And there was the matter of her work, for the captain was occasionally condescending about her children’s books and hinted that perhaps she would have more time for other worthwhile things if she were not quite so busy producing two books a year. He was not specific about what he thought those “other worthwhile things” might be, but she suspected that he might have it in mind that she would marry him and manage the Tower Bank household, a role in which she had absolutely no interest. So when he asked her to accompany him again, this time to a fair at Appleby, she declined. Once more after that (to an ice cream social at St. Peter’s), and he apparently understood. He had not asked her again.
“Well, I did wish it might be you,” Dimity said delicately. Impulsively, she put her hand on Beatrix’s. “I am so happy, you see, that I wish I could share it with all my dears, as if happiness were a great basket of ripe apples. And especially with you, Bea. I’m sorry that Miles isn’t the man to make you happy, but I’m sure you’ll find someone equally nice and—”
“I am happy, Dimity,” Beatrix protested testily, and then felt a little ashamed of her tart reply. She softened her tone. “At least, I’m happy when I am here at Hill Top, away from London. And I don’t see why my happiness has to depend on having a husband. I have my farm and my work, and—”
“Yes, of course you are.” Dimity looked away. “Happy, I mean. I’m sorry, Beatrix. Having your work does make a difference, I’m sure.”
Her tone implied that whatever happiness Beatrix’s writing might contribute to her general well-being couldn’t measure up to the happiness she would find in a husband, an implication that Beatrix found rather annoying, especially since Dimity had completely changed her own position on the subject over the four years Beatrix had known her.
But there was no point in being argumentative about it. Beatrix had made her choice and she didn’t find it necessary to defend it to Dimity. But there was something she had to ask about, even though she didn’t want to. “I wonder—”
She hesitated, feeling terribly awkward. If it was this hard to talk to Dimity, it might be even harder to bring up the subject with Lady Longford. “I was asked by—”
She stopped. Surely this was not the way to go about it. There must be a way to get Dimity’s cooperation without revealing the Suttons’ dire straits. She thought quickly, then took an entirely different tack, diving straight into the problem, without preamble.
“We may be about to lose our veterinarian.”
Dimity’s eyes widened. “Lose our veterinarian!” she cried anxiously. “Oh, dear heavens! That’s appalling, Beatrix! It can’t be allowed to happen. The only other vet is in Hawkshead, and he’s overworked—he’d never come over here to doctor animals. All the farmers depend on Mr. Sutton. And not just the farmers, either. Mr. Sutton saved poor Snapper when we’d given him up for lost.” Snapper was the major’s English bulldog.
“I knew you’d feel that way,” Beatrix said warmly. “On all counts, it would be a great shame to lose him, not only for the village, but for the whole district. Mr. Sutton almost seems to work miracles, and he is very conscientious.” She paused, then added the essential piece of her strategy. “And of course he is kind enough to extend credit to anyone in need.”
“He extends credit to everyone,” Dimity replied promptly. “Without regard to need. In fact, I believe that Christopher still owes him a pound or two for taking that fishhook out of Snapper’s throat.” She sighed. “I’m sure that Mr. Sutton has many opportunities, some of them much more lucrative than Sawrey. He could go almost anywhere.” Her voice became firm. “So it’s up to us to do whatever is required to keep him here.”
Beatrix felt immediately relieved. Dimity had taken the bait, as it were. Now, on to the next step. “Perhaps you have an idea how this might be done,” she said. “You know, I was thinking that Christmas is just around the corner. I believe that almost everyone in the village owes Mr. Sutton a little something. If they would all pay—”
Dimity snapped her fingers. “What do you think of this, Beatrix? All the villagers could be asked to enclose a little note with their bill payment, saying how much they appreciate Mr. Sutton’s good work. Don’t you think that might tip the balance? If he knew how sincerely he is valued, he might decide to stay.”
“What a very good idea, Dimity!” Beatrix replied. “I’ve just paid what Mr. Jennings and I owed for treating Kitchen. I’ll write a note this evening. And I’ll speak to Lady Longford about it, as well. I’m sure she owes something.”
“Oh, brave you!” Dimity said with a little laugh. “She’s a perfect dragon when it comes to money. But if she will pay up, that will encourage others. I’ll ask Christopher to stop by Courier Cottage and leave the money—and a note—before we go home this afternoon.” She paused. “Oh, and I’ll speak to my brother about this, too, Beatrix. He had Mr. Sutton for that little filly of his, Topaz, and he may not have yet paid his bill. And he can put out the word, as well. If he speaks to the farmers and the local gentry, I’m sure they’ll come through.”
Beatrix smiled. If his sister asked, Captain Woodcock would be sure to pay. And putting out the word was just the sort of thing the captain would be glad to do. He’d probably order everyone to pay up, or else!
“I knew you would come up with a scheme for keeping Mr. Sutton here,” Beatrix said, feeling not in the least dishonest. After all, it had been Dimity’s idea. “Thank you.”
“And I’ll mention it to the vicar, as well,” Dimity went on. “But really, Beatrix, it is I who should thank you. It’s wonderful to be able to think about something else for a change, other than this baby.” She patted the bulge under her dress. “I’m afraid I’ve become a little single-minded. Why, I haven’t even asked how your work is coming along!”
“I have a new book, about a wood-mouse who has to cope with unwelcome visitors—beetles and spiders and a toad. Would you like to see the drawings?”
Dimity hurriedly finished her tea. “Thank you, but I think I hadn’t better. Christopher is probably ready to leave and I do so hate to keep him waiting.” She put on her coat and hat and gloves, promising to be sure that Major Kittredge stopped at Courier Cottage before they drove back to Raven Hall. She cast a last glance at the guinea pigs.
“It’s too bad that the male is so ill-tempered,” she said. “He’s beautiful, with that long, silky fur. I’m sure Flora would love him.”
“She’d probably pull my hair,” Thackeray growled, and for once, Nutmeg had to agree with him.
“Next time, I’ll bring a bunny for Flora,” Beatrix said, and saw her friend to the door.
Dimity paused, her hand on the latch. “I do wish you could find it in your heart to like Miles a little,” she said wistfully. “I should love for both of you to be happy—together.”
Beatrix did not know what to say, so she only smiled and gave a small shrug. And if she felt a little forlorn when Dimity left, who could blame her? For much as she liked Dimity and was glad to have her as a friend, it seemed to her that there was now a gulf between the two of them—the kind of gulf that exists between women who think that marriage is the best, indeed the only way to happiness and fulfillment and women who believe that they can be happy and live full, independent, self-sustaining lives centered around work they have chosen. She sighed. There was a gulf between herself and Sarah, too, for she could not forget the expression on Sarah’s face when she had looked up and seen her walking with Mr. Heelis.
But Beatrix was not one to give in to forlorn feelings. Mrs. Tittlemouse was waiting, in her cozy, tidy, deeply satisfying mouse house. Determined to do her justice, Beatrix picked up her brush, and began painting pink stripes on the little white mouse sleeves.
“Well, my dear,” she said to the little mouse in her drawing. “You and I shall be perfectly happy, even if we don’t have husbands. Shan’t we?”
But Mrs. Tittlemouse was very busy turning out several humblebees who had built a nest in her acorn storeroom. “I am not in
the habit of letting lodgings,” she muttered. “This is an intrusion!”
To Beatrix’s question about husbands, she had no answer.
16
Bailey’s Story: Episode Four
The Brockery breakfast table was a bit crowded, since a few more animals—mostly small ones who were able to get around by skating over the hardened surface of the snow—had dropped in to get warm and stayed for eggs, oat biscuits with clover honey syrup, and a rasher of bacon. On such a cold day, the hot food was very welcome, and Parsley, Flotsam, and Jetsam were kept busy frying bacon and boiling eggs and passing pitchers of syrup.
Bosworth Badger sat at the head of the table, beaming. He was never happier than when the table was lined with guests and the meal ended with a satisfied smile on every guest’s face. To his left sat Thorn, who was busy helping the smaller creatures cut their bacon. To his right sat Bailey Badger, who was not accustomed to having a meal in the company of so many strangers and squirmed through the whole affair. As soon as breakfast was over, Bosworth suggested that they have their morning coffee in the library, where Bailey could finish his story—and of course, Thorn had to come along.
“If I recall correctly,” Thorn said, when they were settled, “you left off telling just as you and the dragon went out for something to eat. And then I asked—”
“You asked what had become of the dragon,” said Bailey gravely. “Well, I will tell you what I know, although it does not make me happy.” He sighed. “Yes, Thorvaald and I went down to the village after it was very dark and had something to eat. He was delighted to be out and about—I expect I should have been, too, if I had been cooped up in a cave for hundreds of years. So he did quite a bit of stretching and wing-flapping and some flying—”
“Flying!” exclaimed Bosworth.
“Well, yes. That’s what dragons do, you know. I discouraged him from making too much of a show, of course—didn’t want the rest of the world in on our little secret, did I?” Bailey rolled his eyes. “If they knew a dragon was living at Briar Bank . . . well, it would have been almost as powerful an attraction to the Big Folk as buried treasure.”
“I see,” said Thorn thoughtfully. “So the dragon has been living with you, then?”
Bailey nodded. “I put him up in the chamber next to mine, where my parents slept. It a bit cramped, and if he’d been any larger, we couldn’t have done it. As it is, he was forever flicking things off shelves with his tail.” Bailey chuckled wryly. “I rather think, you know, that he wanted a place to hide out, just in case that supervisor of his—Yllva—should come back and find the treasure gone. This way, both dragon and treasure would be gone, so she wouldn’t know who to blame.”
“It surprises me a little,” said Bosworth, “that you were willing to take in a lodger. I thought you rather liked your solitude. No offense meant, old chap,” he added hastily. “It’s just something I was wondering.”
“No offense taken,” Bailey replied. “You’re right, of course. I have been a rather solitary badger in my time. Nothing like you, Bosworth, with that throng of friends and relations around the breakfast table.” He shuddered. “Perfectly fine and normal here at The Brockery, although I shouldn’t like it myself much, at least on a daily basis.”
Bosworth nodded. Sometimes the crowd did seem a bit excessive, even to him, and it was good to retreat to the library for a bit of a read, or find a chore in a remote corner of the burrow. “All the more interesting that you were able to tolerate a guest,” he said.
“Ah, yes,” sighed Bailey. “I have to say, while Thorvaald was with me, I learnt that company can be rather a good thing. He wasn’t much of a reader, which was a disappointment, for we couldn’t share books. But he loved to tell stories—great, rip-roaring dragon adventures that had been handed down in his family for eons. You’ve no idea what a great number of adventures dragons have had in this world.” He grinned ruefully. “And of course, it was very nice, having that fire-burner around. Rather like central heating. Cut down on carrying coal and wood for the fireplace. And good for a bit of grilled beef-steak, as well.”
Thorn, always the perceptive one, had been listening closely. “You’ve been speaking of Thorvaald in the past tense,” he remarked. “The dragon is no longer with you?”
Bailey shook his head sadly.
“Why, where’s he gone?” Bosworth asked, trying to imagine where a dragon might fly off to, in this modern day and age. Surely he would be seen and shot down, like a dirigible. Or perhaps he could hire himself out to the British army, in place of one of their aeroplanes. Instead of torpedoes or whatever it was that they thought of firing out of aeroplanes, he could just aim his fire-burner. He sat for a moment, bemused at the idea of the Foreign Office employing a dragon to guard the new dreadnoughts they were building.
“Where’s he gone?” Bailey repeated in a somber tone, as Bosworth picked up his pad and dipped his pen in the inkwell. “I’m sorry to say I don’t know. But you will want to know what happened, so I had better get on with my story.”
The Tale of Bailey the Badger
and the Dragon of Briar Bank
(Conclusion)
To his great surprise, Bailey discovered that he and Thorvaald got on surprisingly well together. In the beginning, the badger left the door open between the library and the dragon’s lair (as he was calling Thorvaald’s chamber), and the two of them came and went as neighbors do, with Thorvaald gradually spending more time with Bailey until finally he began sleeping over. Bailey got on with the task of cataloguing his library. Thorvaald napped a good deal, and was quite content to doze in a corner of the library chamber in which Bailey was working, providing both a welcome warmth (he was very handy as a portable stove) and a bit of useful additional lighting.
In the evenings, Bailey often read aloud from his books. He began with a volume he had always enjoyed called A Natural History of Dragons and Other Mythic Beasts, but had to leave off after the third paragraph of the first chapter, in which the author stated that all of the dragons had either been killed by brave knights with magical swords or had never existed in the first place.
Thorvaald snorted derisively at this, commenting sarcastically that he would be glad to allow the author to interview him. He much preferred another of Bailey’s books, On the Habits of English Dragons, which gave numerous examples of treasure-guarding dragons in Shropshire, at Old Field Barrows; in Herfordshire, at Wormelow Tump; and in Northumberland, on Gunnarton Fell, where a dragon was said to guard a cave deep under Money Hill.
“Gunnarton Fell!” the dragon cried, when Bailey read him that bit. “Why, that’s where my cousin Thorwinn was assigned.” His belly glowed with a fiery excitement. “Where is that, do you know?”
“East of Carlisle,” said the badger, edging away. It wasn’t comfortable, sitting close to the dragon when he was stoking up. “Some sixty miles from here, I suppose, as the owl flies. Or the dragon,” he amended.
“Old Thorwinn,” Thorvaald said with a musing affection. “Wonder if he’s still at his post.” His fire died down a bit, his color ebbed, and he sounded gloomy. “Or whether someone has thieved his treaszsure, too. All these humans finding things. What’s a dragon to do? We’ll all be out of a job.” He thought for a moment. “Which might not be a bad thing. Treaszsure-guarding is about as exciting as doing the washing-up.”
Other evenings, Thorvaald would regale Bailey with thrilling stories of dragon derring-do, in which the dragon turned out to be the hero, slaying the knight with his own sword, or breathing on a drove of dwarves until they were toasted to a crisp. These were Yllva’s tales, Thorvaald said. “Every time she came, she had a new story. Tended to be rather sensational, all larded with fire and brimstone and the like, but that’s the kind of dragon she is. There’s nothing she likes better than seeing something go up in flames. Actually, I was glad to have the news. It gave me something to think about, between naps.”
On evenings when it was particularly dark and discovery unlikely,
they went out foraging, Bailey for mushrooms and grubs and earthworms, Thorvaald for—well, we shan’t inquire too closely into what the dragon found to eat. We shall just have to hope that Jemima Puddle-duck was not out and about on those evenings, and that all of the Hill Top hens were safe in the barn. (I can tell you, however, that no damsels were reported missing. As for knights—well, there weren’t any at this time in the Land Between the Lakes, tinned or otherwise, which is certainly a lucky thing for them.)
But since Bailey was now cooking for two, it was sometimes a challenge to keep food in the house. The foraging expeditions began to occur more frequently, to the point where Bailey and Thorvaald were out and about almost every night. This concerned Bailey greatly, since the more often the dragon took to the air to look for something to eat, the more likely he was to be spotted. The badger made Thorvaald promise to keep to the ground and try to be as inconspicuous as possible—which was unfortunately not all that inconspicuous, given the unmistakable color, shape, and size of even a smallish dragon.
It was on the most recent of these foraging expeditions that the very unfortunate incident involving Mr. Wickstead occurred. Bailey and Thorvaald, who was browsing on bracken (lightly toasted), were at the western end of Briar Bank, which as you know is the place where Pickles and Mr. Wickstead had originally discovered the treasure. It was a cold night, and dark, the snow was just beginning to fall, and Bailey did not expect anyone to be out and about. But to his surprise, he saw a lantern bobbing up the dark hill-side. Since lanterns don’t bob by themselves, he knew that someone had to be carrying it. But who? Why? Somewhat alarmed, he lay down on his belly and peered over the ledge.
The lantern was being carried by Mr. Wickstead, who had a shovel in the other hand and a canvas knapsack over his shoulder. With him was Pickles the fox terrier. When they reached the entrance to the badger sett, Mr. Wickstead set the lantern on the ground and took the knapsack off his shoulders. Opening it, he pulled out two leather bags.
The Tale of Briar Bank Page 19