The Little Gentleman Read online

  Moon was much older now; but Bet suspected that he was still interested. Regularly, however, when she went out to the log, Moon was shut away into the cottage with Mrs Allum, in kitchen or scullery or wherever she happened to be working.

  Arrangements are seldom perfect.

  One day, when Bet was halfway across the meadow, she heard from the cottage behind her sounds of consternation and calling. Somebody – Mr Franklin or her grandmother – was shouting her name; and, even as Bet paused to look back and listen, a white shape shot past her: Moon, leaping lightly and very fast and going in the same direction – towards the log.

  Startled, Bet looked at once to the log and now could see grassy topsoil heaving up into a ridge: the mole, uneasy at using always the same exit hole, had decided to approach the log this time by a surface tunnel, only a few inches deep. Bet could see earth heaving and crumbling – and so, apparently, could Moon. The cat was by now only a few feet away from whatever was happening. He dropped down into a crouch, absolutely attentive, every muscle ready for the pounce when the ridge-maker should emerge.

  ‘Tirra-lirra!’ screamed Bet, at a pitch and in a style quite unlike anything the bold Sir Lancelot might have used. The mole heard. For a split second his tunnelling froze. Then it resumed, but steeply and frantically downwards.

  And Moon?

  The cat, at Bet's wild cry, missed his pounce – and was also instantly aware of the danger behind him. Indeed, Bet had heaved up in both hands over her head The Complete Poetic Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and now hurled it overarm in the direction of Moon with a force which she had never imagined that she possessed – and then toppled face down among the plantains and daisies. She hardly had time to realize the mole's dive underground into safety.

  If Lord Tennyson had reached Moon, the weight could have flattened him, or at least winded him, but the book fell short, with a thud. The cat had sprung forward into a swift zigzag, stopping only at a safe distance to look back at the girl and what she had thrown, both grounded now, yards apart, harmless. He sat down and began – perhaps a little shakily – to groom himself.

  From the cottage Mr Franklin and Mrs Allum had heard Bet's scream and seen her pitch violently forward with the force of her own hurling. They hurried from the cottage as fast as Mrs Allum's stoutness and Mr Franklin's lameness would allow. Mrs Allum, ahead, tried to open the meadow gate, failed, and at once – to Mr Franklin's amazement – began to climb it. In this, surprisingly, she was not unskilful – but, after all, Mr Franklin realized, she had once been a young woman; before that, a girl. When she reached the top, she simply fell off, down into the meadow, then picked herself up again, and blundered on towards Bet, already crying out to her, ‘You all right, girl? Oh, how's my girl, then?’ She seemed a ridiculous figure; and yet Mr Franklin did not feel like laughing.

  Mrs Allum reached her granddaughter, knelt by her, spoke to her, coaxed her to sit up, stand up. Then she fetched the Tennyson from where it lay and, carrying it, led Bet back to the meadow gate. Mr Franklin had had time to get the gate open, and followed them into the cottage.

  In the past, Mrs Allum had always refused to break off her work to take even a quick cup of tea. Today Mr Franklin insisted on tea for all of them, with milk and with plenty of sugar ‘against the shock we've all had’. He also felt that the time had come for Mrs Allum to have some explanation of what had been going on in the meadow.

  He began by explaining that there was a mole who surfaced when Bet sat on the log.

  ‘I knew that,’ said Mrs Allum. ‘I've good eyes in my head: I don't need a spyglass.’ This was a reference to Mr Franklin's binoculars.

  Mr Franklin proceeded with his explanations. This mole was an exceptional – an amazingly unusual – specimen. It had language, it liked to be read to, and to talk.

  Mrs Allum listened without interruption to what Mr Franklin had to say. Only when she was sure he had quite finished, did she speak: ‘A mole – yes. A mole that's half tame – yes. But a mole that listens and talks – no. That's the fancy that you have between you.’ (She was including Bet with Mr Franklin in what she said.) ‘Bet's only a child still, and has childish fancies. And you, Mr Franklin, sir – I remember your auntie saying you were a great reader of books.’ Mrs Allum shook her head in deep regret. ‘Reading like that isn't good for the brain. Tires it and over-excites it.’ She sighed. ‘You mean no harm, Mr Franklin, but what you've told me don't make sense. Fairy-tale stuff. It can't happen; so it hasn't happened.’ She stacked the cups and saucers for the washing-up and now heaved herself to her feet to deliver her final judgement: ‘Stands to reason.’

  Mrs Allum left them for the scullery. When they were alone together, facing each other over what had been the tea table, Mr Franklin said, ‘Well, I didn't get very far with your grandmother on that subject.’

  ‘No,’ said Bet.

  He said, ‘You know, Bet, you acted with great presence of mind just now, in the meadow. You saved the mole's life.’

  ‘No,’ said Bet.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Mr Franklin. ‘Don't be modest. That cat would have caught the mole and killed him.’

  ‘He'd have caught him,’ Bet agreed wearily; ‘he might have hurt him badly, but I'm almost sure he couldn't have killed him. Because, I think…’ She sighed: it was too difficult a thing to explain just now. Her voice trailed away.

  Mr Franklin said gently, ‘We won't argue, Bet. But what's clear is that a mole, like any other wild animal, is always at risk of sudden death. Moreover, the natural life of a mole is, anyway, comparatively short. Five years, at the most.’ Bet opened her mouth as if to start some objection; and Mr Franklin raised his voice a little. ‘Believe me, that's what all the books say, and I've made a point of reading the subject up. I get specialist books from London, you know. Only five years' life-span. And already the mole is not a young mole: one can assume that. Would it not be a wonderful thing for him if he could spend his last years in safety and in comfort?’

  Bet did not answer, just waited.

  Mr Franklin shifted a little in his chair and cleared his throat. He said, ‘In the garden of this cottage there is room for me to construct a first-rate vivarium.’

  Here was that word again; Bet waited.

  ‘A vivarium,’ Mr Franklin repeated carefully. ‘It would be something I myself would build to be the mole's home, in every possible way like the place where he lives at present. Without the deadly risks that he runs now.’

  He paused.

  Bet said nothing.

  Mr Franklin gained confidence. ‘Imagine, Bet, a mole with his own ready-made nesting box for sleeping, which is connected with wire-mesh tubing of the right size and in every way made as nearly as possible to resemble the mole's own familiar earth tunnels. This tubing tunnel leads to a really spacious box of good earth which I shall be frequently renewing and which I shall be supplying regularly with fresh earthworms and whatever other foods a mole might fancy.’ On the wings of his enthusiam, Mr Franklin forgot to be careful. ‘Don't you think, Bet, that's an ideal habitat for a mole in captivity?’

  ‘In captivity?’ repeated Bet.

  Too late Mr Franklin wished he had not used the word, and tried to cover his mistake. ‘Really, it would simply be what people call a safe house, Bet. And there I shall be able to watch the mole, to listen to him, to talk to him, to study him. That's the point, to study him, to understand him and his amazing abilities, while he is in the safety of his very own home.’

  ‘In captivity…’ said Bet.

  ‘But safe and comfortable for the last year or so of his short life,’ said Mr Franklin. ‘Don't you see, Bet? Don't you think that my plan is helpful and humane?’

  ‘No,’ said Bet. ‘No, I think it's ig – ignoble.’

  Abruptly she rose from the table.

  ‘Wait!’ Mr Franklin pleaded.

  In vain.

  Bet left him to find her grandmother elsewhere in the cottage. She preferred her company and her silences.


  Chapter Six

  Mud and Blood

  A single word – ‘vivarium' – lay between Mr Franklin on one side and Bet and the mole on the other. It was an enemy frontier, manned. Nowadays Bet viewed Mr Franklin with sharp suspicion – the self-same suspicion felt by the mole.

  On his side, Mr Franklin might have given up his idea of a mole-vivarium, but he could not give up his wanting – his longing – to know more about this extraordinary mole – to know him through and through. This was a thirst for knowledge and understanding from which – in quite different circumstances – he had suffered many times during his life. When his aunt died and left him this remote, rather tumbledown cottage, he had jumped at the chance of solitude and quiet. Here he could assemble his ideas, sort them and arrange them, perhaps even begin writing the book he was always thinking about. It was to be the kind of book that explained everything in Nature. A very big book, indeed! The trouble was that Mr Franklin could never quite decide where to begin.

  Meanwhile, he had to rely on Bet for any further light to be thrown on the nature of the mole, who in himself seemed to break the laws of Nature.

  And now the time had come for Bet's school to take its half-term holiday. For several fine days Bet was away from home in a school party at a Field Study Centre. (‘And why she needs to go away to a field to study when she's surrounded by ‘em, I don't know,’ grumbled her grandmother; but she paid up for the trip all the same.) During this short period, Mrs Allum still came to the cottage, of course, but without Bet. Moon was allowed freely into the meadow, if he wished; but he seemed to have lost interest.

  In Bet's absence Mr Franklin determined to attempt once more what Bet would have been doing what he had been forbidden to do. He hobbled out to the log with a book to read aloud: Darwin's The Origin of Species. He had marked an interesting page about the so-called blindness of moles, which he thought might tempt the mole out to listen.

  He sat on the log in the hot sunshine; he waited a little, hoping that his footsteps had been heard below ground – but knowing that their irregularity might have warned the mole that this was the visitor he did not want. He began to read slowly, clearly and, above all, loudly, in a deliberately ‘listen-to-this' kind of way. But nobody seemed to want to listen; nobody appeared.

  He finished his reading, waited again, without much hope, and then went back to the cottage. Mrs Allum had watched him and heard his voice carrying across the meadow. She said, ‘None so deaf as them as don't want to hear.’ Then, to console him, ‘That little old mole, he's still there. He'll pop out right enough when my girl gets back.’

  Mrs Allum was wrong. When Bet came back to the log after her half-term break, there still seemed to be no mole. At least, as far as Mr Franklin could see with his binoculars. On the first day of her return, Bet was on the log, reading – but reading only for a very short while. Then she set the book aside and stooped almost to the ground at the spot where the mole should have appeared. Was she looking for him, or calling to him?

  After a time, Bet stood up. She left the log altogether, to roam the meadow – but not quite aimlessly. She came to the river bank and walked slowly along it until she reached a point where she stopped. She remained there, standing still, looking either at the river or across it to the trees on the rising ground beyond; her back was to the cottage.

  From the cottage Mr Franklin was struck by the stillness of the figure on the river bank. He began to feel uneasy, even alarmed. He went out to the field gate and called across the meadow, ‘Bet, are you all right?’ There was no answer; no movement.

  In the end, he set off across the meadow and had almost reached the river bank when Bet turned. She faced him. To his dismay, he saw that her whole face was awash with tears that still poured from her eyes. He had never seen her cry before; he had never imagined that she could cry like this – Bet Allum, the silent, secret child.

  He could only ask, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Oh! she wailed, and then thickly through her tears, ‘The mole – the mole has killed the heron!’

  ‘I'm so sorry – so very sorry,’ he said, as indeed he felt that he was. But Mr Franklin had once been a schoolmaster, and now, in his teacherly way, wanting to get things right, he added, ‘You mean, of course, that the heron has killed the mole.’

  ‘No!’ said Bet. She gestured towards the river. Mr Franklin took a step forward to look down at the water. At first all he saw was the river and the river weeds that, in mid-stream, had gathered themselves into a kind of floating island. But not an island – no: the body of a great bird, half submerged in water and river weed, dead, its grey and white feathers filthied with mud and the remains of blood. As it turned a little with the turning of an eddy, he could see the fatal wound, a ragged gashing just at the base of the long neck, almost in the breast and at the heart itself.

  ‘Some brute of a man with a gun,’ said Mr Franklin.

  ‘No,’ said Bet. ‘The mole. It was so hot that he went down to the river, and the heron was there –’ She began to cry again as she remembered what the mole, himself still bloodied and exhausted, had so recently told her. Gradually Mr Franklin understood the story retold between her sobs. The heron had been in wait for fish, had seen the mole instead, caught him and swallowed him, whole and alive. The mole had gone down the bird's long throat, clawing and biting at the inner walls of the gullet, fighting frantically for his life. And in the end ‘He didn't mean to kill the heron,’ sobbed Bet, ‘but it was the only way out.’ Mr Franklin, staring at the dead bird, saw that what Bet had just said was literally true. The dreadful wound had been made from the inside, not by any bullet or other attack from the outside. The mole had fought his way out from inside the heron's body; the heron had died of internal injuries.

  ‘I want to bury it,’ said Bet. ‘Properly. In this meadow. By this river.’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Franklin. ‘That's simply not possible, Bet. And not necessary, anyway. Look, it's moving all the time a little with the current, and when the weather breaks, as will happen any time, the first flush of rain will carry it downstream and underwater. Then the fishes and all the other hungry little river creatures…’

  Bet put her hands up to her face in a kind of resignation.

  Mr Franklin said, ‘These things happen’; and then felt how stupid, how poor that was as a saying of comfort.

  They began walking back together. When they reached the log, Bet said, ‘Will you take the book back indoors for me? Please.’

  Mr Franklin left her sitting on the log, but already stooping down towards the mole-hole.

  Mrs Allum greeted him: ‘What were that about, then?’

  ‘The heron. It's dead.’

  ‘Well, there!’ said Mrs Allum. ‘A fine bird like that. I did like to see it.’ She sighed. Then, ‘Well, there's living, and then there's dying. For all of us.’

  She went back to her cleaning. Mr Franklin pondered what she had said. It didn't really amount to much more than he had said to the grief-stricken child on the river bank, and yet it was much better.

  Through his binoculars he watched Bet, still in the meadow. She was no longer sitting on the log, but kneeling beside it. The mole had dragged himself partly out of his hole, and Bet was touching him here and there with careful fingers. She would be picking at the clottings of mud and blood in his fur, and also gently rubbing away at the ache of his muscles. Mr Franklin also thought that she was perhaps singing, although at this distance he could catch no sound.

  Meantime, as Mr Franklin had predicted, heavy clouds had begun to gather; big drops of rain fell. Mr Franklin saw the mole withdraw into his tunnel; and Bet came slowly, heavily back to the cottage. As soon as she arrived, he said, ‘Bet, I must tell you that I have changed my mind. I have given up the idea of a vivarium. Utterly.’ Bet nodded. ‘All the same,’ he added wistfully, ‘I'd still like to know more. About Miss X, in particular. A first-hand source, you know.’

  Bet nodded. ‘Perhaps…’ She sat down o
n the nearest chair and closed her eyes. Her face, usually pale, was white with tiredness; she wanted only to go home.

  Mr Franklin saw that he must be content with that ‘Perhaps…’ He tiptoed away.

  Chapter Seven

  Trust

  The death of the heron made a difference in the acquaintanceship of Bet and the mole. A day or two afterwards, Mr Franklin, looking out over the meadow, saw that Bet was sitting on the ground with her back against the log, instead of sitting on it. The book remained on the log, closed. The mole, as usual, was hunched in the mouth of his tunnel. They were deep in talk.

  Then Bet deliberately stretched herself out on the grass, so that her head was on a level with the mole. At the same time she extended one arm, so that the fingers of her hand, palm upwards, almost touched him, half in, half out of his tunnel mouth.

  The mole crept forward on to the human hand, so that the black velvety length of him reached from Bet's fingertips to the beginning of her wrist. He settled there; and the fingers and the hand and the arm never moved.

  The sun shone warmly down upon them both.

  The mole said, ‘I trust you as I have trusted few before. Only Miss X; only Master Y. Do you know that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bet. ‘I do.’

  ‘On one occasion you saved me from attack and injury; on a second you cared for me when I was in severe distress.’ (Bet noticed that he didn't speak of escaping death itself.) ‘Moreover,’ he continued, ‘you have always behaved towards me without any air of presumed superiority: you have not condescended; you have not patronized. We have always spoken together freely and equally, as mammal to mammal.’

  He paused. Bet understood that she was being praised, as well as thanked. She knew the honour of it. She did not know what properly to say in reply; it seemed best to say nothing.