Toad Triumphant

by William Horwood

  He was propped up on cushions on a carved oak settee and constantly sighing and mopping his brow, which was scarcely surprising since the conservatory was very warm indeed.

  “Pray close the door, Ratty there’s a good fellow, for the draught may give me a fever. ‘‘

  “I should say the temperature in here will give you that,” said the Rat shortly “if it has not done so already.”

  “Please don’t vex me,” rejoined Toad, sitting up a little, “for I have a very great deal on my mind and need a period of calm so that I may prepare myself for the ordeal ahead.”

  “Ordeal?” said the Water Rat. “I thought we had come for a preliminary sitting before an artist of some kind —”

  A look of exasperation crossed Toad’s face, and resignation as well, such as passes across the face of a parent who must explain something to a child who seems likely to have difficulty understanding it.

  “This afternoon an artist, a world-famous sculptress no less, will commence an important undertaking in this very room, or possibly on the terrace outside. I cannot say. We do not put fetters upon such people.”

  “Certainly not,” said the Otter heartily winking at the Rat.

  Toad thought he was sincere and declared, “You are a good fellow, Otter, and I will put a good word in for you so that you too might find some role, albeit a small and inconsequential one, in the great enterprise which is shortly to begin.”

  “That’s very decent of you, Toad,” said the Otter with a broad smile.

  “Humph!” said the Badger and the Rat almost together, for both felt that Toad was making a great deal of fuss about nothing. Both regretted that they could not be more blunt on the point, but with Toad there was always the very real risk of provoking precisely the opposite reaction to that intended. Who could be sure that the wrong word said now, or too harsh a handling of their errant friend, might not provoke so volatile a seed as the idea of matrimony which the Mole had so unfortunately sown here at Toad Hall, into escalating and unstoppable growth?

  The Badger and the Rat were hardened campaigners where Toad was concerned, and instinctively sensed that to cast doubt upon the artistic enterprise Toad seemed determined to engage in, or to belittle it in any way might very easily have the dire effect of thrusting the “world-famous sculptress” he had commissioned into his hapless arms. Nothing turns a fellow into the role of protector, not to say lover, more speedily than to suggest that the lady may be less than she seems, and that his rising affections might be misplaced.

  Such a mistake can all too easily turn passing acquaintance into undying love, and an unscrupulous female can very rapidly turn a mere declaration of undying love into a bond both spiritual and secular that only death can put asunder. Though they had not talked about it in so many words, both the Badger and the Rat understood that this was the main thrust and danger of the situation, and they knew that defusing it would need some care.

  The Otter was sitting comfortably nearby drinking tea and examining with interest the pages of a periodical placed prominently upon a low table. It was ominously entitled Ladies Home Journal and its cover was so bold in colour and design that anyone seeing it in a bachelor’s quarters might very well conclude that matters were critical indeed.

  The forces of those of the female persuasion seemed already to have outflanked the Badger and his friends by placing such provocative literature under Toad’s nose. For which reason, perhaps, the Badger was restless, and paced up and down by the huge panels of glass that looked out onto the newly completed terrace and the garden beyond, pulling out his pocket-watch at frequent intervals.

  “Mole, my dear old friend, are you there?” whispered Toad feebly affecting not to see him. “And you as well, Ratty? Come to me, for it is painful to open my eyes. Come nearer where I may more easily hear your familiar voices.”

  Toad was surrounded by potted plants of all shapes and sizes and he held a fan of Japanese decoration and design in one hand; with the other he clung on to the comfort of a spotted handkerchief perfumed with lemon balm, a resuscitative stimulant for invalids who have a social afternoon to survive.

  They went to him together, the Rat showing signs of impatience, but the Mole with much concern, for their friend did after all seem ill indeed. Toad groaned a little as they pulled up chairs to sit by him, as if the noise of the chairs’ legs scraping on the conservatory’s tiled floor was almost too much to bear.

  “O!” he sighed, and, “Aah!”

  ‘But, Toad, you seemed in perfectly good health yesterday afternoon,” said the Mole in alarm. “What has made you ill?”

  “I am not ill, dear Mole. Rather, I am composing myself and I beg you to do the same, for the Madame will commence the sitting very shortly. Pray tell me, Badger, what time is it?”

  “Two minutes to three,” answered the Badger indifferently for something else had occurred to him: “You described your cousin as ‘the Madame’, Toad. You surely cannot mean —?”

  “Indeed I do,” said Toad with great relish. “My family is cast far and wide in many climes and countries. My cousin, this famous artist, the Madame, is French.”

  It need hardly be said that this item of information, cast up so lightly by Toad, caused confusion and consternation all about. Dealing with an English female person was one thing, but a French female was something very different, and possibly far beyond their combined capabilities. Especially if she set her chapeau at Toad.

  “When you say she is French,” said the Badger very irritably “you mean she is from France, and if she is an artist that means she is from Paris, perhaps, which the world knows is chock-a-block with artists and bohemians. It was not wise, Toad, or reasonable to invite a former enemy of this realm to —”

  “O, you can be impatient with me, Badger, and you can scold me if you must, but before my cousin Madame d’Albert I beg you to be courteous and kind. She is a sculptress unlike others, who sees something where those who are her inferiors see nothing. Her gifts are legion, her talents formidable, and such works as she has so far deigned to give the world are —”

  “Toad,” said the Badger severely “are you making this up?”

  “I certainly am not. The Madame, suspecting there was a family connection between us, wrote to me and I wrote back, idly mentioning that I was thinking of commissioning a bust of myself. Great artist that she is, she responded immediately saying that she wished to take up this challenge, and she has been kind enough to send me a copy of a magazine in which a great deal of space has been devoted to her art, and it is from that I quoted.

  “Otter, pray pass the Journal to our doubting friend, or, if you will, read us a little from it to pass the time agreeably till she comes.”

  The Otter was only too glad to read aloud, though the Badger and the Rat would have preferred him not to, but having found the article in question, and that part of it Toad had just quoted, he proceeded thus:

  Madame d’Albert, as she modestly prefers to be known, or Countess Florentine d’Albert-Chapelle, to use the title which her celebrated marriage into one of the most ancient aristocratic French families bestowed upon her, informs us that the Spirit of Art has long moved in her veins.

  It is easy to imagine the happiness with which the Badger and the others heard this welcome passage, for it seemed that she was already married, and unless the Countess wished to become a bigamist Toad was safe from her. They looked at each other with relief, and rubbed their hands with satisfaction. But no sooner were their hopes thus raised, than they were dashed back down to the ground by the passage that followed:

  Following her late husband’s demise, and discovering that all the family’s fortunes had been lost in unfortunate speculations, the Countess decided to eschew her nobility and follow her Muse to study Art under the formidable direction of Monsieur Auguste Rodin, the Parisian sculptor.

  Her remarkable ‘fall” from the fame and untold wealth of a French Countess into the role of an obscure étudiante d’art under a mast
er whose harsh discipline is as notorious as his works are increasingly famous has only been matched since by her rise to an artistic notoriety that owes nothing to inherited wealth and social position.

  Imbued with that selfless philosophy from the East of which Madame Blavatsky and her fellow Theosophists are the best-known proponents, which invites its followers to engage in charitable works and anonymity, Madame d’Albert is presently engaged on a world publicity tour. In the course of this she has become almost as famous as her mentor Rodin, all against her wishes, and wants nothing of the wealth, the acclaim, and admiring solicitation that her many male admirers wish to bestow on her.

  “Simplicity of Art and a tranquil life are what I am — how do you say in your tongue so difficile — seeking for!” she says in English made charming and romantic by an accent that marks her out as coming from the country that has given the world haute couture, haute cuisine, and more recently the Eiffel Tower.

  “Once I had all, but I had nothing,” she says, “now I have nothing and I have all, so I am not sad for the old days when my late husband lived. No one can take the ache from out of my heart, so I am alone forever! Art alone is my love now; Art, he is my God; Art, he I most adore!”

  “Is there much more of this?” asked the Badger who was stirred to an advanced state of agitation at these words, redolent of trouble and humbug as they were.

  “Not much,” sang out the Otter cheerfully.

  Madame d’Albert has spent the winter season in New York creating likenesses of those members of Society who have persuaded her of their sincerity in their affections towards High Art, and are willing to show their appreciation to her in a practical way She never discusses the matter of fees, believing that to do so is to do a disservice to the Art she serves, but, as she has been quoted as saying, “to pay too little for that which is priceless is, as we say in my country, ignoble.”

  Now, New York’s loss is London’s gain, for Madame d’Albert intends to spend the Summer Season there, and sails imminently Though we are informed that she has private business there, and intends to pursue delicate enquiries concerning relatives with whom her family tragically lost touch some years ago, we understand that genuine artistic commissions for execution during her stay will be considered, and applications should be made care of the Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly.

  “And it is your intention to have this female lady staying here with you alone tonight?” demanded the Badger. He looked as dark and threatening as any had ever seen him. Only as he spoke did the Otter, who had read so lightly the passage that exercised the Badger so much, understand how grave the matter was. Never had anything so scandalous, so thoroughly dangerous, threatened the peace and tranquillity of the River Bank before.

  “O, please, Badger, do not speak so loud or look so peeved,” said Toad.

  “Peeved!” thundered the furious Badger.

  “My cousin Madame d’Albert has spent a night here with me before —”

  A stunned silence met this astonishing statement for, if it were true, the situation was far worse than they had feared. The Badger and the others had been outflanked, outwitted and left very far behind by a loose French lady whom none of them had even met!

  But the Badger was not one to let such reverses get him down. Where truth and honour were concerned his sword was mighty, and his determination formidable.

  “You mean you have been conducting a dalliance at Toad Hall, and intend to continue it now under the guise of this ‘sitting’,” said he, advancing upon Toad. “And you expect us, your friends, who have done so much to help you in the past, to aid and abet this Madame, this Gallic strumpet, this —”

  “I have indeed spent a night with the lady in question here in Toad Hall before now,” he offered quite without apology, before adding with something of a mischievous glint in his eye and a shamelessness that infuriated the Badger still further, “but I cannot say that she made sufficient impression on me even to remember what she looks like. How should I remember so inconsequential a thing? And anyway Badger, you really ought to know that —”

  “Toad!” cried the appalled Badger. “You shamelessly tell us that a matter that has gone so far that it could scarcely go further, is merely ‘inconsequential’!”

  “But, Badger, how can I be expected to remember something that happened when I was so very young, and she was younger still? Indeed, by rights it is you who ought to remember it, for were you not a friend of my late father, and as a regular visitor to Toad Hall privy to much that occurred here in the years immediately before my birth? Might you remember better than I my half-uncle’s last doomed visit here, when he came for a single night with my half-cousin Florentine, now Madame d’Albert, then but a few months old?”

  Toad thoroughly enjoyed making this speech with its combination of revelation, injured pride and innocent childhood days, not to mention that it was all too plain that Toad had cleverly let the Badger dig the hole into which he had fallen. Indeed, the Badger was about to express his chagrin at Toad’s shoddy deception, when he was interrupted by the timely arrival of Prendergast.

  With a discreet “Ahem!” he appeared suddenly in the doorway that led into the conservatory from the main house, and waited for a moment before making his announcement. “The Countess Florentine d’Albert-Chapelle has sent her apologies, sir, that her toilette has taken longer than she expected and she wishes you to know that she will be a few minutes more.”

  “Aha!” cried Toad, leaping to his feet, the success of his argument with the Badger having served to effect a very rapid recovery of his health and spirits. “Tell her not to hurry on our account.”

  “I shall convey that message to her maid, sir,” said the butler with all propriety.

  “Quite so. When the lady honours us with her presence bring in some tea, will you?”

  The Butler hesitated for a moment before saying, “I hope I have your approval, sir, but the Countess asked that tea should not be served till the sitting is completed:’ Here the butler paused sufficiently to establish a note of disapproval. “She was quite insistent on the matter, sir.”

  “O, indeed,” said Toad, somewhat deflated. He liked his tea, and knew that his friends did as well. “Well, I suppose —”

  With that Prendergast slid discreetly away.

  The Badger, hearing what had been said, felt a sudden surge of relief and hope. It was plain that the butler was not much taken with the Countess, and whilst the Badger had no wish at all to return to the days of wars against the French, he knew very well that in the normal circumstances of battle — those of Agincourt and Waterloo came immediately to mind —several battalions of French Countesses would be no match for a solitary platoon of well-trained English butlers, while in single combat there would be no contest at all. This, then, promised hope of a formidable ally in the battle to protect Toad from the French female.

  “He seems a very sensible fellow, your new butler,” said the Badger.

  Toad beamed smugly and winked at the Mole. He proceeded to repeat the history of Prendergast’s employment that he had already given in so much detail to the Mole some weeks before.

  Toad’s self-satisfied account of his employment of Prendergast — the others had been able to surmise rather more of the butler’s reasons for taking the post than Toad himself had guessed — was interrupted by the chimes of a clock striking three, and the sound of the door into the conservatory opening once more.

  “Gentlemen, the Countess —”

  Prendergast’s august and measured introduction was interrupted by its subject, who passed him by without a glance and began an extraordinary and to the assembled males terrifying, advance upon them all.

  She was undeniably an artist, for her dress was wild and strange, and in parts shockingly coloured, and so startling in its overall effect that it took some little while for an individual’s eyes to pick out the details. To say that her basic garment was a utilitarian smock of the kind male sculptors habitually wear as they chip at st
one or knead at clay is to do no different than elevating the cloth cap of the working classes to the shiny top hat of a prosperous industrialist.

  The “smock” was made of the finest damask and very white indeed, and certainly not sullied by clay or oil paints, turpentine or the dust and grime that comes with labouring over rock. Its brilliance was enhanced by the silken flowing drift of a white scarf so gossamer-light that it flowed out behind her like the fronds of an exotic weeping tree caught by a wild breeze. The rapid motion of her advance daringly revealed ankles clad in startling white stockings, while about her head was a scarlet turban of arabesque effect with silks and ribbons of many hues.

  Her face seemed brightly lit, as if caught by rays of sun that shone through the panes of a gothic stained-glass window: blues and blacks about the eyes, rouges and reds about the cheeks and mouth, and the sparkle of rubied jewellery pendant from her ears.

  Her bosom, which was of sufficient dimension that it was by some way the first part of her that advanced, remaining well ahead of her legs and arms throughout her entry, was covered with shining gold and pearls — a brooch, several necklaces.

  “Toad, my love, my lost cousin!” she cried in a voice that was as loud as it was bold. “I am come back ‘ere to you!”

  Confronted by this startling and dazzling apparition, Toad did his best to stand his ground, till he finally weakened and sought to escape towards the Otter.

  But it was too late. His cousin’s reach was long, long indeed, and her grasp strong, her pull formidable. Toad found himself enveloped in one who was bigger than he in all directions, whose embrace was suffocating, whose cries of recognition and welcome were ecstatic, and whose perfume was dizzily overpowering.