The Tale of Holly How (5 page)

“Smashing!” Sarah exclaimed. “P’rhaps you’ll spread my reputation amongst the gentry, and my fortune will be made.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Yes, Dim, what about Gainwell? Pray tell, who is this intrusive chap?”

“He’s a graduate of Oxford,” Dimity said glumly. “In Theology, Miss Martine said. He’s apparently just come back from the South Pacific, where he was a missionary. So you see, he has superb credentials.” She gave a discouraged sigh. “While there can’t be a better teacher than Margaret, her educational background can’t compare to his. Oh, what a
wretched
muddle this is turning out to be!”

“It does seem to me,” Beatrix said, licking her fingers, “that the trustees might have acted sooner.”

“Right,” Sarah said. She twisted her brown hair around her finger, discovered a treacly clump, and made a face. “Here it is July, and school starting before you know it. Not to fault your brother, Dim, but if he and the other trustees had done what they were supposed to do, Margaret would already have the position, and old Lady Longflop would have to find another place for her fair-haired boy.”

Dimity came to Miles’s defense. “Well, it’s not entirely their fault. The trustees have been waiting for a letter of commendation from the previous head teacher, you see. They expected the letter weeks ago, but there have been . . . well, difficulties. I understand that the vicar has communicated with Miss Crabbe—she and her sisters are in Bournemouth—and urged her to write. The trustees are all on Margaret’s side, of course,” she added. “They couldn’t think more highly of her. And the villagers, too.”

“Well,” Beatrix said, in her usual practical way, “I don’t see that there’s anything that any of us can do, except you, Dimity. You might remind your brother—discreetly, of course—that the whole village is behind Miss Nash and that if the trustees have so little sense that they hire someone else, there’s likely to be an uprising.”

“I’ll certainly do that,” Dimity agreed. “But do you think p’rhaps we should let Margaret know what’s going on?”

“I’d say no to that,” Sarah replied, with great firmness. “Margaret’s a very good sort of person, quite levelheaded, really. But she’s nervous enough about this situation already. I mean, there’s a substantial difference in salary, as I understand it, and with her sister being sick for the past six months and not able to work—” She sighed. “Well, I certainly know what it’s like to wonder where the next little bit is coming from.”

“But orders are picking up, aren’t they?” Dimity asked hopefully. “I hear such good things about your baking. Even Elsa Grape admits that your muffins are superior to hers.”

Sarah had started the bakery business from scratch, based on her experience in working for her father and her uncle in a bakery in Manchester. But she’d had to invest in a new kitchen range and other baking equipment, and although the better-off housewives could afford to buy bread and cakes and sausage rolls instead of baking for themselves, there were many others who couldn’t. Dimity wasn’t surprised to hear that Sarah was struggling.

“Business will improve, I’m sure of it,” Sarah said stoutly.

“It might improve faster,” Beatrix replied, “if more people knew about it. You’re right on the main road, Sarah. Have you thought of putting your cakes and bread on display in your front window, where travelers can see them and be tempted as they go past? Your sausage rolls, too—nice for a quick bite, or to put in a pocket for later. Pity to go hiding your light under a bushel.”

“But I’m usually in the kitchen,” Sarah objected. “I won’t hear customers knock. And if I’m not in the kitchen, I’m out on my bicycle, delivering.”

“Then put a bell on your door, as the shops do,” Beatrix replied. “And ask one of the village girls to mind things whilst you’re out and about.”

“What good ideas,” Dimity said admiringly. “You’re quite the businesswoman, Beatrix. But I suppose you have to be, don’t you?”

“The little books have taught me to look out for opportunities,” Beatrix said with a small smile. “You know, I published
Peter Rabbit
myself, because no one else was willing to take a chance on the thing. And I thought almost from the beginning that there might be a demand for Peter Rabbit toys, so I made one myself out of rabbit fur, with whiskers pulled out of a brush, and a blue coat. I’ve even patented him. But now people are wanting to make all sorts of things like tea sets and games and wallpaper borders and the like, and I have to think about licenses and royalties. It’s rather fun, actually.”

Sarah nodded. “Well, I have to admit that the bell is a smart notion, and the window. I’ll give them a try—although I’m not sure I can afford to pay someone to mind the place whilst I’m gone.” She bit her lip vexatiously. “I’m not complaining, you know—I’m just saying that I understand Margaret’s situation. It’s not easy to make ends meet when there’s sickness in the family. That’s why I don’t want to tell her about this other candidate. She doesn’t need extra worries heaped on.”

“If we don’t tell her, someone else will,” Beatrix replied. “You know how this village is.” She made a face. “One can’t take one step without a half-dozen people telling one what one
ought
to do. I’ve been getting all sorts of advice about the improvements at Hill Top.”

“I’ll just bet you have,” Sarah said with an ironic laugh. “Did anyone mention the new road you poked through the wall?”

“Oh, of course,” Beatrix said. “People say it’s ugly, and they’re right. But it’s ugly because it’s new, and because all the fern has been pulled from the wall, which leaves it very bare. But mostly they ask why the extension is taking so long to finish. Which of course is Mr. Biddle’s doing. If he would just get on with the business—” She threw up her hands with an expression of frustration. “What a great bother. All the man wants to do is argue over this and that and almost everything! Yesterday, he was proposing to tear out the cupboards and the little staircase in the wall. He says it is necessary to stop out the rats, when I know perfectly well there are better alternatives.”

“Those beautiful oak cupboards beside the fireplace?” Dimity asked, horrified. “Oh, dear. I do hope you didn’t allow it!”

“Of course not,” Beatrix replied. “We had a frightful row—which isn’t likely to be the last, at the rate we’re going.” She wore a rueful look. “I’m rather afraid I let my temper get the better of me. I think I startled him.”

Dimity had to smile at that, for when she had first met Miss Potter, she had formed the impression she was a very meek person—an impression that more recent experience had corrected. If Mr. Biddle was not yet aware that Beatrix’s mild manner concealed a quick temper and a tenacious resolve, he soon would be.

“You shall have to put Mr. Biddle into one of your little books,” Sarah said decidedly. “He repaired the slates on my roof. Stubborn as the day is long, and hates like anything to do business with a woman. Tell you what, Bea—you can draw him as a donkey.”

At that, Beatrix threw back her head and laughed heartily. “Dear Sarah,” she said at last. “You
are
good for the soul. Here I was, thinking I was the only woman the wretched man had ever dealt with. Yes, indeed. If I ever do a donkey book, I shall have Mr. Biddle in mind. And now that I’ve a clearer picture of him, perhaps I shan’t lose my temper quite so easily. Donkeys can’t help being donkeys, after all.”

“Speaking of books,” Dimity remarked, “my cousin wrote from London that she saw
Jeremy Fisher
in a bookstore window.” Beatrix had been drawing
Jeremy
the previous autumn. “What are you working on now?”

“It’s called
The Tale of Tom Kitten,
” Beatrix replied. “I got another idea for it this morning, when I was watching the cats pushing and shoving one another on the stone wall at Hill Top.” Her smile was crooked. “But I always find it difficult to settle to drawing whilst I’m here. There’s so much to do, in addition to all the renovations. Tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Jennings and I are driving up to Holly How Farm to look at some Herdwicks Mr. Hornby has sold us. I must confess to admiring the breed, even though it is quite out of fashion these days.”

Sarah laughed, delighted. “Fancy the famous Miss Potter, a shepherd. But I daresay the children who read your books would understand.”

Dimity stood. “I’m afraid I must be going. I really must come to terms with Mrs. Wharton and the dahlias.”

“You could just cancel the dahlias,” Sarah said. “Who would miss them?”

“That wouldn’t work at all, I’m afraid,” Dimity said. “Everybody enters dahlias. It’s Mrs. Wharton who needs canceling.” She paused. “So it’s been decided that we won’t tell Margaret about Lady Longford and Dr. Gainwell?” She wasn’t sure that this was the right thing to do, but Sarah was always so
positive
that it was hard to argue against her.

“That’s the plan,” Sarah said. She shrugged. “Anyway, who knows? Maybe this Gainwell fellow will decide to go back to Borneo or New Guinea or wherever he’s been, and then Margaret would have worried for nothing.”

“If we don’t tell her,” Beatrix said quietly, “we shall have to expect that someone else will do it.”

Which, of course, is exactly what happened.

6

Miss Nash Hears Some Unpleasant News

Margaret Nash had always felt some irony in her summer situation.

June and end-of-term never came soon enough. She was delighted to pick up the last pair of wellies, dust the last eraser, and turn the key on the Sawrey School door, imagining the great pleasures waiting for her in the garden and the kitchen and at the seashore, where she and her sister Annie usually spent a fortnight. But her spirits always began to sag about the middle of July, and it wasn’t long after that when she began actually looking forward to the end of the summer holiday and the return to school, inspired with a sense of change and renewal and the expectation that this year’s crop of students would be even better than the last.

This year, the anticipation that gripped Margaret was even stronger than usual, partly because Annie had been ill and they had been unable to get away for their usual fortnight’s holiday, but mostly because she hoped (if that was the right word for an emotion that included desire, anxiety, trepidation, and the fear that she might not quite be up to the task) that she was to be named the new head teacher at Sawrey School, where for the last nine years she had taught the infants class. She was thinking about this as she stood at the table in the kitchen of the cottage that she and Annie shared, the middle of the three linked cottages that were, as a group, called Sunnyside.

“Margaret, what
are
you doing?” asked Annie, rolling up her sleeves as she came into the kitchen. She had just finished teaching a piano lesson—little Angus Williams—and Margaret was distinctly grateful. Angus could be counted on to do his part in the school chorus, but he was nothing but thumbs, and heavy thumbs at that, when it came to the piano. No sense of rhythm, either.

“What am I doing? Why, I’m peeling potatoes, of course.” Margaret looked down and broke into helpless laughter. She had pared a new potato until it wasn’t much bigger than a marble. “I suppose I was thinking,” she said apologetically.

“Don’t think with a knife in your hand, dear,” Annie remarked, brushing the brown hair out of her eyes and tying on her plain cotton apron. She chuckled. “It’s downright dangerous.”

Margaret glanced at her sister, glad to see a return of her light, teasing smile. Annie hadn’t been dangerously ill, thank heaven, but she was not robust, and even a slight cold was enough to provoke a bout of pneumonia. She’d been sick since April and had to give up her job at the post office in Far Sawrey—only a half-mile, but much too far for her to walk, especially during the spring rainy season. Doing without her salary had been difficult, but things were easing up now that she was able to teach piano again, which brought in enough so that they could pay Dr. Butters for his visits and the medication. And the new position, when it came through, would bring a substantial salary increase. Annie wouldn’t have to go back to the post office. And she could take only the serious piano students, which would please her.

With a little shiver, Margaret pushed the thought away. She was not one to tempt fate by counting too heavily on something that had not yet happened, even when it seemed a virtual surety—although now that Miss Crabbe had finally written the letter, it did appear that things were moving forward at last.

Annie opened the oven and took out the iron pot in which they always baked their Monday tatie-pot supper. She took off the lid, allowing a savory cloud of steam to rise, gathered up Margaret’s peeled and quartered potatoes, and plunked them into the pot on top of the mutton, black pudding, carrots, and onions.

“Let’s give this another forty minutes,” she said, replacing the lid and sliding the pot back into the oven. She straightened, smiling. “I won’t offer you a penny for your thoughts, because I can guess them. I saw Miss Crabbe’s letter to the trustees on your desk.”

Margaret scraped the potato parings into the pail that they filled daily for their neighbor’s pig, who lived in a small pigsty at the back of the garden. “The letter was a good one, I thought, and it was nice of her to send me a copy. What did you think?”

“I think she could have written sooner,” Annie remarked sternly. “And she certainly didn’t give you anything more than your due—and that grudgingly, the old witch.” She poked up the fire in the kitchen range. The Sunnyside cottages, where the Nash sisters had lived for nearly a decade, were constructed of stone and shaded by large beech trees; they were always so cool that the fire was welcome, even on a warm July evening.

Margaret had to agree with her sister, although she wouldn’t have gone quite so far as “old witch.” Miss Crabbe’s recommendation that she be promoted to head teacher (sent to the school trustees, with a copy to her) had come very late, and it had not been written with anything like the enthusiasm for which Margaret had hoped. But she knew that the trustees would take into account both Miss Crabbe’s reputation for being parsimonious with her praise, and the unhappy circumstances that had shadowed her departure. Miss Crabbe would have come back to teach after her broken leg had mended if Captain Woodcock and Vicar Sackett had not been adamant that it was time for her to retire, and she could not be expected to endorse even Margaret without reservation. Anyway, Captain Woodcock had assured her that Miss Crabbe’s letter was just the final formality. The trustees would act on her appointment as soon as they had it in hand.

“So we should be hearing something in the next few days, then,” Annie said. She put a spoonful of tea leaves into the blue and white china pot and poured in hot water from the kettle.

“I truly hope so.” Margaret sighed.

There shouldn’t really be any suspense, since Captain Woodcock had told her that there were no other candidates for the position. But Margaret had learnt not to count her chickens before they were hatched. Time enough to imagine herself as Sawrey head teacher—head teacher! what a wonderful title!—when the trustees actually made the appointment. It was a temptation, though, to think about it. She had very much enjoyed the challenges of teaching the junior class and doing the work of the head teacher, with all of the increased responsibilities. She bit her lip. It would be very hard for her to step aside in favor of someone else, someone who—

Annie put the kettle back on the range with a bang. “Do stop dithering, Maggie,” she said decidedly. “You know you have nothing to worry about. Why, the trustees haven’t placed a single advertisement. They certainly mean to promote you to head teacher. It’s only a matter of—”

“Good evenin’!” shouted a comradely voice at the kitchen door. Margaret turned to see their neighbor, Bertha Stubbs, an ample, untidy woman who lived just around the corner, in one of the Lakefield cottages.

“Are you two home?” Bertha inquired, unnecessarily, since both Margaret and Annie were standing in front of her. “You’re not sittin’ down to supper reet this verra minute, are you?”

“Oh, bother,” Annie muttered, turning to take off her apron.

“Do come in and have a cup of tea, Bertha,” Margaret said, suppressing a sigh. Bertha Stubbs was the daily woman at the school, and Margaret saw more of her during the term than she wanted. Bertha was one of those women who did her best work to the accompaniment of loud and long complaints, and her casual spitefulness—sometimes hidden, sometimes not—wasn’t always easy to tolerate. But one had to be neighborly.

“Thanks,” Bertha said with satisfaction. “B’lieve I will.”

Margaret smiled. “We’ve only just put the potatoes on, so supper won’t be ready for—” She caught Annie’s glance and amended her sentence. “For ten minutes or so. They cook quickly, you know, when the oven is hot.”

Bertha settled her bulk in a chair at the kitchen table and waited whilst Annie poured tea. She put both elbows on the table, dropped three cubes of sugar into her tea, stirred, and drank deeply.

“Thought there was something y’ should hear,” she said, putting down her cup with a bang. “If y’ haven’t already, that is. Which y’ may have, seein’ that it’s important.”

“Oh, really?” Margaret asked politely. Bertha’s news, whatever it was, was always important, even when it was only a bit of common gossip that everyone had already heard. “What’s happened?”

“I’ve just been up to Tower Bank House, havin’ a bit of a chat with Elsa.” Elsa was Bertha’s brother’s widow, and one of Bertha’s closest friends. Bertha leaned forward, narrowed her eyes, and lowered her voice. “She told me that something big came up this afternoon. Name of Dr. Harrison Gainwell.”

Annie, who had little patience with Bertha, was more direct than Margaret. “Don’t hint, Bertha,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Who is Harrison Gainwell? And if you’ve only just heard about him, how can you think that we might have?”

“I thought mappen y’ got some advance word.” Bertha leaned back in her chair with a smug look, obviously feeling the significance of what she was about to say. “He’s a grad-u-ate of Oxford University, that’s who he is. Lady Longford wants him to be t’ new head teacher at Sawrey School.”

“The new head teacher—” Margaret gasped.

“How does Elsa know this?” Annie asked, her voice like steel. “Where did she hear it?”

“Why, where else but t’ sittin’ room at Tower Bank House?” Bertha replied innocently. “Lady Longford and that companion of hers called this afternoon, to tell Miss Woodcock to tell the captain that t’ trustees could stop lookin’ for a new head teacher, ’cuz she has found him. Elsa heard what they said when she took in t’ tea.”

“She eavesdropped, you mean,” Annie said acidly. Elsa’s reputation as a source of important village information was enhanced by her position as cook-housekeeper in the home of the Justice of the Peace. It was generally reckoned that the gossip she gathered had the stamp of authority on it—as it usually did.

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say she
eavesdropped,
” Bertha said in a judicious tone. “But she did hear what was said. Gainwell’s a mission’ry from t’ South Pacific.” She rolled her eyes. “Elsa says a gentl’man who can civ’lize cannonballers can cert’nly teach Sawrey School.”

There was a moment’s silence. Finally, Annie broke it. “Cannibals, I think you mean, Bertha. Although I’m not quite sure that I see the connection between civilizing natives and teaching children.”

“Well,” said Bertha distantly, “that’s what Elsa says.”

Margaret tried to speak, but found that she had to clear her throat twice before she could manage to get the words out. “I . . . I’m sure Dr. Gainwell will do an admirable job,” she said. She found that she could not see through the tears that suddenly welled up in her eyes. Hastily, she pushed back her chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I just remembered something I have to do upstairs.” She stood and fumbled her way to the door, feeling Bertha’s sharp glance like a knife between her shoulder blades.

“It’s all right, Maggie,” Annie said. “You can do it later.” Margaret paused with her hand on the knob, realizing that Annie did not want to give Bertha the satisfaction of knowing that she had delivered a telling blow.

“There’s no call to fret, Miss Nash,” Bertha remarked, with some sympathy. “It won’t come to nothin’, cannonballers or not. Everybody’s hopin’ that t’ trustees’ll give t’ place to you.” She pushed her empty cup forward. “Is there more tea in that pot, Annie? Another cup would go down right well.”

Annie stood and went to the kitchen range, where she opened the oven door, took out the iron pot, and lifted the lid. “I think our supper is just about ready, Bertha. If you don’t mind, that is.”

Bertha sighed heavily. “Well,” she said, putting both hands on the table and hoisting herself to her feet, “I s’pose I’d better get home and see to Mr. Stubbs’s meal. Steak and kidney pie tonight, is what it is.” She cocked her head to one side and added, thoughtfully, “Mission’ry, eh? Wonder if he’s got any magic lantern slides, like that gentl’man who give that speech at t’ Sawrey Hotel last year. He was a fine talker, he was. And them pictures of brown nekkid baby cannonballers with dirty old crab shells strung around their fat necks. Well, all I’ve got to say is—”

She was still saying it as Annie closed the door behind her.

“Oh, Annie!” Margaret cried, and burst into tears.

Annie held her sister in her arms. “Don’t cry, Maggie,” she whispered. “I’m sure the trustees will realize that you’re the better choice for the school. They can’t possibly mean to hire a man who doesn’t know anything about—”

“But he’s a graduate of
Oxford
!” Margaret wailed disconsolately. “He’s Lady Longford’s candidate! And you know that she always gets what she wants, no matter how horrid it is for other people.”

This time, Annie couldn’t think of anything comforting to say.