The Tale of Holly How (27 page)

Historical Note

Helen Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866, into a wealthy, upper-middle class London family, and lived with her parents at 2 Bolton Gardens, South Kensington, London. Her life was a quiet but interesting one, filled with reading, visiting art exhibitions, drawing and painting, and traveling on holiday to Scotland or to the Lake District, where she enjoyed the freedom to ramble through the countryside. Beatrix was a delicate child, often ill, and had no childhood friends. She did not go to school (like other girls of her class, she was educated at home by governesses), but she and her brother Bertram, younger by five years, were avid naturalists, assembling their own miniature zoo in their third-floor nursery, where they studied the anatomy of specimens they collected. She was especially interested in fossils and fungi, and by the time she had reached her early twenties, she had compiled a substantial collection of botanical illustrations, a hobby in which she was encouraged by her father.

But Beatrix sketched her pets, too—rabbits, mice, frogs, bats, lizards, birds. Her drawings of her beloved Belgian rabbit, Peter, led to
The Tale of Peter Rabbit,
which she sent in 1893 as a letter to the son of her favorite governess. Eight years later, Beatrix paid to have
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
privately printed. The little book came to the notice of Frederick Warne and Company, and they published it in October, 1902. An immediate success,
Peter
was followed by
Squirrel Nutkin
(1903),
The Tailor of Gloucester
(1903),
Benjamin Bunny
(1904),
Two Bad Mice
(1904),
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle
(1905),
The Pie and the Patty-Pan
(1905),
Mr. Jeremy Fisher
(July, 1906), and others, through 1913. Each book was a bestseller, and she soon became one of the most popular children’s authors in the Empire.

Beatrix’s literary and financial success did not change her life in any remarkable way—until 1905, that is. In July of that momentous year, just days before her thirty-ninth birthday, she received an offer of marriage from her editor, Norman Warne, who had become her closest friend. She accepted his offer in defiance of her parents, who opposed the marriage on the grounds that the Warne family was “in trade.” The engagement was disastrously short, however, for Norman fell ill and died of acute leukemia only a month after they exchanged rings.

Her fiancé dead, her hopes destroyed, her life devastated, Beatrix resolved on a new direction. In September, 1905, she agreed to purchase a small farm in the Lakeland hamlet of Near Sawrey, where she and her parents had gone on holiday. It would have seemed a strange idea to her parents, and especially unwelcome to her mother, who expected Beatrix to remain at Bolton Gardens to manage the servants and look after her when she was ill. But the Potters’ objections to their daughter’s farm must have been tempered by their relief that the marriage “into trade” no longer threatened. The purchase was completed that autumn, and Beatrix began the challenging work of renovating the old farmhouse and restocking the farm’s thirty-one acres.

Much of what we know about Beatrix’s growing passion for Hill Top Farm comes from her letters. Writing to Norman’s sister Millie in April, 1906, she describes the house: “There is one wall 4 ft thick with a staircase inside it, I never saw such a place for hide & seek, & funny cupboards & closets.” In July of that year (the same month in which our story takes place), she tells Millie that she has found a swarm of bees and caught them:

(it isn’t quite so valiant as it sounds!) they were lying on the grass near the quarry, we think they had been out all night, & blown out of a tree; they were very numbed, but are all right now & a fine swarm . . . I have bought a box-hive . . . . I borrowed a straw “skep” to catch them in, & put it down over them.

And in August, she proudly reports that she has sold some stone from the small quarry on her property for the repair of Ees bridge, at the foot of Esthwaite Water. “I don’t think I shall make much profit . . . but I shall like to see my stone in the bridge.” In September, she is cutting and raking bracken for the animals’ winter bedding. By October, she is applying “liquid manure” to her apple trees (“a most interesting performance with a long scoop”) and planting herbs and flowers given to her by the villagers. The construction work was nearly finished, and on October 12, she tells Millie that she has lit the very first fire in her new library. “It was a great excitement. I laid the fire & lit it myself & it went straight up directly & gives a great heat.” The lighting of the library fire must have been a profoundly symbolic and satisfying moment for her. Truly, the life of the farm had become the center of her own life.

For the next seven years, Beatrix’s life became more and more complicated, as she juggled her obligations to her parents, to her art, and to Hill Top. She continued to produce her “little books,” but the farm and its real animals—its sheep, cows, pigs, and horses—assumed a greater importance with each passing month. While she wrote and drew at least one book a year through 1913, her heart was more and more fixed on Hill Top, on the other Lake District properties she began to acquire, and on the countryside of the Land between the Lakes.

Hill Top Farm, Sawrey, and the Lake District offered Beatrix Potter a new life, full of new hopes and new dreams. By 1913, it had offered her a new love. And thereby hangs yet another tale. . . .

Susan Wittig Albert

Resources

There are a great many excellent resources for a study of Beatrix Potter’s life and work and the Lake District of England at the turn of the century. Here are a few of those that I have found most useful in the research for this book and the series as a whole. Additional resource material is available on my Web site,
www.mysterypartners.com
.

Clark, Michael.
Badgers.
London: Whittet Books, 1994.

Denyer, Susan.
At Home with Beatrix Potter.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000.

Hervy, Canon G.A.K. and J.A.G. Barnes.
Natural History of the Lake District.
London: Frederick Warne, 1970.

Jay, Eileen, Mary Noble, and Anne Stevenson Hobbs.
A Victorian Naturalist: Beatrix Potter’s Drawings from the Armitt Collection.
London: Frederick Warne, 1992.

Lane, Margaret.
The Tale of Beatrix Potter,
revised edition. London: Frederick Warne, 1968.

Linder, Leslie.
A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter.
London: Frederick Warne, 1971.

Potter, Beatrix.
The Journal of Beatrix Potter, 1881-1897.
Transcribed by Leslie Linder. London: Frederick Warne, New Edition, 1966.

Potter, Beatrix.
Beatrix Potter’s Letters.
Selected and edited by Judy Taylor. London: Frederick Warne, 1989.

Potter, Beatrix
. Beatrix Potter: A Holiday Diary
. Transcribed and edited, with a forward and a history of the Warne family, by Judy Taylor. London: The Beatrix Potter Society, 1996.

Rollinson, William.
The Cumbrian Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore.
West Yorkshire, UK: Smith Settle Ltd., 1997.

Rollinson, William.
Life and Tradition in the Lake District.
Dalesman Books, 1981.

Taylor, Judy.
Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman,
revised edition. London: Frederick Warne, 1996.

Taylor, Judy, Joyce, Whalley, et al.
Beatrix Potter, 1866- 1943: The Artist and Her World.
London: Penguin Group, 1987.

Recipes from the Land between the Lakes

Sarah Barwick’s Lemon Bars

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
grated zest of 1 lemon
¹
⁄2 cup lemon juice
²
⁄3 cup butter
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1
¹
⁄2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup old-fashioned oats
candied orange peel for garnish

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9‘×13‘ pan. Pour condensed milk into medium-sized bowl; stir in lemon zest and juice. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add flour and baking powder in two additions, beating very well. Mix in the oats. Spread about two-thirds of this mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan, making a smooth, firm layer. Pour milk-lemon mixture over bottom layer. Spread remaining oat mixture evenly over lemon layer. (This is easier if you “dot” it in place, then smooth.). Bake for 30-35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool in pan; refrigerate for one hour. Cut into 16 squares. Decorate each square with a bit of candied orange peel. Refrigerate.

Mrs. Lythecoe’s Recipe for Rhubarb and Raspberry Tart

Pastry for one 10‘ pie shell
2 cups rhubarb (may be canned, fresh, or frozen), cut into
¹
⁄4‘ pieces
1 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
³
⁄4 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
¹
⁄2 cup whipping cream
¹
⁄2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 400°. Place pastry in a 10‘ tart or pie pan. Distribute rhubarb evenly in bottom of pie pan and sprinkle with raspberries. In a mixing bowl, whisk sugar and eggs; add cream and vanilla and blend together. Pour egg-cream mixture over fruit and bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until tart is firm in center.

Mrs. Beeton’s Veal and Ham Pie, Recipe No. 898

Published in 1861, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management was the cookery book that every middle-class Victorian bride asked for when she set up housekeeping. This recipe (which was prepared by Parsley Badger) appears on page 427 in the facsimile edition of the book.

2 pounds veal cutlets
2 tablespoons minced fresh savory herbs (parsley, thyme,
marjoram, sage)
strip of lemon peel finely minced
yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs
¹
⁄2 pound ham
puff crust
¹
⁄2 pint of water
nearly
¹
⁄2 pint of good strong gravy
yolk of one egg, beaten
¹
⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 blades of pounded mace
pepper and salt to taste
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms

MODE
: Cut the veal into nice square pieces, and put a layer of them at the bottom of a pie-dish; sprinkle over these a portion of the herbs, spices, seasoning, lemon peel, and the yolks of the eggs cut in slices. Cut the ham very thin, and put a layer of this in. Proceed in this manner until the dish is full, so arranging it that the ham comes at the top. Lay a puff-paste on the edge of the dish, and pour in about
¹
⁄4 pint of water. Cover with crust, ornament it with leaves, brush it over with the yolk of an egg, and bake in a well-heated oven for 1 to 1
¹
⁄2 hours, or longer, should the pie be very large. When it is taken out of the oven, pour in at the top, through a funnel, nearly
¹
⁄2 pint of strong gravy. This should be made sufficiently good that, when cold, it may cut in a firm jelly. This pie may be very much enriched by adding a few mushrooms, oysters, or sweetbreads; but it will be found very good without any of the last-named additions.

TIME
: 1
¹
⁄2 hour, or longer, should the pie be very large

AVERAGE COST
: 3 shillings

SUFFICIENT
for 5 or 6 persons

SEASONABLE
: from March to October

Cumberland Sausage Rolls

1 pound pork
1 egg
3-4 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
1 teaspoon dry sage
¹
⁄2 teaspoon dry thyme
¹
⁄2 teaspoon dry savory
¹
⁄2 teaspoon pepper
¹
⁄2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
pastry for two pie shells

Preheat oven to 400°. Mix pork, egg, bread crumbs, herbs, salt and pepper. Divide the mixture into 32 pieces and roll into cigar-shaped sausages about 4‘ long. (Hint: divide the mixture into 4 parts, then divide each part into four. Roll out 16 sausages and cut each into two.) Heat oil in a skillet and fry the sausages until they are browned nicely. Cool. Roll out half the pastry to about
¹
⁄8‘ thickness, and cut in 16 wedges. Place a sausage at the wide end of one of the wedges. Roll up and place point side down on a cookie sheet. When 16 rolls have been completed, roll out the second pastry round and prepare 16 more rolls. Refrigerate the unbaked rolls until you are ready to bake. Bake for 15 minutes, until pastry is golden brown. Serve immediately.

Lady Longford’s Favorite Ginger Cake

2
¹
⁄2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
4 teaspoons ground ginger
1
¹
⁄2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
¹
⁄2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1
¹
⁄4 cups brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
¹
⁄4 cup grated fresh ginger root
grated zest of half a lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour a 9‘ Bundt pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, ground ginger, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the grated ginger root, lemon zest, and vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate. Dust lightly with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

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.