Little Nelson

by Norman Collins

  Hilda did not mind. Wrongly attributed or not, both objects had once belonged to Little Nelson and she felt therefore that they belonged to her, too.

  She went up to Kenwood nearly every weekday, endlessly waiting in all weathers for the rural-looking, single-decker buses that plied so irregularly beneath the overhanging trees. And, once arrived at the House, she went instinctively towards the Orangery. She became known there as a regular. Attendants regard all regulars with suspicion, and more than once she had been warned.

  The reason for these warnings was Hilda’s uncontrollable habit of suddenly kissing the showcase containing all those treasures. In the end she was asked to go before the Curator to explain her behaviour. The Curator could not have been nicer about it. He confessed that he, too, was just the same when it came to personal objects like hats and paper-knives. He even hinted that one day – after closing time, probably – he would be ready to go so far as to unlock the cabinet and take out one or two of the prize pieces so that she could examine them more closely.

  Hilda was horrified. She could not bear to think of other hands, other fingers, touching anything of Little Nelson’s. It seemed too much like desecration.

  As time passed, Hilda visited Kenwood less frequently. She still made straight for the Orangery, and it was easier now because the attendant who had tried to arrest her had been put on other duties. But it was not the same. The sense of being there again near Little Nelson had vanished completely. Only a new emptiness remained. As she stood there facing the showcase, it was no longer the present that embraced her. It was the past.

  Outside the confines of Kenwood, life had returned to normal. The whole gnome-episode, like the Blitz, had passed quietly into history and been forgotten. Volume upon volume of gnome literature, both popular and scholarly, had either been pulped or remained undusted and unread upon the library shelves. The imitation jewellery and trinket trade had reverted to the proven emblems of earlier years – bunnies, fox-masks, horseshoes and sprigs of heather. Dress fabrics were once more striped or flowery, and curtain material was for the most part entirely abstract. Anything in the way of a gnome motif would have been rejected out of hand by all the leading suppliers.

  It was, indeed, a symptom of this restored normality that gnomes in number should slowly have been returning to places where they had formerly belonged. Horticulturists and garden centres began re-stocking them, and they were once more to be seen popping up in flowerbeds or peeping through the evergreens beside splashing waterfalls and plastic rock-pools. They were everywhere.

  One firm, more enterprising than its competitors, even introduced the Little Nelson model, slightly smaller than the rest of the set and complete with eye-shade and admiral’s hat. The Reverend Cyril Woods-Denton spotted one in the local garden centre while he was out visiting. It was wonderful; altogether too good to be true, he told himself. Indeed, in his excitement, he felt sure that it could have been no idle glimpse that had revealed it to him; his gaze must surely have been directed. The annually recurrent problem of Hilda’s birthday present had, for once, miraculously been solved.

  And, when he unwrapped the parcel on his return home, he was even more delighted. The small figure was just as he had remembered it except that the colours were so much brighter and fresher-looking. There was, admittedly, the matter of the right arm. The manufacturer had omitted to recognize the amputation because it might have proved off-putting to the more sensitive type of customer; and Cyril could not contemplate performing such an operation himself. Not that he thought that Hilda would mind. On the contrary, he felt sure that she would be pleased to see Little Nelson fully restored and as he must once have been when in his prime.

  Breakfast on the morning of Hilda’s birthday passed off just as he hoped it would. Neither of them mentioned the anniversary and Hilda, wounded and aggrieved, sat at the table solemnly staring into the depths of her teacup. Then, when he could bear the suspense no longer, he asked her to come out into the garden for a moment. Hilda was surprised because it was so unlike him. But she could tell at a glance that there was something up. In his excitement he had gone quite pale, almost ashen.

  And there it stood before her, her birthday gnome, admiral’s hat, eye-shade and all. Hilda gasped, and Cyril even feared that she might be going to faint. He, himself, had fully recovered.

  ‘It’s your surprise, your big surprise,’ he told her. ‘It’s Little Nelson. He’s come back again. Come back again for good this time.’

  Hilda did not move. Her eyes were fixed on the small figure in the flowerbed, and she was breathing hard as if she had just been running. He reached out his hand towards her, but she avoided it.

  ‘You do like it, don’t you?’ he asked nervously. ‘You can see it’s Little Nelson. The one who used to live here. Little Nelson, I tell you. It’s your friend.’

  Hilda could bear it no longer. She burst into tears and, when she did speak, the words were all jumbled together.

  ‘How could you? How could you?’ he heard her say in one continuous rush. ‘Calling him Little Nelson indeed. He’s not Little Nelson. He’s a stranger, I tell you. A total stranger. He’s not a bit like Little Nelson. Look at the shape of his ears. Just look at them.’

  And with that Hilda turned on her brother and went back into the house, slamming the garden door after her.

  Because she had been so horrid to him, Cyril felt hurt, too. He resented the way in which he had just been treated; and, in his resentment, he decided to defy her. If Hilda would not have the new Little Nelson in the garden, he would show her someone who would. Not standing there right in front of the house, of course. That would be too obvious. Up at the top was the spot, beside the sun lounge in the part that he always referred to as his ‘patch’. And he decided that he would make up a complete set. Deep down he was very fond of gnomes; or rather, he had been before there had been all that fuss.

  Cyril Woods-Denton was nothing if not thorough. He insisted on getting everything ready himself, going down on his knees in the shrubbery to prepare a small arena for the fresh arrivals. And because there was no water at the top of the garden, he even went to the pains of digging out a little hollow to take a small tin bathtub. The fishing gnome, he felt sure, would expect there to be somewhere for his float to rest.

  Considering the limited size of the clearing the group fitted in extremely well. There was a large flat stone exactly the right size for the down-on-his-stomach gnome to lie on; the one with a long white beard, the ancient of the party, had the stem of a small evergreen to support him; the fishing gnome was patiently fishing; and the new Little Nelson, very smart looking in the manufacturer’s black eye-shade and admiral’s hat, stood at the opposite edge of the pool as though he had only just that moment returned from some innocent scamper among the surrounding bushes.

  The work of preparing the ground had proved more tiring than Cyril had expected. Now that it was all over, he was quite exhausted. As so often happened nowadays, he had to remind himself that he was no longer so young as he used to be. He decided to take a brief rest on the sun lounge. Picking up the long clerical overcoat that he had discarded while engaged on his manual labour, he spread it across his knees and closed his eyes. Almost at once he was asleep.

  And dreaming.

  After a few minutes a developing pattern of ripples began to appear on the calm surface of the sunken bathtub. The fishing gnome was slowly drawing in his rod. When at last the float was clear of the water, he arched his back and, raising the rod, laid it carefully on the turf beside him. Then he straightened up again, scratched himself, and began taking stock of things. It was obvious that he was bewildered. Shading his eyes with his hand, he surveyed the length of the garden, concentrating for the most part on the other and larger pool beside the house. Next he examined his three companions rather as a drill sergeant looks at new recruits, and finally he turned his gaze upon the sleeping Vicar.

  It was the up-and-down breathing movement of Cyril’s chest t
hat caught his eye. One sleeve of the long clerical overcoat dangled over the arm of the garden lounge and with each intake of breath it rose slowly from the tips of the grass blades, and then just as slowly sank down again. The fishing gnome was clearly fascinated. He approached more closely.

  Twice on the way he was forced to straighten himself and it was evident that, no doubt through lack of exercise, his joints were stiff. His back as well as his legs seemed to be troubling him. But he persevered. While Cyril still slept on peaceably, the fishing gnome bent over him.

  After a moment’s hesitation he stuck out his finger and very gently began to prod the sleeping Vicar. Cyril, however, did not stir and, seeing that any response was hopeless, the gnome gave up the attempt. Instead he stepped back a pace, keeping his eyes still fixed upon him. There was nothing in the least hostile about his manner, nothing threatening. He was simply curious.

  But he made it obvious that he was not prepared simply to stand about there doing nothing. Forcing back his shoulders to prepare his body for the strain of his return journey, he took one last lingering glance at Cyril and began to move off. There was still something faltering and uncertain about his movements. Already he was stooping again and, by the time he reached the edge of the sunken bathtub and had picked up his fishing rod, he was clearly a thoroughly exhausted old gnome.

  Chapter 11

  Later that evening, Hilda was possessed by an overwhelming desire to see what her brother had been up to at his end of the garden. She knew all about the complete gnome family, of course, because she had seen the box in which they had been delivered. But beyond that it was all guesswork. Ever since they had been children together they had respected each other’s territory, and it had never occurred to her to trespass and find out.

  Then she remembered the upstairs boxroom. It was a cold, little-used apartment full of discarded treasures and forgotten joys. It was here that she had rummaged through Cyril’s old trunk in search of the admiral’s hat for Little Nelson. And, as she climbed up the last steep flight of stairs she remembered how, long ago, she had thought of the boxroom as the perfect hiding place if the Police had begun combing the house in search of refugees and gnome third columnists. The window was high and narrow, practically a dormer window. The view from it, however, was excellent. It commanded the whole garden.

  It was already dusk but a full moon, rising over the Gothic profile of her brother’s church, lit up the farthest corner. She could see everything. There before her lay the pale lozenge of the artificial pool, the circle of surrounding figures, the sharp shadow of the raised fishing rod and, right up close beside the water, the vulgar, hated figure of Little Nelson’s successor.

  Then, suddenly, she could see no more. The moon, up to now plunging happily along amid a sea of scudding clouds, had suddenly become totally eclipsed. And this was doubly frustrating because, just as the light failed, Hilda had thought that she had seen another gnome-size figure half-shrouded among the bushes.

  The light flickered. At one moment Hilda felt certain that she could see someone – something – lurking there among the undergrowth; and, at the next, it was all darkness and confusion. Then she could see again. And there, sure enough, was a fifth figure clearly outlined against the foliage. But it was a different kind of figure. The body was transparent and she could see right through it. A foot or two behind, the flowers of the syringa showed up, sweet and profuse, mingling with the green and scarlet of the costume.

  Hilda peered harder, narrowing her eyes as she did so.

  ‘It’s another of them,’ she told herself. ‘No doubt about it. It’s another gnome all right. But he didn’t come with the set. He doesn’t belong there.’

  The figure turned for a moment, and Hilda stood quite still. Now that he was facing her she could see that the intruder had his right sleeve pinned closely across his chest. It was a flat, empty sleeve, neatly folded where the elbow should have been.

  ‘It’s … it’s …’ she began to say aloud.

  She was shaking all over with excitement by now.

  Then the clouds covered up the moon again, and she could see nothing. Even getting up on an old footstool and pressing her face right against the window pane did not help. The garden was in darkness. But it seemed to her that there was a movement of some kind just beside the pool, a furtive slithering kind of movement. Not that she could be sure. Then – and there could be no mistake about this – she heard a loud splash and a long, triumphant whistle.

  And while she remained there, perched unsteadily on the old footstool, the moon came out again. The gnome that Cyril had bought her, the one with the offending ears, was no longer to be seen. There was merely a circle on the surface of the pool just where he had been standing. Another gnome had now taken up his place and this one, all on his own among his motionless companions, was dancing a slow, solemn jig.

  When he stopped, he stood looking up at the house once more. His head was cocked over to one side as he always held it when thinking about something, and Hilda felt sure that he must be making plans.

  She climbed off the footstool and made her way hurriedly downstairs. She was remembering that first time when Little Nelson had come home. And in case anything of the sort should come into his mind again, she decided that she would leave the front door just the least bit ajar.

  And her own bedroom door, too, of course.

  TO SYLVIA

  This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London

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  Copyright © Norman Collins 1981

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  ISBN: 9781448206605

  eISBN: 9781448206247

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