The Tale of Oat Cake Crag

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Hello again,” Rascal said.

  The doctor picked up the reins. “I hear you bit the butler,” he said, scowling down at the dog.

  “He kicked me,” Rascal replied in a defensive tone. “And it wasn’t much of a bite. If I had really wanted to, I could have taken his foot off.”

  “Well, don’t try it with me,” the doctor warned dryly. “I’ll bite you back.” He clucked to his horse. “Let’s go, Phoenix.”

  Their next stop was at the Sawrey Hotel. Late as it was, the hotel was dark, so the doctor merely scribbled a note on a piece of paper, folded it, and wrote Oscar Wyatt’s name on the outside, then put it through the mail slot in the front door. Then they were off again. When they got to the village, Rascal barked his thanks to the doctor, jumped out of the buggy, and trotted up the street in the direction of Belle Green, feeling that he had done his duty for that night.

  I think you will agree that he had, and more. It is entirely possible that Mr. Baum owes the little dog his life.

  11

  Miss Potter Investigates: At Rose Cottage and the Post Office

  The next morning, Miss Potter worked for an hour or two on her current book, The Tale of Mr. Tod. If you haven’t read it, you might. It’s short, and won’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes, depending on how fast you read—although I hope you’ll take time to linger over the drawings, because they show how carefully Beatrix observed the wild animals of the Land Between the Lakes. Which is why, I suppose, the animals felt that she understood their language.

  The main characters are a pair of rather unpleasant creatures. “I have made many books about well-behaved people,” the tale begins. “Now, for a change, I am going to make a story about two disagreeable people, called Tommy Brock and Mr. Tod.” Tommy Brock is a fat, curmudgeonly badger who is “not nice in his habits” and “waddled about by moonlight, digging things up.” He sleeps in the daytime, and goes to bed in his boots. (Brock, of course, is the common country name for “badger,” as you can see by the name our Holly How badgers have chosen for their animal hostel: The Brockery.) Mr. Tod (Tod being the country name for “fox”) is a cunning character, too tricky by half. He has a distinctive odor, is of a “wandering habit,” and has foxy whiskers.

  Miss Potter’s story involves a sackful of baby rabbits whom Tommy Brock (in no way related to the friendly, helpful badgers who live at The Brockery and in Briar Bank) has kidnapped and shut up in the oven in his kitchen, preparatory to putting them into a rabbit pie—a dish that I am sure Parsley would never in the world consider adding to her menu. But Benjamin Bunny (the rabbit babies’ father) and his cousin Peter rescue the little ones by taking advantage of a fearsome fight between the fox and the badger. They carry their charges safely home to the babies’ mother, Flopsy, and (although they are “rather tumbled and very hungry”) recover completely after dinner and a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, Peter and Benjamin do not linger long enough to witness the outcome of the fierce battle between Mr. Tod and Tommy Brock, so we are left to guess who won. Personally, I think it was the badger, because foxes, whilst they are tricky, are more apt to give up quickly and run away. But really, it is a very exciting tale. I hope you will read it.

  Unfortunately, Miss Potter’s editor (Harold Warne, who would have been her brother-in-law, had she and Norman married) was not very enthusiastic about Mr. Tod. Although he was always after her to produce more and more books (to the point where she was beginning to rebel), this one did not suit him. He seems to have feared that mothers and grandmothers, who buy a great many books for birthday and Christmas gifts and sometimes tell their children what they ought to read, might be shocked by the ill-mannered and churlish villains, and he wrote to the author with several suggestions for changes.

  But Beatrix would have none of it. “If it were not impertinent to lecture one’s publishers,” she wrote impertinently, “you are a great deal too much afraid of the public; for whom I have never cared one tuppenny-button. I am sure that it is that attitude of mind which has enabled me to keep up the series. Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.”

  It is impertinent, isn’t it? But it is also exactly the right answer. I daresay Mr. Warne was quite taken aback—at least, I hope that he was. I am glad to see our Beatrix making such a spirited defense of her work in the face of opposition from a staid and stuffy gentleman who thinks more of propriety and how many copies the book might sell. (This is very odd, when you consider what will happen a few years hence, when it emerges that the outwardly respectable Mr. Warne is a crook. Yes, a crook! He had been secretly taking money from Beatrix’s royalty accounts instead of paying it over to her, and was convicted and remanded to gaol on charges of embezzlement. So much for propriety.)

  And although Beatrix might not have cared so much for the mothers and grandmothers who bought her books, she cared a very great deal for the little children who read and cherished them, and who were surely breathless as they read about the scoundrelly fox and the rascally badger who slept in his boots and Benjamin’s and Peter’s daring rescue of the about-to-be-roasted bunnies. And the disagreeable villains didn’t hurt book sales one little bit (so much for you, Harold Warne!). Over the next few years, The Tale of Mr. Tod appeared in three printings, for a total of 45,000 copies, which was an astronomical number of books in those days. Which just goes to show that if you have an idea for a story, even if it does involve a shocking villain or two, you should stick to your guns and tell it exactly as you please, for it is your story and no one else’s.

  And now we must get on with ours. Beatrix rose at her accustomed early hour and worked on the narrative, which she was writing out in ink in an exercise book. She had done one or two of the drawings (just to get the idea of them) and thought to leave the rest until the story was finished and she had decided which scenes to illustrate. But as she worked, she couldn’t help thinking about what Mr. Heelis had said the night before, regarding Mathilda Crook and Bertha Stubbs and the unfavorable opinion they had expressed about Mrs. Lythecoe’s marriage to the vicar.

  Unfavorable? It was more than that, wasn’t it? It was downright hostile.

  In fact, Beatrix was so distracted that at length she put down her pen and gave the problem her full attention. Was it possible that one or both of the women were upset enough to write those ugly letters? She knew the pair of them, and found this hard to believe. But she had been surprised before by the depth of people’s cunning (like the fox) and churlishness (like the badger) and understood that, under certain circumstances, almost anyone can be driven to almost anything.

  She sat back in her chair, thinking. Mr. Heelis had said that his information was secondhand, and it was possible that it was exaggerated, or an outright untruth. She thought she really ought to confirm it, although she felt that neither Mathilda nor Bertha would willingly tell her what they had said to each other in private. How to find out?

  Now, Beatrix has learnt from long experience with her mother that when something needs to be done, it is sometimes better to go at the task indirectly. Not that Beatrix herself is devious—no, not in the least. She is a very straightforward person (sometimes blunt, in fact) and much prefers to look at things squarely. It is her mother who is devious, to a degree that Beatrix finds appallingly frustrating. To get things done in the Potter household, she often finds it necessary to adopt her mother’s scheming ways.

  In this case, Beatrix knew Mathilda Crook fairly well, since she had boarded with the Crooks whilst the farmhouse at Hill Top was being expanded to accommodate both herself and the Jennings family. Mathilda was every bit as stubborn and opinionated as Mrs. Potter, and it occurred to Beatrix that she might be able to learn what was really going on if she practiced the same sort of subtleties upon Mathilda that she had to practice at home.

  So she got up from her work and went to the dresser drawer where she kept her kitchen linens. Mathilda took in sewing, an
d since Beatrix’s favorite red-and-white-checked tablecloth needed darning, that would be her excuse. She wrapped the tablecloth in a brown-paper parcel, gathered up the letters that needed to go in the post, and put on her coat and woolen hat. Then she walked up the street toward Belle Green, where the Crooks lived. But on the way, she stopped at Rose Cottage for a quick word with Mrs. Lythecoe. She wouldn’t stay long, but she felt she needed to be sure of the facts of the case.

  Caruso, Mrs. Lythecoe’s canary, was singing loudly when she knocked at the door. His cage hung in the front window of the cottage, and he always sang when people walked past or dropped in. This morning, he was singing so exuberantly that Grace had to throw a cover on his cage so that she and Beatrix could sit in the front parlor and talk. (Of course, Caruso didn’t stop singing. He merely reduced the volume, contenting himself with a quiet little warble.)

  “Good morning, Miss Potter,” said Tabitha Twitchit, coming into the room and rubbing against Miss Potter’s ankles. She was feeling quite cheerful this morning, having just seen a new generation of village cats into this world. Her niece, Treacle, who lived across the lane at High Green Gate, had given birth to six kittens. Treacle had named the eldest—the finest of the lot—Tabitha. Fitting, Tabitha thought.

  “Good morning, Tabitha,” Beatrix said. She took off her coat, said “No, thank you,” to the offer of a cup of tea, and went right to her question, happy that she could be her own straightforward self with Grace Lythecoe.

  “I have heard that one or two of the villagers have expressed some concern about your marriage to the vicar because you were once married to his cousin,” she said. “I hope you are not offended, Grace, but I thought I should ask. Is it true? Was your first husband a cousin of Reverend Sackett? Or is this just another of those village rumors?”

  Beatrix knew all about rumors, for the village had once had her practically married to Captain Woodcock and installed as his wife at Tower Bank Arms, whilst everyone had been absolutely sure that Mr. Heelis was going to ask Dimity Woodcock to be his bride—and when Dimity had surprised everyone by agreeing to become Mrs. Kittredge, he was supposed to have asked Sarah Barwick. And when it was clear that Mr. Heelis was not courting Miss Barwick, the villagers had decided that the honor of marrying Mr. Heelis (who was quite a catch) would go to Margaret Nash. She, however, had astonished the village by becoming Mrs. Woodcock.

  The village almost never got it right, you see, but that didn’t stop them from enjoying the game. It was a miracle that no one had yet connected her to Mr. Heelis, for which she was terribly grateful. Her parents lived in London, but they often took holiday houses in the neighborhood and had local connections. If they thought she might be interested in someone, they would move heaven and earth to put an end to the relationship.

  “Of course it’s true, Beatrix.” Grace did not appear to take offense. “I met Samuel—Reverend Sackett—at a family gathering the year before my husband died. That was a very long time ago. Nearly ten years, as a matter of fact.”

  Tabitha sniffed. “Ten years is a long time. Why are you asking about this, Miss Potter? Does it have to do with the letters?” Tabitha knew about those letters because she lived with Mrs. Lythecoe and had seen how dreadfully upset she was when they arrived. She had also been present when Mrs. Lythecoe asked Miss Potter to find out who had written them.

  “Your husband and his cousin—were they acquainted?” Beatrix asked.

  Grace frowned. “Not intimately. At the time, Reverend Sackett was serving in the south of England. My husband and I were here, in the vicarage, of course,” she added, smiling reminiscently. “Mrs. Belcher kept house for us.”

  Tabitha brightened. “Ah, Mrs. Belcher. She lived here in the village for a time, in one of the Lakeside cottages. A generous, good-hearted person, always ready to put down a saucer of something nice.”

  “A splendid job she made of it, too,” Grace continued. “Mrs. Belcher, that is. I understand that she’s available again. I’d love to have her back.”

  Beatrix paused, remembering what Mrs. Beever had told her the day before. “The vicar already has a housekeeper, doesn’t he?” she ventured, although, of course, she knew the answer. She had met the lady in question a time or two.

  Grace shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yes. Mrs. Thompson. Hazel Thompson. Samuel has had her for years. But he’s . . . well, he’s not happy with her, I’m sorry to say. She is not a very good cook and her housekeeping isn’t the best. Worse, she listens at doors. He has been aware of this for some time. But you know our dear vicar.” She smiled a little. “He doesn’t like confrontations, so I’m afraid it will be left to me to deal with her.”

  “I see,” Beatrix said. “So you’ll be hiring Mrs. Belcher.”

  “A very good plan,” Tabitha said with an approving mew. “A splendid plan.” She had not yet decided whether she would leave the village and move to the vicarage with Mrs. Lythecoe. But perhaps, if Mrs. Belcher was coming to cook, it would be a good idea.

  Grace nodded. “I’ve already spoken to her about the possibility. But not, of course, to Mrs. Thompson. The vicar will give her notice when the time comes—but not just yet. And certainly not until this business about the letters is settled and we can go forward with our plans.” She leaned forward. “Tell me who’s talking about this cousin thing, Beatrix.”

  “I could tell you, if you asked me,” Tabitha said slyly, examining one of her claws.

  I am not in the least surprised by this, for both Mathilda Crook and Bertha Stubbs are quite well known to all the village cats. In fact, the cats have probably been in the room when Mathilda and Bertha were discussing the matter. And now that the matter has come up, I find myself wondering whether Tabitha knows anything about those letters, as well. Is it possible that she could tell us who’s writing them?

  But Beatrix had to answer Grace’s question. “I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind,” she replied. “The information came to me indirectly. I need to look into it.” She got up. “I must be going, Grace. I’ll let you know if I learn anything.”

  As she left, she heard Caruso singing again, now very loudly. She smiled a little to herself, thinking that Grace must have taken off his cover so he could see out the window again. She remembered that one of the letters had come through the mail slot in the door. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if the canary had seen who put it there. It was too bad he couldn’t tell them what he knew.

  Beatrix wanted to be sure that her letter to Millie went out with the morning post, so instead of going straight up to the Crooks’ house, she made a detour to the post office, in Low Green Gate Cottage, on the eastern side of the village. She had once borrowed the green-painted cottage door with its fanlight for a scene in The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, thrilling Lucy Skead, the village postmistress, who bragged to everyone that Miss Potter had made hers the most famous door in the village.

  The short, plump, round-faced postmistress was standing behind the tall counter on the wooden box that her husband, Joseph, had made for her. It was widely known that Lucy, an incorrigible and unrepentant snoop, could be counted on to read the addresses of all the letters and cards and packages that came and went through the post, and thus to know the names of everyone’s friends and relations and how often they kept in touch—or didn’t, as the case might be. A few of the villagers objected to her surveillance, but it did them no good, for Lucy could no more refrain from noticing and remembering names and relationships than her customers could keep themselves from their breakfast, dinner, and tea tables. They were lucky that she went no further than the outside of the envelope.

  “Good morning, Miss Potter,” Lucy said briskly. “Tha hast two letters.” (Lucy always knew, without looking, exactly how many pieces of post were waiting.) She got down from her box and went to the tier of wooden post boxes built against the wall. She found the one marked HILL TOP and took out two pieces of mail. “One comes from thi publisher, t’ other from thi brother.” She handed them ov
er. “Mr. Bertram Potter’s in London, I see, stayin’ wi’ thi mum and dad. He’ll be goin’ back to Scotland soon, will ’ee?”

  “Thank you.” Beatrix took the letters without answering the question. She was a private person, and was not at all happy with the idea that Lucy Skead (whose tongue wagged at both ends and was loose in the middle) knew so much of her business. She was very glad to see the letter from Warne, which was supposed to contain the cheque for the royalties she had earned in the last half-year—at least, she hoped it did. It seemed that there were perennial accounting problems at the publishing house, and it was not always easy to get the money that was due to her. She was not anxious to read the letter from Bertram, however. She was afraid he might be writing to ask her to return home, for some urgent reason or another—and she had just got here!

  She put the letters into the pocket of her coat, handed over her post, and was turning to go when Lucy spoke, with the air of someone making a very important announcement, “I suppose tha’st already heard about poor Mr. Baum.”

  “Mr. Baum?” Beatrix turned back. “Why, no. That is, I know that he wasn’t at the meeting last night, but—”

  “He wasn’t there b’cuz he was layin’ up on t’ rocks under Oat Cake Crag wi’ a cracked head,” Lucy said, speaking with a regrettable relish. It is often said that nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news, but this was not true of Lucy. The more terrible the tale, the greater her pleasure in telling it. “He’s got a broke leg an’ a broke arm, too. Still hasn’t woke up, neither.” Lucy shook her head mournfully. “Dr. Butters says there’s no tellin’ whether he’ll ever wake up, poor man.”

  “Oh, dear,” Beatrix exclaimed, genuinely distressed. “What happened, do you know?”