The Tale of Castle Cottage (6 page)

“Right you are, Hyacinth,”
Rascal barked.
“Three months, to be precise. And likely to be much longer.”

Bosworth sat up.
“It’s taking such a great while because Miss Potter is adding on an entire wing at one end,”
he reported.
“I understand that there’s to be a parlor with a fireplace on the first floor, with a large window bay. As well,”
he went on,
“some of the interior walls in the old part of the house are being torn out and the window frames replaced. Not to mention the water being laid on. It’s a very big job. I don’t wonder that it’s taking so long.”

“The job could go much faster if Mr. Biddle’s workmen weren’t such idlers,”
Rascal remarked in a caustic tone.
“If you ask my opinion, he’s not paying enough attention to the project. On my way up here, for instance, I noticed that they were just sitting around twiddling their thumbs, as if they didn’t have the brains to get on with it themselves. And Biddle’s supervisor—Maguire, his name is—was nowhere to be seen. Slackers, every one of them,”
he added scornfully.

Now, if you have ever had the privilege (or the challenge) of living with a Jack Russell terrier, you already know that he has a very strong sense of the right way to do things (his way) and the time at which they ought to be done (right now). For instance, if you and your Jack Russell always go for a walk at three in the afternoon, you will find him waiting beside the door at two fifty-seven, and if you are late, he will come to fetch you from your book and chair. If your Jack Russell has pockets, he will no doubt have a pocket watch in one and a calendar and notebook and pencil in the other. If he were a person, he would most likely be a consultant in time management.

Hence Rascal’s derisive remark about slackers and lazy louts. Castle Farm is just across the lane from Belle Green, you see, where Rascal lives with Mr. and Mrs. George Crook. The little dog makes it his business to monitor what goes on there and everywhere else in the village. But he is a devoted friend and admirer of Miss Potter, so he has paid special attention to the work at Castle Farm, which began with the repair and refurbishment of the barn and other outbuildings, then progressed to the drains and fences, and now finally to the grand old house itself (which is really a house, although it has always been called Castle Cottage). He has not always been satisfied with the way things were done: the drains, for example, were not laid exactly as he would have done. But the work was adequate, so he merely observed and held his tongue.

The work at hand, however, was quite another story, and now that the subject had come up, Rascal was more than willing to express his opinion. Bosworth gave him the chance.

“Slackers?”
the badger asked, frowning. Bosworth is a diligent and hardworking badger and is always distressed to hear that someone is lying down on the job.

“Slackers,”
Rascal repeated firmly.
“You should see the lot, Bozzy, old chap. Only one of them—Mr. Adcock—knows what he’s doing, and the supervisor—Maguire—is usually somewhere else. And Mr. Biddle . . .”
Rascal shook his head, exasperated.
“Instead of paying attention to the job, he spends too much time at the pub, mooning around Ruth Safford.”
Ruth Safford was the new barmaid, a plump, pretty widow with a flirtatious glance. She had caught the attention of half the bachelors in the village, but Mr. Biddle seemed to have an inside track.
“I tell you, it’s a bloody shame.”

Bosworth disliked rough language and disliked being called “Bozzy” even more, but he didn’t want to correct such a dear friend.
“I daresay it is,”
he said mildly,
“but I doubt that there’s anything we can do about it.”

“What about Mr. Heelis?”
Hyacinth wanted to know.
“I thought he was supposed to be looking after Miss Potter’s interests. They are going to live there, aren’t they? After they’re married?”

“That’s what I’ve heard,”
Primrose said, coming to sit with the group.
“But there seem to be no plans for a wedding. I suppose that’s why Mr. Heelis is not very urgent about requiring Mr. Biddle to get on with the work.”

“I don’t think it’s that,”
said Rascal a little defensively. He was also great friends with Mr. Heelis, who always took time out to speak to the little dog and tug his ears lightly and find a bit of biscuit in his pocket.
“Mr. Heelis is a very busy solicitor, with clients all over the district. He can’t be expected to stop by Castle Farm every day of the week and keep the men on the job. No, no—the problem lies entirely with Mr. Biddle. You know what sort he is. I’m sure that Miss Potter takes a very poor view of the situation. She doesn’t much like him, either.”

The three badgers nodded knowingly. Holly How might be a tidy walk from the village, but there were always animals going to and fro, carrying the latest news and gossip. They had heard that Miss Potter had hired Mr. Biddle—against her better judgment, they suspected, for he had once worked for her at Hill Top Farm, and they had not parted on the best of terms. But that had been several years before, and Mr. Biddle’s competitors had all gone out of business—strangely, some said, for there was certainly plenty of work to go around. Quite a few people had expressed their dissatisfactions with the fellow, but there were not many choices when it came to local building contractors. Mr. Biddle was one of a kind.

“If I were Mr. Heelis,”
Bosworth remarked,
“I fear that I should be tempted to give that man Biddle a sharp dressing down.”

“Mr. Heelis is an awf’ly patient man.”
Primrose politely shooed away an inquisitive orange-tip butterfly who wanted to land on her nose.
“He and Miss Potter have been engaged for a very long time. I wonder when the wedding will take place.”
Her smile was wistful.
“I think it should be a spring wedding, when all the flowers are blooming and there are new lambs in the field. That would truly be lovely.”

“P’rhaps never,”
Rascal replied sorrowfully.

“Never?”
Primrose cried, her eyes widening. She was a romantic at heart, and obviously found this idea distressing.
“But whyever not, Rascal? Miss Potter and Mr. Heelis are perfect for each other.”

“Because there are so many people opposed to it,”
Rascal replied in a realistic tone
. “Miss Potter’s parents absolutely refuse to let her marry. They don’t want her to move here to the village and leave them high and dry in London, at the mercy of their servants.”

“It would serve them right if she did,”
Primrose muttered,
“for all the pain they’ve caused her.”

“But they’re not the only ones,”
Rascal went on.
“At the Tower Bank Arms the other night, I heard that there are some in Mr. Heelis’ family who are not at all happy with his choice.”

The badgers rarely went to the pub and hadn’t heard this news.
“Oh, come now, Rascal !”
Bosworth said, shocked.
“Who could object to our Miss Potter?”

“I shouldn’t like to say,”
Rascal replied reluctantly,
“since I’m only reporting what I’ve heard—and you know how bad humans are about gossiping. Some folks are even whispering that Mr. Heelis himself is considering breaking off the engagement. Not that I believe that for a minute,”
he added hurriedly.
“Mr. Heelis is devoted to Miss Potter. I can’t think that he’d do such a thing.”

“Break off the engagement!”
Bosworth exclaimed.
“Oh, surely not! Oh, dear, dear me! That would be . . . It would be . . .”
He stopped, stumped for a word that said exactly what he felt.

“A tragedy,”
Primrose said quietly, and folded her hands.

“Just so,”
said the badger, and fell silent.

Hyacinth had said nothing during this exchange, but she agreed with Primrose and Uncle Bosworth. Miss Potter might not know everything there was to know about the real lives of badgers, but she was kind and good and had the best interests of the village at heart. And not just the village, but the entire Land Between the Lakes, as well. Hyacinth herself had occasionally encountered Miss Potter and Mr. Heelis on their Sunday afternoon walks in the lanes above the village and beside Esthwaite Water, surveying the meadows and wooded hillsides that might come up for sale.

Hyacinth had heard the pair talking, too, and knew that they shared the same worry: that the old farms would be sold away and with them would go the traditions of the farming life, which revolved around the farmer’s sheep and cattle and fields of oats, barley, and potatoes, as well as the farm wife’s garden and dairy. The Land Between the Lakes was a place where the old ways were still practiced, where turfs of peat were graved for fuel and dried bracken was sledged down the fell-sides for winter animal bedding and fodder, and where rich butter and bright yellow cheeses were made in farmhouse dairies and haver bread, made from the farmer’s oats, was baked on hot iron griddles over farmhouse fires.

And even though automobiles zipped through the narrow lanes at speeds approaching ten miles an hour and noisy hydroplanes raced up and down Windermere and telegraphs and telephones brought good news and bad from the far corners of the earth, the fell farmers could still weave a tight swill basket, shear a sheep, construct a perfectly round wooden cart wheel, and rive a clog of greenstone into slates as thin as oat cakes. The farm wives still knitted the family stockings, stirred their tasty tatie pots over their hearth fires, and wore their wooden-soled clogs when they went out into the muddy farmyard to steal the freshly laid eggs from their hens. They knew that it took a quart of fair cream to make a pound of good butter, and a fresh twig of rowan in the churn to keep the fairies from turning the butter bad. And of course they knew that the heads of newborn babes should be immediately washed with rum for protection from evil, and that rum butter with brown sugar and nutmeg must be served at the christening feast.

But if the farms were sold, the farmers would have to move to the cities and holiday towns in search of work. The livestock would be sold, too, the houses torn down to make way for cottages, and the old ways entirely forgotten. Well, not quite, Hyacinth knew, for she and Uncle Bosworth were recording as many of the old practices as they could in the
History
, against the inevitable day when the Big Folk had forgotten their own traditional crafts. But she feared that Miss Potter and Mr. Heelis were right, and that the world they all loved would fall into the hands of off-comers from the city who wanted holiday cottages with a view and telephones and electric lights and metaled lanes so their motorcars wouldn’t mire down in the mud.

Hyacinth frowned. It seemed as if Miss Potter and Mr. Heelis were the only Big Folks who understood this looming threat and were committed to doing something to stave it off. Clearly, Miss Potter could do more if she were living right here in the village, and Miss Potter and Mr. Heelis could certainly do more if they were married. But if Miss Potter stayed in London with her parents and Mr. Heelis got tired of waiting and looked for another wife—

Hyacinth shuddered. For all of their sakes, something ought to be done.
“Is there anything we can do to help?”
she asked. She looked from Rascal to Uncle Bosworth and back again. The animals had lent a hand—paw, rather—in many of the difficult situations the villagers had found themselves in.
“Surely there must be something that will break this stalemate and allow them to be married.”

“Right you are,”
Rascal said briskly.
“There must be something. But what?”

“Yes, what?”
Primrose repeated, and Bosworth echoed her words.

I’m sure that you appreciate their difficulty, as do I. But whilst the animals’ hearts are in the right place, I can’t for the life of me think how three badgers and a dog—however willing and well-intentioned—could think of a way to change the plot of this particular story. They’re not going to do so at the moment, anyway, for they are about to be interrupted.

There was a soft
whoosh
, a flutter of feathers, and a large brown shape lurched awkwardly onto the rock beside them. It teetered dangerously for a moment and at last righted itself. All four animals turned, startled.

“Hullooo,”
said the shape in a hollow voice.
“Fooorgive me. I misjudged my landing. Doesn’t happen often,”
it added defensively.
“Ooonly when I’m wearing these confounded goggles.”

“Oh, it’s you, Owl,”
said Bosworth happily.
“How very nice of you to drop in. Especially at midday,”
he added, for the owl, whose habits were as nocturnal as their own, did not usually take to the skies at this hour. However, he was wearing his dark flying goggles. Although they might not promote stumble-free landings, they enabled him to go about in comfort during the daytime.

The drop-in (as you have probably guessed) is Professor Galileo Newton Owl, D.Phil., the large tawny owl who resides in a hollow beech tree in Cuckoo Brow Wood, at the very top of Claife Heights. The Professor is universally respected for his diligent studies in astronomy, which he carries out from his treetop observatory on every cloudless night. Since he is both learned in astronomical studies and a superb flier, he has adopted as his motto the Latin phrase
Alis aspicit astra
, “Flying, he looks to the stars.” He is also widely known and (I regret to say, feared) for his studies in natural history. He is particularly expert—and takes quite a personal interest—in the habits of voles, mice, rabbits, and squirrels, and knows where they are likely to be found. He regularly studies the meadows and fell-sides from the air, his great owl eyes trained on the ground, alert for any movement, his great owl talons poised to pounce. Nothing much happens that is beneath his notice, so to speak.

The Professor took off his goggles and settled his feathers.
“Whooo?”
he inquired in a genial tone.