Vernon continued to talk to his friend—a luxury he did not dare to permit himself often, since someone might overhear and say, ‘Isn’t he too funny? He’s pretending he’s got another little boy with him.’ You had to be so very careful at home.
‘We’ll get to the Castle by lunch time, Poodle. There are going to be roasted leopards. Oh! Hullo, here’s Squirrel. How are you, Squirrel? Where’s Tree?’
‘I tell you what. I think it’s rather tiring walking. I think we’ll ride.’
Steeds were tethered to an adjacent tree. Vernon’s was milk white, Poodle’s was coal black—the colour of Squirrel’s he couldn’t quite decide.
They galloped forward through the trees. There were deadly dangerous places, morasses. Snakes hissed at them and lions charged them. But the faithful steeds did all their riders required of them.
How silly it was playing in the garden—or playing anywhere but here! He’d forgotten what it was like, playing with Mr Green and Poodle, Squirrel and Tree. How could you help forgetting things when people were always reminding you that you were a funny little boy playing make believe.
On strutted Vernon, now capering, now marching with solemn dignity. He was great, he was wonderful! What he needed, though he did not know it himself, was a tom-tom to beat whilst he sang his own praises.
The Forest! He had always known it would be like this, and it was! In front of him suddenly appeared a crumbling moss-covered wall. The wall of the Castle! Could anything be more perfect? He began to climb it.
The ascent was easy enough really, though fraught with the most agreeable and thrilling possibilities of danger. Whether this was Mr Green’s Castle, or whether it was inhabited by an Ogre who ate human flesh, Vernon had not yet made up his mind. Either was an entrancing proposition. On the whole he inclined to the latter, being at the moment in a warlike frame of mind. With a flushed face he reached the summit of the wall and looked over the other side.
And here there enters into the story, for one brief paragraph, Mrs Somers West who was fond of romantic solitude (for short periods), and had bought Woods Cottage as being ‘delightfully remote from anywhere and really, if you know what I mean, in the very heart of the Forest—at one with Nature!’ And since Mrs Somers West, as well as being artistic, was musical, she had pulled down a wall, making two rooms into one and had thus provided herself with sufficient space to house a grand piano.
And at the identical moment that Vernon reached the top of the wall, several perspiring and staggering men were slowly propelling the aforesaid grand piano towards the window since it wouldn’t go in by the door. The garden of Woods Cottage was a mere tangle of undergrowth—wild Nature, as Mrs Somers West called it. So that all Vernon saw was The Beast! The Beast, alive and purposeful, slowly crawling towards him, malign and vengeful …
For a moment he stayed rooted to the spot. Then, with a wild cry, he fled. Fled along the top of the narrow crumbling wall. The Beast was behind him, pursuing him … It was coming, he knew it. He ran—ran faster than ever—His foot caught in a tangle of ivy. He crashed downwards—falling—falling—
Vernon woke, after a long time, to find himself in bed. It was, of course, the natural place to be when you woke up, but what wasn’t natural, was to have a great hump sticking up in front of you in the bed. It was whilst he was staring at this that someone spoke to him. That someone was Dr Coles, whom Vernon knew quite well.
‘Well, well,’ said Dr Coles, ‘and how are we feeling?’
Vernon didn’t know how Dr Coles was feeling. He himself was feeling rather sick and said so.
‘I daresay, I daresay,’ said Dr Coles.
‘And I think I hurt somewhere,’ said Vernon. ‘I think I hurt very much.’
‘I daresay, I daresay,’ said Dr Coles again—not very helpfully, Vernon thought.
‘Perhaps I’d feel better if I got up,’ said Vernon. ‘Can I get up?’
‘Not just now, I’m afraid,’ said the doctor. ‘You see, you’ve had a fall.’
‘Yes,’ said Vernon. ‘The Beast came after me.’
‘Eh? What’s that? The Beast? What Beast?’
‘Nothing,’ said Vernon.
‘A dog, I expect,’ said the doctor. ‘Jumped at the wall and barked. You mustn’t be afraid of dogs, my boy.’
‘I’m not,’ said Vernon.
‘And what were you doing so far from home, eh? No business to be where you were.’
‘Nobody told me not to,’ said Vernon.
‘Hum, hum, I wonder. Well, I’m afraid you’ve got to take your punishment. Do you know, you’ve broken your leg, my boy?’
‘Have I?’ Vernon was gratified—enchanted. He had broken his leg. He felt very important.
‘Yes, you’ll have to lie here for a bit—and then it will mean crutches for a while. Do you know what crutches are?’
Yes, Vernon knew. Mr Jobber, the blacksmith’s father, had crutches. And he was to have crutches! How wonderful!
‘Can I try them now?’
Dr Coles laughed.
‘So you like the idea? No, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit. And you must try and be a brave boy, you know. And then you’ll get well quicker.’
‘Thank you,’ said Vernon politely. ‘I don’t think I do feel very well. Can you take this funny thing out of my bed? I think it would be more comfortable then.’
But it seemed that the funny thing was called a cradle, and that it couldn’t be taken away. And it seemed, too, that Vernon would not be able to move about in bed because his leg was all tied up to a long piece of wood. And suddenly it didn’t seem a very nice thing to have a broken leg after all.
Vernon’s underlip trembled a little. He was not going to cry—no, he was a big boy and big boys didn’t cry. Nurse said so—and then he knew that he wanted Nurse—wanted her badly. He wanted her reassuring presence, her omniscience, her creaking, rustling majesty.
‘She’ll be coming back soon,’ said Dr Coles. ‘Yes, soon. In the meantime, this Nurse is going to look after you—Nurse Frances.’
Nurse Frances moved into Vernon’s range of vision and Vernon studied her in silence. She too, was starched and crackling, that was all to the good. But she wasn’t big like Nurse—she was thinner than Mummy—as thin as Aunt Nina. He wasn’t sure—
And then he met her eyes—steady eyes, more green than grey, and he felt, as most people felt, that with Nurse Frances things would be ‘all right’.
She smiled at him—but not in the way that visitors smiled. It was a grave smile, friendly but reserved.
‘I’m sorry you feel sick,’ she said. ‘Would you like some orange juice?’
Vernon considered the matter and said he thought he would. Dr Coles went out of the room and Nurse Frances brought him the orange juice in a most curious-looking cup with a long spout. And it appeared that Vernon was to drink from the spout.
It made him laugh, but laughing hurt him, and so he stopped. Nurse Frances suggested he should go to sleep again, but he said he didn’t want to go to sleep.
‘Then I shouldn’t go to sleep,’ said Nurse Frances. ‘I wonder if you can count how many irises there are on that wall? You can start on the right side, and I’ll start on the left side. You can count, can’t you?’
Vernon said proudly that