The Willows in Winter (31 page)

Quite what the original purpose of the party
had been was now forgotten, and the general feeling was, as the Badger himself
had said, that the celebration was in memory of Mr Toad, and all that Toad Hall
had once represented; and in addition to that, it
had
been a long
winter, and why not raise a glass or two in celebration of its end?

But what of Toad Hall?
Was it as ruinous as people said?
Sadly it was. The harsh days of winter’s renewal had caused more pipes to
freeze and more flooding, and now the wind had forced its way behind some of
the shutters, windowpanes were broken and the place was growing more derelict
by the week.

It was only in deference to Toad’s memory — now
a wholly revered and heroic one in the popular imagination, if not yet in that
of his closest friends — that none had yet despoiled the place further, or
sought to loot it, or occupy some corner of it. But then, everybody knew what
had happened in years gone by when the weasels and stoats had taken advantage
of another of Toad’s enforced absences, and none could doubt that if such
advantage was taken again, then the wrath of the Badger, and of the Water Rat,
and of the Mole would know no bounds.

Added to
which,
and
here the cunning Water Rat was the culprit, there was a rumour abroad that Toad
Hall was haunted, and not a place to go near at all.

“That’ll keep ‘em away like nothing else!”
declared the Rat with satisfaction, when he told the Otter of his clever ruse
to keep Toad Hall safe till the proper authorities could come in and seal it,
or whatever they must do, when spring finally came.

“You’re a clever animal to think of that,” said
the Otter. “But — are you sure it isn’t really haunted?”

“Of course it’s not. Never was and never will
be. But don’t let on, Otter, just spread the story about a bit.”

By the party’s eve all the preparations were done, and the Rat went to
bed, with Nephew tucked up beneath one of the tables already laid in the
parlour and ready for the morrow afternoon, both feeling that theirs was a job
well done.

The Rat could do with some sleep, for in
addition to his other duties he had felt it best to find time to cross the
river in his boat to visit Mole End, just to see that all was well with the
Badger, which indeed it was. The Certificates of Attendance were all done, and
the Badger had enjoyed some days of unwonted peace, made all the easier and
more enjoyable by the hospitable Mole’s attentions.

So when, with the Rat already asleep and Mole’s
Nephew nearly so, and the night advanced, there was a rat—tat-tat at the door,
the Rat was not well pleased to be woken up.

It was one of the senior stoats.

“Sorry to disturb you, Water Rat, but there’s
trouble at Toad Hall. One of my own youngsters saw a ghost —”

“But it’s not —” began the Rat impatiently.

“I know it’s not haunted, you know it’s not
haunted’ said the stoat with a knowing wink, “but fact is e saw a light, and if
‘e says ‘e did, ‘e did.
Intruders, likely as not.”

“Well I’m not
fool
enough to investigate anything in the dead of night,” said the Water Rat
decisively “If there’s time, I’ll go and have a look in the morning. Now I
suggest you get back to bed just like I’m going to.”

Later, when the stoat was gone and Badger’s
front door securely bolted once more, Rat said to Mole’s Nephew, “Might be
true, might not be. Hard to say
Could
be one of their
little schemes to get us both out of here. Well, it hasn’t worked.”

“Will you go over in the morning?”

“I will,”
said
the
Rat, “and Otter can accompany me, for you’ll be needed here.”

The next day, the day of the party, was fine,
and guessing that once it began he would get little rest till the following
day, the Water Rat decided to investigate the stoat’s claim with the help of
the Otter, and to get some fresh air while he did so.

It was a pleasant walk, for the day was warmer
than any previously and spring really was in the air. The mallards were back on
the river, and in the water meadows on the far side many of the wintering geese
had already departed, and the others were testing their wings. While all along
the bank was a sight that never failed to stir the Rat’s spirit, and warm his
heart: the willows, in bud so long, were showing signs of leaf at last. Not
much, it is true, but there were enough touches of green to hint at the gentle,
swaying glory that would soon be theirs.

They approached Toad Hall with some
misgiving,
for it was a forlorn place now, with broken
windows and here and there curtains blown out of them, lying bedraggled and
untidy on the sills. Yet for all that it was an impressive sight, vast and
grand, and all it might need was resolution to put it right once more.

“And money, plenty of it’ said the Rat. “Come
on then, let’s have a quick look about and then be gone.

They took up what sticks and wood they could
find as weapons, lest they disturb intruders, and quartered the ground floor.

“Shall we bother with the floors above?” asked
the Otter.

“Just the next, perhaps,” said the Rat, “though
there seems to be no sign of life that I can detect.”

“None at all,” said the Otter.

They searched the first floor, but no more than
that, for time was passing by and the Rat was anxious to get back to the
Badger’s home to oversee the final preparations.

“You had better come with me, Otter, for if any
of the guests come early we’ll need an extra pair of sturdy hands to keep
order. Mole’s bringing Badger over this morning as well. Come on then, let’s
leave this dreary place.”

They returned to the daylight once more, threw
down their weapons on the lawn, and were off along the bank, finding it all too
easy to forget what lay behind them now, in anticipation of the pleasures that
lay ahead.

Of the start of the Badger’s party, and its progress into the clear mild
night, little need be said, but this: some parties have all the ingredients for
success — the food, the drink, place, the occasion and the company — and yet do
not quite come off. It is as if some extra ingredient, mysterious and
unidentifiable by anyone, yet whose absence is recognized by all, is missing.
This is how Badger’s party was.

The Badger tried his hardest to play the
affable host; the Rat positively danced about in his determination that all and
sundry should have a good and memorable time; the Mole’s courtesy to even the
rudest and most brutish of the weasels should have melted the heart of all, and
been enough to make the party swing.

But it did not. There was a solemnity about the
occasion which none could seem to find a way of lifting. However good the food
— and it was lavishly inviting; however excellent the drink — and it was more
than that; however eager all were to have a good time —and all were very eager
indeed, a good time was had by none.

Smiles were strained, laughter cracked, jokes
ill-timed, and that black spot that marks a party doomed was upon it well
before
midnight
.

“What,” whispered the Rat to the Mole, “are we
going to do? This is, well —”

“Desperate,” said the Mole feelingly, “that’s
what it is, and the Badger’s reputation will be sorely dented tomorrow, if it
is not already tonight.”

“Desperate is the word,” said the Rat with
resignation. “I just don’t know what’s wrong, or how to put it right.”

“There’s no way to put it right,” said the Mole
sorrowfully, “for what’s wrong cannot be put right.”

The Rat looked at him with surprise and
interest. The Mole rarely spoke thus gloomily, and in the Rat’s experience once
you knew what was wrong with a thing it
could
be put right.

The Mole shook his head, as if he read the
Rat’s thoughts.

“Not this time, Ratty. You know what’s really
wrong? We’re missing Toad, every single one of us.
That’s
the trouble,
isn’t it?”

The Rat heard this and thought about it for a
very long time till he finally said, “Yes, old fellow, I’m afraid it is.”

Desperation would have been too mild a description of the mood that had
overtaken another creature that night. The only creature, indeed, who had
received no invitation to any party, whether it was the Badger’s, the weasels’
and stoats’, or even the rabbits’.

All he could do was wander abroad in the night
shadows of the bank, and the Wild Wood, and down by the river, and listen to
the sounds of fun he could hear, and peer in unseen at others’ windows and wish
that he too might be one of them. That creature was Toad. He had come back the
previous night, skulking along ditches, hiding among the river reeds, and in
the Wild Wood’s undergrowth; and retreating for a long time under the bridge
while some festive souls conversed above his head — so happily, so cheerfully,
so excitedly,
so
generously.

It had taken him many long weeks to get
this far, weeks
when he had skulked across country and down
dale, under hedge and by old rough surface root, as he skulked now by night
between river and Wild Wood, with only the cold stars and a risen moon for
company.

In that time Toad convinced himself that he was
neither villain nor hero any more, but just Toad, almost Toad with a small “t”,
so sorry did he feel for all he had done, and all he was.

It was not the flying machine, or the scrapes
into which he had got himself — these things he could bear the memory of easily
enough. No, it was the friends he had betrayed.

“Mole, Ratty and Badger!” he had fallen to
whispering to himself ever since he had been left upon the road outside the
Town. “Why could I not see how fine and worthy they were? Much finer and much
more worthy than anything I could ever be! Why was I so dazzled and deluded by
machines and flight and seeking the attention of others when there, on my
doorstep, I had all I could ever really want?

“Friendship was mine for the asking! And
companionship! But all I could do was
take
, and dupe,
delude and cheat. All I strove for was to show how clever I was, and how —”

When Toad got into this kind of vein he was
inclined to go on for a very long time, and he did so now, ending much later
thus: “I see it all now, far too late. I duped them all! I failed them! I
caused them trouble, and upset and grief, and in return what do they do —or
what does the Badger do? He stands surety for me! He — O, but it is too much to
think of, too much to bear?

It is true to say that Toad had come home
because he had nowhere else to go. Along the way he had frequently been
recognised and either reviled as a villain (which he did not like) or cheered
as a hero (which irked him in his mood of new-found remorse). What he wanted
was the friendly acceptance that he used to have, more or less, from those who
lived near Toad Hall, and for this he had finally come back.

He had timed his arrival the previous evening
so that he would not be observed, but it had been light enough for him to see
at a glance the derelict state into which the Hall had fallen. When twilight
came it looked even worse, and at night, by the solitary candle which was all
he dared light, it looked yet worse still.

Peering out from the attic windows, or from the
huge holes he found in the roof tiles, he looked upon a night-time scene he had
forgotten that he loved.

For there was the river by
starlight, there the Wild Wood, there the river bank and beyond the meadows.

There too, in their burrows, conversing with
each other no doubt, content, their homes filled with life’s best and simplest
pleasures of food and conversation and conviviality, there would be friends he
now knew he did not have the courage to call on, friends he would probably
never see again.

How pathetic would his sad face have seemed to
any able to see it, as he gazed from the portals of his ruined home upon a
landscape wherein he felt he might never again be at home.

“I’ll stay a night or two, for old times’
sake,” he told himself, “and then I’ll be gone! I shall be a wanderer without a
home and leave all this trumpery, this vain-glory, behind me. I shall dedicate
my life to a search for the inner contentment that has always eluded me.
Unsung, shall I be; unremembered; unknown, a toad without a name.

Toad soon fell asleep to the sound of his own
loin voice, and it was his candle then whose light the young stoat had seen,
and which had duly been reported to the Water Rat.

Indeed, it was the visit of the Water Rat the
following morning that had woken Toad and sent him scurrying for cover. But
used to hiding as he was, it was not
so
hard as it
might once have been for him to lie low while his old friends searched the
place below.

But at least he had seen that Rat was alive —
that much he could clear from his conscience; and when he heard Rat mention
that Mole was alive, and Badger staying with him, Toad could deduce that both
were well.