The Tale of Holly How Page 5

  Tactfully, Dimity said, “I see that the kettle is hot. I’ll make us some tea.” And five minutes later, the two were sitting down to freshly brewed cups of tea and a plate of Sarah’s lemon bars, which were decorated with tiny bits of candied orange peel.

  “Cover those lemon bars, Dim,” Sarah said, handing her a napkin, “or the thunderflies will track all over them with their nasty little feet. And then tell me what you came to tell me. You sounded as if you were dreadfully upset about something.”

  “What I came to—” Dimity laughed. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Sarah. Your calamity drove mine right out of my head.”

  “If a little thing like treacle could distract you, your calamity must not have been so calamitous after all.” Sarah took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. Cigarettes, along with the trousers and the bicycle, marked her as a New Woman.

  “Yes, it is,” Dimity replied, sobering. “It’s horrible. It’s appalling. For Margaret Nash, at least. And for the children at the school. And on top of all that, there’s the Flower Show. Mrs. Wharton can’t possibly be permitted to judge the dahlias again, or we shall have a rebellion on our hands. But I don’t know how to tell her without—” She was interrupted by a knock at the kitchen door. “Why, Miss Potter!” she exclaimed in surprise, glancing up. “I didn’t know you were back in the village! How very nice to see you.”

  “I thought we agreed,” Sarah said sternly, “that we would all use first names. Hullo, Beatrix. If you’ll look down, you’ll see that you’re walking on the cleanest floor that ever was.”

  “How extraordinary,” Beatrix said, bending over for a close examination. “It’s cleaner than Mathilda Crook’s kitchen floor, which is saying a great deal, considering that she washes it every morning, whether it needs it or not.” She straightened, her china-blue eyes twinkling. “I don’t suppose I ought to ask how it got to be so clean.”

  “A great lot of treacle and milk and even more elbow grease,” Sarah rejoined cheerfully. “However, all’s well that ends well. Dim has a story she’s dying to tell us, though. You’ll want a cup of tea whilst you listen. And you should try one of my lemon bars, too. You’ll like them.” She got up and fetched another cup, poured it full, and set it in front of Beatrix. “All right, Dim,” she commanded. “Fire away.”

  With a sigh, Dimity told Beatrix and Sarah about Lady Longford’s visit. “It’s her intention,” she added, “that the trustees interview Dr. Gainwell as soon as possible after he arrives. She insists that he’s the best-qualified person for the job. Anyway, he’s the one she wants,” she added, “no matter whether he’s qualified or not.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sarah said, frowning. She tapped her cigarette ash into her saucer. “Who is this Lady Longfellow, that she can dictate who is going to be the next head teacher?”

  “Longford,” Dimity corrected.

  “Oh, I know her name,” Sarah said, waving away several inquisitive thunderflies. “I know where she lives, too, for I’ve delivered there. Her cook, Mrs. Beever, orders two loaves a week of my best white bread, and wants a ginger cake for this coming Wednesday. Her ladyship professes a great liking for my ginger cake, it seems. She thinks it helps to settle her stomach. I oughtn’t speak ill of a customer, I suppose. But who is she?”

  “She’s the wealthiest woman in the district,” Dimity replied. “And a truly disagreeable old thing. She mostly keeps to herself these days, and we don’t see much of her in the village. But until he died, her husband was involved in everything—judging agricultural shows and being president of the Sawrey Institute and buying a piano for the school and helping out the poorer families with coal during the worst of the winter. He was a bit of a busybody, but his heart was in the right place. He was also a school trustee—which, I suppose, makes her think that she has the right to interfere.”

  “And who is this Gainwell person?” Beatrix asked, with interest. “What is his chief claim to fame?” She looked at Sarah. “These bars are very good, Sarah. When I go back to London, I’d like to take some with me. My mother would enjoy them, I’m sure. She’s very fond of sweets.”

  “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.