The Willows in Winter Page 16

  These, then, were mighty temptations, but Toad was not so far gone as to yield to them without some vestigial thought of the consequences, nor to delay matters for a few moments by saying, in what he imagined was a rude and rustic way, “An’t yer going to ask me what I bin delallied fer?”

  Out of what repository of his former lives these extraordinary words and sounds came from Toad dreaded to think, but out they came, and they served.

  “Bless you, Duckie, but yer not even out the cold yet.”

  “It’s that bone-shaker of a bicycle’ said Toad, procrastinating.

  “Felled off again?” said Toad.

  “Now I looks at yer face, I can see it’s swolled.”

  “Swolled bad’ said Toad.

  Those temptations which had loomed so large a moment before now rapidly receded before the dreadful dangers that began to loom in their place.

  These were, first of all, the quintet of youths, his sons and heirs it seemed, all scruffy, all sooty, all about to launch themselves upon his person.

  “Beware!” a warning voice in Toad cried out.

  Then there was the galvanised bath tub he had spied, already steaming, and surrounded by any number of bars of carbolic soap, flannels, towels, brushes, and even —and this surprised Toad in so humble a home — a long and scratchy-looking loofah.

  “Take heed!” cried that voice once more.

  But lastly, worst of all, worse in many ways than a pack of slavering hounds, was the sweep’s eager, potent, gargantuan wife. If she who seemed to love her partner so well knew him so ill that she could mistake him for Toad, to what bounds beyond dreadful imagining might such a woman’s passions lead when — there was no “if” about it, not with the bathtub at the ready — she realized that what she had within her grasp was not her husband, but someone new?

  “Escape this fate while you can,” Toad’s inner voice wisely commanded.

  With a wild and dramatic gesture Toad cried, “Came ter say I got ter work late tonight, my love! Be back afore the dawn!” and without more ado he turned, and ran out into the wintry night, never looking back, despite the heart-rending calls and cries of “Pa! Pa! O Pa!”

  But finally these grew faint, as did the glimmering and once welcome light, and for the first time in his life Toad came to see how it could be that the shelter of a hedgerow might be as good and safe a place as any to spend the night.

  Of the days that followed, which were some of the darkest and the bitterest of Toad’s eventful life, even he rarely spoke. Whatever he might like to think he was, whatever he might once have known himself to be, the fact was that through those wandering winter days Toad was no more than a common tramp.

  His disguise seemed to serve him well enough, but if he fancied himself a Tradesman Chimney Sweep, trained, skilled, and experienced, the world saw him as one who had fallen on hard times, and could no longer find employment.

  He found charity enough along the way, and when the weather worsened and the hedge was too cold a shelter, kindly folk would let him sleep in their barn, if they had one, or the pig sty, if it was not already occupied. As for food, well, a bowl of gruel and dry bread was enough to keep him going, and he accepted it with a word of thanks, and a humble doffing of his cap. If words of complaint came to his mouth, or a sense of misery and despair, he had only to remember that pack of hounds, or ponder for a moment the chimney sweep’s wife’s unwelcome embrace and where it might have led him to, to know that he was lucky to be alive, free, and unencumbered.

  Winter, he told himself, would not last forever, and anyway, if only he could get his bearings he might find his way back to the river, and thence to Toad Hall and all the home comforts that awaited him there.

  It may seem strange that he found getting home so difficult, but his flying machine had taken him to pastures strange and new, far afield from anywhere he had ever been before, and nothing seemed quite the same on this far side of the Town to which his destiny had brought him. In any case, and this was perhaps rather more to the point, he had a certain reluctance to return to Toad Hall, for that would mean he must face something as unpalatable as those many trials and dangers from which he had only barely escaped. For the Badger and the Rat and the Mole would be awaiting him, always assuming, of course, that the last two were still alive.

  How could he ever face them? Mole, whom he had deserted in his hour of need! Rat, whom he had to all intents and purposes hurled from his flying machine! And Badger, who had trusted him but whom he had fooled so easily, and left locked up in his smoking room (where, for all Toad knew, he might still be).

  So Toad’s wanderings, avoiding the Town as he now had to, and the river out of cowardice, were roundabout and aimless. Perhaps he hoped that when spring came he might be allowed to turn over a new leaf, which done, he might slip quietly back into his own domain, reoccupy Toad Hall, and live a modest, charitable life from which all thought of machines and escapades would (this time) be permanently banished.

  These cheerless ruminations preoccupied Toad during those lost and wretched days when the world, which owed him nothing, gave him rather more charity than he deserved. Perhaps such thoughts sustained Toad then, and kept him moving on, hopeful in some way of eventual rather than immediate change.

  The weather improved, and though it was not true that spring was in the air, at least winter seemed a little more out of it than before. Here and there a snowdrop showed; and sometimes when he woke and found himself lying on the dank and chilly ground, the bright yellow petals of winter aconite had burst forth with the dawn to cheer him on his way.

  It was on such a morning, with the sun shining brighter than had been its wont, that Toad saw that he was approaching a village. He saw its church tower from afar, and was passed more than once along the way by carriages both horseless and horse-drawn, filled with people dressed in what seemed their Sunday best, though it was not Sunday.

  “They can’t be going to pray,” thought Toad, “for they’re all too merry for that. There must be a wedding on. Here, surely, I may find sympathetic folk who in the happiness of the moment will give a poor Toad — I mean, a poor chimney sweep — a shilling or two, or perhaps something more. Ah, what would I do to have enough to stay a night in some friendly hostelry!”

  Thus Toad spun simple hopes and pleasures as he went along, waving almost cheerfully to the wedding guests as they passed him by upon the road.

  “This is certainly a big wedding,” thought Toad as he came nearer, and his eyes grew a little more keen. For a sizeable occasion might swell that shilling to a form, or even a half guinea!

  The nearer he got, the greater and more impressive the assembly about the little church seemed to be, what with carriages great and small, two or three automobiles of the most modern sort, all colour, brass and wheels.

  There were crowds of guests, the men in formal morning wear, the women in their finest finery, and yet bigger crowds of onlookers, some almost as finely dressed as the guests, others of the lower and common orders and even more rudely dressed than Toad.

  By the time he reached the church’s ancient lych gate and stopped to stare, it seemed that the guests had all arrived and had gone into the church and out of sight. The groom had long disappeared into the interior and though Toad made efforts to find out who the lucky pair might be, no one was much interested in talking to him, for they were all eagerly waiting for the bride to arrive.

  This she soon did, and prettily too, for it seemed she lived in the regency manor right opposite the church and from there she was now processed by her father, a tall white-haired gentleman who walked as proudly as if he were about to marry her himself.

  Well might he be proud, for if a couple were going to get married on a winter’s day, they could not have hoped for better: bright sunshine in a clear blue sky, a churchyard filled with daffodils jewelled with dew, and those same snowdrops and aconites that Toad had seen beginning to appear in days past, now in full bloom, all busy and eager about the verges
and stone walls of village, house and church.

  Toad should not be blamed if, in the excitement of these charming moments, he failed to notice some last-minute arrivals. There were, for example, a brace of Bishops, all purple and black and with silvery white hair. Along with these, and a fine complement to them, were a quartet of footmen of the tallest, most aquiline and most senior sort. The kind indeed that one might think would only deign to accept service in, at the very least, a Lord’s employ.

  Yet Toad did get an inkling of the danger he was in, for following this holy twain and haughty four there slipped out of a black shiny vehicle — discreetly tucked away down a nearby lane — no less than an octet of men in blue: the police! Into the church they plodded, senior officers all, their uniforms giving off that sudden flash of iridescent colour such as an idle occupier of a riverboat might briefly catch a glimpse of when a kingfisher flashes by.

  This glimpse Toad caught, and though he did not realise its import at the time, it left him feeling vaguely uneasy, as if he knew something was not quite right but could not work out what.

  He shook his head, he frowned, he shivered slightly, and then he overrode his instinct (which was to flee, and flee fast) and fought the pressing crowds to keep his vantage point by the church gate from which to enjoy the wedding scene.

  The bride and her father crossed the village green to cries of “Good luck!” and “Bless ‘er!” and in they went. By order of the manor a hot toddy and mince pies were handed out to the assembled throng as they waited outside during the wedding service, gossiping and chattering cheerfully till, guessing that the service was nearly done, they began to fall silent in expectation of hearing the wedding march from the organ inside and seeing the church door thrust open, and the happy couple emerge.

  Toad was carried away by the spirit of it all, and made light-headed by the availability of free food and easy drink, so that he pushed himself forward with the best and worst of them, raised his brushes in the air, and joined in a song or two.

  Having missed the warning signs of the arrival of Bishops and footmen, and failed to respond to the dangers implicit in a police presence, Toad might still have realised his mortal danger when one of the crowd said to him, “Here officially are you?”

  “Me?” said Toad, not understanding at all.

  “On duty, like?”

  The fellow grinned and laughed and Toad thought it best to laugh back. If only he had understood!

  “‘Ere comes the bride!” the shout went up, for the church doors were being flung open, and the vigorous strains of the wedding march came out into the wintry morning.

  At first all was well, for what harm can there be in a happy bride and her new-made groom? What possible threat from proud parents? What danger in aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, friends and —”Bishops?” whispered Toad to himself, alarm bells ringing as yet only distantly in his mind as the brace of Bishops he had not seen earlier emerged, followed by one whose purple was even purpler, and whose embroidered chest supported a cross that was ominously larger than all the others, and whose shepherd’s crook positively glittered with High Holiness.

  Toad gulped and his eyes grew a little wider as he stared upon the face of this ethereal person, for he knew him, and his visage struck sudden terror into Toad’s heart. For My Lord Bishop was the same one whom Toad had seen from on high, unwillingly perched as he himself had then been in a hothouse roof.

  But even as Toad vainly sought to back away (the crowd now being too thick behind him) the footmen emerged, and with them the ghastly sight of that same butler whom Toad had so successfully bamboozled into serving him sweetmeats and nectars in bed: Prendergast.

  “Him!” gasped Toad, suddenly realising that the wedding he was witness to involved, on the groom’s side, the son and heir of the House where he, Toad, had been for three days a cuckoo in the nest.

  He struggled to back off once more, but it was no use, for the crowd grew thicker still behind him. Then, before Toad’s shocked eyes, there issued forth from the church porch more police than he had ever set eyes upon even in his nightmares. Perhaps by now his mind was fevered and he saw more than were really there. But out they came, like bees from a hive, and at their head —the bride’s godfather, it would seem — was the Police Commissioner himself.

  Was the groom’s father, then, His Lordship?

  “He is,” groaned Toad as he too emerged, striving to sink towards the ground, but quite unable to since he was supported by the crowd behind and the church gate in front.

  Toad’s nightmare now gathered about him apace, and began to overtake him.

  A photographer appeared with an apprentice carrying his paraphernalia, which was set up in front of the church for portraits to be taken. The flashes of the lights were like warning beacons across the heavy seas in which Toad now found himself struggling. Yet still he might escape, he thought, simply by staying still and unnoticed in the great thronging crowd.

  “Who would bother with a simple Toad?” thought Toad hopefully, forgetting in whose garb he was disguised.

  “The sweep! Bring him out here for luck! The chimney sweep!”

  Toad had been espied by the photographer’s eager and sharp-eyed assistant. A chimney sweep always brought good luck to a wedding scene, and an extra guinea for the photographer who thought of providing one.

  Willing hands reached out to the reluctant and desperately self-effacing Toad.

  “No, no!” he cried.

  But it was no use, and even as he was hauled out before them all, and placed between the bride and groom — even as that happened, the police and footmen formed a guard of honour, to frame and complete the picture of which (to the shared delight of both the wedding party and the crowd) the chimney sweep, alias Toad, was now the very centre.

  Flash! and Flash! again.

  “And just one more!” cried the photographer. “Try to smile this time, chimney sweep — you look quite sick!”

  O, the merriment! O, the laughter! And O, what a haze of ecstasy Toad was suddenly in. He smiled, he laughed, he guffawed — for he was triumphant after all.

  He had no need to be afraid. His disguise was perfect and he remained utterly undetected.

  “Another!” cried out Toad, exulting in his position, and causing even more merriment.

  “My right profile is by far the best!”

  O folly! O vanity! O pride! How great and swift its downfall can be.

  There was a commotion in the crowd, an accusatory cry, and then a shrieking female voice, all too familiar to Toad, which said, “That’s no chimney sweep, that’s a toad! It’s the Toad! The impostor who tried to steal my heart! The —And there she stood at the church gate, even more massive in her anger and outrage than she had been in her domestic welcome: the chimney sweep’s wife!

  “He done away with my old man to take ‘is place!” she screeched. “‘E’s a murderer, I tell yer!”

  No charge could ever have been more clearly or more baldly stated, or express so well in its simplicity the heinous crime, the motive, and the victim’s suffering as that: “He done away with my old man to take ‘is place.”

  Perhaps Toad spoke, but more than likely he did not. He remembered a final flash of light — no doubt the photographer’s last photograph; he remembered better still eight flashes of blue, and four of black, and two of accusatory purple. Then all was lost forever as Toad was arrested, handcuffed, put into leg irons, manhandled into a shiny windowless automobile and off on his bumpy way towards a dungeon deep within a castle great and grim.

  Down long steep stone steps he was escorted, along rough-hewn corridors and passageways, past bars and impregnable nail-studded doors, till he was held fast and deep and close-confined where hope was gone forever, and bleak despair could surely be his only friend.

  Toad was at liberty no more.

  XI

  Habeas Corpus

  The national sensation caused by Toad’s arrest — or more accurately his re-capture a
fter his gaol-break some years before — may well be imagined. It is all too rare that so unscrupulous and habitual a confidence trickster and common criminal is arrested in the midst of the Society Wedding of the Year.

  The photographer was able to retire immediately upon the proceeds earned from the photographs he had taken of Toad the Terrible, cavorting between the innocent bride and groom, and showing off his right profile. The photographer’s assistant needed to be assistant no more, for his career as Photographer to Nobility was established at a stroke.

  The arresting officers were immediately commended for their courage and bravery in confronting so desperate a criminal, and promoted Deputy Commissioners to a man. The footmen all found employment as butlers in establishments as widely spread as China, Italy and the United States of America.

  The Bishops could not be promoted much higher than they were — though one discovered his ambitions for a different see as a result of the events of that day —but if there were spare cathedrals going they were theirs, and all sorts of ecclesiastical commissions and sinecures came their way.

  While the chimney sweep’s wife, whose righteous indignation was spread across the front pages of newspapers throughout the land, and in twenty-eight foreign lands and all the colonies as well, received more than fifty offers of marriage by the following weekend.

  It was as well she accepted none of them, for bigamy is a serious offence, yet who could have blamed her if she had? For while it was true that her chimney sweep husband was missing presumed dead, the harsh fact was that having so unexpectedly discovered the pleasures of being the heroic aviator who risked his life to save the Town by steering his flying machine so bravely beyond it (all thanks to Toad) he was in no hurry to revert to his humdrum and sooty life — and wife.