The Tale of Hawthorn House Read online

  To Christopher’s joy, the captain was indeed out. (As you know, he was at this very moment in Hawkshead, eating a seed wig and hinting unsuccessfully to Will Heelis that Will ought to marry Dimity.)

  The lady in question, on the other hand, was very much in at the present moment, for she was tending happily to the needs of the newest lady of the house, Baby Flora. As a matter of fact, Dimity was engaged in pinning on the baby’s fresh nappy. Her face was flushed and smiling with this necessary effort, her sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and her light brown hair was in a charming disarray, kissed by the sun that shone through the window for just this purpose. She was, in short, as delightfully and desirously lovely as a dairymaid in one of Thomas Hardy’s novels.

  Once Christopher got over his surprise at seeing Dimity Woodcock with a baby in her arms, he was struck by how entirely natural and altogether fetching she looked. The sweet sight so warmed his heart (which as you have probably guessed was already pretty warm) that he forgot every word of his carefully planned out speech and blurted his feelings right then and there, with no preamble or preface or other sort of silly introduction. He did just manage to avoid falling down on his knees, but otherwise, he said most of the words that men have been saying to women ever since the whole foolish business of formal marriage proposals began.

  “Dimity, what a fool I have been, what an utter, total, complete, unredeemable fool! I know how presumptuous this must sound, after all that has happened. But I love you, dear. I love you with all my heart and soul. I love you to the very breadth and height my soul can reach.” (Christopher had been reading the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and could have spilled out the entire business, all the way down to “I shall but love thee better after death” if it had been necessary.) “I know you need time to consider, and I daren’t press you for a decision now. But I beg and implore you to tell me that you return my feelings, if only just a little bit.”

  Dimity’s face was pink, her eyes cast down. In a very low voice, she said just one word: “Yes.”

  Christopher blinked. Of all the things Dimity might have said to him, this single word was the last thing he expected. He was so taken aback that he was nearly speechless.

  “Y-y-yes?” he stammered.

  She raised her eyes, searching his. “Yes,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I feel as you do, Christopher.”

  And then our brave major proved his mettle. He stopped saying anything at all and got busy with doing something, which in this case involved taking Baby Flora away from the lady and placing her back in her basket, and then putting his own arms (or rather, his arm, since he had only one) around Dimity and kissing her soundly and at length. Not just once, either, but several times, with passion, until both of them had to break away to catch their breaths.

  And then he spoilt it all by dropping his arm, hanging his head, and saying, in a muffled voice, “I’m so sorry, Dimity. Really, I am. I don’t know what came over me. I—”

  Dimity put her finger to his lips. “Don’t apologize, Christopher. I’m glad you kissed me. I’ve been wanting you to.”

  The major blinked, astonished. But of course. He should have known that Dimity would speak her heart. That was the sort of woman she was, honest and true and spunky— yes, above all, spunky. That was why he loved her.

  “And that business about forgiving you,” she went on, now very pink indeed. “It’s really not necessary. Not a bit of it. There is nothing at all to forgive.”

  The major set his mouth. He had come to say something, and even though the lady already seemed on the verge of agreeing to his proposal, he was going to confess to the whole bloody business and get it off his chest, once and for all.

  “Yes,” he said urgently, “there is something to forgive, Dimity, and I’ve got to get it out. I’ve been a beast. I should have come straight back here to you after the war, never mind how I looked. I should have thrown myself at your feet and told you straight off that I loved you and needed you, instead of going off to London and losing my head and marrying that woman.” His voice broke. He had got to the hard part, the risky part. “I’ve been all kinds of a fool, Dim. But all I want now is for us to spend the rest of our lives together. I want to make you happy. I want to take care of you. I want us to be married. Please say yes.”

  “No,” Dimity said sadly.

  “No?” Christopher stepped back in some confusion. “But if you love me—”

  “Loving you is one thing, Christopher,” Dimity said, in a voice clearly meant to be sensible but marred by a sad quaver. “Marrying you is another. My brother does not—”

  “I know,” the major said. “He’s made it quite clear that he doesn’t approve of me. He thinks I’m quite unsuitable.” He leaned forward and seized her hands eagerly. “But you—you aren’t bound by his wishes, are you? Can’t you—can’t you be guided by your own desires?”

  “I’ve made my home with Miles for over ten years,” Dimity said. “I owe him a certain respect, a certain—”She broke off, turning her head away. “I must take his feelings into account, Christopher. I cannot go against him.”

  “But you must speak to him,” he urged. “You’ll tell him how we . . . how you feel.”

  She repossessed her hands. “I don’t know, Christopher. I need to think.”

  “I don’t want you to think,” Christopher said. “Thinking muddles everything. I only want you to feel.” He put his hand on her shoulder, bent forward, and kissed her, gently. “May I call again? Tomorrow?” And then he remembered. “Oh, blast. I need to go up to London. I won’t be back until late on Thursday.”

  “That’s just as well.” Dimity managed a smile. “You’ve given me a great deal to think about while you’re gone.”

  He nodded distractedly. Looking at her made him positively woolly-minded. He was about to kiss her again when Elsa Grape appeared in the doorway, a note in her hand.

  “From Miss Potter, mum,” she said, with an inquiring glance at Christopher. “Brought from Hill Top by the Jennings boy. He’s waitin’ fer an answer.”

  Dimity read the note, then went to the desk, took out a piece of stationery, and wrote a reply. “Send that to Miss Potter with the boy, Elsa.” The baby began to fuss, and she added, “Oh, and heat a bottle for Flora, will you, please?”

  “Yes, mum,” Elsa said, and with another, even more curious glance at Christopher, left the room.

  Christopher looked at the baby in the basket. “Whose baby?” he asked.

  “Well, that’s the thing of it, you see,” Dimity said, picking the baby up and holding her against her shoulder. “She was abandoned on Miss Potter’s doorstep on Saturday afternoon, while we were all at the fête. Miles has been looking for her mother, but he’s had no success yet.”

  “Abandoned!” Christopher exclaimed. “That’s appalling!”

  Dimity nodded. “She doesn’t belong to any of the families in the village—we know that much, at least. And not in the district, as near as we’ve been able to discover.”

  Christopher took in the baby’s dark hair and eyes. “A gypsy baby?” he hazarded. “They’re camped on Broomstick Lane.”

  “Perhaps, although Miles asked yesterday, and they said they’re not missing a baby. Wouldn’t you think they’d claim her, if she were theirs? I know I would.”

  Dimity rested her cheek against the baby’s hair, and Christopher thought how beautiful she looked, how sweet and motherly. He touched Dimity’s cheek with his finger.

  “Marry me, Dimity,” he said urgently, “and if the baby’s parents aren’t found, we’ll keep her. We’ll give her a good home—her, and our own children. You’ll be a wonderful mother.”

  Dimity raised her eyes, and Christopher saw that they brimmed with tears, and that her mouth was trembling. This time, he didn’t bother to take the baby from her. He enfolded both of them in his one-armed embrace.

  And that’s how Elsa Grape found them, when she came back into the room with the baby’s bottle.
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br />   14

  The Village Is Fully Informed

  It’s a good thing that Major Kittredge and Dimity Woodcock were not able to hear the conversation in the kitchen at Tower Bank House that afternoon, after the luncheon washing-up was done. They would have been amused, embarrassed, enlightened, and irritated by turns, but mostly irritated.

  The conversation involved three village ladies: Elsa Grape, of course; Hannah Braithwaite, the wife of the police constable; and Bertha Stubbs, Elsa’s sister-in-law and custodian at the Sawrey School. Tabitha Twitchit and Crumpet were there as well, for the cats always accompanied Bertha on her summertime gossip rounds, at which tea and the hostess’s specialty sweets were served. Bertha always dropped in first at Elsa’s (jam tarts), then went through the hedge to Agnes Llewellyn (honey cake) at High Green Gate, and up the hill to Belle Green, where Mathilda Crook (gingersnaps) lived. Tabitha Twitchit usually stopped there, for Belle Green was her house, too.

  “I’ve somethin’ to tell,” Elsa Grape announced with an air of barely suppressed excitement. She went to the door, looked both ways in the hall, and closed the door behind her securely. Then she sat down and reported what she had seen in the sitting room that morning.

  “He kissed her?” Hannah Braithwaite exclaimed.

  “He kissed her!” Bertha said, scowling. “That’s a fine piccadillio!”

  “Peccadillo, she means,” translated Crumpet, who lived with Bertha and understood her when nobody else could. Crumpet did not even consider it an irony that she always understood Bertha when Bertha almost never understood her.

  “He kissed her,” Elsa said. “And then he kissed her again.” She gave a gusty sigh. “It was seein’ her with t’ babe in her arms what did it Fair drove him out of his mind with love, it did.”

  When Elsa was not working, she was reading romantic novels. Her favorites were those in which the hero and the heroine were madly in love with each other, but their union was prevented (until the last chapter, sometimes even the very last paragraph) by some awful external force. The kiss she witnessed had completely overturned Elsa’s views on the subject of Miss Woodcock and Major Kittredge. She had been as opposed to the match as one could possibly be, on the grounds of the major’s scandalous past. Now, she was all for it.

  Tabitha Twitchit, having already had all the jam tart she was likely to get, was sitting on the stone doorstep, washing her whiskers. “But you said Miss Woodcock wouldn’t have the major,” she reminded Crumpet. “And that Captain Woodcock had someone else picked out for his sister.” She gave a little purr of satisfaction. “You see, Crumpet, you were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

  Beside her, Crumpet scowled. “The captain will be livid when he hears about this,” she predicted, and Bertha Stubbs agreed.

  “T’ captain will put a hard foot down on t’ bus’ness,” said Bertha, in an authoritative tone. “He woan’t have his sister a-marryin’ that man.” She picked up her cup of tea and took a sip. “It’d discombooble t’ whole village.”

  “Discombobulate,” said Crumpet.

  “Well, if he does put his foot down, I’ll think it a pity,” said Hannah, reaching for another jam tart. Elsa was known to make the best jam tarts in the parish, better even than Sarah Barwick, who sold hers, and had people queued up to buy. “Miss Woodcock ought to marry whosomever she likes and be happy.”

  “Even if t’ major went and married an actress who was a’ready married?” Bertha asked with disdain. “That’s bigamminy, that is. No sens’ble lady’ll marry him after that bungalow.”

  “Bigamy,” said Crumpet. “You see, Tabitha? That’s exactly what I said. No sensible lady will have him.”

  “But love isn’t sensible,” Tabitha replied. She sighed. “At least, not for me. I never let sense stand in the way of love.”

  “Yes, I know,” Crumpet said dryly. Tabitha had had more than one husband, and more litters of kittens than she could count. Crumpet enjoyed her freedom and saw no future in being tied down with kittens, even if only for a few months.

  “Bungle, not bungalow,” said Elsa. “Have another tart, Bertha.”

  “A bungle’s only a bungle, not a crime,” Hannah observed, taking a bite of tart. She could never bear to think ill of anyone. “Miss Woodcock ’ud make a fine mistress of Raven Hall.”

  Elsa frowned, not having thought that far ahead. “But then who’d be mistress here?” she asked, getting up to replenish the plate of tarts from the store in the cupboard.

  “Why, tha wud’st, Elsa,” Hannah said, widening her eyes innocently. “And tha cud’st boss young Molly all tha lik’st, and choose t’ menus all by thisel’—until t’ captain takes a wife, o’ course. And then she’ll be mistress.”

  Bertha’s smile had something of malice in it. “Speakin’ of the captain takin’ a wife, what dust tha think of Miss Potter, Elsa? Wud she do fer t’ captain?”

  Elsa put the plate on the table and sat down. “Miss Potter?” She narrowed her eyes. “Nae, Bertha, nae! Miss Potter’s too sharp and bossy by half. T’ captain needs a sweet, soft wife, like his sister.”

  Bertha laughed. “What Elsa means,” she said to Hannah, “is that she wudn’t be able to wrap Miss Potter around her finger t’ way she wraps our Miss Woodcock. Ain’t that right, Elsa?”

  “I wudn’t put it that way, Bertha,” said Elsa stoutly. “I kin deal with Miss Potter, if I hast to.”

  “I agree with Bertha,” Crumpet said with a chuckle. “Miss Potter would never stand for Elsa’s back talk, the way Miss Woodcock does. Elsa would have to change her tune.”

  “That’s the truth.” For once, Tabitha agreed.

  “What of t’ baby?” asked Hannah, tactfully changing the subject. She did not enjoy it when Bertha and Elsa bickered, as they frequently did.

  “What about her?” Elsa shrugged. “No diff ’rent from any other babe—eats and sleeps and dirties her nappies.” She smiled. “Sweet lit’le thing, though. And good.”

  “What do you mean, no diff ’rent?” Bertha demanded indignantly. “She come from t’ Folk, di’n’t she?”

  “The Folk?” Tabitha sat up straight, blinking. “Which Folk?”

  “The Hawthorn Folk,” Crumpet replied smugly. What luck! Once again, she knew something Tabitha didn’t. “Mustard told me. He saw one of them going over the wall in the Hill Top garden, the same afternoon the baby was delivered.”

  “But where did the Folk get the baby?” Tabitha asked in a wondering tone.

  Crumpet was glad that Hannah was speaking, for she didn’t have an answer to Tabitha’s question.

  “Doan’t tha be sae goosy, Bertha.” Hannah rolled her eyes. “T’ Folk are only old wives’ tales.”

  “Shh!” Bertha spoke with real alarm, putting a warning finger to her lips. “They’ll hear!”

  Hannah gave a skeptical glance around the kitchen. “I doan’t see nae Folk.” She made a great show of peering beneath the table. “Nae Folk under here, neither.” She appealed to Elsa. “Dust’a see ’em, Elsa?”

  “Ta canst’na see ’em,” Bertha said darkly, “but that doan’t mean they ain’t here. They’re indivisible.”

  “Invisible,” Crumpet said. “The Folk can be anywhere.”

  “So tell me,” Hannah said with a disbelieving look, “where t’ Folk got t’ babe from in t’ first place. Whose babe is she?” And then she answered her own question. “She’s a gypsy babe, that’s who, Bertha. Comes from t’ gypsy camp. That’s what my husband says, and he should know.” And on that unassailable authority, Hannah sat back, triumphant.

  But Elsa leant forward. “Your John doan’t know ever’thing, Hannah, even if he be constable.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’ll tell tha whose this babe is, ’cause I know fer sure. She belongs to—”

  But at that moment, the upstairs bell rang. Elsa stood up and straightened her apron, all business. “Ta, ladies,” she said loftily. “Miss Woodcock needs me.”

  “Elsa!” Bertha wailed.

  �
��Elsa!” Hannah protested, “tha was tellin’ us who—”

  “Aye, I was,” Elsa agreed. There was a glint in her eye. “But now I’ve work to do, so tha’ll just have to wait. Come back tomorrow.” With that, Elsa went off to do her duty.

  Hannah made an unhappy noise, but she had no choice. Anyway, she had left a pot of vegetable soup simmering on the back of the kitchen range, so she went straight home to make sure that the children hadn’t pulled it down and scalded the dog and made a mess on the floor.

  But Bertha had time for more gossip. Trailed by the two cats, she went across the garden and through the hedge to High Green Gate Farm, where Agnes Llewellyn put the last spoonful of Earl Grey into the teapot. Whilst it was brewing, Bertha reported that Elsa Grape had with her very own eyes seen Major Kittredge kissing Miss Woodcock, who was holding the gypsy baby in her arms (the gypsy baby who had been stolen by the Folk and left on the doorstep at Hill Top Farm), and that unless the captain put an immediate stop to the business, there would be a wedding in the very near future. And of course, if that happened, Tower Bank House would be without a mistress and Captain Woodcock without a wife. Which would leave the field wide open for Miss Potter. She would make a fine (if firm) wife for Captain Woodcock but would put Elsa Grape’s nose quite out of joint.

  Then Bertha put down her cup, looked at the clock, and remembered that if she didn’t go straight home and put the tatie pie in the oven, there would be no dinner on the table that night, and Henry Stubbs would be quite out of patience with her.

  The minute Bertha was out of sight, Agnes Llewellyn took off her apron, put on her straw hat with the pink ribbon roses, and walked across the street to the village shop, which was run by Lydia Dowling and her niece Gladys, who helped on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Agnes bought a tupp’ny twist of Earl Grey tea and a packet of hairpins.