How the Heather Looks Read online

  We stood on the ramparts of Cadbury Castle, the crumbling tower that had once been Camelot, and watched Ian joust with shades as well as shadows. Generations of small boys have responded to Arthur’s magic. Surely he must have been real, and surely he must have been more than a brilliant general to have inspired Malory’s splendid medieval word tapestry, Le Morte d’Arthur. There must have been some especial strength in that homespun backing to support the rich embroidery, else the whole pattern would have long since unraveled.

  Toward the end of The Lantern Bearers, one of the characters says:

  I sometimes think that we stand at sunset…. We are the Lantern Bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and wind.

  And then Aquila said “an odd thing”:

  I wonder if they will remember us at all, those people on the other side of the darkness.

  As we drove toward our lodgings I glanced at Ian. His face was aglow and he was chattering away to his father. Somehow he had been able to reconcile his old concept of Arthur with something vital found at Cadbury. I thought of T. H. White’s contention that the Matter of Britain must be looked at through the innocent eyes of the young, the “pure eyes of absolute truth.” In the last scene in The Once and Future King, Arthur – waiting through the night before his last battle – talks with his little page:

  Thomas, my idea of those knights was a sort of candle, like these ones here. I have carried it for many years with a hand to shield it from the wind. It has flickered often. I am giving you the candle now – you won’t let it out?

  And then, “The little boy kneeled down to kiss his master’s hand – his surcoat, with the Malory bearings, looking absurdly new …”

  “My lord of England,” he said.

  Somewhere above, in the darkness, I could hear a plane going overhead; only then did I remember the surrounding aerodrome. What must it have been like here during the war, when all of England was blacked out and great battles were being fought in the skies above? I shivered and drew Lucy’s blanket tighter. What would it be like in the wars to come? But Ian was still chattering happily. He had been down to towered Camelot! After the last battle is fought, the last knight dead – oh, surely there will always be one small page left to tell the tale, to keep the candle burning in the wind!

  CHAPTER 6

  The River Bank

  We drove north again, taking several days to reach the banks of the River Thames. I remembered a book my Uncle Roger had read to me when I was a little girl. It was called Three Men in a Boat and chronicled the adventures of three Victorian bachelors afloat on the Thames in something called a “camping punt.” I described the craft to John as a sort of large rowboat with a tentlike contraption that could be pulled over it at night or in the rain. I remembered my Uncle Roger telling me that he had once hired a camping punt, but I had no idea whether such a curious hybrid still existed, much less where we could find one. Then, just before we left for England, I came upon a 1954 Saturday Book in which Edward Ardizzone had recorded – in characteristic sketches and calligraphy – the experiences of his wife, small son, and himself on a five-day trip on the Thames. The punt was exactly like the one I remembered from Three Men in a Boat and Mr. Ardizzone mentioned explicitly that the trip started from Salter’s Boat Yard, Folly Bridge, Oxford. I began to make plans forthwith.

  I did not know that John, in his quiet way, had decided that he had had enough of camping. In complete innocence I put my best dresses in the suitcase to be sent ahead by rail to Tunbridge Wells, and reserved space in the other suitcases for our oldest and warmest clothes. John insisted on packing for himself. It seemed to take forever. When he put something in, I took it out; when I took something out, he put it in. We behaved, in short, rather like George, Harris, and J. of Three Men in a Boat when they packed for their camping trip. Although no one put butter in the teapot, Ian weighted the suitcases with a ballast of stones he had picked up in Merlin’s Cave at Tintagel, and Lucy packed the remains of a marmalade sandwich.

  We came upon the Thames at Maidenhead and gazed about the red brick suburb in curiosity. Hugh Lofting, author of the Doctor Dolittle books, was born in Maidenhead and lived there until he was sent off to school at the age of eight. Like the hero of his many books he kept a collection of pets in the house and garden, and even (as his exasperated mother was to discover) in the linen cupboard. Perhaps Maidenhead is the model for Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, home of the great John Dolittle.

  Three miles away (and a generation earlier) Kenneth Grahame had lived at Cookham Dene. On the surface there seems to be not much in common between Lofting’s books and Kenneth Grahame’s, yet the same river flowed through both their childhoods. Both men preferred animals to people, both never recovered from a mistrust of “grownups” (“Olympians,” Grahame called them). Both men hated the commercial-industrial age, yet Grahame became Secretary of the Bank of England and Lofting was an engineer, graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  We drove on to Marlow and stopped to look at The Compleat Angler, a justly famous inn with a view of the weir. We guessed that it was far too expensive and we drove on again. I was hoping for a farmhouse, but we were in a far more sophisticated part of England than hitherto. The likelihood of finding a Bed and Breakfast sign in a window was about on par with expecting one in Scarsdale, New York, or Evanston, Illinois, or Beverly Hills, California. We stopped at several inns but each time I turned them down because they were too expensive, or the manager did not seem to like children, or the location was too far from the river. I found myself regaling Ian with the adventures of the Three Men in a Boat and how they had found themselves in a similar plight. They had passed by one place because it did not have honeysuckle growing over it, and another because Harris did not like the looks of a man’s boots and his red hair. Finally, when they realized they would have no place to lay their heads, they had rushed back to the first inn, only to find that there was not even room on the billiard table.

  The story seemed to impress John. “I’ll go into the next place,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument, “and I’ll make the decision.”

  We were rolling over the bridge at Henley as he spoke. At the far end, on the right, was a large inn or hotel with a red lion rampant above the door. John parked the car and disappeared inside. The children and I sat and waited. Lucy was soggy from sleep and I was soggy from Lucy. It seemed a long time before John came back. He appeared with a porter, who politely opened the car door for me. Suitcases, books, maps, toys, jackets, sweaters, chocolate wrappers, raincoats, umbrellas immediately fell onto the cobbles of the innyard. The porter showed admirable composure. Fastidiously he plucked two suitcases from the mess and started toward the door, while I tried to organize the rest of the clutter into manageable bundles. John took the sleeping Lucy and one of the zipper bags, Ian took his sketchbook and soldiers, and I staggered along under coats, jackets, and assorted stuffed toys.

  We had arrived at tea time. The patrons of the Red Lion paused with cups half raised and sugar tongs in mid-air to watch our progress across the lobby. The ladies, I noticed, were in afternoon frocks; the gentlemen wore white flannels and blue blazers combined in a sort of yachting costume. I was acutely aware that my skirt was too long, my sweater baggy, my sockless feet in a pair of old loafers.

  Grimly I followed John up three flights of stairs. Anyway, I told myself, we could steal off early in the morning, rent our boat, and be gone before any of these people ever saw me again. We had reached the third-floor landing and went down a long hall. At the end of it John flung open a door and ushered us into a large bedroom which, I saw by crossing to a window, was directly over the front corner of the hotel where five lanes of traffic came together. Proudly John showed me another bedroom, for the children, and an almost-private bathroom.

  “How do you like it?” asked John. I started to reply, but I had to wait while a motorcycle turned the corner at our hotel. The
sound of its motor seemed to be redoubled by some acoustical phenomenon that had to do with the river and the height of the opposite bank. At length I was able to say that I liked the rooms (except for the noise) and that I wished that I could wash a few clothes in the bathroom. I doubted if the clothes would dry overnight.

  “What do you mean?” asked John. “I’ve paid for the rooms and four meals a day. For a week. In advance.”

  I was either struck speechless or the noise of another motorcycle drowned out my reply. Just as well. It was Ian who saved the day. He had come into our bedroom and was leaning out, trying to touch the heraldic red beast that reared itself above the main entrance to the hotel, just below our window.

  “Poop-poop! Poop-poop, yourself!” he said to two small automobiles snarling at each other across the intersection. “Hey!” he said, turning to us. “Wasn’t it at the Red Lion where Toad had his lunch and stole the motorcar?”

  Although I hated to admit it, civilization has its compensations. In Henley I was able to window-shop for clothes and antiques, to have my hair cut, to browse through bookstores. Although our rooms were noisy, they had a pleasant view of the bridge and river and we could watch the swans glide by, and the motor launches, and the sculls. In addition, we were not far from London.

  As the days wore on I tried to tell myself that the Red Lion was not really so bad. We were just across the street from the river and could easily hire a trim little boat, complete with scrolled armrests and cushions, to scull about in, for all the world like Rat and Mole in The Wind in the Willows. We went up and down Henley Reach. All along the bank were high-built boathouses, dark cool caves beneath, gingerbread chalets above. The water of the Thames seemed amazingly clean and sparkling, especially when one considers the number of towns and villages that cling to its banks. Old gardens crowded so close that rose petals drifted in the current, but the Thames is kept clean by the watchfulness of the Thames Conservatory which, we were told, is responsible for the health and safety of Her Majesty’s swans.

  But life had its difficulties. John had packed a decent suit for himself and, although a trifle monotonous, he always looked presentable. The children and I had packed for camping, not for the dining room of a fashionable hotel at the height of the season. Since we had paid for our meals we could not afford to forage elsewhere and had to appear for public scrutiny or starve in our garret.

  My main concern was to keep the children as far away from the Red Lion “regulars” as possible, but sometimes my efforts were to no avail. One morning Lucy ran ahead of me into the dining room and discovered an old gentleman reading his Times at arm’s length. I had explained to her several times that she must not bother him, but before I could stop her she popped up between the old gentleman and his newspaper and asked, “Are you having your peace and quiet?” I really thought he was going to have a heart attack. Perhaps no child had been that close to him for half a century (he was a retired bachelor colonel from the Indian Army). He folded his newspaper and went immediately to his room, and was not seen the rest of the day. After that he gave Lucy a wide berth, although she was as determined as ever to keep up the unseemly flirtation. She may have been making headway. Once, as he stood beside me watching both children at play a safe distance off, he cleared his throat and came out unexpectedly with, “A dear little girl, that!” I was too stunned to reply, and of course after such an outburst of emotion there was nothing for us to do but avoid each other completely.

  I often thought of Mrs. S., our friend in Cornwall, during these days and wished that I could talk to her. She had told John that the country side near Fowey (pronounced Foy) in Cornwall was the background for Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. At the time I had thought that there must be some mistake, but now I was beginning to have doubts as to my other information. What had brought us to the banks of the Thames was the supposition that this was the river that dominated Kenneth Grahame’s masterpiece, but the longer we stayed in Henley the farther off we seemed from the world of Rat and Mole.

  Before leaving the United States, I had read Patrick Chalmers’ biography of Kenneth Grahame. Unfortunately I had not brought my notes. All I could remember was that Grahame had been born in Scotland, that his mother had died when he was young, and that he had gone to live with his grandmother somewhere near the Thames. When he grew up he became Secretary of the Bank of England and, presumably, lived in London. None of this was very helpful in tracking down the place where Mole and Ratty had had their picnic, yet the spot had been described so concretely that I was positive that it existed. Then, just before we sailed, an interested friend handed me an old copy of the Horn Book magazine in which there was an article by Ernest Shepard, “Illustrating The Wind in the Willows.” Shepard had visited Grahame in his home just a few months before the author’s death. Although Grahame was too weak to accompany him to the river bank, he gave him explicit instructions as to where he could find Rat’s house and Toad Hall, the pools where Otter hid, and the “Wild Wood way up on the hill above the river, a fearsome place but for the sanctuary of Badger’s home and of Toad Hall.” The artist described how he had spent a happy autumn afternoon rambling about, sketchbook in hand. Later he was able to return and show some of the results of his work. The old man had been pleased and had said, “I’m glad you’ve made them real!” In his article, Shepard recollected that the two of them, author and artist, had “seemed to share a secret pleasure in knowing that the pictures were of the river spots where the little people lived.”

  I had counted on being able to reread both book and article when we were actually in England, when I knew the lay of the land. This was not the easy task I had thought it would be, and I began to realize that if we were to justify our week in Henley I must do some detective work on my own. I went to Boots (the chemist-bookstore chain) and bought a beautifully detailed map of the Thames, one and a half inches to the mile. Stretched across our bed and drooping onto the rug, it proved to be almost twelve feet long. I had bought a copy of The Wind in the Willows, too, but try as I might I could not orient Ernest Shepard’s illustrated end-paper map to the official one. If only I could find one concrete fact to tie the two together! Whom could I ask? There was a library in the Henley town hall, but it was locked every time I went to it. I finally lay in wait for the librarian who, when he made his appearance, said he could remember Kenneth Grahame as living somewhere up on the Berkshire Downs, “miles away from the Thames,” even farther from Fowey. He did not have the Chalmers’ biography and had never heard of the Horn Book. I was more confused than ever.

  I went back to the hotel in despair and consulted with John. He, as usual, had a good idea. Why not call the English equivalent of the American Library Association in London? Perhaps someone there could help with the detective work. I got a handful of enormous coins from the office and retired into the booth off the lobby. Telephoning in Britain always seemed inordinately difficult to me. To begin with, there is no classified section in the directory. On the other hand, perhaps because of this deficiency, the telephone operators are terribly efficient and have masses of initiative. I finally got through to the Library Association in London (after a few false starts and forgetting to press the “A” button). A pleasant male voice answered. The owner was interested and courteous. Could I give him a little time to mull the question over and to call back? He did not seem in the least upset that I had asked him to find out where a fictitious water rat had entertained a talking mole.

  When the phone rang again my informant said that he had been looking up what he could find on Kenneth Grahame, but he must confess that his sources were meager if what I wanted was explicit geography. He had in hand A Critical History of Children’s Literature, by Meigs, et al. Did I know it? I said I owned a copy, but it was three thousand miles away. All he could find, he said, was a reference to the small Kenneth’s going to live at Cranborne with his grandmother. “That’s funny,” he continued, almost to himself, “but I always thought he lived in Pangbo
urne. That’s what someone told me once when I was punting up that way. Hmmm…. I’m afraid I’m not much help. But I say! Why don’t you go up to Reading? Miss Parrott is in charge there and she’s one of the best children’s librarians we have anywhere. A real authority. It’s quite close to you.”

  We awoke next morning to leaden skies and threatened rain and consulted over breakfast as to how we should spend the day. John offered to take charge of the children if I would go to the library in Reading. It was too tempting an offer to pass by. As for the children, John would take them to Windsor to see the Castle. I had never been there, but John had pleasant memories from his own childhood of suits of armor, wide halls and corridors, and a wonderful doll’s house that had belonged to Queen Mary. It seemed just the sort of excursion for a rainy afternoon, so after lunch we drove through the streaming landscape to Reading and sought out the library in the center of town. I was to return by bus at my own convenience.

  I had telephoned to Miss Parrott in advance, so she was ready for me with a copy of Chalmers’ biography and a stack of old Horn Books. She apologized to me for not having a Reader’s Guide or index handy to facilitate my research (they were upstairs in the adult department) and admitted that the magazines had been shifted about in the storeroom and were out of order. A few had been lost. I gazed at the pile in some dismay: the “Three Jovial Huntsmen,” multiplied ad infinitum on identical covers six times a year, year after year, seemed to defy me. I had no idea of the date of the issue in which I had read the article by Shepard. With a sigh I began to arrange pen and notebook, book and magazines, on the table before me. The magazines looked as though they were about to topple over, so I cut them into two piles. And there, on the top of the newly made second pile, was the very issue I was looking for. Surely this was an omen. I attacked my task with renewed hope.