdre, as Mouse grabbed for one hand and Libby for the other, while Jamie tried to pretend he wasn’t at all frightened, only just taken aback for a moment.

They had barely got their breaths when they looked up and saw an odd-looking person standing directly in front of them, a basket over her arm. The old woman was no taller than Libby, who was the tallest of the Suttons, and dressed in layers of pinafores, one on top of another, with knitted shawls and woolen scarves wrapped all around.

“Who . . . who are
you
?” Deirdre managed at last. She had the distinct impression that the lady had been blown there by the wind, which of course was entirely impossible.

“I am Mrs. Overthewall,” the lady said cheerily. “Who else would I be? And you are Deirdre, of course.” Raising one finger, she pointed to each child in turn. “And Libby, Jamie, and Mouse, adventurers all. I congratulate you on scaling that last mountain, cannibals notwithstanding.”

They stood with their mouths open. No one said a word.

“A magpie will get your tongues,” said Mrs. Overthewall, and all four of them snapped their mouths shut.

“You startled us,” Deirdre said. “We . . . we didn’t see you.”

“Of course you didn’t. People don’t. They’re not supposedto.” She gave Deirdre a benevolent look. “I have something for you.” And with that, she thrust the basket into Deirdre’s hands. It was so unexpectedly heavy that Deirdre nearly dropped it.

“What is it?” Libby asked uncertainly, bending over to look. They all heard a small cry, and she jumped back, startled. “Why, it’s a
baby
!” she exclaimed.

“I knew you’d like it,” said Mrs. Overthewall smugly. “It’s a nice baby. It never cries.” She pulled her scanty gray brows together. “Well, almost never. Only when it wants its nappy changed. Her nappy,” she corrected. “She’s a girl. Her name is—” She scowled and began looking through her shawls. “Where did I put that? Where— Ah, here it is.” She took out a scrap of paper. “Her name is Flora,” she announced, and dropped the paper into the basket.

Deirdre pulled the cloth back. It was—yes, it was unmistakably a baby! She looked up, her eyes wide. “But what are we to
do
with it?”

Mrs. Overthewall was adjusting her shawls. “
Do
with it?” she repeated in surprise. “Why, raise it, of course. And love it, and kiss it when it wants kissing. What else do you do with babies?”

“But we already have several babies at home,” Jamie said with great firmness. “We don’t need any more babies.”

“It’s true,” Libby said, in an apologetic tone. “Our house is full. I overheard Mama saying to Papa just the other day that we have more than enough children.”

“Not that Mr. or Mrs. Sutton could bear to give up any they already have,” Deirdre added, with a comforting glance at Mouse, who had put her thumb in her mouth and was trying not to cry. “The Suttons are very, very,
very
fond of all of their children.”

“I know they are,” said Mrs. Overthewall, beaming. “That’s exactly why I thought of you. You’re the perfect family for this baby, precisely because there are so many of you. You can all pitch in to help.” She paused. “This baby
needs
you. It has no family, you see.”

Mouse took her thumb out of her mouth. “But doesn’t its mother want it?” she cried, suddenly struck with pity for a baby without a family.

Mrs. Overthewall was stern. “Its mother,” she said, “is too busy to be bothered with babies.”

“Too busy?” Deirdre asked incredulously.

“We have no room for another baby,” Jamie growled. “All the beds are full. And there are no chairs for a baby to sit in.”

Libby sighed. “In fact, there’s hardly room to step without knocking a baby over.”

“That’s right,” Jamie said. He scowled. “No more babies!”

At this, there seemed nothing more to say. Regretfully, Deirdre handed back the basket. “You are most kind to think of us, Mrs. Overthewall,” she said in a formal tone. “And I am sure that Flora is a perfectly delightful baby. But the children are right. We can’t accept her.”

“Oh, dear,” cried the lady, sounding quite aggrieved. “You’re sure you won’t reconsider?”

“Quite sure,” the children chorused.

“But what am I to
do
with it?”

“You could give it back,” Libby suggested.

“I can’t,” Mrs. Overthewall replied crossly. “There’s no one to give it back
to
. Everyone’s gone.” (Of course, you already know this, since you heard Mrs. Overthewall tell Emily to catch the early train to London.)

“But where did it come from?” Deirdre asked, thinking how very odd it was that the baby’s mother had gone away and left it behind. But then the whole thing was odd, top to bottom.

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Overthewall. “The question is, where is it to go, if you won’t have it?”

Libby ventured, “Perhaps Miss Potter would like to have it. She draws pictures and writes stories for children.”

“Miss Potter doesn’t have any babies,” Mouse said, around her thumb. “I’m sure she’s very lonely.”

“She would take good care of it,” Jamie said helpfully. “She likes animals.”

Mrs. Overthewall brightened. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she exclaimed. “Why, Miss Potter, of course! Why didn’t I think of her?” She flung her scarves around her neck and took the basket. “There you are, then. That’s settled, and quite agreeably, too, I’d say. Now go along and climb mountains or crawl through jungles or whatever else you’ve a mind to. Cheerio!”

With that, there was another clap of thunder, a gust of wind, and a sheet of blinding rain. When it cleared, the path was empty. Mrs. Overthewall was gone.

Libby frowned. “Did we . . . did we make that up?”

“I don’t think so,” Deirdre said doubtfully. “Did we?”

“She was a fairy,” Mouse asserted with confidence, around her thumb.

“Mouse is right,” Jamie said. “Fairies sometimes bring babies.”

“Storks bring babies,” Libby said, for that was the tale her mother always told them when the arrival of another little Sutton was imminent. “She wasn’t a stork.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jamie said firmly. “We are not having any more babies.” He shook his fist at the sky and roared, “Do you hear that? NO MORE BABIES!”

The wind flurried the bush beside the path. Deirdre took Mouse’s hand. “See the four valiant explorers,” she said, “struggling through the hurricane to reach their base camp in time for tea.”

“Miss Potter will like the baby,” Mouse predicted comfortably, and they went home.

4

Miss Potter Is Astonished

The village had not been pleased when Miss Potter of London purchased Hill Top Farm. The women (those who hadn’t met her when she came on holiday with her parents) thought she would be much too grand for their little village. The men were offended by the idea that an off-comer—a spinster, without a brain in her head about farming—had bought the nicest farm in the district straight out from under their noses. They snickered when they learned that she had paid more than it was worth (“Took for a reet fool, she was,” as George Crook put it). They even laid wagers on her success.

“Won’t last t’ year out,” Mr. Llewellyn predicted. “I’ll put a half-crown on’t.”

“Not six months,” said Mr. Barrow complacently.

“Gone by Christmas,” said Clyde Clinder. “And then t’ place’ll be up fer sale agin. Me brother-in-law says he’ll buy it off her, but not fer what she paid.”

The villagers’ attitudes changed somewhat when Miss Potter not only lasted, but began making very needful improvements to the neglected farm buildings. What’s more, she used local labor, bought local materials, and insisted that things be done in traditional ways, just as any of them would have done. And upon acquaintance, she proved, as Bertha Stubbs said approvingly, “as common as any t’ rest of us, and more so.” Still, many in the village continued to doubt that a woman who dressed fictional frogs in mackintoshes and galoshes would know how to deal with real cows and pigs and sheep, and that someone who could go about as she liked in London society would be content with theirs.

But Beatrix was not troubled by the villagers’ opinions, for the farm fulfilled her heart’s dearest wish. She had paid for it from the royalties from her dozen books: among them
Peter Rabbit
,
Squirrel Nutkin
,
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle
, and
Jemima Puddle-Duck
, recently published. She still felt a private, wondering amazement that the little books should have earned enough to enable her to buy a farm. To buy her very own farm, among the fields and fells of her beloved Lake District! It still seemed unbelievable, impossible. She couldn’t help thinking that some sort of good fairy had been waiting in the wings, magic wand in hand, to give her exactly what she wanted.

The house was a seventeenth-century, two-story North Country farmhouse, plain and so simple that it might be called severe. The farm had thirty-four acres when she bought it, although she had since purchased several more fields. And to accommodate the Jenningses, the family who took care of things when she was in London, she had added on several rooms and other improvements, including a detached kitchen at the edge of the garden and the water that was to be laid on this week.

She had made a great many changes to her own part of the house, too, but mostly with an eye to restoring its original simple beauty. The exterior was plastered with a pebbly mortar painted with the traditional gray limewash. The steep roofs were covered with local blue slate. The chimneys wore the familiar peaked slate caps, like schoolboys lined up in a row. And the porch was constructed of four very large blue slate slabs: one for each side and two more for the peaked roof.

She had restored the interior as well, upstairs and down. In the main living area—the “hall,” as North Country folk called it—she had pulled down a rough partition and opened the room to its original generous size. She papered the walls in an airy green print, installed an antique oak cupboard for her collection of dishes, and put down a sea-grass rug and a smaller, shaggy blue one in front of the cast-iron range. With red curtains at the window and a pot of red geraniums on the table, the room was comfortable and homey. And all the other rooms suited her, too: the downstairs parlor with its marble fireplace and richly paneled walls; her very own bedroom upstairs, with its window overlooking the garden; and the treasure room she had created for her collection of favorite things. Indeed, Beatrix’s artist’s eye told her that the house was perfect in every way, and her heart told her that this was home. It was a great pity that she could not get away from London more often.