William The Outlaw (29 page)

‘Now you’re a rabbit,’ said Bertie almost drunk with delight and pride. William, not quite knowing what else to do, wrinkled his nose up and down.

‘Now you can come unhypnotised.’

William stood up slowly and blinked. ‘I don’t remember doin’ anythin’,’ he said. ‘I bet I din’ do anythin’.’

‘But you
did
,’ squeaked Bertie excitedly, ‘you
did.
You acted like a cat and a dog and a rabbit.’ He appealed to Henry, Douglas and Ginger,
‘didn’t he?’

Henry and Douglas and Ginger, who were not quite sure yet what William wanted of them but were prepared blindly to support him in anything, merely nodded.

‘
There!
’ said Bertie triumphantly.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said William, ‘anyway, try again . . . try something harder – cats and dogs and rabbits are easy, I expect – try making me do
somethin’ I can’t do ordin’ry. I can’t turn cartwheels ordin’ry.’

The Outlaws gasped at this amazing untruth. But Bertie believed it. He was ready to believe anything. He was drunk with his success as a hypnotist. Again he made passes before William’s
face and again William assumed the languishing expression which he believed suitable to one hypnotised. ‘Turn cartwheels,’ ordered Bertie. William turned six perfect cartwheels one
after the other.

‘Now come unhypnotised,’ said Bertie quickly, anxious to prove his success.

‘You did turn cartwheels, didn’t he?’ to Douglas, Ginger and Henry.

Again Douglas, Ginger and Henry nodded non-committally.

‘’
Course
I didn’t,’ said William aggressively. ‘I don’ believe you. I
can’t
turn cartwheels.’

‘But you can when you’re hypnotised,’ said Bertie, ‘you can do things when you’re hypnotised that you can’t do when you’re not hypnotised. You can do
anything you’re told to when you’re hypnotised. I’m a hypnotiser, I am,’ he swaggered about, ‘I can make anyone do anythin’ I like, I can.’

‘I remember readin’ about hypnotism in a book once,’ said William slowly, ‘it said that anyone could hypnotise people standin’ jus’ near them, but that only a
very good hypnotiser could make someone do somethin’ where he couldn’t see them.’

‘I could,’ boasted Bertie, ‘I bet I could. I’m a good hypnotiser, I am.’

‘I don’t b’lieve you did me at all,’ said William calmly. ‘I don’ remember anythin’.’

‘But you
don’t
remember when you’re hypnotised,’ explained Bertie impatiently, ‘that’s all the point of it . . . you don’t remember.’

‘Then how’m I to know you
did
hypnotise me?’ said William simply.

‘
They
saw,’ said Bertie, pointing to his witnesses. ‘I
did
hypnotise him, didn’t I?’

The witnesses, still not quite sure what their leader’s tactics were, again nodded non-committally.

‘I don’t b’lieve you, any of you,’ said William defiantly, ‘you’re pullin’ my leg – all of you. He din’t hypnotise me. I
din’t
carry on like a rabbit, or any of those things he said.’

Bertie stamped, almost in tears.

‘You did . . . you
did.
’

It was evident that more than anything in the world at that moment he longed to convince William of his hypnotic powers.

‘In this book I read,’ went on William, ‘it said that only very good hypnotisers could make anyone do anything with a suitcase. It said that those two were the hardest things
that only very good hypnotisers could do – makin’ anyone do something when they can’t see ’em doin’ it, an’ makin’ anyone do somethin’ with a
suitcase. . . . But we’ve not got a suitcase here,’ he glanced contemptuously at the case that contained Bertie’s page’s costume. ‘That’s too small to be a
suitcase. It wun’t do.’

‘It
is
a suitcase and it would do,’ said Bertie, ‘it
would
do and I bet I could make you do something with it.’

‘I bet you couldn’t,’ said William. ‘I don’t believe you’re a hypnotiser at all. Tell you what,’ slowly, ‘I’ll believe you
if—’

‘Yes?’ said Bertie eagerly.

‘If you c’n make me do the two hardest things – make me do somethin’ with this suitcase an’ make me do somethin’ where you can’t see me doin’ it.
. . . Tell you what—’ as though a sudden idea had just struck him.

‘Yes?’

‘I’ll b’lieve you if you can make me take this suitcase down the road, an’ in at our gate an’ round to the back of our house an’ back again here –
an’ tell me to do somethin’ – any thin’ – to prove to me that I’ve done it.’

‘’Course I can do that,’ said Bertie boastingly. ‘I can do that easy ’s easy.’

‘Well, do it then,’ challenged William.

Bertie again made passes before his face and William composed his features again to that utter imbecility that was meant to imply the hypnotised state.

‘Take the suitcase,’ ordered Bertie, ‘and take it down the road and round your house an’ back again here an’ do somethin’ – anythin’ – to
show yourself that you’ve been hypnotised.’

Still wearing his expression of imbecility, William picked up the suitcase and walked down the road. The watchers saw him go down his drive and disappear behind his house. After a short interval
he reappeared, still with the suitcase and still with his imbecile expression, though, a close observer might have noticed, rather breathless, came again along the drive up the road and joined the
four watchers. He held something in his clasped hand. Bertie’s face was a proud beam of triumph.

‘There, you’ve
done
it,’ he shouted gleefully. ‘Now, come unhypnotised.’

William assumed his normal expression and blinked.

‘I didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘I told you, you couldn’t make me do it.’

‘But you
did
it,’ screamed Bertie.

William slowly unclasped his hand and looked down at something he held in his palm.

‘Crumbs!’ he ejaculated as though deeply impressed, ‘here’s Jumble’s ball what he was playing with this mornin’ in the garden. I
knew
it was in the
garden. So I
must
’ve jus’ been there.’

‘So you
know
I’m a hypnotiser now,’ said Bertie with a swagger.

‘Yes, I do,’ said William, ‘I know that you’re a hypnotiser now.’

But at that moment the church clock struck two and Bertie suddenly remembered that as well as being a hypnotiser he was Queen Elizabeth’s page.

STILL WEARING HIS EXPRESSION OF IMBECILITY, WILLIAM PICKED UP THE SUITCASE AND WALKED DOWN THE ROAD.

William, Ginger and Douglas and Henry stood and watched him.

Then William turned and, followed by the others, went quickly homewards.

Bertie stood in his bedroom surveying the contents of his suitcase. He found them amazing. They seemed to comprise not a page’s costume but a much worn and tattered Red
Indian costume. Still – he knew that his mother had made the costume in accordance with Mrs Bertram’s directions. Perhaps Elizabeth’s page wore this curious costume. Perhaps he
didn’t dress like other pages. Anyway his mother and Mrs Bertram ought to know. They’d arranged it between them. And there didn’t seem to be anything else in the case. He turned
it upside down. No . . . only this. This must be right. Anyway, the only thing to do was to put it on. It must be all right really. He put it on . . . fringed trousers and coat of a sort of khaki
and a feathered head dress. He looked at it doubtfully in the mirror. Yes, it did look funny, but he supposed it must be all right . . . really he supposed that they must have made it from pictures
of the real thing . . . it must be the sort of dress that Elizabeth’s page really wore. . . . Funny . . . very funny . . . he’d never looked at it before and his mother had made it
without trying it on, but if he hadn’t
known
that it was a page’s costume made by his mother according to directions sent to her by Mrs Bertram, he’d have thought it was a
Red Indian costume. It was just like a Red Indian costume. But he was late already. He hurried down to the Vicarage where the actors in the pageant were to assemble.

Mrs Bertram had been having hysterics on and off ever since she got up. Mrs Bertram was ‘highly strung’. (Other people sometimes found a less flattering name for
it.) Mrs Bertram often hinted to her friends that the very fact of her likeness to Queen Elizabeth was a strain on the nervous system which less heroic natures would have found unendurable.
Everything seemed to have gone wrong with her since she began to dress for the pageant. Her dress was wrong, for one thing. She was sure that it was fuller than it ought to be. It took six or seven
people to calm her about her dress. Then her hair was wrong. It wouldn’t go right. The hairdresser came to do it and she tore it down again and had another fit of hysterics. The six or seven
people managed with great difficulty to calm her again and get her hair up though she said that there was a fate against her and that she was going to sue the hairdresser for damages and that
she’d never looked so hideous before in her life. The Vicar’s wife with the kindest intention and merely in order to calm her, assured her that she had, and this brought on yet another
attack. Then, fearing that the six or seven comforters were going to desert her, she said that her shoes were wrong. She said that they were the wrong shape and that they were too big. When her six
or seven comforters had proved that they were not too big she had another fit of hysterics and said they were too small. The whole cast was needed to calm her over the shoes and she said finally
that she supposed she’d have to wear them and that she hoped she’d never again be called upon to suffer as she’d suffered that day and that people who weren’t highly strung
had no idea how terribly she suffered and that she got no sympathy and she knew she looked a sight and that if this was how she was going to be treated she’d never be in another pageant as
long as she lived. Then she suddenly began to suffer about her page. She’d told him to be here an hour before time and he wasn’t and she wouldn’t act without a page. She
didn’t care what anyone said. She
wouldn’t
act without a page. It was an insult to expect her to. Her comforters assured her that Bertie would be in time. Bertie had never been
known to be late for anything. Then she began to suffer about Bertie’s stockings. She’d said particularly to his mother that he must have good white silk stockings to go with his white
satin suit and shoes and she was sure that he’d have common ones. If he came in common white silk stockings she wouldn’t act in the pageant. She
wouldn’t
act with a page
with common white silk stockings. It would be an insult to expect her to. . . .

It was just a quarter past two and he hadn’t come and she’d
told
him to be there by half-past one, and if he didn’t come she wouldn’t be in the pageant at all. She
wouldn’t stir a foot, and she’d sue them all for damages. She sat down on a chair with her back to the door and had another fit of hysterics. The whole cast had gathered round her. They
were looking rather anxious. It was time to start on the procession and her page had not turned up and they saw that nothing on earth would persuade Gloriana to set off without him. She was still
suffering terribly.

‘I – I’ll just send up to his uncle’s, shall I?’ Sir Walter Raleigh was suggesting when the door opened and Bertie stood upon the threshold dressed in the full
panoply of a Red Indian. He smiled very sweetly at them all.

‘I’m so sorry I’m so late,’ he said. ‘Am I all right?’

‘Is that you, child?’ said the Virgin Queen in a hoarse, suffering voice without turning her head.

‘Yes,’ said Bertie. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late.’

The others were watching him, paralysed with horror.

‘Have you got on
common
silk stockings?’ said Elizabeth wearily, still without turning her head. ‘I’m
worn
out body and soul by all this worry and anxiety
and responsibility . . . have you got on
common
silk stockings, boy?’

Bertie looked down at his khaki frilled trousers.

‘No,’ he said brightly. ‘No, I haven’t got on common silk stockings at all.’

Elizabeth was evidently still too worn out in body and soul to turn her head. She appealed to the others.

‘Has he got on common silk stockings?’ she asked.

She was met by silence. The others were still gazing at Bertie in paralysed horror.

Slowly Mrs Bertram turned round. She saw Bertie dressed as a Red Indian. Her face changed to a mask of fury. She uttered a piercing scream.

‘You wretch!’ she said, ‘you hateful,
hateful
boy!’

Then with a spirit worthy of the Virgin Queen herself she flung herself upon the unfortunate Bertie and boxed his ears. . . .

The cast of the pageant was in despair. Bertie, battered and bewildered, had fled howling homewards and Mrs Bertram was suffering more terribly even than she had suffered
before. She was engaged in gliding from one fit of hysterics into another. In the intervals she informed them that nothing would induce her to take part in the pageant without a page and that it
was an insult to ask her to and that they couldn’t get a page now and that she’d sue the boy’s mother for damages and that she’d sue them all for damages and that
she’d never get over this as long as she lived. They stood around her offering sal volatile and smelling salts and eau de Cologne and sympathy and consolation. They coaxed and soothed and
pleaded all to no avail. Mrs Bertram continued to suffer. A mild and well-meaning suggestion from Sir Walter Raleigh that she should lend her clothes to someone else who didn’t mind going
without a page threw her into such a state that Sir Walter Raleigh crept into the next room so that the sight of him might not continue to increase her sufferings.