The Tale of Applebeck Orchard (20 page)

Now, I don’t know how you see the matter, but if I were Hyacinth, I think I should be offended by this offer, which seems patronizing and condescending. “You can learn to do the work, and you might even have the honor of wearing the Badge—but only if your brother doesn’t come back. How’s that, my dear girl?” If Bosworth made that proposal to me, I should tell him that he could put it right back into his pocket. But of course, he isn’t
my
uncle, and Hyacinth might be more tolerant than I.

But Bosworth did not get the opportunity to offer this dubious honor, at least, not at this moment. The bell rang for tea, and since nobody at The Brockery likes to keep Parsley waiting, he only said, regretfully,
“Well, then, tea. We shall have to take up our discussion later, my dear.”

“Of course,”
Hyacinth said, in an understanding tone.
“I’ll just go and see if I can help lay the tea. I’ll tell Parsley you’ll be along when you’re ready.”

Our badger picked up the
History
and returned it to its place between Volumes 10 and 12 on the third shelf, which is where you should look for it if you decide to read that ghost story for yourself. Then he picked up the empty lemonade glasses and ambled toward the library door, thinking what an amiable companion little Hyacinth had turned out to be and what a pleasure it would be to train her. And if the professor wanted to put up a squawk about it, well, let him.

The owl, important as he might be, was only an owl, after all. It was badgers who hosted the inn and badgers who kept the
History
and the
Genealogy
, and a badger who would make the final decision.

When the time came. Of course, it hadn’t, yet.

13

An Unlucky Chapter

I sometimes think the thirteenth chapter ought to be left out of books, just as the thirteenth floor is sometimes left out of hotels, and the thirteenth row is occasionally omitted from theaters, and some hostesses invite twelve or fourteen guests to their dinner parties but never thirteen. But of course, when you are telling a story and there are unhappy or misfortunate or even tragic events to relate, they have to be told, no matter what chapter they are put into. So the fact that it is in Chapter Thirteen that our story takes an unlucky turn does not make that chapter itself unlucky. Nor is Captain Woodcock’s plan for the arrest of Major Ragsdale turned topsy-turvy solely because it takes place in Chapter Thirteen. No, that is superstitious foolishness. What happens, happens. And whether the chapter is thirteen or fourteen or some other chapter altogether makes not one bit of difference.

Except that there is no getting around the fact that the whole affair was entirely unlucky, from start to finish. And if you like to attribute these misfortunes to the fact that they take place in Chapter Thirteen, well, I suppose I can’t stop you, can I?

Here is what happened. Since it is rather complicated, I must ask you to pay special attention to the sequence of events.

 

 

 

Miss Potter got out of bed very early in the morning, as she always did when she came to Hill Top Farm, throwing open her window to greet the green meadow and the hill that rose above the house and the sweet blue sky and the wood thrush singing from the highest branch of the tallest apple tree. Except that it was raining—well, misting, with intermittent showers of rain. And if you have ever visited the English Lake District, you know that it is every bit as beautiful, and perhaps even more so, when the sky is pewter-gray and the cool morning mist curls through the trees and hovers over the summer meadows like a blessing.

But Beatrix, whilst she enjoyed the mist almost as much as she loved the sun, had things to do and did not like to do them in the rain. She dressed in the blouse and skirt she had worn on her arrival, pinned up her hair, and breakfasted, then made a quick tour of inspection through the barn, the barn lot, and the garden. She paused to say good morning to Kitchen, the Galway cow; Blossom, Kitchen’s calf; Winston, the husky farm pony; Aunt Susan and Dorcas, the fat Berkshire pigs who lived to eat; Mustard, the old yellow dog; and Kep the collie, her favorite of the farm dogs. The chickens (Mrs. Boots, Mrs. Bonnet, and Mrs. Shawl) were too busy teaching their chicks to look for bugs amongst the rhubarb to say hello, and the Puddle-ducks had already gone to Esthwaite Water for their morning swim. But the Herdwick sheep, Tibbie and Queenie and their sisters and all the spring lambs (now very handsome in their summer fleeces), bleated a greeting to Miss Potter from the rocky hill above the farm, for they were very glad that she had come home. And the lettuces and marrows and runner beans all looked lush and happy in the garden, and very pleased indeed to wake up and find their leaves all wet.

Having assured herself that all was well in her small farming world, Beatrix knocked at the Jenningses’ door and asked Mr. Jennings if he would be so kind as to fetch Winston and hitch him to the pony cart (freshly painted red just the week before) so she could drive out. She found that Mr. Jennings was not in a very pleasant mood, because the rain had come on the day that he planned to finish the haying, and all farmers know that wet hay is not a good thing. But he went out to find Winston and she went back to her own part of the house to put on her mackintosh and rain hat and collect the baby bunnies—Peaches and Cream—she had brought with her. She glanced up at the tall clock with the painted face, which showed that it was fifteen minutes before nine, early for a morning visit, but Beatrix had several things to do that day, and she wanted to get an early start.

What’s that you say? I haven’t mentioned the bunnies until now? Oh, dear. Well, you’re right. You see, Peaches and Cream (two small white bunnies with pink eyes and see-through ears) were in that wicker hamper that Beatrix carried across Lake Windermere. They have not yet figured in our narrative, so I suppose I just forgot about them. It’s hard to keep track of every single detail when you’re telling a story.

But these bunnies, small and innocent as they are, are about to become important, for they are the reason that Beatrix is preparing to go out at such an early hour on a drizzly morning. They are promised to Dimity Kittredge’s two children, who are nearly old enough to have the care of pets, especially when they are supervised by Emily, their nanny. Once the bunnies have been delivered to Flora and baby Miles at Raven Hall, Beatrix plans to drive up Cuckoo Brow Lane to Tidmarsh Manor to call on Lady Longford and have a conversation about—well, you know. Beatrix feels she ought to get a start on the assignment she accepted the day before from Miss Nash.

And that is why we find Beatrix Potter, dressed for rain, carrying her wicker hamper and her umbrella out to the pony cart, where Winston is waiting. He has company, too, for Rascal (the fawn-colored Jack Russell terrier we met earlier in our story) had been calling on Mustard and Kep when Mr. Jennings came out to fetch the pony and had decided he wanted to go wherever Miss Potter was going.

“Good morning, Miss Potter!”
Rascal barked, jumping with stiff-legged joy at the sight of his favorite person.

“Why, it’s Rascal!” Beatrix exclaimed, latching the hamper firmly and stowing it safely under the seat. “How very nice to see you.” She smiled down at the little dog. “Would you like to go with us? Winston and I are driving to Raven Hall, and then on to Tidmarsh Manor. We’ll likely be back before lunchtime.” She looked up at the sky. “Of course, since it’s raining, you might want to stay here and stay dry.”

“Oh, but it’s not raining that hard!”
Rascal exclaimed.
“Who cares about a little bit of wet?”
He leapt onto the seat in the cart.
“Of course I want to go. I was hoping you’d ask, Miss Potter.”

Alarmed, Winston looked back over his shoulder.
“Raven Hall?”
He shook his brown mane, whinnying loudly.
“Naaay! Isn’t there somewhere else you would like to go, Miss Potter?”

Beatrix climbed into the cart and took up the reins, clucking to the pony. “Winston is never happy about taking me to Raven Hall,” she confided to Rascal. “That hill is rather steep, you know.” She raised her voice. “But our Winston is certainly the strongest pony in the village, so I’m sure he’ll be able to manage the hill without any difficulty at all. And I’ve some fresh carrots in my pocket that he can munch on when we get there.”

At this, Winston pricked his ears. It is always pleasing to hear that one is the strongest pony in the village. And fresh carrots to munch on—well, perhaps that hill isn’t so terribly steep, after all. So he picked up his neat little hoofs, leaned into his harness, and trotted forward with a right good will, down the lane toward the Kendal Road.

And that is how Miss Potter, in the company of Winston and Rascal, came to be crossing the bridge over Wilfin Beck a few minutes after nine on a misty, drizzly morning, right in the middle of Chapter Thirteen.

 

 

At ten minutes to nine, just as they had planned, Captain Woodcock and John Braithwaite, the village constable, set up station at the barricade that Mr. Harmsworth had erected at Applebeck Footpath. The past few days had been warm and bright (perfect haying weather, if you happen to have a hayfield that wants cutting), but this day promised to be chilly and rainy. The sun was just as anxious as we are to see what’s going to happen at this important juncture in the history of the Applebeck Footpath, but he was thwarted by the curtain of rain that hung between him and the scene below. So he dawdled a bit, hoping that the clouds would go away before he had to get on with the rest of his day’s appointments. There was very little breeze, although the leaves on the willows beside Wilfin Beck quivered slightly, as if the trees anticipated that something . . . well, unlucky was about to happen.

Under the nearby bridge, Max the Manx and Fritz the ferret were wondering why the captain and the constable were hanging about at the barricade, in spite of the wet. The ferret and the cat had gone out together at first light (before it began to rain), so that Fritz could make sketches of Max while nobody else was out and about. Max was a bit self-conscious about posing and had to be coaxed, so he was glad of the chance to do it privately, as it were. It had already been a companionable sort of morning, for the ferret felt that he was capturing the image of quite a unique cat, and Max felt enormously complimented at the thought that his tailless self was deemed significant enough to merit an artist’s attention.

Max watched as Captain Woodcock consulted his watch once again.
“What do you suppose they’re up to?”
he mused, as the captain looked once more at his watch and said something to the constable.

“I have no idea,”
said the ferret. He put his sketchbook and pencils into his kit bag to keep them from getting wet.
“But if they’re looking for the ghost, they missed her. She was out last night. Before midnight, it was.”

“The ghost of Applebeck Orchard?”
Max asked in surprise.

The ferret chuckled.
“There’s more than one ghost around here?”

“I can think of several,”
Max replied, for he had once set about collecting all the local ghost stories. They suited his gloomy outlook on life.
“There’s the ghost that walks in St. Peter’s cemetery on All Hallows Eve. There’s the ghost that appears at the ferry once or twice a year. There’s the Claife Crier, there’s—”

“The orchard ghost,”
the ferret said in a definitive tone.
“Old-fashioned black bonnet, gray cloak, lantern—the usual ghost costume. The Herdwicks tell me she’s haunted the orchard for sixty-some years now, so she’s nothing new. Portends calamity, they say. Tibbie, the oldest sheep, told me the ghost was seen on the night before the Queen died, back in ’01. And I know for a fact that she was out on the night the haystack burnt, because I saw her.”

Max twitched his whiskers anxiously. He had heard about this ghost, and if she had been seen last night, trouble must lie ahead.
“I wonder what calamity is looming now,”
he muttered. I don’t think Max knows that this is Chapter Thirteen, or he might be even more anxious.

However, Max had no time to think further about the ghost of Applebeck Orchard, for just at that moment a man in uniform came striding purposefully along the road toward the barricade.
“Look, Fritz,”
he exclaimed.
“It’s Major Ragsdale. How splendid he looks!”

“Doesn’t he just!”
said Fritz admiringly.
“He looks like he’s going to a parade.”

“He looks like he
is
a parade,”
Max said, and sighed. He had always admired the major, whose cabbages were the stuff of legend and whose garden was the neatest in Far Sawrey. And just the day before, he had heard that a cat might be wanted at Teapot Cottage, to clear out a gang of mice from the larder. Now, seeing the major, he remembered that he had thought of applying for the position. But of course he wouldn’t get it, he reminded himself gloomily. Nobody wanted a cat who had no tail.