WILLIAM--THE MONEY MAKER
The Outlaws stood around and gazed expectantly at William.
“Well, where’re we goin’ to get ’em?” said Ginger.
“Buy ’em,” said William after a moment’s deep thought.
There was another silence. The solution was felt to be unworthy of
William.
“_Buy_ ’em!” echoed Douglas in a tone that expressed the general
feeling, “_buy_ ’em! Who’s got any money?”
This question being unanswerable remained unanswered. It was a strange
fact that the Outlaws never had any money. They all received pocket
money regularly and they all received the usual tips from visiting
relatives, but the fact remained that they never had any money. Most
of it, of course, went in repairing the wreckage that followed in the
train of their normal activities--broken windows, shattered greenhouse
frames, ruined paintwork and ornaments which seemed to the Outlaws
deliberately to commit self-destruction on their approach. As William
frequently remarked with deep bitterness:
“Meanness, that’s what it is. Meanness. Anythin’ to keep the money
themselves ’stead of givin’ it to us. Seems to me they go about makin’
things easy to break so’s they c’n have an excuse for keeping it
themselves instead of givin’ it us. _Meanness._ That’s what it is.”
The parents of the Outlaws who formed a sort of unofficial Parents’
Union and generally worked in concert had evolved the system of
fines--one penny for being late to a meal, a halfpenny for dirty hands
at meals and a farthing for not scraping their boots before coming into
the house (merely wiping them was insufficient. The Outlaws always
brought in with them the larger part of the surrounding countryside).
What was salvaged from the general wreckage of their finances caused by
this ruthless tyranny seldom passed the test of the close proximity of
Mr. Moss’ sweet shop with its bottles of alluring sweets and its boxes
of less lasting but more intriguing chocolate “fancies.”
“_Buy_ ’em,” echoed Henry with deep feeling. “What’re we to buy ’em
with? There’s _laws_ to stop people takin’ money off other people,
but my father”--with heavy sarcasm--“don’t seem to have heard of ’em.
He’ll be gettin’ into trouble one of these days takin’ other people’s
money off them. He’s startin’ with me, what he thinks can’t do anythin’
back, but he’ll be goin’ on to other people soon like what the Vicar
said people always do what begin pickin’ an’ stealin’ in little things
an’ then he’ll be gettin’ into trouble. Takin’ sixpence off me jus’
for bein’ late for a few meals! An’ then they keep sayin’ why don’t
we _save_. Well, what _I_ say is why don’ they give us somethin’ to
_save_, ’fore they start goin’ on an’ on at us for not savin’. Not
that I b’lieve in savin’,” he added hastily, “I don’ b’lieve in savin’
an’ I never have b’lieved in savin’. Money isn’t doin’ any good to
anyone--not while you’re savin’ it. I think it’s _wrong_ to save money.
Money doesn’t do any good to you or to anyone else. Not while you’re
savin’ it. It’s kinder to help the poor shop people by spendin’ money
at their shops. How’re the poor people in shops goin’ to live if all
the people save their money an’ don’t spend any of it?... Well, anyway
that’s what _I_ think.”
This was for Henry an unusually long and an unusually eloquent speech.
It showed that he had been stirred to the depth of his feelings. There
was a moment’s impressed silence. Then the others murmured in sympathy
and Douglas said: “Let’s go’n look at ’em again.”
* * * * *
They were in the window of the little general shop at the other end of
the village.... Three of them, beautiful in shape and strength and size
and symmetry, with brass tops--cricket stumps. They were priced eight
and sixpence.
“Golly!” said Ginger wistfully. “Just think of _playin’_ with ’em!”
“You _can_ get ’em cheaper than that,” suggested Douglas tentatively,
“you can get ’em for three and six. Smaller, of course, and not so
nice.”
The Outlaws, who were flattening their noses against the glass and
gazing at the stumps like so many Moseses gazing at the Promised Land,
treated Douglas’ suggestion with contempt.
“Who’d want to play with cheap ones after seeing these ones?” said
William sternly. “There’s no _sense_ in talkin’ about _cheap_ ones now
we’ve seen these ones. I--I’d sooner go on playin’ with the tree than
play with _other_ ones now we’ve seen these ones.”
The Outlaws had these holidays developed a passion for cricket.
They had, of course, partaken in the pastime in previous years,
but listlessly and with boredom as in a pastime organised by the
school authorities and therefore devoid of either sense or interest.
Fielding had, of course, provided ample opportunity for studying the
smaller fauna which infested the cricket pitch (last term Ginger had
several times been hit squarely in the back while engaged in catching
grasshoppers at mid-on), and batting was usually of short duration, but
not until these holidays had the Outlaws regarded cricket as a game to
be played for its own sake when not under the eye of Authority. The
discovery was a thrilling one. The Outlaws in this as in everything
threw moderation to the winds. They played cricket in season and
out of season. They began the game before breakfast and continued it
throughout the day with intervals for meals. They considered cricket
far more enlivening when played with four players than when played with
twenty-two. Ginger’s elder brother gave them an old ball and Douglas
had had a bat for a birthday present. Stumps they did not worry about.
They chalked stumps on a tree trunk and played quite happily with them
for a long time. But they found that stumps chalked on a tree trunk
have their drawbacks, of which the chief one is that the bowler and
batter are seldom agreed as to when one is hit. The Outlaws generally
settled the question by single combat between batter and bowler, which
at first was all right because the Outlaws always enjoyed single
combats, but as the game itself became more and more exciting the
perpetual abandoning of it to settle the score by single combat became
monotonous and rather boring.
It was then that the Outlaws decided to procure stumps. Had they not
happened to see the eight and six set all would have been well. They
would have stuck sticks into the ground or scraped together enough
money to buy an inferior set at one and eleven. But--not now. Now that
they had seen the eight and six set of stumps, the set of stumps _de
luxe_, the set of stumps with brass tops from the Land of the Ideal,
they knew that all the savour would be gone from the game till they
possessed them.
“Eight and six,” said Douglas gloomily. “Well, we shall never get eight
and six, so we may as well stop thinking of them, and just do the best
we can with sticks.”
This spiritless attitude irritated William.
“_Why_ can’t we get eight an’ six?” he said. “Of course we c’n get
eight an’ six if we want it.”
“All right,” challenged Douglas, as irritated by William’s attitude as
William had been by his. “If you c’n get eight an’ six, go an’ _get_
eight an’ six.”
“All right, I will,” said William.
He hadn’t exactly meant to say this, but the words were out so he
accompanied them with a careless swagger.
They eyed him morosely and yet with a gleam of hope.
“Course you can’t get eight an’ six,” they said. “How c’n you get
eight an’ six?”
William having taken up a position, however rashly, was not going to
abandon it.
“P’raps _you_ can’t,” he said kindly. “I daresay _you_ can’t, but if
_I_ want to get eight an’ six I bet I c’n get eight an’ six.”
“Before to-night?” said Ginger. “You’ll bring ’em here to-night?”
William was for a second taken aback by thus having the soaring flights
of his fancy tied down to time and space.
He blinked for a moment, then recovering his swagger said:
“Course. You wait and see.”
* * * * *
He walked home rather thoughtfully. Eight and six. The magnitude of the
sum staggered his imagination. How could he get one and six or even
sixpence, let alone eight and six? Not for the first time he regretted
those rash impulses that always seemed to visit him at critical moments
and make him undertake quite impossible tasks. The actual undertaking
was, of course, a glorious moment--the careless swagger, the impression
he gave himself as well as his audience of hidden resources, secret
powers--almost of omnipotence.
But afterwards--and _eight and six_! William felt as helpless as if
he had undertaken to provide a million pounds. He did not remember
ever possessing as much money as eight and six. He did not remember
ever knowing anyone who possessed as much money as eight and six. And
yet--he knew that his prestige was at stake. With simple, touching
faith the Outlaws were now looking to him to provide eight and six
before to-night.
Up till now William had, owing to strokes of pure luck, always managed
to make good his spectacular promises of the impossible, but this time
he thought that he had met his Sedan. He did not think it in those
exact words, of course, because he had not yet got to Napoleon. He
was still laboriously and uninspiredly doing the Wars of the Roses.
But he did think that he was in a beastly hole and he’d look a nice
fool when he met them to-night with only the twopence-halfpenny which
he might be able to extort from the boy next door, in exchange for
a set of cigarette-cards. (The boy next door never had more than
twopence-halfpenny, and as he did not collect cigarette-cards the
exchange would have to be forcibly effected.) Looking round all his
available resources, William did not see any prospect of anything
except that possible twopence-halfpenny. His family, of course, was out
of the question. His brother and sister always pretended that they had
no money which, as William knew, was absurd, considering that they were
grown up and had magnificent allowances and nothing to spend them on.
It seemed to William one of the many ironies of fate that when you were
young--say eleven--and had a lot of interesting things to buy, such as
cricket bats and sweets and pistols and airguns and mouth-organs, you
had only a measly twopence a week, and when you were old--say eighteen
like this brother--and had lost your taste for interesting things, they
gave you shillings and shillings which you simply went and wasted on
things like clothes and notepaper and suitcases and books (to quote a
few recent instances of waste of money which William had noticed in
the adult members of his family). It always made him feel bitter to
see perfectly good money which might have been spent on cricket bats
and sweets and pistols and airguns and mouth-organs squandered on such
things as clothes and notepaper and suitcases and books. His sister had
particularly disgusted him only the other week by buying an expensive
book of music. How much better and kinder it would have been, thought
William, to buy the cricket stumps for him....
His mother? His mother was softer hearted than any other member of
his family (which in William’s opinion was not saying much), but
only yesterday he had inadvertently spilt boiling sealing-wax on the
top of her polished writing-table while carrying on--without her
knowledge--some private and highly interesting experiments with a
sealing-wax set which she had won as a prize at a bridge drive. The
set consisted of little balls of sealing-wax and a tiny saucepan in
which to heat them over a little candle, and as soon as William saw it
he knew that his spirit would have no rest till he had tried it. As he
explained to her when she discovered the damage, he did not know that
it was going to boil over on to her table like that.... He had made
things worse by trying to get the mark out with ammonia because he had
seen his mother the night before getting a stain out of his suit with
ammonia.
His mother had covered up the mark by the simple expedient of putting
the ink pot upon it and had agreed to say nothing about it to William’s
father, but William felt it was hardly a propitious moment for
approaching her with a request for eight and sixpence....
His father? ... he hadn’t yet paid for the landing window and his
father was presumably still feeling annoyed about the cricket ball
which had accidentally hit him yesterday evening when William was
practising bowling in the garden. No: it would be little short of
suicidal to approach his father for eight and six to-day and quite
hopeless at any time. Extraordinary to think of the hundreds of pounds
which must be wasted on quite useless things every year and no one
would give him eight and six for a really necessary thing like cricket
stumps....
He wandered gloomily homeward. A youth with projecting teeth met him
and gave him an expansive smile of greeting. William replied with his
darkest scowl. He recognised the youth as Ethel’s latest admirer and
one of the most unsatisfactory admirers Ethel had ever had. He had
given the youth every chance to buy his good graces, and the youth
had not presented him with so much as a cigarette card. William, who
did not believe in wasting efforts, had long since ceased to greet
the youth with any attempt at pleasantness. Pleasantness to Ethel’s
admirers was in William’s eyes a marketable quality and this youth had
not seen fit to purchase it.
After turning to watch the youth out of sight and wasting upon the
youth’s unconscious back an exceptionally expressive grimace of scorn
and ridicule, William continued gloomily to plod his homeward way.
On arriving home he first went up to his bedroom and carried out a
systematic search of all his drawers and pockets. William was an
incurable optimist and always hoped to find some day a forgotten
coin in a pocket or a corner of a drawer. Ginger had once found a
halfpenny in the pocket of a flannel suit he had not worn since the
summer before, and ever after that all the other Outlaws had lived in
hopes of doing the same thing. The search, however, proved in this
case fruitless. It revealed only a rusty button and an old whistle
which must have lost some vital part, for though William, temporarily
forgetting the eight and six, expended a vast amount of wind and energy
on it no sound of any sort resulted. Thereupon, purple in the face and
breathless, he threw it indignantly out of the window. It seemed to
him a typical example of fate’s way of dealing with him. Even when he
found an old whistle it hadn’t any blow in it....
Scowling bitterly and still trying to devise some method by which one
might conjure eight and sixpence out of the void he descended to the
garden.
* * * * *
In the garden he found his sister Ethel wearing a neat land girl’s
costume and weeding a bed. The Browns were temporarily without a
gardener, and Ethel had undertaken the care of the garden till a new
one should be engaged. She had done this chiefly because she had
discovered how extremely fascinating she looked in a land girl’s
outfit. The land girl’s outfit was partly responsible for the fatuous
smile on the projecting teeth of the youth who had just left her....
William watched her for a minute in silence. His thoughts were still
bitter. Spending money on that old gardening suit that might have been
used to buy the stumps.... His eye roved round the garden.... Spending
money on spades and rakes and watering cans and seeds and flowers and
things that didn’t do any good to anyone ... things that must have cost
ever so many eight and sixes, and they wouldn’t give him one little
eight and six to buy a useful thing like cricket stumps.
Suddenly an inspiration visited him.
“Can I help you, Ethel?” he said with an ingratiating smile.
She looked up at him suspiciously, began a curt refusal, then stopped.
She was growing tired of gardening. She was growing tired of her land
girl’s outfit. Its novelty had worn off and it was rather hot and
stuffy. The youth with projecting teeth admired her in it intensely,
but then she was growing tired of the youth with projecting teeth. She
stood up and stretched.
[Illustration: “CAN I HELP YOU, ETHEL?” WILLIAM SAID, WITH AN
INGRATIATING SMILE. ETHEL LOOKED UP AT HIM SUSPICIOUSLY.]
“How much do you want for it?” she demanded brusquely.
She laboured under no delusions as to the disinterestedness of
William’s offers of help. She had known William too long for that.
“Sixpence an hour,” said William daringly.
He never thought she’d give it him. But Ethel was sick of kneeling on
the ground in the hot sun in a suit of clothes she was beginning to
dislike, slaving for a lot of silly plants which didn’t seem to look
any better when she’d done with them.
“All right,” she said.
William did a hasty sum. Eight and six. Two sixpences in a shilling.
Twice eight are sixteen and the other sixpence seventeen. Seventeen
hours. _Crumbs!_
“I meant a shilling,” he said quickly.
“Well, you said sixpence and sixpence is all you’ll get,” said Ethel,
unfeelingly.
William was not surprised. He hadn’t really hoped for anything else
from Ethel. Well, it would be a beginning ... and perhaps when he’d got
this bit of money something else would turn up.
“What d’you want me to do?” he said.
“Water the rose beds with the hose pipe and weed the bed on the
lawn and pick a basket of strawberries for mother. _Pick_, not eat,
remember.”
William haughtily ignored the insult contained in the last sentence and
mentally contemplated his directions with a professional air.
“Well,” he said at last, “that’ll take me a good many hours. I daresay
that’ll take me all the rest of to-day, late into the night an’ most
of to-morrow.” He was struggling in his head with vast and complicated
mental sums ... hours into sixpences--sixpences into shillings.... She
interrupted them.
“It oughtn’t to take you more than two,” she said. “Anyway I’m not
paying you for more than two. It oughtn’t really to take you one.”
“_Well!_” said William in a tone of surprise and indignation, as if he
was unable to believe his ears. “_Well!_”
But Ethel was already out of earshot. She was going to change the land
girl’s outfit (which she had finally decided was not really her style
at all) for a dress of printed chiffon.
William stood and stared around the garden despondently. What was one
shilling in eight and six? Then his ever ready optimism came to his
aid. One shilling was better than nothing.... He might as well start on
it. What had she said first? The hose pipe.... Well, it wouldn’t be so
bad. Quite apart from the shilling the hose pipe always had its bright
side.... Normally William was forbidden the use of the hose pipe. Even
Ethel wouldn’t have told him to use the hose pipe if she hadn’t been in
a state of weary disgust with gardening in general and her land girl’s
suit in particular. William fitted on the hose pipe nozzle and turned
on the tap. He had no thought in his mind except the watering of the
rose beds as directed, and the earning of his shilling.
It was sheer bad luck that just at the critical moment when he was
about to deluge the rose bed he suddenly caught sight of his inveterate
enemy, the next-door cat, silhouetted against the sky on the top of
the wall. William did not stop to reason. He acted on the overpowering
impulse of the moment. He turned the full flow of the hose pipe on to
the person of his enemy. His enemy nimbly evaded it and it flowed in a
pellucid unbroken fountain over the wall into the next garden. There
came a shrill scream.
“The brute! He’s soaked me!” a voice shrilled.
“Me too!” screamed another. “Oh, the brute! Who was it? I’m soaked.”
“It must be that awful boy next door.”
“Look over the wall and see if you can see him. Stand on the chair!”
After a few minutes’ interval an irate and dripping head appeared
over the wall and looked around for William. It did not see William,
however. William, crouching behind the rain tub, was quite hidden
from view. It saw, however, the hose pipe flung upon the ground and
discharging its full force down the garden path.
“It’s him,” said the voice. “I don’t see him but I know it’s him. He’s
left the thing there. Look! Pouring out. It must be him.”
“Let’s go straight in to change and then go and tell his father. I’m
still soaked.”
The head disappeared; the sound of indignant voices grew fainter; a
distant door closed.
William emerged from behind the rain butt and hastened to turn off the
tap and put away the hose pipe.... All that beastly cat’s fault. Now he
came to think of it hose pipes always had been unlucky for him. There’d
been that little affair at the doctor’s only a few months ago....
Well, he’d better get on with the rest of it and try and get the
shilling safely before they were dry enough to come and see his father.
What had she told him to do next? Weed the bed on the lawn. William
promptly knelt down and weeded the bed on the lawn with commendable
thoroughness. There was no doubt at all in William’s mind as to what
constituted a weed. In William’s mind a weed was any plant he did not
know the name of. William knew the names of very few plants. When he
had finished weeding the bed contained a few straggling stocks and
asters and one marguerite. By his side lay a pile of uprooted lobelias,
petunias, calceolarias, veronicas and other plants. He carried these
carefully to the rubbish heap, then gazed with pride at the bed on
which he had been working.
“Looks a bit tidier now,” he said.
Only one more thing to do. What was that? Oh, a basket of strawberries.
He got a basket from the greenhouse and proceeded to the strawberry
bed. He sat down there and a languorous content stole over him.
* * * * *
Ethel appeared dressed in the printed chiffon. She looked very dainty
and bewitching. She’d decided to send the land girl’s suit to the next
parish jumble sale--it really wasn’t her style.... William ought to
have finished now. She’d give him his shilling and then she’d tell her
father that she’d done what she’d said she’d do in the garden and she
jolly well wouldn’t offer to do any more. Anyway, a new gardener would
be coming next week.... She suddenly stopped motionless, her eyes wide
open in horrified amazement. The rose bed was still unwatered, but the
garden path was completely swamped. Her eyes wandered slowly to the bed
on the lawn which she had told William to weed. It was as William had
left it--completely denuded except for half a dozen straggling plants
whose presence only emphasised its desolation. There was no sign of
William. Ethel went round to the kitchen garden. William was sitting on
the path by the strawberry bed still in a state of languorous content.
Ethel stared from the empty basket to the empty strawberry bed and from
the empty strawberry bed to William’s gently moving mouth.
“You _naughty_ boy!” said Ethel. “You’ve _eaten_ them, every one!”
William awoke with a start from his state of languorous content and
looked at the basket and the strawberry bed. He was almost as amazed
and horrified as Ethel.
“I say,” he said. “I din’t meant to eat ’em _all_. I din’t honest.
I only meant to try jus’ one or two jus’ to make sure they was all
right before I started pickin’ ’em. I--I expect really it’s the birds
that did it when they saw I wasn’t lookin’. _Honest_, I don’t think I
could’ve eaten ’em all--I’m sure I only ate just a few--jus’ to see
they was all right.”
Ethel’s fury burst forth.
“I shan’t give you any money and I shall tell father the _minute_ he
comes in.”
This reminded William of something else.
“I say, Ethel,” he said anxiously. “No one’s--no one’s been in to see
father jus’ lately, have they?”
“Oh,” snapped Ethel. “Why?”
“No, nothin’,” said William. “I mean I jus’ thought p’raps someone
might be jus’ sort of comin’ to see him, that’s all.”
Ethel turned on her heel and walked away. Slightly to relieve his
feelings William put out his tongue at her back. He might have known
Ethel would let him slave for her for all this time and then not give
him a penny. It was just like Ethel. He’d known her all his life and he
might have known she’d play him a mean trick like that. Getting him to
work like a nigger and promising him a shilling and then not giving him
a penny jus’ because--well jus’ because of hardly anything.
A great despondency possessed William. He seemed to be farther off the
eight and six than ever.... Ethel being Ethel would not be likely to
forget to tell his father and presumably the recipients of the contents
of the hose pipe were already drying themselves in preparation for
their visit.... He was in for a rotten time. He wouldn’t have minded
if he’d got the eight and six. He wouldn’t mind anything if he’d got
the eight and six. He decided that it would be as well to leave the
strawberry bed, so after carefully wiping his mouth to remove any
chance stains, he wandered disconsolately round to the front of the
house. His mother was coming out of the front door, dressed in her best
clothes.
It struck Mrs. Brown that her younger son was looking rather pathetic.
She was short-sighted and she often mistook William’s expression of
fury and disgust for one of pathos. It was a mistake which had often
served William well.
“Would you like to come with me, dear?” she said pleasantly.
“Where to?” said William guardedly.
“To a nice little Sale of Work in Miss Milton’s garden,” said his
mother. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
William was sure he wouldn’t, but it occurred to him that he might as
well be at Miss Milton’s nice little Sale of Work as anywhere. Better
than staying at home where his father and the next-door neighbours
might arrive any minute.
“A’ right,” said William graciously. “I don’t mind.”
“Very well, dear. I’ll wait for you. Go and wash and brush yourself.”
“I have washed and brushed myself,” said William. “I did it specially
well this morning to last the day.”
“Well, it hasn’t done, dear,” said Mrs. Brown simply. “So go and do it
again.”
With a deep, deep sigh expressive of bitterness and disillusion and
unexampled patience under unexampled wrongs, William went to do it
again.
* * * * *
The first person he saw at the Sale of Work was Ethel in the printed
chiffon accompanied by the young man with projecting teeth. William,
who had detached himself from his mother, passed them without
acknowledging them and hoped that they felt small. As a matter of fact
they had not noticed him. He wandered about the garden. It might have
been a more or less enjoyable affair for there were bran tubs and
coco-nut shies and Aunt Sallies on a small scale--had William not been
weighed down by his heavy financial anxieties. He was obsessed by the
thought of the eight and six.
There simply didn’t seem any way in the world of getting eight and
six....
He found his mother and assuming that expression that he found so
useful in his dealings with her said:
“Mother, please may I have a little money to spend here?”
His mother was obviously touched by his tone and expression, but after
a brief inward struggle seemed to conquer her weaker feelings.
“I’m afraid not, William dear, because you know what your father said
about the landing window last week. But I’ll give you just one penny,
because it’s all in a good cause and I’m sure your father didn’t mean
when it was a case of charity. But not more than one penny.”
So Mrs. Brown gave him a penny which he pocketed carefully as the
nucleus of the eight and six.
Then he began to wander disconsolately round the grounds again. A small
tent bearing the legend “Crystal Gazer” attracted his attention. He
looked at it with interest for some time, then turned to a bystander.
“What’s a Crystal Gazer?” he asked.
“A sort of fortune teller,” answered the bystander absently.
A sort of fortune teller ... perhaps a fortune teller might tell him
how to get eight and six.... William went off to find his mother. She
was serving at a stall. He assumed his pathetic expression and wistful
voice again.
“Mother, please,” he said. “May I have my crystal gazed?”
But Mrs. Brown was busy and the effect of William’s pathetic expression
and wistful voice was beginning to wear off.
“No, dear,” she said very firmly. “I don’t believe in it. I think it
very wrong to meddle with the future.”
William walked back to the tent deeply interested. The fact that his
mother considered it wrong invested it with a sort of glamour in his
eyes, and “meddling with the future” sounded vaguely exciting. The
tent was not opened yet, but was due to open in ten minutes. Already a
queue of prospective clients was lined up before the doorway. William
wandered round to the back of the tent. He had forgotten even the
eight and six in a consuming curiosity about the crystal gazing. The
back of the tent was quite deserted. Cautiously William descended to
his hands and knees, held up the canvas and peeped underneath. Inside
the tent was the young man with projecting teeth and a girl whom
William recognised as the young man’s sister. The young man was just
giving her a paper.
[Illustration: WILLIAM LAY ON THE GROUND AND LISTENED.]
“She doesn’t know you’re going to do it, does she?” the young man was
saying.
“No. And I shall be wearing this veil. It quite hides my face.”
“Well, just say to her what’s on this paper, will you?”
“All right.” The girl put the paper on the table and said, “Now do get
out. I’ve got to start.”
[Illustration: “I SEE SOMEONE,” THE CRYSTAL GAZER SAID IMPRESSIVELY
“WHOSE LIFE IS CLOSELY BOUND UP WITH YOURS.”
“WHO IS HE?” SAID ETHEL, WITH INTEREST.]
The young man got out and after a few minutes the queue began to enter
one by one. William lay on the ground and listened beneath the canvas
flap. He found it rather dull. When it was a girl the crystal gazer
saw either a dark man or a fair man in the crystal and when it was a
man the crystal gazer saw either a dark girl or a fair girl in the
crystal....
It was so dull that William was just going to abandon his post of
eavesdropping when Ethel entered. He saw the crystal gazer move the
paper on her table, concealed from Ethel by a book, so that she could
read it.
“I see someone,” she read impressively from the paper, “whose life is
closely bound up with yours. At present you do not appreciate him. You
are harsh and cold to him. But he has great qualities which you have
not yet discovered. He is a far nobler character than you think.”
“Who is he?” said Ethel with interest.
“I will show you how to tell who he is,” said the crystal gazer. “I can
see him here. He is giving you a present. I can even see the time. It
is just five minutes after you leave this tent. I see him again. He is
sitting next to you at tea. I see him again. He is meeting you on your
way home. He asks you a question. Let me tell you that the happiness of
your whole life depends upon your saying ‘yes.’ That is all I have to
tell.”
Looking deeply impressed Ethel left the tent by the front.
Looking equally impressed William left the tent by the back.
It was exactly five minutes after Ethel left the tent when William,
carrying a penny bag of monkey nuts, met the young man carrying a
five-shilling bunch of roses and wearing a fatuous smile.
“You lookin’ for Ethel?” said William.
“Yes.”
“She’s right over the other end by the gate,” said William.
The young man hastened off towards the gate.
William went to his mother’s stall where Ethel was helping and handed
her the bag of monkey nuts.
“Here’s a little present for you, Ethel,” he said.
Suspiciously Ethel opened it. Ordinarily she would have accepted it
either as a deliberate insult or as a feeble attempt to buy her
silence about the hose pipe and the strawberries. But she looked at the
clock. It was just five minutes after her departure from the crystal
gazer’s tent....
She threw a bewildered glance at William’s expressionless face and
received the bag with a confused murmur. It was certainly curious, a
present just five minutes after leaving the tent ... someone she didn’t
appreciate. The young man did not find her till ten minutes afterwards
and she was still puzzling so deeply over her mysterious present from
William at the exact minute foretold by the crystal gazer that she
hardly noticed the roses at all--merely murmured “thanks” and put them
on the side table and went on thinking about William presenting her
with a bag of monkey nuts at the exact minute foretold by the crystal
gazer.
The young man was on the look-out when Ethel and Mrs. Brown went to
the tea tent. He accompanied them, walking on the other side of Ethel,
talking, and smiling amicably. William walked behind. They entered the
tea tent. They approached the row of chairs. They began to sit down on
three chairs, Mrs. Brown at one end, Ethel in the middle and--it wasn’t
till the young man was in the act of sitting down that he saw that
William was on the seat. William was sitting between Ethel and him.
Ethel was staring at William in amazement. William was gazing in front
of him unperturbed and sphinx-like, as though in a trance. The young
man asked William to change places with him. William refused. He said
that he’d better sit there so that he could pass things to his sister
and his mother and Mrs. Brown said that that was very nice of him,
and thought how William’s manners were improving, and that she must
remember to tell his father.
Ethel was very silent. She continued to gaze at William with mingled
amazement and bewilderment and anxiety. The fortune teller had said
“he”--William had given her a present and here he was sitting next
to her at tea--most curious. She was so silent that the young man
finally gave up all attempts to entertain her and contented himself
with glaring balefully at William. William continued to gaze blankly in
front of him as if unaware of their presence and to make a very good
tea.
* * * * *
People were going home now. Mrs. Brown was staying to help dismantle
the stalls but Ethel had set off home by herself. She was going the
short cut home across the fields. She climbed over a stile. She saw the
young man at the other end of the field standing by the further stile
obviously waiting for her. She walked demurely and daintily towards
him. Then suddenly as if he had sprung up from a ditch (which as a
matter of fact he had) William appeared.
“Please, Ethel,” he said meekly, “will you give me eight and six?”
She stared at him open-mouthed with amazement at the request--the cheek
of it! And then her thoughts travelled suddenly back to the crystal
gazer ... “meet on your way home” ... “request” ... “happiness of your
whole life depends upon your saying yes.”
Ethel was superstitious. Dreadful things might happen to her if she
refused and yet--_eight and six_. Still--no, she daren’t refuse.
_Anything_ might happen to her if she refused.... Furiously she opened
her purse ... _eight and six_--it would only leave her a pound till the
end of the month.
Angrily she flung the coins at William and walked on. She felt so angry
that when she reached the young man at the further stile she walked
straight past him without looking at him or answering him when he spoke
to her....
* * * * *
Mr. Brown sat in his chair in the drawing-room holding his head. On
one side of him was Ethel and on the other side the ladies from next
door. Ethel was feeling especially bitter at the thought of the eight
and six. She had long ago repented of giving it to William. She’d never
go to a crystal gazer again. She’d been an absolute idiot. It was all
rubbish ... making her give William eight and six.... She felt she
could almost kill William. But as she couldn’t do that she contented
herself with expatiating on his horticultural failures.
“He hadn’t _touched_ the bed with it,” she was saying.
“It _deluged_ us,” said the ladies from next door.
“He’d pulled up _everything_,” said Ethel.
“Came over in a perfect fountain and _deluged_ us,” said the ladies
next door.
“And he simply ate every one--every single one in the bed,” said Ethel,
“there wasn’t _one_ left.”
“Must have been done deliberately,” said the ladies next door, “it
absolutely _deluged_ us.”
Mr. Brown removed his head from his hands.
“Where _is_ he?” he groaned.
But no one knew where he was.
He was as a matter of fact at the other end of the village. He was
swaggering up to the Outlaws with the brand new eight and six stumps
under his arm. The Outlaws were gaping at him stupefied with amazement
and admiration.
“Said I’d get the money,” said William airily, “so I--I jus’ got it.
Thought I might as well get the things an’ bring ’em along with me.
Here they are.”
It was a moment worth living for.
William felt that he really didn’t care _what_ happened to him after
that.