The Tale of Briar Bank Page 7

  Bosworth had inherited the proprietorship of the inn from his father, Bosworth Badger XVI, along with the important responsibility of maintaining the official History of the Badgers of the Land Between the Lakes and its companion work, the Holly How Badger Genealogy, contained in several dozen leather-bound volumes in The Brockery’s library. Because earlier badger historians had recorded not only their own clan’s activities but those of a great many other animals as well (including the humans who lived in the village and on the nearby farms), the History was regarded as a reliable record of everything that went on in the Land Between the Lakes. When animals got into arguments about this or that, they consulted Bosworth, who would go to The Brockery’s library and look up the answer in the History.

  It was to the library that Bosworth had gone just now, with the intention of recording the extraordinary snowfall. This was the room the badger loved best, loved the cheerful fire (especially welcome on such a chilly day as today), the portraits of distinguished ancestral badgers on the walls, the comfortable leather chairs beside the fireplace, and the oil lamp casting its golden light over the heavy oak table he used as a desk. He was fond of the Badger Coat of Arms that hung over the fireplace, commemorating the family habit of diligent, dutiful industry. It pictured twin badgers rampant on an azure field and bore the Latin inscription:

  De parvis, grandis acervus erit

  In English, this reads From small things, there will grow a mighty heap, or (as the Lakelanders are fond of saying) Many a little make a mickle, Many a mickle makes a mile. It was a sentiment with which Bosworth heartily agreed.

  From the shelf, he pulled down the current volume of the History and sat down with it at the table. Arrayed in front of him on the blotter were his father’s heavy glass inkpot, an engraved silver letter opener that had been in his mother’s family for generations, and a silver cup containing his goose-quill pens, extra pencils, and a penknife for sharpening both—all very convenient and comfortable for a badger who enjoys his work as an historian. It was with considerable pleasure that Bosworth opened the book and found his place, directly under the entry he had made two days before: MR. Hugh Wickstead killed by a falling tree.

  Bosworth sighed when he saw the entry. It was always sad to record a death, whether it was the death of a hedgehog under the wheels of the drayman’s lorry or Mr. Wickstead, under a falling tree. But animals understand (better than humans, I fear) that this earth and the blue sky and the white clouds and the four seasons are all perfectly capable of going along on their cheerful, everyday way without the dear departed. So he dipped his quill into the silver inkpot and began to write, in a neat, careful script, beside the date: Heavy snowfall last night. 33 inches on the measuring stick beside the

  But “beside the—” was as far as he got, for out in the corridor there was a terrific clatter, the crash of breaking china, and a cry so loud that it startled Bosworth into dropping a large inkblot right in the center of the page.

  “Bother!” he muttered. “Blast.” Hurriedly, he blotted the ink to keep it from spreading. “What’s all that noise?” he called, irritated.

  The door opened and young Thorn came in, his nose rosy from the cold.

  “My fault, sir,” he said apologetically. “Flotsam was here with your tea and I bumped into her in the passageway. I’m afraid there’s a bit of a mess, but we’ll soon have it cleaned up.”

  Bosworth brightened at the thought of tea, and the scones that would go with it. Anyway, he found it difficult to be out of sorts with Thorn, his favorite young badger. The boy had a good heart and an excellent head, the two major characteristics of leadership. Bosworth hoped that someday he might pass on to him the Badger Badge of Authority, entitling him to manage The Brockery and record events in the History and Genealogy.

  “That’s all right, then,” he said. “I didn’t expect you back quite so soon, Thorn. Did you have a nice ramble in the snow?”

  “Not exactly.” Thorn’s face became serious. “I’ve brought Mr. Bailey Badger back with me.”

  “Bailey!” Bosworth exclaimed, surprised. “Why, I haven’t seen the fellow in months. He’s not the sort of creature who goes about dropping in on his friends. He doesn’t exactly encourage callers, either.”

  A distant relative (second cousin, twice removed), Bailey Badger lived near Moss Eccles Lake, in a very large and very old and mostly abandoned sett (in a sad state of disrepair, in Bosworth’s opinion) on the western side of Briar Bank. A bookish badger, Bailey almost never ventured far afield. He devoted his days to deep thought, reflection, and serious reading in the quite remarkable library that he had inherited from his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and to which he had himself added substantially over the years. A sardonic and unsociable animal, he preferred to live alone in his spartan bachelor digs, without any of the creature comforts that Bosworth himself enjoyed so immensely. In fact, Bosworth tried to plan his infrequent visits to his cousin so that he did not arrive at teatime, for Bailey’s menu was apt to consist of whatever happened to be in the larder at the moment: what was left of day-before-yesterday’s pork-pie, say, along with a slice of dry bread, a bit of cheese, and a swallow of dandelion wine.

  “But of course I’m always happy to see him,” Bosworth added, fearing that he might have sounded ungracious. “Bailey may not be the jolliest of animals, but he knows a great deal about a great many things, and what he doesn’t know, he can always look up in that library of his. Well, well. You say he’s dropped in for a visit? Where is he?”

  “Not ‘dropped in for a visit,’ exactly.” Thorn frowned. “I’ve left him in the kitchen, getting a bit of hot soup down him. He’s not in very good shape, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, dear! Whatever is wrong with the poor old chap?” Bosworth asked. But by that time, he was making for the door, and in less time than it takes to tell it, he was in the kitchen at the end of the corridor. There, he found the badger, his fur deplorably damp, huddled in a rocking chair by the fire crackling in the open hearth. Parsley’s knitted shawl was draped over his head and shoulders, Bosworth’s winter plaid was spread across his knees, and a tray sat on his lap. A fresh white bandage was wound around his right paw. With his left, he was clumsily dipping a spoon into a bowl of hot chicken broth.

  “Well, for pity’s sake, if it isn’t Bailey!” Bosworth said warmly. “Welcome, old chap, welcome! I’m delighted to see you!” He said nothing for the moment about that bandaged paw, for the Badgers’ Thirteenth Rule of Thumb states very clearly that it is impolite to inquire about a colleague’s ragged ear or missing tail or other injuries. Humans are regrettably fond of setting traps and snares. Poor old Bailey, whose eyesight was not the best, must have stumbled upon one of them.

  “Well, to be perfectly frank, I’ve had a devil of a time.” Bailey’s voice was gruff and he wore a scowl. But his expression lightened when he glanced at Thorn, who was pouring out fresh cups of tea for all of them, whilst Parsley bustled about, piling fresh scones on a plate and getting out pots of marmalade and strawberry jam. “If it hadn’t been for your boy here, I’d be a gone goose, I’ll tell you.”

  “A gone goose?” Bosworth exclaimed, staring. “Why, whatever do you mean, Bailey?”

  “I mean that he fished me out of Moss Eccles.” Bailey slid a glance at Thorn, grudgingly admiring. “Brave, I’d call it. Excessively brave.”

  “Not at all,” said Thorn, his ears pinking at the edges. “I only ventured out on the ice a bit and extended a branch. Any other animal would have done just as well.” He began handing the teacups round. “It’s a good thing you’re a strong swimmer, Mr. Bailey. You were able to stay afloat until help arrived.”

  Bosworth pulled up a chair and sat down. “But Moss Eccles!” He shook his head in wonderment. “Why, my dear fellow, however did you come to fall into the lake?”

  “I didn’t ‘fall,’ ” Bailey said defensively. “That isn’t how it happened.”

  “It was the ice, sir,” Thorn said, tak
ing a scone and sprawling on the floor in front of the hearth. “From the shore, it looks perfectly strong, but in places it just isn’t quite thick enough. A mouse or a rabbit might have made it all the way across, but a badger—”

  “It’s a good thing that ice was thin, I’ll tell you,” Bailey interrupted. He was shivering again, uncontrollably, and his teeth began to chatter. “If I hadn’t dived into that lake, I’d be a dead duck.”

  Bosworth frowned, confused. “But I don’t understand, dear fellow. Why should you want to dive into the water at this time of year? I can understand the attraction of a cooling swim in July or August—I’ve done the same myself. But December?”

  Bailey took a gulp of hot tea. “You won’t believe me,” he said gruffly. “So why should I go to the bother of telling you?”

  “Of course we’ll believe you,” Bosworth assured him, in the sort of humoring tone you might use if you are talking to someone who has been recently ill and needs an extra bit of coddling. “Whyever wouldn’t we?”

  Bailey looked into his teacup. “Because,” he muttered.

  “Don’t be a foolish animal,” Bosworth said affectionately. “We want to hear the whole thing, from beginning to end. Don’t we, Thorn?”

  “Indeed we do,” said Thorn, and settled himself to listen.

  But Bailey’s tale is rather a long one, and he has a way of taking a while to get to the point. I’m afraid we can’t stop to listen right now, because it’s time that we learned what is in that letter that the Kendal Bank sent to Mr. and Mrs. Sutton. I promise you, though, that we will make a special attempt to catch up to Bailey Badger’s story as quickly as we can, and that you won’t miss a single word.

  6

  Deirdre Makes a Frightening Discovery

  As you have probably suspected, Deirdre was right to dread Mrs. Sutton’s response to the letter from the Kendal Bank. When she returned from the post office, she took off her coat and boots and sent Libby and Jamie and Mouse out to play with their sleds on the hill behind Courier Cottage. The youngest Suttons were taking their morning naps, except for Lillian, who was helping Mrs. Pettigrew, the Suttons’ cook-housekeeper, by peeling potatoes. Deirdre stopped to admire her work, then took the envelope and made for the dispensary at the back of the house.

  Tabitha Twitchit, an elderly but still-spry calico cat, tagged along to see if her recent discussion with the mice who lived behind the baseboard in the dispensary had had the desired effect. Tabitha had been invited to take the post of Chief Mouser at Belle Green when Miss Tolliver died and Miss Barwick inherited Anvil Cottage. When the Belle Green barn was cleared of mice, Tabitha had packed her bags and moved down the hill to Courier Cottage, where she set up housekeeping in the attic. She was most welcome, too, for there had been no cats at Courier for several years, and the mice had rather made themselves at home. Tabitha was the senior village cat, and other cats could be heard to say that her age was slowing her down. But her years had given her a great deal of experience when it came to mouse-management, and it took only a few days to make it very clear to the Courier Cottage mice that a new Chief Mouser was in charge and they had better make themselves scarce or else. (Tabitha had been at the business long enough to know that a good bargain tasted much better than a mouthful of mouse.)

  The dispensary was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of gleaming glass bottles with carefully hand-printed labels that always fascinated Deirdre: Tincture of Camphor, Sugar of Lead, Perchloride of Mercury, Gentian Violet, Castor Oil. On the floor were wooden bins filled with empty medicine bottles, variously sized corks, pill boxes, and powder papers. Against another wall stood a white-painted glass-fronted cabinet, in which porcelain trays held hypodermic syringes, forceps, probes, and tweezers with oddly shaped tips. The door in that wall led into the surgery, but Mr. Sutton wasn’t there. He had left the morning before to treat a sick horse on the other side of Esthwaite Water, and planned to go on to visit several other patients. With the snow, it was likely that he wouldn’t be back for two or three days.

  Against one wall of the dispensary, in front of a window, stood a scarred wooden desk and a chair with a green corduroy cushion, where Mrs. Sutton worked on the veterinary accounts. When Deirdre and Tabitha came into the room, they found her seated at the desk with a heap of papers and customers’ bills in front of her. A slim, pretty woman with bright hazel eyes and an unruly mop of brown hair that tore itself loose from its moorings five minutes after it was pinned up, Mrs. Sutton did not look nearly old enough to be the mother of eight children. At the moment, in fact, she looked very young indeed, and on the edge of tears, pushing the papers away impatiently, as if she could not bear the sight of them for another minute. But she brightened when Deirdre came in.

  “Oh, good, it’s the post,” she said, with an artificial cheeriness, “come to rescue me from these utterly boring accounts. Thank you, Deirdre, my dear. You’ve brought me a book, I hope.” Mrs. Sutton (who would much rather be reading a romantic novel than working at the desk or darning heels on socks) subscribed to a lending library that dispatched books through the post.

  “No book today, I’m afraid,” Deirdre said apologetically. She put the bundle of post on the desk, the bank’s letter on top. Mrs. Sutton’s eyes widened when she saw it, and her face grew pale. She gave a little cry, shrinking away from it as if it were a bomb that might go off in her face.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered in a frightened voice. “Not that. Oh, please, not that. I really can’t bear it. I’m sure I can’t bear it at all! Especially now, with dear Mr. Sutton away.”

  “Why?” Deirdre asked. “What does the bank want?”

  Now, this may seem to you to be a rather impertinent question, coming from a mere household servant. But Deirdre had lived with the Suttons for over three years now, and was a member of the family. More than that, she was an important member of the family. Mrs. Sutton relied on her for so much where the children were concerned. And not just the daily work, either, baths and hair ribbons and shoelaces and tea and that sort of thing. Mrs. Sutton always asked Deirdre what should be done when the children were ill or out-of-sorts, or when they needed new clothes or shoes. She also asked her advice when it came to running the household and dealing with things that needed to be repaired, or bought, or thrown away.

  Of course, Mrs. Sutton might have asked the cook-housekeeper. But whilst Mrs. Pettigrew was quite good at putting a dinner together out of practically nothing (if necessary) and dealing with the laundry and the cleaning, she wasn’t at all good at management, and since she was really rather deaf, there was no point in asking her advice about anything at all. And it was no good asking Mr. Sutton, either, for he was dreadfully busy with his veterinary practice and inclined to become vague when asked his opinion about family matters. So Mrs. Sutton had got into the habit of depending on Deirdre, who, when you get right down to it, was a very dependable young person indeed.

  But I shouldn’t like you to think that Mrs. Sutton lacks the skill or the temperament to manage the children and the household, or that she is avoiding her responsibilities as a mother and wife. It is true that she is inclined to be excitable and that she occasionally flees into the garden with a book, just to get away from the children’s noise and the household hurly-burly. And it has to be admitted (as Mr. Sutton is wont to remind her when things get into a muddle) that sums are not her strong point, to which she usually retorts that, yes indeed, she is an awful muff at keeping accounts and wouldn’t it be better if Mr. Sutton would arrange for someone else—someone with a better head than hers—to step in and straighten everything out? Her husband is just as vague about the accounts as he is about family matters, however, so Mrs. Sutton is left to get along by herself as best she can.

  But Mrs. Sutton’s chief difficulty is that she is terribly overworked. Eight children are rather a lot for one mother to manage, as I daresay you will agree. And she is often required in Mr. Sutton’s surgery, for although a village boy comes in to help, he isn’t al
ways available when he is most needed. And there are the accounts, and bills, and the medicines and surgical supplies to deal with, together with the many things that are required to keep a veterinarian’s business operating.

  All in all, whilst Mrs. Sutton always tried her very best, she often had the feeling that things were quite out of control, which was in fact true. And so she often turned to Deirdre, whom she knew to have a good head on her shoulders, not to mention a stiff spine, a strong pair of arms, and a great willingness to help.

  Which is why Deirdre felt able to ask again, very gently, “What does the bank want now, Mrs. Sutton?”

  “Ah, it’s the bank, is it?” Tabitha Twitchit said. She wound herself around Mrs. Sutton’s ankles in a comforting sort of way. “Banks are a world of trouble.”

  “What do banks always want?” Mrs. Sutton wailed despairingly. “Money, of course! The mortgage-money payment on this house, which is overdue by three months.”

  “But shouldn’t you open the envelope and see what the letter says?” Deirdre asked reasonably.

  Mrs. Sutton picked up the envelope in one hand and the letter opener in the other, and slit the envelope. Then she dropped both. “I can’t bear to look at it!” she exclaimed, putting her hands over her eyes as if to close out the sight. “We have no money to pay the mortgage, whatever it is. We have no money because nobody pays us!”