“Let the kid off now,” he said. “It wasn’t a bad joke and I thoroughly enjoyed the scrap. It’s years since I had a really good one. You’re pretty useful with your left, you know.”
“My defence is too slow,” said Robert modestly. “You were too quick for me. But it was a jolly good scrap.”
It turned out that Robert and Lieutenant Orford had taken to each other. Lieutenant Orford was bored to death with Hubert’s cousin and the Lanes. He and Robert were fixing up various dates for the remainder of their leave. They wouldn’t even listen to William when he tried to explain what had happened.
“Get out!” ordered Robert threateningly.
And William got out.
He munched his apple, continuing to stare morosely at the next-door cat. The next-door cat had, as he knew, troubles of its own. From a diet of sardines, chicken and cream, it had gradually been relegated to skim milk and a nauseous bran-like mixture sold under the misleading name of Cat Food. Meeting William’s eye, it opened its mouth in a raven-like croak of disgust.
“Huh!” said William through a mouthful of apple. “It’s all right for you. You’ve not had your leg pulled by Hubert Lane.”
The cat eyed him sardonically and repeated its raven-like croak.
“An’ been half killed on top of it,” continued William. “Gosh! I’m sorry for those Germans when Robert gets at ’em.”
He aimed his apple core at the cat. It missed it by several feet.
“Can’t even hit a cat,” he continued dejectedly.
The cat uttered what sounded like a sardonic chuckle.
William sank back again into the wheelbarrow and took another apple out of his pocket.
“You’re right,” he agreed as he bit into it. “It’s a rotten war.”
Chapter 6 – Guy Fawkes—with Variations
“Guy Fawkes’ day without a bonfire or fireworks!” said William despondently. “It’s not right. It oughter be put a stop to.”
“I’ve almost forgot what a firework looks like,’’ said Ginger.
“It seems wrong to a great man like that,” said Douglas in a tone of righteous indignation, “lettin’ people forget him jus’ ’cause of the war.”
“He wasn’t a great man,” Henry reminded him. “He tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.”
“Well, that’s where the Gov’nment lives, isn’t it?” said Douglas, “an’ to hear my father talk when his Income Tax comes in you’d think it was a good thing if someone did blow it up.”
“Well, it’s against the lor, anyway,” persisted Henry. “There’s lors stoppin’ people blowin’ up the Gov’nment.”
“It doesn’t matter what sort of man he was,” said William impatiently. “We can’t have fireworks or a bonfire an’ it’s jolly rotten.”
“He must’ve done somethin’ else besides try to blow up the Gov’nment,” said Ginger.
“He didn’t,’’ said Henry. “That’s all he ever did an’ he got executed for it.”
William thought this over in silence, then brightened.
“Well, if we can’t have him blowin’ up the gov’nment we can have him bein’ executed,” he suggested.
The others considered the suggestion with various degrees of doubtfulness.
“How can we?” demanded Douglas.
“Well, don’t you see?” said William, “it’s quite easy. One of us’ll be Guy Fawkes—I’ll be him—an’ we can act him blowin’ up the Gov’nment—one of you can be the Gov’nment—an’ then another can be the policeman an’ another the judge. An’ we can have a trial an’ an execution. I’ll be the executioner. I’ll borrow our axe from the tool-shed.”
“You can’t if you’re Guy Fawkes,” said Ginger. “You couldn’t chop your own head off.”
“N-no,” agreed William, reluctantly abandoning this double role. “No, I s’pose I couldn’t. Least, I bet I could, but it’d take a lot of practice. All right, the p’liceman can cut his head off. Anyway, it’s better than nothin’. It’s not as good as a bonfire, but it’s better than jus’ doin’ nothing. Well, it’s better than a bonfire in one way, ’cause it won’t matter if it rains.”
The others were gradually becoming infected by William’s enthusiasm.
“The old barn can be the Houses of Parliament,” said Ginger. “An’ I’m bein’ the Gov’nment in it.”
“I’ll come an’ blow you up soon as you’ve got settled,’ said William. “I bet I can get somethin” that goes off with a bang. An’ then I’ll run away an’ Douglas’ll be the p’liceman an’ run after me.”
“Bet I catch you!” cried Douglas exultantly.
“An’ I’m the judge,” said Henry. “I’ll have witnesses an’ speeches an’ things same as a real one.”
“Then I chop your head off,” said Ginger with relish.
“Bet you don’t,” said William. “Bet I escape out of prison.”
“You can’t do things the real one didn’t,” said Henry.
“Can’t I!” said William. “You wait an’ see!”
The game undoubtedly promised a certain amount of surprise and excitement.
“It’s not till to-morrow,” said Ginger. “It gives us time to think out lots of extra things to put into it.”
“Yes,” said William, “we’ll all think hard till to-morrow.”
It was on the way home that they met Joan, wandering somewhat disconsolately down the lane.
“Hello, Joan,” said William. “We’re havin’ Guy Fawkes’ day to-morrow without a bonfire. Would you like to be in it? You can’t be Guy Fawkes,” hastily, “because I’m him.”
“Nor the Gov’nment nor executioner,” said Ginger, “’cause I’m them.”
“Nor the p’liceman,’ said Douglas, “’cause I’m him.”
“Nor the judge,” said Henry.
“Can I be his mother?” said Joan.
“He didn’t have a mother,” said William.
“He must have done,” put in Henry.
“Well, I mean she didn’t come into it,” explained William. “She didn’t blow anything up.”
Joan considered.
“Did he have a wife? Did she do anything?”
The Outlaws looked nonplussed.
“Someone in history had a wife,” volunteered Ginger, “an’ she went to see him in prison an’ changed clothes with him an’ he went out in her clothes an’ got away.”
“I don’t think it was Guy Fawkes,” said Henry.
“Don’t see why it shouldn’t’ve been,” said William. “It’d make it a bit more excitin’, anyway. It takes a jolly lot of other excitin’ things to make up for a bonfire.”
“I’ll be Mrs. Fawkes, then,” said Joan, “and I’ll come and see you in prison and you can come out in my coat and hat. The hat comes right down over my face so it’ll make a good disguise.” She sighed. “I shall be glad to have something to do to-morrow. It’s going to be an awful day.”
“Why?” chorused the Outlaws.
She began to walk down the road with them.
“Well, it’s a cousin of Mummy’s. I’ve never seen her, but she’s got a school in a terribly safe place in Scotland, and she says she’ll take me as a pupil without Mummy paying anything, and Mummy says that with things being so difficult because of the war we oughtn’t to say ‘no’. I don’t want to go and Mummy doesn’t really want me to go, but she says we mustn’t refuse ’cause it’s such an opportunity with it being such a good school and such a terribly safe place, but—oh, I can’t bear to think of it—”
“You’re not goin’ to-morrow, are you?” said William, aghast.
He had begun to take Joan’s presence for granted, and the thought of her sudden disappearance from their games and expeditions was a disconcerting one. Joan was quiet and unobtrusive, but she filled a distinct need in their lives. She played squaw to their Red Indians (and no one had ever made a better squaw), and looked after them generally, concealing the trails of untidiness and destructiveness they lef
t behind them, brushing coats and straightening collars before they returned to the keen maternal eye. She was, in short, both officially and unofficially their Squaw-in-Chief.
“No, not to-morrow,” she said mournfully. “I’m going there next term probably, but this cousin—she’s called Miss Cummins—is coming over to see my mother about it to-morrow, and to get it all fixed up. I was just dreading to-morrow, but if I can be Mrs. Fawkes it’ll be one thing to look forward to, anyway, and it won’t be quite so bad.”
“But—gosh!" protested William indignantly, “you can’t go to this place. Why, it’s—it’s—it’s safe all right here.”
“Not so safe as in this terribly safe place where she has her school,” said Joan sorrowfully, “and Mummy says it’ll be nice for Daddy not having to pay any more school fees for me. She doesn’t want me to go. She’s as miserable as I am about it—but she thinks we ought to.”
“Well, I think it’s rotten,” said William.
The other Outlaws agreed.
“Never mind,” said Joan brightening. “Let’s forget it. It’s lovely to have the Guy Fawkes thing to look forward to. l think it’ll be much nicer than a bonfire. Let’s all be conspirators to start with and then we can be the other parts afterwards. It’ll be more fun to have a lot of conspirators. What are you going to blow it up with, William? I’ve got some pistol caps.”
“Oh, good!” said William. “We’ve used everything up like that, an’ you can’t get ’em now.”
They walked down the road, discussing the details of the Guy Fawkes’ day celebrations.
* * *
The conspirators met at the appointed place—under an oak tree near the old barn. They all wore mackintoshes as being the nearest approach to conspirators’ cloaks that could be produced, and threw furtive glances over their shoulders as they talked. All of them had luxuriant corked moustaches.
“What’ll we do to get rid of the Gov’nment?” said Ginger, and added “Gadzooks!” with an air of conscious erudition.
“Methinks ’twere best to poison it,” suggested Henry. “Put arsenic in its tea same as I once read about a man doin’ in the newspaper.”
“Marry, no,” said Henry in a deep bass voice, adding in his natural voice: “Marry’s another of ’em, same as Gadzooks.” He returned to his deep bass voice. “Let’s hide behind a hedge anon an’ shoot it.”
“Anon’s another,” he added in parenthesis.
“Nay, marry anon gadzooks!” said William, rather overdoing it. “We might miss it. Then we’d all get shot. I tell thee what! Let’s blow it up.”
“Nay, sirrah,” said Henry, “’twould be a jolly dangerous thing to do. I bet thee anything they’d find out.”
“Hearken unto me,” began Joan.
“That’s too Bible,” interrupted Henry. “He’s not out of the Bible, Guy Fawkes. He’s out of history.”
“What shall I say, then?” said Joan.
“Oh, you could jus’ say ‘List’ an’ put ‘Gadzooks’ in front.”
“All right,” said Joan, “Gadzooks, list.” She thought for a moment, then said: “What about gramercy? Isn’t that one too?”
“Yes,” said Henry vaguely, “I believe it is.”
“What do they mean, anyway?” said Ginger.
“Nothin’,” said Henry. “They jus’ stuck ’em about anywhere to show they were talkin’ history language.”
“All right,” said Joan. “List, marry anon gramercy. Why should’st we not dig a sort of tunnel from next door to the Houses of Parliament and blow them up that way? They did that really.”
“An a jolly good way anon,” said William.
“I don’t think ‘anon’s right,” said Henry. “I think ‘anon’ means something.”
“No, I think it’s jus’ a history word,” said William, “an’ we want a good many with so many of us. Come on, my merry men—”
“That’s Robin Hood,” criticised Henry. “It’s outlaws that’s merry men, not conspirators.”
“Y-yes, I suppose so,” agreed William. “All right. Come on—”
“Varlet!” said Henry excitedly. “I’ve jus’ remembered. They called people varlets in hist’ry.”
“All right,” said William. “Come on, my ole varlets. Let us haste with all speed, gadzooks, to do the gunpowder plot.”
The next scene was simpler. William, Joan, Douglas and Henry, still wearing mackintoshes, made furtive and conspiratorial play of digging a tunnel outside the old barn, while, inside, Ginger, impersonating the Government, sat on a packing-case, sucking a stout twig, intended to represent a cigar. At the appropriate moment Douglas detached himself from the conspirators and reappeared as the policeman, wearing his mother’s enamel cullender as a helmet. A spirited fight ensued, in the course of which William was secured and dragged to the old barn as a prisoner. The trial that followed was, in effect, little more than a continuation of the fight, ending in single combat between judge and accused. Finally William was shut up in the old barn, with Ginger, Henry and Douglas on guard outside.
Joan approached with small mincing steps. She wore her green coat and hat, the hat pulled well over her eyes.
“Good afternoon, varlets,” she said in a high-pitched affected voice. “I am Mrs. Fawkes. Prithee let me see my husband. Tis visiting day, and I have come to see him.”
“You’ve gotter bribe us,” said Ginger. “They always bribed people in history.”
“All right,” said Joan. “I’ll give thee three bulls’ eyes each when I get my next pocket-money on Saturday.”
“Bet you won’t get any bulls’ eyes,” said Ginger. “I couldn’t get any las’ Sat’day when I tried. They’d only got some beastly little cough lozenges that the taste of made you feel sick.”
“They’ve got some lollipops in Hadley,” said Douglas.
“Yes,” said Henry bitterly, “but they’re so small you can hardly see ’em. I bought one an’ it all sucked away to nothin’ before I could taste it.”
“Milk chocolate!” said Joan in a far-away voice. “Jus’ think of the slabs an’ slabs you used to get before the war.”
“Here!” shouted the prisoner indignantly from inside the prison. “Get on with it, can’t you? Don’t stand out there all day jabberin’ about sweets."
Thus recalled to their roles, the actors hastily re-assumed their parts.
“All right, then,” said Ginger gruffly to Joan. “Ye canst go in and have a look at him. Don’t stay for long or thou’ll get thine head cut off.”
“Say ‘Gadzooks’,” prompted William from inside. “You’re forgettin’ to talk hist’ry.”
“I’m sick of all those words that don’t mean anythin’,” said Ginger. “I’m not goin’ to say ’em any more.”
“Hie me!” said Henry with a fresh burst of excitement. “They said ‘Hie me’ instead of ‘go’. I’ve just remembered. I read it somewhere.”
He turned to Joan. “All right. Hie thee to thy husband.”
“Thanks awfully,” said Joan. “I won’t be long and I won’t forget the bulls’ eyes. All right,” in answer to a fresh burst of impatience from the prisoner. “I’m just hieme-ing, William—I mean Guy.”
* * *
Mrs. Parfitt gazed despairingly at the visitor across the tea-table. She had not met her cousin (actually it was a somewhat complicated relationship of the “twice removed” kind) since childhood, and she remembered her as one of those obedient, tidy, punctual children who never tear their clothes or lose their tempers and are held up as models to all other children for miles around.
She found that she had changed very little. She was still self-satisfied and opinionated and devastatingly efficient.
She took the cup of tea that Mrs. Parfitt handed her and nibbled a Shrewsbury cake. Her very nibble had something smug about it.
“I look upon this as my war work,” she said. “I said to myself: ‘I will educate free some child who has a claim on me and whose parents have suffered as the resul
t of the war’. And of course, my thoughts went first to your little girl. She is definitely a connection, and your husband’s business has suffered as the result of the war, has it not?”
“It has indeed,” sighed Mrs. Parfitt. “His London warehouse was bombed, you know.”
“Joan, then, will be fed and lodged and taught with no expense to you at all,” said Miss Cummins. “My school has a good standing in the educational world, and the locality in which it is situated has never even heard the alert. I have many members of the aristocracy as pupils in the school. Joan is, in fact,” she ended in a glow of self-approval, “an extremely lucky child.”
“Yes, of course she is,” said Mrs. Parfitt with growing dismay. “We shall miss each other terribly, of course . . .”
“That shows, what an excellent thing it is for you both,” breezed Miss Cummins. “It is my belief that a child cannot be rescued—rescued, I say—too soon from the bonds of the parent’s possessive love. In my school Joan will be taught to stand on her own feet. Her character will be moulded to the pattern that I have set as the ideal of all my pupils. I should prefer to keep her with me during the holidays—I generally find home influence so demoralising for children—but I suppose you will not agree to that.”
“Oh no,” pleaded Mrs. Parfitt. “I must have her for holidays.”
“I will waive that point for the present, then,” said Miss Cummins graciously. “I shall expect Joan, of course, to work hard and to do everything she can to help me personally in order to show her gratitude. She must remember that the parents of the other children pay fees amounting to over two hundred pounds a year. I don’t mean, of course, that Joan will be treated in any way differently from the others, but it is a wonderful chance for her and she should realise it.” She glanced at her watch, “I ought to go to catch my train now. I’d hoped for a word with Joan herself.”
William Carries On Page 10