The Tale of Briar Bank Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1 - Miss Potter Arrives

  Chapter 2 - A Long Chapter in Which We Meet the Villagers

  Chapter 3 - Miss Potter Entertains at Breakfast

  Chapter 4 - In Which We Look into Sarah Barwick’s Heart

  Chapter 5 - Bosworth Badger Is Surprised

  Chapter 6 - Deirdre Makes a Frightening Discovery

  Chapter 7 - Breakfast at Tower Bank House

  Chapter 8 - Bailey’s Story: Episode One

  Chapter 9 - Miss Potter Does Business

  Chapter 10 - The Inquest: Act One

  Chapter 11 - The Inquest: Act Two

  Chapter 12 - Bailey’s Story: Episode Two

  Chapter 13 - In Which Mr. Heelis and Miss Potter Make a Surprising Discovery

  Chapter 14 - Bailey’s Story: Episode Three

  Chapter 15 - Miss Potter Receives Another Caller and Dimity Kittredge Has a ...

  Chapter 16 - Bailey’s Story: Episode Four

  Chapter 17 - In Which Miss Potter Makes a Deposit, Accepts a Payment, and ...

  Chapter 18 - At the Funeral Luncheon

  Chapter 19 - The Lady Comes Clean

  Chapter 20 - We Catch a Dragon by the Tale

  Chapter 21 - Miss Potter Departs

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Resources

  Recipes from the Land Between the Lakes

  Glossary

  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

  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

  The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter 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

  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

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  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.

  Frederick Warne & Co Ltd is the sole and exclusive owner of the entire rights titles and interest in and to the copyrights and trade marks of the works of Beatrix Potter, including all names and characters featured therein. No reproduction of these copyrights and trade marks may be made without the prior written consent of Frederick Warne & Co Ltd.

  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 reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Copyright © 2008 by Susan Wittig Albert.

  Interior map created by Peggy Turchette.

  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 BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  eISBN: 9781101391983

  1. Potter, Beatrix, 1866-1943—Fiction. 2. Women authors—Fiction. 3. Women artists—Fiction.

  4. Human-animal relationships—Fiction. 5. Country life—Fiction. 6. England—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3551.L2637T345 2008

  813’.54—dc22

  2008023610

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Bill, who knows how to spin a fine story,

  with grateful thanks and much love

  Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

  G. K. Chesterton

  Cast of Characters

  (* indicates an actual historical person or creature)

  People of the Land Between the Lakes

  Beatrix Potter* is best known for the series of children’s books that began with The Tale of Peter Rabbit. She lives with her parents, Helen and Rupert Potter, at Number Two, Bolton Gardens, in London. She owns Hill Top Farm, in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings and their three children live in the Hill Top farmhouse and manage the farm while Miss Potter is in London.

  Will Heelis* is a solicitor who lives in the nearby market town of Hawkshead. He is a frequent visitor to Near Sawrey.

  Sarah Barwick operates the Anvil Cottage Bakery in Near Sawrey.

  Captain Miles Woodcock, Justice of the Peace for Sawrey District, lives in Tower Bank House.

  Dimity Woodcock Kittredge, Captain Woodcock’s sister, recently married Major Christopher Kittredge, the master of Raven Hall. The Kittredges adopted Flora (the foundling child whose story is told in The Tale of Hawthorn House) and are now expecting a baby.

  Mr. and Mrs. Sutton live with their children at Courier Cottage. Desmond Sutton is the local veterinarian. His wife Rose keeps the clinic’s books and looks after her family. Mrs. Pettigrew cooks and keeps house. Deirdre Malone, fi
fteen, takes care of the Sutton children: Libby, twelve; Jamie, eleven; Nan, ten; and five smaller Suttons.

  Mr. Hugh Wickstead (recently deceased) was an eccentric collector of antiquities who lived at Briar Bank Cottage with his sister, Miss Louisa Wickstead. The staff at Briar Bank includes Billie Stoker, the gardener, and Mrs. Stoker, cook-housekeeper.

  Sven Knutson, Nicholas Smythe-Jones, and Joseph Adams are visiting the village. Mr. Knutson and Mr. Smythe-Jones are staying at the Tower Bank Arms, the village inn and pub. Mr. Adams has taken a room with the Crooks at Belle Green.

  Mr. and Mrs. Lester Barrow operate the Tower Bank Arms.

  George and Mathilda Crook frequently take boarders at Belle Green.

  Lydia Dowling runs the village shop in Meadowcroft Cottage—the shop immortalized by Miss Potter in The Tale of Ginger and Pickles.

  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.

  John Braithwaite is the constable for both Near and Far Sawrey; he and his wife Hannah live at Croft End Cottage.

  Caroline Longford, fifteen, lives with her grandmother, Lady Longford, at Tidmarsh Manor. Also at Tidmarsh Manor: Caroline’s governess, Miss Cecily Burns.

  Creatures of the Land Between the Lakes

  Tabitha Twitchet, President of the Village Cat Council, is a calico cat with an orange and white bib. Crumpet is a handsome gray tabby cat and Tabitha’s rival. Felicia Frummety is a ginger cat who lives with the Jennings family at Hill Top Farm. She likes to think that she was the model for Ginger, one of the two unbusinesslike shop-keepers in The Tale of Ginger and Pickles.

  Rascal, a Jack Russell terrier, lives at Belle Green but spends his time making sure that the daily life of the village goes according to plan. Pickles is a fox terrier and Rascal’s friend. He lives at Briar Bank House with Mr. Wickstead. Miss Potter cast him as the second shopkeeper in her The Tale of Ginger and Pickles.

  Thackeray and Nutmeg are two guinea pigs intended by Miss Potter as a gift for Caroline Longford. They are meant to join Tuppenny and Thruppence, Caroline’s other two guinea pigs.

  Bosworth Badger XVII keeps The Brockery, an animal hostelry on Holly How. Thorn, a young badger of much promise, assists Bosworth. Parsley serves up fine meals from The Brockery kitchen, while Primrose manages the housekeeping.

  Bailey Badger lives alone in a largely abandoned badger sett known as Briar Bank. Unknown to him for many years, he has had a tenant: Thorvaald, who is occasionally visited by his supervisor, Yllva.

  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 at the top of Cuckoo Brow Wood.

  Kep* the collie is the Top Dog at Hill Top Farm, assisted by Mustard, an old yellow dog. Other barnyard animals include Winston the pony; Aunt Susan* and Dorcas*, the Berkshire pigs; Kitchen* the Galway cow and Blossom*, her calf. The frequent absences of Jemima Puddle-duck are the subject of continued speculation.

  PROLOGUE

  Number Two, Bolton Gardens South Kensington, London

  1 DECEMBER, 1909

  Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

  William Shakespeare, King Lear

  “I can’t quite see,” Mrs. Potter said in a complaining tone, “why you feel you must go to the Lakes tomorrow—so soon after your last visit there.” It was after nine, but Mrs. Potter was not an early riser. “Surely, there is nothing so urgent at that wretched little farm that it can’t wait until after our dinner party. And then there’s Christmas.”

  “But the dinner party is almost three weeks away,” Beatrix pointed out. “I’ve already taken care of all the details—the guest list, the place cards, the menu, the shopping list. It’s all done.” She paused and added quietly, “And of course we never do anything special for Christmas.”

  Her parents were Unitarians and—to Beatrix’s bitter disappointment—Christmas was always just another day at the Potter household. As a child, she would have loved to have a tree with candles and holly and ivy in the hall and mistletoe over the door. Now, grown up, she still longed, childlike, for the magic of the holiday. While everyone else celebrated, she could only watch. That was one of the reasons she desperately wanted to go to the village: to have a little taste of the holiday that the villagers enjoyed so much. The houses would be decorated with green ivy and hollies laden with red berries. There would be carols in the lane, and hopeful children waiting for Father Christmas, and perhaps even snow. Beautiful snow, white and clean and magical, nothing at all like the dirty brown stuff that occasionally fell on London, clogging the streets and creating a catastrophic mix of motor-lorries, horse-drawn hansoms, delivery carts, and struggling foot-travelers. Snow in London was a disaster. One never wished for it.

  “It doesn’t matter about Christmas,” Mrs. Potter said, straightening the pink coverlet over her knees. “It’s the dinner party I’m worried about.”

  “I’ll only be gone a fortnight,” Beatrix said in a soothing tone. “You will scarcely miss me.”

  “But I need you now,” Mrs. Potter complained, her voice rising petulantly. “And I do worry about you, you know, out there in that old farmhouse in that remote village, miles from civilization. Anything could happen.” She put her hand to her forehead and shuddered. “After that appalling murder at our lovely old home just last month—Oh, it doesn’t bear thinking about!” She closed her eyes.

  For once, Beatrix had to agree. She had always loved visiting Gorse Hall, the lovely old family home at Stalybridge, near Manchester, where her mother had grown up. After Grandmother Leech died, the big old house had sat vacant for a long time. It was finally sold to a local builder and mill owner, who gave it to his son—George Harry Storrs—as a wedding present. Unbelievable as it seemed, Mr. Storrs had been murdered in the house the previous month, stabbed to death by an intruder.

  “I know, Mama,” Beatrix said with a sigh. “But what happened at Gorse Hall is hardly likely to be repeated in my little village. And in any event, terrible things occur right here in South Kensington. Why, just last week, a woman was—”

  “Don’t be disagreeable, Beatrix,” Mrs. Potter snapped. “You are not to go, and that’s my final word. Your father is of the same opinion—he said as much to me last evening.” She sighed heavily. “He is so impatient and ill-tempered these days. I must have you here to keep him amused. Now, be a good girl and tell Lucy to bring up my tea and toast straightaway. This odious business has given me a headache, and you know I’m a martyr to migraines. I shan’t come down to breakfast.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Beatrix said. She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. When her mother got into one of these states, she was a perfect dragon, and there was no point attempting to make her see reason. One simply had to state one’s intention, get on with doing whatever one meant to do, and leave her mother to her wrath.

  “I am sorry for any inconvenience my absence may cause you, but I shan’t be changing my plans. Now I must be on my way, or I shall miss my train.” With an effort, she smiled. “Goodbye, Mama. I’ll write as soon as I arrive at Hill Top.”

  “You are the most obstinate girl I have ever known!” Mrs. Potter cried, her voice rising on each word. “Why must you always put yourself before others? If you are murdered in your bed, don’t blame me, Beatrix! I told you so!”

  But she was shouting at the door, for Beatrix had already closed it, quietly, with scrupulous politeness, behind her.

  Now, if you are thinking that mothers should not talk to their children (whether little children or grownups) in this disagreeable way, I will tell you that I heartily agree. It is true that many Victorian mamas of Mrs. Potter’s social class were in the unfortunate habit of treating their spinster daughters as if they were servants. Beatrix’s mother, however, carried the habit to an extreme, expecting her daughter to tend to all the tedious household details as well as make herself availabl
e whenever she was wanted.

  But no matter how hard Beatrix tried, she could not satisfy her mother, who seems to have been by nature an unhappy woman. In the numerous family photographs taken by Mr. Potter, Mrs. Potter’s dark hair is always pulled back into a severe bun and the corners of her mouth are drawn down in an unfailingly disagreeable expression. Perhaps you have known people like this, who are out of sorts even when things are going well, and when things go badly, have a special knack for making everyone around them feel exactly as miserable as they do. I think we may forgive Beatrix—who had the gift (or perhaps it was a curse) of seeing people as they were and not as they tried to seem—for picturing her mother as a perfect dragon.

  But that is not how Mrs. Potter saw herself. Not at all! In fact, she quite confidently understood herself to be perfectly superior to everyone else in the world, with the possible exception of Queen Alexandra and the Royal Princesses (and on some days she felt herself superior even to them). That was why she had been so utterly, appallingly mortified when her daughter (her only daughter!) received a marriage proposal from Norman Warne, a young man of no special consequence, connections, or fortune. A man employed in the printing trade, who earned his living by making and selling Beatrix’s storybooks. Indeed, had not Mrs. Potter warned Mr. Potter from the beginning—the very beginning, when Beatrix began to think of commercializing her hobby—that those foolish little books were bound to cause trouble? Drawing pictures was one thing, and certainly respectable enough, even admirable, as a hobby. Selling them was quite another. Selling was so indisputably vulgar.

  So the marriage proposal was patently absurd, quite out of the question, and Mrs. Potter (and Mr. Potter, too, of course, for he always agreed with Mrs. Potter) had quite rightly insisted that it be rejected, immediately, firmly, and finally. But Beatrix had an unfortunate obstinate streak (in this, she took after her Potter grandmother) and proved even more perverse than usual. The foolish girl not only refused to reject the proposal, but insisted—insisted, mind you!—on accepting it, along with a mean little ring. She could not be persuaded to yield on the matter, only to agree that there would be no immediate public announcement of the engagement.