William The Conqueror (10 page)

‘Go and
brush
it, William,’ said Mrs Brown.

William went slowly upstairs. He came down, his hair sleek and plentifully damped, murmuring: ‘Fre’en’s, Rome and countrymen, lend me some ears, I come to – well, anyway,
the evil and the good men do lives into ’em.’

‘Now, William, stop talking nonsense and eat your lunch,’ said Mrs Brown patiently.

‘That’s jus’ what I think,’ said William, ‘an’ yet he’s got stachoos put up to him an’ no end of a fuss.’

After a hearty meal William set out joyously to join his companions. They had made no plans for the afternoon. They usually left things to Fate, and Fate seldom failed to provide them with an
exciting programme.

They had arranged to meet at the corner of the road that led to Ginger’s house. William was early at the trysting place. There was nothing to be seen at the corner but a car, and in the
car were a weeping young woman and a sleeping old man. William stood and gaped. The weeping young woman was astonishingly beautiful, and William, in spite of his professed scorn of the feminine
sex, was very susceptible to beauty.

William blinked and coughed.

The young woman turned sapphire-blue swimming eyes to him and gulped.

‘Say, kid,’ she said with an American twang and intonation that completed the enslavement of William, ‘say, kid, what’s the name of this lil’ old town?’

William was too much confused to reply for a moment. During that moment fresh tears welled up into the blue eyes.

‘I feel jus’ like
nothing
,’ sobbed the lady. ‘I’ve lost the way an’ I’ve lost the map an’ I don’t know where I am an Pop’s gone
to sleep an’ – I – I don’t know where I’ve got to.’

‘Where did you want to get to?’ asked William.

‘Stratford,’ said the lady. ‘Stratford-on-Avon, that Shakespeare guy’s place. If we don’t do it today we’ll never do it. We’ve not got one single other
day left an’ it’ll
kill
me not to do it. Everyone I know’s done it an’ to go back home an’ say I’ve not seen Stratford – well, I’d never hold
up my head again –
never –
and I’ve lost the way and the map and Pop’s gone to sleep and—’

She ended in a sob that reduced William’s already melting heart to complete liquefaction.

‘It’s all right,’ he said consolingly.

He didn’t mean anything in particular. It was only a vague expression of sympathy and comfort. But the lady looked at him, her eyes suddenly alight with hope.

‘You mean—’ she gasped, ‘you mean that this is Stratford? Oh, how
dandy!
Do you really mean that?’

Stronger and older characters than William would have decided to mean that when fixed by those pleading hopeful blue eyes.

‘Yes,’ said William after a moment’s silence, which represented a short, victorious struggle with a never very recalcitrant conscience, ‘this is Stratford all
right.’

The lady leapt in her seat. Gone were all traces of tears.

‘Say, kid, I jus’
adore
you. Now I’ve got to see it
all
jus’ as quick as I can. Never mind Pop. He can go on sleeping. He hates looking at things, anyway.
He goes to sleep on purpose.’

She opened the door and jumped down.

‘Now the first thing I wanta see is Anne Hathaway’s cottage. Can you direct me to that, little boy? Or – say are you doing anything particular this afternoon?’

‘No,’ said the unscrupulous William, deciding that Ginger, Henry and Douglas could get on very well without him.

‘Well, now, would you be a reel cherub, and personally conduct me?’

‘Yes, I would,’ said William eagerly. He did not repent his rash statement as to the precise locality of Stratford-on-Avon. He almost believed it. If this vision wished it to be
Stratford it
was
Stratford.

They set off down the road together.

‘Is it far?’ said the fair American eagerly.

William began to consider. He realised that he had embarked upon an adventure that would require careful handling, but William was not the boy to retire from any adventure before he was
compelled.

He looked up and down the road.

‘Whose cottage did you say?’ he said at last.

‘Anne Hathaway’s.’

‘Oh, no, it’s not far now,’ said William, hoping for the best.

The lady became confidential. She told him that her name was Miss Burford – Sadie Burford – and she jus’
loved
this lil’ ole country, but Stratford was the thing
she’d
longed
most
passionately
to see, and this was the happiest day of her life and wasn’t it just the cutest little place and she’d be grateful to him all her
life, she would sure.

William enjoyed it. He enjoyed walking with her, he enjoyed watching her astounding beauty, he enjoyed her twang. He was already practising it silently in his mind.

They turned the bend in the road and there in front of them was Mrs Maloney’s cottage.

Miss Burford gave a little scream of ecstasy.

‘
Thatched!
’ she said. ‘This must be Anne Hathaway’s cottage.’

‘Yes, this is it,’ agreed William, torn between relief at having discovered an Anne Hathaway’s cottage and consternation at the prospect of a second
rencontre
with Mrs
Maloney in one day. He could see Mrs Maloney looking out of the window. William, as an artist, occasionally overreached himself. He made the mistake of not leaving well alone. Now, wishing to give
a further touch of verisimilitude to the whole situation, he said carelessly—

‘An’ there’s Anne Hathaway lookin’ out of the window.’

‘Does an Anne Hathaway
still
live here?’ said Miss Burford excitedly.

‘Well, I thought that was what you said,’ said William bewildered.

‘But I meant the one that lived hundreds of years ago.’

William was still more bewildered.

‘She’ll be dead by now,’ he said, after a slight pause. But he wished the radiant vision to have everything she wanted. If she wanted an Anne whatever it was, she should have
it.

‘There’s another living there now,’ he went on.

‘How
dandy
!’ said Miss Burford. ‘A descendant, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes,’ agreed William. ‘Yes – that’s what she is.’

‘Well – I’ve got to hurry. Will you knock, or shall I? Perhaps you know her?’

‘Oh, y-yes, I k-know her all right,’ stammered William, edging away as he spoke, his eyes fixed fearfully upon the cottage door. ‘You – you don’t wanter go
right
in, do you?’

‘I sure do,’ asserted Miss Burford.

‘I – I wun’t if I was you,’ said William earnestly. ‘I wun’t go. She’s
awful
bad-tempered, Mrs Maloney is – I mean Anne what you said
is.’

‘But I must go in – People
do
, I know.’

‘Better not,’ said William desperately, ‘she’s – she’s deaf, too.’

‘But I can shout.’

‘That’s no use. She can’t hear shouting. And she’s mad, too – she’s sort of forgotten her name – she – she sort of thinks she’s someone else
– so it’s no use goin’ in, what with her bein’ deaf an’ mad. It’s not reely safe. An’ it’s best from outside. It’s not anything like as nice
inside as it is outside.’

‘But I’ve known people who’ve gone inside,’ persisted Miss Burford. ‘I’ve known them personally. It must be possible. It can’t be very
dangerous.’

She advanced boldly and knocked at the door. William stood in the background palely composed, but ready to flee if necessary. The door opened a few inches and Mrs Maloney’s wrinkled face
appeared round it. At the sight of William it became distorted with rage.

‘Ah-h-h!’ she growled. ‘Ye little pest, ye—’

William, whose valour was wholesomely intermingled with discretion, was on the point of turning to flee and leaving this strange situation to disentangle itself as best it could, when he saw
Miss Burford slip something into Mrs Maloney’s hand, at which Mrs Maloney’s wrath simmered down into a sullen distrust.

‘Could I,’ said Miss Burford, with disarming sweetness, ‘could I just look at your historical cottage, Miss Hathaway?’

‘’Ysterical yourself,’ snapped the owner; ‘an’ me name’s Mrs Maloney, I’d have ye to know.’

Miss Burford turned to William with a sad smile.

‘Poor woman!’ she whispered.

Then she entered the kitchen. Mrs Maloney stood holding her ten-shilling note with both hands and watching her guest suspiciously. William’s sole thought was to keep as near the door as
possible in view of possible developments. Miss Burford looked round at the old-fashioned cottage, the old dresser and the flagged floor with a sigh of rapture.

‘How lovely!’ she breathed. ‘How perfect!’

Mrs Maloney’s suspicions deepened.

Then Miss Burford looked rather puzzled. ‘I’ve seen photographs of it. I’ve sure got a wretched memory, but I had an idea there were more things in it, somehow. I’ve only
a vague kind of idea of it, but I certainly thought there were more things in it.’

In his capacity of stage-manager, William spoke up with desperate boldness.

MRS MALONEY’S WRINKLED FACE APPEARED. AT THE SIGHT OF WILLIAM IT BECAME DISTORTED WITH RAGE.

‘Eh?’ said Mrs Maloney sharply. ‘What’s he saying?’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Miss Burford pacifically.

WILLIAM WAS ON THE POINT OF TURNING TO FLEE.

‘How awful!’ she panted, when they had reached the safe refuge of the road. ‘Poor woman! She’s sure plumb crazy! But,’ with a sigh of content, ‘I’ve
seen it. That’s all I wanted to do. I can say I’ve seen it now.’ She took from her pocket a little note-book, opened it and ticked off ‘Stratford’ and ‘Anne
Hathaway’s Cottage’. ‘There! Now I don’t care how soon Pop takes me home.

‘I’ve not brought my guide-book,’ went on Miss Burford to William, ‘but I reckon there’s other things I oughta see in Stratford.’ She looked across a field
and caught sight of the stream that made its sluggish way through William’s native village. ‘The Avon,’ she said, with an ecstatic sigh. ‘Isn’t it just dandy? But now,
say, kid, isn’t there anything else I oughta see belongin’ to Shakespeare? I suppose – I suppose, now,’ wistfully, ‘there aren’t any other of his folks about the
place – kind of descendants, you know?’

The adventure seemed to be drawing to a close, and William did not want it to draw to a close. The beautiful sapphire eyes fixed on him wistfully had a strange effect on him. Before he knew what
he was saying, he had said, modestly:

‘There’s me. I’m one of his folks.’

He was secretly aghast when he heard himself say that. But he merely continued to gaze at her with his most ingenuous expression.

‘Well, now!’ she cried in rapture. ‘Isn’t that jus’
luck
! You’re one of his descendants? But – not in the direct line, I reckon.’

If William was going to be a descendant at all he was most certainly going to do the thing properly.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘I’m d’rect all right.’

‘Then you’re re-lated to the old lady?’ she said excitedly.

Again this took William out of his depth. He replied to it only by an uncertain smile.

‘
Fancy!
’ said Miss Burford. ‘
Fancy
that! I reckon you’ve got letters and records and relics of your house?’

‘Oh, yes – no end of them,’ said William. ‘All over the place.’

Miss Burford thrilled visibly.

‘I guess I was plumb lucky to strike
you
first go off,’ she said. She looked at William almost with reverence. ‘I can see a most dis-tinct likeness,’ she said at
last. ‘I reckon, kid, you’ve been simply
brought up
on him, haven’t you? I expect you jus’ about know his works by heart.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said William, and quoted dreamily: