The Story of the Creator of Peter Rabbit, Page 2

  Beatrix wasn’t sure if Warne wanted a second book quite so soon after the first. She was concerned that they might cut out some of her favourite rhymes in the text, so decided to get The Tailor of Gloucester privately printed.

  She had developed the idea for the story when she was on one of several successful holidays with a cousin, Caroline Hutton, near the city of Gloucester. The original visit in 1894 had been a momentous one. For the first time, at the age of twenty-eight, Beatrix was given permission by her parents to travel on the train alone. The prospect had been almost too much for her and she had developed a sick headache. Luckily Caroline, who was made of sterner stuff, had been on hand to carry her off.

  In Gloucester, Beatrix was told this story: a tailor had been asked to make a very special waistcoat for the mayor to wear at an important occasion, but by Saturday night it was still incomplete. The tailor had gone home very worried, only to return to his shop on Monday morning to find that his waistcoat was finished, except for one buttonhole. Pinned onto it was a little note which read, ‘No more twist’. The explanation? His two assistants had crept secretly into the shop and sewn away all Sunday to help out their master.

  Beatrix was delighted by this story and, there and then, sat down in Gloucester to sketch some scenes for the book that was forming in her mind. Back in London, she set to work properly, visiting a tailor’s shop in Chelsea for some first-hand research.

  Beatrix sketched the son of the family coachman posing for the tailor of Gloucester.

  The book illustration showing the tailor sitting cross-legged on his work table.

  Her version of the tailor’s story was to be a little different. She decided that it was the mice who helped the tailor and she used her two pet mice, Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb, as models for the pictures.

  By December 1901 the story was written into a stiffly covered exercise book and she included many old nursery rhymes and verses. The Tailor of Gloucester was to become her favourite work and she often regretted that it was not more popular. Her vision of the tired tailor struggling to finish his work in the bad light of winter is particularly haunting. So, too, are her pictures of the mice sewing busily away at night, leaving behind a note with ‘No more twist’ written on it in the minutest of handwriting.

  After Beatrix had printed her private edition, Warne decided they wished to publish it, which they did, in a slightly shorter form, in 1903. They also published in the same year, Beatrix’s third book, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. This is the story of the irrepressible Nutkin and his friends going to gather nuts on an island in Derwentwater and tangling with Old Brown, the owl. It was the first of many stories that celebrated the part of England she particularly loved. Like many of the places that appear in Beatrix’s books, ‘Owl Island’ can still be visited today.

  Little mice sewing by candlelight in The Tailor of Gloucester.

  A pattern had been set. From now on until she married in 1913, Frederick Warne would publish two Beatrix Potter books a year (with only a few exceptions) and the demand for them would grow and grow. Her beautifully simple prose, her clever stories based on her first- hand knowledge of animals and their habits, and her exquisitely coloured pictures, immediately ensured her a very special place in children’s literature.

  Rupert and Helen Potter were surprised and a little alarmed by what was happening to Beatrix. Suddenly, their quiet dutiful daughter was turning into somebody different, somebody with increasing authority and somebody who was earning money. In addition, they disapproved of her friendship with the Warne family.

  One of the very pleasant things that resulted from her association with the firm of Frederick Warne was the introduction of Beatrix into the large, affectionate and welcoming Warne family circle. It was a new and delightful experience.

  The Warne family on bicycles.

  Norman Warne with his nephew, Fred. Norman was popular with all his nephews and nieces.

  There were five surviving Warne children, Harold, Fruing and Edith, who were all married, Millie (Amelia), an unmarried daughter who became Beatrix’s friend for life, and Norman. Norman and Millie still lived with their widowed mother in Bedford Square but the family kept in close contact. It was a busy household, full of children and noise.

  But for Mr and Mrs Potter, the family were not socially acceptable. They considered the Warnes to be ‘in trade’ and they did not wish their daughter to associate too freely with them—a situation full of irony as both Mr and Mrs Potter’s families had made their money ‘in trade’ in the not too distant past. They were concerned, also, by Beatrix’s developing friendship with Norman.

  From the Potters’ point of view, they were right to be worried. There was a special feeling between the two. Norman was thoughtful, hard-working and sensitive. Beatrix instinctively turned to him on business. He, in return, was attracted to this unusual and interesting author.

  5

  A Tragic Love Affair

  Among the papers found after Beatrix’s death was a photograph of the original Benjamin Bunny. ‘A very handsome tame Belgian rabbit … extremely fond of hot buttered toast, he used to hurry into the drawing-room when he heard the tea-bell!’ He was, of course, the inspiration for her next book, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny.

  The story tells how Benjamin Bunny persuades Peter Rabbit to return to Mr McGregor’s garden in order to get his clothes back, and how the two rabbits nearly come to grief. Mr McGregor had made off with the clothes after Peter lost them in his previous adventures in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. As usual, Beatrix prepared the book with great care, writing it out into a covered exercise book with the pencil sketches pasted in opposite the text.

  The Tale of Benjamin Bunny was to be published at the same time as The Tale of Two Bad Mice. Beatrix needed a model for the doll’s house in her story of Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb and their adventures. She was invited down to Fruing’s house in Surbiton so that she could draw the doll’s house Norman had built for his niece, Winifred. But Mrs Potter put her foot down and forbade Beatrix to go. Instead Beatrix had to work from photographs and Norman provided help by getting hold of a flaxen-haired doll for the Lucinda character and a wooden Dutch doll for Jane, the cook. He also arranged to send to Beatrix some delicious looking doll’s food from a toyshop. Eventually Beatrix did manage to visit Surbiton where she borrowed Winifred’s policeman doll. All these items were faithfully reproduced in the pictures.

  Illustration from The Tale of Benjamin Bunny.

  A photograph of Winifred Warne with the doll’s house that her uncle Norman built for her and which Beatrix used as the inspiration for the house in The Tale of Two Bad Mice.

  Her two pet mice featured as the leading characters in the story. Beatrix wrote to Norman Warne, ‘Hunca Munca is very ready to play the game; I stopped her in the act of carrying a doll as large as herself up to the nest, she cannot resist anything with lace or ribbon; (she despises the dishes).’

  The two books were published in 1904. Unfortunately, the real Hunca Munca died some time later from a fall. Beatrix was inconsolable. She almost wished that her own neck had been broken, rather than Hunca Munca’s. Beatrix’s grief for her pet was very real, but it was also intensified by the fact that she was now plunged into an emotional crisis where she found herself torn between her feelings and her family’s wishes.

  The ‘very beautiful doll’s-house’, from The Tale of Two Bad Mice.

  During all this time, Norman and Beatrix probably had never spent more than a few moments alone together. They always addressed each other, in letters at least, as ‘Miss Potter’ and ‘Mr Warne’. Beatrix had been forbidden to carry on her friendship with him, and this situation brought the two more closely together. Norman and Beatrix had much to share and when they did fall in love, it was serious.

  During the summer of 1905, when Beatrix was about to go on holiday, Norman wrote to her and asked her to marry him. She accepted. Naturally, her parents disapproved strongly. They tried to prevent the engagement and to
ld her not to tell anyone about it outside the two families. Beatrix agreed to say nothing but, in a rare show of defiance, insisted on wearing Norman’s engagement ring.

  Despite the strains at home, Beatrix hid her upset from the world. She continued working on her next book, The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, and developing her ideas for The Pie and the Patty-Pan. Her work was her comfort. ‘I do so hate finishing books,’ she told Norman. ‘I would like to go on with them for years.’ This was true, but perhaps it was also true that the process of working on her books meant that she could spend time with Norman.

  The character of Mrs Tiggy-winkle was based on old Kitty MacDonald, the twinkly and ‘delightfully merry’ washerwoman Beatrix had made friends with, and often photographed, at Dalguise. The book, she considered, would appeal mainly to little girls, and she used her own Mrs Tiggy-winkle as the model for her illustrations. It was not all plain sailing. ‘As long as she can go to sleep on my knee she is delighted, but if she is propped up on end for half an hour, she first begins to yawn pathetically, and then she does bite!’ In the end, Beatrix dressed up a cottonwool dummy figure in order to get the clothes drawn correctly.

  Mrs Tiggy-winkle, the hedgehog washerwoman.

  Before the book was published, tragedy struck. In August 1905 Norman fell ill with a blood disorder, and within a few weeks he was dead.

  His grieving family had, at least, the small consolation of being able to mourn together. Because of her promise to her parents, Beatrix had no one. It is difficult to guess what happened to her spirit in the dark days that followed. She had lost the man she loved, and with him the prospect of a happy marriage.

  She also had to face the fact that she was not going to escape from Bolton Gardens or her parents just yet. The family net that closed round her was just as tight as before.

  Her letters remain mostly silent on her feelings, but it is possible to trace in them from that time onwards a tougher, more practical spirit. Under this blow, the younger Beatrix vanished, and an older Beatrix emerged.

  6

  Buying a Farm

  Even if Beatrix could not marry Norman, there was something she could do and had wanted to do for some time. She was now earning quite a lot of money. She had also a small legacy left to her by an aunt. In the summer of 1905 she used this money to buy Hill Top Farm, Sawrey, in the Lake District. It was the answer to a growing need to put down roots in the countryside and to have somewhere which she could call her own.

  From the beginning, Hill Top was to be of the utmost importance to her. It was a special house that she loved best of all of the several houses she later owned, providing a much needed source of comfort and solace. It also came to express a very private part of her personality.

  There was plenty to think about. The farmhouse and the farm buildings needed attention. Animals needed to be bought and equipment installed. She reinstated the farm manager, John Cannon, and on the advice of Canon Rawnsley, she began to build up a flock of Herdwick sheep, an old and increasingly rare breed. Soon, in a modest way, the farm began to prosper.

  Her pen-and-ink sketch of Hill Top as it was when she first bought it.

  Beatrix’s painting, done in 1910, of Hill Top Farm in snow at night.

  Hill Top was her bolt-hole, a place to which she could escape and get over her grief. It offered the prospect of a life quite different from the one she was used to, and one which she discovered she was naturally fitted for—as a farmer.

  Unfortunately, the house was rather small and she had to find a way to fit herself and the Cannon family into it. She made plans to build a new wing onto the farmhouse. She quickly discovered, too, that she had to do battle with the rats that infested Hill Top. She described one incident to Winifred Warne: ‘There is a sort of large cupboard or closet where I do my photographing; it is papered inside with a rather pretty green and gold paper; and Samuel (Whiskers) had torn off strips of paper all round the closet as high as he could reach up … I wonder what in the world he wanted it for? I think Anna Maria must have been there, with him, to help. And I think she must have wanted to paper her best sitting room!’

  Part of Beatrix’s letter to Winifred Warne describing Samuel Whiskers’ activities with the wallpaper in Hill Top.

  Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria attempt to make a kitten roly-poly pudding in The Tale of Samuel Whiskers.

  The greedy Samuel Whiskers and his wife, Anna Maria, are the chief culprits in her story, The Roly-Poly Pudding (later renamed The Tale of Samuel Whiskers) which was published in 1908. It is dedicated to Beatrix’s tame white rat, Sammy, who used to travel with her in a wooden box. It has some frightening moments in it, particularly when poor Tom Kitten is rolled up in dough to be baked as ‘a kitten dumpling roly-poly pudding’.

  Beatrix also found time to finish The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher, a story she had worked on for several years and which Warne finally published in 1906. She produced two books in concertina form, The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit and The Story of Miss Moppet, for very young readers (these were later reproduced as books in 1916). Warne published The Tale of Tom Kitten in 1907 and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck in the following year. The books lacked none of Beatrix Potter’s special touch.

  She followed these with The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies and The Tale of Ginger and Pickles (both published in 1909). Ginger and Pickles caused a great deal of talk in Sawrey. Beatrix wrote to Millie Warne, ‘The book has been causing amusement, it has got a good many views which can be recognized in the village which is what they like, they are all quite jealous of each other’s houses and cats getting into the book.’ It is interesting to note from their reaction that Beatrix, who had made great efforts to become involved in the small community, had obviously been accepted by the people of Sawrey.

  Many favourite Beatrix Potter characters are seen doing their shopping in The Tale of Ginger and Pickles.

  Unfortunately, she could only get to Sawrey for brief intervals, cramming in the odd day here and there whenever she could get away. Her parents were quite happy for her to make a wise investment in land and to indulge in what they saw as a hobby. They considered, however, that her life still had to centre around them and Bolton Gardens. Beatrix resented this but bore it as best she could.

  She threw herself into yet more new books. The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse, the story of a very clean, tidy little wood-mouse, was published in 1910. The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes, which deliberately included chipmunks and a black bear among its characters for the benefit of her American readers, was published in 1911.

  Although Beatrix was delighted that her books were selling so well, her correspondence with Warne was less happy. After the death of Norman, Beatrix dealt mainly with his brother Harold with whom she enjoyed a reasonable working relationship. But in her letters to him there is sometimes a touch of acidity – she was not always happy with his suggestions and criticisms. The main source of friction, however, was money. The payments due to her were frequently erratic and Beatrix began to suspect that all was not well.

  As she felt a considerable loyalty to the firm, she contented herself for the time being with expressing her disquiet in strong terms and in hoping for the best.

  7

  A Proposal of Marriage

  In 1909 a new and important factor entered Beatrix’s life. She decided to buy a second farm in Sawrey, Castle Cottage Farm. To help her with the negotiations she used a firm of local solicitors, W. H. Heelis and Son. The person she dealt with there was William Heelis, a bachelor in his early forties.

  During the many hours that they spent together, sorting out legal problems and planning improvements to Beatrix’s properties, Beatrix and William got to know each other very well. They discovered they had much in common, and their friendship was cemented by their shared love of the Lake District. Beatrix was still an attractive and intriguing woman. William was kind, courteous and unobtrusively helpful. Late in 1912, William proposed marriage and Beatrix accepted.

  Beatrix and her mother
outside Castle Cottage.

  William Heelis in the porch at Hill Top.

  Pigling Bland meets the ‘perfectly lovely’ Pig-wig in The Tale of Pigling Bland.

  Once again, her love affair was not to run smoothly. There was still the problem of Mr and Mrs Potter, now older and even less inclined to let Beatrix go. They counted on her to look after them in their old age. Besides, they did not consider William Heelis good enough to be the husband of their daughter. Even at forty-six, she was not going to be released without a fight.

  For Beatrix the situation held a depressingly familiar ring, and this time the stresses and strains affected her health. She succumbed during the winter of 1912–13 to an illness which affected her already weakened heart.

  Her spirit, however, was not broken and she was hard at work on a book, The Tale of Pigling Bland, the only book that contains a hint of romance. One of its characters, Pig-wig the ‘perfectly lovely little black Berkshire pig’, was based on a small pig that Beatrix had nursed at Hill Top. In fact, ‘the wee black lady pig’ was a reject from the herd that Beatrix had purchased for her farm. At night, she wrapped the piglet in a blanket and put it beside her bed until the pig was big enough to fend for itself when it followed Beatrix everywhere. Like The Tale of Mr Tod which had been published in 1912, the book had more text and contained fewer colour pictures than her previous books. Beatrix now had far less time and inclination to spend on drawing and painting.