The Willows in Winter (19 page)

Toad eyed the bottle of wine left from the
night before.

“I daresay you can afford only common beer,”
said he, grasping the vintage wine and jiggling the bottle a little, and then
clinking it against the glass.

“Beer’s enough for the common man,” said the
sweep.

“And wine for the Lord, eh?” said Toad laughing
loudly “Here my good man, have a glass on me.

“Well, sir, seeing as you insist, sir, and
trusting you won’t tell —”

“Tell!” said Toad. “Not me!”

It was a sorry and despicable sight, the way
that Toad tempted the sweep and led him astray, and all the more despicable for
the ease with which it was done. One moment the sweep was a master craftsman
and the next he was a slumped and sorry mess incapable of completing the job
in hand and with strength only to drink another glass of the wine that Toad
pressed on him.

“My dear fellow,” said Toad eventually, “you
seem a little tired. Pray, put your feet up on this bed, so!”

The sweep was asleep in an instant. From then
it was a matter of moments for Toad to exchange his own aeronaut’s garments for
the filthy shirt and sooty red neckerchief of the sweep. That done, he
carefully took down the canes and cloths and, using what little soot there was
to dirty
his own
face, neck and hands, Toad put back
into the bag what the sweep had taken out of it. Then, eager now to be gone, he
heaved the sack over his shoulder, went to the bedroom door and opened it.

“Finished, sweep?” came a discreet call from
down the corridor.

“All done,
Yer
Honribble
Ludship
,” said Toad,
thinking
himself
very clever to adopt the sweep’s
voice and vulgar accent, “and very blocked up it was. As for ‘
im
, ‘e says to leave ‘
im
for a
bit.”

“Follow me then and I’ll show you the way out
down the servants’ stairs,” said the footman.

Toad eyed the splendid curve of gilded stairs
up which he presumed he must originally have come and down which he would quite
like to leave and said, “
Beggin
’
yer
pardon,
Ludship
, but I ought to see the flues on the
way out.”

This seemed to impress the footman, who turned
back and led the delighted Toad down the Great Stairs, past portraits in oil
and great wall hangings, ancient swords and cutlasses, along with some
impressive stag heads.

To his alarm, however, as the stairs curved
round and down, he found himself descending towards a huge hall in which a
number of important people stood about and stared up whence he came. His heart
was suddenly in his mouth, for there, unmistakable, his nostrils beaky, his
eyes cold as flint, his brows bushy and imposing, his face long and his
forehead
huge,
was the very Chairman of the Court of
Magistrates, now a Judge, who had once sentenced him to twenty years’ hard.
There too was the policeman who had arrested him, now an exalted Commissioner.
And there —Toad pulled himself together and with a humble and apologetic air,
but chortling to himself all the
time,
he scampered
past these unsuspecting persons in the wake of the footman, and then through
some dark arched way into the back recesses of the great House.

Here, to his alarm, he found himself face to
face with Prendergast the
Butler
.

“O
Yer
Royal Honour,”
said Toad, “I am obliged to you for deigning to let me clean the chimney of
that great and important gentleman so troubled by the smoke.”

“Take this extra shilling,” said the butler,
apparently completely taken in.

“Why thank you kindly, sir,” said Toad, doffing
his cap. “I —”

But here he was interrupted by a commotion from
the front of the House, and bells ringing in the servants’ quarters as a
footman came hurrying and a great to-do began.

“‘E’s up and coming down!” cried the footman.

“‘E’s out and on ‘is way!”

“Who is?” asked Toad, puzzled, and quite
forgetting to chop his aitch.

“Why the great
airernought
,
of course!” said a scullery maid rushing by, adding over her shoulder, quite
taken up by the excitement of it all, “‘E’s the bravest and most ‘
onrable
man what ever was, isn’t ‘e!
Risked
‘is life
ter
save the Town from being crashed upon.
I’m going to take a peek at ‘
im
if I can!”

Toad saw that he was immediately forgotten in
the rush and with dark suspicions beginning to form in his bosom — suspicions
which carried most dreadful implications that he might have quite misunderstood
the situation and have failed utterly therefore to capitalise on it — he
decided to follow in the wake of the maid.

So it was that he found himself among a cluster
of whispering and excitable servants at the door to the back of the House
through which he had hurried moments before, in time to see a sight that was
most horrid and most painful to him.

For at the grand curve of the stairs, with the
butler supporting one arm, and a tall footman the other, tottered and staggered
the drunken sweep, dressed in the headgear, the goggles and the jacket that but
a short time before had been Toad’s own.

“Don’t ‘e look ‘
andsome
!”
said the scullery maid.

“But —” began Toad.

“O,” said the second under-cook, “I think I’m
going to faint at just seem’ ‘
im
, and to think I ‘
ave
the ‘
onour
of knowing ‘
e’s
eaten the ‘taters I ‘
elped
peel!”

“But —” protested Toad.

“If ‘e looks my way I’ll faint, I’m sure I
shall!” declared a fifth deputy housemaid, clutching Toad’s arm in readiness.

“But I was the —” cried out Toad in his agony,
for it was all too much to bear. To think that the honour and the glory that
should have been his were being stolen by this — this wretched impostor of a
sweep who was staggering and swaggering down the stairs to where the Highest in
the Land were awaiting, and clapping, and cheering.

“It is I you should be —” he cried again, his
voice barely heard above the hubbub of adulation for the triumphant figure that
now reached the bottom of the stairs.

Toad was about to thrust himself forward, to
claim the honours as his own when, perhaps by chance, perhaps because his
strangled cries had been heard, His Honour the Judge looked his way
Those
cold eyes and that beaky nose quite withered Toad’s
soul.

Then the Commissioner cast him a glance, as it
seemed to the self-obsessed Toad, and those gaoler’s eyes, the vindictive
brows, caused Toad to retreat back into the scrum of servants from which he had
tried to emerge.

Yet still he might have tried to reclaim his
proper place had not My Lord the Bishop glanced his way
What
judgement was in that gaze! What formidable reminder of a Greater Day than
This! It caused Toad to shrink back a third time, and withdraw.

So that as servants pressed forward about him,
and the false airman was quite swallowed up by the crowd of admirers, his hands
shaken and his back slapped, and his drunken babblings mistaken by the crowds
as the excitement and confusion of a modest and reluctant hero recovering from
his injuries, Toad slipped back through the kitchen, thence through the
scullery, and then across the cobbles by the stables where, with a sigh of
profound regret, he arranged his sweep’s bag and brooms upon the crossbar of
the sweep’s bicycle, mounted it with difficulty, and wobbled his way unseen and
unnoticed down the long lonely carriageway of the House, and out towards the
wintry world beyond.

The miraculous return of the Mole, alive and well, had proved but a
two-day wonder, and soon the River once more exerted her calming influence on
the Rat and the Mole and all their friends and acquaintances.

“Of course,
I
knew he would be all
right!” was the general opinion of nearly everyone. “I never doubted for one
moment that Mr Mole would turn up safe and sound!”

But for those forty-eight hours at least there
was a great deal of celebratory coming and going around Mole End, despite the
snow and the inclement, unsettled weather. So what should have been a wake was
happily turned into a celebration — till in the end the food and drink ran out,
as did the animals’ capacity to continue eating and drinking and being of cheer,
and one by one they left Mole End to go back to their own homes, leaving only
the Badger, the Rat, Mole’s Nephew and the Mole himself.

“Well then,” said the Badger, “you can see how
glad we are to have you returned home, Mole, and none gladder than us three.
But now the time has come to rest a little, and reflect perhaps on what might
have been and what is.

“I would be much obliged if your Nephew would
accompany me back to the Wild Wood, Mole, for there’s a promise I must keep
before long, which is to entertain to high tea a number of weasels and stoats.
Your Nephew can help me prepare for that, and his sharp young eyes can help me
watch out for any difficulty or trouble that might arise from the fulfilment of
my rash offer.

“Rat, too, may well wish to return to his
home,” added the Badger, hinting in this thoughtful way that Mole might like to
be left alone for a little, for few understood
so
well
as he the need for a time of solitude and reflection, especially after such
excitement, and even more especially in the dark wintertime.

“If my Nephew is willing to go,” said the Mole
with some relief, “then who am I to stop him! I hope he will help you in the
days ahead, Badger. But Ratty might like to stay a while longer, today at
least, to help me get sorted out once more and, well —”

The Mole looked a little mournfully about his
now nearly empty rooms, and beyond to the darkening winter evening sky
Leafless branches fretted and tapped at his
window,
and spring still felt a long way off.

“Of course,” declared the Badger, quite
understanding that the Mole might want to talk a little with his friend before
he turned in for some well-earned sleep.

When the Badger and Mole’s Nephew had gone, the
Mole said little, and the understanding Water Rat stayed silent as well.
Together they cleared up what untidiness remained — though the Rat had long
since organised the rabbits to tidy and clean and put away before
they
left,
so there was not too much to do. Then the Rat cleared out the grate in no time
at all, laid a new fire and set it merrily ablaze just as the sky darkened into
twilight outside Mole End.

Mole felt sombre and tired, and, sensing this,
Rat bade him sit down once more in his favourite armchair and declared that at
such a moment, and in such a case, there was nothing better than a bowl of
light soup, and new-made bread.

“But Ratty,” said the Mole, who felt not only
tired, but just a little inclined to tears for no good reason that he could
think of, “I haven’t any soup or —”It’s all done, all ready,” said the Rat,
taking his friend’s arm and leading him to his chair. “I gave orders for it to
be made this morning. Now, Moly, be a good and obedient fellow and sit down and
let me serve you what you deserve.”