The Story of the Creator of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
A portrait of the author in The Tale of Pigling Bland.
The two pigs arm-in-arm, that was not, Beatrix stressed, meant to represent her and Mr Heelis.
Some of the pictures show Hill Top Farm, and there is even one where the author has included herself. However, the picture of the two pigs arm in arm at the end of the book is not, as she said, ‘a portrait of me and Mr Heelis … When I want to put William into a book—it will have to be some very tall thin animal.’
The question of her engagement was still very much in the air. If Mr and Mrs Potter imagined that they could squash an association they did not approve of, they were proved wrong. Beatrix was determined to marry. Strangely enough, it was her brother, Bertram, who helped her at this crucial point. He announced out of the blue that he had been secretly married for some time. His wife, Mary, was a local girl and together they had been quietly running his farm for the past eleven years. Faced with this piece of news, the Potters’ opposition crumbled. On October 15, 1913, Beatrix and William were married in London.
There is a photograph taken of them on their wedding day. Beatrix is dressed in a sensible jacket and skirt with a pretty lace blouse. Her hair is scraped back but some tendrils have escaped, giving her a disarming halo. William is standing rather nervously beside her, dressed in a tweed suit. Both of them are looking directly at the camera. The effect is of two people who have made up their minds and are going to stick by one another.
There was, of course, more to it than that. Nobody who knew them then, or later, doubted the very real affection that existed between the two. Beatrix once confided to her journal that she would rather remain single than marry unhappily. She considered a happy marriage, however, to be the crowning achievement of a woman’s life. In marrying William Heelis, she realised this aim.
It is in character that when she did marry it was not to the fanfare of trumpets and a rustling of white silk. Her love affair, outwardly at any rate, was never dramatic or burningly passionate, but quiet and considered. She had never been a romantic—her journal reveals that. And if she still regretted the fact that she had been unable to marry Norman Warne, she does not give any sign of it in the photograph.
Beatrix Potter and William Heelis on their wedding day.
8
Married Life
Beatrix adapted to married life with ease and enjoyment. From now on she referred to herself as ‘Mrs William Heelis’, and liked others to do so as well. Always unhappy about publicity, she took very good care to preserve her privacy. When she was older, she was positively rude to anybody who tried to pry. A process began where Beatrix Potter, the successful children’s writer, slowly receded into the background, and Mrs Heelis, the energetic and dedicated farmer, took over.
Soon after the wedding, Rupert Potter died of cancer. Of her parents, her father had been closest to Beatrix. She had happy memories of their visits to art galleries and their photographic expeditions out into the countryside. The descriptions in her journal suggest that they both enjoyed each other’s company, even though Beatrix was sometimes made very miserable by Mr Potter’s complaints and bad temper.
She was left with her mother. The two of them had never really got on and their relationship had not improved with the years. Mrs Potter, remote, unenthusiastic and seemingly preoccupied with her endless embroidery, was not the person to appreciate Beatrix’s gifts. Beatrix also failed to find a point of common interest which might have resulted in warmer feelings between the two women.
The Heelises resolved the problem of Mrs Potter by bringing her to live near them in the Lake District, and, of course, Beatrix was kept fully occupied settling her in. Mrs Potter remained there until her death.
Beatrix with her favourite sheepdog, Kep, in 1913.
Beatrix was even busier when the First World War broke out in August 1914. The war not only brought sorrow and hardship to many families, but it also made it difficult to run a farm when so many men were called up to fight. To make it worse, her very much loved collie, Kep, died. Kep had appeared in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck as the wise friend who saves Jemima from ‘the sandy whiskered gentleman’. Beatrix missed him very much.
She was also worried about money. Her payments from Warne were now in a complete mess. In desperation, she wrote to Harold’s brother, Fruing Warne, ‘I cannot leave this muddle to go on accumulating.’ Not only did the situation offend her tidy business instincts, but she needed all the money she earned to keep the farms going.
Beatrix’s watercolour portrait of Kep guarding the sheep.
She was right to be concerned. In April 1917 Harold Warne was arrested for fraud, and the whole future of the publishing firm was thrown into doubt.
This was a very serious state of affairs and one that affected Beatrix profoundly. Something had to be done to save the business from collapse. Despite her irritation Beatrix remained loyal to Warne and to the family, with whom she remained very friendly. She offered to help in the rescue.
The best way Beatrix could help was to produce a new book. She had always been interested in old and traditional rhymes, and when Norman was alive she had half planned a book which illustrated a selection. The book had been laid aside when Norman died, but she now brought it out again and Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes was published in 1917. She was pleased with the result—‘it makes a very pretty little book’.
She was working on The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse when she received more bad news. Her brother, Bertram, died suddenly in July 1918. Beatrix had remained close to him even though they did not meet very often. They had been allies in childhood and a support to each other in adulthood. His death was a bitter blow.
Everyone turned to Beatrix to help sort out the problems left by his death, but she managed to get The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse finished in time for it to be published by Christmas 1918.
A new Beatrix Potter was always something to be looked forward to and this book was no exception. One reviewer wrote, ‘Miss Potter need not worry about rivals. She has none.’ And there can be few who can resist the story of dear little Timmy Willie, the country mouse, who finds himself transported from his peaceful nest in a sunny bank into the terrors of Johnny Town-mouse’s home. The last lines of the book read, ‘One place suits one person, another place suits another person. For my part I prefer to live in the country, like Timmy Willie.’ This was certainly Beatrix’s opinion.
‘The old woman who lived in a shoe’, Beatrix’s mouse version of the nursery rhyme from Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes.
In 1918 the war ended. Back in the quiet valleys and hills of the Lake District, people set about putting their lives in order again. Beatrix was fifty-two. She was now definitely middle-aged—a satisfying and busy middle age. She and William did not have any children, but her marriage was happy and enduring.
Beatrix at a country show with a prize sheep.
Beatrix’s sketch of Johnny Town-mouse visiting Timmy Willie, the contented country mouse.
In one sense, her fulfilment exacted a price. It brought about a slackening in her powers as an artist and writer. Never again would she produce such a magic galaxy of stories and pictures. Her energy and powers would be focused elsewhere: looking after her farms, caring for her animals, supervising her houses, and living with William. Beatrix began to regard her publisher’s requests for new books as a burden and an intrusion. ‘I am utterly tired of doing them,’ she wrote to Warne in 1919, ‘and my eyes are wearing out.’
9
Friends in America
Beatrix did not forget her commitment to Warne, and soon after the war ended she began work on The Tale of Jenny Crow, a retelling of a fable from Aesop. The result, however, was a sharp exchange of letters between publisher and author, for Warne were not happy with the manuscript. ‘It is not Miss Potter, it is Aesop.’ Strong criticism indeed. In one of her letters Beatrix wrote tartly, ‘You do not realise that I have become more—rather than less obstinate as I grow older; and that you have no leve
Anne Carroll Moore in her library.
Gardening guinea-pigs from Beatrix’s second verse collection, Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes.
In 1921 Beatrix made a new friend and this person was to bring her a lot of pleasure. Anne Carroll Moore was the Superintendent of Children’s Work in the New York Public Library. She was visiting the area and wrote to ask if she could see Beatrix.
The meeting was a great success. Beatrix had often been annoyed by what she saw as her English public’s refusal to take her seriously as a writer. She felt that she was only appreciated as an illustrator but, from what Miss Moore told her, the very reverse was true in America. There her readers considered her to be a very fine writer indeed, and Miss Moore was not slow to convey her appreciation and praise.
This was to be the beginning of some very happy friendships with Miss Moore and other Americans who came to visit Sawrey. There was something about the openness and generosity of their character which appealed to Beatrix and made her drop the guard she so often assumed with curious English readers. ‘I always tell nice Americans to send other nice Americans along,’ she said.
Her meeting with Anne Carroll Moore was especially significant because it inspired Beatrix to write another book. In 1922 Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes was produced as a companion volume to Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes.
For Warne, however, the American connection was to prove a mixed blessing. Always anxious to prise more books out of their bestselling author, they were not pleased when Beatrix agreed with an American publisher to write The Fairy Caravan. The story of a travelling circus invisible to humans, this book was to be published only in America in 1929. Beatrix explained that she felt The Fairy Caravan was too personal for her to feel comfortable about it appearing in Britain. Although it is not considered to be one of her better books, it was an immediate success in the United States. Naturally, her publisher there asked for a second book.
Illustrations from The Fairy Caravan, the book that Beatrix published in America.
Beatrix drew on material she had first worked on when she was seventeen—the story of the pig in the Edward Lear rhyme The Owl and the Pussycat and why he went to live in the land of the Bong tree. Poor Pig Robinson is sent out shopping by his aunts and ends up on the high seas. ‘It is the most dreadful rubbish,’ wrote Beatrix, but her readers were not disappointed.
The illustrations from The Tale of Little Pig Robinson show seaside scenes that Beatrix remembered from her visits to the south-west of England when she was a young girl.
This time she did not wish Warne to be excluded, and The Tale of Little Pig Robinson was published in September 1930 by both Warne and her American publisher.
10
Living in the Country
The Heelises were important figures in Sawrey, but they made sure that they gave as much to the village as they took from it. They entered fully into village life and worked for many different charitable concerns which were a necessary part of a community that had to rely on itself.
William played golf and bowls, and he was very fond of country dancing. Beatrix often used to accompany him to watch the revels. Together they participated in local fêtes and celebrations, and often lent one or other of their fields to help out. They supported the local folk dancers and greeted Christmas carollers or Easter Pace-Eggers, (groups of villagers who went round asking for Easter eggs from their neighbours). Beatrix also derived a great deal of satisfaction from her association with the Girl Guides. She was a kind and hospitable host, allowing them to camp on her land during the school holidays.
William Heelis leading a country dance set in about 1930.
One of her favourite charities was the Invalid Children’s Aid Association which aimed to endow beds for children in hospitals. Beatrix helped to raise money with the Peter Rabbit Fund. She drew pictures for the Association’s Christmas cards, and gave permission for the Peter Rabbit symbol to be used on their stamp collecting cards.
She was also a dedicated and valued supporter of the National Trust. She was generous in her financial contributions (often given anonymously) to the Trust, and in her practical encouragement of its conservation aims. The steady growth in the use of the motor car meant that the Lake District was now easier for holiday-makers to reach, and its peace and beauty were being threatened by insensitive development. Beatrix noted the growth of this new tourist industry with a critical and fiercely protective eye. She did not like all that she saw. Over the years, she herself had used whatever money she could spare gradually to acquire pieces of land. At first this was for her own satisfaction, but subsequently she aimed to give the land to the Trust. By 1924, when she purchased Troutbeck, a large farm with sheep flocks, she was a considerable landowner.
A Christmas card design for the Invalid Children’s Aid Association.
Troutbeck Park Farm which Beatrix bought in 1924 and which she left to the National Trust after her death.
In 1930 a large and unspoilt area of land at Coniston came up for sale. Beatrix was very anxious that this estate should remain intact. She offered to buy it for the National Trust, who were short of money, and then sell it back to them in stages. The Trust were delighted to accept her proposal, and they asked her to manage the estate for them until they could make suitable arrangements. Beatrix accepted and proved a very able manager. She continued to act for them until she was in her seventies. ‘Interesting work,’ she wrote to an American friend, ‘at other people’s expense.’
However busy she was, Beatrix always found time to spend with her animals. There were horses, ponies, poultry and pigs on the farms. She kept rabbits and trained her beloved collies. She had a pet pig, Sally, who used to follow her around like a dog, and Tuppenny, a long-haired guinea pig, who twittered whenever he was given his dish of bread and milk. She was also devoted to her Pekinese dogs, Tzusee and Chuleh. They went everywhere with her and even slept on the bed. They were great hunters, and chased round and round like hurricanes under tables and chairs.
In her letters to friends in America she often sent wonderful little ink sketches and descriptions of her animals’ antics. She obviously enjoyed them enormously although, practical farmer as she was, she also understood the necessity of releasing livestock for market day or the butcher.
Beatrix enjoyed collecting wooden furniture.
Beatrix’s feelings for her animals were part of the private side of her character, very different from the shrewd, practical and sometimes formidable face she presented to the world. Ulla Hyde Parker, the Danish wife of one of Beatrix’s relations, was very fond of ‘Cousin Beatie’ as she called her. After Beatrix died, Ulla wrote a brief memoir about her and described their first meeting in 1931.
‘Cousin Beatie came to greet us,’ she wrote, ‘a short, round little lady with a smiling rosy face and small bright blue twinkling eyes. I sensed great warmth but at the same time great reserve, even shyness.
Beatrix at Hill Top with William’s shooting dog, Spotty.
The two women became good friends and it was to Ulla that Beatrix showed Hill Top Farm. Although the Heelises lived at Castle Farm, Beatrix had kept Hill Top. It was here that she kept her most precious possession—all sorts of beautiful old objects—and her papers. She was very interested in old country furniture and often bought up pieces in sales to furnish her houses. The favourites were kept at Hill Top, and each piece was arranged with precise and loving care.
Beatrix often spent afternoons there alone and undisturbed. As she told Ulla, ‘When Cousin Willie asked me to marry him I said yes, but I also said we cannot live here at Hill Top. We will live at Castle Cottage, as I must leave everything here as it is. So after I married I just locked the door and left.’
Ulla sensed that Hill Top was a very important part of what she called Beatrix’s hidden world. The part of her that was close
11
Old Age
Sheep-breeding, farming, organising her land and houses, looking after her relations: Beatrix’s life was a full and tiring one, but she seemed to thrive on it. Apart from one major operation and the colds and bronchitis that struck her down each winter, she remained remarkably active.
Her appearance had, perhaps, become a little eccentric. She would travel about in her chauffeur-driven car wearing bulky tweeds and men’s boots, or she would walk the countryside in all weathers with an old sack flung across her shoulders. Once a tramp mistook her for a fellow tramp! But nobody who knew her, or knew of her, ever underrated her abilities as a farmer or her shrewd common sense.
The links with the old Beatrix Potter faded away. Canon Rawnsley had died in 1920 and Fruing Warne in 1928. Helen Potter finally died at a ripe old age in 1932 and with her death the memories of the shy, secretive young Beatrix disappeared into the past.
The Second World War, like the First, brought added worries and inconveniences. This time there was the bombing to worry about and endless paperwork to be done concerning the farms. The Heelises coped as they coped before, but they were now much older.
Despite everything, Beatrix was optimistic—‘Freedom will survive, whatever happens to us’—if a little vexed that America was taking so long to enter into the fighting, and relieved when eventually they did. Her friends in the States did not forget her and sent welcome parcels of food, including chocolate.