How the Heather Looks Page 22

  We walked around behind the shop to the walled lane that runs past the village over the fields to Castle Cottage. It must have been busier when Sawrey still had its own post office, but the view still looks much the same as when Tom Kitten climbed to the roof of Hill Top to “get out on the slates, and try to catch sparrows.” The lane, hardly more than a path, runs past a series of gay, old-fashioned gardens crowded with pinks and snapdragons and magnificent tiger lilies. All along the way, the doorways were a delight. Beatrix Potter loved to dwell on just this sort of detail. The Pie and the Patty-Pan, especially, is full of studies of doorways and dooryards, as though the artist had a sketchbook full and was just waiting for the right story to come along in order to put them to use.

  Miss Potter liked gates, too, as you will see if you look through her books. There are all kinds of gates throughout the village, but the iron ones look as though the same hand had wrought the vines and tendrils. Instead of giving one the feeling of sameness, however, it is like a thread of music running through the village. Here, on Post Office Lane, we found yet another iron gate, and Lucy insisted on climbing it to see the tiger lilies on the other side. (“They’re growing simply fierce,” her father told her.) A large orange cat came picking along the wall to see what she was doing. The August sun beat down, the hills were golden with uncut hay. For one moment the scene fused forever in my memory: flame-haired Lucy, the orange cat, a garden full of tiger lilies. Then Ian called out: “Hey! It must be Ginger from Ginger and Pickles!” And the spell was broken.

  Ian was tired, hot, and disgruntled. He was bored with looking at doorways and old furniture and obviously pined for something more robust. “How about finding Mr. Tod’s house?” he asked, and that seemed a splendid idea. I have found The Tale of Mr. Tod to be a great success with small boys. Its plot and action contain an abduction, a daring rescue, and a really smash-up fight that, like those free-for-alls in old movies, stirs the audience to helpless laughter:

  The vases fell off the mantelpiece, the canisters fell off the shelf; the kettle fell off the hob. Tommy Brock put his foot in a jar of raspberry jam.

  That last line always gets ’em!

  There is undoubtedly more plot to Mr. Tod than to most of the other Tales (although anyone who has ever read Peter Rabbit knows that Beatrix Potter could handle plot superbly). The characters have substance too. Mr. Tod we have already met as the “elegantly dressed gentleman” with “sandy whiskers” who seduced Jemima Puddle-Duck. (Shades of Adam Bede and Tess of the d’Urbervilles!) Mr. Tod is also a sort of British version of Joel Chandler Harris’s Brer Fox. It is interesting to note that in 1895, five years before her first little book was published, Beatrix Potter had tried her hand at illustrating the tales of Uncle Remus, a collection she greatly admired.

  Tommy Brock is an equally strong and earthy character – in every sense of the word. Less elegant than Mr. Tod, he has all the guile of the incorrigible poacher. Both characters have about them more of the smack of Jorrocks and Pickwick than they do of Uncle Remus. They are thoroughly English. It is interesting to note that “tod” means fox in Old English and “brock” is the old word for badger. Beatrix Potter took a delight in words. It is characteristic that she was interested in the older, simpler forms of language, just as she admired country furniture and country architecture.

  We left Post Office Lane and went back to the main street of the village, this time pursuing it to where it ran into the hillside at the far end. Looking back over our shoulders we discovered ourselves to be in the same position as was Samuel Whiskers as he gazes back for a last glimpse of the hastily abandoned Hill Top. We left the street and took a path that led up toward the fields. The farmhouse at the end of the village had been built partly into the hillside. As we passed it, I glanced down and realized that the kitchen windows were actually at my feet. The window ledge, cheerful with geraniums, struck me as familiar. Surely it was the model for the kitchen window in Mr. Tod’s house. I wondered if a rabbit had ever peeked in there, and decided it was quite possible.

  The path was steep, the day hot and muggy. We were fast losing enthusiasm when we came to a little springhouse built into the hill. We sat on the roof to look out over Esthwaite Water and to listen to the cool trickle of water running somewhere far below us. We pushed on up the hill, not sure what we were looking for, and came to the edge of a wood. It was cooler here under the trees, and a faint breeze stirred along the hilltop. There were stone outcroppings covered with moss, and at one place someone had cut through the turf into the rock. It may have been the cellar of a long-extinct house or, perhaps, a small quarry.

  Ian and Lucy were positive that they had found the foundations of Mr. Tod’s house, and I must say that the place looked rather like the illustrations in The Tale of Mr. To d. Slabs of corrugated tin were lying about on the grass and the children set about to roof over one corner of the house. They worked mightily, heat and tiredness forgotten. John and I lay about on the moss watching their frenetic activity in stunned amazement. We were too hot to move or care. Gradually, however, we found ourselves drawn into the enterprise. John helped to lift one of the heavier pieces of corrugated roofing while Lucy and I, frightfully domestic, worked together to clear out one corner of leaves and tumbled stones.

  The stones and the natural wall behind them were black with soot: someone had once built a fire there. And then, under a pile of wet and soggy leaves, we found what we had been looking for – solemn archaeological proof of tenancy. Lucy held up a tiny china teacup, orange and white and gold, Oriental in design and of such small size that no ordinary adult could be interested in it. It might have belonged to a village child, but it seemed much more fun to suppose that it was the cup of Mr. Tod:

  Tommy Brock was sitting at Mr. Tod’s kitchen table, pouring out tea from Mr. Tod’s teapot into Mr. Tod’s teacup. He was quite dry himself and grinning; and he threw the cup of scalding tea all over Mr. Tod.

  We told ourselves that we had found the only piece of crockery to survive that dreadful battle. Schliemann at Troy could not have been more proud.

  Teacups naturally turned our thoughts toward tea. We remembered the sign in the window of Ribby’s cottage, in the village below, and started down the hill again. Near the springhouse we found an old pail, battered and pitted, that we had not noticed on the way up. “Wait a minute,” said Ian, and dashed up the hill again. He returned a few minutes later, breathless but triumphant. “It’s for the chimney,” he explained. I hope that when Mr. Tod next came up Bull Banks he was pleasantly surprised.

  We had promised Ian that as much as possible we would devote the next day to Arthur Ransome’s books. Accordingly, we went into a bookshop in Ambleside to purchase a copy of Swallows and Amazons. We had written to Arthur Ransome before we left the United States, but had received a polite return from his publishers explaining that Mr. Ransome did not answer letters or grant interviews. They were inclined to believe that he lived in the Broads (in eastern England) nowadays, but had no evidence….

  It was while we were standing about in the bookshop, studying and discussing the familiar map in the end papers of Ransome’s books, that we fell into conversation with the bookseller. Arthur Ransome? He’d come into the shop last Tuesday…. Marvelous old chap…. Where was he staying? Oh, somewhere in the Lake District….

  John said he’d stay and do errands in Ambleside while the rest of us went back to the hotel. Back in our room Ian and I set ourselves to try to orient the map on the end papers of Swallows and Amazons with the big one-inch-to-the-mile map of the Lake District and the view from our window. Surely the lake described was Windermere, turned on its side. If so, we were at the North Pole (or near it) and the Amazon must be over to our right. Why, there it was! The little River Rothay came wandering down through a delta of high reeds, almost at the foot of the garden. Beckfoot, the home of the Amazons, must be near at hand.

  Without more ado we set out for a walk, leaving a note for John. Ian had made friends wit
h a boy slightly older than himself who had read all the Arthur Ransome books and who was more than willing to go with us. We set off along the road toward Hawkshead, crossed a bridge, scrambled under some barbed wire, and squelched along in the mud. We had come to explore the mouths of the River Amazon, but we found it impossible to get near without sinking over our knees in the mud. The only sensible thing to do was to make for higher ground. We climbed up on a little hillock crowned by sheltering trees. I asked our new friend, Tommy, which of the Ransome books was his favorite. “The one I read last, of course, Picts and Martyrs!” It was only later, peering at the map, that we could make out some tiny, shadowy letters in the approximate place of our little hillock: Pict house. Had this been Ransome’s inspiration?

  At the time, however, it seemed as though we had not spent a very fruitful morning. Nothing was proved, nothing was unproved. The Rothay certainly seemed as though it must be the Amazon, but we had not found a house to answer to the description of Beckfoot. How literal should we be? I was washing clothes when John came back from Ambleside. He looked thoroughly smug. Had he remembered toothpaste? He beamed. That’s not all he had. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. He had found someone who knew someone who thought he knew someone who might be able to give directions to Arthur Ransome’s house. The directions were complicated, they seemed vague and at the same time they were concrete. A prophet is as unappreciated by his own wife as by his own country.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “How did you manage … ?”

  “Because,” said John, “I am the best researcher extant!”

  That afternoon we drove over to Bowness to hire a boat in order to explore from the water. The boatyard looked strangely familiar, then I recognized Bowness as the Port o’ Rio and the steep-roofed boatyard as the very one where Captain John had to leave the Swallow for repairs after she struck a rock off Wild Cat.

  We turned our boat toward the north end of the lake, then squinted first at the shore, then at the big map, then at the maps and pictures in our Ransome books. There was our hotel, right under Loughrigg Fell. The River Rothay came down the east side of the Fell. Then, instead of going straight into the lake, cut across in front of the hotel, almost at right angles to its former course. Instead of entering the lake directly, it ran as a tributary into the River Brathay, a stream entering from the west. Together they formed a reed-fringed lagoon, then wound through a green delta before discharging into the lake. How much better it would be to explore by boat! Looking at page 305 in the English edition of Swallowdale we were happily confirmed in our hypothesis that this was, indeed, the Amazon.

  But where was Beckfoot? Anxiously we scanned the shores of the lake. According to Ransome’s map the Blacketts’ house should have been in the fields where we had gone that morning. The only house nearby was much too grand – perhaps it was the Brathay Hall indicated on the one-inch map. Then, farther south than it should have been, we saw a whitewashed house with tents pitched on the lawn near the lake. Surely this was Beckfoot! It was a classical Lake District dwelling with a peaked roof over the door. Not far off, anchored in a cove, we found a houseboat. Surely this belonged to Captain Flint! We were content in every respect except that we had not been able to find Wild Cat Island. Every island we found in Lake Windermere was either too small or too civilized. Belle Isle, the largest one of all, had houses built on it. We tried to persuade ourselves that they were new, but actually they were solid Victorian structures that must have been there in the time of the childhood of the Blacketts’ Great Aunt.

  It was all very well a few nights later for John to make the handsome offer to drive me to see Arthur Ransome. He promised to take the children off my hands while I conducted the interview, but I was the one who would have to beard the lion in his den. Arthur Ransome sounded as though he might well be the counterpart of Captain Flint, uncle to Amazons, and Captain Flint had a peppery tongue. Also, he did not like to have his privacy invaded. But John was not to be balked. He had gone to a great deal of trouble to get the information and directions for me, and he had made up his mind absolutely that I was going to interview Arthur Ransome. Reluctantly I consented. We drove through the long twilight toward the southern end of the lake. The map was spread out on my lap and I looked with misgivings at the vast region of howe and fell and scree and moor and mountain and dale and holme and thwaite and common and waste and knott and forest. How did he expect me to find one lone man in all of this?

  We had to drive the whole length of the lake, then turn north again (there was probably a quicker way, but we decided to follow the directions to the letter). We left the main road and began to watch for landmarks. We passed some men working in a little wood. A fire glowed before a tentlike structure of logs. A patient pony stood nearby, with sled attached, as the men worked to fill a last load before darkness closed in. “Charcoal burners,” said Ian, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Gee, I wish we weren’t going tomorrow! Maybe they’d let me stay in their hut. You know, like Roger did when he hurt his ankle….”

  We came to a place where a farmhouse overlooked a little crossroads and John stopped the car. “Get out here,” he said. “I’ll let the kids play in the brook and you ask at the farmhouse. The man I talked to said that after we got to this point you’d just have to ask….”

  I got out of the car and glanced back wistfully at the rest of the family. I was still dressed in high heels and a ridiculous frock with a low neck – proper garb for dining in state the last night of our journey. I felt a little strange as I walked up to the farmhouse. The house and barnyard looked familiar. Could this be Swainson’s farm? Some men who were finishing up chores paused politely to answer my questions. Mr. Ransome? Aye, they knew him. He lived farther up the road, half a mile perhaps. I could ask as I went along….

  I came to a house perched high on the bank, smaller and more modest than most farms in the district. I almost passed it by, then decided to ask directions of a woman digging in the garden. Did she know where Mr. Ransome lived? She left off her digging and came over to speak to me. I noticed that she was not English, Russian, perhaps. I learned later that this was Arthur Ransome’s Russian-born wife, Eugenia. Haltingly I tried to explain my appearance. I was an American, I was writing a book about children’s authors, I had tried to reach Mr. Ransome through his publishers….

  She said Mr. Ransome was out at present – fishing. He did not grant interviews and he did not especially care for Americans. If I wanted to wait for him I could sit on the wall. She went back to her digging and I sat on the wall, kicking my heels. I would give Mr. Ransome five minutes to appear, possibly ten, and then rush down the hill to join John and the children. I could always feel that I had made an honorable attempt at an interview without actually having to go through with it.

  There was the sound of a car, a very ancient car, coming up the road. “There he is,” said my hostess, and I slipped down off the wall prepared to do battle or run, I was not positive which. A tall old man came through the gate. He was wearing brown tweed knickers, a brown tweed Sherlock Holmes hat stuck about with trout flies, and a Norfolk jacket. A great white mustache swept down from his nose. A Victorian Viking!

  “What’s this?” he asked. “What’s this?”

  “Arthur, this is a young woman from America. A journalist. She wants to interview you.”

  The blue eyes looked me over sternly. “Interview?” he said. “Interview? I don’t give interviews.” Suddenly he reminded me of my father – blue eyes, mustache, forty years at sea.

  “I think you are quite right,” I heard a voice saying (could it be mine?). “I wanted to hear it from you – not just from your publishers – and I’m awfully glad you told me at the outset.” I tried to edge around him, to get out the gate.

  But now he was giving me another look. “Well, young woman, what are we waiting for? You’ll catch your death, sitting around on walls. I’m just going to put my rod up, then I’ll get some chairs.” He was back in a moment
and the chairs were arranged so that we could look out over the purpling hills. “We could go inside, but it’s getting dark and we have no lights, of course. Besides, I like to sit here every evening at this time and watch the sunset. Now?”

  I hardly knew how to begin. I hated to ask him questions that were too personal. I was not certain how he felt about telling the whereabouts of the places in the stories. I decided to advance cautiously. Was Windermere the lake where most of the adventures took place?

  He sighed. People often asked that. Yes, it was, but things were scrambled somewhat, of course. He hated to be too literal. People had always taken him too literally. The stories were written for fun and to please the grandchildren of some old friends. But at least one woman took his stories so seriously that she had actually written him a long letter to ask about the Walker family. She thought it perfectly dreadful that children should be left to the tender mercies of a father who sent such a telegram as BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WON’T DROWN. “I think she thought I might be the father. I think she would have had some society after me. Silly woman!”

  Determined not to fall into the same category, I abandoned the literal tack altogether. How about his boyhood? Had he spent most of it in the Lake Country?

  He brightened visibly, then almost dashed my hopes with an emphatic, “I only wish I could have.” His father was a professor at Leeds University. The family had come to the Lakes only for the long vacation. “My poor mother,” he said. “We never brought any toys with us – we weren’t like modern children. We didn’t need a lot of extra playthings when we had the Lake. But at the last minute, hurrying through the railroad station at Leeds, my mother would remember the rainy days and a houseful of children. She used always to stop at a little stand and buy us transfers, packages and packages of them.” He paused and peered at me from under shaggy white eyebrows. “Do you know what transfers are?”