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Chapter 17: Rescue
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Good Night, Mr. Tom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Biological Family vs. Chosen Family
Civilians in Wartime
Grief and Healing
Talent and Community
Religion
Summary
Analysis
Will has nightmares of the walls closing in on him and people in white. He wakes up in his attic bedroom covered in sweat. When Tom enters and sits on Will’s bed, Will hugs him and explains that in his dreams, people gave him injections because he screamed. Tom tells him that he can scream if he wants—no one will hear except Tom, Sammy, and maybe people in the vicarage. Then he carries Will downstairs, washes him, and puts him in dry pajamas. By the time Tom has changed the sheets, Will is asleep. Tom carries him up to bed—the fifth time they’ve gone through this routine since Will got home. Zach visits Tom’s cottage several times, but Will is usually asleep when Zach arrives, and Tom doesn’t want to wake him.
Will’s nightmares of the walls closing in on him indicate that his time trapped in a closet may have given him claustrophobia, while his nightmares of injections indicate that the hospital’s callous treatment of his fear further traumatized him in the aftermath of his mother’s abuse. Tom’s patient, fatherly support for Will as he recovers emphasizes that Tom’s house is a far better environment for Will than the hospital was.
Themes
One night, Will—feverish and having nightmares—screams so awfully that Tom remembers when he was 20 and Rachel had just given birth to their baby. Helplessly, he saw the scarlatina in both their faces. Rachel reminded him to buy her blue paint—he had bought her a paint for every month of her pregnancy and had promised to buy her a tenth after the birth, blue for a boy or yellow for a girl. When she died, he bought blue paint but shut it in the black wooden paint box—shutting out her memory and people that reminded him of her. Will wakes from his nightmare, Tom reminds him to “keep breathin’,” and after that night, Will begins to get better.
When the novel began, Tom kept Rachel’s paint box in a closet with the spare sheets, presumably so that he could avoid the reminder of his own grief. Now Will’s terrible pain reminds Tom of how helpless he felt when his wife was dying—yet he no longer shuts down his memories and emotions. Instead, he “keep[s] breathin’,” just as he encourages Will to do. As such, the paint box comes to represent Tom’s emotional journey from antisocial widower to loving adoptive father. Moreover, as Will has helped Tom heal emotionally, so Tom’s support helps Will heal emotionally.
Themes
Several days later, Will wakes up feeling good. When Tom enters to take down Will’s blackouts, Will tries to get out of bed, but his legs are so shaky he must sit down. Tom says, “Remember,” and Will finishes his thought: “Everythin’ has its own time.” Tom goes to make breakfast. When Zach appears, Tom tells him he can see Will—after Will has eaten breakfast. Zach waits impatiently. When Tom gives the go-ahead, Zach races up to Will’s bedroom. Both boys exclaim excitedly.
The phrase “Everythin’ has its own time” recurs throughout the novel. It represents the long, winding process of Tom’s healing from grief and Will’s healing from his mother’s abuse. Zach’s excitement to see Will, meanwhile, gives the lie to Mrs. Beech’s claim that none of Will’s friends really cared about him: Zach and Will have genuine affection for one another.
Themes
Zach calls Will’s illness “romantic” and compares him to Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the Brontës. When Zach predicts that Will wants to learn Zach’s gossip, Will says that Zach will share it regardless. Zach comments that Will’s London accent is gone—he sounds like a country person now, which would horrify Miss Thorne, who is teaching the children in her plays elocution. Will enthusiastically asks how Toad of Toad Hall went. Zach says that he himself did an excellent job in the play but missed Will. He also missed Carrie, who studies constantly now.
John Keats (1795–1821) was an English Romantic poet who died at age 25 of tuberculosis. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) was a later English Romantic poet who died at age 55 of an unknown illness. The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, were famous English novelists of the 1800s, all of whom died young. Zach’s insistence on framing Will’s illness as “romantic” and artistic shows his support for Will’s artistic growth, even as it also expresses Zach’s wide reading and tendency toward exaggeration. Will’s loss of a London accent makes clear that he fully identifies with Tom and Little Weirwold now, having fully rejected his abusive mother.
Themes
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When Zach mentions that Mrs. Hartridge had her baby, Will whitens and echoes, “A baby.” Zach, noticing Will’s upset look, asks whether he should call Tom. Will says no. Zach changes the subject, saying that Lucy Padfield has missed Will terribly. When Will glowers, Zach asks whether he dislikes Lucy, and Will says no, it’s just that Lucy’s a girl. Zach points out that Carrie and Ginnie are girls, but Will says that they aren’t “lovey dovey” like Lucy.
Will previously enjoyed watching Mrs. Hartridge’s pregnant stomach grow, but now he turns pale at the very mention of a baby. This change indicates that baby Trudy’s death is a major source of Will’s psychological and emotional trauma in the aftermath of his mother’s abuse. Meanwhile, Will’s dislike of Lucy stems from her “lovey dovey” behavior toward him, which shows his ongoing shyness even in a supportive environment.
Themes
Zach says that Dr. Little and Nancy Little have pulled out one of their children’s old bicycles for him, which he has been repairing. He also relates that the town is thinking of turning their grange into a maternity hospital. Will, nauseated, asks whether babies come from Jesus. When Zach asks whether Will has learned about sex, Will says he knows it’s a sin. Zach corrects him, saying it’s an expression of love between a man and a woman that leads to babies—Zach’s parents told him so. When Will asks whether a woman can have a baby on her own, Zach says no, a man is always involved. Tom enters the bedroom, sees Will looking awful, and tells Zach to leave for now. Zach and Will plan to see each other the next day.
Tom’s fatherly affection and Zach’s friendship are working to “repair” Will’s damaged psyche in the aftermath of trauma, so it is possible that the novel is subtly paralleling Zach’s repair of the bicycle to his emotional support of Will in this scene. Will is horrified and disgusted by the revelation of his mother’s religious hypocrisy. She told him never to mix with girls and that sex was a sin—but meanwhile, she must have had sex with a man for Trudy to be born.
Themes
When Zach has left, Tom sits on Will’s bed and asks Will what’s wrong. Will asks whether Trudy is dead. Tom nods. Will forces himself to say that Trudy died because of him: after he had given her all the milk in the bottle, he waited for Mrs. Beech rather than escaping because he thought she would come back. Then he asks whether it’s true what Zach said that women can’t have babies without a man. When Tom confirms it, Will asks why his mother would lie—she had told him that men and women socializing was sinful. Tom tells Will that his mother likely has a “sickness of the mind.”
Mrs. Beech tied Will to a pipe with a rope before she abandoned him and Trudy in the closet. It isn’t at all clear that Will could have escaped even if he hadn’t believed Mrs. Beech would come back. His self-blame suggests that he is suffering from survivor’s guilt and perhaps also vicious self-criticism springing from his mother’s emotional abuse. He is also confused by his mother’s religious hypocrisy. When Tom tells Will that Mrs. Beech as a “sickness of the mind,” he is clearly suggesting that she is mentally ill in some way, but the narration leaves vague what her mental illness might be.
Themes
Will tells Tom that he wants to stay with Tom, not go back to Mrs. Beech. When Tom says that the authorities wouldn’t let Mrs. Beech to take Will back, Will asks why Tom had to kidnap him, and Tom explains that they wanted to send Will to a children’s home, whereas Tom wanted Will with him. When Will asks why, Tom—rather embarrassed—admits that he’s “fond of” Will and missed him. Abruptly, he stands and announces that he’ll go get Will some paper to draw on. As he leaves, Will blurts that he loves Tom. Tom turns red and says he loves Will too. Then he climbs down the ladder.
Tom and Will’s explicit admission that they love each other is a logical conclusion to their growing affection for each other. Once Tom saves Will from Mrs. Beech and the hospital, Will trusts Tom’s affection enough to admit his own filial love of Tom—which, in turn, prompts Tom to admit his paternal love of Will. Even so, Tom is clearly embarrassed to talk about his feelings, as his turning red indicates.
Themes
Will continues to get better. Zach, George, Carrie, Ginnie, and little Lucy visit him at home, though he often falls asleep during their visits. After a few weeks, he starts leaving the house to spend time in the front garden. In the same period, Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister, and the battle of Dunkirk occurs. Rather than turn the grange into a hospital, Little Weirwold converts it into a “convalescent home” for wounded soldiers. The villagers greet the returning soldiers with cheering, flowers, and food, but most of the soldiers have been so affected by their experiences that they don’t react.
Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) resigned as Prime Minister of the UK on May 10, 1940. Winston Churchill (1874–1965) served as Prime Minister from May 10, 1940 until July 26, 1945, after World War II’s end in May 1945. The Battle of Dunkirk was a battle between Allied forces (primarily British) and Nazi forces from May 26 to June 4, 1940, in which Allied forces tried to cover their own evacuation from Nazi attack after losing France to Nazi invasion. The institution of a convalescent home (a place to recover) for soldiers in Little Weirwold shows the growing impact of the war on the village, yet the villagers’ joyous greeting of the traumatized veterans shows that the villagers don’t yet fully understand the horrors of the war.
Themes
Toward the end of June, Will resolves to do something he has been procrastinating about—yet before he does, he drops in on Zach at the Littles’, delaying further. Zach is working on the bicycle. Afterward, Will goes to Mrs. Hartridge’s house and stands staring at her front door. Finally he knocks. Mrs. Hartridge leads Will into the back garden, where she leaves him while she goes to make him lemonade. When he notices a baby carriage under the trees, he inhales sharply and stares. Mrs. Hartridge, spying him from her kitchen window, doesn’t call out to him—she has heard about his terrible experiences from other villagers.
Will avoids the task on which he has been procrastinating a little longer by visiting Zach, who is repairing his bicycle—but afterward, Will does what he intended to do. Yet again, the novel subtly draws a parallel between the bicycle and Zach’s friendship with Will: just as Zach repairs the bicycle, so Zach’s friendship helps to “repair” or heal Will’s abused psyche, allowing him to visit Mrs. Hartridge and her new baby despite the recent trauma of baby Trudy’s death due to his mother’s neglect.
Themes
Slowly, Will approaches the carriage. Inside, he sees a little brown-eyed baby. Mrs. Hartridge, after letting him stare at the baby for a while, enters the garden with lemonade and cake for Will. She takes the baby from the carriage, kisses her, and lays her down on a blanket in the grass. Will talks to Mrs. Hartridge for a while about books and art, and though they don’t mention Mrs. Beech or Trudy or Mrs. Hartridge’s husband, they feel an understanding between them. Will thinks Mrs. Hartridge is extremely beautiful.
Mrs. Hartridge doesn’t mention Will’s abusive mother or dead sister, and Will doesn’t mention Mrs. Hartridge’s missing soldier husband, which shows their tact in the face of each other’s trauma and grief. Will’s appreciation for Mrs. Hartridge’s beauty, meanwhile, shows how his desire for a kind, gentle mother like Mrs. Hartridge is mixed up in the innocent crush he has on her.
Themes
When someone knocks on the front door, Mrs. Hartridge gives Will baby Peggy to hold before going to answer it. She wants to let him hold a living child. Will is beginning to relax with Peggy in his arms when she starts crying. Frantically, he looks for a bottle. Mrs. Hartridge returns, takes Peggy, and promptly breastfeeds her. Will, utterly startled, stares at Peggy happily drinking her mother’s milk. Mrs. Hartridge tells Will that Tom is waiting for him. Will thanks her and runs around the house to Tom. On the walk home, Will feels better, realizing that Trudy’s death wasn’t his fault—he simply wasn’t equipped to care for her. At the cottage, Tom and Will find Zach, who tells them he has fixed the bicycle. Then Zach asks about the distance to the sea.
When Mrs. Hartridge breastfeeds Peggy in front of Will, she is wordlessly communicating to him what baby Trudy would have needed to survive—something that Mrs. Beech was equipped to give Trudy but Will was not. Shortly after Will realizes that he does not need to feel guilty for his baby sister’s death, Zach announces that he has fixed the bicycle he has been repairing—another small detail suggesting that the repaired bicycle represents Will’s healing psyche.
Themes
