The Tale of Applebeck Orchard (29 page)

“But still—”
Parsley said, giving her pudding batter a few extra-hard strokes, which Bosworth took to mean that she expected him to live forever, which of course was impossible.

“I am thinking of myself, you know, and my own pleasures.”
He smiled merrily.
“Why, who knows? I might just go off on holiday, now that I can count on Hyacinth being here to manage things in my absence. I have long threatened to go and visit my very dear old friend, the badger who lives in the Wild Wood and sends me stories about Rat and Mole and some rapscallion named Toad. But what with one thing and another, I’ve never quite found the time to go.”
He looked at Hyacinth.
“You’ll accept the position, won’t you, my dear?”

“I really think we ought to wait,”
Hyacinth said in a low voice.
“When Thorn comes back—”

“When Thorn comes back,”
Bosworth said quickly,
“I’m sure he will applaud what we’ve done and wish you the very best in your new position. Please say you’ll do it, Hyacinth.”

Hyacinth’s eyes were wet, and Bosworth knew she was thinking of her brother. But she raised her head, straightened her shoulders, and said, in a clear, firm voice,
“Yes, I accept. I am honored, Uncle, that you think me worthy to wear the Badge. Thank you.”

Perhaps you can imagine all the things that were going through Hyacinth’s mind. I can, anyway. She was thinking, I am sure, that this honor should belong to her brother—whilst at the same time she was enormously flattered that Bosworth Badger had chosen her. She knew she could do the work, but there was something else beneath that confidence: a worry, not well defined but certainly very real, that accepting this responsibility might keep her from doing other things that she wanted to do in her life.

Find a mate, for instance, and have a family. How would a male badger feel about a female who was in charge of such a complex operation as The Brockery, the largest and best-known animal hostelry in the Land Between the Lakes? Might he be . . . well, afraid of her? Or worried that she might try to manage him the way she managed the hostelry? And if she did find a mate who respected her commitment to her work, how would she find time for her children? She knew how busy Bosworth kept, from early in the morning until late at night—and he didn’t have babies to attend to. She would be constantly juggling first one thing, then another. Would that make her happy?

But these were private questions, and Hyacinth kept them to herself, in part because they had no answers, in part because, if she voiced them, she might be misunderstood.

“I’m so glad you’ve accepted, my dear,”
her mother said tremulously.
“Thorn will be very happy for you.”

“Yes, Mama,”
Hyacinth murmured, although in the past few weeks, she had begun to lose hope that Thorn would ever return. And if he did, she suspected that he would not be quite as pleased as their mother thought. Thorn expected to assume the Badge, she knew that much. Would he—

Parsley interrupted her thoughts.
“We are all very proud of you, Hyacinth.”
She scraped the batter into the pudding basin and wiped her paws on her apron.

“Well, there’s no time like the present, my dear,”
Bosworth said.
“Why don’t we have our little ceremony here, in front of the fire? Later, we can invite a few friends and have something more official. But I’ll feel better, knowing it’s taken care of.”

“I’ll fetch the Badge,”
Parsley said, and left.

“I have something to give you, Hyacinth,”
Primrose said, and followed Parsley out of the room.

Bosworth leaned back in his chair. His broken foreleg was throbbing, his head ached, and he was inexpressibly weary. But all in all, he felt very good. Hyacinth had shown her mettle, and he had made his choice. And once he had made up his mind, he was not the sort of animal who changed it.

A few minutes later, Parsley was back, carrying the Badge in its velvet-lined case. It was a carved wooden disk ornamented with the Badger coat of arms and family motto, suspended from a woven blue-and-gold ribbon, designed to be hung around the neck. The Badge was worn only on state occasions, of course—it would get in the way of one’s everyday duties. The rest of the time, it was displayed on the fireplace mantel in the library, beneath the portraits of other holders of the Badge. Thinking of this, Bosworth frowned. His portrait had not yet been painted. It should, for the sake of tradition. And so should Hyacinth’s. He should have to arrange it with Fritz the ferret, who was quite remarkable at capturing likenesses.

A moment after, Primrose returned, trailed by the two young rabbits who helped with the housework and opened the door to guests.
“I thought our girls ought to be with us for this occasion,”
she said.
“Flotsam, Jetsam, take off your aprons and caps. We’re having a ceremony.”

“Oooh!”
squeaked Flotsam ecstatically.
“I loves ceremonies, I do!”
And Jetsam, always the thoughtful one, said,
“It’s true, then? Hyacinth is getting the Badge, even though she’s a girl?”

“Yes, it’s true,”
Parsley said definitively.
“Now, take off those aprons and smarten up, girls. And no chattering. This is serious business.”

Primrose was carrying a wooden box. She put it down on the table and opened the lid, taking out an ornamented silver pen and inkwell.
“This belonged to your father, Hyacinth. He wrote all his letters with this pen. I’m sure he would want you to use it when you’re working on the
History.
”

“But it’s meant to be Thorn’s!”
Hyacinth cried tearfully, scrambling to her feet.
“He’s expecting to have Father’s pen and inkwell, just as he’s expecting to have the Badge!”
She put her paws to her face and began to weep as if her heart would break.
“Oh, Uncle, I don’t think we should do this. We ought to wait for Thorn to come home!”

“But then we won’t get our ceremony,”
mourned Flotsam.

Jetsam said sternly,
“You have to do this, Hyacinth. For
us.
To show all the other animals that a girl can do things just as well as a boy.”

Primrose put her arms around the girl’s shoulders.
“Your uncle needs the assurance of knowing that the Badge is settled,”
she said in her daughter’s ear.
“It means a very great deal to him, my dear. Please don’t disappoint him.”

Hyacinth straightened and gulped a deep breath.
“All right, then,”
she said, and wiped the tears from her cheek with her paw
. “I’m ready.”
She smiled shakily.

Bosworth hoisted himself out of his chair as Hyacinth came to stand before him, with Primrose and Parsley right behind. All wore solemn faces, befitting the important occasion—an occasion with absolutely no precedent, as everyone knew. The badger hadn’t given any thought to what he ought to say, and his own investiture was so distant in time that he was having difficulty remembering it. But when he opened his mouth, the words seemed to come unbidden, perhaps from that place at the back of his mind where Great-Great-Uncle Benjamin had spoken. He found himself saying this:

“From time out of memory, we badgers have lived together in communities with badgers and other animals, linked by bonds of family and friendship. But even though we are all equal in our care and respect for one another, we must choose one of us to be our leader, to manage our day-to-day affairs and record our recollections before they pass into the remote and unremembered past. Our leader is one to whom we owe not obedience, but deference and a special regard, for he—”
Badger caught himself with a cough.
“For
she
holds our needs in her heart, and is ever mindful of our concerns. It is my duty and great privilege to choose our next leader and the wearer of our Badge. I am proud to name you, Hyacinth, to succeed me as the wearer of The Brockery’s Badge of Authority, the very first female badger ever to do so.”

Parsley handed him the badge. Hyacinth stepped forward and bent her head, and he gently draped the ribbon around her neck. As she straightened, he saw that she was smiling through her tears.

“I will do my very best,”
she said in a firm voice,
“to earn the trust you have placed in me, and to use the soundest judgment in making choices and taking decisions. I hope I won’t disappoint you, Uncle.”

“You won’t,”
Bosworth said confidently.
“You’ll do a fine job, Hyacinth, I’m sure. I—”

There was a clatter in the hallway, the sound of foot-steps, and a voice calling,
“Mama! Mama, it’s me! I’m back!”

“Thorn!”
Primrose cried, as the door burst open and Thorn came into the room.
“Oh, my son, I had almost given you up!”
She flung her arms around him and buried her face against his fur. He was much more substantial than he’d been when he left, taller, heavier, and (to judge by his scarred ears and muzzle) a badger to be reckoned with.

“Thorn!”
Bosworth shouted with joy.
“My boy, my boy, how wonderful to see you!”

“Don’t believe your mother,”
Parsley said stoutly.
“She never gave you up, not for a single moment. None of us did! Welcome home, Thorn.”

“Brother,”
whispered Hyacinth, her large dark eyes bright with tears.
“I can’t believe—”
She began to pull the Badge off over her head and ears, but Bosworth caught her paw.

“No,”
he said sternly.
“You wear the Badge now, Hyacinth, and ever shall, until you are ready to pass it on to your son—or your daughter.”

But she could not respond, for she was already engulfed in her brother’s warm embrace.

A moment later, Thorn let her go, stepped back, and looked down on her, his eyes wet and shining.
“Well, sister,”
he said (wasn’t his voice deeper now, and richer?),
“I see that you’ve been promoted. Congratulations! It couldn’t happen to a worthier badger.”

“You really think so?”
Hyacinth asked tremulously.
“You’re not upset?”

“Upset?”
Thorn threw back his head and laughed.
“I’m delighted, and so proud. The Brockery is lucky to have you.”
He turned to Bosworth.
“I hope, sir, that this doesn’t mean that you’re thinking of retiring altogether.”
He looked down at the badger’s bandaged foreleg and frowned.
“An accident? I trust it wasn’t too serious.”

“A lucky tumble,”
Bosworth said, and kissed Thorn on both cheeks.
“Good you’re home, boy. Where in the world have you been?”

Thorn looked around at each one of them.
“Well, to tell the truth,”
he said,
“I’ve found a new home, a new happiness, and a—”
The door opened.
“And a new bride,”
he said, as the door opened again and a strange badger shyly entered into the room.

Everyone gasped. All the other badgers in the room were black, but this badger was different. Her thick, rich coat was almost pure white, shading to cream along tail and ears, and she had no stripe.

No stripe! Imagine that—a badger without a stripe!

But her eyes were the color of glittering rubies, her nose a gleaming alabaster, her claws polished ivory. Bosworth thought he had never seen a more beautiful, more striking female in his life. For a moment, he envied Thorn with his whole heart. If only he were younger—

Now, if you think I’m making this up, I assure you that I am not, not at all. Albino badgers are very rare, it is true, and they seem to be concentrated in a small number of locations, such as Kent and Dorset and Somerset. But they do exist, for I have seen pictures of them, and have even seen one stuffed and mounted. (Oh, dear.) And if you are trying to imagine what this one might have looked like, picture a miniature polar bear.

This strange white badger went up to Primrose.
“Hello, Mama,”
she said in a sweetly melodious voice, holding out a paw.
“My name is Buttermilk.”
She smiled.
“Thank you for raising such a wonderful son.”

Well. I daresay you can guess what happened next—all the greetings and huggings and kissings and congratulat ings and the general all-round happiness that was so full and frothy and fizzy that it threatened to overflow and spill in jubilant rivulets of joy and delight, like a bottle of bubbly with the cork popped, all over the kitchen floor. But it wasn’t long before everyone was seated in front of the fire, where Parsley’s ginger-and-treacle pudding was steaming merrily away in a pot of boiling water. All had cups of tea and plates of scones with plenty of butter and lavender honey, and Primrose and Buttermilk and Thorn were sitting as close together as three badgers could possibly sit, all of them looking unspeakably happy.

“And now you’ll tell us your story, won’t you, Thorn?”
Bosworth pressed.
“You’ve been gone for months and months. We have to hear all about it—where you’ve been, how you met Buttermilk, the whole lot of it. And don’t leave anything out—not a single word!”

Now, each badger holds in his heart the Eighth Badger Rule of Thumb:
Every animal’s story is one of the most important things about him (or her), for animals are storying creatures and live by their tales and the tales they have learnt from others. One’s stories are as important to one’s self-esteem as are one’s fur and whiskers and ought to be admired in much the same way.

That’s the badgers’ rule, yes. But I don’t think anybody would mind if I took the liberty of summarizing Thorn’s tale for you, since the telling went on for the entire rest of the day, Buttermilk often chiming in to tell one part or another, and Thorn interrupting Buttermilk, and questions from everyone. So here it is, a (very brief) summary. I hope I haven’t left out anything important; if I have, no doubt Thorn will be the first to correct me.

When Thorn left The Brockery, he intended to travel only as far as the south of England—it was winter, and all he was after was a bit of sun on his fur. But then he got the chance to cross the Channel on a ferry, and it wasn’t long before he found himself in the south of France, and from there it was only a short hop to the Mediterranean. Of course, even a short hop may be a very great distance for a badger, whose legs are rather stumpy and who can only run fast in brief sprints. A brainy badger bent on reaching a distant destination, however, is always able to find some means of transport, and Thorn encountered no difficulties.