The Tale of Applebeck Orchard

by Susan Albert

  But the local people usually tolerated its idiosyncrasies of speed and lopsided gait, and some could even manage an affectionate laugh at the rickety old ferry. It was said, for instance, that each year on the summer solstice, as the fer ryman prepared to make his last journey from the east shore to the west, an old woman would come down to the jetty as if to board. Shuddering, she would hide her face in her hands and cry, “Nay, I canna. It’s nivver a boat, it’s a conundrum!”—and then vanish into the twilight until the next solstice. Whenever anyone complained about the boat, someone else was sure to say, “That’s not a ferry, it’s a conundrum,” and everyone would laugh, much to the puzzlement of off-comers, of course. They didn’t get the joke.

  This morning, Will reached the landing just as the ferry pulled into its berth, not far from the Ferry Hotel, an imposing inn that catered to fishermen and to the yachtsmen whose sailing boats were moored in the nearby cove. Rigg’s Coniston Coach was aboard the ferry, so there would be a substantial wait while the horses were hitched up again and the coach could disembark. As well, there were two old-fashioned hooped carts in the queue ahead of him. Will doubted whether he would make this crossing. Where the Windermere ferry was concerned, one learnt to possess one’s soul in patience.

  So he pulled to a stop behind the second cart, took out his pipe, and began to watch the people getting off, a few day-trippers with their baskets, a bicyclist, an elderly woman in an old-fashioned black bonnet and tippet. And then, to his enormous surprise, Miss Potter—Miss Beatrix Potter, of Hill Top Farm. Will was greatly delighted, more delighted, I must tell you, than he would have been able to acknowledge to himself or to anyone else. It is a sad fact that, like his friend Captain Woodcock, Will Heelis always knew precisely what he thought and could tell you all about it in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately, he rarely had any idea how he felt.

  But he was beginning to learn. He had taken his first lesson the previous winter, when he and Miss Potter had been alone together and he had found himself, quite impulsively, seizing her hand. (If you have read The Tale of Briar Bank, you will undoubtedly recall this rather shocking event—shocking for Will, anyway.) He now had a pretty good idea of how he felt about Miss Potter, and although the awareness made him distinctly uncomfortable, it also (and contradictorily) made him feel quite glad.

  And why shouldn’t it? Miss Potter was a forthright, thoughtful, and very levelheaded person, with a shy charm and rather old-fashioned reserve. Her quiet conversation especially appealed to Will, for he himself was very shy and often tongue-tied in the presence of brash young ladies like Sarah Barwick, who embarrassed him by flirting and chattered on nineteen to the dozen, giving him no opportunity to speak even if he could think of something interesting to say, which he couldn’t. He found Miss Potter quite attractive, too, with her rounded face and figure, bright blue eyes that shone with an alert and interested intelligence, and a fine disregard for fashion that pleased Will, who much preferred plain country dress and sensible shoes to city lace, velvets, and stylish boots.

  Today, Miss Potter was dressed for summer. She wore a dark gray gored skirt, a simple white blouse with a blue tie, and a narrow-brimmed straw hat with a blue velvet ribbon. She was carrying a wicker hamper in one hand and a small satchel in the other. And since Lakelanders are perfectly aware that even the finest summer day can turn showery, she prudently carried an umbrella under one arm.

  “Miss Potter!” Will pushed his pipe back into his pocket and leapt to his feet, waving excitedly. “Hullo, Miss Potter! Over here!”

  “Good morning,” Miss Potter said, coming toward him, smiling. Her deep-set blue eyes sparkled. Her brown hair was pulled back and snugged, but a few renegade curls had escaped, framing her pink cheeks, and Will thought how handsome she looked, and how bright the morning (which had darkened considerably when he discovered how long he should have to wait for the ferry) had become. In fact, it suddenly seemed like a whole new day.

  “So very nice to see you again, Mr. Heelis,” Miss Potter said cheerfully. “You’re on your way across?”

  “Eventually,” Will said, since crossing the lake had just tumbled off his list of immediate priorities. “It’s very nice to see you, too.” Even in his current limited awareness, he recognized “very nice” to be a substantial understatement and felt that, had he spoken all the truth, he might have said something like, “I am absolutely, enormously, utterly delighted and thrilled to see you, my very dear Miss Potter.” But of course he couldn’t say this, so he didn’t. “I had no idea that you were back in the village.”

  “I’ve just arrived,” Miss Potter said. “My parents have taken Helm Farm for their holiday. Just over there, near Bowness.” She nodded toward the eastern shore of the lake. “I’ve been staying with them for the past week. But I’ve been longing to come to Hill Top and see how Mr. Jennings is getting on with the haying, so I arranged for someone else to look after them for a few days.”

  Will suddenly recollected himself. “That’s a heavy load,” he said, jumping down from the gig. Ferry Hill was steep, and Hill Top Farm was a good hour’s walk. What a splendid accident of fortune, arriving here to the ferry at the exact moment that Miss Potter disembarked! His good luck made him feel almost giddy. He snatched up the satchel and the hamper and stowed them under the seat before she could say a word.

  “Get in, Miss Potter,” he said. “I shall drive you to the farm.”

  Miss Potter caught her breath, and her cheeks bloomed a most becoming pink. “Oh, but you’re here to catch the ferry,” she protested, trying to retrieve her satchel. “You’ll be delayed in crossing. It’s such a pretty day, and not that far to walk. I would really much rather—”

  “Nonsense,” he said, with an entirely uncharacteristic firmness. Smiling down at her, he softened his tone. “You know how slow that blasted ferry is. I can drive you to Hill Top Farm and be back here by the time it docks again—which may be tomorrow or the next day.”

  Hesitating, she pressed her lips together. She looked as if she would rather reclaim her luggage and be on her way, but she chuckled when Will added playfully, “It’s nivver a boat, remember? It’s a conundrum.”

  “It certainly is that,” she agreed, still hesitating. “If you really wouldn’t mind—”

  “Not in the slightest,” Will assured her. He was about to take her hand to help her into the gig, but she stepped up quickly, sat down, and settled her skirts. He got in and turned the horse back up the hill. Normally, he found it difficult to initiate conversation with a woman, but there was something about Miss Potter that put him at his ease.

  “Your parents have taken Helm Farm?” he asked. “I know the place. It’s charming, but isn’t it just a bit old-fashioned for their tastes?” Wealthy Londoners, the Potters always spent their holiday in the Lake District, but they usually stayed in fashionable holiday villas. Miss Potter had told him that they once rented Wray Castle, a huge stone palace overlooking Lake Windermere. (It’s still there, by the way, and you can visit it. If you do, you’ll be astonished at its grandeur. I was.) Helm, on the other hand, was a very old farmhouse perched on the top of a very steep hill. There was nothing at all elegant about it.

  “I’m afraid it is rather old-fashioned,” Miss Potter said ruefully, “and not exactly to their taste. But we delayed in finding a holiday place because my father was not well and didn’t want the bother. By the time we began to look, Helm was all there was to be had. Mama and Papa always like to bring the servants, of course—they wouldn’t know what to do without the cook and the butler. Mama insists on having the carriage, as well, which means bringing the coachman and his wife, who does the daily work.” Her laugh was lightly ironic. “I’m afraid it was the barn at Helm that decided the matter. There’s room for carriage and horses both.”

  “I see,” Will said with a chuckle. “Well, at least the horses will be comfortable.”

  This was one of the things he found so intriguing about Miss Potter. The daughter of wealth, sh
e obviously lived a comfortable, privileged life in London, with a cook, a butler, servants, a coachman. Yet she sometimes spoke ironically of it all. She could even laugh at the idea of her parents’ taking their horses and carriage on the railway train when they went away on holiday. And when she came to the Lakes, she always seemed eager to be away, as if her London life were a very great burden.

  She returned his laugh, and he saw with a great deal of pleasure that the blue of her simple tie and the narrow ribbon on her hat matched almost exactly the shade of her eyes. “Very comfortable indeed, considering,” she said. “There is a rather steep hill up to the house which makes it inconvenient to drive out, so the horses are likely to enjoy a lazy holiday.” Her smile faded. “Mama would much rather I stayed at Helm and kept her and Papa company, I’m afraid.”

  Will could hear the unhappiness in her voice. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m very sorry.”

  From things she had told him, he knew that her parents had opposed the idea of her buying Hill Top Farm in the first place, just as they had strenuously opposed the idea of her marrying her editor and publisher, Norman Warne. The Potters, who had inherited their substantial wealth from hardworking Lancashire calico manufacturers, were exceedingly conscious of their social position, an attitude that Will, a plainspoken countryman who had been raised to believe that honest work was its own reward, considered the worst sort of snobbery. Miss Potter had stood firm against their opposition, accepting Warne’s ring in spite of them. In fact, she was wearing the simple gold band at this very moment, as Will could plainly see, a testimony to her enduring devotion. The engagement had come to an abrupt and unexpected end. Warne had died, worse luck for him, just a month after his proposal.

  But Will, who was often much more astute about other people’s feelings and motives than about his own, understood that Warne’s undesirable social standing was only part of the reason for the Potters’ opposition. They intended that their daughter should stay home and care for them and manage their house and their servants until both of them were dead—after which time she could marry, of course, if she were not too old.

  Now, while you and I might be aghast at such an attitude, it was not at all unusual in those days. Queen Alexandra, wife of the late monarch, kept her spinster daughter, Princess Victoria, as a lifelong companion, never allowing her to marry, not even Lord Rosebery, who was said to be madly in love with her. Will himself knew several Lakeland families in which an unmarried daughter remained at home for her entire life, designated caretaker of her parents and their household. But in his view (as it is certainly in mine and probably in yours), this was a very bleak future for any person, especially for one so talented and energetic and interesting as Miss Potter.

  Will couldn’t say any of this, of course. It wasn’t his place to criticize the Potters, and anyway, it would make Miss Potter uncomfortable. Instead, he only added, with genuine sympathy, “I’m sure it will be a trial for you, having to go back and forth on the ferry.”

  I’m wondering (and I expect you are, too) how Miss Potter feels about what Mr. Heelis has said—and what he hasn’t. Beatrix grew up with a father who completely suppressed his feelings and a mother who overly dramatized hers, and where other people were concerned, she had learnt to be a perceptive observer. She heard the sympathy in Mr. Heelis’ voice and caught his glance at Norman’s ring. She thought she knew what it meant, and while either you or I might find it flattering to be warmly regarded by as handsome and eligible a bachelor as Mr. Heelis, Beatrix found it deeply troubling—threatening, even.

  She and Mr. Heelis had been acquainted now for nearly five years, since she had bought Hill Top Farm and begun coming regularly to the village. He had helped her to purchase Castle Farm and managed it for her while she was in London, which meant that they traded frequent letters and even occasional telegrams. He was as interested as she in the fate of the Lake District, which was seriously threatened by commercial development and in danger of losing not only its beautiful old farms, but its pastoral way of life. They shared the view that it was entirely possible that, within a few decades, a blight of holiday cottages and villas would spread like an ugly pox across dale and fell, and that somebody ought to be doing something to stop it. This shared passion made for some interesting and spirited conversations when they found themselves together, and Beatrix enjoyed their discussions very much.

  But something else was afoot here. While Beatrix couldn’t read Mr. Heelis’ thoughts, she understood pretty well—or thought she did—what was in his mind. And since she desperately wanted to keep him from putting those thoughts into words, she only said, in a very polite, prim tone, “Coming and going on the ferry is an interesting diversion, and I enjoy the trip across the lake. I’m only sorry that the travel will take time away from the other things I want to do—sketching, and the farm.”

  Now, if you are thinking that it is rather silly for these two people—grownups, both of them—to pussyfoot around the subject of their relationship (a topic that must have been of very deep interest to both of them), I shall have to agree. But we must try to see the matter as they saw it, and not from our modern point of view.

  Will Heelis was beginning to be aware that he was in love with Beatrix, but understood why her parents had rejected Norman Warne and was pretty sure that he would meet the same fate. Even more important, he knew that Beatrix was deeply loyal to Warne’s memory. He felt himself to be a fragile cockleshell of a boat, uneasily moored between the implacable Mr. and Mrs. Potter and the steadfast Miss Potter. If he spoke, Beatrix might find it necessary to break off their friendship, to cut him adrift. Better to keep his desires to himself than to risk complete and total rejection.

  For her part, Beatrix was beginning to be aware that she was very fond of Will Heelis, a dangerous fondness, as she saw it. In fact, it was so dangerous—rather like walking along the edge of a very steep cliff that threatened to crumble beneath her feet and send her plummeting into an unfathomable abyss—that the only thing she could think to do was to retreat from the edge, and steer the conversation in a safer direction, away from herself altogether.

  “And there is some rather nice news, isn’t there?” she went on quickly. “Margaret Nash wrote to tell me that Dr. Butters has married.” Dr. Butters was the much-beloved doctor who treated all the villagers. Like Mr. Heelis, he lived in Hawkshead and traveled the countryside by horse. And like Mr. Heelis, he was a confirmed bachelor—until he met Miss Mason at Briar Bank House. The Tale of Briar Bank relates the circumstances, which (as you may recall) were somewhat unusual.

  “Married indeed,” Mr. Heelis said. “Miss Mason took a house in Hawkshead after the magistrate decided the case against her was too weak to prosecute. The next thing we knew, Dr. Butters announced that they were to marry, which they did forthwith. The doctor’s friends approve,” he added cheerfully. “Most of them.”

  “I don’t imagine Captain Woodcock likes the idea very much,” Beatrix said, and then bit her tongue. The remark sounded critical.

  But Mr. Heelis only nodded, his expression turned serious. “How did you know? Did he tell you?”

  Now that she had begun, there was nothing for it but to go on. “I’m only guessing,” she said, “but it seems to me that the captain prefers people who play by the rules. Miss Mason broke them. I imagine the captain thinks she should have been punished.” She herself had every sympathy for Miss Mason, for while it was true that the lady had set out to deceive poor Mr. Wickstead of Briar Bank, it had not been with a malicious intention, and she had soon found herself in a situation she hadn’t bargained for—all of which you will understand if you have read that story. “Personally,” she added, “I think Miss Mason—Mrs. Butters, that is—was a victim of circumstance.”

  “Well put, Miss Potter,” Mr. Heelis said in an approving tone. “Woodcock wasn’t at all keen on the marriage. But rules or no, Dr. Butters is happier than I’ve ever seen him. And I believe Mrs. Butters is quite content, as well.
They seem to suit one another.”

  “That’s all that matters,” Beatrix said quietly. “I am very glad for the both of them.”

  They had driven through the hamlet of Far Sawrey now. The hedges were summer-heavy and starred with a few late wild roses and even later elderflowers, and the roadside grasses, bleached by the sun, displayed a scattering of summer wild-flowers, agrimony and scabious and knapweed. Beatrix loved this time of year. The hay harvest was under way, the gardens were overflowing with abundant vegetables, and the orchard trees were heavy with fruit. She glanced to the left, to Applebeck Orchard, the oldest in the district.

  “Why, there’s a barricade across Applebeck Footpath!” she exclaimed in surprise, seeing the tangle of wire and wooden stakes, covered with tar. “It’s been closed off! Did Mr. Harmsworth do it? Of course he did,” she added, half to herself. “He must have. Applebeck Farm is his.”

  “Yes, Harmsworth did it,” Will said grimly, pulling his horse to a stop. “The Claife Ramblers are up in arms and the villagers are quite put out. Captain Woodcock intends to see the fellow today.”

  Beatrix spoke in a measured tone. “One doesn’t like to speak ill of a neighbor, but Adam Harmsworth is not an altogether pleasant person. His property abuts Hill Top, you know. I was out with the sheep one day last spring when I saw him beating a dog.” She shivered, remembering what she had seen and how it had made her feel. Cruelty to animals was something she could not abide. “He did not much like it when I told him he must stop, but he did—at least as long as I had him in sight.”