The Willows at Christmas

WILLIAM HORWOOD

The Willows at Christmas

Illustrated by Patrick Benson

I

Mr Mole Takes Action

“O my!” murmured Mr Mole of Mole End most unhappily as he stoked up his coal fire against the bitter December night. “O
dear!”

There were only three days till Christmas Eve, but the Mole seemed to have quite lost all sense of seasonal excitement and good cheer. He traced his unwonted festive malaise directly back to a tea—time
têteà tête
he had had with his new friend Mr Toad of Toad Hall at the beginning of December.

Mole had been looking forward to this occasion with great anticipation. He had prepared well in advance, taking with him a greetings card he had made himself, as well as some of those festive sweetmeats he so expertly concocted in his kitchen. He was naturally a little surprised, therefore, that an unusually subdued Toad barely glanced at the card so lovingly made, and hardly picked at the sweetmeats.

The kind-hearted Mole put this down to there being something on the mind of Toad, whose changeable emotions, sudden enthusiasms and impulsive likes and dislikes were so well known along the River Bank. However, when a lull in the conversation prompted the Mole to produce his diary so that he might discuss with his host his idea of entertaining their mutual friends Badger, Ratty and Otter to a festive celebration at Mole End, with Toad as guest of honour, an alarming change overtook Toad.

He frowned, shook his head, folded his arms across his chest and declared, “Absolutely impossible! I
never
accept engagements over the festive season!”

He said this with such force that poor Mole felt he had committed a crime even to suggest such an idea.

“Mole,” continued Toad very seriously, “I could not possibly see anyone over Christmas. For one thing, I shall have relatives staying and they, or rather she, would not approve. Added to which, there is the plain fact that for me this is not and can never again be a time to celebrate, as I would have thought you might have known. No, no! It is quite impossible! Indeed, I feel most upset that you should spoil our tea by suggesting such a thing!”

With this, Toad took out his red spotted handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes with an apparently genuine show of misery and grief.

“But, Toad…” began the bewildered Mole, “I simply — I mean to say — O
dear!”

For Toad had risen from his chair now and before the Mole could ask more — or enquire who “she” might be — he had escorted Mole to his front door, bringing the tea to a summary end.

In the days following, try as he might, the Mole had been unable to rid himself of the dark mood that then overtook him. For Toad’s inexplicable attitude had stirred within the Mole’s heart memories he preferred to leave buried. He had reminded Mole of his great regret that over the years he had lost touch with his family. He had not heard anything directly from his errant brother for at least a decade, and only had news via a third party that a son had been born, and that Mole therefore had a nephew.

As for his much-loved older sister, who had cared for him when he was young through those difficult years of his mother’s illness and from whom he had learnt so much of the domestic arts, she had moved as far away from their place of birth in one direction as he had in another, and sadly communication had in recent years ceased altogether.

Though every Christmas the Mole took pains to send each of these lost siblings his loving greetings at their last-known address, he had heard nothing for so many years that he had been forced to admit he ought to give up trying. Yet old habits and hopes die hard, and they had left in the Mole a lingering and bittersweet desire to share once more a Christmas with others with that same joy as he had felt when he was younger.

Till now the Mole had never allowed the black dogs of despair that sometimes barked at his door at Christmastide to enter his home. Instead, he decorated Mole End yet more brightly, lit his candles more plentifully, and made and ate his seasonal savoury delicacies and sweetmeats with ever more relish. Then, when the darkness of the evening finally fell upon Twelfth Night, he would light a fire that was especially bright. This was the night his father had taught him to wassail the orchard of his childhood home. These days he had no orchard, yet the Mole would make a draught of wassail all the same, for old times’ sake. Then he would take it hot and steaming across the fields towards the River Bank to toast the crab-apple tree that grew there, from which, each year, he gathered enough apples to make cider and jelly for the winter months.

After this ritual, Mole would return to his home, and with the heady scents of his Twelfth Night Pie baking in his range, he would take down the decorations one by one and put them away for next year. Then he would cut himself a generous slice of pie and sit back in his most comfortable armchair, staring into the fire. Finally, when its embers began to die and midnight approached, he would stand and raise his glass — filled with his famous sloe and blackberry — and drink a toast to those he loved.

“To my parents,” he would say, “whose memory will never die. And to my errant brother, that he may find greater happiness in the year now started than perhaps he had in the one just ended. Lastly, to my beloved sister, wherever she may be, that this coming year may see our reunion at last. A Happy Christmas to you all, my dears, and to all who love you!”

Such, for more years than he cared to remember, had been the way of the Mole’s festive season.

Perhaps Toad’s tea-time rejection might not have mattered had it not been prefaced by a curious lack of enthusiasm for the coming Christmas season from Mole’s other River Bank friends, namely Ratty, Badger and Otter.

The truth was that this year of all years the Mole had very good reason for believing that in the festive department things might improve at last, and improve greatly! In the past eighteen months his happy acquaintance with the practical Water Rat, the wise Badger, the stout—hearted Otter and the exalted and munificent Toad had, as he had thought, blossomed into friendship.

It was a friendship forged in all the excitements and adventures that had followed Toad’s imprisonment for stealing a motor-car and his subsequent escape from gaol. Most notable, perhaps, was the battle with the weasels and stoats from the Wild Wood after they had so impudently taken possession of Toad Hall — a memorable battle in which the Mole had excelled himself and earned his friends’ respect and admiration.

Through the long, contented summer months — more blissful than any he had known since his childhood —hardly a day had gone by that had not found him at the River Bank, there to greet the Rat and pass the time of day. Or, better still, to share a luncheon-basket filled with the good food and drink the domesticated Mole took such pride in providing and which added so much to a day’s boating and conversations.

In this way the River Bank and its inhabitants had introduced him to a whole new way of life. It had never occurred to the Mole in his earlier years that there might come a time in his life when he would be permitted to mix in such distinguished and exciting company, and be counted among their friends. They had made him realise that he must not be quite so reclusive, and that it might be better to enjoy the present rather than dwell on a past that could never come back, not even for a day or two, however much he might wish it.

So when autumn came, the Mole had begun to harbour secret hopes for a more sociable festive season. Indeed, modest though he was, the Mole might have justifiably expected to see his considerable contribution to River Bank society recognised and celebrated in some small way at Christmastide. Which was why Mr Toad’s peremptory rejection of his seasonal invitation had hit him so hard.

Yet he had to admit that there had been other intimations that Christmas was not celebrated quite as he would have liked along the River Bank. He had, for example, sent out early feelers concerning their plans to each of his new friends, but not one of them had responded positively about the idea of sharing an evening or two at his home over Christmas. The Mole had been so perturbed by this that he had consulted the Otter upon the subject.

As gently as he could the Otter had tried to make the Mole understand that the practical Rat had little interest in something as frivolous as mere festivity, especially at a time when winter storms caused trees to fall and the River to rise, which made it a busy and dangerous season for one whose task in life was to see that the River Bank stayed safe and manageable for those who lived along it.