Duncton Tales (14 page)

But absorbing though the burgeoning needs of these youngsters were, most especially to themselves, it was in fact an important time for parents too, freed as they now were from the onerous tasks of providing and nurturing. On the days when summer sun briefly displaced the autumn bluster, the Wood seemed especially peaceful, and such moles could ponder the pleasures of knowing that their individuality had survived after all, and could be explored once more, and that with parental responsibilities lifted, all kinds of plans and preparations could begin at last.

Just such a hopeful mood overtook Privet, who, now that Whillan was off and about by himself and seeming to survive well enough, was beginning to raise her snout, look up at the trees and sky, and realize with a jolt that she was in a system that she had grown to love, and that there was much of it still to see, moles to meet, and many a thing to do.

Her work in the Library had grown slowly but steadily since Whillan had been old enough to go there with her, and though she was still formally attached to Sturne, the Keeper of Rules, in practice she was now consulted by moles from all departments of the Library, for she was recognized as having something of an expertise in matters mediaeval.

But for all that she found herself less willing to spend long hours in the Library than she had been before she had taken charge of Whillan’s rearing, for she saw that there was more to life than bookish things, and to get to know about them a mole must get off her rump and go and say hello to the world. But to what part of the world, and to which moles to say hello, Privet was unsure, for along with the new sense of freedom she felt had come a uneasy restlessness — uneasy because it seemed to have no obvious outlet or objective.

Meanwhile, Whillan, already inclined to wander off during the day, began to delve tunnels of his own for use at night, and as in other families in the system began the sweet sad parting of the ways which, hard though it may sometimes be, is essential if youngsters are to be independent adults with a mind and nature of their own.

Whillan chose the slopes above Barrow Vale for his tunnels, which though not rich in food, were serviceable enough, and put him nearer the social centre of the system than Privet’s austere burrows in the high Eastside. Whillan’s interests had moved on from Rolls, Rhymes and Tales, and he now affected complete boredom with anything that old Husk might have to offer him.

Yet though he was nearer other and younger moles, a certain unsociable melancholy of mood had overtaken him and he seemed disinclined to mix and make new friends. About the only positive thing he seemed to do was drift — for that was the only way of describing the lassitude and indifference of his manner at that time — into the Library and wander among the stacks, giving his brief attention to all manner of texts, and scribing thoughts and observations about life on whatever scraps of bark came to paw.

“Life?” repeated Fieldfare with a laugh, when she heard of it.

“‘Incantations of Autumn’ is the text he’s working on,” confirmed Pumpkin, her informant on this occasion. They were having a lazy conversation with Privet out on the surface, enjoying one of the finest days of autumn.

“Incant what?” said Fieldfare.

“’ations,” said Pumpkin, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Incant-nonsense,” declared Fieldfare.

“But I’m sure he has reasons of his own …” said Privet, always uneasy discussing Whillan in this disloyal way, yet glad to have friends with whom, even if guiltily, she could do so. He
could
, she conceded to herself, be trying.

“They all go through it, dear,” said Fieldfare, knowingly. “At least
yours
is taking out his feelings on
bark
. That’s better than … did I tell you about the time when one of ours got so upset when I wouldn’t agree to something that he nearly hit me? Yes, it’s true! Luckily for
him
Chater was there so he only got cuffed. If it had been me alone he might have got … hurt!”

“Fieldfare! You’re not like that at all.”

“You’ve only ever seen the best in me, my love. Never the worst. I can wield a mean talon if I want, and if I ever have to I will. Can’t I, Pumpkin?”

Pumpkin, who did not look as if he knew what a mean talon was, nodded in an unconvincing way and Privet smiled to herself as she looked at her two friends — for friends they truly were by now — and thought that neither would be a judge of a mean anything. That was why she … loved them.

Love them? she said to herself with wonder. She did! And Duncton too! How much her life had changed. And yet … and … so …

“
Why
do I feel restless and dissatisfied?” she said aloud, starting up from where they had been comfortably stanced as if she there and then intended to do something.

“I expect it’s because your mind’s too active, Privet. I’m not cursed with your kind of restless curiosity. I’m just pleased if things are all right, and when they’re not I do something about it until they are. It’s the same with you, Pumpkin, isn’t it?”

Pumpkin nodded mildly. “That’s why I never wanted to be more than an aide, you see. If I was a scribemole I’d worry myself to death. Let the others do the worrying!”

“Like me, you mean?” said Privet.

“Seems so, Miss Privet. I can’t think what you’ve got to worry about, you’ve reared Whillan really well …”

“But he’s —”

“
Normal
,” interjected Fieldfare. “More a mole cannot expect. You see …” She went on to sensibly point out that there was nothing unusual about a mole teetering at the portal of adulthood scribing incantations and indulging himself in moods, especially if üe thought he had good reason to do so. “And he has, my dear, he has! He’s probably worrying about his parentage and that.”

“More than probably I would say, Miss Privet.”

“Hmmph!” said Privet. “Neither Stour nor I ever kept anything secret from him that I know of, and we answered all his questions frankly.”

“Well, you’ll just have to let him carry on asking them until he’s bored with it and goes on to more useful things,” said Fieldfare equably. “Patience, my dear, and a task — that’s the way to stop fretting about a thing. Find yourself a task — or better still find Whillan one!”

Privet grumbled some more, but then the air stilled and evening came on, and Pumpkin told them he knew a place which caught the last of the sun where the worms were good, and they drifted off to find it and talk of other things.

The September days went by. Sometimes Privet would spend time by herself, but for the most part she and Fieldfare would join or be joined by moles like Pumpkin, and young Avens (as he still seemed to them), and, once in a while, others like Maple and Drubbins, to talk, and joke, and share. As the evenings began to draw in they became inclined like others to make their way down to Barrow Vale, and gather there in community, to meet old friends and hear how others’ offspring were doing, or hear what news of moledom the latest visitors had brought.

Fieldfare noticed that at such times Privet fell silent and did not contribute. She suspected that such talk revived old memories that Privet did not wish to think about, though nothing ever had, nor now seemed likely to induce Privet to break her silence about her past.

But in any case the news was more of current things, and in particular of something that much concerned the easy-going and freedom-loving Duncton moles — the latest doings of the Newborns. Once more, it seemed, with the coming of summer missions had been sent forth from Caradoc and had strengthened their position in those systems where they were already established while sending out what they called pioneer cells to lesser systems. Chater was only one of several journeymoles who had confirmed visitors’ reports, in his case after taking a text to Avebury where he found the Newborns now solidly entrenched in important positions in its Library.

Just now Chater himself was away again, but since it was only to nearby Cuddesdon, he would soon be back. Meanwhile September advanced and new visitors confirmed the Newborn expansion, saying the moles in Rollright looked ominously close to going over to the Newborn way.

“The wonder of it is that they haven’t sent a new lot of missionaries to join the raggle-taggle Newborns down in the Marsh End,” declared Fieldfare when she heard this. Other moles in Barrow Vale stopped their chatter and listened, for Fieldfare had a way of putting into words what many felt.

“I mean,” she continued, “Duncton Wood
is
a major system and you’d think they’d send their blessed pioneers or do-gooders or whatever along to us to convert us lot to their way!”

“No chance,” said one of her friends. “They know we don’t go in for rules and regulations here, and they’re too intelligent to try to make us. So they’re content to have fuss and feud in the Marsh End.”

“Or too well informed,” growled Maple, whose solid presence always added a certain seriousness to the proceedings. “From what Chater told me before he went off to Cuddesdon, it strikes me that the Newborns are merely biding their time because they know we’d resist any attempts at coercing us into anything. They’re waiting, hoping something happens that will make their task easier, though what that could be I don’t know. They’ll get short shrift from me …”

He loomed forward among them, powerful and clear-eyed, a mole in his prime — but born, it seemed, into the wrong age.

“No, Maple,” said old Drubbins the healer, eyeing Maple’s flexing talons, “persuasion’s our way, not force. I doubt if they’d ever find moles able to persuade us to do anything we didn’t want.”

“It seems they “persuaded” the Avebury moles without difficulty,” said Maple shortly. “Moles can talk all they like, but a show of force at the right time and in the right way may be the best defence. The Chronicles show how true that is, and how it’s happened often enough in this very system in the past.”

Light had come to Maple’s eyes, and an impressive stressing to his talons.

“You missed your vocation, Maple!” said Fieldfare. “You should have gone from Duncton years ago to find a system that needed a warrior …”

A shadowed look crossed Maple’s face and he said passionately, “Moles in former times interfered too much in other systems’ affairs. Duncton’s my system and here I’ll stay until the day comes that it needs me to defend it. And if I die without that ever happening there’ll be no happier mole than me. But by the Stone, if I’m ever needed I’ll be here and in no other place!”

“We know that, Maple, all of us know it,” said Fieldfare gently. She had watched Maple grow into the great and good mole he was, she had seen Drubbins’ brother Chamfer train him in the ways of fighting, and she had even adjudicated between Maple and her own Chater when, for fun, they had tussled about. Why, she remembered the day well when Maple had succeeded at last in forcing Chater to yield and how her beloved, who knew well how to look after himself, had said, “I swear I’ve never had the honour of fighting a stronger mole than young Maple. It’s not his size, though that’s impressive enough, but the way it’s combined with speed and aggression. Yet he’s the kindest, gentlest mole I know when he’s not fighting. Mark my words, Fieldfare, there’ll come a day the Stone will call him to its aid, for it does not make such a mole for nothing. You’ll see!”

Maple had indeed grown to be indomitable, and looking at him now, with trust and affection, Fieldfare remembered Chater’s words, and wondered if a day
would
ever come when Maple’s strength was needed, and whether, perhaps, it was better that it never did.

Though Privet said little at such communal gatherings, they invariably stirred something up in her, and returning back to the Eastside with Fieldfare after them she would be taciturn and morose, and her parting for her own burrows would be of the briefest sort.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, my dear,” Fieldfare would say to her after yet another vain attempt to get her to talk and unburden herself at last, “get yourself busy, or find some task or other for yourself in the Library. I can
see
you’re not happy at the moment, all restless and bothered. It’s very exasperating for your friends!”

“Well! That’s how it is, isn’t it?” said Privet shortly, turning away. “I can’t help being what I am, or feeling what I do, and friends should be able to put up with it. I mean … oh I’m
sorry
, Fieldfare, I didn’t mean …”

But Fieldfare didn’t mind, and understood. She was inclined to be irritable herself when Chater was away too long, and in all the circumstances, mysterious though they were, it must be much worse for poor Privet.

Later, back at her burrows, Privet would be unable to sleep but would lie at one of her tunnel entrances with her snout extended along her paws, watching the night sky deepen, thinking that her past seemed a very long way away indeed and would not, could not, come back now. Yet there was the restlessness, and memories and images of moles and places she thought she had succeeded in forgetting.

“Yes!” she whispered to herself. “Fieldfare’s right, I need a task and now that Whillan’s off my paws I’ll go to Stour and ask him for one! Yes, I will!”