ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES

CHAPTER 197 – A FAMILY’S SCANDAL


Amanda stood just inside the doorway, discretely waiting. She stepped into view
when she saw them approaching.

“Come in,” she said, giving them a warm smile and stepping aside. “I’m Amanda,
and you’ve already met Robert.”

William nodded, trying hard to remember his manners as he struggled not to give
into the impulse to stare at everything as blatantly as he desired.

“It’s nice to meet you, too. I’m Elizabeth and this is William,” Buffy said,
answering for them both. Discreetly, she nudged him.

William cleared his throat and forced his focus back to the couple in front of him,
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you. Thank you for inviting us in.”

The couple led them through to what had been, and still was, the parlor.

“Please have a seat,” Amanda said. “Can I offer you anything to drink? Eat?"

“Oh no, please don’t bother,” Buffy said, as her and William took a seat on the
couch.

“It’s no bother at all. I just put on a pot of tea.”

Buffy looked at William, but his deer-caught-in-the-headlights look didn’t give her
much to go by.

“Sure. That’d be nice,” she answered for them.

Amanda started out of the room, then stopped.

“Robert, would you be so kind as to see to the tea? I think I’d like to go and let
grandmother know that we have company.”

“Of course.”

“Are you alright?” Buffy asked, as soon as they were alone.

William didn’t respond, instead stood up and slowly walked around the room,
taking in all the changes that one hundred plus years had wrought.

“When I was very young they were striped in dark green and a golden yellow.
Then right around the time Henry moved out, my mum had them redone in a rose
pattern. I don’t know why I remember that...”

William continued, pointing across the room, “And over there, that’s where our
couch was. It was upholstered in a cream and maroon brocade, very elegant...”
his voice drifted off as visions of his mother sitting on the couch came to him.

“My mum...I can see her sitting in here, doing needlepoint or reading. She loved
this room.”

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice that Buffy had come up behind him until he
felt her put her arms around his waist. Sighing, he leaned back against her,
pulling her comforting arms even closer.

A little shuffling noise came from behind them, and they turned towards it. A little
girl’s head quickly withdrew just beyond the archway separating the parlor from
the hallway, but there were no footsteps.

“Hello, anybody there?” Buffy called out.


"I’m coming,” Amanda called back, walking into the room from the opposite side.
“I didn't mean to leave you alone for so long.”

"Oh, no, I wasn't calling out to you; we thought we saw your little girl for a
moment."

Amanda smiled knowingly. "Alyson! Come in here and meet our guests."

Slowly, a little girl emerged from where they'd first heard her. Wearing a fancy
pink and purple play gown, and what was surely her mothers fanciest high heels,
she clippity-clomped over to stand next to her. Amanda smiled down at her
daughter, adjusting the little plastic, jeweled crown, which adorned her light
brown curls. Familiar, blue eyes looked at the strangers with unbridled curiosity.

“Hello, Alyson. It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Buffy and this is William.”

Amanda nudged her.

“Nice to meet you.”

“I like your outfit,” Buffy continued, trying to draw her out. “Are you a princess?”

Alyson shook her head. “No. Belle.”

“Oh. From Beauty and the Beast?”

Alyson bobbed her head up and down.

“I remember having read that story when I was young; although that’s been quite
a while ago,” William said.

“I’ve got the movie, too,” Alyson said.

“Oh...I didn’t realize it was a movie.”

Buffy stifled a laugh when Alyson rolled her eyes at William, causing him quirk
his eyebrow in return.

“Belle has to go live in the Beast’s castle, because her father stole one of his
roses for her. She’s doesn’t like him at first because he’s ugly and acts mean, but
he’s really not. See, there was this spell and it turned him that way, but when
Belle said she’d marry him, he got all better and turned into a handsome prince!”

“And, whom do you like the best?” William asked, then turned to look at Buffy.
“The Beast or the handsome prince?"

“I don’t like either one the best; I like them equal!” Alyson said with the finality of
a girl who knew her mind.

“That’s because the Beast really had the handsome prince inside him all along,
even though something changed along the way to make him not seem that way
anymore,” Buffy said, not breaking eye contact with William.

“Not something, a spell,” Alyson said.

Robert chuckled as he came into the room carrying a tray with tea and holiday
cookies on it and all eyes turned toward him, “I see you’ve met our daughter,”

“Yes, she’s quite charming,” Buffy said, smiling.

“That she is,” he said, grinning at the little girl.

Buffy and William took their seats on the couch once again, while Robert poured
tea into their cups.

Amanda knelt down next to Alyson, “If you’d go and help Grandmother Beatrice
come down the stairs after she gets ready, I’ll get out your special cup and you
can have tea with us. Would you like that?”

“Yes, mummy. That would be marpendous!”

“Well, go on then,” Amanda said. Alyson nodded, and ran off.

“In case you’re wondering, that’s a combination of marvelous and stupendous,
Alyson doesn’t have it quite down yet.”

“And I dare say, I hope she doesn’t. I like it just fine,” Robert added.

“I totally agree; it’s a great word,” Buffy said. “Not to mention, it’s a perfect
example showing how young children work out language. It’s...it’s marpendous!”

The room erupted in quiet laughter.

“You’re not a teacher by chance are you, Elizabeth?” Amanda asked.

“Yeah. That obvious, huh?” Buffy said, grinning. “I teach upper elementary at a
Montessori back home.”

Amanda nodded her approval. “And where exactly is home for you?”

“In California. Julian, actually.”

Robert and Amanda shook their heads.

“It’s an hour north of San Diego, up in the mountains.”

“Well, say, what a small world! We visited San Diego a few years back, when
Alyson was only two. Visited the Zoo, went to Disneyland, did the whole
Southern California tourist thing.”

“That’s nice. I bet she loved it.”

“Oh, she did. Unfortunately, she probably won’t recall much of it at all in the years
to come. I think the only reason she says she does now, is because of all the
pictures we have. I suppose we could’ve waited until she was a bit older, but we
just wanted to do so much with her; we waited so long to have her...” Amanda
said, fading off.

Buffy nodded, but didn’t reply. She knew a little about what it felt like to be
waiting for your life to start. For her, it had been when William had come back
into it; for Amanda and Robert, it had been the birth of Alyson. She couldn’t help
but imagine that if she ever had a child with William, it would surely look very
much like its distant cousin.

“So, William, please, tell us all about yourself. Do you live nearby? What is it that
you do?”

“Do? I um...” William stammered, looking to Buffy for help.

“William lives in California...with me. He works at a university there,” Buffy
answered.

“Ah, of course. You two are married, then,” Amanda said, assuming that William
was another teacher, as well. It made perfect sense.

Buffy looked at William, allowing him to answer as he would.

“Not yet, but I hope to be soon,” he answered, pleased when Buffy nodded and
reached over and squeezed his hand.

“So, are you over here on holiday, or come to visit family?”

“Something like that,” William answered.

“We’re staying with a friend of ours, but he’s pretty much like family. He’s also
English, but we knew him in California,” Buffy said.

“I see...Oh, here’s Beatrice,” Amanda said, before she could ask anything else.

William and Buffy turned to look at the older woman as she entered the parlor.
She held a cane in one hand; her other arm was being supported by Alyson.
Wearing a blue, floral housecoat, she stood staring at William. Before anybody
could say anything, William was on his feet, likewise, staring back at her.

“Mu...ma’am,” William stammered, the color draining from his face.

“This is William and Elizabeth, Beatrice,” Robert said.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Buffy said, rising to stand next to William.

“You look just like my Edward did when he was young,” she said, ignoring Buffy
and everyone else in the room.

“Does he grandma?” Amanda asked, looking at William curiously; she’d only
remembered her grandfather from pictures. He’d died when she was only a baby.

Beatrice nodded, still staring as she walked towards William. Stopping right in
front of him, the old woman put her hand out and touched his cheek.

Buffy could feel him trembling.

“I...you...”

“William,” Buffy whispered, but he didn’t respond.

“Goodness, look at me! Where are my manners? I think I’ve scared young
William half to death,” Beatrice said, removing her hand, and taking a step
backwards.

“Are you okay, William, “Amanda asked, worried.

“I’m sorry. I’m okay,” William said, while still staring at Beatrice. “You just remind
me of someone, too.”

“Then I shall consider us even,” Beatrice said, as she sat down across from
William and Buffy on a matching Queen Anne chair.

Amanda poured her a cup of tea, which she took. Balancing it on its saucer, she
looked at William with old, but clear blue eyes.

“Amanda tells me that you’re a Spencer.”

“Yes, it’s my middle name. My name is last name is Worthington.”

“Worthington, you say? That sounds...Alyson, would you please go upstairs and
into grandmother’s bookcase? On the third shelf down, all the way to the right
side, is a bible. I want you to bring that to me.”

“I will, grandmother,” Alyson said, taking off for the upstairs again.

“Don’t run,” both Amanda and Robert echoed.

“I won’t,” the child called back, though the sound of her feet told another story.

“So,” Beatrice said, turning back to William, “tell us which branch of the Spencers
do you come from?” I’m afraid since my Edward passed, I haven’t kept up with all
sides of the family tree as I should have.”

“I’m...I don’t know,” William said, looking at Buffy helplessly.

Beatrice looked at him, a slight frown on her face. “How is it that you don’t, yet
you knew enough to come here?”

Buffy cleared her throat.

“If I might explain, ma’am. William’s family died a very long time ago...um, when
he was a young boy. Then a few years ago, he was involved in an accident;
resulting in a head injury, which caused a severe case of memory loss. So, that’s
why he’s very unclear on most of the details of his life before then...the accident.
It’s only recently that he’s been doing some research into his roots, which is how
we wound up here," Buffy finished, taking a much-needed breath from her long,
white lie-addled spiel.


“Oh, we’re so sorry, William. We had no idea,” Amanda said.

The old woman looked at William for confirmation, and he nodded, which
seemed to satisfy her.

“I do apologize, William. I didn’t mean to pry, or make you feel uncomfortable.”

“You weren’t prying ma’am, you were just asking me what anybody else would,
had I showed up on their doorstep claiming to be related.”

Beatrice smiled at the forthcoming answer he gave her. “Well, memory loss or
not, I can tell by looking at you, that you’re a Spencer! And it’s Beatrice, not
ma’am, William. That goes for you, too, Elizabeth.”

William nodded at her, and Buffy smiled; relieved that the worse of it was now
past. At least, that was what she thought.

A few moments later, Alyson came running up to Beatrice, and handed her the
bible she’d gone to retrieve. William’s eyes widened. It was his mother’s bible.
Beatrice opened up the book, and nodded.

“This bible has been in the Spencer family since the mid- 1700’s,” Beatrice said.

William could only nod.

Using the cane as support, Beatrice got up and came over to the couch. “May I?”
she asked.

Buffy nodded and moved so Beatrice could sit next to William. She handed him
the open bible.

His hands trembled, as he looked at the page she had opened it to. Halfway
down he saw the familiar and distinctive flourish of his mother’s handwriting.

“There you are William; both of your names are in here: Worthington and
Spencer.”

William nodded, as he saw where his mother had recorded her marriages to both
her sons’ fathers, as well as their births, and both husbands’ deaths. Further
shocking, and in another’s handwriting, was seeing the year 1880 as the year of
death for all three - his mother, Henry, and himself.

“If I’m remembering this correctly – Edward’s father told me about this, but it’s
been so many years, I’m not sure that I’ve got it all correct - there was bit of a
scandal in the family, right here,” Beatrice said, pointing to the very section
William had been staring at.

“Grandmother!” Amanda warned. “I’m sure William isn’t interested...”

“A scandal?” William said, tonelessly.

Sensing his growing despair, and trying to be inconspicuous at the same time,
Buffy put her arm around William’s shoulder to try to lend him what comfort she
could. She held her breath, and prepared for the worst.

The old woman nodded, oblivious to William’s state of mind, or his sudden
tenseness.

“As the story goes, Anne Spencer Worthington and her son; also named William,
disappeared from this very house one day in 1880, and were never seen again.
Her older brother, Charles, found everything as though they had just stepped out
for the evening. Now, Henry, the other son, was found murdered around that
time, but since the bodies of Anne and William were never found, Charles still
held out hope that perhaps they’d been kidnapped, and a ransom note would be
forthcoming. He took care of the house for a few years while awaiting word about
their fates. Finally, he had them legally declared dead, and afterwards, moved
himself and his family in. I believe Edward told me that before the brother himself
died, he even had headstones erected for them in the family plot in Highgate
Cemetery, not far from here, although their bodies were never found.”

William’s mouth had gone dry. He swallowed, and Buffy could see his Adam’s
apple going up and down. She felt beyond horrible. She’d been the one to talk
him into coming into the house and meeting these people, assuring him that
she’d help him by deflecting their questions. Actually, that much, she’d been able
to do. However, she never dreamed she’d be blind-sided by an 80+ year old
great-grandmother, and be unable to help him when he needed it the most.
She was just about to fake an asthma or heart attack, anything, in order to get
William out of there, when Amanda spoke.

“Would you like to see the rest of the house?” Amanda said, rising.

“William?” Buffy said softly, when he didn’t respond.

“Wha...?’

“Amanda wants to know if you’d like to see the rest of the house,” Buffy said. She
didn’t know if this would be worse for him or not. No, on second thought, nothing
could be any worse than what had just happened. This story, his story – had
become the stuff of legends passed down from generation to generation – only
he knew the truth of the so-called disappearance and deaths of his family.

William nodded graciously to Beatrice, and taking Buffy’s hand, allowed him to
lead him out of the parlor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Damnit!” Giles said, as he looked at his computer screen over Willow’s shoulder,
the scroll next to her.

“I can’t get this Giles! We’ve been on this one passage for over an hour,” Willow
said. Having no luck with the texts he had on hand, she’d even hooked up her
optical character recognition pen to his computer in order to scan the text as it
was written, in hopes that the translating software would recognize the words.
However, all she got was an error message stating, ‘This text not recognized.’

“I know. I thought between the two of us we could surely decipher it...”

“We could. I could, if we had the right books,” Willow said.

“Yes, thank you for bringing that to my attention. Obviously, and duly noted, we
need the actual translation texts that are at The Council if we’re to be able to do it
properly,” Giles said.

“Uh-huh.”

Giles sighed, as he took out his car keys. “Care to come with?”

“No. If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stay here. I told Kennedy I’d call her this
afternoon and find out what day she’s coming back and her flight information and
all that.”

“Of course. I’ll see you back here in a little while,” Giles said.

A few minutes later, Willow was fixing herself a cup of tea when she heard Giles
at the door. She couldn’t help but grin as she heard him mumbling about, ‘Bloody
machines,’ as he let himself out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amanda led William and Buffy through the various rooms of the main floor of the
house. William looked around, flinching at times, as the past seemed irrevocably
lost in the newness of the present day furnishings.

They were now stopped in the kitchen.

“Obviously, this has been modernized over the years, but there’s still a few
original things from the 1800’s. Like this drawer by the stove; I’m not sure what
its original use was, but we keep our extra pots and pans in it,” she said, pulling
out large drawer that tipped forward.

“Coal,” William said.

Buffy and Amanda turned to look at him.

“I believe it was a bin to keep coal that was used to heat the stove.”

Amanda nodded, “That’s what we thought, but we weren’t sure. That makes
sense. In the cellar there’s a patch of brick in the wall that we thought had once
been a window, but someone told us it was originally the coal shoot. The mother
probably went down to the cellar, and brought up a portion of the coal and stored
it next to their stove.”

“The cook.”

Once more, Amanda and Buffy turned to look at him.

William cleared his throat. “It was probably the cook...who went to get the coal.”

“Yes, you’re probably right, William. Most well-heeled families would’ve had a
cook and a maid or two, as well,” Amanda said.

They stayed in the kitchen a few minutes, Buffy and Amanda making small talk,
until Alyson came running in, followed by Robert and Beatrice.

William took a deep breath, again, unsettled by seeing the older woman, who at
first glance, looked very much like his mother.

“So, what do you think about this old house that’s been in the Spencer family for
over one hundred years?” Robert asked.

“It looks...well maintained,” William managed to answer.

“He hasn’t seen the upstairs, yet,” Amanda said.

“I see, well then...”

“I can show them, mummy.”

“How about if we both show them?” Amanda said, smiling at her daughter.

Alyson nodded, spontaneously taking hold of William’s hand, and began pulling
him down the hallway towards the stairs. Buffy and Amanda exchanged a smile,
as they followed.

Although William’s feet were moving fast to keep up with the young girl, inside he
felt as though he were in slow motion as he ascended the well-known staircase.
The new pictures on the walls seemed to shift and disappear, replaced by the
familiar photographs of his grandfather, parents, brother, and himself. Once
upstairs, doors were opened and closed as the various rooms were described
and discussed, but William saw only through the memory of time to what had
been. As the door to the main bedroom was opened, he could swear he saw the
ghost of the maid coming out, carrying with her his mother’s chamber pot.
Looking towards where his mother’s bed had been, he could envision her small,
frail form. Surrounded by pictures of her family and vials of medicines that never
seemed to help a whit, she lay pale against the sheets; her body weakened by
the ravages of her disease.

Unaware, Amanda went on, describing how the upstairs had been remodeled in
the early 1900’s to make way for indoor plumbing, and how another bedroom had
been added.

“And this is Alyson’s room; the only room that is still very much like it was from
the late 1800’s. Well, except for the decorating, of course,” Amanda said,
grinning as she opening the door into the final room.

A glance from William was all that Buffy needed to let her know that this had
been his room. He stood rooted to the floor, as memories assailed him, the
chitchat going on around him, unheard.

Amanda looked down at her daughter who was hopping from leg to leg. She bent
over to whisper something to her. Alyson nodded.

“Excuse us for a moment. I need to take a certain young lady down the hall to the
loo.”

Buffy waited until they’d walked out, then went over to where William was
standing and took his hand, squeezing it. Slowly coming out of his reverie, he
looked down at their hands, then up at her.

“This is hard, isn’t it?” Buffy asked softly.

A brittle laugh erupted from deep inside of William; somewhere on the Richter
Scale (if there were such a scale of laughs) between hysteria and anguish.

“God, I’m sorry, that was incredibly stupid, I...”

“No, don’t apologize. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about, Elizabeth,”
William said, brushing his lips against her cheek. “Beside, I’m the one who
brought us here.”

She didn’t bother to argue that she’d been the one who had convinced him to
come inside. It was a moot point now.

“They’ll be back in a few minutes. I mean, if you want to show me anything, that
is.”

William looked at her, then nodded.


“My bed used to be over there,” he said, pointing to the wall underneath the long,
windows that looked out onto the front garden and road beyond. “Not much
larger than this one,” he said, of Alyson’s twin bed. He ran his hand over the
edge of the oak-trimmed windowsill, feeling for the familiar nick that he’d made
as a boy with the nib of his pen. It was still there.

William walked over to a wall that now held an array of framed Disney
characters, and a shelf full of stuffed toys and plastic horses. “This was where my
desk was; spent a good portion of my waking hours right here,” he said,
remembering the small mahogany secretary which he’d studied his lessons, read
his books, written essays for school, and poetry for the love of it. Most of all, it
was where he’d imagined and yearned for something more than this life had
seemed to have in store for him.

Buffy looked at him and could easily imagine a younger William, at his desk in
clothes of his day, a wild mop of light brown curls falling over his spectacles,
which would be sliding down his nose. This had been his room, his house...his
world.

After a moment William walked to the opposite wall. “There was a large
bookcase over here, and my wardrobe. Used to be a screen here, not a door,” he
said, pulling it open. “It wasn’t a closet then. It was a...well, where one went to
do private things.”

Buffy looked at him blankly.

“We had no proper toilet at the time. We still used chamber pots.”

“Oh. Did you bathe in here, too.”

“Of course not. Baths were taken in bathrooms; only water had to be heated
downstairs in the kitchen and carried upstairs. See, back then, bathrooms were
just beginning to catch on, but they weren’t quite commonplace yet. My father
added the bathroom, and had drawn up the plans to make it fully functional with
running water and all that; but before he could contract for it, he died. After that,
my mum just didn’t think it was financially sound for her to spend the money on
that when we could get by as we always had. We got by.”

“Everything is so easy these days, in comparison, isn’t it? Buffy asked, then
added, “Not that it’s been easy for you to be here...”

“I know what you meant, luv. And yes, in advances and technology, of course
things are easier, but not so much in other things, I think. More complications
with all that, too.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

William motioned her over to where he was standing. When she was next to him,
he pointed to the back wall of the closet where a small set of stairs which led up
to a hatch on the closet’s ceiling.

“The attic...you did it like this in Julian because of the way it was here where you
grew up, didn’t you?" Buffy said, more to herself than to him.

“You mean he did," he said, his face right next to hers.

Buffy looked at him for a moment, until it dawned on her. She nodded.

“Can’t imagine much why I would. I didn’t spend any time up here; sort of scared
me a bit when I’d hear noises at night from some bat that got in, or some such
thing. Guess that wouldn’t much matter to a monster though would it? Can’t
imagine a vampire afraid of things that go bump in the night.”

“Then Spike put the stairs to the attic in the spare bedroom because he
remembered how you felt about it,” she said, not able to resist, and also having
to answer-in-kind, in the third person.

William snorted. “Yeah, Spike was a real prince. That is, when he wasn’t out
killing thousands of people.”

Buffy sighed, not wanting to get into a discussion, or likely argument, of why
Spike was so much more than just a monster, or how he still had the essence of
the good man she knew him to be, inside him all along. Despite his recent acting
out by changing his looks to that of Spike, and winding up working in a Willy’s-
wannabe bar where fighting demons had been a common occurrence, William
still wouldn't, or couldn’t, accept that Spike had ever been anything other than
evil. It was as though William had changed places with the Scoobies...or Giles of
old! Except now, the Scoobies, that is, what was left of them, and Giles had
come around to accepting the truth: Spike had changed, even before the soul.
He had been different from the beginning. And he had saved the world even in
the biggest, loving, self-sacrificing gesture, ever. Yes, finally they had accepted
all that...and William couldn't see it.

Buffy fought hard to push down her insecurities as she wondered if William didn't
still consider her in that context; knowing what brought them together, and that
she had loved -- no, still loved -- Spike, too. She had never forgotten the look of
disdain on William’s face, when, after she’d admitted being involved with Angel,
he had questioned her as to if there had been other vampires as well. This had
been followed by his stinging query; “What the hell was the matter with you?”

It wasn’t a hard leap in logic, despite their recent reconciliation, to fear that a part
of him would always feel that there was something innately wrong with her to
have loved Spike, even if William was now the beneficiary of that love that she’d
finally, and wholeheartedly, given. It made her heart hurt that William might,
even unconsciously, consider her deficient in some way; that her love for him
was somehow tainted because of her loving Spike in the past and because of
what she’d been – what they’d both been.

A touch on her arm brought Buffy back to the moment. “I’m sorry,” William said
softly, his hand coming up to cradle her face. “It’s this place, being here...”

“I know,” she said, looking up into William’s blue eyes, searching.

“Can’t help how we feel, can we?”

Great.

Verdict in: deficient Buffy.

“We’re back,” Amanda said, as she and Alyson came into the room, followed by
Robert and Beatrice.

“I see you’ve discovered the stairs to the attic,” Beatrice said.

William nodded, looking guilty.

“If you and Elizabeth don’t mind a bit of dust; well, more than a bit, I dare say,
then feel free to go up there. There’s quite a collection of odds and ends from
each generation up there.”

“Even ours, unfortunately,” Robert said.

“Storage,” Amanda added.

“Would you like to take William and Elizabeth up to the attic?” Beatrice asked
Alyson.

Alyson shook her head. “I don’t like the attic.”

“Why on earth not?” The older woman asked.

“It’s scary; I hear things at night.”

“That’s okay,” William said, kneeling down in front of Alyson, “I used to...that is, I
was scared of my attic when I was a boy, as well.”

“You were?” Alyson asked.

“Indeed, I was. It was also in my room, and like you, I’d hear things at night.”

“You did?”

William nodded, gravely.

“What was it?”

“Well, see, one day I decided to be brave, and I went up there with my
flashlight...”

“Flashlight?” Alyson asked, puzzled.

“It’s another name for torch, dear,” Robert interjected.

“Um...yes,” William said, remembering that which Elizabeth called a flashlight,
Giles had called a torch. Funny, all the things and terms for them, that had been
invented in the one hundred plus years he had no memory of, he’d learned in
American English. Now, he just had to learn those same terms in the Queen’s
English, as well - trunk/boot, flashlight/torch; and on and on. Well, at least some
things he’d already learned their dual terms from that wonderful invention that
both sides of the pond called television.

“So, I take my torch up the stairs, and ever so slowly I lift the door up and poke
my head up there,” William said, while Alyson’s eyes grew large.

“What did you see?”

William grinned, “Well, I can’t see anything from there, so I shimmy all the rest of
the way up, and start looking around. I shine my torch in one corner, then the
other, even up to the ceiling. Then I hear it again, and it’s close by.”

Alyson made a little gasping noise.

“My heart is pounding in my chest, I tell you,” William said, putting his hand to his
chest in demonstration.

“Were you scared?”

“Oh yes, I wanted to run, but I made myself stay. So, very quietly I follow the
sound. Finally, behind a wooden chest, I spot it!”

“What was it?” Amanda asked, her voice hushed and breathless.

“I don’t know if I should tell you...”

“Yes you should! Tell me! What was it?”

“It was a...” William stopped to let the suspense build even more, “tiny, gray field
mouse, come in to look for some food or to get in from the cold. Only this mouse
had gigantic feet.”

“It did?” Alyson gasped. “How big were they?”

William put his fingers up about three inches apart. “At least, I thought they were
that big, but I think he just had some mouse shaped flypaper stuck to them, but
I’m not sure; they looked pretty real to me.”

“Did he see you?”

“He did.”

“What did he do?” Alyson squealed.

“He looked me square in the eye, and stamped his big feet at me, then scurried
away into his mouse hole. Only his feet were so big, they got stuck, and he had
to pull them in one at a time. That was the last time that I saw him, but I still
heard him clomping about at night. That, or could be that mice just sound much
larger at night.”

Alyson giggled, then promptly threw her arms around William and hugged him.

“Alyson’s really warmed up to him. She usually doesn’t do that with strangers,”
Amanda whispered to Buffy.

Buffy smiled, well aware of the natural way that William had with children. At
Montessori, her students absolutely adored it when ever he would be a guest in
the classroom, or when they would go to the library and he would read to them,
tell them stories, or explain things to them in a way that they could understand. It
was one of the many reasons she could add to the things she loved about him,
and one of the reasons that all the pain he’d been subjected to just broke her
heart for him.

William stood up when Alyson released him. “Perhaps you could look around for
a big foot mouse, while Elizabeth and I look at other stuff up there in the attic?”

Alyson hesitated.

"I'm sure mummy wouldn't mind going up to the attic with you and our guests,"
Robert said, "That way she could help you look for a big-footed mouse when
you're up there."

"Oh no, dear," Amanda said, in a sweeter-than-sweet voice, "I wouldn't dream of
denying you the opportunity to show Alyson what a good mouse hunter her
daddy is.”

Robert chuckled knowing he'd just walked into that one.

“Mummy, if I find a big footed mouse, can I keep him for a pet?” Alyson asked,
excitedly.

Amanda smiled indulgently at her daughter. “You may, but only if it’s a big footed
one, alright? The others don’t make such good pets at all.”

END CHAPTER 197