Duncton Stone

by William Horwood

  “Well, that’s as maybe, and unlikely to happen now. I’m too old for tears.”

  “You just nearly wept at the thought of me dying!”

  “That’s different. You really are an irritating mole, Pumpkin. Obstinate, I’d say.”

  Pumpkin laughed and asked what happened after he had been found.

  “Well, I got Fieldfare and Hamble to go down to your tunnels, and there was Privet in no better state than I found you, except that you’d had the sense to tuck her up in your own sleeping chamber with some food. We thought you’d both die, but you haven’t, though, Privet —”

  “She’s weak,” said Pumpkin.

  “Getting weaker in my view, and not a thing a mole can do about it. And what’s most strange, Rooster won’t help at all. Been to see her, talked about Silence, and voids, and so on and so forth which only got her agitated, and then left her to think about what he’d said!”

  Pumpkin smiled to himself, imagining the scene. Rooster might be many things but he was not a healer, or not in the normal sense of the word.

  “So now she’s fading away before our eyes and all Rooster does is gallivant about the system delving tunnels and burrows.”

  “Delving?”

  “Other moles” tunnels, not his own. One’s enough for him, thank you very much. No, he goes and helps others out, which is to say the moles who have settled back in the system down by Barrow Vale, and over on the wormful Westside. He’s helped a lot of the old moles who you led up into the Ancient System, I’ll say that much for him, including Elynor. He may be a Master for all I know, but all he does with his skills is make moles tunnels.”

  “Are they happy with what he delves for them?”

  “Happy? Of course they’re happy, Pumpkin! Wouldn’t you be happy if a great big brute of a mole came and delved out your springtime tunnels for you? I know I would!”

  Pumpkin grinned. “Ask him what he’s about then!”

  “Hmmph!” muttered Sturne.

  “Perhaps he’s keeping his paw in.”

  “He could keep his paw in in the Library, which is falling to rack and ruin and needs a delver. More than one in fact. But no, he won’t do it. Says the Duncton delving’s done, whatever that means. But at least he went over to Cuddesdon the moment the spring came.”

  “When was that? When did I go back to my own tunnels?”

  “Oh, that,” said Sturne vaguely. “It seemed moleweeks ago now, yes... but you remember!”

  “Yes, maybe I do,” said Pumpkin, giving up. What did it matter? “Privet was saying that she wants Loosestrife to visit her.”

  “Ah, well, I don’t know all the ins and outs of that. She’s had pups by Whillan and they’ve all been ill, that much I heard from Rooster himself. That’s why Whillan won’t leave Cuddesdon. Naturally Privet would like to see her daughter, never yet having done so, which seems hard even to a mole like me who’s never had a family. I would have thought that Loosestrife could have made the trek from Cuddesdon if she wanted.”

  “These things are sometimes best left until the right time,” said Pumpkin.

  “Like when?” said Sturne.

  Pumpkin looked about the High Wood, scented the balmy air, settled his belly into the warm litter more comfortably, and said, “Well, a day like this, only a little warmer. When April comes.”

  “It is April, mole.”

  “Well, then,” said Pumpkin, trying not to let his astonishment show, “later in April, when pups can travel a bit in safety and their parents don’t have to fret. If it was me I’d not let my pups travel till May-time.”

  “Well, anyway, that’s how it is. Now I’ve work to do, mole, and though I need a lot of help I won’t ask you in your weakened state.”

  “Come on, Sturne, you know it’s work that makes me well. Privet’s in good paws for now, and has visitors today, so I’ll come to the Library with you and see what you’ve been up to – Master Librarian! Well, then, it really came to pass.”

  “Aye,” said Sturne, “it does seem to have done...”

  But still, even now, even on a day such as this – perhaps especially on such a day, and with many more in prospect, Sturne looked bleak, and much alone.

  “It’s good to have your company, Pumpkin, it really is...”

  Sharing his tunnels as she now did, Pumpkin saw more of Privet than any other mole, and more privately too. The ready cheer of moles like Fieldfare, the rough good nature of Hamble, and the quiet faith of Arliss and Rees were well and fine, but they did not see how Privet collapsed the moment they had gone; nor did they hear the sighs and moans night after night, when she slipped into fretful sleep, and seemed to live again all those unimaginable days of her long and lonely spiritual quest for Silence, which being incomplete, seemed nothing but a failure to her now.

  She wept sometimes, and held his paw, nodding in the evening light, staring, worrying about shadows only she could see. The coughing, which had gone for a time, came back, a dry hacking thing to which Pumpkin would sometimes wake at night, and listen to wearily, until, unable to sleep, he would go to her and help her to the surface, to drink where the rain left water in a treetrunk cleft nearby. She would not go out by day at all, but on those nights she would sometimes linger for a moment or two, and stare up at the stars.

  Then, at the end of April, there came a night when she was too weak to move, and the coughing went on and he was unable to help her with it. On and on, dry as a scab, painful to listen to.

  “Pumpkin...”

  He woke to hear her calling his name, knowing as he did that she had called it several times because he could hear the echo of it in his troubled dreams, and went to her. Dawn had come, and somewhere not far off the first birds were beginning their songs.

  “The Book, my dear, reach it over to me.”

  The Book, which no visitor ever asked about. The Book, the quest for which had brought her so near death. It was only just beyond her flank, in the dark angle of the floor and wall, and yet she was too weak to reach it. He bent over her and put his paws to it. It was as heavy as ten moles. It filled him with fear.

  “Privet...” he gasped.

  She reached out to it to help him, and between them they placed it in front of her, panting together as if they had run up some great mountainside.

  “Turn its folios for me, my dear.”

  He did so, one by one, and in the gloom the scoring seemed luminous and rich, yet he knew it was unkennable. Lost words, scribing she had made and then destroyed.

  “This first folio is the last folio of the Book of Tales on which Keeper Husk worked all his life, and then, towards the end, began to unscribe and simplify. I wondered why at the time. Now I know. Well, he made a great thing, didn’t he? The first folio of the Book of Silence. Not so bad, Pumpkin.”

  “No, Privet.”

  “Turn another folio... and another, mole... go on...”

  He turned them one by one, and at each she had him pause while she reached out a paw to touch what she had unmade, smiling sometimes, or shedding a tear.

  “Past history, mole, all gone, all gone. So much. Rooster was right after all. He knew you see, he understood. And he still does.”

  “He’s gone to Cuddesdon once more, Privet, to see if Loosestrife will come.”

  “She’ll come in May and bring her pups for me to see. But Pumpkin, turn on, mole, turn on.”

  He turned the heavy, awkward, obstinate folios, sweating now, fearful of nothing in particular, seeming to see light glimmer on the walls, and imagining dangers.

  “This...” and she held her paw to a folio for what seemed to Pumpkin far too long.

  “Thripp,” she whispered, “I loved him so. Ecstasy, Pumpkin, he and I...” and she even laughed.

  On, on he turned the pages, struggling with them as he might down all the tunnels of her life, until he reached the folio on which so impulsively she had scribed her name when she first found the Book.

  “Ah...” she sighed, lightly touching th
e one perfect unscored folio, and peering at her own name, which seemed dark and shadowed, though it was surrounded with the light of untouched birch-bark. “My beginning and my end. How can I score it out? Pumpkin, it is too hard and too much to ask.”

  She shivered suddenly, eyes closed, but when he moved to put the Book back where it had been she held on to him, opened her eyes and told him to continue to the end. He turned the last few folios, all scribed and overscribed, all scored, all lost to whatever she had made.

  “Why?” he gently asked.

  She looked at him and said, “Sometimes I was lost in the beauty of what I became when, the words unscribed but their meaning and their memory remaining, I was one with them. I was, Pumpkin, as one with them as Rooster in the delve. But if... No, no, don’t tempt me. I could score out my name in a moment, and all the Book would be undone. It must be done truthfully and almost without thought. Each thing I cast out I did with struggle and with striving to reach the place where I could do it without thought. Quail talked of worms and snakes. Do you remember? Well then, these words of mine, these were the worms, these the snakes, and each one was hard. But that last one is hardest of all, and all the long way from Wildenhope to here, through landscapes I never knew were mine until I ventured into them, I tried to kill that worm, that dreadful snake that is harboured by my name. But I could not. I cannot.”

  “Do you still struggle, Privet? Do you still strive?”

  She started at his words and tone, which were not benign, and he was surprised himself.

  “I mean...” he stuttered.

  “Yes,” she said, “I do, mole, and I am not strong enough. I don’t know how to do it now. For this the Stone needs a different mole than I can be. Now, put it back, for I am very tired, and very weak. No visitors today.”

  He knew then that she was dying now, and that the Book had been too much. Such a thing was not for mortal mole to make.

  Visitors were turned away, all except Fieldfare who washed and cleaned her, turned her, and begged to stay with them.

  “Is she coming, is my Loosestrife coming?”

  “Soon, now, she’ll be with you soon.”

  The last day of April passed, night came and the stars shone, and all in Duncton knew that Privet was fading fast. A day more perhaps. Two at the most. And after that, well, at least she would suffer no more.

  “At least she seems to have no physical pain, Fieldfare,” whispered Pumpkin, outside his tunnels that night to take a breath of fresh night air. “But she is much distressed. The Book...”

  “It was not worth it, mole, it was a dream,” said Fieldfare firmly. “But no matter! Hamble will be back from Cuddesdon in the morning, and with more moles than just himself.”

  “How do you know?” asked Pumpkin.

  “I sent him there myself the night before last. ‘Hamble, beloved,’ says I, ‘enough is enough. I was the first mole to greet Privet all those years ago when she first came, and I reckon that gives me some rights!’

  “‘So what do you suggest I do?’ says he, tears in his eyes, bless him, for he loves her just as much as I do.

  “‘You go to Cuddesdon right now, dark or no dark, and you don’t dawdle because she’s near her end. You get that Rooster and you tell him Fieldfare says to get back to Duncton Wood immediately. And bring Loosestrife, because she can’t be as ill with birthing and pup-rearing now as her mother is with dying. And don’t forget the pups!’ That’s what I said, Pumpkin.

  “And Hamble said, being Hamble, ‘What about the pups? Aren’t they still too young to travel?’ Well, Pumpkin, I’m not a swearing mole in the normal course of events, unlike Chater used to be, but it would seem Chater taught me words I thought I had forgotten, because I said, ‘Look, Hamble, if the pups get tired, carry the little buggers!’”

  “Carry them?” repeated Pumpkin, reeling from this outburst. It was as if Fieldfare was suddenly her old self.

  “By the scruff of the neck!”

  “So when do you expect them to be here?” said Pumpkin faintly.

  “I told Hamble that if him and the others aren’t all here, and I mean here, not at the cross-under, by midday May Day, which is tomorrow, he could forget all about sharing a burrow with me any more. This cannot go on! Grandpups’ll do the trick. Always have and always will.”

  “Grandpups? Here?” said Pumpkin uneasily.

  “Right here,” said Fieldfare. “And when they come, make yourself scarce, Pumpkin.”

  “Scarce,” said Pumpkin unhappily. “She doesn’t like noise and lots of moles.”

  “They’re hers, mole, and that’s all that matters. Should have done it molemonths ago. I don’t know what Rooster’s playing at. You’re all the same – you and Sturne, and Rooster, no knowledge of pups and females at all. Whillan should have known better but then look who he was raised by! Privet! And you!”

  “You had a part in it, I seem to remember,” said Pumpkin.

  “Not a big enough part, it would seem!”

  In this kind of mood Fieldfare was not worth arguing with, as Pumpkin well knew. Many was the occasion when Chater had come to his tunnels for a break from her. And lately, Hamble too...

  “You’re right, of course,” said Pumpkin.

  “You’ll believe that as well as just say it, before long.”

  She left then, muttering as she went, but when morning came that was all forgotten. Privet would not eat, would hardly talk.

  “I think they may be coming today, Privet.”

  No reply.

  “Loosestrife’s coming, I’m sure she is.”

  Silence.

  “I hope they do.”

  Privet stared, and seemed so tiny.

  “Won’t you take some food?”

  She shook her head.

  “Or try to come outside?”

  She shook her head again, the slightest of movements.

  “When?” she whispered suddenly.

  “I’m not sure,” faltered Pumpkin. “Perhaps midday, perhaps in the afternoon.”

  “Midday,” she sighed hopelessly, as if it was too far off to wait, “midday.”

  No morning was ever so slow in Pumpkin’s whole life as that morning. Never before had he gone back and forth to the surface and down below so many times as on that morning, nor started at sounds across the wood so often, nor looked to see how high the sun had risen so many times; nor had he ever felt so sad.

  Sturne came by and was sent off at once, Pumpkin almost pushing him.

  “Who must I tell to hurry? Why, mole, why?”

  “Do it, Sturne, do it for your old friend Pumpkin. If you see Whillan and Hamble and... oh, just tell them to get a move on, will you!”

  “I will!”

  Then, before midday, the sun not yet at its height, but the day a good warm May Day, Privet turned away and into sleep.

  “Privet!”

  But she didn’t answer him.

  “Oh dear. Oh dear...” sobbed Pumpkin, “I don’t know, I’m not sure...”

  “Where?”

  “There.”

  “Here?”

  Their voices came drifting down into the burrow. One was Hamble’s, and sounded irritable. The other was a female’s and unknown to Pumpkin.

  “Oh! They’re here!” he said with relief. “I better go and see. Privet, there’s moles come.”

  She did not move, and for a dreadful moment he thought she might be... but on close examination her flank moved in, and out.

  “Well then,” he muttered feeling foolish. “Well...”

  “Mole!” the female’s voice called down.

  Pumpkin hurried up into the light and there she was, stanced right by the entrance. Beyond her were several moles: Rooster, looking ferocious; Hamble, being lectured by Fieldfare; Whillan, crouched down by two pups, and another one snouting about here and there the way pups do on a day in May when the scent’s good, and the place feels safe.

  “Loosestrife,” he said, smiling. She did not look like Privet, bei
ng larger, and with paler eyes. Thripp... she had his look about her. But warmth as well, and a look of concern.

  “You’re Pumpkin, the library aide,” she said, and took him in her paws. “Fieldfare said to do this,” she whispered in his ear, “said you’d like it! I hope you do!”

  How is it that some moles can win others’ hearts so quickly? Pumpkin’s was won in her embrace.

  “She isn’t well, not well at all,” he said.

  “I would have come sooner but I’ve been ill, and the pups all unwell, but suddenly, this last two days... and Hamble came. Where is she?”

  “I can show you. Or perhaps you should go with Whillan.”

  She shook her head and smiled, and suddenly he saw something of Privet in her.

  “No, I said I would go to her by myself at first. You show me where her burrow is, and then...”

  He showed her down, took her in, bent down to Privet and put his paw to her shoulder.

  “Loosestrife’s come,” he whispered. “She’s come to see you.”

  He stanced up and looked at Loosestrife who was staring down at Privet with horror in her eyes.

  “She is so small, so thin, and I thought...”

  “She is unwell,” he said softly, “and she needs you. Now, I shall leave you.”

  He turned from them, and as he left the chamber how could he not look round, if only for a moment?

  Loosestrife bent down as he had done, she put her paws to Privet’s hand, and whispered, “Mother,” and then she wept and held her close.

  As he left them Pumpkin heard Privet whisper, as only a mother can, “It’s all right, my dear, it’s all right...”

  He paused in the shadows by the entrance to his tunnels, embarrassed by his tears. Then, having wiped them away as best he could, he emerged into the light.

  “How is she?” asked Whillan, a pup at each of his flanks.

  “Better,” said Pumpkin truthfully.

  “And she’ll get better yet,” growled Rooster, fighting off the third pup, a male. “She’ll be stronger than us all by Midsummer.”

  “She’s been very ill,” said Pumpkin, beginning to wonder if he had dreamed it all.

  “What’s your name?” asked a female pup at Whillan’s flank.