More William (3 page)

‘IT WAS THE HESPER SCHOONERUS THAT SAILED THE WINTRY SEA AN’ I’M NOT GOIN’ ON IF ETHEL’S GOIN’ TO KEEP GIGGLIN’.’

‘Now, William, dear,’ continued his mother, ‘begin again and no one shall interrupt you.’

William again went through the preliminaries of coughing and clearing his throat.

He stopped again, and slowly and carefully straightened his collar and smoothed back the lock of hair which was dangling over his brow.

‘
The skipper had brought
—’ prompted Aunt Jane, kindly.

William turned on her.

‘I was
goin
’ to say that if you’d left me alone,’ he said. ‘I was jus’ thinkin’. I’ve got to think sometimes. I can’t say off a great
long pome like that without stoppin’ to think sometimes, can I? I’ll – I’ll do a conjuring trick for you instead,’ he burst out, desperately. ‘I’ve learnt
one from my book. I’ll go an’ get it ready.’

He went out of the room. Mr Brown took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow.

‘May I ask,’ he said patiently, ‘how long this exhibition is to be allowed to continue?’

Here William returned, his pockets bulging. He held a large handkerchief in his hand.

‘This is a handkerchief,’ he announced. ‘If anyone’d like to feel it to see if it’s a real one, they can. Now I want a shilling.’ He looked round expectantly,
but no one moved. ‘Or a penny would do,’ he said, with a slightly disgusted air. Robert threw one across the room. ‘Well, I put the penny into the handkerchief. You can see me do
it, can’t you? If anyone wants to come an’ feel the penny is in the handkerchief, they can. Well,’ he turned his back on them and took something out of his pocket. After a few
contortions he turned round again, holding the handkerchief tightly. ‘Now, you look close’ – he went over to them – ‘an’ you’ll see the shil— I mean,
penny,’ he looked scornfully at Robert, ‘has changed to an egg. It’s a real egg. If anyone thinks it isn’t a real egg—’

But it
was
a real egg. It confirmed his statement by giving a resounding crack and sending a shining stream partly on to the carpet and partly on to Aunt Evangeline’s black silk
knee. A storm of reproaches burst out.

‘First that horrible insect,’ almost wept Aunt Evangeline, ‘and then this messy stuff all over me. It’s a good thing I don’t live here. One day a year is enough . .
. My nerves! . . .’

‘Dear, dear!’ said Aunt Jane.

‘Fancy taking a new-laid
egg
for that,’ said Ethel severely.

William was pale and indignant.

‘Well, I did jus’ what the book said to do. Look at it. It says: “Take an egg. Conceal it in the pocket.” Well, I took an egg an’ I concealed it in the pocket.
Seems to me,’ he said bitterly, ‘seems to me this book isn’t
Things a Boy Can Do.
It’s
Things a Boy Can’t Do.
’

Mr Brown rose slowly from his chair.

‘You’re just about right there, my son. Thank
you
,’ he said with elaborate politeness, as he took the book from William’s reluctant hands and went over with it to
a small cupboard in the wall. In this cupboard reposed an airgun, a bugle, a catapult, and a mouth organ. As he unlocked it to put the book inside, the fleeting glimpse of his confiscated treasures
added to the bitterness of William’s soul.

‘On Christmas Day, too!’

While he was still afire with silent indignation Aunt Lucy returned from church.

‘The Vicar
didn’t
preach,’ she said. ‘They say that this morning’s sermon was beautiful. As I say, I don’t want William to reproach himself, but I feel
that he has deprived me of a very great treat.’

‘
Nice
William!’ murmured Jimmy sleepily from his corner.

As William undressed that night his gaze fell upon the flower-bedecked motto: ‘A Busy Day is a Happy Day’.

‘It’s a story,’ he said, indignantly. ‘It’s jus’ a wicked ole story.

CHAPTER 2

‘R
ice-mould,’ said the little girl next door bitterly. ‘Rice-mould! Rice-mould! Every single day. I
hate
it, don’t
you?’

She turned gloomy blue eyes upon William, who was perched perilously on the ivy-covered wall. William considered thoughtfully.

‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I just eat it; I never thought about it.’

‘It’s
hateful
, just
hateful.
Ugh! I’ve had it at dinner and I’ll have it at supper – bet you anything. I say, you are going to have a party tonight,
aren’t you?’

William nodded carelessly.

‘Are you going to be there?’

‘Me!’ ejaculated William in a tone of amused surprise. ‘I should think so! You don’t think they could have it without
me
, do you? Huh! Not much!’

She gazed at him enviously.

‘You
are
lucky! I expect you’ll have a lovely supper – not rice-mould,’ she said bitterly.

‘Rather!’ said William with an air of superiority.

‘What are you going to have to eat at your party?’

‘Oh – everything,’ said William vaguely.

‘Cream blancmange?’

‘Heaps of it –
buckets
of it.’

The little girl next door clasped her hands.

‘Oh, just think of it! Your eating cream blancmange and me eating –
rice-mould
!’ (It is impossible to convey in print the intense scorn and hatred which the little girl
next door could compress into the two syllables.)

Here an idea struck William.

‘What time do you have supper?’

‘Seven.’

‘Well, now,’ magnanimously, ‘if you’ll be in your summer house at half past, I’ll bring you some cream blancmange. Truly I will!’

The little girl’s face beamed with pleasure.

‘Will you? Will you
really?
You won’t forget?’

‘Not me! I’ll be there. I’ll slip away from our show on the quiet with it.’

‘Oh, how
lovely
! I’ll be thinking of it every minute. Don’t forget. Goodbye.’

She blew him a kiss and flitted daintily into the house.

William blushed furiously at the blown kiss and descended from his precarious perch.

He went to the library where his grown-up sister Ethel and his elder brother Robert were standing on ladders at opposite ends of the room, engaged in hanging up festoons of ivy and holly across
the wall. There was to be dancing in the library after supper. William’s mother watched them from a safe position on the floor.

‘Look here, mother,’ began William. ‘Am I or am I not coming to the party tonight?’

William’s Mother sighed.

‘For goodness sake, William, don’t open that discussion again. For the tenth time today, you are
not
!’

‘But
why
not?’ he persisted. ‘I only want to know why not. That’s all I want to know. It looks a bit funny, doesn’t it, to give a party and leave out your
only son, at least’ – with a glance at Robert, and a slight concession to accuracy – ‘to leave out one of your only two sons? It looks a bit queer surely. That’s all
I’m thinking of – how it will look.’

‘A bit higher your end,’ said Ethel.

‘Yes, that’s better,’ said William’s mother.

‘It’s a
young
folks’ party,’ went on William, warming to his subject. ‘I heard you tell Aunt Jane it was a
young
folks’ party. Well, I’m
young, aren’t I? I’m eleven. Do you want me any younger? You aren’t ashamed of folks seeing me, are you? I’m not deformed or anything.’

‘IF YOU’LL BE IN YOUR SUMMER HOUSE AT HALF PAST, I’LL BRING YOU SOME CREAM BLANCMANGE. TRULY I WILL!’ SAID WILLIAM.

‘That’s right! Put the nail in there, Ethel.’

‘Just a bit higher. That’s right!’

‘P’raps you’re afraid of what I’ll
eat
,’ went on William bitterly. ‘Well, everyone eats, don’t they? They’ve got to – to live. And
you’ve got things for us – them – to eat tonight. You don’t grudge me just a bit of supper, do you? You’d think it was less trouble for me to have my bit of supper
with you all, than in a separate room. That’s all I’m thinking of – the trouble—’

William’s sister turned round on her ladder and faced the room.

‘Can’t
anyone
,’ she said desperately, ‘stop that child talking?’

William’s brother began to descend the ladder. ‘I think I can,’ he said grimly.

But William had thrown dignity to the winds, and fled.

He went down the hall to the kitchen, where Cook hastily interposed herself between him and the table that was laden with cakes and jellies and other delicacies.

‘Now, Master William,’ she said sharply, ‘you clear out of here!’

‘I don’t want any of your things, Cook,’ said William, magnificently but untruthfully. ‘I only came to see how you were getting on. That’s all I came
for.’

‘We’re getting on very well indeed, thank you, Master William,’ she said with sarcastic politeness, ‘but nothing for you till tomorrow, when we can see how much
they’ve left.’

She returned to her task of cutting sandwiches. William, from a respectful distance, surveyed the table with its enticing burden.

‘Huh!’ he ejaculated bitterly. ‘Think of them sitting and stuffing, and stuffing, and stuffing away at
our
food all night! I don’t suppose they’ll leave much
– not if I know the set that lives round here!’

‘Don’t judge them all by yourself, Master William,’ said Cook unkindly, keeping a watchful eye upon him. ‘Here, Emma, put that rice-mould away in the pantry. It’s
for tomorrow’s lunch.’

Rice-mould! That reminded him.

‘Cook,’ he said ingratiatingly, ‘are you going to make cream blancmange?’

‘I am
not
, Master William,’ she said firmly.

‘Well,’ he said, with a short laugh, ‘it’ll be a queer party without cream blancmange! I’ve never heard of a party without cream blancmange! They’ll think
it’s a bit funny. No one ever gives a party round here without cream blancmange!’

‘Don’t they indeed, Master William,’ said Cook, with ironic interest.

‘No. You’ll be making one, p’raps, later on – just a little one, won’t you?’

‘And why should I?’

‘Well, I’d like to think they had a cream blancmange. I think they’d enjoy it. That’s all I’m thinking of.’

‘Oh, is it? Well, it’s your ma that tells me what to make and pays me for it, not you.’

This was a novel idea to William.

He thought deeply.

‘Look here!’ he said at last. ‘If I gave you’ – he paused for effect, then brought out the startling offer – ‘sixpence, would you make a cream
blancmange?’

‘I’d want to see your sixpence first,’ said Cook, with a wink at Emma.

William retired upstairs to his bedroom and counted out his money – twopence was all he possessed. He had expended the enormous sum of a shilling the day before on a grass snake. It had
died in the night. He
must
get a cream blancmange somehow. His reputation for omnipotence in the eyes of the little girl next door – a reputation very dear to him – depended on
it. And if Cook would do it for sixpence, he must find sixpence. By fair means or foul it must be done. He’d tried fair means, and there only remained foul. He went softly downstairs to the
dining-room, where, upon the mantelpiece, reposed the missionary box. He’d tell someone next day, or put it back, or something. Anyway, people did worse things than that in the pictures. With
a knife from the table he extracted the contents – three halfpence! He glared at it balefully.

‘Three halfpence!’ he said aloud in righteous indignation. ‘This is supposed to be a Christian house, and three halfpence is all they can give to the poor heathen. They can
spend pounds and pounds on’ – he glanced round the room and saw a pyramid of pears on the sideboard – ‘tons of pears an’ – an’ green stuff to put on the
walls, and they give three halfpence to the poor heathen! Huh!’

He opened the door and heard his sister’s voice from the library. ‘He’s probably in mischief somewhere. He’ll be a perfect nuisance all the evening. Mother,
couldn’t you make him go to bed an hour earlier?’

William had no doubt as to the subject of the conversation.
Make him go to bed early!
He’d like to see them! He’d just like to see them! And he’d show them, anyway. Yes,
he would show them. Exactly what he would show them and how he would show them, he was not as yet very clear. He looked round the room again. There were no eatables in it so far except the piled-up
plate of huge pears on the sideboard.

He looked at it longingly. They’d probably counted them and knew just how many there ought to be. Mean sort of thing they would do. And they’d be in counting them every other minute
just to see if he’d taken one. Well, he was going to score off somebody, somehow. Make him go to bed early indeed! He stood with knit brows, deep in thought, then his face cleared and he
smiled. He’d got it! For the next five minutes he munched the delicious pears, but, at the end, the piled-up pyramid was apparently exactly as he found it, not a pear gone, only – on
the inner side of each pear, the side that didn’t show, was a huge semicircular bite. William wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve. They were jolly good pears. And a blissful vision came to
him of the faces of the guests as they took the pears, of the faces of his father and mother and Robert and Ethel. Oh, crumbs! He chuckled to himself as he went down to the kitchen again.