The River Bank

by Kij Johnson

  The Water Rat left early the next day, and the Mole suddenly found himself as close to alone and idle as anyone could be, who lived on the River Bank in summertime. He had meant to do some paddling about on his own, practicing his skills away from the Water Rat’s kindly amusement, and perhaps learning a little more of the River’s secret life, but he couldn’t stop worrying about where the Toad might be—and, he had to admit, the Rabbit. She and Beryl might be ruining the tenor of life on the River Bank, but that didn’t mean he thought she should be imprisoned for something that was undoubtedly entirely the Toad’s fault.

  Mindful of his promise to the Water Rat, that afternoon he rowed up to Toad Hall in the new-painted boat (and very white it was now; it cast brilliant flashing reflections that caught his eye as he worked), and tied it off in the boathouse with some satisfaction; he had sculled the whole way without once splashing water into the boat.

  He walked up the bright lawn to the quiet house. No one answered when he rang the front bell, nor when he went back to the servants’ entrance by the kitchen and knocked there. Such household staff as the Toad kept seemed to be entirely gone, though the Mole didn’t know where or why, whether they were stealing holidays or seeking new positions, or had been sent away until such time as the Toad returned (if he ever did). Well, the Badger had keys to Toad Hall, so if things went on too long, the Mole could always go into the Wild Wood (but in daylight, and not straying from the path) and retrieve them. For now, he just walked around the exterior, peeking in the tall windows to see whether there were any signs of Stoats or other vagabonds inside. But the rooms were orderly, safe, untouched, still. With the sunlight slanting in, everything looked as though it were dozing, conserving its energy for its master’s return.

  He was still anxious, so he walked across the fields to his own little home, a couple of miles away. He had been staying with the Water Rat all this summer, and only been back to Mole End for short stops, to pick up a formal waistcoat for Toad’s tea party with Beryl and the Rabbit, and to retrieve a fishing pole. There hadn’t been enough time to do more than glance about. Probably there was nothing wrong, he reassured himself, but it wouldn’t hurt just to check.

  His thoughts turned this way and that as he marched across the fields and through the hedgerows, always coming back to the Toad and the Rabbit. Had they been secretly captured and imprisoned? Where were they? Had they made it to the Hills? If not, what had happened to them? Why had they not at least sent news? But he had no answers, no answers at all.

  Mole End was a underground residence, tucked into a copse in the middle of a field planted with oats: small but perfectly sized for a gregarious animal who liked guests but loved living alone. It was cool in the summer and easy to warm in the winter; a bit shabby but his own, and filled with familiar things: worn furniture, a shelf with a few beloved books; his slippers, placed neatly before the little cupboard bed, which was covered with the quilt his mother had made for him. On the wall over the fireplace was a sampler sewn by one of his sisters when he had first moved to the River Bank, so long ago: trees bracketing a row of Moles in silhouette. They were meant to depict his family, but she had added several extra Moles, to fill out the line. Beneath them were the words audacia bona, melior domus dulcis.

  There was nothing troubling to note, no mouse holes in the pantry walls or places where the ceiling was developing a leak. A thin layer of dust had settled upon everything, and he picked up his feather duster to brush it away. But there was something. He stood in the center of the room for a moment with the duster drooping from one paw. What was it? And then it came to him. Just as Toad Hall had been asleep, Mole End was asleep, empty of his living presence, and it had taken the opportunity to close in upon itself, to grow still for a time, to slumber. Things rested where they had been put away, and even the kitchen knife laid upon the counter and the old pack of cards sitting in the center of the little table felt unchangeable, untouched and untouchable. He felt an invader, a spy in his own home.

  He could wake his home up, he knew. Mole End would welcome him as it always did, gladly, generously forgiving him for being gone so long. But to what purpose? He would only leave it again, and for a time it would long for his presence, like a dog left behind on market day, cocking an ear to the door and pacing restlessly until it finally gave up again and returned to slumber, to kill the time until its master’s return.

  There would come a day in a few weeks, when summer began to release her hold on the hot dusty fields and the glittering River, when he would return, and open the windows and turn out the bed, cut bread for sandwiches, build playing-card houses, read books, wear slippers, and sleep long, night after night: but that was not yet. So he put down the feather duster (and it too went back to sleep as he did so, and became part of the dreaming house), and slipped up the graveled tunnel, and out.

  Wrapped in his thoughts, the Mole returned to Toad’s boathouse and then rowed back to the Rat’s hole. He chanced to look up from his brown study as he passed Sunflower Cottage. The first lights were on inside.

  “How I wish Ratty were here!” he said to himself as he secured the boat. “He’s just the chap for this sort of brooding—musings about home—poetry and suchlike. And for having some tea brewed up and maybe a sandwich or two for a chap when he gets home from a long day,” he added sadly, for of course there was no such thing awaiting him.

  Mole sighed. He unlatched the little door to let himself in, started the fire and put a kettle on and put out the tea things. As he waited for the water to boil, he picked up the Water Rat’s post from the little basket below the brass-edged slot in the door and flipped through it, for he was having his own letters forwarded here. But there was nothing for him: only a letter for the Water Rat, some circulars, and a catalog of canaries and songbirds that might be purchased through the mails—and then he saw it: a single mysterious envelope.

  He turned it over in his paws. It was of cheap, thin, yellowish paper, none too clean, but it was addressed intriguingly:

  To any Friend of TOAD OF TOAD HALL,

  The River Bank

  The River, &c.,

  URGENT—to be opened

  IMMEDIATELY on receipt

  —a matter of life & death!!!

  Beside this, the postmaster had written in his tiny, fussy script: To the Water Rat’s—Everyone else is away. The post-mark, alas, was blurred.

  The Mole opened it and read the contents. “It’s no use,” he said unhappily. “I shall have to go speak with Beryl.”

  The Mole took the kettle off and banked the fire—for he knew that one should never leave a fire unattended, and so ought you—and walked quickly to Sunflower Cottage with the envelope clutched tight in one paw. It was full dark when he got there. The windows had been closed against the mist that was rising from the River. The curtains pulled over them glowed warmly from within, but beside the door a gaslight shaped like an old mail-coach lamp shone brightly. He took a deep breath, put his paw on the bell-pull, and tugged.

  Something chimed inside. He wondered whether there was time to run away unobserved, but the door opened almost immediately, letting out warm golden light, and there was Beryl. “Why—Mole!” she exclaimed, and her eyes were bright with surprise and curiosity. “What are you doing here? Come in!”

  The Rubicon had been crossed. The Mole followed her through the door and into the parlor, which was papered in lilac and white stripes, with many framed photographs clustered across every flat surface, and filled with comfortable-looking furniture upholstered in a rich, buttery yellow. There was a fire in the grate, and a green-shaded lamp hung over Beryl’s writing desk. He could see her fountain pen laid across a half-written page; clearly she had been working.

  “Thank you,” said the Mole awkwardly. “What a, ah, pleasant room. Very . . . homey.”

  “Thank you,” she said and smiled something that was very like a grin. Was she laughing at him? Morosely, he rather feared so. “Would you like tea, Mole? Have you eaten anyth
ing? I saw you out on the River earlier, and I know the Water Rat is gone. I was just going to the kitchen to make a little something.”

  The Mole realized he was in fact famished. “Thank you,” he said meekly. He trailed Beryl into the kitchen, and found it as cheery as the parlor had been: copper pots and bright earthenware on shelves, and onions and hams hanging from the rafters.

  She put a kettle on and said conversationally, “The Mole at Sunflower Cottage! Wonders never cease. You’ve been avoiding me ever since I came to the River Bank, haven’t you?”

  The Mole shuffled his paws a little. “I know, and I’m sorry, but—well—I thought you were just here to . . . be a nuisance. . . . You know. Watch over me and . . . report back home . . . and so forth.”

  Beryl sounded a little hurt when she replied, “You thought I was here to spy? As though I had nothing better to do with my life!” She was slicing bread for bread-and-butter, but she managed to toss her head.

  For Beryl and the Mole were sister and brother. Beryl was the eldest, and when they had been children, back in the Hills together, she had bossed him around rather. To be fair, everyone had: he was the youngest, with five older siblings, not to mention his parents (before they had died) and any number of concerned aunts and severe uncles—everyone with her or his own notion of what the Mole needed to be doing with himself. When the time had come to leave home, he had scrimped and saved, and at last collected enough money to buy Mole End, which was humble but entirely his own, and pleasantly distant from all of them. “Why are you here, then?” he said in a small voice.

  Beryl began bustling about, finding tea and pots and cups and sugar and milk and shortcake and crumpets and butter and marmalade. “I love them all dearly, but everyone was always wanting me to decide things and plan things and fix things, and telling me exactly how I ought to be. I just wanted to live in a little house—my own little house: no nieces or nephews come for extended visits!—and write; so as soon as I was able to save enough, away I went. And dear Rabbit was longing for an adventure of her own, so I invited her to come with me.”

  “I see. But why not elsewhere?” the Mole pursued, still a little suspicious. “Why the River Bank? You knew I lived here.”

  She poured loose tea into a pot. “You made it sound so lovely in your letters—green, and busy, and beautiful, and—and the River! We had nothing like that at home, did we? I wanted to see it, that’s all.” She looked up, meeting his eyes. “And I—thought it might be nice to be close to someone I knew, but I knew you wouldn’t eternally be fussing at me. You were always my favorite brother.”

  “I was?” The Mole gaped at her. “When you were always dragging me off places and scolding me not to get in trouble?”

  “Of course, silly! Why do you think I was always taking you along everywhere I went? I was—” she began; but at that moment, the kettle began to whistle. “Tea! Do you still take milk, Mole, dear?”

  It was all very like a dream, but a dream that included tea and quite a splendid supper. Back in the parlor a few minutes later, Beryl said, a bit stickily (she had been eating crumpets toasted in the fire and drizzled with honey), “I didn’t even ask, I was so happy to see you—why did you finally come to call?”

  “O, Beryl!” In the happiness of catching up with his sister, the Mole had for a few minutes forgotten his distress. He put down his cup on the little table at which they were seated. “It’s Toad! I am a terrible fellow, Beryl—I forgot for a moment, but it’s the horridest thing. Toad has been kidnapped! Here is the letter.”

  She took it from him, and together they read it:

  To Any true Friend of Mr Toad—

  The notoreous Mr Toad after his recent criminal activities has fallen into our hands and we are holding him to ransom. One of you must leave 50,000 sovr pounds in gold under the elm tree behind St Giles—or else! Come alone! Do not tell Scotland Yard!! Or ELSE!!

  P.S. We also have his young friend the Rabbit whom we will free for only £100 as she is a very nice young lady and not rich like him.

  P.S.S. COME ALONE OR ELSE

  At the bottom was drawn a little tombstone.

  Beryl eyed the ransom note critically. “This is not a very good ransom note at all! It does not tell us when we are to leave the money, nor which St Giles—they must mean a church or chapel, I would think, for all they are so imprecise! Nor does it tell us what will happen if we do not comply. The tombstone is a nice detail, but—”

  The Mole said sternly, “Beryl! Now is no time to get all—all authoressy! They have the Toad and the Rabbit!”

  Her forehead crinkled, ruffling the smooth dark fur. “I know, I know, only—I should have written a much better one, if I were them. Everything spelled properly, for one thing.”

  But the kind-hearted Mole exclaimed in an agony, “Who cares how well they spell? What are we to do? That’s the thing! The Water Rat is gone, and the Badger is away as well—and the Otter—and there is no one at Toad Hall to speak with, or to tell us who in Town could aid us—” He had worked himself into a fine frenzy, speaking faster and faster, and he jumped to his feet, wringing his paws. “What can we do? Beryl, there must be something!”

  She was running one paw around the rim of her teacup, frowning at it unseeing. “I do see what you are saying, and I apologize, dear Mole. It’s always so easy to get, well, distracted. We do not know when they expect the money—which we cannot in any case get; really, these villains are not very sensible! They ought to have tortured Toad until they got his bankers’ name in Town—I know, I know,” she said hastily as he opened his mouth again. “But we do know where they will expect it: St Giles’s churchyard.”

  “But which St Giles?” said the Mole mournfully. “I am sure there are churches called St Giles all over the country. Why, there was one in our own old neighborhood, near the Hills.”

  Beryl exclaimed, “Exactly! Toad and dear Rabbit were on their way to the Hills, and that’s where they were captured! I am sure of it! So all we have to do is go out there and find them, and perhaps we may free them.”

  The Mole and Beryl made plans to leave at first light—“For there’s no good we can do, travelling at night,” said Beryl, and the Mole, hearing an Owl in the distance, had shivered and agreed. He was up late into the night, packing: unearthing the Water Rat’s pistols from the bottom of a trunk and then checking one over; selecting a cutlass from the display of crossed weapons upon the wall above the mantel and sharpening it; finding bandages (which might be needed), and a blanket roll and a tent (Beryl was bringing the provisions and her own blankets); and then realizing it would not all fit his knapsack and needed to be winnowed. At last he had everything selected and his pack strapped closed. He stood up, puffing and sweaty, and realized his spare clean handkerchiefs were on the table where he had put them during the packing, so he had to open everything and find a corner somewhere for them; and then he couldn’t remember whether he had accidentally packed the compass or merely mislaid it; and then—anyway, it was very late when he at last was able to make himself ready for bed.

  He was in bed and about to blow out his candle when he remembered one more thing. “O, bother,” said the Mole aloud, dismally. “I must write a letter to Badger and Ratty—two letters, blast it!—telling them what’s what, so they can work out the ransom and follow us as soon as they may.” Forcing his eyes open, he dragged himself from bed and wrote the letters. Putting the Badger’s note into an envelope, he placed a stamp upon it and tucked it into the mail slot for the next day; but the Water Rat’s letter he folded over and writing RATTY—VERY IMPORTANT! across the back in large, firm letters, he placed it in the middle of the table where it was sure to be seen; and then, finally, finally, he went off to sleep.

  There was just one thing he overlooked, in his fatigue and worry for his friend: he forgot to include the original ransom note in his letter to the Rat. He had it upon the desk as he wrote; but as he reread what he had written, he absently folded it and slid it back into his coa
t pocket, where it remained through the rest of these adventures, unfound and unremembered.

  Just before dawn the next morning, Beryl and the Mole met at the foot of her lawn, beneath the chestnut tree. They each bore a knapsack and carried a sturdy walking stick, and Beryl had a Survey map tucked into her pocket. They consulted in soft voices for a moment, and then Beryl patted the Mole’s hand, and they walked together northward along the river path.

  They were observed by a Moorhen, a Mouse, and a Hedgehog: gossips, all.

  The Water Rat returned to the River Bank late that same night. In an ordinary year (for this was an annual visit), he might have walked home, ambling along back lanes and across cow fields, pausing to try the local brews whenever he came to a particularly promising tavern, and sleeping nights beneath the stars, perhaps even seeing a meteor shower (for this was August); but the Toad was missing (and the Rabbit), so he stayed for as short a period as could in courtesy be managed, and then returned upon the train—though in general, the animals of the River Bank (except for Toad) avoided such things.

  He was let off at their little country station in the village very late, the only one to disembark onto the abandoned platform. There were no porters, and even the stationmaster did not make an appearance. He could hear crickets and frogs in the darkness, and bright halos of insects and moths fluttered about the station’s tin-shaded lamps. Otherwise everything was still.

  “Rat!” said a voice from the shadows.

  “Ho,” said the Water Rat cautiously.

  The Badger stepped into the cone of light cast by one of the station lanterns. The Water Rat relaxed. “Badger, you should know better than to sneak up on a fellow late at night!”