“Well, they jolly well ought to take it now, oughtn’t they?” he said proudly. “I took a jolly lot of trouble over it, an’—”
At this point Aunt Belle entered and as she looked round there came an expression into her face, beside which Aunt Louie’s horror paled into nothingness.
“My museum!” she cried wildly. “My collection! The Holewood bequest! Ruined!”
She was, obviously, going to say a good deal more when the housemaid opened the door, to admit a large, sleek man who was evidently the Town Clerk. He didn’t even glance at the collection. He had already seen it and weighed it in the balance and found it very definitely wanting.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of an unfavourable decision, Miss Holewood,” he began pompously, but at that moment there came yet another interruption. For Thor entered the library and, just as Thor entered it, Wilfred happened to poke his head out of William’s pocket to see what was going on. Immediately all was confusion. Wilfred leapt on to the floor, then over the tables and desk. Thor hurled his great body in pursuit, barking loudly. William hurled himself after Thor in a futile attempt to restrain him. The collection was scattered right and left—the bottles upset and plants dismembered. The Town Clerk joined in the fray, entangling himself in William and Thor and rolling over on to the hearthrug, bringing William with him. William, in a desperate attempt to save himself, clutched at a half open drawer in the desk on the left. The drawer came out with a sound of wrenching wood, and there, from a secret compartment that formed a fake back to the drawer, rolled out a little ivory statuette.
“The thing!” screamed Aunt Louie.
“The Kuan-yin!” cried Aunt Belle.
“The Holewood bequest,” said the Town Clerk reverently, as he disentangled himself from William and resumed his official dignity.
They stood round it, beaming with rapture. All except William. William wasn’t interested. He’d taken a lot of trouble gingering up the collection, and it had all been spoilt. He washed his hands of the whole concern. Rescuing Wilfred from the top of the bookcase, and keeping him well out of the way of Thor (who was somewhat chastened by the full impact of the Town Clerk’s massive form), he set off to the kitchen to find him something to eat . . .
Chapter 10
William and the Old Man in the Fog
William wandered disconsolately about the crowded village hall looking, without much interest, at the various stalls, each laden with the useless articles that are characteristic of that peculiarly English institution, the Sale of Work. He had been allowed to come as a treat and had taken for granted that some form of diversion would present itself, but, so far, his hopes had been disappointed. None of his friends seemed to be there, and the only people who had taken any notice of him had been elderly ladies raffling tea-cosies, and even they had lost interest in him as soon as they found that he wasn’t going to buy a ticket. His mother had given him sixpence to spend and he had bought a packet of sweets at the home-made sweet stall, which had turned out to be so burnt that even he could not eat them. He had taken them back and indignantly demanded his sixpence, but the lady in charge (who happened to have made the sweets in question) had coldly reminded him that it was “all for the Cause”, and had refused either to exchange the sweets, or give him back the sixpence. The knowledge that the “Cause” was the repairing of the churchyard wall (whose present dilapidated condition made it an excellent playground) did little to mitigate his annoyance.
He wandered past the fancy stall, the household stall, the toilet stall, the cake stall (that delayed him a little, but the stallholder, catching him in the act of filching a currant from the top of a currant bun—its only currant, moreover—indignantly ordered him off), and was just on the point of leaving the hall in disgust, when he caught sight of a screen with a notice “Fortune Teller” pinned on to it. It was a small, unimportant-looking screen, tucked away in a small, unimportant-looking comer, and a small, unimportant-looking woman sat nervously at a table inside.
She wasn’t a very good fortune teller and knew that she wasn’t a very good fortune teller and wouldn’t have come if they could have got anyone else. She’d only had two clients so far, and had been very unsuccessful with both. The last one, an elderly spinster, had gone off in a state of high dudgeon after being informed that she had four children, and had refused to pay her half-crown. The fortune teller was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t one of her Days. There were Days when she Could, and Days when she Couldn’t, and this was, quite evidently, one of the Days when she Couldn’t.
In any case, she’d only taken up the subject a fortnight ago, and it was turning out to be much more difficult than she’d thought it would be. She saw William’s head poked inquisitively round the edge of the screen and brightened. A boy. Surely a boy would be easy enough.
“Come in, my dear,” she said. “It’s two and six for a full reading.”
The rest of William followed his head.
“I’ve not got two and six,” he said gloomily. “I’ve not got anything. I only had sixpence, an’ it’s been stole off me. Well, I call it stealin’, anyway. A dog coudn’t’ve et ’em.” He handed her the paper bag. “Try if you can.” The fortune teller nervously refused.
“I don’t mind anythin’ a bit burnt,” went on William expansively, “an’ I bet there’s not many things I can’t eat. If there’s a tiny bit of the real taste left through the burnt I can eat it, but these don’t taste of anythin’ but burnt. Not anythin’. I bet she made ’em of burnt. An’ when you think what you could got for sixpence! Sixpence! Well, I’m jolly well not comin’ to one of these things again, not if they go down on their bended knees to ask me to. I’d like to see her eat ’em herself. Said there was real butter in ’em. Real burnt in ’em, she meant.”
The fortune teller looked at him speculatively. He was garrulous and ingenuous, and he was presumably acquainted with most of the local inhabitants. He was the type to know and be known wherever he was. He might prove useful. She cast her eye round the room for possible clients.
“Who’s that pretty girl over there?” she said.
William’s gloom deepened.
“Her?” he said with an expression of disgust. “Call her pretty? She’s my sister, an’ a jolly rotten sister she is, too. Wouldn’t even give me a penny. Not a penny. I said: ‘Well, try’n’ eat ’em yourself an’ see how you like ’em. I bet I ought to be paid sixpence for jus’ tastin’ ’em.’ I said: ‘If it was you, I’d give you somethin’ to make up. I’d give you another sixpence, or buy you some more sweets,’ but she wouldn’t take any notice. An’ she’s got heaps of money. She’s always buyin’ things. I bet she’ll come along here in a minute to have her fortune told. She’s always havin’ her fortune told. I’d jolly well like her to have to live on burnt for a day or two, an’ see how she likes it.”
The fortune teller looked at Ethel again. She was quite the most attractive girl in the room. If she had her fortune told, and was pleased by it, probably everyone else would follow suit. She sympathised with William over the burnt sweets and began to chat with him in a pleasant, desultory fashion. William, touched by her sympathy and interest, prattled volubly about his family and family affairs. By the time that Ethel had decided to have her fortune told and, surrounded by a giggling bodyguard, had begun to make her way across the room to the screen, the fortune teller felt that she knew all about her that it was possible to know.
“Said she’d come,” muttered William bitterly. “Doesn’t mind spendin’ money on fortune tellers an’ suchlike, but won’t spend a penny to save her own brother from bein’ poisoned to death. I only had a bit, an’ I can still taste it. I think it’s gettin’ worse. It’s prob’ly spreadin’. Serve her right if I died of it.”
Enlarging upon this theme, he delayed his departure till Ethel was actually at the entrance. The fortune teller was anxious that they should not meet. The girl would be much less impressed by her powers if she knew that she had just been talking t
o her young brother.
“Go out at the back,” she whispered to William, and pushed him out at the back of the screen, where it joined the wall. William began to scrape his way out between the screen and the wall, when it suddenly occurred to him to stop just out of sight and listen to Ethel’s fortune. It might be interesting and, anyway, he’d nothing else to do.
He listened with growing amazement. Why, every single thing the fortune teller said was true. She even told her that she’d sprained her thumb last week at Squash Rackets, and that she’d been to a dance on Saturday. She described her various admirers and her attitude to each. She told her that she was going away tomorrow on a fortnight’s visit to some friends in the North.
All this sounded so important and portentous, brought out in the fortune teller’s most fortune-telling voice, that William did not recognise it as part of his inconsequential chatter of a few moments ago, and was fully as impressed as Ethel herself.
“Gosh!” he kept saying to himself in amazement. “That’s absolutely true. Absolutely.”
Ethel on the other side of the screen, kept up a running commentary of surprise and admiration.
“But, how marvellous! . . . That’s wonderful . . . Yes, I am going away to-morrow . . . fancy it being marked on my hand like that . . . I think you’re simply marvellous . . .”
William watched her pay her half-crown and go out to join her giggling bodyguard.
“She’s simply wonderful,” she said. “She told me . . .” She lowered her voice to a whisper, and the bodyguard crowded eagerly round.
William was just going to abandon his somewhat uncomfortable position when he saw that Robert had now entered the screened-off partition, and was sitting down at the table opposite the fortune teller. He decided to stay at his post a little longer and learn what was going to happen to Robert. Ethel’s fortune had been so convincing that it would be interesting to hear Robert’s.
The fortune teller began to ply Robert with artless questions, but Robert was determined to give nothing away, and answered in monosyllables. The fortune teller sighed and bent over his hand.
“There’s a legacy coming to you soon,” she said. (A legacy was always fairly safe. No one could say it was quite impossible, anyway.) “Yes, a legacy. I see it plainly. A legacy. Have you any relative who’s likely to leave you a legacy?”
“No,” said Robert.
“Perhaps it’s someone you’ve befriended.”
“I’ve never befriended anyone,” said Robert, uncompromisingly.
“Perhaps not knowingly,” said the fortune teller, who was beginning to dislike him intensely, “but you may have befriended someone without realising it, out of sheer kindness of heart. It may not even be anyone you know. Some little kindness done by the way. I once knew a boy who helped an old man who was lost in the fog, and the old man left him all his fortune. As for your character,” she went on hastily, seeing that Robert was opening his mouth to deny indignantly that he had ever helped any old man anywhere, “you’re sensitive and highly strung.”
She proceeded to describe Robert’s character at great length, and William, who wasn’t interested in Robert’s character, stole softly away.
Though not interested in Robert’s character, he was intensely interested in Robert’s legacy. He believed in it implicitly. Had not the fortune teller correctly described the accident to Ethel’s thumb and prophesied her visit to the North to-morrow? It followed, therefore, irrefutably that Robert would soon be the possessor of a vast fortune left to him by an old man whom he had once helped in a fog.
William had no intention of spreading this news, but he couldn’t resist dropping a few hints here and there.
“Wait till Robert comes into his money,” he said to Miss Bellfield when she deplored the unsatisfactory financial state of the Providence Club, over which she presided. “I bet he’ll help you out.”
Miss Bellfield gazed at him in astonishment.
“What money?” she asked.
“Oh, this leg’cy of his,” replied William airily.
“What legacy?” persisted Miss Bellfield.
“This leg’cy this ole man’s leavin’ him.”
“What old man?” said Miss Bellfield who never let anything go once she’d got hold of it.
“Well,” explained William somewhat reluctantly. “I don’t know as he wants people to know, but he helped this ole man in a fog once, an’ this ole man’s leavin’ him all his money.”
“How does he know he is?”
“He told him. This ole man told him.”
Miss Bellfield sighed, remembering bitterly a certain great-aunt of her own.
“People often say that, my dear boy, and forget to make a will.”
“Oh, he’s made his will,” said William airily. “He’s made his will all right. An’ it’s all cornin’ to Robert. Every penny of it.”
Again Miss Bellfield sighed, remembering this time an uncle on her mother’s side.
“Those are the people,” she said darkly, “who go on living and living and living.”
“He won’t,” said William “He’s dyin’ now.”
“How do you know?”
“They’ve sent word. He can’t possibly live more’n’ a week or two, now.”
“They’ve actually told Robert that he’s the heir?”
“Yes.”
“Dear me! How very interesting!” said Miss Bellfield.
William was feeling a little uneasy. The main fact of the legacy, of course, was true enough (hadn’t the fortune teller said so in so many words?), but he was aware that, carried away by his imagination, he had added a few details that did not strictly conform to fact.
“Don’t say anythin’ to Robert about it,” he said anxiously.
“But why not, dear?” smiled Miss Bellfield.
“He said he didn’t want people to mention it to him,” said William. “He said so most particular.”
“Yes, dear. I do understand,” sighed Miss Bellfield. “It’s like counting your chickens before they’re hatched. Like waiting for dead men’s shoes. I think it shows great delicacy of feeling in Robert, and I, for one, will respect it.”
“P’raps I oughn’t to’ve told you,” said William, his apprehension growing as he remembered one or two of his wilder flights of fancy. “P’raps you’d better not tell anyone else.”
“Of course I won’t, dear boy,” said Miss Bellfield. “I’ll keep the little secret most faithfully.”
She quite honestly meant to keep the little secret most faithfully, but, like William, she couldn’t resist dropping a hint here and there, and by evening the whole village knew that Robert had been left an enormous fortune by an old man whom he had once helped in a fog, that the old man was lying on the point of death, and that his lawyer had formally notified Robert that he was the sole heir. In order to salve her conscience, she always added that Robert, out of delicacy of feeling, was anxious that no one should mention the subject to him.
(“After all, she said to herself, “it doesn’t matter their knowing if they don’t say anything.”)
The village was agog with excitement. Wherever Robert appeared he was treated with respect and deference. Old friends hastened to renew the bonds of friendship. New friends anxiously consolidated their position. Robert, as the future disposer of millions (the fortune had increased by leap and bounds as it was handed on from mouth to mouth), was invested with a new glamour. People who had thought him dull and ordinary, thought him dull and ordinary no more. Girls who had publicly announced that they wouldn’t marry Robert Brown if he was the last man in the world, hastily revised their views on the subject. But—partly because of Robert’s wishes (which had always been conscientiously tacked on to the report), and partly because no one wished their suddenly increased friendliness to be put down to interested motives—the legacy, though occasionally hinted at, was never actually mentioned to him.
Mrs. Brown had been summoned to the sick bed of a sister, and Ethe
l had gone North on the prophesied visit, or they might, of course, have put an end to the misunderstanding. As it was, Robert remained the feted, courted idol of the neighbourhood. Robert, of course, could not fail to notice the changed attitude of everyone around him, but it did not surprise him. For Robert had secretly purchased a book, which he had seen advertised in a magazine, called: “How to be Popular”. The advertisement was illustrated by the picture of a tall, handsome, young man in the centre of a crowd of admiring youths and maidens, who clustered about him, fixing on him adoring eyes and obviously hanging on his slightest word. It was that picture that had inspired Robert to send for the book. (“Plain wrapper. One and six, post free.”) It was so unlike his own experience when he appeared in public. There was a typewritten letter with the book, which said: “After reading this book and carrying out these simple rules, your whole life will be changed.”
Robert had at once set to work to study the book in the seclusion of his bedroom. It told him, in a short, pungent preface, that he possessed secret powers of magnetism and attraction that only needed to be liberated. It told him that his diffidence and self-distrust was the effect of conflicting forces that only needed to be harmonised. It told him that, in spite of any evidence to the contrary, he was possessed of a dominating, irresistible, dynamic personality. It hinted that, when the opposite sex should see him as he really was (dominating, irresistible, dynamic), it would fall for him in shoals. Robert didn’t particularly want it to fall for him in shoals (though the prospect was not without its attractive side), but he did want Peggy Barlow to fall for him.
He’d been on and off with Peggy Barlow for years and now he was quite definitely on, though Peggy, on her side, was quite definitely off. She had told him only the other afternoon that she was sick of the sight of him and never wanted to see him again.
That had increased his wavering devotion to fever pitch, and it was chiefly on Peggy’s account that he had risked the large sum of one and six on “How to be Popular”. He studied the simple rules with frowning concentration. They were, indeed, so simple that, though he was going to give them a good trial, he hadn’t really very much hope of success.
William_the Dictator Page 17
