More William (11 page)

‘You’ve had
enough
, anyway,’ said Mrs Brown firmly.

The martyr rose, pale but proud.

‘Well, can I go then, if I can’t have any more tea?’

‘There’s plenty of bread and butter.’

‘I don’t want bread and butter,’ he said, scornfully.

‘Dear child!’ murmured Cousin Mildred, vaguely, as he departed.

He returned to the story and lemonade and apple, and stretched himself happily at full length in the shady barn.

‘But the ghostly visitant seemed to be fading away, and with a soft sigh was gone. Our hero, with a start of surprise, realised that he was alone with the gold and the skeleton. For the
first time he experienced a thrill of cold fear and slowly retreated up the stairs before the hollow and, as it seemed, vindictive stare of the grinning skeleton.’

‘I wonder wot he was grinnin’ at?’ said William.

‘But to his horror the door was shut, the panel had slid back. He had no means of opening it. He was imprisoned on a remote part of the castle, where even the servants came but rarely, and
at intervals of weeks. Would his fate be that of the man whose bones gleamed white in the moonlight?’

‘Crumbs!’ said William, earnestly.

Then a shadow fell upon the floor of the barn, and Cousin Mildred’s voice greeted him.

‘So you’re here, dear? I’m just exploring your garden and thinking. I like to be alone. I see that you are the same, dear child!’

‘I’m readin’,’ said William, with icy dignity.

‘Dear boy! Won’t you come and show me the garden and your favourite nooks and corners?’

William looked at her thin, vague, amiable face, and shut his book with a resigned sigh.

‘All right,’ he said, laconically.

He conducted her in patient silence round the kitchen garden and the shrubbery. She looked sadly at the house, with its red brick, uncompromisingly modern appearance.

‘William, I wish your house was
old
,’ she said sadly.

William resented any aspersions on his house from outsiders. Personally he considered newness in a house an attraction, but, if anyone wished for age, then old his house should be.

‘
Old!
’ he ejaculated. ‘Huh! I guess it’s
old
enough.’

‘Oh, is it?’ she said, delighted. ‘Restored recently, I suppose?’

‘Umph,’ agreed William, nodding.

‘Oh, I’m so glad. I may have some psychic revelation here, then?’

‘Oh yes,’ said William, judicially. ‘I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘William, have you ever had one?’

‘Well,’ said William, guardedly, ‘I dunno.’

His mysterious manner threw her into a transport.

‘Of course not to anyone. But to
me
– I’m one of the sympathetic! To me you may speak freely, William.’

William, feeling that his ignorance could no longer be hidden by words, maintained a discreet silence.

‘To me it shall be sacred, William. I will tell no one – not even your parents. I believe that children see – clouds of glory and all that,’ she said vaguely. ‘With
your unstained childish vision—’

‘I’m eleven,’ put in William indignantly.

‘You see things that to the wise are sealed. Some manifestation, some spirit, some ghostly visitant—’

‘Oh,’ said William, suddenly enlightened, ‘you talkin’ about
ghosts
?’

‘Yes, ghosts, William.’

Her air of deference flattered him. She evidently expected great things of him. Great things she should have. At the best of times with William imagination was stronger than cold facts.

He gave a short laugh.

‘Oh,
ghosts
! Yes, I’ve seen some of ’em. I guess I
have
!’

Her face lit up.

‘Will you tell me some of your experiences, William?’ she said, humbly.

‘Well,’ said William, loftily, ‘you won’t go
talkin’
about it, will you?’

‘Oh,
no.
’

‘Well, I’ve seem ’em, you know. Chains an’ all. And skeletons. And ghostly arms beckonin’ an’ all that.’

William was enjoying himself. He walked with a swagger. He almost believed what he said. She gasped.

‘Oh, go on!’ she said. ‘Tell me all.’

He went on. He soared aloft on the wings of imagination, his hands in his pockets, his freckled face puckered up in frowning mental effort. He certainly enjoyed himself.

‘If only some of it could happen to
me
,’ breathed his confidante. ’Does it come to you at
nights
, William?’

‘Yes,’ nodded William. ‘Nights mostly.’

‘I shall – watch tonight,’ said Cousin Mildred. ‘And you say the house is old?’

‘Awful old,’ said William, reassuringly.

Her attitude to William was a relief to the rest of the family. Visitors sometimes objected to William.

‘She seems to have almost taken to William,’ said his mother, with a note of unflattering incredulity in her voice.

William was pleased yet embarrassed by her attentions. It was a strange experience to him to be accepted by a grown-up as a fellow being. She talked to him with interest and a certain humility,
she bought him sweets and seemed pleased that he accepted them, she went for walks with him, and evidently took his constrained silence for the silence of depth and wisdom.

Beneath his embarrassment he was certainly pleased and flattered. She seemed to prefer his company to that of Ethel. That was one in the eye for Ethel. But he felt that something was expected
from him in return for all this kindness and attention. William was a sportsman. He decided to supply it. He took a book of ghost stories from the juvenile library at school, and read them in the
privacy of his room at night. Many were the thrilling adventures which he had to tell Cousin Mildred in the morning. Cousin Mildred’s bump of credulity was a large one. She supplied him with
sweets on a generous scale. She listened to him with awe and wonder.

‘William . . . you are one of the elect, the chosen,’ she said, ‘one of those whose spirits can break down the barrier between the unseen world and ours with ease.’ And
always she sighed and stroked back her thin locks, sadly. ‘Oh, how I wish that some experience would happen to
me
!’

One morning, after the gift of an exceptionally large tin of toffee, William’s noblest feelings were aroused. Manfully he decided that something
should
happen to her.

Cousin Mildred slept in the bedroom above William’s. Descent from one window to the other was easy, but ascent was difficult. That night Cousin Mildred awoke suddenly as the clock struck
twelve. There was no moon, and only dimly did she discern the white figure that stood in the light of the window. She sat up, quivering with eagerness. Her short, thin little pigtail stuck out
horizontally from her head. Her mouth was wide open.

‘Oh!’ she gasped.

The white figure moved a step forward and coughed nervously.

Cousin Mildred clasped her hands.

‘Speak!’ she said, in a tense whisper. ‘Oh, speak! Some message! Some revelation!’

William was nonplussed. None of the ghosts he had read of had spoken. They had rattled and groaned and beckoned, but they had not spoken. He tried groaning and emitted a sound faintly
reminiscent of a seasick voyager.

‘Oh,
speak
!’ pleaded Cousin Mildred.

Evidently speech was a necessary part of this performance. William wondered whether ghosts spoke English or a language of their own. He inclined to the latter view and nobly took the plunge.

‘Honk. Yonk. Ponk,’ he said, firmly.

Cousin Mildred gasped in wonder.

‘Oh, explain,’ she pleaded, ardently. ‘Explain in our poor human speech. Some message—’

William took fright. It was all turning out to be much more complicated than he had expected. He hastily passed through the room and out of the door, closing it noisily behind him. As he ran
along the passage came sound came like a crash of thunder. Outside in the passage were Cousin Mildred’s boots, William’s father’s boots, and William’s brother’s boots,
and into these charged William in his headlong retreat. They slid noisily along the polished wooden surface of the floor, ricocheting into each other as they went. Doors opened suddenly and
William’s father collided with William’s brother in the dark passage, where they wrestled fiercely before they discovered each other’s identity.

‘I heard that confounded noise and I came out—’

‘So did I.’

‘Well, then, who
made
it?’

SHE SAT UP, QUIVERING WITH EAGERNESS. HER SHORT, THIN LITTLE PIGTAIL STUCK OUT HORIZONTALLY FROM HER HEAD. HER MOUTH WAS WIDE OPEN.

‘Who did?’

‘If it’s that wretched boy up to any tricks again—’

William’s father left the sentence unfinished, but went with determined tread towards his younger son’s room. William was discovered, carefully spreading a sheet over his bed and
smoothing it down.

Mr Brown, roused from his placid slumbers, was a sight to make a brave man quail, but the glance that William turned upon him was guileless and sweet.

‘Did you make that confounded row kicking boots about the passage?’ spluttered the man of wrath.

‘No, Father,’ said William, gently. ‘I’ve not bin kickin’ no boots about.’

‘Were you down on the lower landing just now?’ said Mr Brown, with compressed fury.

William considered this question silently for a few seconds, then spoke up brightly and innocently.

‘I dunno, Father. You see, some folks walk in their sleep, and when they wake up they dunno where they’ve bin. Why, I’ve heard of a man walkin’ down a fire escape in his
sleep, and then he woke up and couldn’t think how he’d got to be there where he was. You see, he didn’t know he’d walked down all them steps sound asleep,
and—’

‘Be
quiet
,’ thundered his father. ‘What in the name of— What on earth are you doing making your bed in the middle of the night? Are you insane?’

William, perfectly composed, tucked in one end of his sheet.

‘No, Father, I’m not insane. My sheet just fell off me in the night and I got out to pick it up. I must of bin a bit restless, I suppose. Sheets come off easy when folks is restless
in bed, and they don’t know anythin’ about it till they wake up jus’ same as sleepwalkin’. Why, I’ve heard of folks—’

‘Be
quiet
—’

At that moment William’s mother arrived, placid as ever, in her dressing gown, carrying a candle.

‘Look at him,’ said Mr Brown, pointing at the meek-looking William.

‘He plays rugger up and down the passage with the boots all night and then he begins to make his bed. He’s mad. He’s—’

William turned his calm gaze upon him.

‘
I
wasn’t playin’ rugger with the boots, Father,’ he said, patiently.

Mrs Brown laid her hand soothingly upon her husband’s arm.

‘You know, dear,’ she said, gently, ‘a house is always full of noises at night. Basket chairs creaking—’

Mr Brown’s face grew purple.

‘
Basket chairs
—’ he exploded, violently, but allowed himself to be led unresisting from the room.

William finished his bed-making with his usual frown of concentration, then, lying down, fell at once into the deep sleep of childish innocence.

But Cousin Mildred was lying awake, a blissful smile upon her lips. She, too, was now one of the elect, the chosen. Her rather deaf ears had caught the sound of supernatural thunder as her
ghostly visitant departed, and she had beamed with ecstatic joy.

‘Honk,’ she murmured dreamily. ‘Honk. Yonk. Ponk.’

William felt rather tired the next evening. Cousin Mildred had departed leaving him a handsome present of a large box of chocolates. William had consumed these with undue haste
in view of possible maternal interference. His broken night was telling upon his spirits. He felt distinctly depressed and saw the world through jaundiced eyes. He sat in the shrubbery, his chin in
his hand, staring moodily at his adoring mongrel, Jumble.

‘It’s a rotten world,’ he said, gloomily. ‘I’ve took a lot of trouble over her and she goes and makes me feel sick with chocolates.’

Jumbled wagged his tail, sympathetically.

CHAPTER 8

W
illiam was frankly bored. School always bored him. He disliked facts, and he disliked being tied down to detail, and he disliked answering
questions. As a politician a great future would have lain before him. William attended a mixed school because his parents hoped that feminine influence might have a mellowing effect upon his
character. As yet the mellowing was not apparent. He was roused from his daydreams by a change in the voice of Miss Dewhurst, his form mistress. It was evident that she was not talking about the
exports of England (a subject in which William took little interest) any longer.

‘Children,’ she said brightly. ‘I want you to have a little May Queen for the first of May. The rest of you must be her courtiers. I want you all to vote tomorrow. Put down on
a piece of paper the name of the little girl you think would make the sweetest little Queen, and the rest of you shall be her swains and maidens.’

‘We’re goin’ to have a May Queen,’ remarked William to his family at dinner, ‘an’ I’m goin’ to be a swain.’