William Carries On Read online

  “Gosh, no!” said William. “That’d spoil everythin’. Besides, this isn’t the right one. We’ll have to wait till the right one gets back. I bet it won’t come off now, anyway, but I don’t care. It was the best tea I’ve had since the war.”

  “What shall we play at first?” said Miss Julia, coming back into the room and putting the table-cloth away in a drawer in the sideboard. “You choose, Susan.”

  “Hide an’ theek,” said Violet Elizabeth promptly.

  But suddenly Miss Julia’s pleasant, smiling face clouded over.

  “Oh dear, I forgot!” she said. “My cousin particularly asked me to post a letter for her. It’s about an order for wool for the War Working Party. I know she wants it to go to-day. I tell you what. I’ll leave you here to find really good hiding-places while I go to the post office and when I come back I’ll start looking for you at once. That’ll be all right, won’t it? Well, good-bye for the present.”

  “Good-bye,” said William and Violet Elizabeth.

  “You hide upstairs,” said William to Violet Elizabeth when she had gone, “an’ I’ll hide downstairs. I bet she finds you first. Girls can’t ever find decent hiding-places.”

  “Oh, can’t they?” said Violet Elizabeth. “Juth you wait an’ thee.”

  A few minutes later Miss Milton, Mrs. Bott, Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Monks arrived at the cottage. The War Working Party was over, and they had called at Miss Milton’s for more wool on their way home. Miss Milton, as secretary of the War Working Party, had charge of the wool and was, Mrs. Bott considered, unduly officious over it. But Mrs. Bott, though she had, while still magnificently ignoring Miss Milton, managed to make several offensive allusions to her in her hearing and would normally have been feeling very pleased with herself about it, was distrait and worried. For, shortly before the meeting broke up, the maid in whose charge Violet Elizabeth had been left had telephoned to say that she had seen nothing of her since lunch and that she had not been home for tea. Mrs. Bott, still studiously ignoring Miss Milton, was confiding her anxieties to Mrs. Monks and Mrs. Brown alternately, and dropping her aitches more wildly even than usual in her anxiety.

  “I can’t think what’s ’appened to the child,” she said. “I’ve told her most particular not to go on the main roads an’ she never does. I will say that for ’er. She’s as scared of traffic as what I am myself. I can’t understand ’er not comin’ ’ome to tea even if she’d been off playin’ with someone. She knew Cook ’ad made a sponge cake an’ she’s crazy on sponge cakes.”

  “I’m sure she’s all right, Mrs. Bott,” Mrs. Monks reassured her.

  “I wish I was,” said Mrs. Bott. “One ’ears of such things! Children kidnapped an’ all.”

  “No one would kidnap her, Mrs. Bott,” said Mrs. Brown.

  “Oh, wouldn’t they?” said Mrs. Bott still more darkly.

  “You’ve no enemies or anything of that sort.”

  Mrs. Bott couldn’t resist this opening and shot a malignant glance at Miss Milton.

  “Oh, ’aven’t I?” she said. “’Aven’t I, indeed? A certain person knows whether I ’ave or not.”

  “Come, come Mrs. Bott,” said Mrs. Monks briskly. “This won’t do. Now let’s get the wool business settled up and then I’ll go back to the Hall with you and we’ll have a good hunt for Violet Elizabeth. I expect she’s somewhere in the house or garden all the time, but if we can’t find her I’ll get my bicycle and go down to the village and ask if anyone’s seen her there. The first thing to do is to get the wool distributed. I want some more oiled sea-boot stocking wool, Miss Milton. Is there any left?”

  “Oh, some came the other day,” said Miss Milton, “and there wasn’t room in the cupboard, so I put it up in the boxroom. I’ll get it.”

  “No, I’ll get it,” said Mrs. Monks. “I know where the boxroom is. You go on giving out the other wool. We want to get through the business quickly, then I can help poor Mrs. Bott find her missing girlie. I won’t be a moment.”

  Complacently aware that she was handling a difficult situation with tact and discretion, Mrs. Monks made her way up to the little boxroom. There were the balls of oiled wool on an old-fashioned leather trunk. Mrs. Monks took them, and was on the point of going out of the room when she was arrested by a sound. It was an odd, rhythmic sound rather like a snore. Mrs. Monks listened again. It seemed to come from the ceiling above her head. It might be the cistern, of course. It probably was the cistern. But it was unlike any other cistern that Mrs. Monks had ever heard. It was much more like a snore—a small gentle snore. Mrs. Monks looked up at the ceiling, in which there was a trap-door leading into the loft. The trap-door was closed, but by it, resting on a pile of old trunks, was a ladder. Mrs. Monks hesitated a moment, then on an impulse took up the ladder and fitted the hooks at the end into the sockets that were fixed just beneath the trap-door. She mounted cautiously, opened the trap-door, and glanced round the little loft. At first she couldn’t believe her eyes—for there, curled up on the dusty cobwebby floor and sound asleep, was Violet Elizabeth Bott. Violet Elizabeth, stung by William’s parting taunt, had determined to find a hiding-place that should baffle even William himself. She had found the ladder fixed to its hooks, had gone up to the loft, dropped the ladder on to a pile of trunks, closed the trap-door and sat down to await events. But the excitement of the afternoon and the large tea of which she had just partaken had made her drowsy and before she knew what was happening she had dropped sound asleep, dreaming of William and Miss Julia and iced chocolate cake and emitting the gentle little snore that was the result of a slight tendency to adenoids.

  Mrs. Monks stood, her head just above the aperture of the trap-door, and stared. She still could hardly believe her eyes, but there it was. She had to believe them. How or why Miss Milton had kidnapped the child and imprisoned her in her loft she didn’t know, but there was no other possible explanation. The quarrel between Mrs. Bott and Miss Milton had been the talk of the village for months past, and certainly Miss Milton had had a good deal to put up with from Mrs. Bott, who could be devastatingly and almost incredibly rude, but it seemed unbelievable that she should have stooped to a revenge like this. Still, Mrs Monks had read books on psychology and knew that elderly spinsters did queer things. Miss Milton must have brooded on her quarrel with Mrs. Bott till it had turned her brain.

  “Violet Elizabeth!” she said in an urgent whisper.

  The urgent whisper penetrated Violet Elizabeth’s dreams, and William turned into a monster bottle of acid drops.

  “Violet Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Monks again.

  Violet Elizabeth sat up and blinked. Her usually tidy curls were rumpled and she was covered with dust and cobwebs.

  “You poor child!” said Mrs. Monks, compassionately. “What a dreadful experience for you! There’s nothing to be afraid of any more, dear. I’m here and I’m going to take you back to Mummy. Come along.”

  Violet Elizabeth, still half asleep, allowed herself to be helped down the ladder and drawn gently along the landing and down the stairs. Mrs. Monks wondered whether to tidy her up a bit, then decided that it would be best to let the witnesses downstairs see her fresh from the rigours of her kidnapping and imprisonment.

  She entered the room and stood for a moment in the doorway so that they could not see Violet Elizabeth, who was just behind her.

  “Mrs. Bott,” she said, “I have found Violet Elizabeth.”

  “Found Violet Elizabeth?” repeated Mrs. Bott in amazement.

  “Yes. I have found her imprisoned in Miss Milton’s loft,” said Mrs. Monks, standing aside to reveal the crumpled cobwebby figure of Violet Elizabeth. “I have just rescued her. Oh, Miss Milton,” turning to her hostess, “how could you!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” gasped Miss Milton. “You must be mad. I’ve never set eyes on her till this moment since she was playing round here this morning.”

  “It’s useless to deny it,” said Mrs. Monks firmly but sorrowfully. �
�We are all witnesses and—look at the state the poor child’s in!”

  Mrs. Bott clasped the small cobwebby figure to her ample bosom.

  “My poor child!” she moaned. “’Ow you must ’ave suffered!” Then, turning to Miss Milton, her whole plump body quivering with rage: “As for you—you in’uman monster, you’ll pay for this. You see if you don’t. Me an’ Botty’ll sue you for kidnappin’ an’—an’ assault an’—an’ cruelty to children an’ we won’t rest till we’ve got you jailed—not if we ’ave to spend our last penny on it.”

  “But—but, Mrs. Bott—” began Miss Milton. She had sat down weakly on a chair and was on the verge of tears. “I assure you I know nothing of this. Nothing whatever.”

  Mrs. Bott had again enveloped Violet Elizabeth in the ample maternal bosom.

  “Did she hurt you, my precious?”

  “No, thee din’t hurt me,” said Violet Elizabeth, still half asleep, then, dimly remembering how the whole thing had started: “Can I have an athid drop now?”

  “As many as you like, my pet,” said Mrs. Bott and added: “At least, if we can get the things.”

  At this moment Miss Julia Milton entered breathlessly.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so long,” she said, smiling round at the.company. “What will the children think of me! But I met the Vicar and he was telling me all about the evacuees’ camp and—”

  She stopped, vaguely aware that something was wrong.

  “Where are Douglas and Susan?” said Miss Milton anxiously, hoping that she hadn’t imprisoned them in the loft, too.

  Miss Julia looked at Violet Elizabeth.

  “Well, here’s Susan and,”—as William, drawn from his hiding-place by the sound of raised voices, appeared suddenly in the doorway—“and here’s Douglas.”

  “William!” moaned Mrs. Brown.

  She had just been congratulating herself that at least William could have no hand in this, but here he was, as usual, at the heart of the trouble.

  The others stared in stupefied silence, and at that moment the door opened and in came a tall woman in a tweed suit.

  “Sorry to barge in,” she said, “but I thought a little walk would do me good, and I’ve called for Susan and Douglas.”

  “Well, there they are,” said Miss Julia, pointing to Violet Elizabeth and William. “I’m sorry you’ve come so early. We were looking forward to a little game of hide and seek.”

  “We’re ’avin’ it all right,” said Mrs. Bott darkly. “What I want to know is, what’s been goin’ on in this ’ouse?”

  “But where are Susan and Douglas?” said their mother to Miss Milton.

  “I don’t know,” said Miss Milton. “I don’t know anything. I think I’m going mad.”

  One would have thought that the situation could not become more complicated than it was at that point. But it could and it did. For Violet Elizabeth, emerging slowly from the mists of sleep and remembering more clearly what had led up to the situation, felt that her moment had come. She stepped up to Miss Milton and said: “Pleath, are you my mummy?”

  * * *

  “It was an awful mess-up,” said William morosely to Ginger. “They were all talkin’ at me an’ askin’ questions at once an’ I kep’ trying to explain. Well, when they’d got it sort of clear, if ole Miss Milton and Mrs. Bott didn’t put their arms round each other and kiss each other same as I’d meant them to all along, an’ you’d’ve thought they’d be a bit grateful to me to reconcilin’ them, wouldn’t you? But they weren’t. Oh no! I’d gone to all that trouble to make ’em friends to get the war over an’ they went on at me as if I was ole Hitler himself. I couldn’t help ole Violet Elizabeth gettin’ stuck in that loft, but everythin’s gotter be my fault. You should have seen the way my father went on at me! An, Vi’let Elizabeth—jus’ ’cause she can’t get whole bottles of acid drops the minute her mother an’ ole Miss Milton make it up, she’s so mad, she won’t speak to me. She’s a soppy kid, anyway. Oh well. I’m jus’ about sick of tryin’ to help people an’ get the war over. Come on, let’s play Red Indians.”

  Chapter 8 – William Spends a Busy Morning

  “I don’t see how I can possibly get it done this year,” said Mrs. Brown. “I simply haven’t a minute now I’ve all the cooking on my hands.”

  “I’ll do it for you,” volunteered William.

  “Oh William, you couldn’t!” said Mrs. Brown in undisguised horror.

  “Why couldn’t I?” challenged William.

  “You’d make a mess of it. You make a mess of everything.”

  “I don’t,” said William indignantly. “I jolly well don’t. There’s lots of things I haven’t made a mess of. There’s—well, I can’t think of anythin’ at the minute, but I bet there is lots of things I haven’t made a mess of if I’d got time to think of ’em.”

  “Well, I’m sure you couldn’t do my collecting.”

  Mrs. Brown was local secretary of a large association for alleviating distress in the London slums and her yearly collecting of the local subscriptions was a tense and nerve-racking affair for the Brown family. She sallied forth every morning armed with her receipt book and a large handbag. She spent each evening adding up and checking her accounts. People were out and she had to go again and again. Meals were late and Mrs. Brown lost her usual expression of placid good humour—till the subscriptions were finally collected and sent up to headquarters, and the Brown household breathed again.

  “I simply haven’t the time this year,” said Mrs. Brown again. “Now Cook’s gone it takes me all my time shopping and seeing to the meals. I simply can’t face that traipsing round after half-crowns.”

  “Well, I keep tellin’ you I’ll do it,” said William.

  “Of course you—” began Mrs. Brown impatiently, then stopped and looked thoughtful. “Well, now I come to think of it, so many people have gone away since the war that there’s only about a pound to be collected—all in half-crowns.” She looked at him doubtfully. “I wonder if you could . . .”

  “’Course I could,” said William. “I keep tellin’ you I could. Anyway, what could I do wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Brown simply. “I never do know—till afterwards.”

  “I’d jus’ go to the houses,” said William, “an’ ask for the half-crowns an’ get ’em an’ put ’em in my pocket an’ bring ’em home. I can’t poss’bly do it wrong.”

  “I wish I felt sure,” sighed Mrs. Brown. “You’d have to give them receipts, of course, and the annual reports.”

  “Well, I could do that all right,” said William.

  Finally Mrs. Brown yielded, and William set off with eight receipt forms signed by Mrs. Brown, eight annual reports and a large leather purse in which to put his eight half-crowns.

  “I expect some of them will be out,” said Mrs. Brown, “but you’ll do your best, won’t you?”

  “’Course I will,” said William, “an’ I bet I come back with ’em, all right.”

  Fate seemed at first to favour him. He went from house to house of the eight subscribers. Each was at home, each gave him half a crown and received in return the receipt form, duly made out by Mrs. Brown, and an annual report. He set off homeward with the eight half-crowns firmly fastened in the leather purse and the pocket in which he had carried the reports and receipt forms empty. He walked slowly and thoughtfully. Though the pocket in which he had carried the annual reports was now empty, William had found time between his visits to glance at them and had been appalled by the magnitude of the task to be covered by the eight half-crowns. Drunkards to be reformed, slums to be cleared, the starving to be fed, the homeless housed. Eight half-crowns represented, of course, an immense sum, but even William could see that it was as nothing in face of the task before it.

  He sat down on a stile and took out the leather purse. Better count them over once more and make sure they were all there before he took them home. One, two three, four, five, six, seven, eight . . . yes, they were all there. Pity
it wasn’t a bit more. He wondered if it would be any good to go round begging on his own account but decided finally that it wouldn’t be. Grownup people never listened to him and children hadn’t any money. He was carefully replacing the eight half-crowns in the purse when he looked up suddenly to find a tramp standing by the stile watching him. He was a ragged, dirty tramp with a luxuriant black beard. Except for the twinkle in his eye, he suggested one of those “cases” for which William’s half-crowns were ultimately destined. A puppy of indeterminate breed frolicked at his heels.

  “Got a lot of money, me lad,” he said with a friendly grin. “Couldn’t spare a bit for a poor old chap wot’s not tasted food for three days, could you?”

  William wrestled with the temptation to give him one of the half-crowns and overcame it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said reluctantly, “but it’s not mine. It’s for poor people, but it’s got to go up to London first. Why don’t you go up to London an’ ask them for some? Or,” as another thought struck him, “there’s the Vicar. He lives jus’ along at the end of this road. He’s got a sort of fund for sick an’ poor. Dunno if you’ve gotter be both. I ’spect poor by itself would be all right.”

  The tramp made a contemptuous gesture and spat into the road.

  “Charity!” he said. “I’d sooner starve to death than live on charity. No,” he looked down sadly at the puppy that was still frolicking round his heels, “seems to me I’ll have to part with ’im, though it’ll break me ’eart.”

  “Sell him, you mean?” said William.

  “That’s it, young sir. Sell ’im.”

  William looked at the puppy with interest.

  “How much d’you think you’d get for him? He’s a mongrel, isn’t he?”