Little Nelson (6 page)

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.

As so often happens in such matters, the pendulum of public esteem suddenly swung just as far the other way, and gnomes were suspect creatures once more. And all because of what happened at Covent Garden on the Gala Night of the Royal Ballet.

The scene here bore no resemblance to that at the Albert Hall on the occasion, ten days earlier, of the interrupted concert. The Opera House was full. There was not an empty seat in the house. The Royal Box was a bower of selected blooms and lovely jewels. Tier upon tier of the little rose-coloured bracket lights shone down upon the assembled company, and the illuminated Exit signs glowed encouragingly for those ticket-holders who did not particularly care for ballet.

As the conductor turned to face his players, came a hush. Then, three minutes and thirty five seconds later, the great curtain rose and, half drowned by the tidal wave of the orchestra, the occupants of
stalls, boxes, circles and amphitheatre found themselves magically transported into a fairyland of Prince and Peasant Girl, lacy branches and woodland glades.