What I did in the holidays...

Milverton Hyde.



Things will have to change, nothing can stay as it is for ever. People will tell you that nothing has changed at a particular place, but of course it has; the leaves on the trees have regrown, the tide has turned, and there will be a new cloud formation in the sky. All that is change. However I needed a huge earth shattering occurrence to happen, for life just could not continue in the vein it was travelling any longer.

It was the start of the summer holidays, June 1913, eight whole weeks away from school, but also eight weeks stuck in a stuffy house with worst of all my family. Now some of them are actually quite nice, good fun almost, but the rest of them are grim. If I was to survive this summer, some of them would and could not, some of them would have to go.

The first week of the holidays was actually almost bearable as there was the usual amount of things to do, unpack the school trunk, explore the house and garden for any thing different. The old gardener had been replaced by a new and younger version I noticed.
Friends had to be contacted so that visits could be arranged, and then I had to make a list of the people in the family household who would have to be dealt with.

I made a list in order of people who caused the most annoyance, with a counter list of those who were just so dull that they were an insult to even have to look at.

First on the list was Father. He spent most of his time abroad, evidently he bought and sold tea. Well that was not a hardship, anyone could go and buy a packet of tea at any of the grocers in the town. When he was away his return was always used as a threat, ”Just wait until your father returns”. When he did return I was always being told “You will be sorry you said that when your father has gone away again” A truly no-win situation, so he would have to be removed.

Second on the list was little cousin Edwin. His father had been eaten by a tiger somewhere in India, and his mother had been so shocked she ran away with the husband of her best friend leaving the infant Edwin to the fates of his nanny who, on realising she was no longer going to get any wages, dumped the child at a railway station and went to be a devoted nanny to another family. Edwin, who by now had become some sort of parcel in human form, eventually arrived at our house for his nearest family (us) to care and love him. He has done nothing but cry since he came here, sad you might say, yes, but that was six years ago! He really will have to go.

Third on the list is great Auntie Wallace. She lost her boy friend in the War of 1860-something. I have not found out how he died and the family never mentions him, but the aunt sneaks around the house, often at night sniffing and going about duties she need not attend to; which is how she listens at doors. She is a sneak of the first order. I suspect her boyfriend stood up infront of the bullet or bayonet so that he would not have to get married to such a sneak.

Next on the list is Auntie Vera. She is always ill, always sending out for a potion and always wanting quiet in case her head comes on again. I did not notice it had ever come off, but a quiet house is no fun, and as she is always so ill she will not mind the odd bit of relief by the arrival of death.

Then we have the Dull Variety, and first on this list is another cousin, a distant cousin. Her parents did nothing so wild as to be eaten by tigers or run away with other peoples husbands, they just slipped off the planet with some sort fever, so Ann, their very drippy daughter drapes herself about the house in biscuit colour knit wear and flat mat-coloured hair, flattened to her head in a damp sort of arrangement. In fact damp sums her up, she can not even run to being wet, she is just damp. Well I heard my father saying to a builder that “The damp must be gone by the winter” and so it shall be dear Papa.

A close second on this list has to be my sisters boyfriend Reggie. Can you imagine a set of parents choosing to call a baby Reginald? He is all bluster and false charm with a hideous smile that would set custard. His father has bought him one of those new motor vehicles which he, Reggie, thinks is very impressive. Mother says it will be his undoing, and so it will.

Last on this list (but I can not promise I will not be adding anyone else) is the lady from the mission. The family do not like her and make faces and imitate her voice when she has gone, yet they still invite her and her silly little husband to tea. She says that God knows all I am thinking (well that is a lie for a start, as sometimes I do not know my self!) and that I will be destined for hell if I do not let him, God, into my heart. Well Mrs Simms we will soon see what is in your heart. Actually I am going to add another person to this dull list right now... Mr Simms; shame to leave him out of the game.

However, how was I going to get rid of these people and not get caught doing so? Well I had given it a lot of thought and had to have a small practice run. You will notice I said we had a new gardener, do not worry he is quite safe, it was the old one I killed.

Poor man, I know he liked little boys. How did I know? Well I haven’t always been twelve... I was little once, you know. So I led him in to the old Brewery sheds behind our house with the promise of something I had learnt at school, but that he would have to stand on an upturned bucket as I could not kneel down in my new long trousers. He did not notice the rope dangle from above and I quickly slipped it over his head and kicked the bucket away. I think he enjoyed it, until he realised it was not a new game, but a final one.

Of course I can not hang all my victims, that would be just too obvious! Even the local police may suspect foul play or even smell a rat, although they did not smell the gardener until just before last half term. So lucky that I was away at school and missed all the terrible fuss of the suicide...

Week two of my holiday started very well, for a given chance to begin the removal process was handed to me in the news that Mr and Mrs Simms would be coming to tea on Wednesday, after their meeting at the mission in the near by town was completed. I think they were deciding how best to be even more patronising to the poor this Christmas than they were last year.

In order to get to our house from the town they would have to travel along the Coven road, which has to pass the old cemetery and has many a sharp bend. But the good news was that they were running in a new mare who was at best “A bit jumpy”. All I had to do was go out on my bicycle and wait in the bushes for them to pass. I was naturally going to be in disguise.

Before this plan was carried out I had another stroke of luck! The rat man was demonstrating a new form of killer, not a poison, as such, but a gas. All you had to do was light the wick with a taper and make sure that no living stock or people went near the barn, or shed, or corn store for a couple of hours. Then all that was necessary was to collect up the dead gassed rats in a bag and throw them away. The killer came in little circular packages of about one and a half inch diameter, just like the round wicks in oil lamps. I pulled my cap down over my eyes and bought two from the rat man, he would never remember the scruffy lad amongst all the folk by the market. I had plans for this gas.

Wednesday arrived and I was really excited. I watched the drawing room being made ready to receive guests and was aware that the dinning room was being polished for the taking of afternoon tea. After lunch I took my bicycle and rode off with a bag of sandwiches, as I had decided that the adults would not want me to make an appearance at tea today. Also I had been very noisy (on purpose) thus Aunt Vera had a ‘head coming on’, so I was in trouble anyway.

Once away from the house and on the Coven road I slipped the bicycle in to the hedge and slipped on an old choir gown I had found in the church when I had gone in to borrow (on a permanent basis) some of the collection from evensong. The Rector spends it on tobacco anyway, one of the boys in the choir sees him do it. I also pulled on a long knitted balaclava that I was given by another aunt who should be on the list for bad taste.

I waited for the clopping sound of the Simms in their carriage. As luck would have it, a game keeper's gun had just fired across the fields and a chorus of rooks flew upwards, making the new nervous mare spring about and weave across the road. All I then had to do was leap into the path of the oncoming carriage, or seem to do so, and make the poor mare rear a little, just enough to upend the carriage and the occupants.

It worked beautifully; the beast threw her legs into the air and charged sideways, the vehicle uncoupled it self from the shafts and left the ground pitching forwards as it did so, thus tossing the two rug wrapped passengers high into the air. Both came down upon the spikes of the cemetery gates. The noise was the same as when you tread on a snail in the wet weather at night by accident. Both people let out a cry, actually Mrs Simms gurgled for several minutes, but then they both fell silent and just drooped. Their chests open to the air, God could see into their hearts now.

Mercifully the mare was unharmed and is now in a field. Evidently she was never to have pulled such a heavy carriage as she was made to do, the Simms having bought her cheaply from an unscrupulous horse dealer.

That evening I was allowed to take several sandwiches and a cream cake up to bed with me as the tea time guests had not arrived, for some reason, which I was not going to be told about.

The thing with these new motor engines is that if you apply the break very hard you then have to replenish the brake fluid as it all comes out. I knew this because I took the hand book out of the trunk at the back of 'Dear Reggies' motor. It is the fluid that causes the compression and thus friction is made within the wheel. I put this knowledge to use later. But first I had to sort out the aunts.

Auntie Vera was a simple task. I was sent into the town to collect yet another bottle of "Doctor Wonder's Wonder Cure All" for illnesses that other doctors can not find, let alone cure. So very easy to put a bit of weed killer in the bottle on my way home. After the gardener met his swinging end I took the precaution of hiding a few of the weed killers, and other deadly fluids, away from the outhouses so I could put them to use; and a new employee would never have known they were in stock, thus they would never be missed.

Timing was needed for the next venture.

In the bedroom of Great Aunt Wallace I placed the circle of rat killing produce over the wick of the oil lamp. It was slightly wider than the wick, thus the oil of the lamp would light first. Wallace would go up to bed later than most of the family so I knew I would be able to dispose of her without too much fuss. I had also cut the wick of the other lamp in her room so that it burned with a very dim light, thus she would need to light the contaminated lamp herself a little later. As her room is at the top of the first floor landing and just around a corner, nobody else would pass her door. She is the end of the line,(or will be).

The following morning anyone up very early may have seen a wheel barrow being taken away across the garden. However the gardener does not labour on a Sunday, and breakfast is a more casual affair with things left out for whomever comes to eat, so no one missed her and by mid morning Aunt Wallace was to be seen sitting in the shade at a garden table, her bedroom windows being wide open to air the room. It was thought she must have had a bad nights sleep as she was fast to sleep now. Aunt Vera, having taken a vast dose of cure all after breakfast, (she may have found that the dose was rather a large one, as I had re-written the instructions on the label) tottered in a drowsy way toward the garden table and sat with Wallace in the shade. She had her nasty embroidery bag with her, so no doubt was going to pick the brains of Wallace on a stitch or two. Poor Wallace had lost some of her brains when I dropped her out of her bedroom window, hence the necessity to have her wearing her sun hat.

How was I going to get out of this one? Two poisoned ladies sitting in a garden is a bit much of a coincidence even for the local police force not to notice. This is where the motor manual came in so handy, for 'Dear Reggie' had just hurtled along the lane to our house and had to stop suddenly because somebody had left a wheelbarrow in the middle of the road. He swore as he pushed it away to the side of the road and got back in and sped away at top speed down hill toward the house. He applied the brakes, and just as I thought, he had never read his manual. He lurched the engine over the drive across the lawn shouting at the ladies to move, and splat! He got them both and he, himself, carried on into the damson tree that was acting so well as a sun shade for the two unfortunate aunts.

Reggie was expected for lunch, it being a Sunday. I took a large bit of roast beef and some gravy soaked bread down to the river with a bottle of Mrs Brand's ginger beer. Mrs Brand is the cook, she likes me. I think she is a bit peeved as not only did her sumptuous tea not get the full recognition on Wednesday, but her lovingly cooked Sunday roast seems to be second fiddle to the three act or death, tragedy in the garden. As I expect you have realised, Reggie died too. We probably will not be able to eat the damson fool that Mrs Brand made with the fallings, a bit of a shame that. Then there will be the funeral, well funerals, to attend, but Mrs Brand can be appeased by letting her go to town with the funeral teas. She could make little pastry boxes and put in tiny anchovies to resemble corpses in coffins, very in keeping with the theme.

So where are we on the list? Mr and Mrs Simms both impaled on the gates, Aunt Wallace and Auntie Vera both gone, and also the 'Dear Reggie', so who is left? Cousin Edwin, and distant cousin Ann, and Father.

I know it would be so easy to pour a bottle of poison in to a trifle and kill the lot, but that might implicate Mrs Brand and she is too nice to be hung for crimes she did not commit! Also, some other person might eat it by mistake and it would be horrid to kill someone whom I liked.

Edwin was easily dispensed with. One of his great loves in life was chocolate. All you ever had to do to get him to run an errand was to coax him with a bar of the stuff. There were lots of errands to run now! This was week three of the holidays and things had really picked up what with the parents having to go to the funeral of those dreadful Simms people. Then there were the funerals of the aunts to be arranged, and the silly funeral of that idiot Reggie with my sister weeping at the loss of him.

All I had to do was glue a bar of chocolate cream delights to the middle sleeper of the railway crossing and make sure the weeping Edwin would be due to cross the single track just moments before the train was due. His greed would do the rest.

He could not bear to see the chocolate go to waste, so stooped to pick up the treat. He stooped further when he found he could not get it in his fat little grasp, then knelt down to prise it off the wood. By the time the whistle blew, a warning to get off the track, it was too late. Not a very agile boy, he struggled to get to his feet. Thwak! Squashed and splattered over the driver and the tender. Such a mess. I should imagine that the foxes and other wild animals would be pulling bits of Edwin out of the hedges for days to come... a bit of variety in their diet can be no bad thing, and it may give the mice and the small birds a fighting chance of survival if the bigger creatures had a ready meal to eat without having to go hunting.

So we are down to the last two. Killing damp cousin Ann was great fun. I continued the damp theme, just to make her feel at home. Well she had to feel at home somewhere; afterall her parents had not provided one for her had they, selfishly dieing as they had!

Ann thought to cheer us all up by giving one of her utterly dreadful piano recitals. Very vain of her, I thought. She just wanted to be the centre of attention. She had even invited a few of the boring neighbours to attend this dirge. The drawing room was set up for the onslaught to our ears, the grand piano polished to shine (the only thing that would in this otherwise dull event), and on top of the piano was to be placed a vast array of garden flowers, the vase being set upon a long runner embroidered by the late poor squashed Aunt Vera. Next to the vase was the music reading lamp, one of the new wired lights we had downstairs.

Ann had the habit of resting one hand up on the top board of the piano when playing with the other hand, thus she would damply rest her limp fingers on the cloth, so lovingly created by that hypochondriac of an aunt. With just a few small fine drilled holes in the base of the vase and just the smallest piece of the fabric around the lamps cable being frayed thus the water gently left the vase and soaked into Aunt Vera’s runner. Water makes a great conductor of electricity, according to the "Boys Book of Hobbies". Thus was to be the end of sad damp Ann, for in front of an audience, with her waxen little face lit by the glow of the new electricity, she dramatically placed her hand upon the damp but electrified cloth and POP! All the lights went out and a strange smell of cooked chicken went about the room. Candles were lit to find a dead Ann slumped over ‘light music for the evening’. Such a sad accident.

Mrs Brand has been having a wonderful time, never in the life of our kitchen has there been so many funeral teas to make menu’s for, and the cakes! Simply wonderful!

Father was being very grumpy. It seems he has had to fork out a great deal of money to get this lot buried. I am surprised that our village policeman has not seen fit to ask why so many members of the family or their associates have met horrid deaths all in a matter of four weeks, however nothing of the sort has happened, silly man.

How to kill father was a bit of a puzzle, however I found a bit of inspiration from the local newspaper. A pump in a local village was being closed off because it was infected with typhoid or some other disease. I think the local sewer was running into the well that it was the head of. I cycled down to that village one dusky evening and found the well. It was not very securely guarded, just a bit of wire fence around it. So I crawled under the wire and filled a bottle with the fluid that poured from the pump, having made sure that I let the primer water soak away first , then I stored the water in a cool place at home and waited for the opportunity to use it.

Two days before father was due to sail to China he was complaining of the heat and of thirst, “Get me some of Mrs Brands Blackcurrant cordial” he shouted at me. You will notice he did not say please! The ideal time to use the cool water from the well. He drank, and then demanded another glass of it. Who am I to refuse?

He left for the docks two days later, he only had a slight sore throat but nothing that looked lethal, I was bitterly disappointed. However three days later we received a telegram to say Father taken very ill on ship and food poisoning was suspected. Two further days on mother was given another message to say that the ships doctors had done all they could, but father had died.

What fun this has all been! Now the house can really be fun to live in! I just wish the remaining members of the family would stop weeping.

One thing that is good, and I am really excited about this, Mother thinks that I should go away. She thinks I am being very brave, and she says she is so proud of me for not crying at our losses. So as a special treat she is sending me to her sisters house in America. I am not to go yet, because there are a lot of legal things to be sorted with father's money , but I have been booked to go first class, in the Spring, on the brand new unsinkable Titanic!... What a thing to look forward to. who says crime does not pay?