The Linnet's Tale (A Mouse Story for Grownups) (The Tottensea Series)

by Dale C. Willard

  On Thursday the mole brought a small musical box and an envelope on a salver. Although the gift of the musical box made her uneasy, elevating as it did, Mr. Pickerel's suit to a more alarming pitch, Grenadine plucked herself up and replied with, "The musical box is quite nice and thank you, of course, but I shall be engaged this evening." And, indeed, Freckeldy Biggles came at the gloaming and took her to a skittles competition where the two of them, as partners, took nearly every single prize. He was very popular, Freckeldy Biggles, being a robust and athletic mouse, an accomplished kegler and more than adequate at rounders, but, as Grenadine told her sisters when she returned that evening, "He has perhaps in his entire life not read a single book that was not required of him."

  Friday, still protecting herself from unwanted attentions through another appointment in the continuing series of engagements arranged by her sisters, Grenadine spent the evening with Predicate Quoty's brother, Adverbial Quoty, who also wrote poetry but probably shouldn't have.

  Adverbial Quoty, a good and sound mouse in so many ways, labored under an unfortunate misunderstanding about his name. Being a bookkeeper and a confessed literalist, Adverbial Quoty felt that, being named Adverbial Quoty, it was his duty to write something.

  (He needn't have felt such an obligation. So I should pause here, perhaps, for a brief gloss on field mouse names. They being wonderfully prolific, the ongoing parental duty of field mice to invent names for their issue became something of a challenge—not to say a burden. To help out with this there arose a fashion of naming litters by themes. This is called "thematic littering" and there are a few handbooks on the subject. To be named Predicate Quoty, for example, or Adverbial Quoty—or even Subjunctive Quoty, for that matter—had therefore much more to do with the parents' state of exhaustion at the time than with any literary destiny of the new mouse.

  If one has never been a very tired mother or father mouse who has barely seen one litter successfully up and out of cribs before another comes along, one may underestimate the relief and convenience which comes with the realization that seven newborn mice could easily be called, say, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and so forth, or that a litter of six could be quickly named Up, Down, Left, Right, Front and Back and then one could get a little rest. And beyond convenience, the practice became quite original, if not artistic. To name a large litter after leaping lords, for example, or drummers drumming, would certainly never have occurred to me. But once one gets the hang of it, one sees that it could be done and that, in fact, for very small litters, calling-birds could be used or even French hens.)

  Adverbial Quoty was, in Grenadine's view, a mouse of great industry, remarkable success, admirable determination and no literary talent. None.

  "What, none at all, dear?" Almandine asked, crestfallen. It was, after all, her idea to have him call and she felt somewhat responsible.

  "As I said," Grenadine answered, pulling her night-dress on over her head.

  "But he's only just started writing poetry, I'm told," Almandine said, pulling her own night-dress over her own head. "Perhaps you could encourage him."

  "No," Grenadine said firmly, "I couldn't."

  "Of course," Almandine said. "I'm sorry to have intruded."

  "Not at all, dear," Grenadine said, softening. "He's a very likeable mouse. Really he is. But he mustn't do poetry, I think."

  "Is it his meter, Grenadine?" Almandine asked.

  "There's nothing wrong with his meter," Grenadine answered.

  "It's the rhymes then, isn't it?" Almandine sighed. "Why is it they can never rhyme things?"

  "No, actually," Grenadine said, "the rhymes are adequate."

  "Then...?" Almandine said, helplessly.

  "There's more to poetry than rhymes and meters. You should know that, Almandine," Grenadine said, taking up her didactic tone (which Almandine had never liked very much). "A poem must say something worth saying, mustn't it?"

  "Was it really as bad as all that?" Almandine asked.

  "I leave it to you," Grenadine replied. "He said this:

  All the city's residents

  And twenty college presidents

  Could not suppress the evidence

  That thou art fair, my love"

  Almandine looked at Grenadine. Grenadine looked at Almandine. They blew out the candle and went to bed.

  On Saturday, Martindale DeWiggs asked Grenadine to tea with his family. But that was a bit much.

  As the DeWiggses had almost as much money as the Asquith-Berryseeds and as she had no idea what a mouse should wear or say in such company and as she was already toward the ragged end of a rather stressful social whirl, Grenadine Fieldpea buckled at the knees, I'm afraid, and fell across her bed in the grip of a sudden and unexpected onset of the vapors. Almandine and Incarnadine, alarmed and aghast, fanned their sister and insisted on all the customary things: that water be drunk, deep breaths be taken and, above all, that expectations of everything's turning out all right be fully embraced. After remanding their sister to their mother's care, they set forth again, with bonnets and parasols, in great urgency to rectify their mistake, if possible, and to do it before the mole arrived on his daily errand.

  They were not successful in this. The mole came while they were out.

  Utwiler Thipples, the schoolmaster, was a mouse filled right up to his withers with learning and erudition of many kinds to say nothing of his having won the Brittlecakes Normal Prize For Acceptable Literature when quite young. He was a serious mouse: accomplished, a bit didactic, and (having been told that time was of the essence) completely out of breath when he reached the Fieldpea door. After he regained his breath, his composure and his voice well enough to extend his invitation, Grenadine said to him "Thank you ever so much, Mr. Thipples, for your kindness in coming under these circumstances, but I regret to tell you that I am already engaged for this evening."

  Indeed she was.

  When the mole had come, earlier that afternoon, her mother had insisted on writing a note, herself, to Mr. Pickerel, informing him that Miss Fieldpea was indisposed and unable to receive any guests whatsoever, either that evening or for some indefinite time to come. But Grenadine wouldn't have it. She had recovered quickly from her swoon and was uncommonly vexed with herself for such an appalling lapse of self-control. Moreover, she was determined to receive this unpleasantly persistent suitor once and for all and be done with it. Flushed with agitation then, she sat and wrote: "You may call upon me at six o'clock but I would be pleased if you would send no more gifts." She threw that away and wrote: "You may come at six, this evening. The brooch is lovely but quite unnecessary." After she tore that up she wrote, "Come at six. Thanks for the brooch." And she gave that one to the mole.

  At six o'clock then, Langston Pickerel came to the door and Mr. Fieldpea, who knew a thing or two about the world, showed him to the parlor with warmth and courtesy, to be sure, but with no more to-do than he had shown a Mr. Quoty or a Mr. Biggles or a Mr. Pipes. When Grenadine appeared she was astonished, of course, (as nearly everyone was at seeing Langston Pickerel up close for the first time) but determined not to show it. Still it was hard. What kind of expression would you have had on your face if you had discovered, standing in your parlor, a creature in a powdered wig and postillion boots wearing a maroon cloak over a blue waistcoat and fronted with a ruffled something or other—a jabot, I think? And if he had been wearing white silk breeches and if, on a table beside him, there was an ivory headed cane alongside a tricorn that had a silver medallion on it and long striped feathers that you had never seen before, and if he had been holding a large bouquet of pearly everlasting interspersed with Siberian bugloss, you, too, might have remained cool and unblinking only with the most dedicated effort and resolution.

  Still, she did it—stayed cool, I mean, and blinked normally—though, in all fairness, she did have her face half hidden behind the folding fan which she had borrowed from Incarnadine. But when she extended her paw the way she had read about ladies doing in books and Mr. Pic
kerel took it in his own and kissed it and said things to her which she had only read about in those same books and said them with an elegant French accent, Grenadine thought to herself that, after all, an exotic evening with a mysterious and chivalrous stranger might provide at least an interesting diary entry for the evening, if not material for a short story or two!

  After Mr. Pickerel had gone, Almandine and Incarnadine, breathless and wide-eyed, cornered their sister in the hallway and inquired about the evening.

  "It was all very pleasant," Grenadine said, archly. "He's been to the Continent, you know."

  "And..." said Almandine.

  "And what, dear?" Grenadine said, yawning and pretending to appear puzzled by her sisters' curiosity.

  "Grenadine!" Incarnadine said. "You were in there for an hour!"

  "Well...give me a moment, then. Let's see, we spoke of weather, and a bit about literature. He quoted me a poem. No, two poems. And—oh!—did I say that he asked me to accompany him to the Tottensea Burrows Midsummer's Night Fancy Dress Cotillion Ball?" said Grenadine with a straight face. And she ran away toward their room. Her sisters screeched and chased her down the hallway, the three of them laughing boisterously. In their room then, they put their heads together and Grenadine told them about Langston Pickerel.

  All eyes and ears, Incarnadine said, "He was genteel and romantic, then."

  "Oh, Incarnadine, he was positively Byronic! He told me I reminded him of an actress he once knew in Budapest, except that she was taller, he said, and not so beautiful."

  "Budapest!" said Incarnadine. "An actress! You didn't believe it?"

  "No, actually," Grenadine answered. "But he did say it, didn't he, and I require nothing more than that for my diary." They laughed and Almandine asked her if she was actually going to the ball with him.

  "Oh, most certainly. It could keep me in writing material for the rest of summer, don't you think?" They all agreed about this and went off to tell their mother. That turned out to be somewhat disappointing, however, as their mother was less than enthusiastic about the project.

  "But Mother," Grenadine said, "it was more or less irresistible."

  Mrs. Fieldpea worked at her needlepoint, and without looking up said, "Well my dear, you are a grown mouse and entitled to make these decisions for yourself."

  "Was it quite wrong of me to accept, then?"

  "My thought would have been this," Mrs. Fieldpea said, putting down her work. "If you think Mr. Pickerel sincere, it is unbecoming of you to treat the invitation cynically. If you think him insincere then no good can come of your involvement with him on any account."

  Grenadine's diary entry was interesting that evening. But it was interesting in a different way than she had thought it would be.

  CHAPTER 13

  Mrs. Pockets' Difficult Guest

  From a very small mouse, Farnaby Pockets loved excitement. His mother, Mrs. Proserpine Pockets, noticed this and she used to say to him, as he tried to stand quite still while she buttoned his jerkin, "Now Farnaby, there are very many wonderful things in this world but not all of them are exciting. Do you understand that, dear?"

  "I think so," he would say cheerfully. He was a good little field mouse and his mother loved him very much but she wasn't sure that he did understand about this excitement business.

  As Mrs. Pockets and Farnaby were very poor, they took in boarders to make ends meet. When they first came to Tottensea Burrows, Mrs. Pockets found an old inn which had been abandoned and which she thought might be fixed up into a reasonable boarding house. She swept it out, scrubbed it up, whitewashed the walls, mended the thatch and put a little sign in the front window that said ROOMS.

  There was already a big sign. The big sign hung out over the front door and said THE BRAMBLES on it because that had been the name of the old inn. It squeaked a little when the wind blew, being a swinging sign that hadn't been properly cared for, and it needed new paint. But there were so many other things in the place that needed attention even more than the sign that although Mrs. Pockets, on every evening in which there was a breeze, said to herself as she fell wearily into her bed, "I must do something about that sign...just as soon as we think of a name for the boarding house." In the end, she didn't. She didn't do anything about the sign and she didn't think of a new name, either.

  But if one thinks about it, the wind doesn't blow very hard in Tottensea, after all. So the squeaking isn't all that shocking. And as for the old paint, some mice (probably out of kindness) told her that they thought it had a pleasant antique look about it. In any event, the boarding house went on being called The Brambles and the sign over its door went on squeaking a little when the wind blew and never got repainted. But hardly anyone ever complained about the sign. The guests seemed to like The Brambles and were generally a cheerful lot. Except for Mr. Neversmythe, of course.

  Mr. Neversmythe came to the Pocketses' door in a pouring rain in the middle of the night and he made a great din of it, too. Farnaby was in bed when the uproar began, but, of course, a young mouse couldn't be expected to stay in bed through a thing like that. By the time he found his mother she had already lit a candle, put a robe over her night clothes and was saying, so as to be heard (if possible) above the pounding and noise being put upon their door, "Yes, yes, I'm coming. Just a moment, please. Goodness!" When she finally did get to the door she was almost afraid to open it as things were being said on the other side of it—things like, "One ought not to be treated in such a way on a night like this!" and "False notices I calls it." and "ROOMS it says, as plain as ever I saw the word." But open it she did and found nearly the wettest creature she had ever seen standing right in front of her, wearing a yellow sou'wester and a great yellow mackintosh and Wellington boots right up to his knees—none of them doing him any good whatsoever, he being at least as wet on the inside as he was on the outside—and as soon as the door came open he said, "All right, you've opened the door I suppose. What's to be done now?"

  "Well, you must come in, of course!" Mrs. Pockets said. So in he came and a considerable amount of weather with him. Immediately he was inside he began sputtering and wheezing and, with both paws, slapping great amounts of water off his raincoat and right onto Mrs. Pockets' clean floor as if it were of the utmost importance that everything about him be made completely dry as soon as possible and never mind that anything else in the world might become slightly damp in consequence of it.

  "Goodness!" Mrs. Pockets said again, feeling, perhaps, the rainstorm itself had come into her parlor and was now about to ask her for a room.

  Farnaby Pockets watched all this with very wide eyes and—as their guest seemed quite occupied with his own affairs and not likely to notice anything else that was happening in the general area—made bold to ask his mother, albeit very quietly and in a discreet whisper, "What is he?"

  "I'm not certain, darling," his mother whispered back, "but I think he may be a bog lemming. We mustn't ask, of course. It would be rude."

  "Oh," Farnaby whispered. And then he waited as long as possible and when he absolutely could stand it not a moment longer he whispered again to his mother, "What's that thing hanging off him?"

  "I believe it's called a cutlass, dear," his mother whispered.

  Mr. Neversmythe proved to be a very difficult guest. He was not only loud and blustery, he was also bad tempered and frightening to the other guests. When asked about his occupation, he would usually say, very noisily, that he was a frontier numismatist and a cracking good one at that. And, though he might well have collected coins somewhere out along the rough edges of civilization, it was greatly suspected by myself that he actually did this collecting at the point of a sword and with motives quite other than those of antiquarian interest. But of course, I am a bird. Actually, though, the field mice may have suspected it as well. For though they are a kind-spirited lot and have even been accused of being excessively inclined to give benefits of doubt, they are not stupid.

  Another unpleasant thing about Mr.
Neversmythe was that he was often greatly in arrears in the matter of paying for his room and meals. This caused distress to Mrs. Pockets. And when she would sometimes gather herself and determine that she simply must do her duty and ask her unpleasant guest about this matter and after a bad night of worrying about when, exactly, she would do this and what, exactly, she would say, and when, after watching diligently and finding an opportunity, somehow, as he was returning to his room after breakfast or coming in from one of his long walks in the afternoon, Mrs. Proserpine Pockets would say something like, "Ahem, sir, about your fees...," he would say, noisily, and in a very cross manner, "Oh, very well!" and then go to his room and slam the door and not pay them.

  In his room, he kept a small chest or locker and, though no one had ever seen into it, one might have been forgiven for assuming that it contained his coin collection or at least a part of it. It might also have been assumed that the chest was always kept locked as Mr. Neversmythe was not to be seen in public without a small brass key dangling in plain sight from a thread around his neck.

  For many days, Farnaby thought it quite exciting to keep an eye on Mr. Neversmythe. But he was very careful about it—only looking at him around the edges of doors or through banister rails or, once, from under a wing chair. Watching from under the chair proved to be not so good because Mr. Neversmythe came and sat on the chair while Farnaby was under it. And he sat there a long time before he said, "All right, Pockets, bring yourself up straight and let's have a look at you."