Chapter 4

Hilda was holding Little Nelson so closely to her that his sobs were now silenced. But she could tell how upset he must be because she could feel sudden bursts of tremblings, impulsive uncontrollable tremblings, passing upwards through her from somewhere around knee-level. Freeing her left hand, she began patting him, nanny-fashion. It surprised her to find, wet as he was, how soft he had become.

Upstairs her brother was struggling into his thick Jaeger dressing-gown. It was one of those brother and sister, inside-family-jokes, that he always wore the same dressing-gown summer and winter alike. It gave him, she made a point of saying, something of the air of a big teddy bear, a sedate, rather elderly, wrapped-up teddy bear. Cyril Woods-Denton, however, was in no mood to be bothered about appearances. He was in a hurry to protect his sister. Not bothering to pick up his spectacles, not even stooping to reach beneath the chest of drawers for his bedroom slippers, he thrust his feet into the heavy black walking shoes that he had only just discarded, and came thumping down stairs.

‘Don’t undo the door, dear,’ he began telling her. ‘Don’t let anyone in. Not until I’m there with you.’

But, quick as he had been, he had not been quick enough. His sister was already on her way up the same staircase. What is more, she was carrying Little Nelson, cushioned tight against her bosom. And Little Nelson seemed to be liking it. His good arm was now firmly round her neck. On the landing, the three of them came face to face. Without his glasses he could see merely that Hilda was carrying something. It seemed to be a bundle of some kind. Old clothing, probably. And then, to his horror, the bundle moved. It twisted itself round and settled down again more securely than before.

‘Hilda, Hilda,’ he said, ‘put that thing down at once. What do you think you are doing?’

But Hilda took no notice. She simply pushed past him.

‘I’m taking Little Nelson to the bathroom,’ she told him. ‘He needs it.’

‘Little Nelson!’ He thought those were the words that he had heard called out to him. But he had not believed them. It was as though his dream had come back again. Only this time Hilda was inside the dream with him. He could not appeal to her.

But he remembered that his duty was to protect his sister. Bracing himself, he followed her along the landing. At the bathroom door Hilda turned, and Cyril found himself staring down into Little Nelson’s bright blue eye. It was a hard and defiant-looking eye. It frightened him. But Cyril Woods-Denton, for his part, had frightened Little Nelson. Framed within the archway of the staircase, he appeared enormous. And not only enormous, but bear-like, too. Little Nelson became really scared and when Cyril put out his finger to examine the small wet body that lay in Hilda’s arms, Little Nelson bit him.

It was a full two hours later when Hilda and her brother sat down together to review matters. In the meantime, Little Nelson had been given his bath.

That in itself had not proved easy. Little Nelson had never seen a bathroom before; and Hilda, for her part, had never given anybody a bath. There was trouble from the outset. Little Nelson seemed to think that Hilda was going to do him some kind of injury. He struggled. It may have been the clinically white surface of the walls or the clouds of escaping steam that distressed him. Whatever it was, he did not like it. And, when he saw a reflection of himself in Cyril Woods-Denton’s shaving mirror, he lost all control. Snatching up the long-handled back brush he brought it down with all his force on the offending image.

Hilda reasoned with him gently as she picked up the pieces.

‘Don’t be so silly,’ she told him. ‘There’s no one there. That isn’t anyone. It was just you looking at yourself.’

It was obvious from his expression that Little Nelson did not believe a word of it. He remained cagey and suspicious. It was the bath itself, however, that aroused his deepest fears. Hilda made no attempt to rush him. She let him stand on the ledge, where the loofah and the bath salts were kept, surveying things. Not that it made much difference. Little Nelson was not easily deceived. He could tell at a glance that there was something radically wrong with the pool – no water-weed, no goldfish. And when, just to tempt him, Hilda threw in a handful of effervescent lavender-scented bath salts, he watched horrified as one by one the bubbles came up to burst before him.

To Hilda’s surprise, however, splashing him with water was something he actually seemed to find pleasing. He even allowed her to pour small quantities of it over his head and shoulders out of a tooth glass, giving little wriggles of satisfaction as the warm streams divided and trickled down him.

And a large tablet of pink toilet soap came as a source of absolute delight. Touching it, he found that it could move. That being so, he chased it backwards and forwards along the enamel bath edge and tried to pick it up. But picking up things single-handed is never easy and, when it evaded him, he made the mistake of losing his temper. He grabbed. The soap reared up the edge, slid past him and plunged into the depths below. Little Nelson, left with only the bath salts and loofah for company, stamped his feet from sheer vexation.

Little by little, however, Hilda lured him into the bath itself. First his toes, then quick dippings in and out again so that he could feel what it was like to get his knees wet. And then she let him stay there for a moment so that the water could ripple round his small fat stomach. A few minutes later, left to himself, he was ducking his head beneath the surface and coming up smiling, just to make sure she was still watching him.

Surprised and rather shocked at herself, Hilda realized that in all her life she had never been quite so happy. She felt that she knew for the first time what the feelings of young mothers must be. It was as though part of her was sitting there, smiling blue-eyed out of the foamy bath salts lather; and she resolved that Little Nelson must be hers for ever.

There was only one thing that was wrong and that was that before giving him his bath she had not been able to undress him. For some reason that she did not begin to understand, she felt a fierce desire to peel off the scarlet jacket, remove the white under-shirt and take down the bright green knicker bockers. It seemed the right thing to do. And Little Nelson had stood there motionless in front of her almost as though expecting it.

It was, of course, entirely out of the question. Every stitch of Little Nelson’s clothing was merely painted on. The one thing that could possibly be called a garment was the torn strip of sacking that he, or some other well-intentioned gnome, had thoughtfully put round his shoulders for protection.

In the end it was the loofah that worked best. Little Nelson was so dirty all over, so caked and plastered with mud that she recognized at once that an ordinary face flannel would make no impression. It would simply smear things. And using the nail brush was unthinkable. It was a comparatively new nail brush with stiff plastic bristles, and she was afraid that it would hurt him. The loofah was quite different; scratchy but still harmless. Even so, it scraped away grime and, with the grime, some of the paint workunderneath. That was when she felt her heart leap up. One layer below the rather vulgar colouring, Little Nelson’s skin was as pink as any other baby’s.

Getting Little Nelson to bed proved every bit as difficult as bathing him. When the trouble started, Hilda had dried his body thoroughly with a soft towel and had begun to dust him all over with the remnants of her last year’s present of talcum power. The talcum powder made him sneeze. And Little Nelson seemed to think that the effect was deliberate. He broke away from her and hid inside the airing cupboard. From somewhere amid the pile of towels and bed sheets, the sound of little sneezes continued. Before she could get him to come out, Hilda was forced to go over to the airing cupboard and say that she was sorry.

In the bedroom Hilda once more found herself defeated. She had simply not thought of what to do with Little Nelson. A cot, an old-fashioned, high-sided child’s cot, might have provided the answer. But that was not to be. The Vicarage was cotless.

Then Hilda remembered a story that had been read to her in her old nursery. It was about a pioneer family way out somewhere in the prairies. Red Indians had killed most of them, leaving a whole quiverful of infant Palefaces in need of bedroom comforts. Beds for that number would have been unthinkable, and the solution had been to empty the crude hickory-wood cabinet and, one by one, make small sleeping cubicles out of the rough-hewn drawers.

A moment later, Hilda had tipped out the contents of her own top drawer and was stuffing in a pillow by way of a mattress. Little Nelson watched her, puzzled and incredulous. He could not help admiring the way she brought out a pillow slip, folded it in half, and proceeded to tuck it in round the sides to make his compact single bedroom more presentable.

It was only when she tried to put him into it that she had further trouble. He struggled. And he resolutely refused to lie down. Every time she tried to make him put his head flat upon the mattress, he sprang up again. Bitterly as it disappointed her, she was not altogether surprised. After all, until this moment Little Nelson had spent his entire time, awake or asleep, upright beside the little pool, and in all weathers, too. It would, she had to admit, have been rather a lot to ask that he should change the habits of a whole life time simply to please her. In the result, he remained there, boxed-in and vertical.

Naturally she was worried that, after the hot bath, he might so easily catch cold. But when she attempted to put a shawl around him, he shook it off. It was obvious then that he was perfectly content to stay as he was, his good arm on the side of the drawer for support, not looking at anything in particular, just standing.

When she left Little Nelson’s bedside, Hilda was dismayed to find her brother so distressed. He was sitting on the edge of his own bed, his head buried in his hands. And he was muttering.

‘This is madness. It’s madness,’ were the words that he kept using. ‘Send for the doctor. Now. Before it’s too late. Get me put away somewhere. Out of sight of all of you. Forget I ever existed. Just pray for me.’

It may have been because she was so tired and secretly more than a bit worked up within herself that Hilda was so abrupt.

‘Don’t be silly, Cyril,’ she told him. ‘Pull yourself together. You are perfectly all right. And don’t make a fuss. I shall need all the help you can give me.’

He raised his face as she was speaking, and she could see that he had been crying. Behind his thick pebble spectacles his eyes were misty and red-veined. And the corners of his mouth were still quivering.

‘Then it isn’t just me?’ he began asking her. ‘You mean he’s actually here? We’ve got him with us? He’s.. ?’

But it was all too much for him. The Reverend Cyril Woods-Denton broke down and began crying again.

Not for the first time that evening, Hilda knew what it cost women to have the mothering instinct so keenly developed. At the very moment when she needed comforting herself, she could feel her brother Cyril reaching out to her. She went over and put her hand on his shoulder, gently massaging it to show that she was really there beside him.

‘Yes, he’s here all right. And it’s our job to protect him,’ she replied, in the high, slightly clipped voice which she used when speaking to the Guides or the Brownies. ‘We’ve got to do everything we can to see that nothing goes wrong. It’s not going to be easy, and it may not be pleasant. But we’ve got to do it. It’s our duty.’

It was the word ‘duty’ that roused him. Cyril Woods-Denton had always set great store on duty. It was his pole star.

‘Very well. Very well. Just as you say,’ he assured her. ‘But look what he did to me.’

He held up his index finger as he was speaking. Just below the nail there was a circle of little red tooth marks.

‘He didn’t mean it,’ the words came bursting to Hilda’s lips. ‘Little Nelson couldn’t mean to do a thing like that.’

The following week was, for Hilda, one of the hardest that she had yet had to bear. That was because Cyril was still taking it so badly. For the most part, he simply kept to his room, and moped. On two successive mornings when she had been taking him up a cup of sweet, weak cocoa that he liked to drink mid-morning as well as when going to bed, she had been horrified to find that his door was not merely shut but actually locked against her. And when, in response to her knocking, he had at last appeared, he looked haggard and distraught. His pocket radio was in his hand, and it was obvious that she had disturbed him in his everlasting vigil waiting for the next news bulletin.

But she had more, much more, than Cyril and his cocoa to think about. For a start there was the question of what to give Little Nelson to eat. The answer was not an easy one. Even though there was no way of actually feeding him – that side of nature played no part in his entire make-up – it still seemed wrong that he should not be given anything. Even a make-believe meal seemed better than no meal at all. Feeling that it was expected of her, Hilda went down to the kitchen and cut a plateful of bread-and-butter fingers and poured out a medicine glass of that day’s fresh milk that had only just been delivered.

Then with a start she saw the time. It was nearly nine o’clock. That was the hour when the daily woman arrived. Hurriedly putting away the milk bottle, Hilda snatched up the plate of bread-and-butter fingers. And only just in time, too. The daily woman was already entering the house just as Hilda started upstairs, carrying Little Nelson’s breakfast tray.

‘Don’t bother about my room,’ Hilda called down to her. ‘It’s all been done.’

As she uttered the words, she could see ahead of her the long avenue of deception and concealment along which she was just venturing. For some reason she found herself remembering a smartly packaged doll that she had seen displayed in the local toy shop. The pink baby-size form had moved her strangely. Or, perhaps, it was the legend accompanying it that had immediately penetrated to her heart. ‘This doll can cry’ the words informed her. ‘This doll needs YOU’ (the letters were all in capitals). ‘YOU have to change its nappies.’ It was while she was setting out the bread-and-butter fingers before him that she could not help thinking what a pity it was that Little Nelson wasn’t still a baby. It would have been nice to peer down into his cot and watch his small plump cheeks going in and out as he sucked away at his bottle. And as regards the end result, the bit about nappy-changing, she realized that she would not have minded in the least. She would rather have enjoyed it, in fact. Tears began to come into her eyes as she thought of what had always been missing in her life. Then she pulled herself together abruptly. She hated self-pity and despised the sort of women who gave way to it. Compared to so many other women, it was obvious how fortunate she was; and, in any case, Little Nelson was, if not actually a baby, still distinctly baby-ish.

Her temporary comfort, her consolation, was suddenly shattered by that day’s news. A concert at the Royal Albert Hall had, she heard, been ruthlessly vandalized. There had been nothing that could possibly have provoked the outrage. The concert was one of a kind pleasingly familiar to ardent concert-goers – delightful, commendable, unexacting. The Hall was rather less than two-thirds full, and all started well enough. The first two pieces had both been played and suitably applauded. The interval was now behind them and everyone was settling down, placid as basking seals, to listen to the Vaughan Williams.

The orchestra had just reached the second movement and the great auditorium had become very quiet and pastoral; even, in two instances, somnolent. Suddenly, two glaringly scarlet caps appeared over the top of the xylophone. A moment later, a third cap, complete this time with head, shoulders, green waistcoat and all, came into view beside the drums. Immediately all was panic and confusion. The first two intruders promptly abandoned the xylophone and rushed over excitedly to join their companion by the drums. And, once together, they fought. Not until each one had secured his own drum stick did the squabble cease. Then they all banged away like little blacksmiths. All three hit out at anything that they could reach – side-drums, bass drum, glockenspiel, tambourines, cymbals, triangle. Lovers of Vaughan Williams rose to their feet in astonishment, and the conductor, his mouth open and his baton raised like a truncheon, started to advance towards the disturbance.

But it was too late. The uproar ended as abruptly as it had begun. When he got there, all that the conductor could see were three strange objects, dressed up in Kendal green and hunting pink, crawling through the forest of chair legs, thrusting aside the long skirts of the lady musicians, upsetting music stands and ‘cellos as they made their way down the bull-run towards the back door.

There was little else in that day’s bulletins. The BBC was full of it, and Cyril had his radio on throughout. Small as the set was, it was powerful. In the next room every word was clearly audible. And it was obvious that Little Nelson was listening intently. He was leaning forward, his good hand held close to his face like an ear-trumpet.

Hilda found herself wondering how much he could really understand. It may only have been a trick of the light, but he appeared to her to be grinning broadly.

The daily woman now seemed to represent a greater threat even than that of her own brother. Might she not, for instance, enter the bedroom, if only to put something away or collect that week’s linen for the laundry? It meant, Hilda realized, that never again could she herself afford to go out while this other person, this prowler, was there within the house; and, even when at home, it meant that she herself would have to be confined to her own bedroom, virtually imprisoned there. The more she thought about it, the more she saw that long, dark avenue before her growing longer and darker every day.

She decided, therefore, to do something about it. Never one to postpone things, she went straight down to the kitchen and braced herself ready for the confrontation.

‘Mrs Mewkes,’ she said, using her Brown Owl voice again, ‘I’ve been thinking. I believe we’ve been loading too much on to you. I do really. Asking you to do too much, you know.’

‘Asking me to do what?’ Mrs Mewkes demanded, defensively.

‘Too many things about the house,’ Hilda told her. ‘Like my own bedroom. They all add up. They do not give you a single moment to yourself.’

It was not true. At Hilda’s expense, she outrageously indulged herself every day.

‘So in future I shall do my room myself,’ Hilda continued brightly. ‘You need not bother about it any more.’

Mrs Mewkes made no effort to thank Hilda for her kindness, her consideration. Indeed, she did not appear even to have heard. Instead, she was looking at the pile of fresh white crusts that Hilda had just cut off Little Nelson’s bread-and-butter fingers. In all the years in which Mrs Mewkes had worked at the Vicarage she had never known crusts to be cut off in this way. Something, she told herself, was going on; probably in Miss Hilda’s room at that.

Little Nelson himself could not have been more careful or more thoughtful. Even though his ordeal, his exile in the outside world was now over, he remained tense and timid. At the sound of a footstep on the landing, whether it was Cyril’s or Mrs Mewkes’s, he would immediately hide behind the bed or squirm his way into the wardrobe.

The wardrobe was massive and old-fashioned. A bank of drawers ran down one side and, on the other, stood the hanging space for dresses. Little Nelson had watched, marvelling, as Hilda had been putting away her housecoat and had darted in before she could stop him. It was the far comer that he had made for, below the shoe rack and the oddments rail. And once there, he had refused to come out.

It fitted him so perfectly that Hilda was content, at least for the time being, to let him have it for his own. She even made a point of leaving the wardrobe door ajar so that he could return to it whenever he wanted to be alone. And it moved her strangely to find that he must have rifled one of the side-drawers. Taking out a face towel, he had folded it neatly in half, as she had folded the pillow slip, to make his drawer-bed look more inviting. Little Nelson was lying down asleep on his face towel when she discovered him.

It was all most encouraging. Bit by bit, he was beginning to relax and become more natural, climbing over the furniture, marching up and down in parade ground fashion, even sometimes rolling about on the floor like a puppy. Hilda made no attempt to restrain him.

It was only looking out of the window that was absolutely forbidden. The last thing that she wanted was for someone, a tradesman perhaps, to glance upwards and catch a glimpse of the notorious green and scarlet. And Little Nelson seemed to understand. The most that he allowed himself when he wanted to see what was going on – and the impulse came over him at least half a dozen times a day – was to stand well to one side of the window pane, gather the long curtains around him like a toga, and peer cautiously from behind the folds. It was almost as if he were expecting something, but was not yet sure about the timing.

It was the Albert Hall incident that served to rerouse the public. Lovers of Vaughan Williams came forward from all quarters, and the National Front joined with them in their condemnation of interference with the best of British music. Extra police were posted in SW7, and the proposal was made in the columns of the Daily Telegraph that concert tickets should in future be issued only upon production of an identity card and photograph. Nor did the authorities overlook the prevailing mood of a now anxious and apprehensive public. Legislation, accordingly, was rushed through both Houses that all gnomes should be subject, without owners’ compensation, to instant confiscation and destruction.

It was this last ukase of the Government that made Hilda take Cyril’s radio set away from him. It was Cyril’s special joy, that radio set, and its removal did not prove to be an easy one. He pleaded. He protested. He objected violently. And when, by deceit, she managed to get hold of it, he tried to snatch it back from her. But Hilda was adamant. Also, she was stronger than her brother. Forcing him roughly down onto his bed, she promised that he could have his set back again as soon as ‘all this’ – the phrase she always used when referring to the national predicament – was over, adding that in the meantime he really must learn to control himself.

Brutal as her conduct may have seemed, it was unavoidable. She was the only one who knew how much Little Nelson cared, how deeply such items of news always upset him.

With Cyril’s radio booming through from the adjoining room – the voice seemed to come bursting out from every sunflower in the pattern of the wallpaper – Little Nelson heard it word by word. And, when it had come to the bit about destroying any gnomes that might still be around, he had flung himself down on the rug in her bedroom, grabbing hold of the fringes and trying to cover up his head so that he could hear no more.

Late as it was, Hilda had been forced to go back down to the kitchen again and make some more bread-and-butter fingers, just to comfort him.

And it was not only Little Nelson who had been upset by the harshness of that piece of legislation. There was Hilda, too. She was appalled. Looking down at Little Nelson playing so peacefully on her strip of bedroom carpet, she could not believe that other people would be so cruel, so wilfully vindictive. Indeed, as a member of the human race, she felt for a moment more like a murderess than a guardian.

But what, she asked herself, could a helpless woman, a spinster at that, do against the whole might and power of the State? Nothing, she despairingly decided. On one point, however, she was determined. If they came to take Little Nelson, they would have to take her, too. They would die together. And, in her present emotional condition it even seemed rather beautiful to think of facing the firing squad – if that was the method the troops were currently adopting – holding Little Nelson in her arms, a shawl wrapped round his shoulders, eye patch in position beneath the blindfold, and his one good hand clenched firmly in her own.

It was in this mood of abject misery, with her mind temporarily clouded by fantasy, that the light at last came to her. Putting reason entirely to one side she repeated over and over to herself a rather disturbing lesson learnt in childhood. It was the bit about how sickly and ailing babies could be protected against the quite shocking consequences of being allowed to die un-christened.

To think of Little Nelson utterly defenceless in the face of such a threat was too much for her. Even though she knew that Cyril did not really seem to like Little Nelson she felt sure that, as her brother, he would at least be prepared to oblige her in such a matter.

A simple ceremony, within the confines of the Vicarage, was all that she would be asking. Any question of a small present such as a napkin ring or a silver pusher was something that she would not mention unless Cyril happened to bring it up himself.

Cyril, however, would have none of it. He was appalled.

‘Have you gone mad?’ he demanded. ‘Do you know what you are asking? Are you possessed, woman?’

Hilda knew her brother only too well when he was in one of these moods. Calling her ‘woman’ was always an indication that he was striving to assert himself. Immediately she struck back. ‘Don’t start “woman-ing” me, my good man,’ she told him. ‘I’m not standing for it.’

It was one of their classic gambit, counter-gambit situations. And they both recognized it for the impasse that it was. Cyril saw that he would have to start again. Removing his glasses, he moved his chair nearer to her.

‘You are over-tired, dear,’ he told her, dropping his voice until it was scarcely more than a murmer, a loving brotherly sort of drone. ‘You must take some rest. It’s all been too much for you.’

What he did not know – though again she had told him often enough – was that this was the tone of voice that infuriated her most. She detested it. In its way, it was worse than being reminded that she was a woman.

‘And it will be too much for you, too,’ she snapped back at him, ‘unless you are prepared to do something about it. I make a perfectly civil request and you start insulting me.’

Poor Cyril. His nerves were every bit as much on edge as Hilda’s though, as a man, he could not of course afford to show it. He recognized that his duty lay in calming her, in simply keeping things going until she was in her right mind again. Accordingly, he raised his hands palms outwards to chest height as though about to pronounce a blessing, and he tried to speak.

That gesture, however, was another thing that Hilda had never been able to stand about him.

‘And don’t start flapping your big silly hands at me,’ she told him. ‘That’s not going to get you anywhere. All I want to know is, will you or won’t you?’

On the other side of the partition wall, Little Nelson was listening hard. He could not understand most of it because they were talking so fast. Even so, it was better than if they had been mumbling. More than once he heard the words ‘that creature’ coming from Cyril’s lips. He was now more than ever glad that when the opportunity had arisen, he had bitten him.

What the Vicar might or might not be prepared to do entirely escaped him. It could not be handing him over to the Emergency Patrols because it was Hilda who was so ardently pleading for it. Perhaps, he found himself hoping, it was to get rid of Mrs Mewkes; sack her on the spot with exactly one week’s notice. But even that seemed unlikely. Clearly Hilda and her brother were talking of other matters and, of these, Little Nelson did not understand one word.

‘Go back and open your Prayer Book,’ the Reverend Woods-Denton was urging his sister. ‘See what it says. And then think of what you are asking me.’

‘What’s the Prayer Book got to do with it? Little Nelson’s in danger,’ he could hear Hilda’s voice saying. ‘The circumstances are entirely different. The Prayer Book doesn’t even mention gnomes. Not once.’

There was a pause. Then suddenly he heard Hilda say: ‘Very well, then. If you won’t, I will. It says that in the Book. I can, you know.’

This was followed by the sound of Cyril’s door being slammed behind her, and Little Nelson hurried back to his picture bricks just to show that he had not been listening.

Hilda’s preparations kept Little Nelson fascinated. He watched her bring the bamboo side-table round to the end of the bed and proceed to spread out a plain white dinner napkin. Why she should have gone to the trouble entirely escaped him. He had rather liked the prettily embroidered runner that had been there before, and he was sorry to see it go. But he could tell from the expression on Hilda’s face that it would never have done for what was about to happen. And when he saw her take up a pair of candlesticks from the dressing table and set them out like two sentinels on duty, he was more impressed than ever. What really puzzled him, however, was the bowl of clean water that Hilda brought through from the bathroom. It could not, he assured himself, be anything to do with washing because, so far as he could remember, he had not done anything all day that was likely to make him the least bit dirty. Completely bewildered, he decided the only thing to do was to sit back and await developments.

And when they came, he was more confused than ever. First, she picked him up. That was something he always enjoyed. It was very restful and comforting, and he liked to turn himself over on his side and snuggle up against the ribbed woollen cardigan that she wore.

But today it was apparently going to be different. Instead of holding him in front of her so that he could see what was going on, she simply cradled him up as though he really were a baby. Then, to his astonishment, she dipped her finger tips into the bowl of water from the bathroom and began sprinkling him. Hilda’s bedroom was hot, even stuffy, and the drops of water on his face and forehead were like little icicles. Naturally, he protested. He began to struggle. But he was surprised to find how strong she was. Held as firmly as that, he was helpless. There was nothing for it but to let her do whatever she wanted with him. Besides, she was talking, and he was trying hard to understand what it was all about.

‘I name you Little Nelson,’ he heard her tell him. ‘You are one of us, no matter what happens. Nothing can ever take you away from us. That’s what I want you to remember. You’re ours now and always and for ever.’

When at last she put him down, Little Nelson wiped his face on his sleeve and shook himself because he felt wet all over. But he could not settle down again. The whole experience had been too disturbing. And when Hilda had to leave the room for a moment, he climbed up on to the bamboo table just to get a better view of things. Once there, the bowl and the candlesticks delighted him and he decided that if sprinkling with cold water were part of the game, he might as well join in and do it too.

Left to himself he decided to paddle about in it. He put first one foot and then the other. Next, he stood upright. The bowl was cold and shiny and he liked the feel of it. It reminded him of the smooth edge of the pool where he had been brought up. Carried away by the sheer pleasure of the sensation, he began to jump up and down. The bowl broke under him. That frightened him.

To his great relief, however, Hilda did not seem to be even the least bit angry. She was even smiling as she mopped up the mess. Indeed, she even appeared to have forgotten all about him. Down on her knees beside him she might have been a hundred miles away. And she was deep in conversation with someone whom he couldn’t see.

‘It wasn’t wrong what I did, was it?’ she kept asking. ‘I only did it because I love him so much. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? There can’t be anything wrong with loving someone, I mean. And don’t let them take him away from me. I am all he’s got. He needs me. Needs me so badly. You do understand, don’t you?’

She was still going on about it, still asking those questions when Little Nelson made his way over to the wardrobe. All in all, it had been an exhausting day and he decided that the best thing to do would be to make an early night of it. He was getting more than worried about Hilda. All that talking-to-herself stuff was a bad sign. And she seemed so jumpy nowadays, as though she must have something on her mind. Little Nelson could not make out what it was. He had, of course, known how much she must have missed him when he went off with the others. He would far rather have stayed where he was. He was very fond of Hilda and had hated leaving her. But the others had been so insistent. The tone of their whistling had become downright menacing. But he had made a special point of coming back again. So it couldn’t be that, he told himself.

And if only she would have been prepared to let up for a single moment. All those bread-and-butter fingers, for instance: so far as he was concerned he would have been perfectly happy just to get on with his games, entirely uninterrupted by meal times, with only an occasional stroll on the landing or a trip downstairs when bed-sitter life became a bit too cramping. But really he was too tired to bother. He put his head down on his folded-up face towel. And by the time he woke up things had taken a turn for the better.

It was the Northamptonshire Incident that changed matters. A large and isolated orphanage for handicapped children had gone on fire and was burning fiercely. The call to the local Fire Brigade, nearly eleven miles away, was in process of being answered – or, at least, the agonized Matron so hoped. Meanwhile, the flames were licking up the Victorian pine panelling and searching for their freedom through the timbers of the roof. From the distance, the whole turreted mansion looked like a pumpkin lantern lit up at Hallow E’en.

The orphanage had, of course, its own complement of fire-fighting equipment. This consisted of a wooden trolley with a two-handed pump mounted in the middle, and a row of brass buckets hanging down each side. The buckets were kept beautifully polished and the woodwork, up to the same standard of polish as the buckets, was in orphanage colours, khaki and dark brown.

It was the hose that was the trouble; mounted on a separate trolley and with the maker’s optional spray or jet-attachment, there was simply not enough of it. It did not reach anywhere. Down at the end of the lane by the pond, where there wasn’t anything to put out, the machine could fling up glittering cascades of water into the air like a happily spouting whale. It could have extinguished a furnace. But within the confines of the orphanage all that it could do was to drench, and keep on drenching, the already sodden day nursery and the reception hall.

In consequence the situation was alarming. Matron, nursing staff, and ward maids did what they could, but they were all elderly. The gate-keeper was over seventy, and the porter over eighty, some said over ninety. The steepness of the staircase and the heavy buckets were too much for them. The utmost that they could do was to use the service lift at the back to bring down the orphanage treasures – the founder’s terracotta bust, the gold plated key used at the opening, and an autographed letter from the Lord Lieutenant – shuddering to think what would happen if the fire reached the packed dormitories piled up three storeys high over in the west wing.

From sheer exhaustion they retired to the front step, and collapsed there, helpless in despair.

Then, suddenly, through the gate which led to the kitchen garden, came a mob of small, eager figures. More and more came trooping through until a score of them were standing there on the lawn of the doomed orphanage. And it was obvious that they were not there simply for the idle fun of it, the excitement. There was a strange orderliness about it all. One by one, they fell into rank and without hesitation marched into the blazing building. Snatching up the discarded fire buckets, they proceeded to pump water into them until they were one-third full.

Bearing in mind the size of the bucket and the height of the bearer, anything more ambitious would have been impractical. Even so, the load was a heavy one. But, as if trained for it, they formed a chain so that the leader always had a charged bucket ready in his hand and could mount the crackling staircase, sloshing ahead of him as he went.

There were, of course, mishaps and confusion. From time to time the return network of empty buckets became entangled with the upward passage of the full ones. They collided. Then there was shoving. Pummelling. Even open fighting. But it was always soon over, and the conquest of the fire would begin again to the steady splash-splash rhythm of the volunteer fighters.

With the arrival of the engine belonging to the County Fire Service, all operations ceased abruptly. The volunteers simply flung down their buckets and made helter-skelter for the front door. There was inevitably a certain amount of delay. The large men in blue found themselves in danger of being tripped up by small bodies in green and scarlet, all going in the opposite direction. But there was no attempt at competition. The sight of gas masks and breathing apparatus was too much. All the volunteers – they were, alas, no longer twenty in number – went streaking back towards the gate to the kitchen garden and hid somewhere in the shrubberies.

An intense Police search followed. Various piles of dried leaves and some leafy branches deliberately snapped off revealed that the entire party might have been camping for days in the adjoining coppice. Nothing definite was, however, discovered.

Not that anyone cared in the slightest. In the public mind it was sufficient that they should have come forward of their own accord to help save the defenceless inmates of the crowded dormitories. Overnight, the gnomes had become national heroes, symbols of bravery and national honour.

Their reputation indeed was to rise still higher. For, in the ruins of the orphanage’s main staircase – it had collapsed in a cloud of sparks as soon as the heavy feet of the County Fire Brigade had begun to mount it – two scarred and scarcely recognizable bundles with traces of the original bright colours clinging to them, were found, one with a scorched brass bucket close beside him.

The effect of this discovery was overwhelming. Readers of the popular tabloids burst into tears on their way to work. Sermons, hundreds of them, were preached with self-sacrifice as their text. Gnome charities sprung up. Postcards of gnomes – anything three-dimensional was, of course, still prohibited – began to appear in the better newsagents.

A Special Safety Patrol that was caught in the act of demolishing a small and bewildered-looking gnome that had been discovered hidden in a pile of fertiliser bags in a potting-shed was violently set upon by a group of indignant housewives.

Little Nelson himself seemed to be settling in very nicely. That was because Hilda had given him more to do. There was the box of old nursery bricks with picture letters on them for him to play with; a low-built four-wheel carriage, big enough to support him; and a teddy bear, its fur rubbed right down to the canvas in places through years of loving.

They were a careful family, the Woods-Dentons, and the toys had all belonged in Cyril’s and Hilda’s nursery. They were joint possessions. Indeed, Hilda had felt vaguely guilty about taking them without asking Cyril’s permission. It had seemed almost like stealing. In any case, it had proved to be a mistake about the bear. Little Nelson had been alarmed by it. It may have been something about its brown button eyes that upset him. Whatever it was, he kept walking round and round it, keeping carefully out of range of paw and claw, and ready to jump back at the slightest sign of personal danger. But, thank goodness, Hilda kept telling herself that all that silliness was now over. Little Nelson had overcome his fears. He and the bear went everywhere together, even riding in the low-built four-wheel carriage whenever Hilda was there to push them both.

There were also the afternoon excursions around the house when Mrs Mewkes was not there and Cyril had gone off on his bicycle to do his visiting. Little Nelson loved exploring. He would start off down the staircase, hand in hand with Hilda, but as soon as they reached the hall, he would begin to struggle to get his fingers away so that he could go off on his own.

The kitchen was his chief delight, though his liking for the place was marred by a rather unfortunate incident. He was down there one afternoon with Hilda when she decided to make some toast. He watched admiringly while she sliced the cottage loaf, carefully removing the crust, and saw her place the two almost rectangular pieces into their allotted slots in the electric toaster. Then he noticed how she set the time control. It was the figure ‘3’ at which she left it. Little Nelson took stock of things to see how he could help. He began by twisting the knob right round to ‘6’. A few moments later he was aware that there was smoke instead merely of the delicious smell of freshly-made toast. He went over to the machine to examine it again. That was when the two slices popped out. Little Nelson recognized an emergency but still remained entirely calm. He took up the milk jug that Hilda had just filled and emptied it over the electric toaster. Then he went upstairs to his private resting place in Hilda’s wardrobe, feeling sure that she would understand the nature of the disaster from which he had just saved her.

After the kitchen, Little Nelson preferred the drawing room. Sprung furniture especially appealed to him, and Hilda had to stop him jumping up and down on the sofa for fear that he might go right through. But it was the ivory paper-knife on the top of the bureau to which he kept going back. The fascination that it had for him was apparent from the start. And, when Hilda put it in his hand and let him hold it, he rocked backwards and forwards in sheer joy. It seemed somehow to complete him. There was quite a struggle when at last Hilda had to tell him to put it back where it belonged.

With his new-found confidence, Little Nelson’s other habits had been changing, too. Notably, his sleeping habits. He had by now entirely given up the absurd business of spending the night standing up in the converted drawer with his hand on the wooden side for support. This break with the past had come as an immense relief to Hilda because, with anyone bolt upright and apparently staring straight ahead, it is difficult to be absolutely certain whether the person really is asleep or merely shamming it. And Hilda had been taking no chances. So long as there was even the remote possibility that he might be awake, she had made a point of undressing in the bathroom, carrying her clothes all bundled up under her arm through to the bedroom afterwards.

That was how it made everything so much easier, so much more within the accustomed pattern of her life, when Little Nelson took his folded-up face towel into the wardrobe. Not that he always retired there. On the contrary, his daytime cat naps, his forty winks, were still taken vertically. And sometimes, as evening came on and he grew tired of his playing, he would fling himself into the nearest chair and slumber away, slouched up against a cushion, with one leg hanging over the arm like a ventriloquist’s abandoned dummy.

One night the profoundest change of all took place. The day had been quiet and uneventful. Most of it had been spent shut up in the nursery-bedroom and Hilda, her back aching from the endless backwards and forwards pushing of Little Nelson and his teddy in their toy chariot, had gone to bed early. Looking back on it and trying to remember, she could still not recall exactly when the little miracle had taken place. All that came back to her was the fact that she had been asleep when she had felt a slight jolt, a tugging at the bed clothes. Always in fear of burglars and night rapists, she had sat up immediately. Then she saw what was happening. Her bed was a tall, brass-railed one and there at the bottom of it was Little Nelson, laboriously heaving himself up by his one good arm. It took him some time, and it was obvious that he was being as quiet as possible about it. When, under his weight, the coverlet suddenly shifted, he just hung there dangling in the air, doing nothing, waiting long enough to make sure that his expedition had passed unnoticed. Then he began climbing again.

Hilda slowly eased herself back on the pillow again, her head raised just high enough to see over the edge of the bed clothes. Little Nelson was right up on the bed by now. And he was panting. She could see his small green and scarlet sides rising and falling as he got his breath back. Then he went down on his knees and she lost sight of him. But not for long. Slowly, almost as though stalking something, he began crawling up the eiderdown. Hilda could feel his weight – he proved rather heavier than she would have expected – first on her knees, then on her thighs and stomach, next on her breasts and shoulders until he reached the pillow. Once there she felt him give a deep sigh and put his head down alongside hers.

Gently, very gently, she turned over and, putting her arm around him as in the old days she had put her arm round her own dear doll, Emma Jane, she pulled him closer.

A moment later they were both asleep.