Toad Triumphant (10 page)

“He seems a very sensible fellow, your new butler,” said the Badger.

Toad beamed smugly and winked at the Mole. He proceeded to repeat the history of Prendergast’s employment that he had already given in so much detail to the Mole some weeks before.

Toad’s self-satisfied account of his employment of Prendergast — the others had been able to surmise rather more of the butler’s reasons for taking the post than Toad himself had guessed — was interrupted by the chimes of a clock striking three, and the sound of the door into the conservatory opening once more.

“Gentlemen, the Countess —”

Prendergast’s august and measured introduction was interrupted by its subject, who passed him by without a glance and began an extraordinary and to the assembled males terrifying, advance upon them all.

She was undeniably an artist, for her dress was wild and strange, and in parts shockingly coloured, and so startling in its overall effect that it took some little while for an individual’s eyes to pick out the details. To say that her basic garment was a utilitarian smock of the kind male sculptors habitually wear as they chip at stone or knead at clay is to do no different than elevating the cloth cap of the working classes to the shiny top hat of a prosperous industrialist.

The “smock” was made of the finest damask and very white indeed, and certainly not sullied by clay or oil paints, turpentine or the dust and grime that comes with labouring over rock. Its brilliance was enhanced by the silken flowing drift of a white scarf so gossamer-light that it flowed out behind her like the fronds of an exotic weeping tree caught by a wild breeze. The rapid motion of her advance daringly revealed ankles clad in startling white stockings, while about her head was a scarlet turban of arabesque effect with silks and ribbons of many hues.

Her face seemed brightly lit, as if caught by rays of sun that shone through the panes of a gothic stained-glass window: blues and blacks about the eyes, rouges and reds about the cheeks and mouth, and the sparkle of rubied jewellery pendant from her ears.

Her bosom, which was of sufficient dimension that it was by some way the first part of her that advanced, remaining well ahead of her legs and arms throughout her entry, was covered with shining gold and pearls — a brooch, several necklaces.

“Toad, my love, my lost cousin!” she cried in a voice that was as loud as it was bold. “I am come back ‘ere to you!”

Confronted by this startling and dazzling apparition, Toad did his best to stand his ground, till he finally weakened and sought to escape towards the Otter.

But it was too late. His cousin’s reach was long, long indeed, and her grasp strong, her pull formidable. Toad found himself enveloped in one who was bigger than he in all directions, whose embrace was suffocating, whose cries of recognition and welcome were ecstatic, and whose perfume was dizzily overpowering.

“‘Ow ‘appy I am!” said she, retaining her grasp of the hapless Toad, and squeezing tighter still. “‘Ow content! Already I adore you!”

“Countess — madame — cousin,” gasped Toad, who felt himself beginning to faint in her arms, “I am — I am pleased — I feel — I —
help!”

His half-cousin’s continued embrace, no doubt normal enough among her artistic friends in Paris, was too much for Toad to sustain any longer. Feeling himself to be submerging in a sea of silk, face powder and perfume, and feeling it all to be so feminine, so unexpected, so delightful, and so plainly the harbinger of the matrimony the Mole had hinted he should pursue, he swooned quite away.

· V ·

Summer Journey

The delay at the start of their expedition was not what the Rat and the Mole would have wished for, but once they had made their escape from Toad Hall and they had put Toad’s troubles behind them, a sense of adventure and expectation soon came over them.

The afternoon was warm and sunny and as the Rat settled down to some steady sculling, the Mole and he were able to talk, and to contemplate. At one time it had been thought that the Otter might have accompanied them on this first stage, and seen them set fair. But he felt keenly the parental ties that came with needing to watch over his son Portly who, though older and more sensible than he once had been, still needed firm handling, and occasional direction.

Then, too, the Mole was unwilling to leave Nephew alone too long — the youngster who had come to stay with him some time before was certainly sensible enough, no doubting that, but he was very sociable and might miss his uncle’s company and so the Otter had offered to keep an eye on him.

But if the Otter’s duties kept him at the River Bank, he still had an important part to play in the venture the two friends had undertaken. He and the Water Rat had long since fashioned their own special mode of signalling, which they used during periods of flooding and danger when all who lived in, on or near the River were on special alert. Their method was crude but effective — a twig of blackthorn floating downstream signalled coming danger, or beech to say that help was needed, and three sprigs of some common river plant such as water avens, or yellow flag, to indicate return.

In recent years the two had had little reason to use such devices. Life along the River Bank had been gentle and serene, and such crises as Toad created rarely involved the River. In consequence, the need for their signalling had reduced itself to the occasional cheerful warning from the Otter (up-river) to the Rat (down-river) that he intended to come down for tea or supper. Which gave time for the Rat to brew up before the Otter arrived; or if something more potent was needed then he had time to polish his pewter beer mugs and open up some fresh tobacco.

However, once the Mole had made his bold suggestion that they should fulfil their ambition and head upstream, the matter of signals and warnings had become a serious one. No one knew what lay in store, and though the Rat might have been happy to venture off alone upon the River, so conversant was he with its varied moods and sudden demands, the Mole was a different matter. He liked boats well enough, but had neither the skill nor the interest that the Rat displayed.

This being so, and the Badger being much exercised by the point, the Rat and the Otter had honed up their signalling, and the Otter had taken on the responsibility, with Portly to help, of watching the River for any signs that the Rat might send during their absence.

“I’m quite sure nothing will go wrong,” said the Mole, rather alarmed by such precautions. “The worst I can think of is that the boat might capsize as it did once before, when I was learning how to scull, but I am a good bit more experienced in such matters now.”

“That may very well be true,” replied the Rat, “but we are venturing to unknown stretches of the River and it pays to be cautious. Otter knows
as
I do that the River is not always benign, she has her moods and fickle moments and must always be treated with respect — and then, again, we do not know what creatures live along the upper reaches.”

“Much like us, I should imagine,” said the Mole; “unless you think —?”

He had sudden and unwelcome visions of creatures large, malevolent and strange, and began to wonder if the voyage was such a good idea after all.

“I do not mean to alarm you, old fellow, nor to suggest that there are monsters upstream awaiting us upon the banks, or underwater perhaps, that might cause us trouble,” said the Rat. “Though I suppose all of us have heard the dread and ancient story of the Lathbury Pike —”

“Yes,” a greed the Mole with a nervous nod. He had indeed heard that legend and did not like to be reminded of it. The pike that had the run of those treacherous and hopefully mythical waters was said to be malevolence itself. The Mole frowned, his doubts doubling.

“No,” continued the Rat, quite unaware of how nervous this kind of talk made the Mole, “I am merely thinking that you should not presume that all animals live in such harmony as we enjoy down here along the River Bank. Elsewhere strangers are not always welcome.”

“I shall certainly take my cudgel.”

“And I the trusty cutlass that was employed with such devastating effect during our victorious struggle against the weasels and stoats to recover the old Hall for Toad,” added the Rat approvingly. “We may not need them, but we shall feel better for having them nearby …”

… And there it now was, that weaponry, right there in the bows, just as they had planned it should be. They began to feel they were really on their way at last, and their talk was of the value of such precautions, and what clever animals they had been to think so carefully of all they would need.

“We need not go
too
far tonight,” the Mole said; ‘lust far enough to feel we are well on our way and beyond the daily cares of the River Bank.”

Such friends as they were had no need to debate such a point too long — when the right moment came they would set up camp for their first night.

Silence fell upon them, but for the plashing of the oars and the lap lap lap of water at the far bank’s edge. The Mole could only rejoice that his longed-for plan was now finally underway and recall how nearly it had come to grief, and why it seemed so important that it had not.

It was the compelling vision of Beyond that had summoned him, and of Beyond he thought now and all it might mean to them. Yet buried deeper still in the Mole’s kind heart was the sense that he had done little with his quiet life and wanted, before he grew too old, to do “something” — to be remembered along the River Bank as having found vision and courage enough to journey forth at least once on an adventure which might prove an inspiration to others.

He himself was too modest, too unassuming an animal to think that he could ever reach Beyond itself, but perhaps if he got some way there he might in later years tell the story to his Nephew, and he — whom the Mole believed would one day be a much more able and adventurous spirit than himself — might find courage to go on further still.

“It is in the striving that we make progress, Mole, the striving —” the Badger had observed in the course of the nocturnal conversation that had meant so much to Mole, and had led to the resurrection of the expedition.

Such had been the source of the Mole’s impulses and dreams, and he had been much gratified that the Badger had not doubted him for one moment when he had said that he had an impulse that such a journey
must
be made. Times were changing, life does not stand still, and some future direction might be found in the course of their expedition. One or other of them must venture forth, the Mole had said, for if they did not —

“If we do not,” the Mole had asked himself so many times since, “what then?”

He had found no answer then, nor did he now, as he sat so companionably with the Rat, as the gloaming began to settle in, and the boats creaked to the rhythm of the oars. The journey upstream had taken on a good deal more for the Mole than it yet had for his friend the Rat, more perhaps than the Mole himself knew or had been able to tell the Badger.

But here they now were — and if he had never quite told the Rat of all this in so many words, and how he believed that something beyond words might come from their adventure, it did not matter. Ratty was here
now,
not in some mystical and impractical future, and if there was one animal in all the world the Mole knew he could rely on in a fix, or when all others might have given up hope that they might come out of things alive, it was his friend the Rat.

Short-tempered he might be, irascible often, inclined to order a fellow about when he was tired but — well, there was none so dependable as he.

“What do you say that we stop somewhere about here, Mole?” said the Rat suddenly interrupting the Mole’s thoughts.

“Why of course, Ratty; whatever you say” said the Mole compliantly.

“No, Mole, whatever
you
say for you are the leader of this expedition and
you
must decide!”

“Ah, well!” said the Mole, sitting up a little straighter and looking busily along the bank ahead, for a site for the first encampment.