THE SWEET LITTLE GIRL IN WHITE
THE Hall stood empty most of the year, but occasionally tenants re-awoke the passing interest of the village in it. This summer it was taken by a Mr. and Mrs. Bott with their daughter. Mr. Bott’s name decorated most of the hoardings of his native country. On these hoardings citizens of England were urged to safeguard their digestion by taking Bott’s Sauce with their meat. After reading Bott’s advertisements one felt convinced that any food without Bott’s Sauce was rank poison. One even felt that it would be safer to live on Bott’s Sauce alone. On such feelings had Mr. Bott—as rubicund and rotund as one of his own bottles of sauce—reared a fortune sufficient to enable him to take the Hall for the summer without, as the saying is, turning a hair.
William happened to be sitting on the fence by the side of the road when the motor containing Mr. and Mrs. Bott—both stout and overdressed—and Miss Violet Elizabeth Bott and Miss Violet Elizabeth Bott’s nurse flashed by. William was not interested. He was at the moment engaged in whittling a stick and watching the antics of his mongrel, Jumble, as he caught and worried each shaving. But he had a glimpse of a small child with an elaborately curled head and an elaborately flounced white dress sitting by an elaborately uniformed nurse. He gazed after the equipage scowling.
“Huh!” he said, and it is impossible to convey in print the scorn of that monosyllable as uttered by William, “a girl!”
Then he returned to his whittling.
******
William’s mother met Mrs. Bott at the Vicar’s. Mrs. Bott, who always found strangers more sympathetic than people who knew her well, confided her troubles to Mrs. Brown. Her troubles included her own rheumatism, Mr. Bott’s liver, and the carelessness of Violet Elizabeth’s nurse.
“Always reading these here novelettes, the girl is. I hope you’ll come and see me, dear, and didn’t some one say you had a little boy? Do bring him. I want Violet Elizabeth to get to know some nice little children.”
Mrs. Brown hesitated. She was aware that none of her acquaintances would have described William as a nice little child. Mrs. Bott misunderstood her hesitation. She laid a fat ringed hand on her knee.
“I know, dear. You’re careful who the little laddie knows, like me. Well now, you needn’t worry. I’ve brought up our Violet Elizabeth most particular. She’s a girlie who wouldn’t do your little boysie any harm——”
“Oh,” gasped Mrs. Brown, “it’s not that.”
“Then you’ll come, dearie, and bring the little boysie with you, won’t you?”
She took Mrs. Brown’s speechlessness for consent.
******
“Me?” said William indignantly. “Me go to tea with that ole girl? Me?”
“She—she’s a nice little girl,” said Mrs. Brown weakly.
“I saw her,” said William scathingly, “curls and things.”
“Well, you must come. She’s expecting you.”
“I only hope,” said William sternly, “that she won’t ’spect me to talk to her.”
“She’ll expect you to play with her, I’m sure,” said his mother.
“Play?” said William. “Play? With a girl? Me? Huh!”
William, pale and proud, and dressed in his best suit, his heart steeled to his humiliating fate, went with his mother to the Hall the next week. He was silent all the way there. His thoughts were too deep for words. Mrs. Brown watched him anxiously.
An over-dressed Mrs. Bott was sitting in an over-furnished drawing-room. She rose at once with an over-effusive smile and held out over-ringed hands.
“So you’ve brought dear little boysie,” she began.
The over-effusive smile died away before the look that William turned on her.
“Er—I hadn’t thought of him quite like that,” she said weakly, “but I’m sure he’s sweet,” she added hastily.
William greeted her coldly and politely, then took his seat and sat like a small statue scowling in front of him. His hair had been brushed back with so much vigour and application of liquid that it looked as if it were painted on his head.
“Would you like to look at a picture book, boysie?” she said.
William did not answer. He merely looked at her and she hastily turned away to talk to Mrs. Brown. She talked about her rheumatism and Mr. Bott’s liver and the incompetence of Violet Elizabeth’s nurse.
Then Violet Elizabeth entered. Violet Elizabeth’s fair hair was not naturally curly but as the result of great daily labour on the part of the much maligned nurse it stood up in a halo of curls round her small head. The curls looked almost, if not quite, natural. Violet Elizabeth’s small pink and white face shone with cleanliness. Violet Elizabeth was so treasured and guarded and surrounded with every care that her small pink and white face had never been known to do anything else except shine with cleanliness. But the pièce de résistance about Violet Elizabeth’s appearance was her skirts. Violet Elizabeth was dressed in a white lace trimmed dress with a blue waistband, and beneath the miniature blue waistband her skirts stood out like a tiny ballet dancer’s in a filmy froth of lace trimmed petticoats. From this cascade emerged Violet Elizabeth’s bare legs, to disappear ultimately into white silk socks and white buckskin shoes.
William gazed at this engaging apparition in horror.
“Good afternoon,” said Violet Elizabeth primly.
“Good afternoon,” said William in a hollow voice.
“Take the little boysie into the garden, Violet Elizabeth,” said her mother, “and play with him nicely.”
William and Violet Elizabeth eyed each other apprehensively.
“Come along, boy,” said Violet Elizabeth at last, holding out a hand.
William ignored the hand and with the air of a hero bound to his execution, accompanied Violet Elizabeth into the garden.
Mrs. Brown’s eyes followed them anxiously.
******
“Whath your name?” said Violet Elizabeth.
She lisped! She would, thought William bitterly, with those curls and those skirts. She would. He felt at any rate relieved that none of his friends could see him in the unmanly situation—talking to a kid like that—all eyes and curls and skirts.
“William Brown,” he said distantly, looking over her head as if he did not see her.
“How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
He received the information in silence.
“I’m thix.”
He made no comment. He examined the distant view with an abstracted frown.
“Now you muth play with me.”
William allowed his cold glance to rest upon her.
“I don’t play little girls’ games,” he said scathingly. But Violet Elizabeth did not appear to be scathed.
“Don’ you know any little girlth?” she said pityingly. “I’ll teach you little girlth gameth,” she added pleasantly.
“I don’t want to,” said William, “I don’t like them. I don’t like little girls’ games. I don’t want to know ’em.”
Violet Elizabeth gazed at him open-mouthed.
“Don’t you like little girlth?” she said.
“Me?” said William with superior dignity. “Me? I don’t know anything about ’em. Don’t want to.”
“D-don’t you like me?” quavered Violet Elizabeth in incredulous amazement. William looked at her. Her blue eyes filled slowly with tears, her lips quivered.
“I like you,” she said. “Don’t you like me?”
William stared at her in horror.
“You—you do like me, don’t you?”
William was silent.
A large shining tear welled over and trickled down the small pink cheek.
“You’re making me cry,” sobbed Violet Elizabeth. “You are. You’re making me cry, ’cause you won’t say you like me.”
“I—I do like you,” said William desperately. “Honest—I do. Don’t cry. I do like you. Honest!”
A smile broke through the tear-stained face.
“I’m tho glad,” she said simply. “You like all little girlth, don’t you?” She smiled at him hopefully. “You do, don’t you?”
William, pirate and Red Indian and desperado, William, woman-hater and girl-despiser, looked round wildly for escape and found none.
Violet Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears again.
“You do like all little girlth, don’t you?” she persisted with quavering lip. “You do, don’t you?”
It was a nightmare to William. They were standing in full view of the drawing-room window. At any moment a grown up might appear. He would be accused of brutality, of making little Violet Elizabeth cry. And, strangely enough, the sight of Violet Elizabeth with tear-filled eyes and trembling lips made him feel that he must have been brutal indeed. Beneath his horror he felt bewildered.
“Yes, I do,” he said hastily, “I do. Honest I do.”
She smiled again radiantly through her tears. “You with you wath a little girl, don’t you?”
“Er—yes. Honest I do,” said the unhappy William.
“Kith me,” she said raising her glowing face.
William was broken.
He brushed her cheek with his.
“Thath not a kith,” said Violet Elizabeth.
“It’s my kind of a kiss,” said William.
“All right. Now leth play fairieth. I’ll thow you how.”
On the way home Mrs. Brown, who always hoped vaguely that little girls would have a civilizing effect on William, asked William if he had enjoyed it. William had spent most of the afternoon in the character of a gnome attending upon Violet Elizabeth in the character of the fairy queen. Any attempt at rebellion had been met with tear-filled eyes and trembling lips. He was feeling embittered with life.
“If all girls are like that——” said William, “well, when you think of all the hundreds of girls there must be in the world—well, it makes you feel sick.”
Never had liberty and the comradeship of his own sex seemed sweeter to William than it did the next day when he set off whistling carelessly, his hands in his pockets, Jumble at his heels, to meet Ginger and Douglas across the fields.
“You didn’t come yesterday,” they said when they met. They had missed William, the leader.
“No,” he said shortly, “went out to tea.”
“Where?” they said with interest.
“Nowhere in particular,” said William inaccurately.
A feeling of horror overcame him at the memory. If they knew—if they’d seen.... He blushed with shame at the very thought. To regain his self-respect he punched Ginger and knocked off Douglas’ cap. After the slight scuffle that ensued they set off down the road.
“What’ll we do this morning?” said Ginger.
It was sunny. It was holiday time. They had each other and a dog. Boyhood could not wish for more. The whole world lay before them.
“Let’s go trespassin’,” said William the lawless.
“Where?” enquired Douglas.
“Hall woods—and take Jumble.”
“That ole keeper said he’d tell our fathers if he caught us in again,” said Ginger.
“Lettim!” said William, with a dare-devil air, slashing at the hedge with a stick. He was gradually recovering his self-respect. The nightmare memories of yesterday were growing faint. He flung a stone for the eager Jumble and uttered his shrill unharmonious war whoop. They entered the woods, William leading. He swaggered along the path. He was William, desperado, and scorner of girls. Yesterday was a dream. It must have been. No mere girl would dare even to speak to him. He had never played at fairies with a girl—he, William the pirate king, the robber chief.
“William!”
He turned, his proud smile frozen in horror.
A small figure was flying along the path behind them—a bare-headed figure with elaborate curls and very short lacy bunchy skirts and bare legs with white shoes and socks.
“William, darling! I thaw you from the nurthery window coming along the road and I ethcaped. Nurth wath reading a book and I ethcaped. Oh, William darling, play with me again, do. It wath so nith yethterday.”
William glared at her speechless. He was glad of the presence of his manly friends, yet horrified as to what revelations this terrible young female might make, disgracing him for ever in their eyes.
“Go away,” he said sternly at last, “we aren’t playing girls’ games.”
“We don’t like girls,” said Ginger contemptuously.
“William doth,” she said indignantly. “He thaid he did. He thaid he liked all little girlth. He thaid he withed he wath a little girl. He kithed me an’ played fairieth with me.”
A glorious blush of a rich and dark red overspread William’s countenance.
“Oh!” he ejaculated as if astounded at the depth of her untruthfulness, but it was not convincing.
“Oh, you did!” said Violet Elizabeth. Somehow that was convincing. Ginger and Douglas looked at William rather coldly. Even Jumble seemed to look slightly ashamed of him.
“Well, come along,” said Ginger, “we can’t stop here all day talking—to a girl.”
“But I want to come with you,” said Violet Elizabeth. “I want to play with you.”
“We’re going to play boys’ games. You wouldn’t like it,” said Douglas who was somewhat of a diplomatist.
“I like boyth gameth,” pleaded Violet Elizabeth, and her blue eyes filled with tears, “pleath let me come.”
“All right,” said William. “We can’t stop you comin’. Don’t take any notice of her,” he said to the others. “She’ll soon get tired of it.”
They set off. William, for the moment abashed and deflated, followed humbly in their wake.
******
In a low-lying part of the wood was a bog. The bog was always there but as it had rained in the night the bog to-day was particularly boggy. It was quite possible to skirt this bog by walking round it on the higher ground, but William and his friends never did this. They preferred to pretend that the bog surrounded them on all sides as far as human eye could see and that at one false step they might sink deep in the morass never to be seen again.
“Come along,” called William who had recovered his spirits and position of leadership. “Come along, my brave fellows ... tread careful or instant death will be your fate, and don’t take any notice of her, she’ll soon have had enough.”
For Violet Elizabeth was trotting gaily behind the gallant band.
They did not turn round or look at her, but they could not help seeing her out of the corners of their eyes. She plunged into the bog with a squeal of delight and stamped her elegant white-clad feet into the black mud.
“Ithn’t it lovely?” she squealed. “Dothn’t it feel nith—all thquithy between your toth—ithn’t it lovely? I like boyth gameth.”
They could not help looking at her when they emerged. As fairy-like as ever above, her feet were covered with black mud up to above her socks. Shoes and socks were sodden.
“Ith a lovely feeling!” she commented delightedly on the other side. “Leth do it again.”
But William and his band remembered their manly dignity and strode on without answering. She followed with short dancing steps. Each of them carried a stick with which they smote the air or any shrub they passed. Violet Elizabeth secured a stick and faithfully imitated them. They came to a clear space in the wood, occupied chiefly by giant blackberry bushes laden with fat ripe berries.
“Now, my brave fellows,” said William, “take your fill. ’Tis well we have found this bit of food or we would e’en have starved, an’ don’ help her or get any for her an’ let her get all scratched an’ she’ll soon have had enough.”
They fell upon the bushes. Violet Elizabeth also fell upon the bushes. She crammed handfuls of ripe blackberries into her mouth. Gradually her pink and white face became obscured beneath a thick covering of blackberry juice stain. Her hands were dark red. Her white dress had lost its whiteness. It was stained and torn. Her bunchy skirts had lost their bunchiness. The brambles tore at her curled hair and drew it into that state of straightness for which Nature had meant it. The brambles scratched her face and arms and legs. And still she ate.
“I’m getting more than any of you,” she cried. “I geth I’m getting more than any of you. And I’m getting all of a meth. Ithn’t it fun? I like boyth gameth.”
They gazed at her with a certain horrified respect and apprehension. Would they be held responsible for the strange change in her appearance?
They left the blackberry bushes and set off again through the wood. At a sign from William they dropped on all fours and crept cautiously and (as they imagined) silently along the path. Violet Elizabeth dropped also upon her scratched and blackberry stained knees.
“Look at me,” she shrilled proudly. “I’m doing it too. Juth like boyth.”
“Sh!” William said fiercely.
Violet Elizabeth “Sh’d” obediently and for a time crawled along contentedly.
“Are we playin’ bein’ animalth?” she piped at last.
“Shut up!” hissed William.
Violet Elizabeth shut up—except to whisper to Ginger who was just in front, “I’m a thnail—what you?” Ginger did not deign to reply.
At a sign from their leader that all danger was over the Outlaws stood upright. William had stopped.
“We’ve thrown ’em off the scent,” he said scowling, “but danger s’rounds us on every side. We’d better plunge into the jungle an’ I bet she’ll soon’ve had enough of plungin’ into the jungle.”
They left the path and “plunged” into the dense, shoulder-high undergrowth. At the end of the line “plunged” Violet Elizabeth. She fought her way determinedly through the bushes. She left remnants of her filmy skirts on nearly every bush. Long spidery arms of brambles caught at her hair again and pulled out her curls. But Violet Elizabeth liked it. “Ithn’t it fun?” she piped as she followed.
Under a large tree William stopped.
“Now we’ll be Red Indians,” he said, “an’ go huntin’. I’ll be Brave Heart same as usual and Ginger be Hawk Face and Douglas be Lightning Eye.”
“An’ what thall I be?” said the torn and stained and wild-headed apparition that had been Violet Elizabeth.
Douglas took the matter in hand.
“What thall I be?” he mimicked shrilly, “what thall I be? What thall I be?”
Violet Elizabeth did not run home in tears as he had hoped she would. She laughed gleefully.
“It doth thound funny when you thay it like that!” she said delightedly. “Oh, it doth! Thay it again! Pleath thay it again.”
Douglas was nonplussed.
“Anyway,” he said, “you jolly well aren’t going to play, so there.”
“Pleath let me play,” said Violet Elizabeth. “Pleath.”
“No. Go away!”
William and Ginger secretly admired the firm handling of this female by Douglas.
“Pleath, Douglath.”
“No!”
Violet Elizabeth’s blue eyes, fixed pleadingly upon him, filled with tears. Violet Elizabeth’s underlip trembled.
“You’re making me cry,” she said. A tear traced its course down the blackberry stained cheek.
“Pleath, Douglath.”
Douglas hesitated and was lost. “Oh, well——” he said.
“Oh, thank you, dear Douglath,” said Violet Elizabeth. “What thall I be?”
“Well,” said William to Douglas sternly. “Now you’ve let her play I s’pose she’d better be a squaw.”
“A thquaw,” said Violet Elizabeth joyfully, “what thort of noith doth it make?”
“It’s a Indian lady and it doesn’t make any sort of a noise,” said Ginger crushingly. “Now we’re going out hunting and you stay and cook the dinner.”
“All right,” said Violet Elizabeth obligingly. “Kith me good-bye.”
Ginger stared at her in horror.
“But you mutht,” she said, “if you’re going out to work an’ I’m going to cook the dinner, you mutht kith me good-bye. They do.”
She held up her small face.
“Pleath, Ginger.”
Blushing to his ears Ginger just brushed her cheek with his. William gave a derisive snort. His self-respect had returned. Douglas’s manly severity had been overborne. Ginger had been prevailed upon to kiss her. Well, they couldn’t laugh at him now. They jolly well couldn’t. Both were avoiding his eye.
“Well, go off to work, dear William and Douglas and Ginger,” said Violet Elizabeth happily, “an’ I’ll cook.”
Gladly the hunters set off.
******
The Red Indian game had palled. It had been a success while it lasted. Ginger had brought some matches and over her purple layer of blackberry juice the faithful squaw now wore a layer of black from the very smoky fire they had at last managed to make.
“Come on,” said William, “let’s set out looking for adventures.”
They set off single file as before, Violet Elizabeth bringing up the rear, Jumble darting about in ecstatic searches for imaginary rabbits. Another small bog glimmered ahead. Violet Elizabeth, drunk with her success as a squaw, gave a scream.
“Another thquithy plath,” she cried. “I want to be firtht.”
She flitted ahead of them, ran to the bog, slipped and fell into it face forward.
She arose at once. She was covered in black mud from head to foot. Her face was a black mud mask. Through it her teeth flashed in a smile. “I juth thlipped,” she explained.
A man’s voice came suddenly from the main path through the wood at their right.
“Look at ’em—the young rascals! Look at ’em! An’ a dawg! Blarst ’em! Er-r-r-r-r!”
The last was a sound expressive of rage and threatening.
“Keepers!” said William. “Run for your lives, braves. Come on, Jumble.”
They fled through the thicket.
“Pleath,” gasped Violet Elizabeth in the rear, “I can’t run as fatht ath that.”
It was Ginger and Douglas who came back to hold her hands. For all that they ran fleetly, dashing through the undergrowth where the keepers found it difficult to follow, and dodging round trees. At last, breathlessly, they reached a clearing and in the middle of it a cottage as small and attractive as a fairy tale cottage. The door was open. It had an empty look. They could hear the keepers coming through the undergrowth shouting.
“Come in here,” gasped William. “It’s empty. Come in and hide till they’ve gone.”
The four ran into a spotlessly clean little kitchen, and Ginger closed the door. The cottage was certainly empty. There was not a sound.
“Ithn’t it a thweet little houth?” panted Violet Elizabeth.
“Come upstairs,” said Douglas. “They might look in here.”
The four, Jumble scrambling after them, clattered up the steep narrow wooden stairs and into a small and very clean bedroom.
“Look out of the window and see when they go past,” commanded William, “then we’ll slip out and go back.”
Douglas peeped cautiously out of the window. He gave a gasp.
“They—they’re not goin’ past,” he said. “They—they’re they’re comin’ in at the door.”
The men’s voices could be heard below.
“Comin’ in here—the young rascals! Look at their footmarks, see? What’ll my old woman say when she gets home?”
“They’ve gone upstairs, too. Look at the marks. Blarst ’em!”
William went to the window, holding Jumble beneath his arm.
“We can easily climb down by this pipe,” he said quickly. “Then we’ll run back.”
He swung a leg over the window sill, prepared to descend with Jumble clinging round his neck, as Jumble was trained to do. Jumble’s life consisted chiefly of an endless succession of shocks to the nerves.
Ginger and Douglas prepared to follow.
The men’s footsteps were heard coming upstairs, when a small voice said plaintively, “Pleath—pleath, I can’t do that. Pleath, you’re not going to leave me, are you?”
William put back his foot.
“We—we can’t leave her,” he said. Ginger and Douglas did not question their leader’s decision. They stood in a row facing the door while the footsteps drew nearer.
The door burst open and the two keepers appeared.
“Now, yer young rascals—we’ve got yer!”
******
Into Mr. Bott’s library were ushered two keepers, each leading two children by the neck. One held two rough-looking boys. The other held a rough-looking boy and a rough-looking little girl. A dejected-looking mongrel followed the procession.
“Trespassin’, sir,” said the first keeper, “trespassin’ an’ a-damagin’ of the woods. Old ’ands, too. Seen ’em at it before but never caught ’em till now. An’ a dawg too. It’s an example making of they want, sir. They want prosecutin’ if I may make so bold. A-damagin’ of the woods and a-bringing of a dawg——”
“WE’VE FOUND HER,” ANNOUNCED WILLIAM, AND VIOLET
ELIZABETH TOOK A STEP FORWARD. “IT’S ME,” SHE
PIPED.
Mr. Bott who was new to squiredom and had little knowledge of what was expected of him and moreover was afflicted at the moment with severe private domestic worries, cast a harassed glance at the four children. His glance rested upon Violet Elizabeth without the faintest flicker of recognition. He did not recognise her. He knew Violet Elizabeth. He saw her at least once or almost once a day. He knew her quite well. He knew her by her ordered flaxen curls, pink and white face and immaculate bunchy skirts. He did not know this little creature with the torn, stained, bedraggled dress (there was nothing bunchy about it now) whose extremely dirty face could just be seen beneath the tangle of untidy hair that fell over her eyes. She watched him silently and cautiously. Just as he was going to speak Violet Elizabeth’s nurse entered. It says much for Violet Elizabeth’s disguise that her nurse only threw her a passing glance. Violet Elizabeth’s nurse’s eyes were red-rimmed.
“GOD BLESS MY SOUL,” EXCLAIMED MR. BOTT, PEERING
AT THE APPARITION. “IT’S IMPOSSIBLE.”
“Please, sir, Mrs. Bott says is there any news?”
“No,” said Mr. Bott desperately. “Tell her I’ve rung up the police every minute since she sent last. How is she?”
“Please, sir, she’s in hysterics again.”
Mr. Bott groaned.
Ever since Violet Elizabeth’s disappearance Mrs. Bott had been indulging in hysterics in her bedroom and taking it out of Violet Elizabeth’s nurse. In return Violet Elizabeth’s nurse had hysterics in the nursery and took it out of the nursery maid. In return the nursery maid had hysterics in the kitchen and took it out of the kitchen maid. The kitchen maid had no time for hysterics but she took it out of the cat.
“Please, sir, she says she’s too ill to speak now. She told me to tell you so, sir.”
Mr. Bott groaned again. Suddenly he turned to the four children and the keepers.
“You’ve got their names and addresses, haven’t you? Well, see here, children. Go out and see if you can find my little gall for me. She’s lost. Look in the woods and round the village and—everywhere. And if you find her I’ll let you off. See?”
They murmured perfunctory thanks and retired, followed by Violet Elizabeth who had not uttered one word within her paternal mansion.
In the woods they turned on her sternly.
“It’s you he wants. You’re her.”
“Yeth,” agreed the tousled ragamuffin who was Violet Elizabeth, sweetly, “ith me.”
“Well, we’re going to find you an’ take you back.”
“Oh, pleath, I don’t want to be found and tooken back. I like being with you.”