Free Duncton Tales by William Horwood Page B

good things of life.”
    “Which are what?” she laughed.
    “Spring, of course. New-found warmth. Wood anemones. Trees leafing. Birds twittering. Those are the things that matter!”
    But to Fieldfare, who was very interested in matters of mating, though her pupping days were done, Privet was something of a mystery and a disappointment.
    “You don’t even seem interested,” she said one day when, rightly, she sensed that Privet felt lonely. For while Pumpkin’s philosophy might work for a mole as old as him, who has had a mate in the past, there were days, and then weeks, when the system tunnels were abuzz with new love and a new life, and a mole might well feel bereft if she had no mate at all.
    “I said , you don’t seem interested.”
    “I …” began Privet miserably.
    “You’re pining for a mole who isn’t here!”
    “I’m not!” Privet replied sharply.
    “Yes you are!” said Fieldfare, relieved to have analysed the problem correctly. “What’s his name? It’s very frustrating not knowing!”
    “It’s all long ago …”
    “So, I’m right, something did happen. I was not quite certain until now.”
    “What? Like that? Well I was — once. And once is enough.”
    “You still love him!”
    “Yes,” said Privet, snout low, “yes, I do.”
    “Won’t you tell me about it? You might feel better.”
    But Privet shook her head, and Fieldfare, who knew her well by then, did not say more, except to add kindly, “If you ever want to talk about it, Privet, you can talk to me. Do you miss him badly?”
    Privet nodded silently.
    “Is there no hope that you could be with him again?”
    “No hope at all,” said Privet finally. “It was over long ago … when he went with another mole than me. It was impossible and I know I shall never see him again …”
    She stared at Fieldfare, unable to go on, for her eyes had filled with tears and her mouth trembled and … and Fieldfare embraced her and whispered, “No my dear, don’t say that, for it’s not over yet. If you deny it even to yourself it festers inside. You can tell me, my love, for I’ll tell nomole.”
    And Privet cried but said no more.

    The trees leafed more, the wood anemones bloomed, and as the days advanced towards April the system was full of the cries of pups, and the self-absorption of mothers.
    Privet, unhappy still and yearning for the longer, warmer days of May, immersed herself in work, the one place where she could forget herself, and all her past, the one place she was safe. The one place in which nomole could have predicted the nature of the test, deep and terrible, life-changing and at first almost cruel, that Stour imposed upon her. A test that changed her life.
    A test whose name was Whillan, whose form was puppish, and whose need was as sudden as it was absolute.
     
     

Chapter Five
    It was during one of the later, milder days of April that Stour finally emerged from his long winter retreat. He came out into the Library suddenly and unexpectedly and went about and talked with moles who had not seen him since the previous autumn years, just as if he had done it every day previously for the winter years past, and intended to do it for ever more into the future.
    Even Pumpkin, who regarded himself as too unimportant for such things, found himself snout to snout with the suddenly affable Master, and obliged to overcome his nerves and make conversation.
    A buzz of excitement accompanied Stour wherever he went, and in a matter of hours the oppressive winter atmosphere that had occupied the Library for so long was all gone, and the sense of spring, and renewed life, had come. And the sun began once more to light up the entrances of the Library, and send its shafts down through the fissures in the ceilings of the bigger chambers, and catch the dust and busy librarians in its warm rays.
    “You’ve done well through a difficult winter,” said Stour to one and all, smiling upon them, and engendering an excitement at the