Donkey Boy

by Henry Williamson

  “May I come in?” It was Sarah at the door. Then Hilary reappeared. He showed his charm to the old woman, treating her as if she were an Indian princess. Sarah responded to this consideration shown to her by a young man, and so Hilary was able to continue with his best manner. Mrs. Turney, he thought, was much nicer than he had imagined from what his sister Victoria had led him to believe. But then, no woman’s judgment was to be taken seriously, particularly about another of her sex, whatever her age: an aboard-ship philosophy.

  Phillip was by the green-covered cage, peering and listening. Was it a jackdaw? Or a parrot? If only Father would say! A raucous shriek made Sarah jump. “Goodness gracious, children dear, what a surprise!”

  This was Richard’s opportunity. Carefully he unknotted the string, while the children waited with part-suppressed excitement.

  “Quick, Daddy! Oh please be quick!”

  “Patience, Mavis. Curiosity killed the cat, remember.”

  “What is it, Daddy? I know it can’t be a cat, for cats don’t have cages.”

  “All in good time, young woman.”

  “I know what it is!” cried Phillip.

  “Ss’sh, Sonny!” warned Hetty.

  Father took so long, Phillip suffered for the delay. He wanted to offer his penknife, but Father always unpicked string. At last the baize was removed, with warnings of the bite that could be given by a fearful beak. As an added precaution, the cage was put on the table. There, walking sideways on its perch, was a grey and pink bird.

  “You must thank Uncle Hilary nicely for the present, children.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Hilary. Does it speak, Uncle Hilary?”

  “I don’t think it is the kind that talks.”

  “It might talk if you slit its tongue, Uncle Hilary.”

  “What a ferocious thing to suggest! Where did you get that idea?”

  “They slit jackdaws’ tongues, then they can talk, Uncle Hilary.”

  “Good lord, whoever told you that?”

  “Grandpa Thacker did, also Cousin Percy.”

  “Really? You surprise me, young man. How would you like your tongue slit, eh?”

  Phillip did not know what to say.

  “Now, Hetty, I think it is time for the children to go to bed, what do you say?”

  “Yes, dear. I’ll take them up immediately.”

  “Oh, Mummy, can’t I stay up a little longer, and see the parrot?”

  “You heard what your father said, Mavis. Run along up. Say ‘Good-night’ to Grannie, and Uncle Hilary, and your Father, dear.”

  “Oh, Mummy—— Is Polly her name, Father?”

  “We’ll see, later on. Now up you go. That includes you, Phillip. You can see the bird tomorrow.”

  Reluctantly they left the room. Grannie said she would take up the little girls.

  “Good-night, Mummie; good-night, Uncle Hilary; good-night, Father. Mummy, you won’t forget to tuck me up, will you?”

  “Good-night, Polly!” cried out Phillip, showing his face round the door.

  When they were gone, Richard led his brother down to the sitting-room. Hilary thought he would leave as soon as he politely could, and be in time for a game of billiards at the club.

  Richard drew the curtains. He unlocked the cupboard under the bookcase, and took out the decanter of sherry, nearly empty. He had no whisky or soda.

  “I’m afraid I’ve only got sherry, old chap.”

  “Oh, I don’t need anything, Dick. I ought to be getting back soon. If the plugs oil up, or I get a puncture——”

  “Well, stay just a little while. May I offer you a cigar? Hetty will be down shortly. I’m sure she would like to talk with you.”

  “Yes, of course. She looks very well, Dick. The holiday has done her good. So you’ve got your father-in-law next door?”

  “Yes, Hilary. I am away all day, of course, and it is nice for Hetty to have her people so near.”

  Bravo, thought Hilary; old Dick always did bite on the bullet.

  “Well, it’s been a great pleasure to see you again, Dick. I’ve bought a place in Hampshire, you know; you must come down and visit us for a week-end. That reminds me, I must make an early start, and get down there to-morrow. I want to run over and see John shortly. Can I give him any particular message from you, Dick?”

  “Oh, give him my very kind regards, Hilary.”

  Hilary looked round the room, which he found depressing. Dick was a stick-in-the-mud, all right. “Very comfortable little room this, isn’t it? Is it warm in winter?”

  “Oh yes, I can’t find much fault with it.”

  “Being up a bit, I suppose you get less fog than in London itself?”

  “Yes, but when it’s a proper pea-souper we get it everywhere, you know, much the same.”

  “I think I’ll just see that my lights are all right, Dick. Don’t disturb yourself, I can find my own way.”

  Out of consideration Richard insisted on going with his brother, explaining that the path through the rockery by the gate was treacherous. So, apparently, was the surface of Hillside Road, for one of the front Dunlops of the Panhard was flat.

  “Damn!” said Hilary, under his breath, as the bright lights of London faded. There a flake of flint was, sharp to the hand, sticking out of the rubber tread. It was not possible to repair it in the dark. There was only one thing to do: to return to Town by train, and come down and repair it in the morning.

  “We can put you up, if you would care to stay, Hilary.”

  Hilary said it was most kind of his brother, but he had arranged to meet a man at the club at ten o’clock. Would he mind if the Panhard remained there all night? He would come down first thing in the morning.

  While they discussed it, a policeman walked up the road, and stopped to admire the vehicle. Hilary explained the dilemma; the policeman replied that it would be quite in order to leave it for the night where it was. He would ask his relief to keep an eye on it. A shilling went into his pocket.

  “If you’ll excuse my saying so, but I shouldn’t leave the hammercloth out.”

  This was the chequered rug, with its backing of plain melton cloth. So Hilary, after a few more minutes with Hetty and Richard, and the hammercloth folded and stored in the front room, took his leave.

  “Well,” said Richard, in the Sportsman armchair just before Hetty went upstairs for bed, “I think I might be of service to my brother Hilary. I will get up early and mend the puncture. I would have suggested mending it for him while he was here, but it was a question of the light. My bull’s-eye lantern is missing from where I put it in the trunk in the attic. I have an idea how it came to leave the trunk. Perhaps you have, too?”

  While he was speaking, Hetty thought that one of the lamps of the motor car, removed, would have given at least as much light as the dark lantern: and that the idea of mending the puncture had come to Dickie as an afterthought. Could Phillip have got up into the attic and taken it?

  “Are you sure it isn’t there, Dickie? I don’t think Phillip knows about the attic at all, when I come to think about it, dear.”

  “Obviously the boy knows more about it than you do, then. I’ll go up right away and find out.” Richard got up from his chair.

  “Oh, Dickie, please! Sonny will be asleep now. If he has taken your lantern, I am sure it is only because he likes to think of you, dear.”

  Richard stared at his wife. “Can I really believe my ears? Are you seriously suggesting that a thief robs somebody also because he thinks he is like his victim? If that is your idea of morality, then it is not mine! But then I well remember how you got rid of my only pair of walking boots for me, when first we set up in Comfort House, or have you forgotten?”

  “Yes. Dickie, I was very sorry about that, and have said so, many times.”

  “Oh, well.” Richard settled back in the armchair, to read The Daily Trident. But concentration was impossible. Was Hetty incurably foolish? Did she really mean what she said? A boy stole from his father because he li
ked to think he was his father. Yes, yes, certainly! The thief stole from the rich man because he liked the idea of being like him, with his money! Let Hetty put that in her pipe and smoke it.

  There was the sound of a chamber pot being moved above the ceiling.

  “Phillip is awake. I shall go up and ask him.”

  “Oh, please, Dickie, if he has taken it, do not punish him to-night. He was sick in the train, and now is so very very excited about the motor car, and the parrot——”

  Richard went out of the room. Hetty heard him walking softly upstairs. She listened to the dull sound of his voice above.

  He returned. “‘No, Father’, ‘No, Father’, ‘No, Father’. As I expected.”

  “Are you sure, dear, you looked properly? He’s so very small to be able to climb up into the attic alone.”

  “Very well, we will settle this matter once and for all! Come with me upstairs, this very moment, and see for yourself! Come along! I insist on fair treatment!”

  Hetty followed Richard upstairs. He fetched the portable steps from the carpentry room. He climbed up into the attic, and brought down the long, narrow tin trunk. Laying it upon the bathroom floor, he invited Hetty to open it, repeating that she could see for herself, and be satisfied.

  Hetty slid back the lid fasteners. Within lay the scarlet uniform.

  “The lantern was in that corner when I saw it last. Underneath the trousers, there!”

  Hetty felt something hard. She drew forth the dark lantern.

  “Obviously the boy has put it back since coming home!”

  Downstairs in the sitting-room, The Daily Trident had no savour. Richard put it down for the second time. Surely she had seen or heard the steps being moved? Well then, had she seen or known what the boy had been doing since her return?

  Hetty replied that she was sure Phillip had not been upstairs for more than a minute. He had been next door most of the time, with his grandparents. They had asked him to supper, and he had stayed with them until a few minutes before Dickie’s return.

  “If I can believe what you say, then I must also believe that I am in process of losing my sanity. For I will stake my oath that the lantern was not in the trunk yesterday!”

  *

  Richard slept in his dressing-room that night. He lay withdrawn from himself, sleepless until the early hours, by which time his entire life had been reviewed in terms of mortification and despair. He put part of his condition down to the unaccustomed heaviness of the food and the wine. With immense relief he woke to see daylight, and got up to mend the puncture. Taking the tube to the water-butt to detect air-bubbles, he saw two dead fish lying, belly up, just under the surface. They were perch.

  So Phillip had done some fishing. If the boy had confided in him about the fish, he would have told him to put them in the bath, with cold running water to make the oxygen necessary to keep them alive. Then he could have taken his perch in a pail in the morning to the Randisbourne, and released them in the river. There they would have had at least a sporting chance of living. No fish could possibly survive in stagnant water in the butt. The water was dead, void of oxygen.

  He lifted the fish out. They were covered with mucus, having died of asphyxiation. They might almost be a symbol of his own life, of his own home, where truth did not live. His own son, secretive and untruthful; a coward; and his mother largely to blame for helping to estrange him, in his early years, from his father.

  Looking up suddenly, Richard saw Phillip staring down at him from the open bedroom window above the water butt. The head was instantly withdrawn. He took the fish and buried them under the elm-tree in the garden. Then went to look at the motor car.

  Having already levered up the front axle, and put bricks under it, he set about examining the outer cover. There was a dun sharp edge of flint through the rubber and canvas, obviously picked up in Hillside Road. He worked it out, and put a canvas patch under the cut in the tyre. He pumped up the tube.

  The air was still holding after his cold bath. He put the repaired tube back, pumped it hard, levered up the front axle and kicked the bricks away, let the wheel take the weight again. The Panhard et Lavassor was now ready for its journey down into Hampshire.

  Chapter 23

  PHILLIP’S RIDE

  AT BREAKFAST Richard said, “Phillip, I strictly forbid you, under pain of a thrashing, to go anywhere near your Uncle’s motor-car, both before he arrives, and after he arrives, except, of course, by his invitation. Is that quite clear?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “And you, Hetty, are a witness to what I am saying!”

  Richard had had visions that morning, while dressing after his cold tub, of Phillip clambering upon the seat, letting off the handbrake … the motor-car running down the road to crash into the houses below.

  “Yes, Dickie, of course. I am sure he won’t disobey you.”

  “Well, I am not so sure! I have found you out!”

  In agitation Richard shook a warning finger over the breakfast table at Phillip, while the two girls and their mother sat silent upon their chairs. “You are a deceitful little beast, and I shall never believe a word of what you tell me in future. Now, if you please, Hetty, I will not have any interference!”—for Hetty had given him an appealing look, as much as to say, Let the children eat their breakfast in peace, dear, and you too; I am sure there is some mistake about the lantern and the hat—“You are always ready to side with the boy!”

  Leaving half his rasher of bacon on his plate, Richard got up from the breakfast table in the kitchen, and taking down the lantern from the top shelf of the dresser, stood it on the table. His eyes fixed upon his son’s face, with its downcast look, he cried:

  “Do you see that? Look at it closely! That small silvery speck, there! I found that just as it is now, stuck to the cowl. What is it? You may well ask! You——” turning to Phillip—“you know what it is, do you not?”

  “No, Father,” Phillip replied miserably.

  “What is it, Dickie?” asked Hetty, staring at the silvery mark.

  “Better ask the boy—your best boy.”

  “Do you know what it is, Phillip?”

  “No, Mother.”

  “Very well, then I will tell you, since Phillip has not the courage to own up! It is the scale of a fish. Moreover, it is the scale of a perch. I found two dead perch in the water-butt this morning. Need I say any more?”

  Phillip had gone grey in the face.

  “Did you take the lantern, Sonny?” asked Hetty.

  Phillip hung his head lower.

  “Yes, he did! I saw him lighting it, with Percy,” said Mavis, suddenly. “He stole it from the loft, to look for bats with, in the summerhouse at Aunty Liz’s!”

  “I didn’t!” muttered Phillip, beginning to cry. “That was another one, belonging to Percy’s friend.”

  “I am of a good mind to write to Mr. Pickering, and find out how far that statement is true! Now listen to me! I will give you until I come home this evening to make up your mind in the matter! If you admit your fault, then I shall give you a caning; if you persist in your underhand and dishonourable persistence, and your Uncle does not substantiate your statement, then I shall wash my hands of you altogether, and take steps to get you sent to a Reformatory! I’m sick and tired of your underhand, creepy-crawley ways!”

  “Oh, Sonny, you naughty boy to worry your Father so! How dare you do such wicked things?”

  “It is all very well to talk like that now!” cried Richard, his voice raised with his distress. “You should have been firmer with the boy before, not condone his every whim and fancy as soon as my back is turned! Well, you have heard my last word!”

  Richard rolled his table napkin, thrust it into the ring, and went upstairs to clean his teeth, preparatory for departing to the station.

  “You naughty, naughty boy!” said Hetty, knowing that Papa in the bathroom next door had been listening to Dickie’s raised voice. “I shall never trust you again!” to the boy n
ow sobbing with convulsive gulps.

  “He did take it, and Daddy’s hat!” said Mavis, pointing her finger at Phillip’s downheld face. “And Mummy’s blamed for it!”

  “Shut up, you fool!” he moaned.

  “He did take it, and Daddy’s hat,” echoed Doris, solemnly.

  “I don’t know what I shall do,” cried Hetty, in despair. She got up trembling from the table. “I have given up all my life to you children, I have done everything I could to please your Father, and now you, Sonny, have broken my heart!” and her face puckering as the tears fell, she went out to hide herself in the front room.

  The two little girls were now sobbing unrestrainedly. A series of raucous shrieks came up the passage, from the parrot in the sitting-room. “Sah lah! Sah lah!” it shieked, in Hindustani.

  “I shall go mad,” moaned Phillip. “I shall kill myself,” and he got up and went down to the lower lavatory and bolted himself in. Should he put his head in the pan and pull the plug with a piece of string first tied to the chain? Or open the trap door and jump down under the house and bash his head against the brick wall where the ’cello stood, until his neck was broken? Lying on the floor, he moaned in helpless abandon for a few moments, then an idea came to him.

  Unbolting the door, he went up to the broom cupboard under the stairs, and took out the box of cleaning materials. Wiping his tears on a rag, he opened the front door and set about cleaning the brass. He would make it shine so bright that perhaps Father would forgive him, and not thrash him with the cane with his trousers down and lying on the bed. Oh, if Father was going to thrash him, he must kill himself.

  He was rubbing the dull, sulphurous brass surface with all his energy when Richard came downstairs, and went to the coat-hanger to get his straw hat. Phillip stood back. He wanted to beg Father’s pardon, but the words would not form themselves.

  At such times of emotion Phillip could not speak properly. When he tried, it was as though an extra hole had opened in his throat and his tongue had dissolved. He made clucking noises, and when words did come, they were clipped, half swallowed, and hopelessly jumbled. He wanted to tell Father that he was very sorry, to beg his pardon, to say he would never touch any of his things again; but the words would not come. He stood still as Father walked down the porch, and a choked cry broke from him as he disappeared.