The River Bank

by Kij Johnson

  The Badger said, “Toad has never been, shall we say, a stable animal. I will be plain, Miss Mole. He was born a flighty Toad and he remains a flighty Toad. He has often before this proven intractable to the promptings of his friends and of his own higher self—”

  The Water Rat inserted, “If he has one, as I sometimes doubt.”

  “But lately he is grown worse: and it is in this that we hope for your assistance. It is your friend, Miss Rabbit. Her admiration has inflamed his already weak intellect. It is inciting every sort of bad behavior.”

  Beryl smoothed her skirt. “I might say the same, alas. Before we came here, Lottie was—I cannot say a sensible Rabbit, for there are hardly any such—but more sensible than she is now, in any case. But ever since she has met your Mr Toad, she has gone quite adventure-mad. We came to the River Bank for a quiet life, a pleasant life where I might work and she might keep me company, with none of this wilding about. Yet here is the Toad, encouraging my friend in every sort of excess. Yesterday”—she lowered her voice—“I heard from Lottie that they have been discussing motor-cycles, in a very concrete and specific way.”

  The Badger burst out, “Motor-cycles! Faugh.”

  The Water Rat said, “You know your friend, Miss Mole. Toad is irredeemable—we know that—but surely she can be reasoned with. Can you ask her not to encourage him?”

  “I will speak with her,” Beryl said, “but I do not think I can offer advice in any way that would not be both discourteous—though I shall not mind that, when so much is at stake—and ineffective. She does not stay with me as a companion, that I may tell her how to behave just as though she were a schoolgirl and I her governess. But . . . ” She hesitated a moment. “Gentlemen, I must also be frank. She is, as you have perhaps observed, a Rabbit. And Rabbits are invariably frivolous. I do not know whether I shall do any good.”

  There was a silence. They could all hear a breeze hushing through the chestnut’s leaves, so lightly that they could not feel it, and far away the clip!-clip!-clip! of some industrious soul trimming a hedge despite the heat.

  The Badger said finally, “Well. I had hoped a Mole of your obvious good sense might exert a calming influence over your friend, but perhaps it is not to be hoped for.”

  Beryl said with a twinkle of a smile, “And your friend, Mr Mole— Does he exert such an influence over the Toad?”

  The Badger eyed her sharply. It was not clear from her tone whether it was demure or dry. “The Mole—” he began a little sternly; but the Water Rat, less sensitive, interrupted him, laughing.

  “Moley? O dear me, no. He’s brave as a tiger, is Mole—Stoats take to their heels when he approaches—but Toad listens to no one! Except, evidently, Miss Rabbit,” he added with a fading chuckle.

  The Badger said gravely, “This is no laughing matter, Rat. If motor-cycles are being discussed, there is not a moment to be lost. We must separate the Toad and Miss Rabbit as soon as it can be arranged.”

  Beryl said, “How may it be done? I cannot return Lottie to her family until Christmas-time at the earliest, and even then. . . .” She paused for a moment, then added diffidently, “To send her back early might cause a breach between her family and my own, and all for nothing more than my dear Rabbit being rather silly. Nor can I leave, alas.”

  The Badger bowed again. “No one would expect it! But it is just like a Mole to consider so noble a sacrifice, even for a moment.” (Beryl blushed.) “No, we have another plan, a final solution, one might say: one we hoped never to put into action.”

  The Water Rat sighed. “It has come to Sophronia, has it?”

  “Do you see another possibility?” the Badger asked him.

  Slowly, the Water Rat shook his head. Beryl looked from one animal to the other, a question clear in her bright face. The Rat said slowly, “Toad has an aunt, a formidable old—well, battle-axe, to leave the bark on the word. Sophronia is quite aged but tough as oak and hard as granite, and (what is most germane to our purpose) she lives entirely removed from the world, in a castle somewhere in Scotland, or perhaps it is Northumberland. Somewhere uncivilized like that, in any case.”

  “How horrible!” exclaimed Beryl, with a shudder. “Northumberland! I would not wish that upon my worst enemy!”

  “I wouldn’t wish it on a dog,” agreed the Water Rat.

  “And you have not even met the aunt,” said the Badger. “But—motor-cycles, you know. It is inevitable: Toad will purchase one, and he will smash it up, and either he will die (which would be bad), or the fines and lawsuits and court costs will bankrupt his estate and cast the once-proud name of Toad forever into the dirt. You have no idea what trouble it was to clear his name and reputation after the last fiasco.”

  “We had to pay off reporters!” confided the Rat.

  The Badger continued, “A second such scandal would sink him utterly. But if the Toad is sent to stay with his aunt for twenty or thirty years (or even longer), he may return older, calmer, chastened—and alive, his character unstained. It is not what we would wish for our friend, but if motor-cycles are being discussed, it is out of our hands. We have no choice. I shall send a wire to her immediately, and we shall speak to Toad as soon as he returns from Town, where he went in to get a tooth drawn—and very sensible, for once, not to whine and carry on and delay it as long as he ever could, the way he usually would.”

  “Really?” said Beryl. “So is Rabbit also in Town—getting a tooth drawn!”

  “O dear,” said all three simultaneously.

  Chapter Five

  The Dustley Turismo X

  While none of their friends would have believed it, it truly was a coincidence that the Toad and the Rabbit were gone to Town on the same day.

  The Rabbit was, at least initially, blameless. She really was going to get a tooth looked at, for it had been paining her for several days. Oil of Cloves had helped, but her mother had always taught her that teeth were not be trifled with, and so she had dutifully written to Town to make an appointment for that morning, and gone off on an early train with a packet of sandwiches (for after the appointment) and ginger beer in a little basket. After the dentist, she intended to go to the Zoo to see the lions and tigers, before taking the 2:14 from Victoria, returning home in time for a late supper with Beryl. It was a blameless way to spend the day, one no one, not even the harshest critic, could find fault with.

  But—the—Toad! From beginning to end of that eventful day, his intentions, behavior, and demeanor were reprehensible, though perhaps entirely predictable to anyone who knew him well.

  It all came down to motor-cycles, of course. Toad could not stop thinking of his first sight of the telegram-messenger and his magnificent steed. That glorious object of glittering chrome and shining black paint and glossy leather! The dust, the noise, the smell of oil and petrol! The bystanders scrambling to the side, the dogs racing for the hedges, the motor-car drivers shaking their fists in futile envy, the village constables blowing their whistles to no avail! And the rider himself, a slender deity in dusty goggles and helmet, his road-stained black leather coat and gauntlets powdered with dirt; on his face the disdainful expression of Hermes sent to earth by Zeus to give to some great king a telegram. He sat so casually astride his glorious machine, like the conqueror Alexander upon his noble mount Bucephalus, or Perseus astride the divine Pegasus, or—well, there were all sorts of comparisons possible.

  Within a minute of seeing the messenger approach along the drive to deliver the telegram, Toad had envisioned himself in identical garb, identically dusty and identically disdainful, sneering as he threw a leg over an identical motor-cycle (but in red) and drove off in a cloud of smoke. It was a lovely vision, an entrancing vision; and the fact that no amount of dusty leather or shining machinery could make him look like anything but what he was, a corpulent and very silly Toad beyond the first flush of youth, affected him to no degree.

  The temptation was too much. That glorious machine! The noise, the smell, the smoke, the bystanders’
terror! The clashing poetry of its cylinders, the shrilling song of its wheels as they locked! So much better than a motor-car: no broad windscreen to keep the air from his face; no leather seat, sedate as a settee in a parlor; no low, huddling roof to keep off the rain and the wind. This was living! Or would be, anyway. He must have a motor-cycle—he must—he must!

  But how? He knew his friends of old: dear chaps and touchingly devoted; but unnecessarily restrictive, and often so very wrongheaded in the matter of machines. They would try to stop him, if they had any indication of his intention.

  His first thought was to make a telephone call to some vendor of motor-cycles in Town and simply order one delivered, along with such replacement tires, motor-oils, special greases, spoke-tighteners, spark plugs, gauntlets, rain-gear, chauffeurs, and trainers as they might advise. Thus, the motorcycle (and its appurtenances) would arrive suddenly and without warning, like a clap of thunder from a clear summer sky. There might be some tut-tutting and my-dear-chapping, but it would be too late for his well-meaning (but misguided) friends to interfere.

  This plan was put into immediate effect. The Toad placed the telephone call, and at first it was practically a love feast. The Toad and the genteel motor-cycle salesman immediately discovered in one another a similarity of temperament and taste that would have made them great friends if it were not for the difference in their status. The purchase was quickly determined upon: the motor-cycle would be the largest, most powerful, and most dangerous possible; the gear would be the most expensive; the chauffeur and trainer, the most arrogant.

  It was not until the Toad gave his name and direction that things ran into a block. “Mr Toad!” exclaimed the genteel salesman. “Ah. Mr . . . Toad, is it? Of Toad Hall, you say? I am . . . sorry to say . . . Er, I do regret this, but—”

  He went on for quite a while, but in the end, the gist of his words became clear even to Toad. He would not—indeed, could not—sell and deliver a motor-cycle and accessories to Mr Toad of Toad Hall. The Toad doubled his offer and then tripled it, but to no avail. After this, he blustered at the genteel salesman’s oleaginous manager, and then at the manager’s apologetic senior manager, and at last at the owner of the motor-cycle garage himself. But the answer was always the same: no motor-cycle for the Toad. He threatened to find another garage in Town, and purchase there an even larger, even more expensive motor-cycle; and at last the shop’s owner (who went by the name of Hiccough-Pemberleigh and who sounded on the telephone as though he were sobbing—as indeed he was, at the thought of all that money lost to him) finally told him the full truth. No one anywhere would sell him a motor-cycle. In fact, Mr Toad of Toad Hall was banned by an order of Parliament from buying motor-vehicles ever again.

  Toad’s crimes and prison-break a year past had marked him in the public eye as a desperate criminal, a villain stained to the very bone and a conscienceless recidivist, and so (under considerable pressure from the Opposition newspapers) a special session of Parliament had been called to address The Toad Matter. After days of listening to weeping witnesses tell tales of his perfidy, the House of Commons rose as one and demanded that The Toad Must Be Stopped. But what to do? It had been proven that gaols could not keep him and fines could not chasten him. At last a proposal was bruited: banning his use of motor-vehicles would at least keep him from endangering the public until such time as he committed another crime—of course there would be another crime—of such severity that transportation to Australia (in chains) could at last be ordered. At least, the Parliament’s members hoped that transportation was still a thing, though they were the first to admit that they not always au courant in contemporary affairs.

  The Toad (who never read the newspapers and had missed all of this) heard Mr Hiccough-Pemberleigh’s explanation, and wept and wept. So weak, so headstrong and foolish! He had allowed mere motor-cars and petty theft to wreck his chance at the one thing, the only thing that might make him happy! He had ended the phone call a ruined Toad. He took to his bed immediately, and called for his attorney to make sure his Will was in order.

  Yet, perhaps one might blame the Rabbit for the Toad’s visit to Town, after all. She called at Toad Hall the very next morning and was surprised when, instead of being ushered into the sunny breakfast-room to hear of his day’s plans from an ebullient Toad, she was led instead along an upstairs corridor and into his glorious bedchamber, where she found him a weakened shadow of his former self, with flannel around his throat (though it was July), and a glass of hartshorn and water clasped in one trembling paw.

  “Dear Rabbit,” he said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “I am so glad to see you . . . one last time.”

  “O, are you going to Town, as well?” she said brightly. “Why, I—”

  “No,” he faltered. His face was pale and stained with tears. “I think . . . my traveling days are behind me now.” He coughed, and there was a rattle in it.

  Finally recognizing the signs, she exclaimed loudly, “Dear Toad, you are not well!”

  The Toad winced. “Please . . . My ears are not what they were. Nor my eyes. . . . Could you pull the curtain a little farther across the window? Though I hardly like to. Perhaps . . . perhaps this will be my last sight of the blue sky,” and he heaved so painful a sigh that the Rabbit dropped to her knees beside the bed and took one paw in her own, chafing it gently.

  “Toad, you really are ill! Has a doctor been summoned?” she asked. “Is it your teeth? Mine are such a trial! I am going into Town tomorrow to have mine looked at, so—”

  “It is not my teeth,” he said, a little sharply. He struggled against his weariness for a moment, and then continued. “No. There is no point. It is over, quite . . . over.”

  “But if it is not your teeth, what has happened?” said the Rabbit. “You were so hale yesterday! Why, you were about to purchase a motor-cycle—”

  A great wail interrupted her words; and at last the story all came out, made nearly incoherent by the sobs and the fluttering of lawn handkerchiefs. Certain critical details were omitted—such as the fact that selling him a motor-cycle was now actually illegal, instead of just ill-advised—so it is not surprising that the Rabbit was left thinking that the problem was one of delivery. “There, there,” she said, and patted the Toad’s paw. “I am sure it is just a misunderstanding. Perhaps, if you could just speak with Mr Hiccough-Pemberleigh face-to-face—”

  The Toad sobbed, “Impossible, alas . . . My days of jaunting into Town—gone now; all gone. Never again—”

  But suddenly the Toad fell silent, his mouth wide agape and his dull eyes afire with a new idea. He dropped his handkerchief onto the coverlet. “O!” he said after a time, and then, “O, my!” and finally, “Why, yes, perhaps, it might work;” but he explained none of this to the Rabbit. Still, when she left him a few minutes later, she was pleased that he was looking so much better than he had, and was even sitting up in bed, eating toast dipped in weak tea with a thoughtful expression upon his round face.

  In any case, the Rabbit was surprised the next morning to find the Toad on the same train into Town.

  She was walking along the corridor through the first-class car, peering in a worried fashion into her little reticule, for she had put her second-class ticket somewhere safe (so as not to lose it), and now could not find it—really, she had it a minute ago! How could she have lost it already? Had she put it in her basket? No, not there, and it had not slipped under the sandwiches. . . . O, there it was! She had tucked it into the wrist of her glove—and there he was suddenly: Toad, one watery eye visible through a crack in the door of a private compartment with its blinds pulled down tightly.

  “Why—Toad!” exclaimed the Rabbit with delight. “You look ever so much better than yesterday! I did not know you were going into the—”

  But the Toad only hissed, “Don’t say my name!” and with one desperate paw, he dragged her into the compartment and snapped the door closed behind them. The blinds on the outside windows were shut, as well, and
the compartment felt very close. “Not so loud! They might be pursuing me.” His expression was quite frenzied.

  The Rabbit said, “Why, who? Toad, did you not pay for your ticket?”

  “Of course I did!” whispered the Toad indignantly. It was by no means beyond him to try to get by without paying when he had forgotten to take money; but today he had paid, and this aspersion upon his character wounded him more than it might upon another day. He dropped his voice. “I mean the Badger and the Water Rat. They might be slinking about the train station, you know—trying to stop me.”

  The train gave a gentle jerk as it started to roll forward.

  “O, no!” said the Rabbit. “I saw them not a quarter of an hour ago, as I was leaving the cottage. They were come to call upon Beryl, but I just slipped away without saying anything, so as not to miss the train.”

  The Toad threw himself onto one of the seats and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. “Then I am safe! The Toad slips their leash! I am proven yet again a genius, the very model of cunning!” And with a chortle of satisfaction, he popped the blinds, which spun up to expose the countryside, flying past the window faster and faster, and not a single Water Rat nor Badger in sight anywhere.

  “Have a seat, have a seat,” said the hospitable Toad grandly.

  “Well, if you think I should,” said the Rabbit; “I have only a second-class ticket. You do look so much better than yesterday! Are you going to see a doctor in Town?”

  “A doctor? A doctor?” The Toad began giggling with abandon. “That’s what they all think! Tricked them all! Otter, Badger—everybody else! I told Otter I was coming to town to see the dentist.”