Still puzzling over this mystery, she went downstairs and lit the paraffin lamp, punched up the fire, and began to deal with supper. Mrs. Jennings had made potato and sausage soup earlier in the day. There was a pot of it on the back of the range, and in the cupboard, bread and creamy yellow butter, a large chunk of yellow cheese, and some gingerbread. She had just put things on the table and was ladling soup into a blue bowl when she heard a sharp rap at the door.

“Oh, bother,” she muttered under her breath, for she was not expecting company and had looked forward to spending the evening alone. But when she opened the door, she changed her mind on the spot, for the person who had knocked was Mr. Will Heelis, holding his brown bowler hat in his hand.

“It’s not too late, is it?” he asked. “I’ve just got back from Kendal. I intended to be earlier, but the ferry was overdue. As usual,” he added with a crooked smile, for the ferry was notorious for its lack of punctuality. Everyone who had to cross from one side of the lake to the other had long ago learnt to live with the situation.

Beatrix stepped back and invited him inside. “No, of course it’s not too late,” she said happily, taking his coat and hat and hanging them on the peg next to hers. “I wasn’t expecting you at all, Will. What a nice surprise!”

“I wasn’t expecting you to expect me.” He put both hands on her shoulders. “Hello, my dear,” he said softly. “Welcome back. I am so very glad to see you.” And with that, he bent (for he was very tall and she was rather short), and kissed her.

Well! I expect you want to know what’s going on, don’t you? Here is a strange gentleman, appearing unannounced at the door of our Beatrix’s cottage after dark, and kissing her! What’s more, she is kissing him back, if I’m not mistaken. At least, it looks very much as if that’s what’s happening.

Oh, dear. If Mrs. Potter saw what we have just seen, she would be horrified and take to her bed immediately with a sick headache, likely requiring a visit from the doctor. Mr. Potter would be apoplectic. He would turn turkey-red and stamp all about the library, blustering and bellowing. And since he is a barrister and presumably knows his way around a court of law, he might even threaten to sue the gentleman in question for taking liberties with his daughter.

But if you have read the previous book in this series (that would be The Tale of Applebeck Farm), you know something that Mr. and Mrs. Potter do not know—not yet, anyway. This gentleman is no stranger, but Beatrix’s friend of several years. More importantly, he is her fiancé. They are engaged to be married.

And if you have not read the earlier book, I hope you will not be too scandalized to learn that the very proper Miss Potter is actually leading a secret life up here in the country, far from London and her parents’ prying and censorious eyes. A very secret life.

Now, to understand this extraordinary situation, you must first know something about Mr. Will Heelis, this bold fellow who has kissed Miss Potter once and is now kissing her for the second time, between whispers of how glad he is to see her and how much he has missed her since the last time they were together. But to tell the truth, Will Heelis is not in the least bold. In fact, by nature he is very shy. Painfully shy, according to his friends, especially with the fairer sex, and certainly not a man for whispering sweet nothings into a lady’s ear, even if they are engaged to be married. But Will has discovered that he is very much in love, and love lends boldness to even the shyest of persons, and so he is probably saying and doing things that he couldn’t possibly have imagined himself saying and doing if he weren’t in love. I’m sure you understand this, if you have ever been in love yourself.

Beatrix’s fiancé is a tall, trim, fit-looking man, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, with fine eyes, a strong jaw, and a shock of thick brown hair that falls boyishly across his forehead. He is the son of Esther Heelis and the Reverend John Heelis, who was the rector of Dufton and later of Kirby Thore (a village on the main road between Appleby and Penrith). Unlike Beatrix, who had only one brother, Bertram, Will grew up in a family of nine brothers and sisters, four lively girls and five boisterous boys. They were close-knit and fun-loving, delighting in picnics and folk dances and frivolous games (none of which, of course, were permitted in Beatrix’s much more staid and status-conscious family). The five brothers went shooting and fishing together and played cricket and tennis and golf. Will was especially fond of swimming and bowling and billiards, and naturally good at every sport to which he turned his hand.

But Will had a sober side, as well. He served his articles of apprenticeship in London, was admitted a solicitor in 1899, and joined the family law firm, which had an office in Bump or Bend Cottage in Hawkshead, the small market town just two miles from New Sawrey. (The cottage is called Bump or Bend because you must duck as you walk past, for fear of hitting your head on a protruding part of the building. When you go there, you will see Will’s office, which looks pretty much as he left it, with his desk and chair and files and such, and many of Beatrix’s paintings, for the place is now a gallery.)

The firm of Heelis and Heelis, Solicitors, handled all kinds of legal affairs, but Will spent most of his time on property matters, so when Miss Potter began buying property in the area, it was natural for her to consult him. He knew when a certain piece of land was coming up for sale, what its boundaries were, what price it ought to sell for, and what it was worth. He could offer reliable, trustworthy advice to a lady from London who lacked experience in such matters but had her own money to spend (the royalties from her books) and was very willing to spend it on the right piece of land.

The land—that’s where it began. Beatrix and Will began looking at properties that came up for sale, walking across the hills and dales together, discussing the land and the buildings and the timber and the meadows and the livestock. They discovered that they both thought that the land should be left as it was, home to sheep and shepherds and small farms, and they worried that the growing demand from developers for holiday houses, bungalows, and villas would destroy not only the picturesque landscape but the traditional hill-country farms and commons. When Beatrix went back to London, Will wrote often to her, keeping her informed about possible purchases and about things that needed to be done or repaired or looked after, first at Hill Top Farm and then at Castle Farm, which she bought (on his advice) in 1909.

Their partnership began in that businesslike way not long after she arrived in the village and over the next few years, it ripened into a strong friendship. This was how Beatrix’s romance had begun with Norman, who had been her editor on the Little Books, and so it felt right to her. And since Will suffered from such shyness with the ladies, it might have been the only way he could have stumbled into love. And then—to their mutual astonishment—they became engaged.

If you will forgive me, I think I must retell this part of the story, which is told in The Tale of Applebeck Farm. It happened, you see, on the same night that the Applebeck dairy burnt, a year and a half before. This was a wildly exciting night for the villagers, who got out of their beds and ran to join the bucket brigade to try and put the fire out. It was also an exciting night for Will. He and Beatrix had gone for a walk in the moonlight, and he had at last been able to muster the courage to tell her what had been hiding in his heart for some time.

This is how he began: “I care for you, Miss Potter. I care deeply. I don’t suppose this is any secret to you—I am sure it has been increasingly apparent each time we’ve been together this last year, and perhaps even before.”

It had indeed become apparent, and Beatrix had observed it with growing uneasiness. It was not that she did not have warm feelings of her own. Oh, no, not at all! She knew how she felt and she was fully aware of the danger of it, for those warm feelings for Will Heelis were complicated by equally warm feelings of loyalty to Norman Warne and his family. (Norman’s sister Millie would surely be hurt if she found out that Beatrix was beginning to care for someone else.) And her parents—

Oh, dear. Well, that, of course, was the most significant complication, for Beatrix knew that her mother and father would oppose her relationship with Will Heelis in exactly the way they had opposed her engagement to Norman, and for exactly the same reasons. They would say that Will (who was, after all, just a country solicitor, the son of a country parson and his country wife) was not “the right sort of person” to marry their daughter. In fact, they still did not intend that their daughter should marry anyone at all, ever, but should stay with them at Bolton Gardens and look after them in their old age. And Beatrix (who was very modern in some ways and very old-fashioned in others) could not imagine marrying without her parents’ consent.

Well, you can see the dilemma she was in. So it was no wonder that Beatrix was uneasy, and that she would really much rather that Will had never found whatever had been hiding in his heart. She wanted to make him stop, but she couldn’t, for he hadn’t yet finished.

“Please do believe me when I say,” he was going on, “that I am not insensible to your feelings for Mr. Warne, nor to your difficulties with your parents. But I must tell you truly, and from my heart, that if your circumstances change—”

At that point, he had paused. Beatrix was not putting her fingers in her ears (that would have been terribly rude) but he could see by the look on her face that she did not want to hear what he had to say. Having opened the subject, however, he could not see any comfortable way to close it, and so he had taken a deep breath and stumbled on.

“I know your parents believe me unworthy. It is true—I am unworthy, and I should never wish to cause you a single moment’s unhappiness on my account. But if ... if your circumstances can ever permit you to consider having me, Miss Potter, my heart . . . my heart is yours. Truly, honestly, and eternally yours.”

I don’t know about you, but if I had been Miss Potter and Mr. Heelis had offered to give me his heart, truly, honestly, and eternally, I should not have hesitated one instant. I should have said, “Yes! Oh, yes, yes, yes!” on the spot. But our Beatrix (who had the foresight to see that matters were coming to a head) had already practiced her “no.” And so she delivered it, firmly and compactly.

“I do care for you, but our friendship must remain a friendship. I still have an enduring fondness for Norman, and my parents present a substantial obstacle to my living my life as I would choose to live it.”

Now, Will could have accepted Beatrix’s rejection and gone on about his business, as any well-mannered Victorian gentleman should have done. (I am perfectly aware that Queen Victoria had by this time been dead for a decade, but that doesn’t change the fact that Will and Beatrix are thoroughgoing Victorians, just as proper as you please. Neither would have liked being called “Edwardian,” for King Edward, while he was a very good king, had a very bad reputation for playing fast and loose with the ladies.) Will’s heart would, of course, have been completely broken, but humans are resilient, and it takes more than a romantic rebuff to do us in. I daresay our Will would not have mourned his loss forever.

But while this man may be very shy, he is also very stubborn, and upon due consideration, he did not find it convenient to take Beatrix’s “no” for an answer. Instead, he kept on pressing the subject, and after a little while, Beatrix found herself saying what was truly in her heart: that she cared for him very deeply, and that if her circumstances were different, her answer would be different. Her “no” might become a “yes.”

That was what he was waiting for. “Well, then,” he said (and I do think that we must forgive him that little bit of triumph in his tone), “if you would choose to marry me under other circumstances, I will be content to wait. Until your circumstances change,” he added firmly, “however long that may be. All I ask is a promise, Beatrix. As long as I have your promise, I can wait.”

A promise? Beatrix was utterly taken aback. She had said she cared for him, but she couldn’t marry him unless things were different. She had given the man an inch, and now he wanted a mile. This was entirely unexpected. She had assumed that he would accept her “no” and that would be that. They could go on as friends, being together when they could, enjoying each other’s company, just as before. But here he was, boldly demanding a promise! What in the world could she say that would satisfy him, be true to her own heart’s desire, and still protect her obligations? It was a challenge. A conundrum. A lesser woman would have been completely flummoxed.

But our Beatrix was no lesser woman. She raised her eyes to his and said, sweetly and softly, “Well, then, I shall promise not to marry anyone but you, Will. That is my promise, and I freely give it. Will it do?” When he seemed to hesitate, she pounced. “You see?” she said triumphantly. “I knew you wanted something more from me. Well, that’s all you are going to get. You are free to take back your proposal.”

Which, of course, he had not. Her promise was not exactly what he wanted, but he knew that Beatrix Potter was a woman of her word. She would marry him, or she would not marry anyone, and with that he had to be content. Well, he was—at least, on that night, at that moment. They were engaged to be married (someday), and even though it had to be secret, just between the two of them, that would do. It would have to, wouldn’t it? And at that moment, it did.

Beatrix had been able to get back to the farm only a half-dozen times since that fateful night. They had not been together often or long, but often and long enough to assure both of them that their feelings had not changed. They had exchanged quite a few letters, although Beatrix (who was in a great state of consternation about this secret engagement into which she had inadvertently entered) had the sense that even letter writing was dangerous. Her mother knew that Mr. Heelis had helped her purchase Castle Farm, so letters bearing his return address might therefore be assumed to be confined to business matters. On the other hand, if her mother caught her blushing over the letters (and Beatrix had an embarrassing tendency to blush), she might suspect that something more than business was in the wind. So Beatrix, who hated fusses and rows more than anything in the world, hid the letters, just as she had hidden Norman’s, and of course, said nothing at all about her engagement to Mr. Heelis. Her secret engagement.

There it is: the story behind our story, and I hope you don’t think I’ve gone on too long about it. But while I’ve been telling it, Will and Beatrix have been enjoying, undisturbed, their first private moment together in some months. I’m sure they don’t want a flock of curious people peering over their shoulders, wondering how Miss Potter feels to be kissed by this tall, fine-looking man, or how Mr. Heelis feels to be holding his dearest love at last in his arms. So we will stand off to one side and be very quiet. Perhaps you wouldn’t even mind holding your breath.

Thank you. We can breathe again, for the moment has passed. Will has lifted his hand to Beatrix’s cheek and touched it tenderly, and she has taken his fingertips and put them to her lips. Both laugh a little, shakily, then move apart, but not too far apart, toward the fire.

“It’s getting chilly outside,” Will said, spreading his hands to the warmth and speaking in what he hoped was a normal tone. However, he had just held his fiancée (his fiancée!) close enough to be made a little giddy by the scent of her lavender soap. He didn’t feel normal at all. “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to see frost in the next day or two.”

“I shouldn’t either,” Beatrix said, trying for something that sounded like her usual voice but didn’t, of course, because she had just been kissed by the man she loved (yes, loved!). “Have you eaten? There’s soup on the stove. And bread and cheese. Oh, and gingerbread.”

“Ah.” Will brightened, and things began to feel a little more normal. “Soup. And gingerbread. Why, no, I haven’t, actually. I’d be rather glad of a little something, if you’re sure there’s enough. My dear,” he added shyly.

And in another five minutes, Beatrix found herself sitting with the greatest happiness you can possibly imagine across the table from Will, thinking that it was just as if they were married, sharing a simple supper of soup and bread and cheese and afterward, a piece of gingerbread and a cup of steaming coffee. Outside, the March wind was rising, but indoors, all was warm and cheerful and delightfully comfortable, so comfortable that neither could imagine a better, sweeter, happier place to be, not if they searched the whole wide world. They talked about the noisy hydroplane and about a rumor that Will had heard about a possible aeroplane route between Bowness and Grasmere, at the north end of the lake, to be established by the aeroplane’s owners. They talked about Castle Farm, and about Will’s business (he had been in Kendal, settling a property dispute), and about Beatrix’s parents and her brother, Bertram, who at the present time was visiting in London.

“Although,” Beatrix added, “my parents seem never to be overjoyed to see him, and of course he is never very glad to come. They all do it out of duty.”

It was the story of her family, she thought. Everything they did, they did out of a sense of obligation or duty, and none of it ever seemed to bring them any enjoyment. As Will described the Heelis family, on the other hand, he made them sound very much like Norman’s brothers and sisters, full of fun and laughter and happy silliness.

“And he’s not yet told them about his secret marriage?” Will asked, pushing away his empty plate and looking straight at Beatrix.

This was a provocative question. The fact of the matter, you see, was that Beatrix’s brother Bertram (younger than she by some five years) had been secretly married for over a decade. His wife’s name was Mary, and they had met when she was working as a serving girl in her aunt’s hostelry. They lived together on the farm Bertram had bought in Scotland (they had no children), but he had still not told his father and mother. Bertram’s secret life loomed large between Will and Beatrix. For even though they had not yet discussed it with each other, it had crossed both their minds that they might be secretly married. And why not? They were adults and pledged, weren’t they? They had had several months to think it over, and neither of them could imagine marrying anyone else. So the possibility of a secret marriage might be a way out of their dilemma.

But Will was a straightforward, honest man who disliked the thought of clandestine dealings. He longed to let the whole world know that Miss Potter had agreed to become Mrs. Heelis and in fact, in a moment of sheer, delirious happiness, had actually told his cousin, who was also his partner in the family law firm. (He had, of course, sworn the cousin to secrecy.)

For her part, Beatrix had been horrified when she learnt of her brother’s secret arrangement. She was deeply sympathetic to his desire to live with the woman he loved. But if he loved Mary enough to marry her, he ought to be brave enough to tell his father and mother. And on a practical level, she knew that she could never keep so important a secret as marriage from her parents. They would know in an instant that she had been up to something. Her face would give her away, and in a moment or two, they would have the whole story.

So she reached for a change of subject, snatching at the first thing that came into her mind. “Speaking of marriage,” she said, picking up her coffee cup, “I’ve just been with Grace Lythecoe. She has received several nasty letters from some anonymous person who doesn’t want her to marry the vicar. It’s making her terribly unhappy.”

Beatrix knew the minute she spoke that she had betrayed a confidence. But the cat was out of the bag now, and when Will, surprised, wanted to know what it was all about, she had to tell him, adding, “But really, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Please don’t tell anyone else.”

“Of course not,” Will said firmly. “But this is serious, Beatrix. What is Mrs. Lythecoe going to do?”

“She’s asked me to help her find out who is writing them,” Beatrix said, and put down her cup. “But I’ve seen the letters, and I’m afraid they don’t give any clues.”

Will frowned. “Do you suppose she would let me see them? I’ve lived in the district for a very long time, and I know a great many people, town and country. I might be able to recognize the handwriting, or see something else that might give us an idea of who wrote them.”

Beatrix hesitated, but only for a moment. Will was right. He was acquainted with far more people than she was. He might be able to recognize the sender immediately. The matter could be dealt with, Grace’s worries and fears laid to rest, and she could stop thinking about it. She pushed back her chair.

“As it happens,” she said, “I have the letters. Mrs. Lythecoe knows you and trusts you. I don’t think she would object to my sharing them with you. Perhaps you can tell her who wrote them.”

But when Beatrix spread the letters on the table and moved the lamp closer so he could read them, Will had to admit that he could see no clues to the identity of the sender.

“How did she get them?” he asked.

“They came over the course of the past month,” Beatrix said, “each in a different way. The first was put through the slot in the front door. The second was dropped over the back fence. The third, which arrived only a few days ago, was sent through the post. But as you can see, the postmark is so badly smeared that it is impossible to tell where it was mailed.”

Will nodded. “Too bad there’s no bloody thumbprint,” he said with a wry chuckle. “If so, we might enlist Sherlock Holmes to help solve the mystery.”

Beatrix, too, had read Mr. Doyle’s story, “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,” and knew what Will was talking about. Holmes had identified the suspect by comparing a print of his thumb to a bloody print on a whitewashed wall at the scene of the crime. She had to smile a little when she thought about this, for the astute Holmes had also proved that the thumbprint on the wall had been cleverly fabricated by the real villain, and the owner of the thumb, the suspect, was an innocent man.

But even the incomparable Holmes could have found no clues in these letters. The envelopes were entirely unremarkable, and the messages were printed in crude block letters, in pencil, on unlined sheets of plain paper of the sort that could be purchased cheaply at any stationer’s shop. The only possible clue was that the paper on which the third message was written was smaller by half and had a rough edge, as though it had been folded once or twice and then torn from another piece of paper.

The first said, simply, “Marry Samuel Sackett and you will be sorry.”

The second repeated this warning, with this addition: “He has a terrible sin on his conscience.”

The third, most ominously, said, “Cancel the wedding, or the whole parish will know what he has done.”

“Sin?” Will was incredulous. “The vicar? What terrible sin could he have possibly committed? He is one of the mildest men I have ever met.”

Beatrix had asked herself the same question. But when she inquired (as delicately as she knew how), Mrs. Lythecoe had tearfully insisted that she had no idea what it might be—and what was more, she didn’t believe there was any such thing. It was nothing but a lie, she insisted. The anonymous letter writer was making it up.

Beatrix wanted to agree with her friend, of course. It was hard to imagine Vicar Sackett committing even a small sin, unless one counted dithering, of which the poor vicar was endlessly guilty. He always saw all sides of a question, both the positive and the negative, and could never quite make up his mind which way he ought to come down. Some of the villagers saw this as a character flaw, since a man of God surely ought to know the difference between good and bad and be able to tell everyone else exactly what it was. But a “terrible” sin? How could that be? He just wasn’t that sort of person.

Still, Beatrix couldn’t help wondering. Perhaps the vicar (who had already put his fiftieth birthday behind him) was not the same man now that he had always been. To put it another way, he might have been a different sort of person in his youth, before he became vicar of St. Peter’s. People changed, and young men often sowed vast fields of wild oats. Beatrix knew this of her own experience, because she was well acquainted with her brother’s various misdemeanors over the years—his failing in school, his gambling, even (sadly) his excessive drinking. Was it possible that the vicar, as a younger person, had done things he now regretted? Had once led a life that he now kept secret?

But that wasn’t the real question, and Beatrix knew it. Whatever the vicar had or had not done, the real question was whether the letter writer would dare to spread an ugly tale, true or false, around the parish. And whether Grace Lythecoe—a sensible woman, a kind woman and thoughtful, but a woman who cared a great deal about her position in the little community—had the courage to marry her vicar in spite of such malicious threats. Listening to Grace worry and fret out loud about the letters, Beatrix had begun to fear that she did not. She couldn’t be blamed, of course. To marry in defiance of others took an extraordinary courage, as Beatrix well knew. She could scarcely criticize her friend for failure of heart, when she herself was in a similar situation.

And now, thinking further about the situation, she was very sorry that she had agreed to help. It was true that the village was small and that everyone knew everyone else’s business—which meant that somebody might have seen the person who put the first letter through Grace’s door or tossed the second letter over the fence. But it was also true that in order to find out who knew what, she should have to ask questions. And that might cause even more trouble for Grace and the vicar. Whoever was writing these letters might not be willing to stop—or worse, might not be willing to stop with the simple act of writing letters.

“I’m sorry,” Will said ruefully. “I wish I could be of more help. But I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. I may be able to learn something.” He folded the letters carefully and handed them back to Beatrix. “Keep them in a safe place,” he said, standing.

“You’re going?” Beatrix asked, feeling a wrench. It seemed as if he had just arrived.

Reaching for his coat, Will smiled crookedly. “I must, or the Jenningses will talk. And then Mrs. Stubbs will talk, and Agnes Llewellyn and Mathilda Crook, and everybody else.” He bent and kissed her. “You know what gossips these villagers are.”

Beatrix knew. Bertram might be able to keep his secret safe, on an isolated farm in the wilds of the Scottish border country. It was much harder to lead a secret life in Near Sawrey, where prying eyes were everywhere and the tongues never stopped rattling.

Which was exactly why the vicar and Mrs. Lythecoe were in such danger.