How the Heather Looks Read online

  An anxious, puzzled look spread over the countenance of the two apes. One of them lifted the lid of the teapot and peered in, as if to see what was causing the leakage. In doing so, he tipped the pot so that more tea spilled out. His friend turned and leered at the audience. Lucy shrieked with laughter. Ian, beside me, was laughing uncontrollably and John suddenly came out with a loud Haw-haw-haw. I looked about us and noticed the other families nearby. Some of the grownups were smiling politely, but the children – all those Christopher Robins and prim Alices – looked as tense and grave and anxious as the chimpanzees.

  The little girl next to Ian had her hand clutched in a fist, the knuckles up to her teeth. She looked as though she did not know whether to laugh or cry. Suddenly one of the apes reached over and poured a cup of tea on the head of his fellow guest. A gasp – almost a groan – rippled through the crowd, then the second monkey retaliated. A few smiles appeared. After all, this was fair play! The little girl next to Ian took her hand from her mouth and craned to get a better look. The party was growing wilder. With the next peal of laughter from Ian she joined in. All around the ring, in wider and wider circles, the ripple of laughter grew. It was all right to laugh! It was permitted to laugh! It was proper to laugh!

  And they danced and they sang, and each visitor’s attitude

  Was his very best way of expressing his gratitude

  To Johnny Crow and his garden.

  A few days later we set off from the Red Lion at Henley for the last time, John groaning as he carried the suitcases down from the top floor. He kept muttering that someone was putting weights in the bottom. We did not dare tell him that in addition to the slates we had picked up in Merlin’s Cave at Tintagel and a score of books we had bought along the way, Ian had started an old iron collection. He had methodically labeled each piece in his collection in his own shaky spelling. My favorite and his (but for different reasons) was “Wench found at bottom of Thames.”

  We came at length to Aldershot, hot and dusty and anthill busy. The map showed a faint shadow marked “Caesar’s Camp” with the modern military center superimposed. Soldiers dressed in heavy brown wool and General Montgomery berets marched on the double about the paths and parade grounds. It all looked frightfully strenuous. Ian was enchanted, but my emotions were nostalgic. Shades of Mrs. Ewing! I could remember my mother reading The Story of a Short Life (which was set in Aldershot) and how we all cried both at that and at Jackanapes. Mrs. Ewing (nee Juliana Horatia Gatty) was an estimable Victorian writer for children, who combined real insight into childhood along with an insider’s view of Victorian military life. Perhaps it was because we were military dependents ourselves that my sisters and I took such pleasure in her books. We were neither “country” nor “town” nor “city” but “knocked about the world” much as the barracks master’s wife had done in The Story of a Short Life.

  At last we made our way out of Aldershot and set off on a straight bit of road pointing toward Guildford. Lucy fell asleep on my lap. Ian crawled up on the high deck made by our suitcases piled in the back of the car and fell asleep, too. When he awoke we were driving along a high ridge, the green fields of England spread out on either side.

  “Where are we?” he asked. I peered at the Atlas and was able to tell him that we were driving along a place called “Hog’s Back.”

  “Hey, really? That’s in Adam of the Road.” Ian leaned over the back of my seat and looked at where my finger was pointing. “And look – there’s Guildford. Isn’t that where Adam swam across some river?” His finger traced a wider circle, coming to rest on some wispy lettering on the other side of Guildford. I don’t know which of us exclaimed first; “Albury! Albury Heath!”

  A Toad that lived on Albury Heath

  Wanted to see the World.

  Of all the books illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke our family’s favorite is A Roundabout Turn, the story of Jacob Toad. A comfort-loving type with a streak of adventure in him, Jacob is dissatisfied with the confines of Albury Heath and sets out to explore a larger world. He hops as far as the local fairgrounds where a little girl puts him up on the merry-go-round. Poor Jacob! He mistakes the merry-go-round for the world and staggers home a sadder and wiser toad, quite content to live the rest of his life in a less dizzy environment.

  Ian and I were both so excited that we woke up Lucy. With a sigh of resignation John pulled to the side of the road. He seemed elaborately unconcerned as he studied the map, then he must have caught something of our excitement.

  “That’s it all right,” he said. “See, there’s Shere, right next to Albury. Remember? There’s a picture of a hedgehog in the book who carries a market basket with ‘A Present from Shere’ stamped on it. I always wondered what that meant.” He shot the car into gear and started forward again. “We’d better find ourselves a place to stay. It’s getting late.”

  We crept through Guildford and on to the crossroads marked by a half-hidden sign: Guests. We turned off the main road and up the sweep of a long drive. There, set back beyond lawns gone to seed and unkempt shrubbery, was an old Tudor mansion, low and rambling. I went in to ask for reservations while John and the children stayed outside to stretch their legs. A young woman showed me upstairs to a room on the second floor. My heart sank. The room was dark and low-ceilinged and the beds looked neither clean nor comfortable. I did not expect a private bath, but I was made positively downhearted by the news that not only would we have to traverse a long corridor, but go up a flight of stairs as well if we would be clean.

  I was just about to back out gracefully when I heard familiar voices from below. I looked out to see Lucy circling round and round in the new-mown grass below us, chanting happily as she ran. Ian’s voice seemed much nearer. It took me several minutes to place him. He had climbed up the winding stair of a little summerhouse and had crawled out on its sagging roof, quite near our window. I knew that eventually I would have to forbid him such dangerous pleasure, but for the nonce I decided to pretend I didn’t see him. Even from this distance I could tell he was ecstatic. I leaned out from my window to see what he was gazing at. Directly below him was the lawn and the remains of an old terrace. Beyond and to the left was a walled garden snarled by an impenetrable mass of rose briars. Beyond that was another walled garden, and beyond that the moss-clotted fruit trees of an old orchard. Down below me I saw John’s size thirteen shoes sticking out from the other side of the summerhouse. Since they did not move, I surmised he was taking a brief snooze. I told the girl I would take the room.

  Dinner would not be served until eight. Food was imperative for our flagging spirits and, as we were all anxious to explore the fabulous heath, we set off again to look for a place that served a good tea. We putted along the green lanes to the top of a hill, then gave a gasp of delight and recognition. The road unwound like a ribbon before us. On either hand and as far as the eye could see were folded hills. Knots of gorse and heather and bracken intermingled with clumps of trees to make a tapestry of greens, and over all arched the blue sky with a few white clouds floating in it. Surely we were at the very spot where Jacob paused to contemplate his journey:

  But there – it’s a long way down the road

  For a fellow that walks as slow as a Toad.

  We came to a crossing: Shere to our left; Albury to our right. We took the right turn, but it proved a mistake. Albury was asleep, its windows shuttered to the sun. There was not one human being in sight, but an antique shop, with an ancient carousel horse out in front, gave us hope that someone, at least, was an admirer of A Roundabout Turn. The houses were built so close to the narrow street that it was dangerous to stand there, even with our noses pressed to the shop window, so we set off again – this time toward Shere.

  In 1930 Leslie Brooke wrote to Jacqueline Overton:

  Report has told you right. I have committed the indiscretion of another book. I hope you may find yourself disposed to introduce Jacob to the same children who know Johnny.

  A little later she wro
te to him that the children at her library wanted to know, if it were not a secret, what he had meant by “a present from Shere” on the bottom of the hedgehog’s market basket. This was his reply, printed in the Horn Book magazine, May 1941:

  You say very kind things about Jacob. I wish you could meet his author, Robert Charles – a most kindly man with a family of growing children…. At one time he lived on Albury Heath himself. As to the Present from Shere it is no secret of my own but I suppose I oughtn’t to have done it as not being generally comprehensible. The Hedgehog for marketing would go either to Albury Village or to Shere Village, next door, as it were. Shere is sometimes described as the prettiest village in England, which it certainly isn’t now … but in the 80’s and 90’s many Americans went down to Surrey to see it…. But the real truth is – my wife and her sisters as children spent their summer holidays in the house of an uncle near Shere (they used always to go across Shere Heath to the Fair at Albury Heath one day each summer and always rode the roundabouts) … as both author and artist were known in the neighborhood I thought it would be no harm to put that on the basket – just to give local colour….

  Having no earlier standards by which to judge, we found Shere Village delightful. It was larger than Albury and certainly more awake. A pleasant stream, adrift with white ducks, ran through the center and the houses were set about a tiny tree-shaded green. Best of all, tea was being served at the most picturesque of the little houses. We made a meal of homemade scones, fresh-picked raspberries, and thick country cream. It was amazing how our spirits revived. After tea we let the children paddle a bit in the stream, then we set off for our lodgings again. Perhaps it was because we had fuller stomachs and lighter hearts that we now noticed a large red-lettered sign at the crossroads: Albury Heath Annual Fair. Games! Booths! Prizes! and a date, three days off.

  Some things in life are pre-ordained. Fate had arranged that we should arrive on Albury Heath in time for the Fair. Even John could see that. As soon as we had returned to our lodgings at The Gables we made arrangements with the manager to keep our rooms for a few days longer. For the next day or two I washed out clothes and hung them in the orchard, the children played in the garden, and John went up to London on the train. While he was there he bought a copy of A Roundabout Turn and brought it back to us to refresh our memories.

  In the evenings we went for walks on the heath, confirming Jacob Toad’s estimation of it:

  It’s a perfectly charming Heath, of course –

  All this heather, and all this gorse,

  All this bracken to walk beneath,

  With its feathery fronds to the sky uncurled –

  It’s as jolly a Heath as ever was found.

  One afternoon we drove back into Albury to find the antique shop open. We learned that the carousel horse was just coincidence: the family who owned the shop had never heard of Jacob! It was a nice family, though, with children about the same age as ours. They were so interested in both the poem and illustrations that we left the book with the little boy (it was his birthday). When we saw the family again they pointed out something we would have otherwise missed: The Silent Pool, a picture on the wall of Jacob’s house. The pool is a local landmark, a regular tourist-trap “lover’s leap” sort of place, which lies just off the road on the way to Albury. One evening we paid it a dutiful visit and saw for ourselves the curious little hut built out over it, exactly as in the picture.

  But at last came the day of the fair. It was a glorious summer day – hot, with a light breeze blowing – and we arrived to find other families pouring through the gates to the fairgrounds. Where they had all come from I cannot guess since the heath was for the most part uninhabited. Most people were walking, although the very youngest rode in disdainful ease, seated in beautifully designed British perambulators, rolling along like royalty.

  We cocked our ears for the sound of carousel music, but in this we were disappointed. There was no roundabout at the Albury Heath Fair that year, and had not been since World War II. There were, however,

  … tents, and swings, and cokernut shies,

  And a hoop-la stall with many a prize,

  And races, and a band, and cheering.

  Ian and John were soon engaged in throwing balls at “cokernuts” while I wandered with Lucy. We were enchanted by a pen-full of pink piglets. The little pigs were to be given away as prizes for climbing a greased pole that towered nearby. We also looked in at the flower show, then went on to the dog show. The dog show, unfortunately, developed into a snarling free-for-all and the judging had to be postponed until all participants – both human and canine – had regained their tempers. The judges then decided to fill the program gap with a children’s costume parade, but since some of the children had not yet arrived and others were not ready, this caused a flutter among the anxious parents, many of whom were already upset by the dog fight.

  In the midst of all this heat and excitement Lucy sat down to take off her shoes – something she was wont to do in moments of stress. The crowd swerved good-naturedly around her, but looking up at the passing parade she must have felt much like Jacob Toad:

  Off he crawled to the thick of things,

  And the crowds made crawling rather tiring.

  “Dear me,” he said, “I wish I’d wings!

  “If this is the World,” said he, perspiring,

  “It’s inconveniently full of Feet.”

  It was not very long before a sudden voice said, “Look – how sweet!” and other voices, quite unknowingly, fell into the role with “It’s not very safe … on the ground….” In another moment Lucy’s father swept down upon the scene to put her, not on the merry-go-round, but upon his shoulder. Sleepy and sated, she rode back to The Gables. It was tea time when we arrived and we went into the parlor. Lucy awoke in time to share a pot of tea and to discuss with her family the joys of living on Albury Heath. The rest of us listened to her with new respect. Lucy had pushed literary research to its ultimate. She was the only one among us who had obtained a true Toad’s-eye view of the Fair.

  CHAPTER 8

  Looking at History

  While we were still living on Albury Heath John and Ian drove down to Portsmouth for the day to see Nelson’s flagship, Victory. The trip was a great success. Ian, although only eight, was fascinated by the era of Napoleon. He had a good enough grasp of history to understand who Nelson was, and a small boy’s bloodthirsty delight in seeing the exact spot where he had lain when he whispered “Kiss me, Hardy,” before he died. It was while they were there that John conceived the idea that we should stay a few days in the New Forest. It was not difficult to persuade me. Not only was there the prospect of our seeing wild ponies, but I had happy memories of my mother reading Captain Marryat’s Children of the New Forest aloud to me years before. Although supposedly bound for Tunbridge Wells, the day after the fair at Albury Heath we packed all our belongings together and set forth in the opposite direction.

  We drove into the New Forest from the north and in a little while had come upon a sign pointing toward the spot where William II was killed. We parked our car and walked into a little glen where stood the Rufus Stone, commemorating the event:

  Here stood the Oak Tree, on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a Stag glanced and struck King William the Second, surnamed Rufus, on the breast, of which he instantly died, on the second day of August, anno 1100….

  Although the glen was quiet, peaceful, and sun-dappled, old animosities poisoned the air. How else to explain why our family almost came to blows? I said that the inscription was wrong and that the king’s death was no accident. William Rufus had been shot by the wicked Tyrrell on purpose. I knew it as a fact from my English mother. As further proof, I could remember that years ago my sisters, English cousins, and I had acted out the cold-blooded murder as a play. John insisted that no one knew whether murder had been committed. Meanwhile, Ian and Lucy were quarreling because Ian wanted redheaded Lucy to lie down and pretend she was shot,
and Lucy would not oblige. Then Ian, overhearing his parents’ conversation, said it wasn’t a stag that was shot at, but a squirrel. “Ahah!” said John. “Kings and Queens.” He was referring to a collection of mnemonic jingles by Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon.

  “‘Rufus’ was not so much a surname as a nickname,” I said. “William was redheaded …”

  “And bloody-minded,” said John.

  “So calling him by his nickname could have been either friendly or insulting,” I said (I don’t like being one-upped).

  Ian chimed in again: “Maybe he was like King John. Nobody much liked him, so, when they were all out hunting, this guy Tyrrell pointed to something reddish and said, ‘Oh, look at that squirrel!’ and let loose. Nobody knew for sure what Tyrrell was really thinking, but they were so glad to be rid of old Rufus that they all agreed to …”

  “Let sleeping squirrels lie,” said John.

  Before we ever planned our trip to England (except in a “some-day” sort of way) we had discovered our favorites among children’s books on English history. The nice thing about the Farjeons’ book is that it helps one straighten out all those crowned heads in English history by giving the facts about each one of them in much the same way that a good grandmother does – only in rhyme, which is easier to remember. We also like the anecdotal approach Of Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall, a shabby old volume I had had on my own shelves when I was young. The Story of England is a newer book by Beatrice Curtis Brown and Helen Arbuthnot. The text is rather dull, but the splendid illustrations by Gustav Tenggren more than make up for that. Another book, called Looking at History, by R. J. Unstead, is as full of pictures as a pudding of plums. It has big clear type and a straightforward text that is used, I am told, in British schools. Ian admires it for the neat and careful drawings of armor, costume, and architectural detail. Just for fun, our family likes 1066 and All That, by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman. It is a splendid spoof on English history and, I suppose, like a family joke – not much fun unless you know the straight of it.