“You had better come with me, Otter, for if any of the guests come early we’ll need an extra pair of sturdy hands to keep order. Mole’s bringing Badger over this morning as well. Come on then, let’s leave this dreary place.”
They returned to the daylight once more, threw down their weapons on the lawn, and were off along the bank, finding it all too easy to forget what lay behind them now, in anticipation of the pleasures that lay ahead.
Of the start of the Badger’s party, and its progress into the clear mild night, little need be said, but this: some parties have all the ingredients for success — the food, the drink, place, the occasion and the company — and yet do not quite come off. It is as if some extra ingredient, mysterious and unidentifiable by anyone, yet whose absence is recognized by all, is missing. This is how Badger’s party was.
The Badger tried his hardest to play the affable host; the Rat positively danced about in his determination that all and sundry should have a good and memorable time; the Mole’s courtesy to even the rudest and most brutish of the weasels should have melted the heart of all, and been enough to make the party swing.
But it did not. There was a solemnity about the occasion which none could seem to find a way of lifting. However good the food — and it was lavishly inviting; however excellent the drink — and it was more than that; however eager all were to have a good time —and all were very eager indeed, a good time was had by none.
Smiles were strained, laughter cracked, jokes ill-timed, and that black spot that marks a party doomed was upon it well before midnight.
“What,” whispered the Rat to the Mole, “are we going to do? This is, well —”
“Desperate,” said the Mole feelingly, “that’s what it is, and the Badger’s reputation will be sorely dented tomorrow, if it is not already tonight.”
“Desperate is the word,” said the Rat with resignation. “I just don’t know what’s wrong, or how to put it right.”
“There’s no way to put it right,” said the Mole sorrowfully, “for what’s wrong cannot be put right.”
The Rat looked at him with surprise and interest. The Mole rarely spoke thus gloomily, and in the Rat’s experience once you knew what was wrong with a thing it could be put right.
The Mole shook his head, as if he read the Rat’s thoughts.
“Not this time, Ratty. You know what’s really wrong? We’re missing Toad, every single one of us. That’s the trouble, isn’t it?”
The Rat heard this and thought about it for a very long time till he finally said, “Yes, old fellow, I’m afraid it is.”
Desperation would have been too mild a description of the mood that had overtaken another creature that night. The only creature, indeed, who had received no invitation to any party, whether it was the Badger’s, the weasels’ and stoats’, or even the rabbits’.
All he could do was wander abroad in the night shadows of the bank, and the Wild Wood, and down by the river, and listen to the sounds of fun he could hear, and peer in unseen at others’ windows and wish that he too might be one of them. That creature was Toad. He had come back the previous night, skulking along ditches, hiding among the river reeds, and in the Wild Wood’s undergrowth; and retreating for a long time under the bridge while some festive souls conversed above his head — so happily, so cheerfully, so excitedly, so generously.
It had taken him many long weeks to get this far, weeks when he had skulked across country and down dale, under hedge and by old rough surface root, as he skulked now by night between river and Wild Wood, with only the cold stars and a risen moon for company.
In that time Toad convinced himself that he was neither villain nor hero any more, but just Toad, almost Toad with a small “t”, so sorry did he feel for all he had done, and all he was.
It was not the flying machine, or the scrapes into which he had got himself — these things he could bear the memory of easily enough. No, it was the friends he had betrayed.
“Mole, Ratty and Badger!” he had fallen to whispering to himself ever since he had been left upon the road outside the Town. “Why could I not see how fine and worthy they were? Much finer and much more worthy than anything I could ever be! Why was I so dazzled and deluded by machines and flight and seeking the attention of others when there, on my doorstep, I had all I could ever really want?
“Friendship was mine for the asking! And companionship! But all I could do was take, and dupe, delude and cheat. All I strove for was to show how clever I was, and how —”
When Toad got into this kind of vein he was inclined to go on for a very long time, and he did so now, ending much later thus: “I see it all now, far too late. I duped them all! I failed them! I caused them trouble, and upset and grief, and in return what do they do —or what does the Badger do? He stands surety for me! He — O, but it is too much to think of, too much to bear?
It is true to say that Toad had come home because he had nowhere else to go. Along the way he had frequently been recognised and either reviled as a villain (which he did not like) or cheered as a hero (which irked him in his mood of new-found remorse). What he wanted was the friendly acceptance that he used to have, more or less, from those who lived near Toad Hall, and for this he had finally come back.
He had timed his arrival the previous evening so that he would not be observed, but it had been light enough for him to see at a glance the derelict state into which the Hall had fallen. When twilight came it looked even worse, and at night, by the solitary candle which was all he dared light, it looked yet worse still.
Peering out from the attic windows, or from the huge holes he found in the roof tiles, he looked upon a night-time scene he had forgotten that he loved.
For there was the river by starlight, there the Wild Wood, there the river bank and beyond the meadows.
There too, in their burrows, conversing with each other no doubt, content, their homes filled with life’s best and simplest pleasures of food and conversation and conviviality, there would be friends he now knew he did not have the courage to call on, friends he would probably never see again.
How pathetic would his sad face have seemed to any able to see it, as he gazed from the portals of his ruined home upon a landscape wherein he felt he might never again be at home.
“I’ll stay a night or two, for old times’ sake,” he told himself, “and then I’ll be gone! I shall be a wanderer without a home and leave all this trumpery, this vain-glory, behind me. I shall dedicate my life to a search for the inner contentment that has always eluded me. Unsung, shall I be; unremembered; unknown, a toad without a name.
Toad soon fell asleep to the sound of his own loin voice, and it was his candle then whose light the young stoat had seen, and which had duly been reported to the Water Rat.
Indeed, it was the visit of the Water Rat the following morning that had woken Toad and sent him scurrying for cover. But used to hiding as he was, it was not so hard as it might once have been for him to lie low while his old friends searched the place below.
But at least he had seen that Rat was alive — that much he could clear from his conscience; and when he heard Rat mention that Mole was alive, and Badger staying with him, Toad could deduce that both were well.
“Farewell, Rat! Goodbye, Otter!” he whispered after them when they left. “I shall remember you. And you, Mole, and Badger, so wise and forgiving — you will never know that this night a reformed and altered Toad thought of you, and wished you well!”
So they left, and Toad spent the day of the party alone in his own home. Feelings of remorse apart, he quite enjoyed himself, for the sun was shining and, never able to dwell on reality for long, he began to imagine what the Hall might be like if it could be refurbished somewhat, an opportunity presented by its present state in a way never presented before.
“I’m bored with red and scarlet,” he declared impatiently, “and those velvet drapes! It is a good job they’ve fallen down! As for all this furniture, why, it’s been getting me d
own for years! Hmmm!”
Then Toad ventured into the kitchen, and found certain provisions still intact, as well as some claret laid down by his father decades before, and made himself a little feast — just to keep the wolves at bay He made do with a writing bureau in his study as a table, choosing the sunniest spot he could find, and ate and drank his fill, ending with a little speech to the empty room on the subject of change, remorse, interior decoration, and the pleasures of a well-stocked cellar.
This done, Toad slept once more — taking the precaution of retiring to one of the lesser bedrooms in the south wing, where the bed was but a small double, yet comfortable for all that.
But when he woke up at dusk his gloom returned. He tried to cheer himself up, but the high spirits of the afternoon — for that was what they had been — had quite fled, and he suddenly found the empty dereliction about him too much to bear. Toad therefore went out onto his lawn and paced about, wondering if he might play croquet by moonlight, or declaim a poem about his coming lonely struggle with life and proposed search for inner peace, perhaps making his address from the balustrade that commanded the best view of the lawn and river beyond.
“From there,” he thought, “I might be heard to best effect, if there were an audience. It is a pity there is not.”
Feeling hungry again, he went inside, rummaged around the pantry, fed himself by candlelight on an upper floor and said, “It is enough! I shall sleep for the last time in the Hall, and by dawn I shall leave. Then —But these good resolutions were interrupted by a stirring at the window where, the panes broken, a light wind fretted the curtains. Somewhere a stair creaked, and a door seemed to slam, and Toad was suddenly overtaken by that irrational sense of fear that any alone in such a great place might feel.
He left the candle where it was, for he had no wish for it to be seen at the window, and went to look out upon the advancing night. The moon was bright once more; a solitary cloud drifted towards it, across it, and away once more, and then another loomed.
Impulsively Toad decided he could not stay one moment more where he was.
“Moonlight will see me down the stairs! I must go —”Then he was gone, before the moonlight was clouded out once more, down the great stairs, across the ruined ballroom and out onto the safety of the terrace.
There he might have stayed, and slept perhaps, had he not heard some distant shout, or moment of laughter, and the sounds of the conviviality he missed so much.
“That must be the party Rat referred to when he was here earlier,” he thought, little knowing what a dreary affair it had so far proved to be.
“It would do no harm,” thought Toad, “if I ventured over — though it is rather shadowy by night — and got near enough to Badger’s place at least to hear what is going on. A last look at those familiar faces, and then I shall really go!”
With an objective at last in mind, Toad was an animal renewed. He darted back into the gloomy, creaky Hall, gathered together his few needs — two bottles of wine and several cheeses and water biscuits and suchlike, in case he felt like supper later on — and was on his way.
Here and there he stopped to eat and drink, lest the cold get to him, and to give him courage, for the Wild Wood is not an easy place at night, even to those who walk along its edge.
He went by way of Otter’s house, and seeing he was not at home, he took the liberty of popping in — to eat and drink in a little more comfort than was possible along the bank, which did not have the chairs and tables he liked to use if they were available. Toad even slept a little in the Otter’s armchair till, waking with a start, he remembered his purpose, which was to get as near to Badger’s house as he could.
The path into the Wild Wood looked forbidding, and Toad took an extra tot of the richer of the two wines he was carrying to give him strength and courage.
“I shall do it all at one go, show to shpeak,” said Toad, whose enunciation was deteriorating. “I shall —Toad paused, and swayed, and frowned, and seemed to think.
“I shall,” he said very slowly, “not shkulk! I shall not peer and peek! I shall —” and here he took a straight swig from the bottle and nodded his head in agreement at his own words before, wiping his mouth with the back of his free hand, he continued, “I shall speak to the Badger! What I shall say I do not know, but say it I shall. Then, that done, I shall turn and leave these parts forever. Now then, letsh be off as besht we can up this dark and sha — shaow — doshowee — shady bath!”
Tottering a little, and seeking support from the occasional tree, Toad began to make his way through the Wild Wood, looking to neither left nor right, and thinking only that when he got to Badger’s he hoped he might find courage to knock upon his door.
Midnight had come and gone when Rat whispered to Mole, “No need for you to linger on, old chap. Badger and I will do the honours and see the night out till our guests have gone.”
“I thought this was going to be high tea, Rat, not an all-night affair. I wouldn’t mind if—”
The Rat smiled and said, “It’s what the stoats and weasels expected, a good night of it.”
“They don’t look as if they expect anything at all any more. They look as dull and gloomy as I feel,” said the Mole with feeling. “Why, this is the dreariest affair —”Off you go, Mole, and take Otter with you — for company and protection. No one will even notice you’ve gone.
The two slipped away from the table and headed for Badger’s front door. They were in the very act of raising the latch when they heard a loud and confident knocking from outside.
Anything was a welcome distraction from the social gathering within, and the Badger himself rose up and said, “A late caller then. A reveller on his way home from some other party, no doubt! Open the door, Mole! Open the door!”
Mole did so and stood back; and there he stood: Toad.
He had a half-empty bottle in one hand and upon his face was a look of feigned cheer and jollity.
“I happened,” he declared to his dumbfounded audience, “jush ‘appened, show to shpeak, to be parshing by and —”
His voice, like his jollity, subsided, and his hand lowered the bottle to his side.
“Ish Badgsher at home, or do I need an invis — invish — ivinashun?”
Alone of them all, the Badger retained his composure. He pushed forward till he was in the midst of the gathering and said, “Toad, you are drunk.”
“I have drunk, that ish true, Basher old fellow, and I may be merry, very, bu —”
“Toad,” growled the Badger in a most terrible way, looming higher than any about him, “you are incapable!”
“I am —” began Toad, his inebriated mind searching for the right words, “intoshicated, but as for —”
“Toad!” said the Badger, his voice low and unforgettable. “Toad —”
“Yesh, Badgsher, I am —“
What was it he was trying so hard to say, for trying he now was? Indeed, he went so far as to place the bottle upon the ground, nearly falling over as he did so, before straightening up again with a strange wild look in his eye, made the stranger by the light that shone on him from within, and the starry night sky behind.
“Badsher’ said Toad, frowning, “what Toad wanted to say, to try to shay, to —”
Behind him the Wild Wood suddenly seemed a visible presence — though only the outline of trees could be seen against the night sky, and here and there a branch caught in moonlight. But there it was, and beyond it, a presence too, seemed a great wild and desolate world out of which, so unexpectedly, so typically perhaps, so bravely it was beginning to seem, Toad had come.
Now he stood, still swaying, with that great hostile world behind him, and he sought words he could not find.
“Toad —” said the Badger once more.
“What am I, Badger?” said Toad, with terrible, painful clarity, his swaying stopped now, his head high, his face worn with the trials of a long journey, his eyes lost.
“You are home, Toad,” s
aid the Badger with a sudden gentleness, “and none is more welcome here than you tonight.”
“Home,” whispered Toad, “and welcome.”
Then something stirred across that tired face and he said, “I shall be good now, Badger, I shall -—”
But Badger raised a hand to silence him.
“No, Toad, you will not be good tonight. You will be bad, very bad.”
“I will?”
“You will.”
“I might,” said Toad gratefully, his face suddenly losing years.
“You will,” said the Badger, coming forward and ushering Toad in, “and you will tell us about all your adventures.”
“Will I?” said the relieved Toad.
“You will!”
“He will!”
“You must!” cried many a voice, among them Rat’s and Mole’s and Otter’s and many of the weasels’, and all the stoats’, who now crowded out to welcome Toad home.
“But you won’t be wanting a speech about myself, will you? For I have not prepared one, you see, I hadn’t thought that —”Speech?” cried the Badger. “It’s speeches we want, speeches we’re lacking, and you’re just the chap to get us started, keep us going, and finish us off.”
“I am!” cried Toad enthusiastically “I mean. ‘Am I?”‘
“You are,” said the Badger, “you are — now come in, sit down, and tell us — everything.”
It is strange how when a gathering is gloomy the drink and the food and the talk are gloomy too. Then, when it is gloomy no more, the drink sparkles, the food entices, and the conversation is scintillating. So it was then, at Badger’s party, when Toad came home.
And the night seemed young, and after but a short time invitations, attendance certificates, and all the rest mattered no more. For whether it was from a weasel who had seen Toad rollicking earlier along the bank, or a sharp-eyed stoat rather later, staggering through the Wild Wood, the word soon got out that Toad, the Toad, Toad of Toad Hall, was at the Badger’s, and it was open house.
The Willows in Winter Page 20