The Tale of Castle Cottage Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1 -­ Miss Potter Works Under Difficulties

  Chapter 2 -­ Sarah Barwick Asks a Serious Question

  Chapter 3 -­ Three Spoons, a Broken Engagement, and a New Baby

  Chapter 4 -­ Miss Potter Surveys a Mess

  Chapter 5 -­ In the Castle Farm Barn

  Chapter 6 -­ Lady Longford Is at a Loss

  Chapter 7 -­ The Constable Brings Bad News

  Chapter 8 -­ The Villagers Understand

  Chapter 9 -­ Miss Potter Learns the News

  Chapter 10 -­ At the Adcocks’ Cottage:­ The Investigation Begins

  Chapter 11 -­ At Slatestone Cottage:­ Mr.­ Heelis Has a Few Questions

  Chapter 12 -­ The Secret Life of Bertram Potter

  Chapter 13 -­ Captain Woodcock Goes Fishing

  Chapter 14 -­ Crumpet Takes Command

  Chapter 15 -­ Rats!

  Chapter 16 -­ Speaking of Books .­ .­ .­

  Chapter 17 -­ Miss Potter and Mr.­ Heelis Speak from the Heart

  Chapter 18 -­ Mrs.­ Woodcock Goes Mushroom Hunting

  Chapter 19 -­ “We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers”

  Chapter 20 -­ A Dinner Party at Tower Bank House

  Chapter 21 -­ The Lost Is Found, or Revelation Revealed

  Chapter 22 -­ An Astonishing Turn of Events

  Chapter 23 -­ Wedding Bells

  Historical Note

  Resources

  Glossary

  Recipes

  China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THYME OF DEATH

  WITCHES’ BANE

  HANGMAN’S ROOT

  ROSEMARY REMEMBERED

  RUEFUL DEATH

  LOVE LIES BLEEDING

  CHILE DEATH

  LAVENDER LIES

  MISTLETOE MAN

  BLOODROOT

  INDIGO DYING

  A DILLY OF A DEATH

  DEAD MAN’S BONES

  BLEEDING HEARTS

  SPANISH DAGGER

  NIGHTSHADE

  WORMWOOD

  HOLLY BLUES

  MOURNING GLORIA

  AN UNTHYMELY DEATH

  CHINA BAYLES’ BOOK OF DAYS

  With her husband, Bill Albert, writing as Robin Paige

  DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP

  DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN

  DEATH AT DAISY’S FOLLY

  DEATH AT DEVIL’S BRIDGE

  DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN

  DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL

  DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS

  DEATH AT DARTMOOR

  DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE

  DEATH IN HYDE PARK

  DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE

  DEATH ON THE LIZARD

  Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM

  THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW

  THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

  THE TALE OF HAWTHORN HOUSE

  THE TALE OF BRIAR BANK

  THE TALE OF APPLEBECK ORCHARD

  THE TALE OF OAT CAKE CRAG

  THE TALE OF CASTLE COTTAGE

  Darling Dahlias Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CUCUMBER TREE

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE NAKED LADIES

  Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert

  WRITING FROM LIFE

  WORK OF HER OWN

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reaction to the recipes contained in this book.

  Copyright © 2011 by Susan Wittig Albert.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Albert, Susan Wittig.

  The tale of Castle Cottage : the cottage tales of Beatrix Potter / Susan Wittig Albert.

  p. cm.—(The cottage tales of Beatrix Potter)

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54384-9

  1. Potter, Beatrix, 1866–1943—Fiction. 2. Women authors—Fiction. 3. Women artists—Fiction. 4. England—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3551.L2637T346 2011

  813’.54—de22

  http:­/­/­us.­penguingroup.­com

  For every reader who has ever loved

  Miss Potter’s Little Books

  My gentle Reader. I perceive

  How patiently you’ve waited.

  And now I fear that you expect

  Some tale will be related.

  O Reader! had you in your mind

  Such stores as silent thought can bring,

  O gentle Reader! you would find

  A tale in everything.

  —WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

  Cast of Characters

  (* indicates an actual historical person or creature)

  People of the Land Between the Lakes

  Beatrix Potter* is best known for her children’s books, beginning with The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901). Miss Potter lives with her parents, Helen and Rupert Potter, at Number Two Bolton Gardens, in South Kensington, London. She spends as much time as possible at Hill Top Farm, in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings and their children live in the Hill Top farmhouse and manage the farm while Miss Potter is in London. Her brother, Bertram Potter, occasionally visits Hill Top.

  Will Heelis,* a solicitor, lives in the nearby market town of Hawkshead and is a frequent visitor to Near Sawrey. He and Miss Potter became secretly engaged in The Tale of Applebeck Orchard.

  Captain Miles Woodcock and his wife, Margaret Nash Woodcock, live in Tower Bank House. Mrs. Woodcock is the former headmistress of Saw
rey School. Captain Woodcock is the justice of the peace for Sawrey District. Elsa Grape keeps house for them.

  Sarah Barwick operates the Anvil Cottage Bakery in Near Sawrey. She is a modern woman who wears trousers and rides a bicycle to deliver her baked goods.

  Jeremy Crosfield, a young artist and amateur botanist, is a teacher at Sawrey School. He and Deirdre Malone were married recently and are expecting their first child. They live in Far Sawrey, at Slatestone Cottage. A young woman named Gilly Harmsworth is Deirdre’s friend.

  Reverend Samuel Sackett is the vicar of St. Peter’s Church in Far Sawrey. A few months ago, he and Grace Lythecoe were married. Mrs. Hazel Thompson (a cousin of Agnes Llewellyn) keeps house for him.

  John Braithwaite is the constable for both Near and Far Sawrey. He and his wife, Hannah, live at Croft End Cottage with their children.

  Lester Barrow and his wife, Frances, operate the village pub, the Tower Bank Arms, which is located at the bottom of the hill, below Hill Top Farm. Ruth Safford helps Mrs. Barrow with housekeeping and waits tables in the pub.

  Lydia Dowling runs the village shop at the corner of Kendal Road and Stony Lane. Her niece, Gladys, helps out several times a week.

  Mrs. Pemberton and her family have moved into Rose Cottage.

  Regina Rosier* is an outstanding amateur photographer. (Thanks to the real Regina Rosier for her featured cameo appearance in this book.)

  George and Mathilda Crook live at Belle Green, where Mrs. Crook takes in boarders. Mr. Crook is the village blacksmith.

  Lady Longford lives at Tidmarsh Manor. Mr. Beever manages the grounds and her ladyship’s horses; Mrs. Beever cooks and manages the household staff. Mr. Depford Darnwell is an antiquarian whom Lady Longford has invited to appraise her deceased husband’s book collection.

  Lucy Skead is the village postmistress. She lives with her husband, Joseph (the sexton at St. Peter’s, in Far Sawrey), at Low Green Gate Cottage.

  Mr. Bernard Biddle is a local contractor who manages construction projects for people. Among other workers, he employs Mr. Lewis Adcock, a carpenter who lives in Far Sawrey, and Mr. Maguire, who lives near Hawkshead. Mr. Biddle lives at Hazel Crag Farm, where Mrs. Framley keeps house for him.

  Other Creatures of the Land Between the Lakes

  Crumpet, a handsome gray tabby, is the new president of the Village Cat Council; she makes her home with Bertha Stubbs. Tabitha Twitchit (an elderly calico with an orange and white bib), has recently retired from the position in order to move to the Vicarage with the new Mrs. Sackett. Felicia Frummety lives at Hill Top Farm. Treacle and her kittens live at High Green Gate. Max the Manx lives with Major Ragsdale in Far Sawrey.

  Rascal, a Jack Russell terrier, lives with the Crooks at Belle Green but spends his time managing the daily life of the village.

  Hyacinth Badger is in charge of The Brockery, a famous animal hostelry on Holly How, and holds the Badger Badge of Authority. Also in residence: Bosworth Badger XVII, former holder of the Badge of Authority (now retired); Hyacinth’s mother, Primrose, chief housekeeper; and Parsley, The Brockery’s chef.

  Bailey Badger lives at Briar Bank, where he maintains an astonishing library. Thackeray, a well-read guinea pig, lives there, too. Thorvaald, a teenaged dragon, frequently visits his bookish friends but spends much of his time on assignment for the Grand Assembly of Dragons.

  Professor Galileo Newton Owl, D.Phil., is a tawny owl who conducts advanced studies in astronomy and applied natural history from his home in a hollow beech in Cuckoo Brow Wood.

  Rooker Rat and his evil gang of ratty friends (Jumpin’ Jemmy, Firehouse Frank, et al.) have invaded Near Sawrey.

  PROLOGUE

  The Remarkable History of a Book

  In this year, fierce and foreboding omens arose over the land of Northumbria. There were excessive whirlwinds and lightning storms, and fiery dragons were seen flying through the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and on January 8th the ravaging of heathen men destroyed God’s church at Lindisfarne.

  —The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  Our story begins (as do many very good stories) once upon a time and far, far away, in the year of the Lord 793, in a monastery on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, at the eastern rim of the green and beautiful Britannia. The winter had been stormy and many ominous omens had led the monks to whisper that the hand of God was turned against the world, or their part of it, because they had been misbehaving. They had eaten too well and lain idle too long and enjoyed too much of the fruit of the vine.

  The bishop of Lindisfarne, however, was not thinking about the hand of God at this moment. He was crouched behind a stone parapet, clutching his brown woolen cloak with one hand and shielding his eyes with the other.

  “Where?” he muttered, peering out across the gray expanse of the North Sea, its waves whipped by an angry wind. “I don’t see them. Where are they?”

  “There!” the sentry cried, and pointed.

  The bishop followed the pointing finger and saw what he had dreaded to see: far away against the horizon, three great Viking longboats riding the wintry tide inward to the island’s shores, their square sails colored blood-red. He could not make out the fearful dragon-headed prows, but he knew what they looked like and knew also that when the ships had sailed as close as they could, the commanders would drop the sails and all hands would lay on the oars. The light, lean, shallow boats, manned by expert Viking seamen, could maneuver through shallow surf and river estuaries along the coast with ease. They would be upon the undefended monastery in a matter of hours.

  A great fear rose up in the bishop’s heart, and he turned to his secretary. “Brother Aelred, sound the alarm and begin the evacuation. The tide will be out soon, which will give our brothers just enough time to cross to the mainland and begin our trek to Norham. Then meet me in the chapel. We must see to the safety of the books.”

  Three hours brought the invaders’ ships very near the shore. But by that time the little procession of refugee monks had safely crossed to the mainland and begun moving swiftly up the narrow lane that led north to Norham, near the Scottish border. They bore on their stooped shoulders their most precious possessions: two carved wooden coffins containing the sacred remains of Cuthbert and Eadfrith, beloved bishops of Lindisfarne, and two smaller and even more beautifully carved boxes enclosing the sacred books that Eadfrith—an artist of unparalleled skill—had made.

  The books were a marvel, unlike anything that the monks of Lindisfarne (or anywhere else, for that matter) had ever seen. The first—the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—was composed of 258 vellum leaves carefully prepared from calfskins, exquisitely lettered and gloriously illuminated and sumptuously bound in leather and decorated with silver and hammered gold and precious gems. Eadfrith had used the same plan for his Book of the Revelation of John, except that he had died in the middle of the eighth page, so that was the end of that.

  But even though the work was incomplete, all who saw the Lindisfarne Gospels and Revelation were breathless with admiration—as were the monks, who treasured this precious legacy and vowed to keep it out of the hands of infidels. They would take it with them wherever they went, even to the ends of the earth.

  They didn’t have to go quite that far, but almost. The abbot at Norham discovered that it wasn’t easy to feed a multitude of monks without a miracle of loaves and fishes, which he couldn’t quite manage. So the Lindisfarne crew packed up the bones of Cuthbert and Eadfrith and their beloved books and set off again, wandering through the north of England and having a great many adventures until, as the story goes, they came at last to the shore of the River Wear. They stopped to have a bite of lunch, but when they got up to leave, Cuthbert’s coffin had become so heavy that no amount of huffing and puffing would move it. The monks quite rightfully took this as a sign (wouldn’t you?) that they were supposed to stay where they were. They cut down a few trees and built a wooden shelter to keep the rain off and prepared to live a lonely life in the wood
s.

  But people will talk, and the tale of that miraculously immobile coffin naturally got around. Soon, pilgrims were arriving from all over northern England, eager to see Cuthbert’s coffin and the splendid books created by Eadfrith. It wasn’t long before a grand stone church, Durham Cathedral, was erected nearby and the bishops’ coffins placed in ornate tombs, where people brought offerings of gold and jewels in hopes that Cuthbert (who by this time was considered a saint) would cure them or save them or give them sons or another piece of property. Eadfrith’s books were settled, too, in the cathedral library (where you could see them if you had a library pass), and all was peace and quiet.

  It didn’t last. Several hundred years later, Henry VIII looked around his kingdom and noticed that the monasteries had accumulated a great deal of gold and property. He was in the mood to go to war with France and needed quite a lot more money than he had, so he ordered the abbots and bishops to hand it over. The vast properties were sold or given to the king’s best friends and supporters, and the gold and jewels went straight into the king’s capacious pockets.