The Tale of Oat Cake Crag (28 page)

Now, I am a little puzzled by this, and perhaps you are, too. Earlier, when Caroline told Miss Potter about her plans, she did not mention having a particular inclination toward a certain young man, let alone Jeremy Crosfield. She
said
that she expected to finish her musical studies and then take a trip to Europe and perhaps to America and New Zealand, and then return to Tidmarsh Manor and settle down to pursue her dearest love, musical composition. She is free to do this, and to do whatever else she likes, wherever she chooses to do it, because she is an heiress and will inherit not only her father’s small fortune but also her grandmother’s much larger one. She will never have to work to get her living, unlike her friend Deirdre Malone, who keeps the accounts for Mr. Sutton’s veterinary practice and helps Mrs. Sutton manage the eight Sutton children at Courier Cottage—two big jobs that Deirdre performs very capably, I must say.

But perhaps Caroline didn’t mention her feeling to Miss Potter because she wanted to keep it secret. After all, one does not tell one’s grownup friends all one’s private thoughts, does one? Moreover, she had not seen Jeremy for some time. He had gone off to school and then she had gone off to study music at the Academy, and their paths had not recently crossed. But not seeing him did not keep her from thinking longingly of him, or saving in her scrapbook the few casual cards and notes she had received from him over the years. Or treasuring his photograph, which she herself had taken on the top of Holly How, one splendid afternoon of blue skies and bright sunshine when they were students together at the village school. That photograph, too, was hidden in her scrapbook, and the page was dog-eared and limp from being looked at so often, and touched, and—yes—kissed.

And now you and I have teased out Caroline’s secret, which she has never confessed to anyone. She had long ago fallen into love with Jeremy, and had never fallen out. And when they met again at the Tower Bank Arms, where the villagers came to discuss their concerns with Mr. Baum’s aeroplane, she fell even more deeply into love with him, and was overjoyed when he asked if he might call.

And why not? Jeremy Crosfield is even handsomer than he was when she took his photograph, tall and well built, with the most appealing of features and the dearest red-brown hair that Caroline has ever seen on a boy. (She has not, I must observe, seen a great many boys, but of course, that’s neither here nor there.) He is clearly very intelligent. He did exceedingly well at Kelsick Grammar School and is greatly admired in his current position as teacher of the junior class at Sawrey School, where he is spoken of as a potential headmaster, should he choose to stay on. His botanical drawings are really quite remarkable, and Caroline—who believes that Jeremy has an extraordinary talent (she is, after all, in love with him)—hopes that he will be able to pursue the artistic career for which he is so clearly destined.

In fact, in her romantic dreams, Caroline cannot help picturing herself as Jeremy’s loyal patron, her financial support enabling him to draw and paint unfettered by any obligation to earn a living in the ordinary way. From there, it is only a hop-skip-and-a-jump to picturing herself as his beautiful bride, all in white, with an armful of white roses. And then as his loving wife and the mother of his adorable babies, of whom there will certainly be as many as possible, since she will hire a nanny to take care of them.

When she thinks about this, she thinks that her friend Deirdre Malone would make a splendid nanny, and the two of them together—she and Deirdre—would have such delightful romps with the children. And there would be a nanny’s helper and a laundress and a cook to make the nursery milk puddings and a nursery maid to sweep the nursery floors and iron the babies’ ribbons and laces, so that they looked sweet and pretty when Deirdre fetched them down for Caroline and Jeremy to give them kisses before bedtime. And again, why not? After all, Jeremy has a great deal of talent and Caroline has (or will have, which amounts to the same thing, at least when you are dreaming) a great deal of money. And since she has grown into a confident and willful young lady who is accustomed to having things her way, she sees no reason why her dreams can’t become a reality.

Well, you and I know that this is not always possible, and that the world has a habit of getting in the way of what we would like to do and putting up such road blocks that we are forced to go stumbling around in the dark. But a young girl’s fancy turns quite easily to ardent thoughts of love and a husband and babies—even a young girl who is ardently pursuing her own musical interests. And this particular young girl sees no conflict at all between her passion for music and her passion for Jeremy and his passion for drawing. In her imagination, it has already worked itself out, and the third floor of Tidmarsh Manor has already been converted into a nursery, with a sleeping room for Deirdre, so that she can get up with the babies when they cry in the night.

Oh, and an artist’s studio has been built for Jeremy in the back garden, with clever curtains at the windows and its own dear little patch of flowers in front, and an awning over a sweet little table where they will take their tea, with the children all in white pinafores and ribbons, pink for the girls, blue for the boys, playing around their feet. She will wear a pale yellow dress the color of daffodils and Jeremy will wear a blue frock coat and one of those wonderfully floppy artist’s ties, and he will tell her that he would love to paint her, instead of climbing the fells to paint those rare wild flowers. “You, my sweet,” he might say, “are my dearest flower, my very own.”

And so it is with a great deal of pleasure and anticipation that Caroline dresses this afternoon in her most stylish blue woolen suit, which has one of those modern ankle-length hobble skirts (so narrow at the hem that walking is an uncomfortable challenge). She buttons up the close-fitting jacket with its blue velvet piping and clever blue buttons, brushes her hair until it gleams, and tops her pretty head with a pretty blue velvet cloche decorated with a cluster of pretty blue feathers, and pauses to admire herself in the mirror, thinking that she is very glad to be pretty and have enough money to dress attractively and hoping that Jeremy will think she is pretty, too.

And the masculine object of Caroline’s unconfessed feminine affections? Jeremy Crosfield? What is
he
thinking as he shuts the door on his classroom at Sawrey School, puts on his Norfolk jacket and tweed cap, and strides purposefully in the direction of Tidmarsh Manor?

I wish we could see into Jeremy’s head, but he (because he is a boy, I suppose) is not as transparent as Caroline. We can, however, hear him whistling and see by his jaunty, arm-swinging walk that he is mightily pleased with himself. In fact, he is so pleased that he puts me in mind of Peter Pan, who (when he thinks that he has cleverly reattached his shadow), crows “How clever I am. Oh, the cleverness of me!”

Perhaps Jeremy is feeling pleased because his day in the classroom has gone well. He is, after all—and I say this objectively, and not as one who is romantically smitten—a gifted teacher who is able to inspire in his pupils the same love of learning that so inspires him.

Or perhaps he is whistling because he has just sold (for a guinea! a whole guinea!) a watercolor he has painted of a rare wild orchid, the Dark-red Helleborine, that grows on the remote limestone screes of Coniston Old Man. Or because the collector who bought the painting was quite taken with his work and has assured him that he will look for more of Jeremy’s paintings in the future.

Or because—and surely this is the reason—he is thinking of the young lady whom he loves, which should come as no surprise to us. After all, we have seen Jeremy and Caroline together since Miss Potter came to the village and made friends of both of them, Jeremy first and then Caroline. We were there when they first met on Holly How, when Caroline was so desperately unhappy after the deaths of both her parents and her arrival at the gloomy and forbidding Tidmarsh Manor. We went along with Jeremy and Caroline and Deirdre Malone on their fairy-hunting expedition in Cuckoo Brow Wood, where they found fairies and much, much else. We watched them become friends and then fast friends, and speaking for myself, I have wondered if perhaps their friendship might not ripen into something more enduring.

And perhaps it has. I confess to hoping so, for it does seem to be a very good match. Jeremy will not have to struggle to support his wife, for she can support both of them. Caroline’s musical talents will be complemented by her husband’s creative gifts and the two of them can move together in artistic circles, both in London and in the Lakes. And surely Lady Longford will be reconciled to the match once she understands that these two young people are determined to be together and that nothing she can do will stop them. But now I am being as romantic as Caroline herself, and should rein in my imagination until . . . well, until we see what happens.

Which it is just about to, for Jeremy is ringing the bell at the front door, and Caroline is flying down the stairs (as fast as that ridiculous hobble skirt will allow her to move) so that she can reach the door before the maid. She is opening the door, and Jeremy is taking off his cap and smiling at her, and she is slipping out before her grandmother can raise her voice from the drawing room and tell her not to. And now she is tucking her arm through Jeremy’s and leading him off in the direction of the garden, trying not to show how happy she is to be with him at last, and alone, for she doesn’t really think that her grandmother will spy on them through the window.

“You are looking very pretty today, Caroline,” Jeremy says, which is exactly the right thing for a young man to say when he is alone with a young woman. “That’s an attractive suit.” He looks down at the skirt and then blurts out the wrong thing. “I say, Caroline, I’m glad we’re not climbing Holly How. You’d never make it in that silly skirt. Why do girls wear such things?”

Caroline tosses her head, accepting his compliment and ignoring his rude question. But she forgives him, of course, because she loves him and because she is finding that he is right. The skirt is really very confining. It feels as though she has a rope looped around her ankles. “Thank you, Jeremy,” she says sweetly. “And how was school today?”

He tells her—at length and with enormous enthusiasm, for he loves teaching and his pupils, especially the boys, some of whom will be leaving at the end of the year for work in the charcoal pits or the stone quarries or (if they are very lucky) the retail trade. He particularly enjoys teaching drawing, and often takes his young charges on walks through the countryside, drawing the plants they see and then reading about them when they return to the schoolroom.

Then he asks, “How are your studies progressing, Caroline? You’re between terms, are you? Are you going back to London soon? Do you like living in the city?”

Now it’s her turn. She tells him that she will be going back to the Academy in another few days, and is enjoying the concerts and museums and the theatre in London, but that she plans to return home to Tidmarsh Manor after her studies are complete. She does not tell him that she is thinking of a trip to Europe, America, and perhaps New Zealand because . . . well, because. Perhaps she is hoping that he will want her to come back to the Lakes just as soon as possible, in which case she might decide that Europe, America, and New Zealand are not so enticing after all, and that a husband and babies and a third-floor nursery provide a much more delightful prospect.

Then she asks, in a proper, somewhat proprietary tone, “And what of your art, Jeremy? I very much hope you are spending all your spare time drawing. You are, aren’t you?”

Well, he isn’t quite, for like any other young man, he has other urgent interests to look after. But with that encouragement, and knowing how much it will please her, he tells her about the sale of his watercolor painting of the Dark-red Helleborine (for a whole guinea!) and the promise of more work to come, and of the other drawings and water-colors he has added to his portfolio, one or two a week, as he has time.

Naturally, she is delighted to hear this, and heaps him with compliments until he blushes quite pink. Then she tells him about the piano concerto she has composed, which is to be performed in a fortnight by one of the Academy’s leading pianists. He is very pleased and tells her that she must play at least a part of the concerto for him. He confesses that he does not have a musical ear, but he will be delighted to listen because she plays so beautifully.

By now, arm in arm and keeping up this lively chatter, the two friends have walked all the way to the back of the garden, away from the drawing room windows and behind the shrubbery and the rosebushes, where Lady Longford can’t see them, even if she takes the trouble to look. There is a stone bench in a corner there, overseen by a pair of flirtatious stone cherubs and a little stone lamb, and Caroline demurely sits down. Jeremy joins her, and they sit in silence for a moment as the March twilight falls around them. Caroline is content simply to be sitting beside Jeremy, for his presence beside her on the bench is testimony enough to her that he cares for her in the same way that she cares for him.

But he seems uncharacteristically nervous and uncertain. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees, then sits up straight. He starts to say something and then falls silent, then begins again, and again can’t quite manage to find the words for which he is so clearly searching. Sensing his unease, Caroline smiles a little to herself and waits. Clearly, she thinks, he wants to tell her that he loves her, but he fears that she will reject him, either because she does not love him or because her grandmother disapproves. Nothing else could account for such an obvious, un-Jeremy-like unease.

At last, visibly gathering his courage, he straightens his shoulders, sucks in his breath, and blurts out, “I say, Caroline, I have something to tell you. Something very important.”