The Willows and Beyond (29 page)

A frequent visitor was their neighbour Grandson, whom folk in those parts had begun now to call Badger, for he had many of the virtues of his grandfather, not least of which was an interest in study and learning, and a calm wisdom beyond his years.

There was one other who was part of their new life, as he had been of their old: Portly. The newer generation, such as Nephew’s children, were encouraged to call Portly “Mr Otter”, or “Otter” when they got to know him better. The older and more enquiring amongst them could not for one moment imagine where Portly had gained his nickname, for by then he was already lean and lithe as adult otters are and, like his father, he was bigger and stronger than most.

With respect to the fate of the Otter, Portly’s father, nothing was heard till one June, when two years after the Badger’s death, an itinerant pedlar from Lathbury brought news that Otter of the River Bank was no more. Where or how he had passed on was not known, but certainly a traveller from the southern coast had reported that an otter who answered to Mr Otter’s description had lived there for a time, and he had often been seen in the creeks and inlets fishing in a blue-and-white inland craft.

“Ratty’s boat!” whispered the Mole when he heard this news, and if he wept quiet tears it was as much for happy memory as for sad loss, and gladness to know that his friend’s beloved boat had seen out its last years in the care of one such as the Otter.

It gave him special comfort, for Ratty still held as dear a place in the Mole’s heart as he ever had, and always would. Long, long had that traveller’s silence been, and Mole had very nearly given up all hope of hearing from him again — not because he doubted Ratty’s affection for him, not one bit, but because it seemed likely that somewhere out on the High Seas, or maybe in a far distant port, the Rat had reached the end of his travels, and his life.

The Mole was realistic in this regard, and hoped that whatever had finally happened to his old friend was short, swift and, well — adventurous and exciting — and that it happened only after he had seen those many places he had marked off on the atlas that the Mole kept by his bed, for nightly perusal and dreaming.

So it was with considerable surprise and relief that two years after the Rat’s departure, a missive found its way to Nephew’s home in an envelope much stamped and over-stamped, and re-addressed from Mole End, with the strange note:
“Addressee believed deceased, try his nephew, care of Lathbury Forest.”

The letter was from the Rat and had been written only a few months after he had left the River Bank, and it was short and to the point:

Dear Mole,

Have made landfall in Cyprus having lost Sea Rat to the pirates of Istanbul.Getting up a command to rescue him. Am well and hope you are too. Your friend Ratty. PS. will get my journal copied and sent to you for safekeeping.

Ratty

It was three more years before the Rat was heard of again, and as for the journal, that did not arrive. Then, quite suddenly, two more short missives turned up, one marked
“Delayed by Rough Seas”.
The first came from Al Basrali in the Persian Gulf to say that the Rat had joined the Caliph’s Court as Tutor in Nautical Matters to his eighteen male heirs; and the second, dated nearly two years on, brought the news that he had
“escaped the Caliph’s dungeons and lately arrived in Penang to claim my reward for rescuing the Australian High Commissioner from brigands.”

It pleased the Mole to see that the Rat’s handwriting was as firm as it had ever been, and to know that his friend had found at last that excitement and adventure he had always dreamed of.

But after that there had been no more letters, none at all, and in the secret silence of his heart the Mole rather feared that there never would be. But he was happy to have as a final memory of his friend and erstwhile companion in adventure the image of him rescuing an important personage “from brigands”.

It cannot fairly be said the Mole ever went into decline. He moved about a bit more stiffly, yet move about he did. He saw more dimly, yet still well enough to enjoy a view, and the sight of his growing grandchildren’s faces. He heard less well, but not so badly that he could not be woken by the morning chorus, or hear the nightjar’s song as he sat in the porch of an evening with Nephew with a rug over his knees and sipping a warming drink.

“Yet he seems suddenly so sad and silent, and will hardly speak to me anymore, which is most unlike him,” Nephew told his wife one September day. “It’ll be his birthday at the end of the month and I would like to find out what’s wrong before then and put it right. Why don’t you talk to him?”

Nephew’s wife did not have to wait long for an opportune moment. The very next morning, soon after Nephew had gone off for the day, the postman delivered a letter for the Mole, and it was plain enough who it was from, since the stamps, this time, were Egyptian, and the letter, as before, was re-addressed from Mole End.

The Mole opened the letter with strange foreboding, for his name and original address were not in the Rat’s familiar hand. But the contents were, though it took some moments for the Mole to see that the thin and straggling writing therein was Ratty’s, but of a Ratty all too plainly ill and ailing.

Dear Mole,

I am ill with the Gruesome in Cairo just as Sea Rat once was and unlikely to see the light of tomorrow. Have missed you and the River Bank these months past and have wanted to come home. If I ever recover I will do so, but it seems unlikely. Please say goodbye to the old place for me and sit on the bank once more and commune with her I loved so much
—
the River.

Yours always

Ratty

The Mole wept then, wept as he never had before, shedding all those tears he had held back since Ratty had left the River Bank.

He sniffled and wept, and wept and sniffled some more, and talked of old times, and had a little to eat and some fresh-brewed tea.

Finally he said, “I’m just a silly old mole, aren’t I? For times change and we must all pass on in the end.”

“You’re not silly at all!” replied Nephew’s wife firmly “That’s not a word any of us would
ever
apply to you!”

“Help me on with my coat, my dear,” said the Mole, “for I have a fancy to take a turn along the River.”

“Shall I come with you?”

“I would be glad if you would,” said he, suddenly feeling old and frail.

The grateful Mole led her outside and down to the River, which flowed faster here than it had on the River Bank, whose willows were replaced here with larger trees, their leaves just beginning to turn to autumn colour.

The Mole stood watching the water’s flow for a long time, the Rat’s fateful letter in one hand, as he leant on a stick with the other.

“Ratty used to be able to commune with the River’ he said, “and said very often that she will tell you what you need to hear, if only — if—”

“What is it, Mole?” said she, coming closer, for his voice was fainter now.

“There have been times when I myself have heard the River’s song,” he said, almost in a whisper, “and I must have told you that it was she who told me to encourage Ratty to go off on his travels, and I did, I did. Then, when he left in his boat with the Sea Rat I heard her song of farewell — except that — except —The letter fluttered suddenly from his hand and he dropped the stick and moved closer to the edge.

“Except what, Mole,
what?”

“Except that she did not sing of farewell at all, but of a safe return, that one day when his travels were all done Ratty would come back home, and — and I can hear her now — I am sure. Where is that letter? Let me see it once more!”

She found it on the ground and gave it back to him, and restored his stick as well.

He peered at it and said, “There! It was written not six months since, and though he was ill I am sure he might have recovered, just as the Sea Rat did. Yes — I am sure — I think.”

He sat down then upon the bank, just as he so often had by Ratty’s house, and Nephew’s wife might have sat by him then had not Nephew himself come by.

“Let him be,” he said, putting a restraining hand upon his wife’s arm, “for he is communing with the River, just as Ratty so often did. Let him be still and hear her song once more.

So the Mole sat, listening as best he could, waving his hands and arms about as the Rat always had, all the better to win out of the River her sweet and secret song of guidance and truth for those she loved.

Till at last he sat still, his head low, nodding sometimes, his hands falling to his sides. Then he slowly stood up and turned to them, his eyes clear, his expression certain, and purposeful.

“It’s Ratty,” he said at last, “he’s safe now, but he’s not well, not well at all. He’s coming home at last, and I must be there to greet him. I must be there.”

No more words were needed to convince Nephew of the seriousness with which his uncle spoke. Mole had been such a stalwart friend to others in the past, never judging them, always patient with them; now he would need a little help himself, for he could not return to the River Bank on his own, without support.

“Leave it to me, Uncle, I shall arrange it at once and we shall have you there for your birthday”

“My birthday!” exclaimed the Mole. “He never once forgot it. If he is coming back, as I am sure he is, then he will want to be back for that. O yes, he’ll do his best to be back for that!”

Nephew summoned Portly Grandson and Master Toad to a conference at once, where all agreed that they would accompany the Mole back to his old home for a day or two and let it be his birthday treat, for no one deserved one more.

It added very greatly to the pleasures of his birthday week that Mr Toad himself, suffering just lately from a touch of gout arising from a heavy social schedule in Biarritz, had come home for a cure and some quiet living. Though he was now confined to a Bath chair, it did not stop him visiting his old friend the Mole, and, when he heard what the younger folk planned for him, he made sure that he was there in person to wave him farewell.

“Mole, old chap,” cried Toad on the morning of their departure, “if I could come back with you to the River Bank I would, but as I can’t I’ll toast your health every day this week!”

“But, Toad,” responded the Mole, “haven’t the doctors suggested that your gout might be connected in some way to excesses of one kind and another, including —“Pooh!” said Toad dismissively “Doctors are unspeakable fellows who line their own pockets by giving advice that serves only to make their clients’ lives miserable. My gout has nothing to do with my consumption of champagne and port, and everything to do with the strains and stresses of deteriorating service in the hotels upon the Continent. Therefore, toast you I shall — and as much as I like!”

“Well, that’s very kind of you, but —“ essayed the Mole, seeking another form of words that might put some sense into the mind of the incorrigible Toad.