“Keeping well, thank you, Albert.”
With Toad well placed and nicely noosed the Senior Bishop said, “Mr Toad of Toad Hall, have you any final words?”
“Not on my own behalf, no, for I am glad to be finding a final liberty,” said Toad, a craven coward no more, it seemed. “But I beg you, and you in particular, Your High Lordship, to take care of the Madame’s son, for he means no harm and needs a little guidance now and then. I am past redemption, but he —”
Toad’s last speech was interrupted by a rattling of the courtyard door, and a messenger came running.
“Message for His Lordship, if you please.”
A note was handed to the High Judge who quickly read it, and then took the Commissioner of Police aside. Whatever he told him, it made that gentleman look very furious, and he blew a whistle and spoke to several constables, who went off about an urgent task. Then the High Judge spoke to the Senior Bishop, who went quite white and looked most horrified before falling upon his knees and offering up a silent prayer. Then he gathered up his purple skirts, called for his Chaplain and dashed off on urgent business.
The High Judge said, “Take the prisoner to his cell. Execution of sentence is postponed for twenty-four hours.”
With that he too was gone.
“I really think,” said Toad, considerably irritated, “that those gentlemen might have listened to my speech right to the end.”
“Never mind,” said his gaoler, leading him away; “you’ll have a chance to finish it tomorrow”
But within twenty-four hours Toad was at liberty once more, and on his way home, astonished, bemused, and for once not singing his own praises but those of another.
When the High Judge had first read that missive that reached him a few moments before the execution of the sentence upon Mr Toad he was very much astonished, yet not entirely unhappy to have an excuse to postpone matters for a day or two.
It was true that he was known as a hanging judge, but it was also true that he was one of those who did not rest easy unless he felt he was satisfied that the punishment he decreed truly fitted the crime. To his mind, hanging often did, and so he had little compunction sending those who came before him into that final cul de sac.
Once in a while, however, there came before him one in whom he saw the possibilities of redemption, and for whom, reprehensible though their crimes were — and Mr Toad’s were singularly bad, particularly his offences in the field of botany — he felt a less conventional punishment might be suitable. But though he had racked his brains he could not seem to find anything better than hanging for Mr Toad, and had therefore donned the black cap and passed that ultimate sentence.
Then came the letter, and suddenly all seemed changed. Mr Toad’s crimes — and the punishment thereof — were cast in a very different complexion indeed.
Indeed, so surprised was the High Judge by what the missive contained that he read it several times, as well as the clipping from the Town’s evening newspaper that was attached to it.
“Your comments would be welcome,” the editor of that organ wrote briefly to him. The clipping was headlined with words that said it all: “HIGH JUDGE’S FORMER BUTLER ELOPES WITH JILTED FRENCH BRIDE.”
Then, in type less bold, “Love-nest found in Harwich. They take the packet to Australia tomorrow.”
Them in type even less bold, “Mystery of why lady’s ‘best man’, the ‘Hang-‘em-High‘ High Judge, was allowed to pass judgment on her former fiancé.”
Then, in ordinary—sized type, the sorry tale itself, which told of how the butler Prendergast, a Lothario of the worst kind it seemed, had plotted with Madame d’Albert-Chapelle, infamous jilted bride in the case of Mr Toad, to elope on the very morning of his execution.
“Even as that generous and courageous sporting gentleman puts his neck in the hangman’s noose, the Cunning Countess and the Brutal Butler will be heartlessly watching the coast of our once-just land recede as their boat sets sail for pastures new Rarely in our legal history —” and so the story continued, lurid detail after lurid detail.
The High Judge was very well used to the rantings of the popular press, but he was shaken to the core by these events, if they were true.
The Madame marrying a butler, that was the gist of it, the beginning and the end of it. He saw it now almost too late, as once before he had been slow to see the nobility and courage that Mr Toad hid under his unprepossessing and criminal-seeming exterior.
“He must have known, or guessed, of her dalliance with Prendergast only at that very last moment when, too much of a gentleman to declare his suspicions, he fled,” the High Judge told himself. “He is a better judge of the ladies than myself, no doubt, but even he had been taken in by her French charm, and by the seeming probity of Prendergast.
“A countess and a butler! We really cannot, and will not, hang a gentlemen for breach of promise to such a lady as that!”
The wheels of justice, the Badger had observed, run slowly at first, but then when they turn more swiftly they cannot be easily stopped. Not, that is, unless scandal and exposure in high places is involved; not unless those in high places need it to be so; not unless at one fell swoop the might of the Law, the equity of Justice and the wisdom of the Established Church might seem to be undermined, and fairly so, in the gutter and quality press alike.
Then the wheels of justice can indeed be stopped, and put very rapidly in reverse.
Yet, mused the High Judge, when appropriate instructions had been given to this effect, and counter-signed and sealed by the Senior Bishop and Commissioner of Police, and Toad pardoned, yet — and he could not but think that shocking though the elopement was, perhaps he had underestimated Mr Prendergast. Could it be that eloping with the Countess was the only way left open to him to get his master off the hook?
“Hmmm,” mused the High Judge, and finally he smiled, and admitted that, given all he knew of Prendergast, it might indeed be so.
“So then, what shall we do with Mr Toad, for he certainly has done some wrong?”
Just then there was a knock at his door and his clerk announced a visitor, a very young visitor, a Count.
“Aha!” said the High Judge in a voice of expectation.
“I ‘ave been sent by Monsieur Prendergast,” began the youth, who looked tired and rather miserable, “who is now my new papa.”
“They are already wed?”
“Oui, monsieur, this morning, by the capitaine of the ship in which they have sailed at the hour when Monsieur Toad was guillotined.”
“Hanged,” corrected the High Judge; “but he is still alive.”
“Formidable!” said the Count, a look of relief upon his face.
“He will be pardoned,” said the High Judge.
“I ‘ave a letter from Monsieur Prendergast,” said the youth, handing over a letter in a hand the High Judge knew of old.
Your High Lordship
I hope you will forgive me for presuming upon our very long professional relationship, in the course of which you were kind enough to suggest that if ever there was anything you might do for me then if it was in your power you would do it. You have been a kind and generous employer and always recompensed me fairly for my work, and it is a matter of pride that I have never taken up your offer.
I fancy, however, that my elopement with the Madame may change the complexion of things somewhat — indeed I trust it will, for Mr Toad is a good man at heart — though I must leave all that to chance and the popular newspapers. It is about the Madame’s son I write now, and the thorny problem of a fitting punishment for Mr Toad, in the eventuality that his capital punishment will be set aside —
There was a good deal more in this vein, till finally Prendergast made the suggestion — that bold and most resourceful suggestion — that revealed to His Lordship the best way to proceed.
He read the letter again and looked up at last at the nervous youth.
“You did not wish to sail to Australia with your mother,
then?”
“No, monsieur,” he replied quietly.
“You wished, perhaps, to return to relatives in France?”
“Non, monsieur; I ‘ave none I like,” said he more quietly still.
“You have perhaps sufficient means to take an establishment of your own and —?”
“I ‘ave money monsieur, but I do not wish to live alone. Monsieur Prendergast ‘as said you would know what I should do.”
“Did he now?” said the High Judge, the glimmer of a smile upon his face.
“‘E said ‘e was certain of it!”
“Humph!” said the High Judge. “Well then —” and he stared at the Madame’s son for a long, long time.
Finally he said, “I shall ask you a question and upon your reply very much will depend concerning your future, and another’s. Tell me, but think very carefully before you do, what has been the happiest and the most contented time of your life?”
The youth seemed surprised and fell silent, thinking perhaps of the many presents he had been given throughout his life, the exotic places taken, the treats received and the indulgences given. The High Judge saw a great many fleeting memories pass across his face, but he saw no sign of happiness, and none of remembered contentment.
But then, like a sun beginning to shine at last, a look of happiness came to his face, and memory of a time of past contentment.
“Well?” said the High Judge.
“It was an afternoon and ‘e —”
“Who?” asked the High Judge gently.
“Monsieur Toad, he took me fishing but —”
“Yes? Take your time, there is plenty of it.”
“But it was not that, monsieur, that made me ‘appy it was how ‘e showed me about the line, and the trace, and which fly was best and —”
“Mmm?”
“It was when Monsieur Toad showed me ‘ow to tie a hook. That was the best time. I was content. Then, monsieur, we —”
And the High Judge listened to an account of the afternoon and evening Toad and his young ward shared after their departure from the farmer’s wife and daughter, a time of fishing, of a memorable feast, and of a river gliding by.
“How would you like,” said the High Judge when the tale was done, “to go and live with Mr Toad? Do you think he would look after you?”
The youth thought some more and said finally with a smile, “I think that ‘e would try, monsieur, try very ‘ard.”
“Yes,” said His Lordship, “I do believe he would.” There were instructions to give then and documents to prepare, which contained a great many words and phrases such as “Custody” and “Ward of the High Court” and “In honour bound” and many more besides.
Then Toad was summoned and told his fate, which was in the High Judge’s view one harder by far than hanging, for the youth would make many demands, and they would increase as the years went by so much so that they would try the patience of a saint. And all agreed that Mr Toad of Toad Hall would have to work very hard if he was to become one of those.
So it was that the admirable Prendergast laid down his life for Toad, and by turning an honourable jilted noble-lady into a dishonourable French elopee, whose passions led her to the butler’s pantry door and beyond it, saved his master’s skin. And, it must be said, provided Prendergast with a bride whose happiness was matched only by his own; and her son with a Toad in loco parentis who might in time learn to do for another what he could never quite do for himself.
So it was quite natural for Toad to be singing the praises of Prendergast all the way from the Town to Toad Hall, and getting the young ward of court, who was now duly assigned into his care, to sing them too.
But old habits die hard, if they ever die at all, and Toad could not but reflect that if he had thought of it earlier he would have prepared a speech.
Them, as the motor-car turned through his own gates once more and Toad saw his friends ready and waiting for him, to give him welcome, and perhaps praise and perhaps tell him what a clever animal he was, several possibilities for a speech occurred, for there was very much that he might say.
Even as they shook his hand, and that of his young ward, Toad had begun the preliminaries to speechifying and strutting about.
“There’s to be a ceremony is there? We’re to inaugurate the statue, are we? Right away I trust! Right now, in fact!”
While in the shadows, now to one side of the Badger, now by himself and then behind the Mole and then again by himself, Toad’s ward wandered, uneasy with himself, not quite sure what he must do.
So much noise, so many people, and all so pleased to see Monsieur Toad.
Out onto the terrace they went, and from there to stand before Toad’s new statue so recently erected and now ready to inaugurate.
The Madame had done her work boldly and well, and future generations gazing upon the statue she had made might form a very different, and more favourable, impression of Toad of Toad Hall than those who knew him in life.
For his bronze persona stood upon its pedestal as proud and triumphant as any victorious Caesar. He wore the flowing robes of a Roman ruler, and upon his feet were leather sandals that spoke of a freer and warmer climate than was customary for the River Bank. Upon his head (and, indeed, intertwined with rather more hair than the real Toad sported) was a wreath of laurel, while one hand held aloft the rod of state and supreme authority. So taken had she been by her subject, Toad, that she had discarded altogether any rendering of the Mole, the Badger and the Rat as humble legates, or in any other role — no doubt to their considerable relief.
It was upon the expression of the face that the Madame had bestowed her very greatest genius, for its look of triumphant self-satisfaction combined Augustan majesty with Claudian cunning, and the military might of a Julius Caesar with the very slightest hint of the indulgence and profligacy of Nero.
The general direction of its gaze was skyward, perhaps even heavenward, and certainly a good deal beyond bothering to read the Latin inscription which remained inscribed upon the statue’s pedestal, which the Badger had obligingly rendered into English for the satisfaction of the Mole’s curiosity: “Humility above all”.
The Badger opened that special bottle of wine the Mole had made; the Rat and the Otter, with Brock’s help, gathered some chairs and a table or two that they might sit down once the speeches were over, and talk as so often in the past; Nephew and Grandson, already good friends, repaired to the kitchen to gather together whatever picnic they could find; Toad closed his eyes and mouthed and gestured a few grand phrases, taking the new statue and the theme of triumph for his inspiration; while his young ward stood all alone, not knowing what to do.
“Monsieur —”
“Not now, old chap, I’ve a speech to prepare.”
“Monsieur, on the way here you promised that —”“O yes, not today though; no time, you see, and all these fellows to entertain.”
“Monsieur, but when might we —?”
“There, everything’s ready now. Why don’t you sit down over there and join in the fun?”
The poor youth sat, and tried.
“Gentlemen and friends,” began Toad, when he had established some semblance of order and their glasses were charged, “there are a good many things —”
Toad’s ward sat alone, and his gaze wandered towards the River.
“Gentlemen, I want to say by which I mean I wish and intend to say —” Toad had wanted to say how glorious his return seemed to be, how triumphal, not at all unlike the return of an imperial emperor to Rome, no, not at all —but he stopped again, for his heart was not in it.
Meanwhile the Madame’s son watched where the River flowed at the edge of the slope below them, majestic and slow, the light of the afternoon on its surface, and the colours of the autumn.
“Gentlemen, and friends,” said Toad yet again, “I am glad to be back, but I — I am a little tired and so will leave the speeches to Mole and Ratty. Yes, gentlemen, to you both, for yours has been a g
reat expedition and journey. But pray forgive me if I slip away for a time —”
“Toad, we want to hear you speak!” cried the Rat.
“You will do it a great deal better than we ever can,” said the Mole.
But Toad would have none of it, none of it at all, and instead put down his glass and, as the others began to laugh and talk amongst themselves, he went over to where his ward sat alone.
“There, that didn’t take too long.”
“Monsieur?” said the youth, perking up a little.
“Didn’t I promise to take you fishing?”
“Yes, monsieur —”
“Call me Toad, everybody else does. And didn’t I promise to give you a rather particular fishing rod?”
“Ah, oui, monsieur — yes you did.”
“Mind you, it is rather old now, and got a little charred in the great fire we had here a year or two ago, but it was amongst the few things I saved and I treasure it. It is the first rod I was given, and it is good for a beginner. You shall have it now.”
Without further ado, Toad took the boy into the Hall and gave him a gift that money could not buy.
“When can we use it, Toad?” he asked, gaining in confidence all the while.
“Now!” said Toad carelessly taking up another rod, and enough tackle for them both, and leading his young friend to a side door so that they did not get diverted by the others. “Straight away in fact. There’s no time like the present. That’s always been my motto and it will do very well for you too, I dare say.”
“No time like the present,” repeated the happy youth.
“That’s right,” said Toad, and with rods and tackle in hand, they headed off together, towards the River Bank.
THE END
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK,
An imprint of St. Martin's Press
TOAD TRIUMPHANT
Copyright ©1995 by William Horwood.
All rights reserved.
Toad Triumphant Page 20