Still William Page 15

  ‘I wish you’d shut up talking about them,’ snapped Ginger.

  ‘Well, I feel almost dyin’ of hunger,’ said William. ‘In books they draw lots and then one kills the other an’ eats him.’

  ‘I wun’t mind anyone killin’ an’ eatin’ me,’ said Ginger.

  ‘I’ve nothin’ to kill you with, anyway, so it’s no good talkin’ about it,’ said William.

  ‘Seems to me,’ said Ginger raising his head from his gloomy contemplation of the waves, ‘that we keep changin’ the d’rection we’re goin’ in. We’ll like as not end at America or China or somewhere.’

  ‘An’ our folks’ll think we’re drowned.’

  ‘We’ll prob’ly find gold mines in China or somewhere an’ make our fortunes.’

  ‘An’ we’ll come home changed an’ old an’ they won’t know us.’

  Their spirits rose.

  Suddenly William called excitedly, ‘I see land! Jus’ look!’

  They were certainly rapidly nearing land.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ murmured Ginger.

  ‘An uninhabited island I ’spect,’ said William.

  ‘Or an island inhabited by wild savages,’ said Ginger.

  The boat was pushed gently on to land by the incoming tide.

  Ginger and William disembarked.

  ‘I don’t care where we are,’ said Ginger firmly, ‘but I’m goin’ to stop here all my life. I’m not goin’ in that ole boat again.’

  A faint colour had returned to his cheeks.

  ‘You can’t stop on an uninhabited island all your life,’ said William aggressively. ‘You’ll have to go away. You needn’t go an’ eat dead crabs jus’ before you start, but you can’t live on an uninhabited island all your life.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up talkin’ about dead crabs,’ said Ginger.

  ‘Here’s a hole in a hedge,’ called William. ‘Let’s creep through and see what there is the other side. Creep, mind, an’ don’t breathe. It’ll prob’ly be wild savages or cannibals or something.’

  They crept through the hedge.

  There in a wide green space some lightly clad beings were dancing backwards and forwards. One in the front called out unintelligible commands in a shrill voice.

  William and Ginger crept behind a tree.

  ‘Savages!’ said William in a hoarse whisper. ‘Cannibals!’

  ‘Crumbs!’ said Ginger. ‘What’ll we do?’

  The white-clad figures began to leap into the air.

  ‘Charge ’em,’ said William, his freckled face set in a determined frown. ‘Charge ’em and put ’em to flight utterin’ wild yells to scare ’em – before they’ve time to know we’re here.’

  ‘All right,’ said Ginger, ‘come on.’

  ‘Ready?’ said Willlam through set lips. ‘Steady . . . Go!’

  The New School of Greek Dancing was a few miles down the coast from where William and Ginger had originally set forth in the boat. The second afternoon open-air class was in progress. Weedy males and aesthetic-looking females dressed in abbreviated tunics with sandals on their feet and fillets round their hair, mostly wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, ran and sprang and leapt and gambolled and struck angular attitudes at the shrill command of the instructress and the somewhat unmusical efforts of the (very) amateur flute player.

  ‘Now run . . . so . . . hands extended . . . so . . . left leg up . . . so . . . head looking over shoulder . . . so . . . no, try not to overbalance . . . that piece again . . . never mind the music . . . just do as I say . . . so . . . Ow . . . OW!’

  ‘Go!’

  Two tornadoes rushed out from behind a tree and charged wildly into the crowd of aesthetic and bony revellers. With heads and arms and legs they fought and charged and kicked and pushed and bit. They might have been a dozen instead of two. A crowd of thin, lightly clad females ran screaming indoors. One young man nimbly climbed a tree and another lay prone in a rose bush.

  ‘We’ve put ’em to flight,’ said William breathlessly, pausing for a moment from his labours.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ginger dispiritedly, ‘an’ what’ll we do next?’

  ‘Oh, jus’ keep ’em at bay an’ live on their food,’ said William vaguely, ‘an’ p’raps they’ll soon begin to worship us as gods.’

  But William was unduly optimistic. The flute player had secured some rope from an outhouse and, accompanied by some other youths, he was already creeping up behind William. In a few moments’ time William and Ginger found themselves bound to neighbouring trees. They struggled wildly. They looked a strange couple. The struggle had left them tieless and collarless. Their hair stood on end. Their faces were stained with liquorice juice.

  WILLIAM AND GINGER RUSHED OUT FROM BEHIND A TREE AND CHARGED WILDLY INTO THE CROWD OF AESTHETIC AND BONY REVELLERS.

  ‘They’ll eat us for supper,’ said William to Ginger. ‘Sure’s Fate they’ll eat us for supper. They’re prob’ly boilin’ the water to cook us in now. Go on, try’n bite through your rope.’

  ‘I have tried,’ said Ginger wearily. ‘It’s nearly pulled my teeth out.’

  ‘I wish I’d told ’em to give Jumble to Henry,’ said William sadly. ‘They’ll prob’ly keep him to themselves or sell him.’

  ‘They’ll be sorry they took my trumpet off me when they hear I’m eaten by savages,’ said Ginger with a certain satisfaction.

  The Greek dancers were drawing near by degrees from their hiding places.

  ‘Mad!’ they were saying. ‘One of them bit me and he’s probably got hydrophobia. I’m going to call on my doctor.’ ‘He simply charged me in the stomach. I think it’s given me appendicitis.’ ‘Kicked my leg. I can see the bruise.’ ‘Quite spoilt the atmosphere.’

  ‘William,’ said Ginger faintly, ‘isn’t it funny they talk English? Wun’t you expect them to talk some savage language?’

  ‘I speck they’ve learnt it off folks they’ve eaten.’

  From the open window of the house behind the trees came the loud tones of a lady who was evidently engaged in speaking through a telephone.

  ‘Yes, wild . . . absolutely mad . . . must have escaped from the asylum . . . no one escaped from the asylum? . . . then they must have been going to the asylum and escaped on the way . . . well, if they aren’t lunatics they’re criminals. Please send a large force.’

  It was when two stalwart and quite obviously English policemen appeared that William’s bewilderment finally took from him the power of speech.

  ‘Crumbs!’ was all he said.

  He was quite silent all the way home. He coldly repulsed all the policemen’s friendly overtures.

  Mrs Brown screamed when from the lounge window she saw her son and his friend approaching with their escort. It was Mr Brown who went boldly out to meet them, paid vast sums of hush money to the police force and brought in his son by the scruff of his neck.

  MR BROWN PAID VAST SUMS OF HUSH MONEY TO THE POLICE FORCE AND BROUGHT IN HIS SON BY THE SCRUFF OF THE NECK.

  ‘Well,’ said William almost tearfully, at the end of a long and painful course of home truths, ‘ ’f they’d reely been cannibals and eaten me you’d p’raps have been sorry.’

  Mr Brown, whose peace had been disturbed and reputation publicly laid low by William’s escort and appearance, looked at him.

  ‘You flatter yourself, my son,’ he said with bitterness.

  ‘What’ll we do today?’ said Ginger the next morning.

  ‘Let’s start with watchin’ the Punch and Judy,’ said William.

  ‘I’m not goin’ in no boats,’ said Ginger firmly.

  ‘All right,’ said William cheerfully, ‘but if we find another dead crab I’ve thought of a better way of cooking it.’

  CHAPTER 11

  WILLIAM SPOILS THE PARTY

  The Botts were going to give a fancy dress dance at the Hall on New Year’s Eve, and William and all his family had been invited. The inviting of William, of course, was the initial mistake, and if only the Botts had had the ordinary horse sense
(it was Robert who said this) not to invite William the thing might have been a success. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know William. If they hadn’t known William, Robert said, one might have been sorry for them, but knowing William and deliberately inviting him to a fancy dress dance – well, they jolly well deserved all they got.

  On the other hand William’s own family didn’t . . . and it was jolly hard lines on them (again I quote Robert) . . . Knowing that they had William all day and every day at home, anyone would think they’d have had the decency to invite them out without him . . . I mean whatever you said or whatever you did, you couldn’t prevent it . . . he spoilt your life wherever he went.

  But the Botts (of Botts’ Famous Digestive Sauce) had a ballroom that held 200 guests and they wanted to fill it. Moreover the Botts had a cherished daughter of tender years named Violet Elizabeth, and Violet Elizabeth, with her most engaging lisp and that hint of tears that was her most potent weapon, had said that she wanted her friendth to be invited too an’ she’d thcream an’ thcream an’ thcream till she was thick if they din’t invite her friendth to the party too . . .

  ‘All right, pet,’ had said Mr Bott soothingly. ‘After all we may as well give a real slap-up show while we’re about it and swell out the whole place – kids an’ all.’

  Mr Bott was ‘self-made’ and considering all things had made quite a decent job of himself, but his manners had not the ‘repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere’. Violet Elizabeth on the other hand had been brought up from infancy in the lap of luxury and refinement provided by the successful advertising of Botts’ Famous Digestive Sauce.

  The delight with which Robert and Ethel (William’s elder brother and sister) received the invitation to the fancy dress dance was, as I have said, considerably tempered by the fact of William’s inclusion in the invitation. And William, with his natural perversity, was eager to go.

  ‘Any show we want him to go to,’ said Robert bitterly, ‘he raises Cain about, but when a thing like this comes along – a thing that he’ll completely spoil for us if he comes like he always does—’ he spread out his arm with the eloquent gesture of one tried almost beyond endurance, and left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Well, let’s accept for ourselves, and say that William can’t go because he’s got a previous engagement,’ suggested Ethel.

  ‘But I haven’t,’ said William indignantly. ‘I haven’t got anything at all wrong with me. I’m quite well. An’ I want to go. I don’ see why everyone else should go but me. Besides,’ using an argument that he knew would appeal to them, ‘you’ll all be there an’ you’ll be able to see I’m not doing anything wrong, but if I was alone at home you wouldn’t know what I was doing. Not,’ he added hastily, ‘that I want to do anything wrong. All I want to do is to make others happy. An’ I’ll have a better chance of doin’ that at a party than if I was all alone at home.’

  These virtuous sentiments did but increase the suspicious distrust of his family. The general feeling was that far worse things happened when William was out to be good than when he was frankly out to be bad.

  ‘Oh, I think William must go,’ said Mrs Brown in her placid voice. ‘It will be so interesting for him and I’m sure he’ll be good.’

  Mrs Brown’s rather pathetic faith in William’s latent powers of goodness was unshared by any other of his family.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on hastily, seeing only incredulity on the faces around her, ‘the thing to do now is to decide what we’re all going as.’

  ‘I think I’ll go as a lion,’ said William. ‘I should think you could buy a lionskin quite cheap.’

  ‘Oh, quite!’ said Robert sarcastically. ‘Why not shoot one while you’re about it?’

  ‘Yes, an’ I will,’ said William, ‘ ’f you’ll show me one. I bet my bow and arrow could kill a few lions.’

  ‘No William, darling,’ interposed Mrs Brown again quickly, ‘I think you’d find a lionskin too hot for a crowded room.’

  ‘But I wun’t go into the room,’ said William, ‘I want to crawl about the garden in it roarin’ an’ springin’ out at folks – scarin’ ’em.’

  ‘And you just said you wanted to go to make people happy,’ said Robert sternly.

  ‘Well, that’d make ’em happy,’ said William unabashed. ‘It’d be fun for ’em.’

  ‘Not a lion, darling,’ said his mother firmly.

  ‘Well a brigand then,’ suggested William, ‘a brigand with knives all over me.’

  Mrs Brown shuddered.

  ‘No, William . . . I believe Aunt Emma has a fancy dress suit of Little Lord Fauntleroy that Cousin Jimmie once wore. I expect she’d lend it, but I’m not sure whether it wouldn’t be too small.’

  Wild shouts greeted this suggestion.

  ‘Well,’ William said offended, ‘I don’ know who he was but I don’ know why you should think of me bein’ him so funny.’

  The Little Lord Fauntleroy suit proved too small, much to the relief of William’s family, but another cousin was found to have a Page’s costume which just fitted William. It certainly did not suit him. As Mrs Brown put it, ‘I don’t know quite what’s wrong with the costume but somehow it looks so much more attractive off than on.’

  Robert was to go as Henry V and Ethel as Night.

  William, to his delight, found that all the members of his immediate circle of friends (known to themselves as the Outlaws) had been invited to the fancy dress dance. All had wished to go as animals or brigands or pirates, but family opposition and the offer of the loan of costumes from other branches of their families had been too strong in every case. Ginger was to be an Ace of Clubs, Henry a Gondolier (‘dunno what it is,’ remarked Henry despondently, ‘but you bet it’s nothing exciting or they wouldn’t have let me be it’). Douglas was to be a Goat Herd (‘It’s an ole Little Boy Blue set-out,’ he explained mournfully, ‘but I said I wouldn’t go if they didn’t call it something else. Not but what everyone’ll know,’ he ended gloomily).

  ‘An’ we could’ve been brigands s’easy, s’easy,’ said Ginger indignantly. ‘Why, you only want a shirt an’ a pair of trousers an’ a coloured handkerchief round your head an’ a scarf thing round your waist with a few knives an’ choppers an’ things on it . . . No trouble at all for them, an’ they jus’ won’t let us – jus’ cause we want to.’

  There was a short silence. Then William spoke. ‘Well, let’s,’ he said. ‘Let’s get Brigands’ things an’ change into ’em when we’ve got there. They’ll never know. They’ll never notice. We’ll hide ’em in the old summer house by the lake an’ go an’ change there, an’ – an’ we won’t wear their rotten ole Boy Blues an’ Gondowhatevritis. We’ll be Brigands.’

  ‘We’ll be Brigands,’ agreed the Outlaws joyfully.

  The Botts were having a large house party for the occasion.

  ‘Lord Merton is going to be there,’ said Mrs Brown to her husband, looking up from her usual occupation of darning socks, as he entered the room. ‘Just fancy! He’s in the Cabinet! Mr Bott’s got to know his son in business and he’s coming down for it and going to stay the night.’

  ‘That fellow!’ snorted Mr Brown. ‘He ought to be shot.’ Mr Brown’s political views were always very decided and very violent. ‘He’s ruining the country.’

  ‘Is he dear?’ said Mrs Brown in her usual placid voice. ‘But I’m sure he’ll look awfully nice as a Toreador. She says he’s going as a Toreador.’

  ‘Toreador!’ snorted Mr Brown. ‘Very appropriate too. He is a Toreador! – and we’re the – bull. I tell you that man’s policy is bringing the country to rack and ruin. When you’re dying of starvation you can think of the fellow toreadoring – Toreador indeed! I wonder decent people have him in their houses. Toreador indeed! I tell you he’s bleeding the country to death. He ought to be hung for murder. That man’s policy, I tell you, is wicked – criminal. Leave him alone and in ten years time he’ll have wiped out half the population of England by slow starvation. He’s killin
g trade. He’s ruining the country.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ murmured Mrs Brown, ‘I’m sure you’re right . . . I think these blue socks of yours are almost done, don’t you?’

  ‘Ruining it!’ snorted Mr Brown, going out of the room and slamming the door.

  William looked up from the table where he was engaged theoretically in doing his homework. Practically he was engaged in sticking pins into the lid of his pencil case.

  ‘Why’s he not in prison if he’s like that?’ said William.

  ‘Who, darling?’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Your father?’

  ‘No, the man he was talking about. And what’s a Toreador?’

  ‘Oh . . . a man who fights bulls.’

  William’s spirits rose.

  ‘Will there be bulls there?’

  ‘I hope not, dear.’

  ‘Shall I go as a bull? It seems silly to have a Tor— what you said, without a bull. I could easy get a bullskin. I ’spect the butcher’d give me one.’

  Mrs Brown shuddered.

  ‘No, dear, most certainly not. Now do get on with your homework.’

  William, having fixed all his pins except one into the lid, now took the last pin and began to twang them with it. They made different noises according as they were twanged near the head or near the point. Mrs Brown looked up, then bent her head again over her darning . . . What funny things they taught children nowadays, she thought.

  The day of the dance drew nearer. Robert was still feeling sore at the prospect of William’s presence. He relieved his feelings by jeering at William’s costume. William himself, as it happened, was not quite happy about the costume. It was a long stretch from the animal skin and Brigand’s apparel of his fancy to this pale blue sateen of reality. When he heard a visitor, to whom Mrs Brown showed it, say that it was ‘picturesque’ his distrust of it grew deeper.

  Robert was never tired of alluding to it. ‘Won’t William look sweet?’ he would say, and ‘Don’t frown like that, William. That won’t go with the little Prince Charming costume at all.’

  William accepted these taunts with outward indifference, but no one insulted William with impunity. Robert might have taken warning from past experiences . . .