William the Fourth Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’d better be goin’.’
    Miss Tabitha was bewildered but vaguely cheered by him.
    ‘You must come again . . .’ she said.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said William cheerfully. ‘I’ll come again lots . . . an’ let me know when you’re moving again – I’ll come an’ help
again.’
    Miss Tabitha shuddered slightly.
    ‘Thank you so much,’ she said.
    He arrived the next afternoon.
    ‘I’ve just come to see,’ he said, ‘how you’re gettin’ on.’
    Miss Tabitha was seated at a little table – with a row of playing cards spread out in front of her.
    She flushed slightly
    ‘I’m – I’m just telling my fortune, William,’ she said.
    ‘Oh,’ said William. He was impressed.
    ‘It does sometimes come true,’ she said eagerly, ‘I do it nearly every day. It’s curious – how it grows on one.’
    She began to turn up the covered cards and study them intently. William sat on a chair opposite her and watched with interest.
    ‘There was a letter in my cards yesterday’ she said, ‘and it came this morning. Sometimes it comes true like that, but often,’ she sighed, ‘it
doesn’t.’
    ‘Wot’s in it today?’ said William, scowling at the cards.
    ‘A death,’ said Miss Tabitha in a sepulchral whisper, ‘and a letter from a dark man and jealousy of a fair woman and a present from across the sea and legal business and a
legacy – but they’re none of them the sort of thing that comes true. I don’t know though,’ she went on dreamily, ‘the Income Tax man might be dark – I
don’t know – and I may hear from him soon. It’s wonderful really – I mean that any of it should come out. It’s quite an absorbing pursuit. Shall I do yours?’
    ‘’Um,’ said William graciously.
    ‘You must wish first.’
    William wished with his eyes screwed up in silent concentration.
    ‘I’ve done it,’ he said.
    Miss Tabitha dealt out the cards. She shook her head sorrowfully
    ‘You’ll be treated badly by a fair woman,’ she said.
    William agreed gloomily
    ‘That’ll be Ethel – my sister,’ he said. ‘She thinks that jus’ cause she’s grown up . . .’ He relapsed into subterranean mutterings.
    ‘And you’ll have your wish,’ she said.
    William brightened. Then his eye roved round the room to a photograph on a bureau by the window.
    ‘Who’s he?’ he said.
    Miss Tabitha flushed again.
    ‘He was once going to marry me,’ she said. ‘And he went away and he never came back.’
    ‘ ’Speck he met someone he liked better an’ married her,’ suggested William cheerfully
    ‘I expect he did,’ said Miss Tabitha.
    He surveyed her critically.
    ‘Perhaps he didn’t like your hair not being curly’ he proceeded. ‘Some don’t. My brother Robert he says if a girl’s hair doesn’t curl she oughter curl
it. P’raps you didn’t curl it.’
    ‘No, I didn’t.’
    ‘My sister Ethel does, but she gets mad if I tell folks, an’ she gets mad when I use her old things for makin’ holes in apples and cardboard an’ things. She’s an
awful fuss,’ he ended contemptuously
    When he got home he stood transfixed on the dining-room threshold, his mouth open, his eyes wide.
    ‘Crumbs!’ he ejaculated.
    He had wished that there might be ginger cake for tea.
    And there was.
    At tea was the Vicar’s wife. The Vicar’s wife was afflicted with the Sale of Work mania. It is a disease to which Vicars’ wives are notoriously susceptible. She was always
thinking out the next but one Sale of Work before the next one was over. She was always praised in the local press and she felt herself to be a very happy woman.
    ‘I’m going to call the next one a Fête,’ she said. ‘It will seem more of a change.’
    ‘Fake?’ said William with interest.
    ‘YOU’LL BE TREATED BADLY BY A FAIR WOMAN,’ SHE SAID. WILLIAM AGREED GLOOMILY ‘THAT’LL BE ETHEL,’ HE SAID.
    She murmured ‘Dear boy,’ vaguely.
    ‘We’ll advertise it widely. I’m thinking of calling it the King of Fêtes. Such an