The River Bank

by Kij Johnson

  “Now, see here, miss,” said the mechanic, giving the quivering Toad a shake. “H’it’s ’im, right enough! I can tell, now’s you says h’it, from the police-circular. Lots of young ladies gives their ’earts to desprit criminals, but ’e’s not worth h’it, missy, not by a long chalk. H’it’s the gallows for ’im!”

  And just at this moment, the Rabbit and the Toad heard the sounds they wanted to hear least in this world: a constable’s whistle and the footsteps of a heavyset policeman approaching at a lumbering trot. Everyone looked towards the sound—and in that instant of inattention, the Toad, with rare quickness of thought, acted. He ripped his arm from the mechanic’s slackened grasp. “Ha, ha!” he cried, and leapt upon the saddle of the Dustley Turismo X. Quite amazingly, the motor-cycle started at the first try—not for nothing was the Dustley widely praised for its dependability—and he spun the motor-cycle in a circle, its wheels kicking stones at the shop-men and cracking one of the enormous windows. “Ho, ho! I tricked you all! ‘Mr Green’—there is no such creature! All a ruse! Yes, I am he—the clever Toad, the devious Toad! You wouldn’t sell me a motor-cycle, would you? And yet here I am!”

  Recovering from his shock, the mechanic lunged at the Dustley, but the Toad with a gay laugh rode straight at him. The man threw himself to the side, colliding with a constable who had just puffed up shouting, “’Ere, ’ere, wot’s all—” They went down onto the cobbles in a sort of mâçedoine of limbs, bystanders, perambulators, and broken Nonpareil parts.

  The Toad veered, recovered, and was past! He paused a moment to throw a final taunt over his shoulder, though the specifics were lost in the roar of the engine. The Rabbit took the opportunity to fling herself onto the saddle behind the Toad. The police constable heaved upright and threw himself toward them, but it was too late. The Dustley, the Toad, and the Rabbit were gone in a flurry of dust, smoke, and bank notes and guineas, as the Toad threw the money for the motor-cycle (and gear) into the air behind him.

  The Toad accelerated away from the crime scene. “Ha, ha! I get away with another daring deed!” He turned left-hand into an alley, narrowly avoiding a stray dog. “The Toad, too dangerous to be permitted near motor-cycles?” He bumped out of the alley onto a major street. “Dangerous, yes! But I find a way!”

  He turned right-handed, and veered to avoid a hansom cab. The horse rose in its traces: it was all too used to the indignities of London life, but this—a Toad and a Rabbit, clearly from the country, riding a large motor-cycle at unsafe speeds—was Just Too Much. If Town was going to be overrun by joy-riding rural hooligans, then perhaps it was time for a decent, hard-working cab horse to retire.

  The Rabbit had rearranged herself as well as she could whilst thundering over cobblestones and swerving around sharp corners. She was now straightened out behind him, her skirts pulled neatly close and her arms as far around his girth as they could reach. She had lost her basket, alas, but was relieved to note that her reticule still hung from her wrist, though it was flying about on the end of its cords in a way that did not bode well for its long-term security. Still, there was nothing she could do about it just now, and her mother had always said that there was no reason to borrow trouble from tomorrow; and so she peeped over his shoulder instead.

  Certainly there was more than enough immediate trouble to fill a Rabbit’s dance card! The Toad was jolting along a busy street, inserting the motor-cycle between two lanes of traffic that seemed composed entirely of large omnibuses that loomed over them, lined with startled faces staring down as they careened past. But it was all so thrilling, everything whirring by at a great pace. There, a churchyard narrowly avoided! There, a fruit-stand evaded by inches! There, a Jubilee fountain circumvented, so close that the spray got into her fur! The blast of air in her face quite took her breath away, and she found she had to fold back her ears to keep it from rushing into them and deafening her.

  “Ho, ho,” chortled the Toad, never able to keep his mouth closed for long. “What a clever Toad I am—too clever for shop-men, too clever for shop-owners! Too clever for mechanics and constables! The cleverest Toad that ever was—Brains will tell! Banned from exercising my right to purchase dangerous machinery—I find a way! Barred from operating it at high speeds on public thoroughfares—yet here I am!”

  Just ahead, there was an opening in the buildings clustering close around them: a public square, with a little low stone wall surrounding it and memorial archways for entrances: inside, a plethora of statues and a fountain with bronze dolphins, and a great many people walking about. With a wicked laugh, the Toad zipped through a gap between omnibuses and up a shallow flight of stairs (“O, o, o, o, o!” exclaimed the Rabbit) and beneath an archway, onto the square itself, among the pedestrians.

  But the Toad had the bit truly in his teeth by now. He shouted, “I am Toad, the Toad, the desperate and dangerous Toad!” He turned neither to the left nor the right, but roared straight across the square—though it should also be acknowledged that he was still quite inexperienced with motor-cycles, and would in any case have been unable to turn abruptly without a tumble. Pigeons, nannies, dogs, chestnut vendors, and perambulators flew in every direction. “Ha, ha!” laughed the Toad. “Like ninepins!”

  But there again came a sound horrid to the ear, rising above the shrieks and screams: O dread! It was another constable’s whistle, ominous and shrill, and with it came the feared cry, “’Alt! ’Alt in the name of the Law!” And then a second whistle joined the first—and a third! The Rabbit glancing behind them saw any number of constables rushing along in their wake, constables of every size and fitness-level. “They’re after us!” she exclaimed.

  The Toad glanced back and laughed. “Let them shout! Let them bellow! Let them whistle ’til they’re blue! They cannot catch me! I—I am the unstoppable Toad, the master of the roads, the very devil of machines! Let them curse their curses, and set their traps— I shall escape them all!”

  But then came the worst sound of all, the siren of a police motor-car as it screeched to a halt—and it was in front of them!—in fact, in the archway just ahead, precisely where they needed to be leaving the square.

  “Ha, ha!” said the Toad, but a little less certainly.

  “O, be careful!” cried the Rabbit. The Toad’s attention was all for the constables behind and ahead, but she saw that a cluster of young ladies had walked directly into his path, laden with the fruits of their morning’s shopping. The Toad veered, and young ladies, bandboxes, and parcels tumbled out of his way. Things got worse! A second police motor-car joined the first in the archway, leaving only a foot or two between their headlamps. Constables began to pour from every door.

  “Ho, ho,” said the Toad, but it was clear his heart was no longer in it.

  “No, do not slow down!” said the Rabbit, for the Toad was suddenly drooping in his seat, and the first fat tears were rolling down his face and flying back to splash her fur.

  “No, I see it now!” sobbed the Toad and slowed a little more. “We are trapped, we are doomed! Every gate secured— We shall never escape! We shall be hauled to prison and kept there for a hundred years, or even two. Chains, bread and water, the noose, then drawn and quartered! How has my life come to this? If only I were not such an unfortunate Toad, such a luckless Toad!”

  The Toad gave a great sob and slowed still further. The pursuing constables gave a breathless cheer (it is no easy matter to pursue a motor-cycle on foot through a crowd, even if one is not corpulent, as many of the constables were) and catching their second (or, in some cases, third) wind, spurred forward after him. The constables from the motor-cars in the archway smiled with fell intent: it was universally known that to capture the notorious Toad would mean a promotion and a raise, and two week’s holiday at the seaside at the taxpayers’ expense.

  “Alas!” wept the Toad.

  But the Rabbit pinched him sharply about his middle, causing him to straighten suddenly and the motor-cycle to swerve, conveniently avoiding a nun incautious
ly leading a double file of small girls in yellow hats across their path. “You are not an unlucky Toad! You make your own luck!”

  The Toad perked up slightly.

  “It is simple,” said the Rabbit into his ear—and quite sensibly, if one thinks about it; “If you do not wish to go to gaol, then do not get caught!”

  “Of course!” cried the mercurial Toad. “Such a simple yet ingenious solution! Don’t—get—caught! Genius! I should have thought of it in another moment, but you did very well, Rabbit!”

  “If you think so,” said the Rabbit modestly; but the Toad did not reply, for he was once again a Toad of action and decision. He sped up, and aimed the Dustley for the gap between the two police motor-cars. Surely it was too narrow! Surely they would be stopped! But the Toad was not deterred—there was room enough—and as he swept through the space between the machines, he sketched a mock bow from the saddle of the Dustley. This most unfortunately meant he removed one paw from the handlebar and the motor-cycle swerved in response. Seeing his opportunity, a constable made a quick grab—but to no avail, for the Rabbit only clung tighter to the Toad and pushed the man away with one of her little boots. It was nothing so unladylike as a kick; still, the constable fell to the ground with a howl, clutching his central region and gnashing his teeth.

  And they were past! The Toad raced along a thoroughfare, trailing police motor-cars and pedestrian constables. A right, a left, another right; a narrow alley; another park; through the archway of an inn and out into the mews. The Toad (with Rabbit) surged through the crowded streets, and the crowds fled from his thundering approach—sometimes with intemperate haste that led them headfirst into rubbish bins or sprawling through the open doors of startled but not unwilling shops, at which the Toad rather inconsiderately laughed. The weight of the Rabbit behind him was an inconvenience, as he suspected she slowed down the motor-cycle somewhat, but at least she did not squeal and scream as many females might have, and more than once she did good yeoman work, deflecting enterprising pedestrians with her foot. The sirens and whistles behind them faded until they were gone, the last of the police motor-cars fallen far behind.

  But the Toad did not slow down, not for anything. The found themselves in a section of the Town devoted to industry, where factories coughed black smoke into the sky, and the Rabbit had to squeeze her eyes shut against the cinders in the air. The Toad, who was wearing the helmet and goggles from Hiccough-Pemberleigh, was not deterred but tore along roads cluttered with heavy horse-drays and motor-trucks that spewed thick gray fumes. Under the Dustley’s wheels, Town turned into suburbs, mile after mile of semi-detached villas and poorly maintained parks, and cricket-greens turned brown with neglect.

  “How do they live like this?” the Rabbit exclaimed aloud suddenly.

  The Toad had been maintaining a steady monologue of the sort of self-praise that rapidly becomes too tedious to record; but he heard this and paused in his peroration. “What’s this you say?” he asked, tipping his round head a little to one side.

  “Don’t stop looking at the street!” cried the Rabbit, for they were entering a little shopping district of tobacconists and chemists and bookshops and ironmongers, all grubby and rundown and rather crowded. “The people, I mean. Everything so—dreary! Even the trees look drab.” And she was right, for the elms and poplars and oaks looked dusty and dry.

  “They must like it!” said the Toad, sober for once. “Why else would they stay?”

  “I don’t see how they can like it,” she said. “They must be forced to stay, somehow. Perhaps it is this work one is always hearing about. It must be a thing one may only do in the Town.”

  “Ah, work,” said the Toad, as though he too had heard of it. “It makes them slow, anyway,” and he began chortling again. “Too slow to catch me! Too fast for any of them! Lightning, thunder! A hurricane!” And he was off again.

  The suburbs gave way to the calm, glowing afternoon countryside. A wide lane opened out in front of him. It was too much to expect restraint after he had been trammeled all that while by narrow streets and cobbles and crowds. He let himself go, and the motorcycle leapt forward in a cloud of dust.

  The Rabbit gave an involuntary squeak and tightened her grasp.

  “Ow, stop pinching!” cried he over his shoulder. “You saw it all! A witness to my triumph, my glory!”

  “Yes, Toad!” she shouted over the wind. “Tell me—”

  But the Toad was on a roll. “Ho, ho! Who escapes from every trap? Toad: only Toad! Who slips from their grasp, yet again? Why, they all cry, ’t is Toad! They may try to catch me on this glorious motor-cycle, but it can’t be done! Again and again, I slip through their fingers! He, he! Sly as a Fox and twice as smart!”

  The Rabbit could see over the Toad’s shoulder. Set back from the road a bit to their right, was a pub: not a smart carriage-trade inn, but a sensible country pub, with decent beer and the smell of pipe-smoke like a miasma about it. A furlong or two in front of them, the lane branched suddenly to the left and right. “Now what?” she shouted.

  “Toad, the terror of the highways! Toad, the— Which way?” he said, in quite a different tone.

  The Rabbit said only, “Where to? Do we stop?”

  The Toad slowed a little.

  In the end, the decision was taken from them. Every respectable country pub has a dog to keep an eye upon things, and this pub was typical in this, and also in the size, speed, and vociferousness of the dog, and in its strongly held opinions about the right of easement to be granted any given passerby. Large motor-cycles controlled imperfectly by Toads in riding kit, with Rabbits in walking-dress seated pillion, were not part of the proper order of things, and the fact that the motor-cycle was slowing down as though it might stop, pushed the whole thing entirely beyond the pale. Seeing its duty clear, the dog leapt to its feet and came out of the innyard at a dead run, barking and howling. The Toad gave a little scream and accelerated abruptly, twisting his ponderous torso to track the dog’s progress. The Rabbit cried, “Watch out!”

  It was too late. The Toad hit the signpost head-on. The Dustley crumpled. The Toad and the Rabbit tumbled over its handlebars, head over heels, into a blackberry bramble that had grown up in the ditch just there. The dog raced up and began barking and sniffing. Its goal, to capture and utterly annihilate the motor-cycle, had been rendered moot; but surely some entertainment still might be gleaned from this! If only these cursed brambles were not in the way, there would be a chance of snatching up one of these wretched riders in its jaws and shaking him for a while.

  With great presence of mind, the Rabbit dragged the Toad (who was no help at all, entirely caught up in rolling about, clutching his head, and moaning, “O my! O woe!” before he fell into a deep swoon) deeper into the bramble. The dog, a country dog and therefore pragmatic, soon saw that there was no prospect of fulfilling its ambitions and returned to the inn, leaving the hapless motor-cyclists to their fate.

  Chapter Six

  Water Lilies

  At the little writing-desk in the parlor, Beryl laid down her fountain pen with a sigh of satisfaction. She had wrought hard and well all that morning. Her villain’s machinations had hitherto been a source of dissatisfaction for her, as though they existed solely to give the heroine something to be confounded by (and what possible motivations could justify acts so irrational, so contrary to the villain’s stated objectives?); but a solution had come to her in the night—perhaps the villain was mad! What could be better?—and Beryl had spent several fevered hours writing a scene set in Bedlam to be inserted into an earlier chapter, which would Establish His Character; and now she felt that momentary, delightful, smug mental fatigue which comes when one has worked hard before lunch and the rest of the day may with a clean conscience be given over entirely to lesser, less wearying tasks.

  As she neatly squared off the new pages, she looked from the window beside her desk. The day was, again, beautiful—for this was a beautiful summer, a perfect summer, as though the Rive
r Bank were bent on showing its best side to its new residents. What might she do? Why, anything—but it did seem as though drinking lemonade and reading adventure novels (as research) in a hammock slung from the chestnut tree would be a productive use of her afternoon. Or that might be too close to the river path; for people were always passing and some of them would want to talk to her.

  But what was this? She saw to her astonishment the figures of the Badger and the Water Rat marching up her lawn from the river path, with the Mole trailing a few steps behind, looking unhappy. The Badger held a newspaper in one hand. She went out to them.

  “Good morning, all of you!” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Not for long,” said the Water Rat grimly.

  “Have you read this morning’s newspapers from town?” said the Badger without preamble.

  “I have been working,” she said with private pride, “but we do not get any newspapers here, in any case. Why, what has happened? Is it the Rabbit?” she added, in sudden alarm. “She did not come home last night. Has something happened to her?”

  “She’s not here, then,” said the Badger.

  Beryl said, “I thought that her bad tooth perhaps required a second visit, and that she might have stayed at her club in Town and forgotten to send me a telegram. That is exactly the sort of thing she would do.”

  The Water Rat burst out, “Then it is all true!”

  “Rat, we don’t know what is true yet,” said the Badger severely.

  Beryl looked from face to face. “What? What is true, or possibly not?”

  But the Badger said no more, only handed the newspaper to her. It had been folded back to an article upon the front page. She glanced at the headlines.