The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror(34)

Outside, the sun had vanished into the thick bank of clouds that banded the horizon, draining the street of every color but blue and darker blue. Hasty streetlights popped on in succession and threw bright pyramids of yellow against the sidewalk. A dozen footprints muttered past the doorway, but none stopped, and the door still did not open.

David pulled his cigarette case out from his jacket pocket and swung it all the way around the hinges until the sides met in reverse with a tinny little report. He distinctly heard his own name being pronounced in a feminine accent through the wall and jumped up from his seat, setting his ear against the door and straining to hear another “David, David.” Alison was standing just outside—one of her hands was resting lightly on the knob, even now, ready to turn—and she had spoken his name, and Tess had heard it. Her face was already turned back in from the street—it turned, it was turning in his direction—and she was telling Tess that it was time to come inside.

He did not look out the window into the blurring street scene again, and he did not touch the handle of the door; for, he thought rather wildly to himself, if he were to try to look before they were ready to come inside, he might not see them at all; they might flash like birds down the street. He was seized with the notion that perhaps they had done so already, that the coiled, pleased voices hanging just outside were all that remained of either of them, and that soon, soon, now they would dissolve into the thickening night, and he would never see them again.

He suddenly had a picture in his mind of himself, running out the front door and grabbing each passerby in turn, asking if they had please seen his wife, that he was expecting her. Then he saw them spreading their hands, smiling and refusing him gently, denying that she was his wife, that he had ever had a wife to begin with, that he had any right to be out on the street at all, collaring strangers and asking about a woman he had no part in. They might send him back inside, or throw him in prison for disturbing the peace, and so he did not move. She would come back, but not if he went out to find her, not if he stirred in the slightest from where he sat now. He would wait, and he would earn her. She had the ring. She had not liked it, but she wore it on her hand just the same, and that was sign enough. When she came back, he would never let her wear gloves again. He saw a horse’s head, black-eyed and staring, fixed over the door, dripping and speechless.

He flipped his cigarette case open again and rested his chin against the door. There were still voices, softer now, falling every moment into a sweeter, deeper register he could not make out, and he wept a little at the loveliness of the vanishing sound. Soon—soon—now Alison was going to open the door and step inside. Tomorrow they were going to be married.





EIGHT

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Mr. Toad

It was a bright morning in the early days of summer. Shortly after breakfast there came a knock at Mole’s door. “See who it is, Mole, like a good fellow,” Rat said. “I am attending to my egg.”

Mole went to the door and uttered a cry of surprise. Then he threw the door open and announced (with an air of great importance), “Mr. Badger, welcome!”

“The hour has come!” declared Badger with great solemnity—or with as much solemnity as one could muster while wielding a boathook—as he stepped over the threshold.

“What hour?” asked Rat, looking over at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“Whose hour, you should rather say,” replied Badger. “Why, Mr. Toad’s hour! The hour of Toad! We said we would take him in hand as soon as the winter was well over, and we are going to take him in hand today!”

“Toad’s hour—of course!” cried Mole in delight. “Hooray! I remember now! We’ll teach him to be sensible!”

“How right you are,” said Rat. “We’ll rescue the poor, unhappy animal! We’ll convert him—why, he’ll be the most converted Toad there ever was by the time we’re done with him.”

“This very morning,” continued Badger, settling into an armchair, “as I learned last night from a trustworthy source, another new and exceptionally powerful motorcar will arrive at Toad Hall. At this very moment, perhaps, Toad is busy readying himself to take a trip, without any of his friends. He may even now be preparing to run away from his friends who love him.”

“Even now,” Mole said, “he may be arraying himself in those disgusting motoring clothes which transform him from a comparatively bearable-looking Toad into an Object that throws any decent-minded person who comes across it into a violent fit.”

“A most violent fit,” Rat said. “Violent violent violent.”

“Shall I bring a boathook, too?” Mole asked.

“I don’t think so,” Badger said. “You might bring a heavy blanket, or a tarpaulin, in case we have to Drown him.”

“I don’t believe we have ever Drowned Toad before,” Mole said. “I suppose Helping is a bit like Drowning.”

“Whatever you’re going to bring along with you,” Badger said, “you’d better fetch it quick. We must be up and about, before it is too late and Toad gets away without any Help at all. You two had better come with me to Toad Hall, and we can start the work of rescuing him.”

“A most violent fit,” Rat said again. “A violent violent fit.”