The Willows at Christmas (2 page)

“You might see him along the Bank somewhere,” explained the Otter, “and you might even get a wave from him, but that’s all. Don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s idling, for he’s hard at work communing with the River. She can rise to her limits in minutes, and if there’s nobody about to open the sluices into the canal — and Ratty’s the only one who knows exactly how and when to do that — then we’d all be flooded, at goodness knows what cost to life, and limb, and property! Why do you think there’ve been no serious floods since Ratty took control of such matters?”

“O my!” the Mole had said abashed. “I had no idea. I shan’t disturb him over Christmas at all then!”

“Best not, old fellow,” said the Otter.

“But surely Badger does not have such grave responsibilities, so perhaps you could explain why
he
was reluctant to commit himself to visiting Mole End?” said the Mole. “I made clear that any time would do —”

Otter laughed and said, “Badger always goes into retreat when the darker weather comes and rarely puts his nose outside his own front door, let alone inside anyone else’s! He prefers to lose himself in his books and studies till the winter’s passed.”

“O!” said the Mole, disappointed once again.

“But surely
you
might like to come over to Mole End, Otter?” suggested the Mole quietly.

Otter shook his head.

“I’ll give it a miss, Moly, old chap, if you don’t mind. I — well, I have work to do,’ said he vaguely, “and I’m not much good at that sort of thing.”

“O my!” said the Mole very quietly indeed. But he was not ready to give up yet. “But what about Toad? Surely
Toad
has no good reason to be unsociable at this time of year, has he? So
he
might like —?”

“You could always ask him, I suppose,” said the Otter noncommittally, “but — well — he usually has relatives staying up at the Hall and they keep him busy for most of the time.”

“O! I see,” said the disappointed Mole. “Well then!”

It was against this disheartening background that the Mole had had his tea with Toad, and it explained the black mood he fell into in the weeks thereafter.

To think that none of his companions wanted to see him in the days ahead, not one of them! They who had become such good friends in the summer months!

Now, with only three days to go, he sat listlessly poking at his parlour fire and toying with the cherished baubles and hangings, candleholders and ribbons in the two boxes of Christmas decorations he had brought down from his attic some days before. Till now, he had lacked the will to put them up. Suddenly, his hand happened upon a tin star, its gilt worn with time, its points blunted by use. It had been given to him by his sister, and no Christmas was the same without it.

“Happy Christmas, dear brother!” she had said so long ago. “Now and for ever!”

Mole’s eyes filled with tears of fond memory and regret. He held the star to his chest and before long was weeping openly, expressing his utter wretchedness that, once more, he had to spend Christmas alone with nobody to share his simple celebrations.

Yet the Mole was not one to give in to self-pity for long, or to give up on his dreams. When yet another tear plopped on to the star in his hand it seemed he suddenly saw its light anew He blinked back the tears, and a new look of determination came to his eyes. He stood up and fetched some more kindling for the fire to make sure it was burning as brightly as possible.

“I will
not,”
he declared, putting the star in the centre of his mantel, “allow others to spoil my Christmas like this! Really, I will not!”

Then in a sudden frenzy he put up all his decorations, down to the last broken bauble and torn and tattered angel, accompanying this activity by cries and expostulations such as, “No! I will not have it! I
shall
enjoy myself! Christmas is for laughter not for tears! This Mole is not for turning!”

Why, in all his days he had never come across a community that offered such sociable fun during the rest of the year, but suffered from such a malaise during the festive season. It could not possibly be something
he
had said or done! No, surely there must be some secret about the River Bank and Christmas he did not know.

“It is most strange!” he told himself a thousandth time as he prepared to retire for the night. “I should feel so much happier if I understood what lies at the root of it all. If I can discover that soon then it might not be too late to do something before Christmas Eve. I shall begin tomorrow by going to the Village Post Office to collect my parcel. I can’t put it off any longer.”

The parcel contained gifts for his three friends that had been ordered back in October when he still naively thought he would be celebrating Christmas with them. He had received notification some days ago that it was ready for collection.

“Yes! It will do me good to get out. I shall set off first thing in the morning. What is more,” he told himself when he was finally in bed, “I shall take the opportunity to call upon Otter again. No doubt he will tell me that I shouldn’t bother with presents at all, but that will give me the opportunity of finding out what I need to know if I am to make an assault upon the River Bank’s collective gloom. I shall go and consult him on this matter on my return from the Village tomorrow afternoon!”

Feeling much more cheerful and determined, the Mole blew out his candle and settled his head on his comfortable, familiar pillow.

Dawn brought a worsening in the weather, with storms in the offing, but the revitalised Mole cheerfully readied himself for his journey. Seeing that the fields by the River looked very muddy and close to flooding, he took the drier route, which brought him out on the road a little above the grand entrance to Toad Hall.

As he climbed over the stile and stood contemplating his journey west to the Village, he heard the sound of a horse and cart behind him. The approaching vehicle was clean and freshly tainted green, with yellow lettering. It was one of those sturdy, well-made carts the better class of victualler use to supply and deliver their produce to the better class of customer.

On its side the Mole read the bold words “W Baltry, Sole Proprietor, Lathbury and District: Game, Poultry and Quality Smoked Meats”. The driver was a bewhiskered gentleman of late middle age and from the cut of his attire and his air of confidence, the Mole guessed that he might be Mr Baltry himself.

“Good morning, sir. My name is Mr Mole of Mole End and I am most happy to offer you festive best wishes,” said the Mole cheerfully. “Are you by any chance on your way to the Village?”

“Indeed I am. Yer can take a ride with me if yer’ve a mind to’t, with the compliments of the season!” he said, making room for the Mole on the seat beside him. “Baltry’s the name and poultry’s the game.”

Mr Baltry was transporting Christmas fare: one large plucked goose, a splendid haunch of venison and a side of pork. In addition, there were two cages of scraggy chickens, three dead rabbits and some appetising pies.

“I’ve to call in at t’ Hall first, though, to drop off the goose and venison. And I’ve a feeling that Mrs Ffleshe will take a fancy to the pork.”

“Mrs Flesh?” repeated the Mole, momentarily puzzled.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but it’s pronounced ‘Ffleshe’ with two ‘f’s’ and not ‘Flesh’ as in meat — she’s inclined to be very particular on that point — as she is on just about everything else!”

He added this last in a low voice, rolling his eyes skywards.

“No doubt Mrs Ffleshe is the temporary housekeeper?” said the Mole, thinking it quite likely that Toad’s regular housekeeper might have taken a holiday, which necessitated his employing a substitute to help entertain the relatives to whom the Otter had referred.

“‘Er an ‘ousekeeper?” cried Mr Baltry, turning the cart into Toad’s gravelled drive. “Why she’d ‘ave yer guts fer garters if she caught you sayin’ that. I don’t know exactly ‘oo she is in relative terms, but I do know she might as well be ‘is mother-in-law, fer the way she carries on.

“I don’t believe he would ever get married,” declared the Mole jocularly.

“I don’t believe ‘e would!” said Mr Baltry, laughing heartily. “‘Specially not if it brings the likes of ‘er to ‘earth and ‘ome.”

“How did it happen, then?” enquired the Mole.

Mr Baltry was only too eager to tell him.

“When Mr Toad Senior died,” he explained, “which he did, just like that, a dozen or more Christmases back, his brother, that’s the present Mr Toad’s uncle, what is known as Groat, ‘oo made ‘is millions in tea plantations in Ceylon and now lives in retirement near Manchester, sent ‘is old nanny along to keep Mr Toad company at Christmas, or that was the reason ‘e gave. The talk in t’ Village was that Nanny Fowle, which was ‘er name, ‘ad spoiled ‘is Christmases for a good few years and ‘is wife said it’s ‘er or me. So Groat palmed ‘er off on Toad, along with ‘er daughter, who is the widow Mrs Ffleshe.

“Now, Nanny Fowle passed on a few years back but Mr Toad, ‘oo’s got a soft heart, couldn’t say no to Mrs Ffleshe coming every year, and it’s been the ruination of his Christmas, and ‘alf the Village’s too.”

Just as the Mole was about to ask Mr Baltry to elaborate, for it seemed possible that here was a clue to the mystery of the gloomy River Bank Christmas, a sudden change came over Mr Baltry’s cheerful face and he said in a low voice, “‘Ere she comes now, so watch it!”

They had been making for the tradesman’s entrance, but now the front door of Toad Hall opened and a woman emerged and stood staring at them from the top step.

“Is that you, Baltry?” she said in a voice of such sharply disagreeable command that it sent a weary rook that was resting on a nearby wall flapping for cover.

“It is, ma’am’ said Baltry respectfully.

She was of solid, stocky build and though not quite large, nor yet quite broad, she was by any measure formidable. As she came down the steps and crunched across the gravel towards them she gave the impression of an army of Prussian soldiers engaged in an assault on an enemy position. When she arrived alongside she towered over Mr Baltry and also over his horse, which snorted feebly and dropped its ears in submission.

“Let me have a proper look at that goose,” said Mrs Ffleshe, leaning into the cart.

She fingered the legs and breast of the bird assertively, leaving numerous dents in it. Then she turned her attention to the venison, bending down and sniffing at it, as a vulture might examine carrion.

“Passable,” she said, “just.”

Then her eyes fell on the side of pork.

“What’s this?”

Mr Baltry sighed and said, “That’s spoken for by His Lordship the Bishop’s wife.”

“Nonsense. I must have it,” said Mrs Ffleshe at once, ‘‘for we have an extra guest at Christmas luncheon.”

“I promised to deliver it to her this afternoon,” said Baltry a mite feebly.

“Well, it’s mine now,” said Mrs Ffleshe, attempting to heave it out of the cart.

“Really, Mrs Ffleshe, if I was the King of Siam —”

“You’re not and not likely to be,” said she. Then she pointed at the Mole and said, “Get your apprentice here to take it into the kitchen at once.”

Before Mr Baltry could say anything the Mole was heaving the side of pork on to his own shoulder.

“Glad to oblige you, Mrs Flesh,” said the Mole in a mischievously obsequious way.

“Its ‘Ffleshe’, with an ‘e’,” said Mrs Ffleshe; “and that’ll be a tuppence a pound off your price, Baltry, for your lad’s insolence.”

The sight of Mole puffing in to the kitchen and laying the pork on the table came as quite a shock to Miss Bugle, the housekeeper.

“I am so sorry, Mr Mole, sir,” she whispered. “Mrs Ffleshe takes up residence at the Hall for the Christmas period, you see, and she does have her particular way of running things. I’m sure that Mr Toad would apologise if only he knew”

The Mole laughed, for he rather enjoyed being taken for an apprentice. In fact, he was beginning to think he had been mistaken in his judgement of the River Bank at Christmas and that there was fun and jollity to be found hereabout after all.

He wished Miss Bugle the compliments of the season and though he did not know her well he took the liberty — for she looked rather in need of cheering up and he could well imagine why — of suggesting that he might drop her off some of his chestnut and prune compote on Christmas Eve.

To his surprise and dismay he saw tears come to Miss Bugle’s eyes.

“O Mr Mole!” she said. “How kind of you to think of such a thing, for I’m sure no one else in the Hall will dare to, this side of Twelfth Night!”

This was a strange comment, and the Mole would have liked to pursue it, but Mr Baltry’s negotiations were over and he was in a hurry to get on his way, so he said a hasty farewell to Miss Bugle and resumed his ride.

He found Mr Baltry in very good humour, for he had made a successful sale of the pork to Mrs Ffleshe.

“I thought you said that it was promised to someone else,” said the Mole.

“Saying isn’t always meaning,” said Mr Baltry with a wink. “The likes of Mrs Ffleshe always like to feel they’ve got something someone ‘igher in the pecking order wants, and they’ll pay more for it,
and
be ‘appier too, so where’s the ‘arm in telling her it’s for the Bishop’s wife? But now we must press on. I need to get to the Village and then back to Lathbury before dark.”