Toad Triumphant

by William Horwood

  “No good trying to leave here now, for they’ll only hear us. We’ll cast off at first light and row silently away up this little stream. It would be unwise to start the engine till we’re well out of earshot.”

  He supped some more brandy and was about to turn in when a strange thought occurred to him, one so unusual that it almost took his breath away. It was brought on by the pathetic sound of the chattering of the Count’s teeth. He sat up in surprise and shook his head as if by doing so the thought might be shaken free and take flight elsewhere.

  The thought he had concerned the youth and not himself and it was this: that this youngster was shivering with cold and seemed decidedly unhappy and needed —well — needed something more than optimism and the instruction to turn in.

  “Here,” said Toad, not at all unkindly “you sound very cold. Can’t see you in this dark, but I can hear you and it upsets me.”

  Then he searched about a bit for a valise of spare clothes Prendergast had put on board in case of emergencies, and found within it one of his old tweed suits.

  “Wrap this jacket around you to keep warm. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Toad,” said the shivering youth, struggling into the garment that was several sizes too large, but no less welcome for that, “I am obliged. My mother ‘as said you are very famous. For what?”

  “O, for a great many things,” said Toad grandly “and I’ll tell you all about them in the morning. Now, please go to sleep, that I might do the same.”

  Toad could not sleep, however, and instead found himself lying awake, listening as the lad’s gentle breathing grew deeper, and then deeper and slower still. Then, when the stars came out, and the moon began to rise, Toad found he had no wish to sleep, though the day had been long and onerous, for there was something strangely pleasant in finding himself the watchman over a youth such as he had once been.

  Very famous, was he? Well, perhaps he was — no, he certainly was — but Toad was suddenly not so sure that dragging this youth into his present misfortunes was admirable at all. It was all very well for him to get wet and cold, ride roughshod over others and break the law, but this young toad was —”Monsieur! I want a drink of water!”

  The lad sat up suddenly in the moonlight, the jacket about him, and Toad found himself fumbling around in the cupboards of his craft for a decanter of water he had seen earlier, and which the excellent Prendergast daily renewed.

  “Now!” said the spoilt and demanding Count.

  “Coming,” said Toad, trying to quiet the petulant voice, and rather surprised that when he had filled a glass the youth expected him to feed it to him. When he had finished, and the youth had immediately fallen back to sleep, Toad was very surprised to find himself feeling not irritable and ill—used, but filled with amused affection.

  He took up a place near the sleeping youth, and continued to watch the stars and moon, and thought of many things, not least of which was when he was young, long long before, when his father was alive and Toad Hall filled with such life and fun —”Monsieur, monsieur! I am hungry. Get me my breakfast now!”

  Toad was wakened by this peremptory command and discovered that warm and glowing though his feelings towards the youth had been in the night, they were less so, now that morning had come. He had a headache, he ‘saw it was a good deal past dawn, and he heard once more the baying of hounds as they resumed the manhunt.

  “No time for breakfast,” he cried, “for we must be up and away.”

  “But always I ‘ave breakfast before the servants bathe me,” said the youth. “I ‘ave it now before we go.”

  “We go first and have it later,” insisted Toad, “otherwise the only place we’ll be going to is gaol.”

  “Non, non, non!” said the boy very angrily thumping the cabin wall with his clenched fist.

  “Sssh!” urged Toad.

  “I shall go outside and shout for my breakfast if you do not give it to me now!” said his fellow fugitive, whom ‘Toad was rapidly beginning to think might be a very loathsome and spoilt youth after all. But he also saw that he was very determined and would no doubt make a great deal of noise if he did not get his way.

  “Well,” grumbled Toad, sorting through the galley’s cupboards, “I suppose I might make some tea without milk while you eat these dried biscuits, but we must be quick.”

  “I do not drink your tea, and I do not eat food for dogs.”

  “Ah!” said Toad, irritated and increasingly alarmed. To the baying of the hounds had been added the shouts of rough-sounding men, more than likely a mixture of constables and gardeners, and Toad wanted to get away more than ever.

  “I drink coffee with two croissants, hot but not too hot.”

  “Coffee?” said the bemused Toad. “Finest Ceylon tea is the best I can do, and perhaps if you put some of this salmon and shrimp paste upon those biscuits —”

  “Psah!” said the vile youth.

  “— or this delightful English rolled ox tongue, which I will open and spread for you —”

  “Food for cats!”

  “— or, instead, a teaspoonful from this pot of Colonel Skinner’s Chutney (of extra quality and imported) then —”

  “‘Orrible, monsieur.”

  “— then,” continued the now thoroughly annoyed but increasingly resolute Toad, “your dried biscuits might taste a little nearer to the croissants to which you are accustomed.”

  “You are a lunatic, monsieur, to suggest such a thing. I know all about English cuisine —”

  “In which case,” said Toad, whose patience had finally reached its limit, “I suggest you go ashore and demand your breakfast at His Lordship’s House!”

  That silenced the youth, and gave Toad opportunity to ascend to the deck and deduce that there was no time left for silent rowing. He quickly started the engine and, keeping its roar low, guided his launch out of their hiding place, and gently on up the stream, unseen if not quite unheard.

  The youth remained sulking below decks, but Toad’s good humour had recovered itself, for the sun was shining, no boats, or hounds, or mounted policemen seemed to be in pursuit, and what lay ahead was freedom and adventure.

  Only very much later in the morning did he stop and moor the craft, so that he might go below decks and, ignoring the wretched youth altogether, there make himself some tea, and dig into the excellent hamper of table dainties and other provisions Prendergast had provided. There was even milk of a kind — Diploma Condensed “The best for infants” — and though it tasted strange with the Ceylon tea, back on deck again, with the engine purring beneath him once more and a hot steaming tin mug of the brew in his hand, Toad could not but feel pleased with himself, and with life.

  Only in mid-afternoon did the young Count’s resolve to sulk finally break, and he asked that he might have a little tea (“since it is tea time”) and a few biscuits (“to settle my stomach”). Toad had the sense to provide them without comment. In any case, he felt sorry for the boy whose eyes were red-rimmed from crying.

  For the next three days Toad and the youth battled out their differences: it was impossible for the youth to bathe without hot water and Roger et Gallet soap; it was not proper to utilize the bushes along the bank when nature called; it was absolutely impossible for the youth to take a turn at cleaning the galley and tying up the boat.

  “Non! Non! Non!”

  But by the third day the youth had become a little hardened to the fugitive’s life and Toad felt they were finally making progress: he washed now in the stream itself, he happily followed nature’s call in a more rustic way than he had been used to, and he proved a much dabber hand than Toad at keeping the craft ship-shape.

  And his eyes were no longer red-rimmed.

  “Monsieur Toad, will you tell me of your famous deeds?” he asked on the third evening, and Toad felt a great deal of satisfaction that he did so, for he knew that such differences as there were between them were on the way to being resolved and forgotten.<
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  Toad spoke that evening of motor-cars and flying machines, of injudicious judges and corrupt policemen and ungodly bishops, and a very impressive tale he made of it.

  “Now I understand,” said the youth, “why you are so famous, for to defeat twelve judges, and to escape one ‘undred policeman and to, as you say unfrock eight bishops is formidable!”

  “Well, I did not quite mean —”

  “Incroyable! I understand why Maman —”

  “Florentine?” said Toad, thinking of that name for the first time since his flight. “She spoke of me?”

  “Like a brother, Maman ‘as said, or perhaps a father —”

  This was not quite what Toad wished to hear, but then — and as night fell, and the youth finally slept, Toad saw that his first flush of love was over and had been replaced by — by — he was not quite sure what.

  In the summer days of slow progress that followed —Toad having decided to lie low and keep out of sight and lay the boat up in any enshadowed little creek he could find — the Count began to talk to Toad about himself, his chère Maman, his life and — and what a sorry tale he had to tell.

  Lonely spoilt, indulged, too rich too young for his own good, without friends of his own age, and lately dragged from pillar to post by his mother in her pursuit of Art and Creation and with servants at his beck and call wherever he went, he was a decidedly unhappy youth.

  Not that the Count expressed himself thus — rather the opposite in fact — and certainly he seemed unaware that it had been boredom, and a toadish instinct for adventure, that had caused him to duel with Mr Toad.

  As the days went by Toad recognized more and more something of himself in the young Count, and he had very mixed feelings about it. For it takes a vain, spoilt, unprincipled and conceited toad to recognize another in the making.

  Yet, as their chances of discovery receded the further they journeyed upstream, Toad began to see other qualities in the young Count and discovered in himself an unexpected desire to educate the Count in the ways of the world, and considerable pleasure in doing so. Though it must be said that Toad’s notion of education was unlike others’, and his choice of which qualities to encourage, and which to play down, dangerously personal and eccentric.

  For Toad did not quite see things as others did in matters personal, moral and practical.

  For example, Toad’s approach to the youngster’s evident delight in pranks of any kind (“Cut other people’s boats’ moorings as much as you like, but not mine,” said Toad), and behaviour quite unprincipled (“Of course farmers don’t mind if you steal a churn or two of milk for it saves ‘em the labour of carrying it,” claimed Toad), and enjoyment quite unbridled (“Sloe and blackberry? Can’t beat Mr Mole’s. Claret? Can’t beat mine. Last drink were I to be hanged for my crimes? Champagne, courtesy Moet & Chandon, none better!”).

  Yes, no doubt about it, Toad told himself, the Count has a lot to learn from me, but he is learning it fast, and a few more weeks in my exemplary company and he will be a Toad with a Future!

  Meanwhile they were very rapidly running out of supplies, and even Toad was beginning to tire of the fugitive life and to wish for hot baths again and good food, and a bed more comfortable than a ship’s bunk.

  It was about then that their slow progress finally brought them to that same farmhouse that the Rat and the Mole had visited some weeks before, again at a time when the farmer was away at market.

  The hospitable farmer’s wife and daughter once more offered the travellers the barn, which had been perfectly adequate for the Rat and the Mole, as it had been for every traveller and itinerant for several hundred years past.

  “Ah, madam,” said Toad when he was shown these simple quarters, and thinking that here was an opportunity to teach his young ward a thing or two about how to make things work to one’s own advantage, “it is kind of you to offer my young relation here such commodious accommodation but alas I cannot accept it on his behalf. No, we shall sit out here on this hard soil, and it matters not that the clucking and crowing of this noisome chicken run will keep us awake, for we shall be content —”

  “But, sir,” said the farmer’s wife, mortified that her hospitality should be made to seem so meagre and unwelcoming, “I assure you —”

  “Madam,” said Toad, pulling her to one side and winking at the Count, “my young relation here is of a weak and frail disposition, given to fits and other attacks of an unpredictable kind.”

  “The poor boy!” exclaimed the farmer’s daughter in the kind of sympathetic and willing voice that Toad had rather hoped to hear.

  “Attacks brought about by the passing of his late father —”

  “How tragic!” exclaimed the mother.

  “And, in a manner of speaking, the very recent loss of his mother —”

  “Woe, woe!” wept the daughter.

  “These unfortunate events have meant that he has had to assume the responsibilities of a senior member of the French nobility at far too young an age —”

  “You mean he is stable lad to a nobleman or something of the kind, and his master is, or rather was —”

  “He may look like a stable lad to you in his present state, but wash and polish him up a bit, dress him in the silks and brocades to which his delicate skin is used, and you will see that you are referring to none other than the Comte d’Albert-Chapelle —”

  “He is a Count!?”

  “A genuine Count, madam, and you offer him little more than a chicken run for a bed. I know you mean well and perhaps have no better bed in this —”

  “Daughter!” cried the good-hearted woman. “These noble gentlemen must have our beds while we make do with the settle in the parlour. Let this fair youth have your softer and more comfortable bed, while his elderly relative here can take that of mine and my dear husband’s. It is not so comfortable, sir, as you’ll be used to, seeing as my husband’s Lathbury born and bred and used to rough ways and horsehair mattresses.”

  “Madam,” protested Toad, not much pleased to be called “elderly”, but rather more concerned just then that the softer of the beds was to go the Count’s way and not his own.

  “Of course the young orphan shall have my bed, Mother,” said the girl.

  “Miss,” essayed Toad once more, “I think that in France horsehair mattresses are very much à la mode among the nobility and that the Count might prefer —”

  But they would not hear of it, and the Count, now to Toad’s considerable annoyance acting the feeble part very well and leaning upon the daughter’s arm, was led into the house and shown his accommodation for the night, ignoring Toad’s mutterings and glowerings.

  When morning came the air was filled with the scents of sizzling ham and new-baked bread, and Toad, who had had a comfortable night after all, could not but notice that when the Count finally deigned to make an appearance — it was nearly noon when he did so — he made no mention of coffee and croissants, none at all, but tucked in heartily to all he was offered.

  “He seems very well this morning, and to have a hearty appetite,” said the farmer’s wife, “so perhaps after all you will not wish to stay for a few nights more as we thought you might —”

  Toad saw that here was another important lesson for the Count to learn: never look a gift horse in the mouth, or, take all that is offered to you and try to get more if you can.

  “It is often when he eats well and looks at his best that he is suddenly taken ill,” said Toad mournfully winking at his young friend that he might understand he had a part to play in this charade. Then, sighing sadly he continued, “O yes, he usually has one of his turns just when things seem at their best and he at his happiest. A hearty appetite is a bad sign, I fear. Do you feel quite well, Count?”

  “I feel very well indeed,” said the Count, understanding the game he must play “and for that reason, Uncle, I am very worried that I may soon be ill.”

  “O, poor youth, never to be able to enjoy happiness!” ‘said the warm-hea
rted daughter.

  “That is why I am needed,” said Toad, “and must be constantly at his side, for I am trained in the doctoring business!”

  Toad winked and nudged his ward a few more times, that the Count might have a fit or two, for now was just the right moment, with the ladies wringing their hands, and ready to do anything Toad asked. But evidently Toad had not yet trained his ward in all his cunning, duplicitous ways, for it was only slowly that the penny finally dropped, and he at last realized that he must be ill immediately.

  “Mon dieu!” he cried, rather overdoing it, but impressing Toad by his enthusiasm, “I feel do not well!”

  “Madam, hot water at once!” cried Toad urgently.

  “When he mixes up his words like that it is a sign that his mind and vision are becoming confused.”

  “Not do I well feel at all!” gasped the youth, clutching variously at his throat, his heart, and his stomach since he was not quite sure of the medical meaning of the English words “fit” and “turn”.

  “Quickly now, miss,” commanded Toad, “fetch some towels to wrap about his head and blankets to cover his body which will soon begin to perspire and shake!”

  Then — but what more need good honest folk learn of Toad’s duplicity, and his speedy corruption of the youngster into his wicked ways. How grievous it is to see Toad thus teaching Madame’s child how to play upon the good nature of others for his own advantage. No Fagin ever corrupted youth better than Toad dealt with the Comte d’Albert-Chapelle in the next three days. During which the two toads kept this act up, and had mother and daughter running about at their every whim and command.

  The deception might have continued, and the good women been eaten out of house and home, had not the farmer himself come back, understood the situation at once, and turned his unwanted guests out in very short order.

  “But, father, he’s a real French count,” wailed the daughter.