The Willows in Winter (32 page)

“Farewell, Rat! Goodbye, Otter!” he whispered
after them when they left. “I shall remember you. And you, Mole, and Badger, so
wise and forgiving — you will never know that this night a reformed and altered
Toad thought of you, and wished you well!”

So they left, and Toad spent the day of the
party alone in his own home. Feelings of remorse apart, he quite enjoyed
himself, for the sun was shining and, never able to dwell on reality for long,
he began to imagine what the Hall might be like if it could be refurbished somewhat,
an opportunity presented by its present state in a way never presented before.

“I’m bored with red and scarlet,” he declared
impatiently, “and those velvet drapes! It is a good job they’ve fallen down!
As for all this furniture, why, it’s been getting me down for years!
Hmmm!”

Then Toad ventured into the kitchen, and found
certain provisions still intact, as well as some claret laid down by his
father decades before, and made himself a little feast — just to keep the
wolves at bay He made do with a writing bureau in his study as a table,
choosing the sunniest spot he could find, and ate and drank his fill, ending
with a little speech to the empty room on the subject of change, remorse,
interior decoration, and the pleasures of a well-stocked cellar.

This done, Toad slept once more — taking the
precaution of retiring to one of the lesser bedrooms in the south wing, where
the bed was but a small double, yet comfortable for all that.

But when he woke up at dusk his gloom returned.
He tried to cheer himself up, but the high spirits of the afternoon — for that
was what they had been — had quite fled, and he suddenly found the empty
dereliction about him too much to bear. Toad therefore went out onto his lawn
and paced about, wondering if he might play croquet by moonlight, or declaim a
poem about his coming lonely struggle with life and proposed search for inner
peace, perhaps making his address from the balustrade that commanded the best
view of the lawn and river beyond.

“From there,” he thought, “I might be heard to
best effect, if there were an audience. It is a pity there is not.”

Feeling hungry again, he went inside, rummaged
around the pantry, fed himself by candlelight on an upper floor and said, “It
is enough! I shall sleep for the last time in the Hall, and by dawn I shall
leave. Then —But these good resolutions were interrupted by a stirring at the
window where, the panes broken, a light wind fretted the curtains. Somewhere a
stair creaked, and a door seemed to slam, and Toad was suddenly overtaken by
that irrational sense of fear that any alone in such a great place might feel.

He left the candle where it was, for he had no
wish for it to be seen at the window, and went to look out upon the advancing
night. The moon was bright once more; a solitary cloud drifted towards it,
across it, and away once more, and then another loomed.

Impulsively Toad decided he could not stay one
moment more where he was.

“Moonlight will see me down the stairs! I must
go —”Then he was gone, before the moonlight was clouded out once more, down the
great stairs, across the ruined ballroom and out onto the safety of the
terrace.

There he might have stayed, and slept perhaps,
had he not heard some distant shout, or moment of laughter, and the sounds of
the conviviality he missed so much.

“That must be the party Rat referred to when he
was here earlier,” he thought, little knowing what a dreary affair it had so
far proved to be.

“It would do no harm,” thought Toad, “if I
ventured over — though it is rather shadowy by night — and got near enough to
Badger’s place at least to hear what is going on. A last look at those familiar
faces, and then I shall really go!”

With an objective at last in mind, Toad was an
animal renewed. He darted back into the gloomy, creaky Hall, gathered together
his few needs — two bottles of wine and several cheeses and water biscuits and
suchlike, in case he felt like supper later on — and was on his way.

Here and there he stopped to eat and drink,
lest the cold get to him, and to give him courage, for the Wild Wood is not an
easy place at night, even to those who walk along its edge.

He went by way of Otter’s house, and seeing he
was not at home, he took the liberty of popping in — to eat and drink in a
little more comfort than was possible along the bank, which did not have the
chairs and tables he liked to use if they were available. Toad even slept a
little in the Otter’s armchair till, waking with a start, he remembered his
purpose, which was to get as near to Badger’s house as he could.

The path into the Wild Wood looked forbidding,
and Toad took an extra tot of the richer of the two wines he was carrying to
give him strength and courage.

“I shall do it all at one go, show to
shpeak
,” said Toad, whose enunciation was deteriorating. “I
shall —Toad paused, and swayed, and frowned, and seemed to think.

“I shall,” he said very slowly,
“not
shkulk
! I shall not peer and peek! I shall —” and here he
took a straight swig from the bottle and nodded his head in agreement at his
own words before, wiping his mouth with the back of his free hand, he
continued, “I shall
speak
to the Badger! What I shall say I do not know,
but say it I shall. Then, that done, I shall turn and leave these parts
forever. Now then,
letsh
be off as
besht
we can up this dark and
sha
—
shaow
—
doshowee
— shady
bath!”

Tottering a little, and seeking support from
the occasional tree, Toad began to make his way through the Wild Wood, looking
to neither left nor right, and thinking only that when he got to Badger’s he
hoped he might find courage to knock upon his door.

Midnight
had come and gone when Rat
whispered to Mole, “No need for you to linger on, old chap. Badger and I will
do the honours and see the night out till our guests have gone.”

“I thought this was going to be high tea, Rat,
not an all-night affair. I wouldn’t mind if—”

The Rat smiled and said, “It’s what the stoats
and weasels expected, a good night of it.”

“They don’t
look
as if they expect
anything at all any more. They look as dull and gloomy as I feel,” said the
Mole with feeling. “Why, this is the dreariest affair —”Off you go, Mole, and
take Otter with you — for company and protection. No one will even notice
you’ve gone.

The two slipped away from the table and headed
for Badger’s front door. They were in the very act of raising the latch when
they heard a loud and confident knocking from outside.

Anything was a welcome distraction from the
social gathering within, and the Badger himself rose up and said, “A late
caller then. A reveller on his way home from some other party, no doubt! Open
the door, Mole! Open the door!”

Mole did so and stood back; and there
he
stood:
Toad.

He had a half-empty bottle in one hand and upon
his face was a look of feigned cheer and jollity.

“I happened,” he declared to his dumbfounded
audience, “
jush
‘
appened
,
show to
shpeak
, to be
parshing
by and —”

His voice, like his jollity, subsided, and his
hand lowered the bottle to his side.

“
Ish
Badgsher
at home, or do I need an
invis
—
invish
—
ivinashun
?”

Alone of them all, the Badger retained his
composure. He pushed forward till he was in the midst of the gathering and
said, “Toad, you are drunk.”

“I have drunk, that
ish
true, Basher old fellow, and I may be merry, very,
bu
—”

“Toad,” growled the Badger in a most terrible
way, looming higher than any about him, “you are incapable!”

“I am —” began Toad, his inebriated mind
searching for the right words, “
intoshicated
, but as
for —”

“Toad!” said the Badger, his voice low and
unforgettable. “Toad —”

“
Yesh
,
Badgsher
, I am —“

What was it he was trying so hard to say, for
trying he now was? Indeed, he went so far as to place the bottle upon the
ground, nearly falling over as he did so, before straightening up again with a
strange wild look in his eye, made the stranger by the light that shone on him
from within, and the starry night sky behind.

“
Badsher
’ said Toad,
frowning, “what Toad wanted to say, to try to shay, to —”

Behind him the Wild Wood suddenly seemed a visible
presence — though only the outline of trees could be seen against the night
sky, and here and there a branch caught in moonlight. But there it was, and
beyond it, a presence too, seemed a great wild and desolate world out of which,
so unexpectedly, so typically perhaps, so bravely it was beginning to seem,
Toad had come.

Now he stood, still swaying, with that great
hostile world behind him, and he sought words he could not find.

“Toad —” said the Badger once more.

“What am I, Badger?” said Toad, with terrible,
painful clarity, his swaying stopped now, his head high, his face worn with
the trials of a long journey, his eyes lost.

“You are
home,
Toad,” said the Badger
with a sudden gentleness, “and none is more welcome here than you tonight.”

“Home,” whispered Toad, “and welcome.”

Then something stirred across that tired face
and he said, “I shall be good now, Badger, I shall -—”

But Badger raised a hand to silence him.

“No, Toad, you will not be good tonight. You
will be bad, very bad.”

“I will?”

“You will.”

“I might,” said Toad gratefully, his face
suddenly losing years.

“You will,”
said
the
Badger, coming forward and ushering Toad in, “and you will tell us about all
your adventures.”

“Will I?” said the relieved Toad.

“You will!”

“He will!”

“You must!” cried many a voice, among them
Rat’s and Mole’s and Otter’s and many of the weasels’, and all the stoats’, who
now crowded out to welcome Toad home.

“But you won’t
be wanting
a speech about myself, will you? For I have not prepared one, you see, I hadn’t
thought that —”Speech?” cried the Badger. “
It’s
speeches we
want,
speeches we’re lacking, and you’re just the chap to
get us started, keep us going, and finish us off.”

“I am!” cried Toad enthusiastically “I mean.
‘Am I?”‘

“You are,” said the Badger, “you are — now come
in, sit down, and tell us — everything.”

It is strange how when a gathering is gloomy
the drink and the food and the talk are gloomy too. Then, when it is gloomy no
more, the drink sparkles, the food entices, and the conversation is
scintillating. So it was then, at Badger’s party, when Toad came home.

And the night seemed young, and after but a
short time invitations, attendance certificates, and all the rest mattered no
more. For whether it was from a weasel who had seen Toad rollicking earlier
along the bank, or a sharp-eyed stoat rather later, staggering through the Wild
Wood, the word soon got out that Toad,
the
Toad, Toad of Toad Hall, was
at the Badger’s, and it was open house.