William Carries On Read online

  Hubert walked slowly up his garden path. His face was pale and thoughtful. Having reached the front door and realising that he was safe from reprisal, he recovered himself sufficiently to bawl: “Yah! who got their bomb stick took off ’em? What happened to Katie’s fork? Yah!” after William’s retreating figure. But the last question evidently roused an unpleasant memory, and he went into the house looking so pallid and troubled that his mother rang up the chemist for a tonic.

  * * *

  Hubert lay in bed, gazing at the clock on his mantelpiece. It seemed to have an irresistible fascination for him. He tried to close his eyes and go to sleep but he couldn’t. He kept opening them to look at the clock. Ten o’clock . . . five past ten . . . ten past ten . . . quarter past ten . . . twenty past ten . . . twenty-five past ten . . . half past ten . . . He had to do it. He simply couldn’t help himself. He slipped out of bed, opened the window curtains and peeped out . . . And then—his blood froze, his eyes dilated with horror and his plump pale face turned a delicate green. For, coming in at the gate, was the scarecrow from Farmer Jenks’ field. The broad-brimmed hat met the collar of the large ulster, as it had always done. The arms were stiffly out-stretched, the cape-like sleeves flapped, it walked with a rigid unnatural gait. Beyond all possible doubt it was Farmer Jenks’ scarecrow, and it was coming to the house for the fork that Hubert had taken from the field . . . He remembered what William had said: “They leave the person what stole it in a jolly nasty mess . . . They’ve got the strength of ten men . . . it may be twenty men . . .”

  Bleating with terror, Hubert darted out of his bedroom and into the box-room next door. Frantically and still bleating, he burrowed behind the pile of trunks and brought out the fork. Fortunately for William, it happened that an eminent politician with a particularly resonant voice was speaking on the wireless that evening, and hid their son’s bleatings and burrowings from paternal ears downstairs. In a few seconds Hubert had returned to his bedroom and pulled back the curtain. The scarecrow had advanced almost to the front door. Glancing up from beneath the shadow of the hat, William saw Hubert’s face like the face of a panic-stricken sheep at the window. Then the window was flung up and the fork came out, missing William’s head by a fraction of an inch.

  Stooping stiffly, mechanically, as he imagined a scarecrow would stoop, he picked it up and set off with his jerky unnatural gait back towards the road. Hubert tumbled into bed and drew the clothes high over his head, still bleating.

  Actually William was hardly less scared than Hubert himself. He had not realised till he came to carry out his plan how beset with perils it was. First there was getting up after he had officially gone to bed, dressing and escaping from the house, then there was going to the field where the scarecrow was, and donning its garments when at any moment Farmer Jenks might have appeared, then there was that hazardous approach to the Lane’s house, when at any moment Mr. and Mrs. Lane might have looked out of the window or sallied forth from the door . . . Then, having secured the fork, there was the still more hazardous return . . . But Fate was kind to William, and all the people who might have confronted him on his adventurous career were sitting by their wireless fervently drinking in the words of the eminent politician. Fate was indeed more than kind. It seemed as if it were anxious to make up to him for its late neglect. For, as he was replacing the upright on which the scarecrows clothes were draped, William suddenly stopped and looked at it intently. It was strangely familiar. It was, in fact, nothing else than the German bomb stick. Farmer Jenks had had a brainwave. He had put it, he thought, where the Outlaws would never find it, however hard they searched . . . Lying near was the brown handle that had originally formed the upright. William set it up, fixed the cross stick upon it, replaced the hat and ulster, then, carrying fork in one hand, bomb stick in the other, started off homeward.

  As he crept across the hall and up the stairs, the voice of the eminent politician was upraised stentoriously in his peroration, drowning even the creaking of the middle stair and William’s sudden stumble on reaching the landing.

  * * *

  Next morning the Outlaws, headed by William, marched past Hubert Lane’s house in a procession of triumph. William carried the bomb stick and Ginger the fork. Hubert’s face popped up suddenly over the hedge. It was a little paler than usual, for he had had a broken night, disturbed by strange dreams.

  He stared at the triumphal procession in amazement. His eyes goggled, his mouth fell open.

  “We’ve found our bomb stick, you see, Hubert,” said William pleasantly.

  “W-w-w-where?” gasped Hubert.

  “Oh, we jus’ found it,” said William airily. “We thought we’d have a look for it, so we did an’ found it.”

  “I’ll give you all my nose-caps for it,” said Hubert in almost tearful pleading.

  “No you won’t, ’cause we don’t want ’em,” said William. “And we found that fork Katie lost too,” he went on.

  Hubert’s gaze goggled at the fork and for some moments the power of speech deserted him.

  “W-w-w-where?” he managed to bring out at last.

  “Funny thing!” said William ruminatively. “We found it by that ole scarecrow in Farmer Jenks’ field. Can’t think how it got there.”

  Hubert’s teeth chattered. His hair seemed to rise up on his head.

  “G-g-g-golly!” he stuttered. “F-f-f-fancy that!”

  “Like to have a look at it?” said Ginger, making as if to hand it over the hedge.

  Hubert gave a squeal of terror.

  “No, no. Take it away,” he said. “Take it away.”

  “A’right,” said Ginger. “Come on, William. Let’s get on.”

  Waving the fork and bomb stick in the air, its voices raised in unmelodious shouts of triumph, the procession passed on its way.

  Chapter 4 – Joan to the Rescue

  The Outlaws first saw Madame Montpelimar at the Bring and Buy Sale organised by Mrs. Bott in aid of the Red Cross. They had heard of her before, of course. She had come to the village about a week ago as the chief attraction of an American Tea given by Mrs. Flowerdew in aid of her War Comforts Fund. Madame Montpelimar was a fortune-teller. She told fortunes by crystal, cards, palms, stars—but principally by sheer bluff. And she got away with it. A few discreet questions at a few of the local shops on the way from the station to the scene of her labours generally gave her some leading ideas on the various inhabitants, and she made the most of them.

  She was an expert, too, at drawing pieces of information from her clients about themselves and serving them up a few minutes later, so spiced and garnished that the client was amazed by her powers. “She’s simply wonderful . . .” they said when they had paid their two and six and emerged from her little tent. “She told me all about my operation and my husband’s work.”

  Some, of course, were less impressed than others. Mrs. Flowerdew, who had engaged her on impulse from an advertisement for her American Tea and regretted it as soon as she saw her, openly said that she was a fraud. Mrs. Bott. on the other hand, said that she was “so physic (by which that lady meant psychic) she could see right into the middle of next week”. For Madame Montpelimar had learnt all that it was necessary to learn about the lady of the Hall on her way from the station, and she took a good deal of trouble over her “fortune”. Mrs. Bott was a short-tempered, overbearing, kind-hearted, pig-headed woman, shrewd enough in practical matters but extremely credulous in the realms of the occult—or the “physic” as she called it. She believed that she herself possessed “physic” powers above the average, and was always a ready victim of anyone who cared to play on this weakness.

  She came out of Madame Montpelimar’s curtained recess looking pale and shaken.

  “She told me things I ’ardly knew myself,” she said in an awestruck voice.

  Madame Montpelimar, beside telling Mrs. Bott various authentic details of her past history that she had gleaned at the post office and from other clients, had told her that she w
as an “old soul” (which had slightly affronted that lady till she discovered the meaning of the expression), gifted with striking psychic powers that only needed development.

  “You ought to have them developed,” Madame Montpelimar had said earnestly. “You could easily acquire the power of clairvoyance and clairaudience with only a little training. But, of course, you need careful training. You should have an expert with you all the time at first. Someone who has the Power and whom you can trust.”

  And so for the next few weeks Madame Montpelimar was comfortably installed at the Hall in the capacity of psychic teacher to its mistress. She drove with Mrs. Bott through the village in the Rolls Royce, she shared with Mrs. Bott the far from meagre meals that even in wartime Mrs. Bott managed to procure. She wore the satisfied smile of one who has been on her beam ends and has found a mug in the nick of time.

  In appearance she was small and stout and dark and frowsy. She had a sallow wrinkled gypsy-looking skin, she wore dingy and ancient garments that seemed to float about her like cobwebs, and she had a wealth of dull brown hair elaborately frizzed in front and done in a large “bun” of greasy-looking coils behind.

  “She looks just like a witch,” said Mrs. Flowerdew, “and a witch who needs a good wash at that.”

  “Of course, she’s an adventuress,” said everyone.

  “Pity Mr. Bott’s away,” they added.

  Mr. Bott gave in to most of his wife’s caprices, but even he, they felt, would have drawn the line at Madame Montpelimar.

  Madame Montpelimar found the task of training her pupil comparatively easy. Mrs. Bott was given to dreams of a particularly illogical and senseless description, generally inspired by the events of the previous day, and Madame Montpelimar interpreted them as miracles of “clairvoyance” such as only an “old soul” could have attained. She encouraged Mrs. Bott’s “intuitions” too and, there again, generally managed to interpret them to that lady’s complete satisfaction. Her own reputation she sustained with ease, for Mrs. Bott seemed quite satisfied with such vague messages from the spirit world as: “Hope ever”, “You are one of us”, “Do not be discouraged. We are all helping you”, and others of the same sort. She even swallowed: “We are all amazed at the progress you are making”, from a defunct Eastern seer who, according to Madame Montpelimar, only sent messages on very important occasions.

  The financial side of the question, however, was less satisfactory. Beneath Mrs. Bott’s foolishness and credulity there was a hard if deeply hidden vein of common sense, left over from the days before she had nothing to do but spend her husband’s money, and this hard vein of common sense suggested that Madame Montpelimar was amply repaid by her board and lodging for the hours of work she was actually putting in. Madame Montpelimar produced dreams, visions, spirit messages in abundance to the effect that Mrs. Bott should hand over large sums of money to her instructress in return for the wonderful “training” she was receiving, and indeed for the benefit of humanity in general, but at that point Mrs. Bott always became evasive.

  “I’ll ’ave to leave that till Botty comes ’ome,” she would say, and Madame Montpelimar, in view of her oft-expressed indifference to material things, had no choice but to acquiesce. At first the luxury in which she now lived seemed, indeed, sufficient repayment for her trouble, but gradually she began to grow restive. She couldn’t stay here indefinitely (in fact, without much exercise of clairvoyance she foresaw that her visit would terminate abruptly with the return of Mr. Bott), and if she hadn’t made any more out of it than a few meals and rides in a car she was, she told herself, a bigger fool than she’d thought. She stopped giving Mrs. Bott spirit messages demanding money (one could overdo that sort of thing, as she’d learnt by experience) and began instead to watch her opportunity. She prided herself on being a woman who never let an opportunity slip.

  And then came Mrs. Bott’s Bring and Buy Sale in aid of the Red Cross. Madame Montpelimar was ensconced in her comfortable little alcove, with the crystal ball as the main attraction, behind a large placard: Know Your Future. The Famous Clairvoyante, Madame Montpelimar. Two and six each, but only a sprinkling of people—mostly strangers to the district—visited her. The others crowded round the loaded stalls, bringing and buying with unabated zeal, but Madame Montpelimar’s alcove remained unpatronised.

  “Aren’t you going to have your fortune told by Madame Montpelimar, Mrs. Flowerdew?” said Mrs. Bott aggressively.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Bott,” said Mrs. Flowerdew. “I don’t think she’s very good, and in any case I’m not interested in that sort of thing.”

  The truth was gradually borne in upon Mrs. Bott that her protege was being ostracised, this was, she considered, an insult not only to her protege but to her own psychic powers.

  Mrs. Bott was not a woman to suffer an insult meekly. Her usually rubicund cheeks became brick red, her small eyes hard and bright. She stood in the middle of the room glaring round her, breathing noisily, looking for trouble . . . And she found it.

  It happened that Mrs. Brown had a bad cold and could not come to the Sale, so she had sent William in her place. He was to take her contribution (a tea cosy sent her by a cousin last Christmas), and in order to recompense him for performing this congenial task she had given him two and six to spend on himself.

  “Of course, you may not find anything you like . . .” she had warned him.

  “May not!” William echoed bitterly. “They’ll be all rotten ole traycloths an’ tea cosies an’ babies’ frocks. I know ’em.”

  “Never mind, dear,” Mrs. Brown had consoled him. “If you can’t find anything you want yourself, get something for me and I’ll buy it from you.”

  But much to William’s surprise he did find something he wanted. He found—lying carelessly between a poker-work photograph frame and a hideous green vase, almost hidden by a baby’s knitted jacket—the most magnificent penknife he had ever seen in his life. It had four blades, a corkscrew, a file, and a gadget for getting stones out of a horse’s hoof. And it was marked two and six. William pounced upon it, his eyes shining with eagerness, and retired to a comer of the room to examine it. He opened the blades one by one . . . He caressed them lovingly. The spike for getting stones out of a horse’s hoof he was specially pleased with. He’d never had an opportunity to use one yet, but it might arise at any moment, and he was glad to think that he would be equal to it. He ran his finger tentatively along the blades. They seemed sharp, all right. The temptation to test his prize at once was irresistible . . . He carried under his arm a stick that he had taken from the hedge on his way to the Sale for use as a walking stick. He stood—screened from onlookers, as he thought, in a corner of the room—and made a few tentative cuts at the end of his stick with the knife. Yes, it was a jolly good penknife . . . It was upon this sight that Mrs. Bott’s angry eyes fell as it roved the room in search of trouble. She bore down upon him like a warship in full steam.

  “’Ow dare you go makin’ that mess on my nice clean floor, William Brown?” she stormed. “Give me that there penknife this minute.”

  William looked down at the little heap of shavings at his feet. Actually it did not seem such a heinous crime. The carpet had been rolled up for the occasion, and the bare floor was already littered with bits of paper and string and various other flotsam and jetsam of the Bring and Buy Sale, but Mrs. Bott wanted an outlet for her anger and William provided one. She had even begun to bear down on him before she realised what he was doing. Whatever William Brown was doing anywhere was sure to be wrong . . .

  “Give me that there penknife this minute,” she repeated, “an clear out of ’ere.”

  “But I’ve only just bought it an’ I paid two and six for it,” objected William. “I’ll clear the mess up. There isn’t much. I—”

  Mrs. Bott snatched the penknife out of his hand, turned her back on him and was already half-way across the room.

  William stared after her, paralysed for a moment by indignation.

 
“I say, you can’t take my—” he began, then realised that no one was listening to him. He pushed his way through the crowd of bringers and buyers till he reached Mrs. Bott.

  “I say,” he said sternly, “I paid two and six for that penknife an’ —”

  Mrs. Bott swung round on him. Her progress through the room had shown her Madame Montpelimar sitting alone in her curtained alcove, boycotted by bringers and buyers alike. She had even caught sight of Mrs. Monks and Mrs. Flowerdew obviously discussing the lady with expressions of contemptuous amusement. She was in no mood, therefore, to listen to William’s explanations and excuses.

  “Di’n’t you ’ear me tell you to get out of ’ere?” she stormed. “You get out of ’ere this minute or I’ll—” A large upraised hand threatened a speedy descent upon his ear, and William, surrendering to superior forces, carried out a successful strategic retreat.

  He walked home despondently . . . The penknife, now that fate had so cruelly snatched it from him, seemed even more desirable than it had seemed in actual possession.

  ‘‘Just a few bits of wood,” he muttered indignantly, “’mong all that mess! As if it’d make any difference! Why coun’t she’ve took their things off them—their ole tea cosies an’ such like? They’d made jus’ as much mess as me. It’s not fair . . .”

  His mother was, as he had foreseen, unsympathetic.

  “Well, William, I’m sure it serves you right. No. I know I wasn’t there, but I know what a nuisance you can make of yourself. I’m very glad that Mrs. Bott did take it away from you and I hope it will be a lesson to you.”

  But William’s resentment waxed higher the more he thought over the incident. A few bits of wood on a floor that was all messed up, anyway!