Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  As the two walked boundaries and tramped the fields of Near Sawrey in all sorts of weather, studied deeds, determined rights of way, laid on water to fields, expanded farmhouses and outbuildings, discussed tax rates and land values, and corresponded over such issues year after year, they had time to share their stories, to become comfortable with each other and to fall in love. There were no doll’s houses or mice to act as intermediaries, but there were farms, fields and fell sides.

  And so it was that Beatrix was confronted with an important decision in the autumn of 1912. Should she strike out for her own happiness, for she clearly loved William and wanted to marry him? Or should she bow to expectation and duty — to be sure an old-fashioned notion of filial piety, but nonetheless one she deeply embraced? Shrewdly, but also characteristically, William did not push, respecting her devotion to her elderly and increasingly frail parents, while quietly supporting the idea that she could marry and still remain a dutiful daughter. When Mrs Warne died in 1908, Beatrix’s letter to Millie had revealed one of her own deepest longings: ‘You will all your life have the comfort of remembering you have been the most devoted daughter…’ Beatrix wanted that assurance too, and now she worried that she would feel guilty and selfish leaving her parents in their old age to embrace her own happiness.1

  There were other, albeit minor, impediments to their marriage beside guilt and parental disapproval. William came from a long line of Anglican clergymen, doctors, land agents and solicitors — all respectable professionals. His father, the Revd John Heelis, had been the Rector of Kirkby Thore on the main road from Appleby to Penrith. His grandfather Edward had been the Rector of Long Marton, an unusually well-endowed parish. Two of his brothers were country parsons; two others were also solicitors. His law partner and cousin in Hawkshead was a leader in the Anglican community and an active member of St Michael and All Angels church there. Beatrix was a Unitarian, from a family of outstanding Dissenters. She had grown uncomfortable with any sort of organized religion, preferring a simple Quaker meeting above any. Her family on both sides had been in trade, and while her father had been a barrister, he had longer acted the gentleman of leisure. Ironically, some members of the Heelis family found her family’s connections to commerce and their Nonconformist background difficult to accept. They were not initially delighted with William’s choice.

  Beatrix was a difficult woman for some traditionally raised women to relate to. She was socially indifferent, even eccentric. She cared little for fashion or society. She was also very wealthy, a woman of substantial property, already enhanced by William’s knowledge and skills, and a writer and artist who was earnestly making herself into a countrywoman. She dressed as a farmer and could be found walking to and from the ferry, dressed in a practical, workmanlike way, happier caring for her farm animals, working in the garden, reviewing livestock at the local agricultural shows, than offering tea. As village gossip had it, sometime before their engagement, Mrs William Dickenson Heelis, William’s Hawkshead partner’s wife, once met Beatrix on the Kendal road, ‘with pattens on her feet and a shawl over her head carrying a butter basket with flowers in it’, looking just like a simple woman from the village. She was astonished to learn later that she had just met ‘Miss Potter’.2

  At some point during the summer, Beatrix and William decided that she must tell her parents she wished to marry. Their reaction to this news was precisely what Beatrix had feared it would be. Their objections were the same as they had been to Norman: a country solicitor was beneath their daughter’s merit — she came, as her parents reminded her archly, from a family ‘of the Bar and Bench’. Their other objection was harder for Beatrix to deal with: if she married, who would look after them?

  Beatrix repeated her strategy of seven years earlier, quietly persevering, doggedly patient with their objections, offering ways to appease while still insisting on eventually marrying William. And as before, their struggle of wills was carried on in secret — more like subversive warfare and just as debilitating. Beatrix returned to London in late September, bringing along her little dairymaid who wanted to see the big agricultural show at Islington. It provided a brief respite from the stifling atmosphere at Bolton Gardens.3

  She got away to Sawrey in October and once again in November. She was a judge at the trussed poultry contest at the local agricultural show in November, and she stayed on at the farm for a week of very cold weather. Once back in London, she came down with an influenza that turned into bronchial pneumonia. Her heart, never particularly strong after her bout of rheumatic fever, was affected, and she was ordered to bed.4

  She was very ill. In early March, still too weak to write letters herself, she dictated a letter to Harold Warne explaining, ‘I have been resting on my back for a week as my heart has been rather disturbed by the Influenza. I am assured it will recover with quiet.’ A week later, still unable to sit up, she seemed more optimistic. ‘The doctor has been & he is so much pleased with my progress that I am going to keep flat a few days longer. My heart now feels quite comfortable.’5

  Superficially, life went on at 2 Bolton Gardens as though nothing had happened. As spring approached, the Potters made plans to go to Windermere for Easter. Beatrix had improved enough to do some work on the ‘pig story’. She sent Harold the text of Pigling Bland from Hill Top in early April, thinking it a ‘rather pretty’ book, and requested galleys so she could plan out the drawings. ‘I am very glad to have got here,’ she told him, ‘it is cold but bright; I am well but not able to walk up hill yet.’ But two weeks later she was laid low again by emotional stress, as well as the physical energy needed to carry on farm work and travel back and forth to Windermere every few days. ‘The weather has been extremely bad, & I have had a bilious turn,’ she explained to Harold. ‘I seem to take a long time to get strong again. I have been drawing pigs, but cannot do much till I see where the plates fall.’ Her sense of humour was still evident, however, when recounting her failure at turkey raising. ‘The last ill-luck is that a rat has taken 10 fine turkey eggs last night. The silly hen was sitting calmly on nothing, Mr S. Whiskers having tunnelled underneath the coop, & removed the eggs down the hole!’ By the end of the month she had yet to receive the galleys from Harold.6

  Beatrix was still at Hill Top at the end of April, anxious to stay there as long as she could, telling Harold that she was recovering more slowly than she had hoped. ‘I am decidedly stronger & look perfectly well, but I was completely stopped by a short hill on trying to walk to the next village this afternoon. I believe perserving slow exercise is the best cure, I do not think there is anything wrong with my heart now. I am always better on fine days when I can work in the garden.’ She thought she could get the plates for the pig book done if she could stay and work at the farm. ‘I am quite sure I am best out of London, & as my parents have come to an hotel for a holiday (& spring cleaning) I hope they will be satisfied for me to stay here a little longer.’ She acknowledged, however, that ‘one of my front teeth is coming out’ and that she would have to come back to London, both for the dentist and to get some books.7

  So long as Beatrix was at Hill Top, she was healthier and happier, and drew reassurance from William. William would ride his motorbike over to Hill Top on Sunday afternoons and, if the weather was pleasant, they would take long walks together. Although Beatrix had accepted his proposal, she could not decide when they could reasonably marry, and was nearly reconciled to the idea of postponing it indefinitely. They had, however, agreed to remodel the farmhouse, Castle Cottage, on Castle Farm, and even to install plumbing there. When they married they would make that their primary residence in Sawrey. The old farmhouse at Hill Top would continue as Beatrix’s private quarters for her writing and painting. She was loath to alter it further, and she knew from experience that its walls and small rooms offered little privacy from the tenant’s family.

  William had learned that some of the fields belonging to the Sawrey House Estate, the property bordering Hill Top Farm on the wes
t, stretching some distance beyond the near shore of Esthwaite Water, would soon come up for sale. The poor management, unrepaired fences and indifferent maintenance had troubled Beatrix, so that if the opportunity came to buy these fields, including the deep well on the property, she would not hesitate. The possibility of such an advantageous purchase kept the two happily working together while they waited out the storm of opposition at home, and Beatrix dealt with her guilt.8

  Once again Beatrix sought advice from her independent-minded cousin Caroline Hutton Clark, now happily married and herself a young mother. She repeated her parents’ objections that a country solicitor was beneath her family’s status, and shared her conviction that she could not leave her parents old and alone. Caroline’s reply must have been profoundly encouraging. Clark recalled in an interview years later, ‘I advised her to marry him quietly, in spite of them,’ and to give up her old-fashioned ideas of filial duty. While Beatrix could never have eloped, Caroline’s support stiffened her spine. But in the end, it was Bertram’s unexpected advocacy which broke down much of the Potters’ opposition to William Heelis.9

  Bertram arrived at Bolton Gardens for one of his infrequent visits sometime in May, while Beatrix was still recuperating at Hill Top. He was immediately drawn into the contest and his opinion solicited. Perhaps as much to unburden himself of years of secrecy as to assuage his own guilt at not speaking up to support his sister in 1905 when she had wanted to marry Norman Warne, Bertram told his flabbergasted parents that he had married Mary Scott, a ‘farmer’s daughter’ from Scotland, more than eleven years earlier, and that they had been perfectly happy all these years without their blessing. Beatrix, he told them, should be allowed to marry whom she wanted and to have an independent life.10

  However brave Bertram’s confession was, he was still not able to be completely candid about his wife’s background, undoubtedly thinking that the shock of his secret marriage was quite enough for his parents. But the depth and passion of the Potters’ prejudices must have persuaded him not to reveal that Mary was the daughter of a wine merchant in Hawick. Had he elaborated, he would have made his sister’s selection of a country solicitor look favourable by comparison. Happy as Beatrix must have been to have her brother’s support, once Bertram returned to Ancrum she would still be left with the guilt of abandoning her parents in their final years. But Bertram’s belated confession and advocacy had broken down the united family front that the senior Potters had been confident of mounting.11

  By July 1913 Beatrix could write from her farm, ‘I am feeling much stronger now, & very much interested in farming matters; today there is a promising hatch of turkeys — and John [Cannon] & I are seriously discussing the question of buying a pedigree bull calf!’ She had received a cheque from Warne’s that had significantly lifted her mood, and she was making some progress on the story of Pigling Bland. ‘I took so very long to get over my illness,’ she explained to Evans, her printer. ‘I had my heart bad for weeks & could do nothing. I am alright now; but it might have been wiser to give up the book, before they took orders for it.’ Evans had asked if Beatrix was interested in buying a small interest in his printing company, and she had confided that she was saving her money to build ‘another room or two onto my house’. She neglected to tell him just which house she had in mind.12

  By the time the Potters returned to Lindeth Howe at Windermere for the summer they had given their reluctant consent to her inevitable marriage to Heelis, but urged her to postpone it — indefinitely. However, Beatrix was now free to make her engagement public. One of her first letters was to Millie Warne. Beatrix received immediate congratulations and good wishes from her dear friend, who assured her that Norman would have wanted her happiness, as did she and her family. Beatrix responded, confessing, ‘I have felt very uncomfortable and guilty when with you for some time — especially when you asked about Sawrey. You would be only human if you felt a little hurt! Norman was a saint, if ever man was good, I do not believe he would object, especially as it was my illness and the miserable feeling of loneliness that decided me at last.’ Beatrix shared her misgivings. ‘I certainly am not doing it from thoughtless light-heartedness as I am in very poor spirits about the future. We are very much attached and I have every confidence in W. H. but I think it can only mean waiting, and should never be surprised if it were for the time broken off.’ Beatrix had been in London for ten days at the end of June and she had gone up to Norman’s grave at Highgate. ‘The grass is neatly cut & the little veronica plants are growing; it looked as if it wanted some very small-growing flower between them.’ She had tea with Harold’s wife Alice and the children, reporting: ‘Louie played a piece remarkably well, good style and expression. Now I cannot thank you enough for all your kindness and your mother’s.’13

  Although Beatrix was stoically prepared for more battles, the Potters made no further overt efforts to obstruct. But Rupert’s health continued to deteriorate at Windermere. As she later told Fanny Cooper, ‘He was very poorly — but really it was his own doing, he nearly turned himself inside out with strong medicines… The doctor could do nothing with him. At last he got so weak we got a nurse.’ Nurse Bryant was something of a tyrant but, with careful diet and no further narcotic purges, Rupert improved. The summer moved on, with Beatrix still spending a great deal of her time and energy travelling the half-mile from Lindeth Howe to the ferry, then walking two and a half miles more from the ferry to Hill Top (and most of that was uphill).14

  She sent off eight watercolour illustrations for Pigling Bland at the end of the month, including one of the grocer and horse which she copied from a photograph. In late September she returned to London to see about printing. ‘I was very ill last spring,’ she wrote to a young friend. ‘I thought it was the last of “Peter Rabbit”, and since then I have been drawing dozens of pigs!’ The Tale of Pigling Bland had fewer watercolours and more black-and-white illustrations, and a good many last-minute additions. It came directly out of Potter’s farming experience and was set at Hill Top with views of the interior of the farmhouse as well as the farmyard. It recalled the little black pig that Beatrix had insisted upon buying, despite Cannon’s objections, in her early days at the farm. She had kept it in a basket by her bed and bottle-fed it until it was able to live on its own. The little black pig became her pet and followed Beatrix around the farm, inside the house and out. The story also evolved from the sale of two very fat and very hungry pigs Beatrix had let go with some trepidation in 1909, and from her extraneous sketching during various visits to her pigs in the sty. She had mentioned a ‘pig book’ in a miniature letter to Andrew Fayle as early as 1910, telling him that Peter Rabbit would appear in it as well, as he does on the last page, when the rabbits watch the two pigs joyously escaping.15

  In her 1913 story, the little black Berkshire pig becomes the ‘perfectly lovely’ Pig-wig who is rescued by Pigling Bland, one of the two pigs sold to market. Beatrix herself appears in the story, handing the necessary travelling papers to Alexander, the other pig going off to market. It is in many ways a love story, although Beatrix denied this, but it is also a captivating tale filled with rhyme and ironic humour. There are clear biographical touches, some humorous, as in the toothache that plagues Pigling Bland, so that he could eat no peppermints, and some more serious, such as the admonition that ‘if you once cross the county boundary you cannot come back’, certainly an acknowledgement that marriage would dramatically change her life. Like Pig-wig, Beatrix was about to be rescued from her confining existence, daring only occasionally to hope that she would escape any last-minute threats to freedom.

  Pigling Bland is a tale with an ominous beginning, a happy ending and a middle full of danger and dalliance. But in the end, Pig-wig and Pigling Bland are seen escaping to live ‘over the hills and far away’. Their route takes them over a quite recognizable Colwith Bridge and beyond the distinctive signpost that stands at the fork in the road just behind Hill Top — a landmark she and William passed on their Sunday
walks. Their destination was near Little Langdale, a tiny village in the foothills of the majestic Langdale Fells. ‘ “That’s Westmorland,” said Pig-wig. She dropped Pigling’s hand and commenced to dance.’ It was an expansive landscape, full of possibilities for a new life. It echoed Potter’s own love of the vast open spaces of the fell country, and her desire to make a place for herself in it.16

  She had written the story out as she typically did, in a paper-covered exercise book, and dedicated it to Farmer Townley’s two little children, Cecily and Charlie, as ‘A Tale of the Christmas Pig’. While she was recuperating, and once she had the dummy book to paste her drawings into, she began to shorten the text, feeling that it should be a story for smaller children than the readers of Mr. Tod. She scrambled all summer to finish it, her mind clearly elsewhere, finally sending most of the drawings to Warne’s in late July. Even then there were last-minute additions to the galley proofs. She had forgotten to draw in Pig-wig’s peppermint in one picture. ‘I only got rid of the revised proofs last week,’ Beatrix wrote to her friend Gertrude Woodward in late September, ‘it is disgracefully late. It has been such a nuisance all summer.’ The Tale of Pigling Bland was published in October, only days before her wedding. Beatrix later denied that the picture of the two pigs arm in arm looking at the sunrise was a portrait of herself and her betrothed. ‘When I want to put William in a book,’ she wrote to a young friend, ‘it will have to be as some very tall thin animal.’17