Still William Read online

  Hubert ceased his tears and hung over the stile.

  ‘Can you see me now?’ he said anxiously. ‘Am I all right now?’

  He wiped his tears and began to clean his spectacles and straighten his collar. He was a tidy boy.

  ‘Yes, Hubert,’ said the Outlaws. ‘It’s all right now. We can see you now. You mus’ have jus’ trod on the grass. But it’s all right now. Aren’t you comin’ back to play?’

  Hubert placed one foot cautiously over the stile.

  ‘Ginger!’ said William excitedly, ‘I believe he’s beginning to disappear again.’

  With a wild yell, Hubert turned and fled howling down the road.

  ‘Well, we’ve got rid of him,’ said William complacently, ‘and if I’m not clever I don’ know who is!’

  Over-modesty was not one of William’s faults.

  ‘Well, I bet you’re not quite as clever as you think you are,’ said Ginger pugnaciously.

  ‘How d’you know that?’ said William rising to the challenge. ‘How d’you know how clever I think I am? You mus’ think yourself jolly clever ’f you think you know how clever I think I am!’

  The discussion would have run its natural course to the physical conflict that the Outlaws found so exhilarating if Joan and Violet Elizabeth had not at this moment emerged from the barn.

  ‘You have been making a noith!’ said Violet Elizabeth disapprovingly. ‘Wherth the boy with the Bullth Eyth?’

  ‘Heth gonth awath,’ said William unfeelingly.

  ‘I want a Bullth Eye. You’re a nathty boy to let him go away when I want a Bullth Eye.’

  ‘Well, you can go after himth,’ said William, less afraid of her tears now that he was surrounded by his friends. But Violet Elizabeth was too angry for tears.

  ‘Yeth and I thall!’ she said. ‘You’re a nathty rude boy an’ I don’t love you and I don’t want you for a huthband. I want the boy with the Bullth Eyth!’

  ‘What about divorce or big or whatever it is?’ said William, taken aback by her sudden and open repudiation of him. ‘What about that? What about being hung?’

  ‘If anyone trith to hang me,’ said Violet Elizabeth complacently, ‘I’ll thcream and thcream and thcream till I’m thick. I can.’

  Then she put out her tongue at each of the Outlaws in turn and ran lightly down the road after the figure of Hubert which could be seen in the distance.

  ‘Well, we’ve got rid of her too,’ said William, torn between relief at her departure and resentment at her scorn of him, ‘and she can play her silly games with him. I’ve had enough of them. Let’s go an’ sit on the stile and see who can throw stones farthest.’

  They sat in a row on the stile. It counted ten to hit the telegraph post and fifteen to reach the further edge of the opposite field.

  Ethel, who had been to the village to do the household shopping, came past when the game was in full swing.

  ‘I’ll tell father,’ she said grimly to William. ‘He said you oughtn’t to throw stones.’

  William looked her up and down with his most inscrutable expression.

  ‘ ’F it comes to that,’ he said distantly, ‘he said you oughtn’t to wear high heels.’

  Ethel flushed angrily and walked on.

  William’s spirits rose. It wasn’t often he scored over Ethel and he feared that even now she would have her revenge.

  He watched her go down the road. Coming back along the road was Mr March. As he met Ethel a deep flush and a sickly smile overspread his face. He stopped and spoke to her, gazing at her with a sheep-like air. Ethel passed on haughtily. He had recovered slightly when he reached the Outlaws, though traces of his flush still remained.

  ‘Well,’ he said with a loud laugh. ‘Divorce or bigamy? Which is it to be? Ha, ha! Excellent!’

  He put his walking stick against Ginger’s middle and playfully pushed him off the stile backwards. Then he went on his way laughing loudly.

  ‘I said he was cracked!’ said Ginger climbing back to his perch.

  ‘He’d jus’ about suit Ethel then,’ said William bitterly.

  They sat in silence a few minutes. There was a faraway meditative look in William’s eyes.

  ‘I say,’ he said at last, ‘ ’f Ethel married him she’d go away from our house and live in his, wun’t she?’

  ‘U-hum,’ agreed Ginger absently as he tried to hit the second tree to the left of the telegraph post that counted five.

  ‘I wish there was some way of makin’ them fall in love with each other,’ said William gloomily.

  ‘Oh, there is, William,’ said Joan. ‘We’ve been learning it at school. Someone called Shakespeare wrote it. You keep saying to both of them that the other’s in love with them and they fall in love and marry. I know. We did it last term. One of them was Beatrice and I forget the other.’

  ‘You said it was Shakespeare,’ said William.

  ‘No, he’s the one that tells about it.’

  ‘Sounds a queer sort of tale to me,’ said William severely. ‘Couldn’t you write to him and get it a bit plainer what to do?’

  ‘Write to him!’ jeered Ginger. ‘He’s dead. Fancy you not knowin’ that! Fancy you not knowin’ Shakespeare’s dead!’

  ‘Well, how was I to know he was dead? I can’t know everyone’s name what’s dead, can I? I bet there’s lots of dead folks’ names what you don’ know!’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ said Ginger. ‘Well, I bet I know more dead folks’ names than you do!’

  ‘He said that anyway,’ interposed Joan hastily and pacifically. ‘He said that if you keep on making up nice things and saying that the other said it about them they fall in love and marry. It must be true because it’s in a book.’

  There was a look of set purpose in William’s eyes.

  ‘It’ll take a bit of arrangin’,’ was the final result of his frowning meditation, ‘but it might come off all right.’

  William’s part was more difficult than Joan’s. William’s part consisted in repeating to Ethel compliments supposed to emanate from Mr March. If Ethel had had the patience to listen to them she would have realised that they all bore the unmistakable imprint of William’s imagination.

  William opened his campaign by approaching her when she was reading a book in the drawing-room.

  ‘I say, Ethel,’ he began in a deep soulful voice, ‘I saw Mr March this afternoon.’

  Ethel went on reading as if she had not heard.

  ‘He says,’ continued William mournfully, sitting on the settee next to Ethel, ‘he says that you’re the apple of his life. He says that he loves you with a mos’ devourin’ passion. He says that you’re ab’s’lutely the mos’ beauteous maid he’s ever come across.’

  ‘Be quiet and let me read!’ said Ethel without looking up from her book.

  ‘He says,’ went on William in the same deep monotonous voice, ‘he says that he doesn’t mind your hair bein’ red though he knows some people think it’s ugly. That’s noble of him, you know, Ethel. He says—’

  Ethel rose from the settee.

  ‘If you won’t be quiet,’ she said, ‘I’ll have to go into another room.’

  She went into the dining-room and, sitting down in an armchair, began to read again.

  After a short interval William followed and taking the armchair opposite hers, continued:

  ‘He says, Ethel, that he’s deep in love with you and that he doesn’t mind you bein’ so bad-tempered. He likes it. Anyway he ’spects he’ll get used to it. He says he adores you jus’ like what people do on the pictures. He puts his hand on his stomach and rolls his eyes whenever he thinks of you. He says—’

  ‘Will – you – be – quiet?’ said Ethel angrily.

  ‘No, but jus’ listen, Ethel,’ pleaded William. ‘He says—’

  Ethel flounced out of the room. She went to the morning-room, locked the door, and, sitting down with her back to the window, continued to read. After a few minutes came the sound of the windows being cautiously opened and Will
iam appeared behind her chair.

  ‘I say, Ethel, when I saw Mr March he said—’

  Ethel gave a scream.

  ‘If you mention that man’s name to me once more, William, I’ll – I’ll tell Father that you’ve been eating the grapes in the hothouse.’

  It was a random shot but with a boy of William’s many activities such random shots generally found their mark.

  He sighed and slowly retreated from the room by way of the window.

  Ethel’s attitude made his task a very difficult one . . .

  Joan’s task was easier. Joan had free access to her father’s study and typewriter and Joan composed letters from Ethel to Mr March. William ‘borrowed’ some of his father’s notepaper for her and she worked very conscientiously, looking up the spelling of every word in the dictionary and re-typing every letter in which she made a mistake. She sent him one every day. Each one ended, ‘Please do not answer this or mention it to me and do not mind if my manner to you seems different to these letters. I cannot explain, but you know that my heart is full of love for you.’

  One letter had a PS: ‘I would be grateful if you would give half a crown to my little brother William when next you meet him. I am penniless and he is such a nice good boy.’

  Anyone less conceited than Mr March would have suspected the genuineness of the letters, but to Mr March they seemed just such letters as a young girl who had succumbed to his incomparable charm might write.

  It was William who insisted on the PS though Joan felt that it was inartistic. It had effect, however. Mr March met William on the road the next morning and handed him a half-crown, then with a loud guffaw and ‘Divorce or bigamy, eh?’ pushed William lightly into a holly bush and passed on. Mr March’s methods of endearing himself to the young were primitive . . . But the half-crown compensated for the holly bush in William’s estimation. He wanted to make the PS a regular appendage to the letter but Joan firmly refused to allow it.

  After a week of daily letters written by Joan and daily unsuccessful attempts on the part of William to introduce imaginary compliments from Mr March into casual conversation with Ethel, both felt that it was time for the denouement.

  The final letter was the result of a hard morning’s work by William and Joan.

  Dear George (May I call you George now?),

  Will you meet me by the river near Fisher’s Lock tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock? Will you wear a red carnation and I will wear a red rose as gages of our love? I want to tell you how much I love you, though I am sure you know. Let us be married next Monday afternoon. Do not speak to me of this letter but just come wearing a red carnation and I will come wearing a red rose as gages of our love. I hope you will love my little brother William too. He is very fond of caramels.

  Yours with love,

  ETHEL BROWN (soon I hope to be March).

  The reference to William had been the subject of much discussion, but William had overborne Joan’s objections.

  ‘I reely only want it put because it makes it seem more nat’ral. It’s only nat’ral she should want him to be kind to her brother. I mean, not knowin’ Ethel as well as I do, he’ll think it nat’ral.’

  The stage managing of the actual encounter was the most difficult part of all. Ethel’s reception of her swain’s supposed compliments had not been such as to make William feel that a request to meet him at Fisher’s Lock would be favourably received. He was feeling a little doubtful about the working of Joan’s love charm in the case of Ethel, but with his usual optimism he was hoping for the best.

  ‘Ethel,’ he said at lunch, ‘Gladys Barker wants to see you this afternoon. I met her this morning.’

  ‘Did she say any time?’ said Ethel.

  ‘Soon after three,’ said William.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me sooner?’ said Ethel.

  The road to Gladys Barker’s house lay by the river past Fisher’s Lock.

  ‘ ’S not tellin’ a story,’ William informed his conscience. ‘I did meet her this mornin’ an’ I don’ know that she doesn’t want to see Ethel this afternoon. She prob’ly does.’

  About quarter to three William came in from the garden carefully holding a rose. He wore his most inscrutable expression.

  ‘I thought you might like to wear this, Ethel,’ he said. ‘It goes nice with your dress.’

  Ethel was touched.

  ‘Thank you, William,’ she said.

  She watched him as he returned to the garden, humming discordantly.

  She wondered if sometimes she misjudged William . . .

  It was ten minutes past three. On the path by the river near Fisher’s Lock stood Mr March with a red carnation in his buttonhole. Concealed in a tree just above his head were Ginger, Douglas, William and Joan.

  Down the path by the river came Ethel wearing her red rose.

  Mr March started forward.

  ‘Well, little girl?’ he said with roguish tenderness.

  Ethel stopped suddenly and stared at him in amazement.

  ‘Ah!’ said Mr March, shaking a fat finger at her. ‘The time has come to drop the mask of haughtiness. I know all now, you know, from your own sweet lips, I mean your own sweet pen . . . I know how your little heart beats at the thought of your George. I know who is your ideal . . . your beloved knight . . . your all those sweet things you wrote to me. Now, don’t be frightened, little girl. I return your affection, but not Monday afternoon! I don’t think we can manage it quite as soon as that.’

  ‘Mr March,’ said Ethel, ‘are you ill?’

  ‘Ill, my little precious?’ ogled Mr March. ‘No, well, my little popsie! Your dear loving letters have made me well. I was so touched by them, little Ethelkins! . . . You thinking me so handsome and clever and, you know, I admire you too.’ He touched the red rose she was wearing playfully. ‘The gage of your love, eh?’

  ‘Mr March,’ said Ethel angrily, ‘you must be mad. I’ve never written to you in my life.’

  ‘Ah,’ he replied, ‘do not deny the fond impeachment.’ He took a bundle of typewritten letters out of his pocket and handed them to her. ‘You have seen these before.’

  ‘NOW, DON’T BE FRIGHTENED, LITTLE GIRL,’ SAID MR MARCH. ‘I KNOW HOW YOUR LITTLE HEART BEATS AT THE THOUGHT OF YOUR GEORGE.’

  ‘MR MARCH!’ EXCLAIMED ETHEL, ‘ARE YOU ILL?’

  She took them and read them slowly one by one.

  ‘I’ve never heard such rubbish,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve never seen the idiotic things before. You must be crazy.’

  Mr March’s mouth fell open.

  ‘You – didn’t write them?’ he said incredulously.

  ‘Of course not!’ snapped Ethel. ‘How could you be such a fool as to think I did?’

  He considered for a minute, then his expression of bewilderment gave place again to the roguish smile.

  ‘Ah, naughty!’ he said. ‘She’s being very coy! I know better! I know—’

  He took her hand. Ethel snatched it back and pushed him away angrily. He was standing on the very edge of the river and at the push he swayed for a second, clutching wildly at the air, then fell with a loud splash into the stream.

  ‘Oh, I say, Ethel,’ expostulated William from his leafy hiding place. ‘Don’t carry on like that . . . drownin’ him after all the trouble we’ve took with him! He’s gotter lot of money an’ a nice garden an’ a big house. Anyone’d think you’d want to marry him ’stead of carryin’ on like that!’

  At the first sound of his voice, Ethel had gazed round open-mouthed, then she looked up into the tree and saw William.

  ‘You hateful boy!’ she cried. ‘I’m going straight home to tell Father!’

  She turned on her heel and went off without looking back.

  Meanwhile Mr March was scrambling up the bank, spitting out water and river weeds and (fortunately) inarticulate expletives.

  ‘I’ll have damages off someone for this!’ he said as he emerged on to the bank. ‘I’ll make someone pay for this! I’l
l have the law on them! I’ll . . .’

  He went off dripping and muttering and shaking his fist vaguely in all directions . . .

  Slowly the Outlaws climbed down from their tree.

  ‘Well, you’ve made a nice mess of everything!’ said Ginger dispassionately.

  ‘I’ve took a lot of trouble trying to get her married,’ said William, ‘and this is how she pays me! Well, she needn’t blame me.’ He looked at the indignant figure of his pretty nineteen-year-old sister which was still visible in the distance and added gloomily: ‘She’s turnin’ out an old maid an’ it’s not my fault. I’ve done my best. Seems to me she’s goin’ to go on livin’ in our house all her life till she dies, an’ that’s a nice look out for me, isn’t it? Seems to me that if she won’t even get married when you practically fix it all up for her an’ save her all the trouble like this, she won’t ever marry an’ she needn’t blame me ’cause she’s an old maid. I’ve done everythin’ I can. An’ you,’ he transferred his stern eye to Joan. ‘Why don’ you read books with a bit of sense in them? This Shake man simply doesn’t know what he’s talkin’ about. It’s a good thing for him he is dead, gettin’ us all into a mess like this!’

  ‘What are you goin’ to do now?’ said Douglas with interest.

  ‘I’m goin’ fishin’,’ said William, ‘an’ I don’ care if I don’t get home till bedtime.’

  It was a week later. The excitement and altercations and retaliations and dealing out of justice which had followed William’s abortive attempt to marry Ethel were over.

  Ethel had gone into the morning-room for a book. The Outlaws were playing in the garden outside. Their strong young voices floated in through the open window.

  ‘Now let’s have a change,’ William was saying. ‘Ginger be Mr March an’ Joan be Ethel . . . Now, begin . . . go on . . . Joan, come on . . . walkin’ kind of silly like Ethel . . . an’ Ginger go to meet her with a soft look on your face . . . That’s it . . . now, start!’

  ‘Well, little girl?’ said Ginger in a shrill affected voice. ‘I know how your little heart beats at me. I know I am your knight an’ all that.’

  ‘You’ve left a lot out,’ said William. ‘You’ve left out where he said he wouldn’t marry her on Monday. Now you go on, Joan.’