Still William Read online

  But all was changed at the house. There was no dancing. The band was mute. In the middle of the ballroom was a little heap of clothes, a Page’s costume, an Ace of Club’s costume, a Gondolier’s costume, and a Goat Herd’s costume, and over it stood four distraught mothers. Mrs Brown was almost hysterical. The guests stood in wondering groups around.

  ‘The clothes have been found near the lake,’ sobbed Mrs Brown.

  ‘There’s no trace of them anywhere,’ sobbed Ginger’s mother.

  ‘The grounds have been searched.’

  ‘They’re nowhere in the house.’

  ‘They must have taken off their clothes to swim.’

  ‘And they’re drowned.’

  ‘Drowned.’

  ‘Now don’t take on,’ said Mrs Bott soothingly to the distraught mothers, ‘don’t take on so, dearies. Botty’ll have the lake dragged at once. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  The mothers went down to the lake followed by the whole assembly. The Brigands, feeling that the situation had got far beyond their control, followed cautiously in the rear keeping well in the shadow of the bushes.

  It was bright moonlight. All the guests stood round the lake gazing with mournful anticipation at its calm surface. The mothers clung to each other sobbing.

  ‘He was always such a good boy,’ sobbed Mrs Brown. ‘And he looked so sweet in his little blue suit.’

  Henry V, with one arm round Spring, was leaning over the lake and vaguely fishing in it with a garden rake that he had picked up near by. ‘You didn’t know him, of course,’ he said to Spring, ‘but he was such a dear little chap and so fond of me.’

  Then the Toreadors arrived, torn and battered and cobwebby and grimy. ‘Where are they?’ they panted as they ran. ‘We’ve been insulted. We’ve been outraged. We ’ve been shamefully treated. We demand those boys. We – ah!’

  They caught sight of four Brigands cowering behind the bushes, and sprang at them.

  The Brigands fled from them towards the lake. Henry V and Spring blocked William’s way. He pushed them to one side, and both fell with a splash into the lake.

  Then the guests and Fate closed round the Brigands.

  In the scene of retribution that followed Robert showed himself unsympathetic, even glorying in William’s afflictions . . . For a whole week after the fancy dress dance Robert repeatedly proclaimed that William had spoilt his life again.

  ‘She’ll never look at me now, of course,’ he said bitterly to his mother. ‘How could she look at the brother of the boy who nearly drowned her? And the only girl I’ve ever met who really understood me. And her mother says she’s had a cold in her head ever since.’

  ‘What was her name? Glory something, wasn’t it, dear?’

  ‘No, Mother,’ impatiently. ‘That’s a girl I knew ever so long ago, and who never really understood me. This one—’ William entered and Robert stopped abruptly.

  ‘How do you like those new socks I made for you, dear?’ said his mother to William. ‘Are they all right?’

  William felt that his hour had come. He’d had a rotten time but he was going to do just a little scoring on his own.

  ‘Yes,’ said William slowly, ‘and just to think that this time last week I didn’t know them. They’ve given an entirely new meaning to my life. I shall give up all my life trying to be more worthy of them. I’ve not got them on now because I don’t want them profaned by people who don’ know or care about them—’ Then William gave a little groan and flopped into a chair in a fainting position.

  ‘William,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘what ever’s the matter with you?’

  But Robert had gone a deep purple and was creeping quickly from the room.

  William watched him, smoothing back his unsmoothable hair.

  ‘Oh, Glor!’ he ejaculated softly.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE CAT AND THE MOUSE

  William’s signal failure as a student of science was not due to any lack of interest. It was due to excess of zeal rather than to lack of zeal. William liked to experiment. He liked to experiment with his experiments. He liked to put in one or two extra things and see what happened. He liked to heat things when he was not told to heat them just to see what happened. And strange things happened. On several occasions William was deprived of his eyebrows and front hair. William in this condition felt proud of himself. He felt that everyone who saw him must imagine him to be the hero of some desperate adventure. He cultivated a stern frown with his hairless eyebrows. Old Stinks the Science Master rather liked William. He kept him in for hours in the lab after school washing up innumerable test tubes and cleaning the benches as atonement for his unauthorised experiments; but he would generally stay there himself, as well, smoking by the fire and drawing from William his views on life in general. On more than one occasion he gravely accepted from William the peace offering of a liquorice stick. In spite of William’s really well-meant efforts, Old Stinks generally had to rewash all the test tubes and other implements when William had gone. Occasionally he invited William to tea and sat fascinated at the sight of the vast amount of nourishment that William’s frame seemed able to assimilate. In return William lent him his original stories and plays to read (for William rather fancied himself as an author and had burnt much midnight candle over ‘The Hand of Deth’ and ‘The Tru Story of an Indian Brave’). It is not too much to say that ‘Stinks’ enjoyed these far more than he did many works of better known authors.

  But this term Old Stinks, having foolishly contracted Scarlet Fever on the last day of the holidays, was absent and his place was taken by Mr Evelyn Courtnay, an elegant young man with spats, very sleek hair and a microscopic moustache. From the moment he first saw him William felt that Mr Evelyn Courtnay was the sort of man who would dislike him intensely. His fears were not ill-founded. Mr Courtnay disliked William’s voice and William’s clothes and William’s appearance. He disliked everything about William. It is only fair to add that this dislike was heartily reciprocated by William. William, however, was quite willing to lie low. It was Mr Courtnay who opened the campaign. He set William a hundred lines for overbalancing on his stool in an attempt to regain a piece of his litmus paper that had been taken with felonious intent by his vis-à-vis. When William expostulated he increased it to three hundred. When William, turning back to his desk and encountering a whiff of hydrochloric acid gas of his neighbour’s manufacture, sneezed, he increased it to four hundred. Then came a strange time for William. William had previously escaped scot-free for most of his crimes. Now to his amazement and indignation he found himself in the unfamiliar position of a scapegoat. Any disturbance in William’s part of the room was visited on William and quite occasionally William was not guilty of it. Mr Evelyn Courtnay, having taken a dislike to William, gratified his dislike to the full. Most people considered that this was very good for William, but it was a view that was not shared by William himself. He wrote lines in most of his spare time and made a thorough and systematic study of Mr Courtnay. Silently he studied his habits and his mode of life and his character. He did this because he had a vague idea that Fate might some day deliver his enemy into his hand.

  William rarely trusted Fate in vain . . . He gleaned much of his knowledge of the ways of Mr Courtnay from Eliza, Mr Courtnay’s maid, who occasionally spent the evening with Ellen, the Brown’s housemaid.

  ‘ ’Is aunt’s comin’ to dine wif ’im tomorrer night,’ said Eliza one evening.

  William, who was whittling sticks in the back garden near the open kitchen door, put his penknife in his pocket, scowled and began to listen.

  ‘Yes, it’s goin’ to be a set out an’ no mistake,’ went on Eliza. ‘From what I makes out ’e’s expectin’ of money from ’er an’ – oh my! the fuss – such a set out of a dinner an’ all! I can’t abide a young man what fusses to the hex-tent ’e does. An’ ’e sez the larst time she ’ad dinner wif ’im she seed a mouse an’ screamed the place down an’ went orf in an ’uff so there’s got to be mouset
raps down in the dining-room all night before she comes as well as all the hother fuss.’

  ‘Well, I never!’ said Ellen.

  William took out his penknife and moved away in search of fresh sticks to whittle.

  But he moved away thoughtfully.

  The next morning William had a science lesson. He was still thoughtful. Mr Evelyn Courtnay was jocular and facetious. In the course of a few jocular remarks to the front row he said: ‘The feline species is as abhorrent to me as it was to the great Napoleon. Contact with it destroys my nerve entirely.’

  ‘What’s he mean?’ whispered William to his neighbour.

  ‘He means he don’t like cats,’ said William’s neighbour.

  ‘Well, why don’t he say so then?’ said William scornfully.

  Someone near William dropped a test tube. Mr Courtnay turned his languid eye upon William.

  ‘A hundred lines, Brown,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘It wasn’t me what did it, sir,’ said William indignantly.

  ‘Two hundred,’ said Mr Courtnay.

  ‘Well!’ gasped William in outraged innocence.

  ‘Four hundred,’ said Mr Courtnay.

  William was too infuriated to reply. He angrily mixed two liquids from the nearest bottles and heated them over his bunsen burner to relieve his feelings. There was a loud report. William blinked and wiped something warm off his face. His hand was bleeding from the broken glass.

  Mr Courtnay watched from a distance.

  ‘Six hundred,’ he said as William took a bit of test tube from his hair, ‘and to be done before Saturday, please.’

  ‘Don’t do ’em,’ said Ginger as he walked homeward with William.

  ‘Yes,’ said William bitterly, ‘an’ that means go to the Head an’ you know what that means.’

  ‘Well, Douglas ’n Henry ’n me’ll all help,’ said Ginger.

  William’s countenance softened, then became sphinx-like.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of a better plan than that but thanks all the same.’

  William walked slowly down the road. One hand was in his pocket. The other held a covered basket. He approached, with a stern frown and many cautious glances around him, the house of Mr Evelyn Courtnay. He entered the back gate warily. His entry did not suggest the welcome guest or even anyone who had the right of entry. There was something distinctly furtive about it. He made his way round to the house by the wall behind the bushes. He peeped in at the dining-room window. The perspiring Eliza was engaged in putting the last touches to the dining-table. He peeped into the drawing-room window. There sat Mr Evelyn Courtnay in the most elegant of elegant dress suits, engaged in the process of charming his aunt, Miss Felicia Courtnay. Miss Felicia Courtnay was elderly and grim and not very susceptible to charm, but her nephew was doing his best. Through the open window William could hear plainly.

  ‘Oh yes, I get on splendidly, Aunt. I’m so fond of children – devoted to them. In some ways, of course, teaching is a waste of my talents, but on the whole—’

  It was here that William drew his hand from his pocket and noiselessly deposited something on the floor through the open window. The something scuttled along the floor by the skirting board. William withdrew into the shadow. Suddenly a piercing scream came from within.

  ‘It’s a mouse, Evelyn. Help! Help! HELP!’

  More screams followed.

  William peeped in at the window and enjoyed the diverting spectacle of Miss Felicia Courtnay standing on a chair holding up her skirts and screaming, and of Mr Evelyn Courtnay on his knees with the poker in one hand, trying to reach the mouse who had taken refuge beneath a very low sofa. It was at that moment that William took Terence from the basket and deposited him upon the floor. Now Terence, William’s cat, though he disliked William intensely, was of a sociable disposition. He found himself in a strange room with a fire upon the hearth. He liked fires. He did not like the basket in which he had just made his journey with William. He did not wish to go in the basket again. He wished to stay in the room. He decided that the best policy was to make up to the occupants of the room in the hopes that they would allow him to sit on the hearthrug in front of the fire. He approached the only occupant he could see. Terence may have known that there was a mouse in the room or he may not. He was not interested. He was a lover of comfort only. He was no mouser.

  Mr Evelyn Courtnay, who was now lying at full length on the floor trying to look beneath the low sofa, felt suddenly something soft and warm and furry and purring rub itself hard against his face. He sprang up with a yell and leapt upon the grand piano.

  ‘The brute!’ he screamed. ‘The brute! It touched me.’

  The episode seemed to have driven him into a state closely bordering on lunacy.

  William’s cat purred ingratiatingly at the foot of the grand piano.

  ‘CATCH THE MOUSE,’ SCREAMED MISS FELICIA. ‘GET DOWN AND CATCH THAT MOUSE.

  ‘Catch the mouse!’ screamed Miss Felicia Courtnay. ‘Get down and catch the mouse!’

  ‘I can’t while that brute’s in the room,’ screamed Mr Evelyn Courtnay from the grand piano. ‘I can’t – I tell you. I can’t bear ’em. It touched me!’

  MR EVELYN COURTNAY SPRANG UP WITH A YELL AND LEAPT UPON THE GRAND PIANO. ‘THE BRUTE TOUCHED ME!’ HE SHOUTED.

  ‘You coward! I’m going to faint in a minute.’

  ‘So am I, I tell you. I can’t get down. It’s looking at me.’

  ‘I shall never forget this – never! You brute – you – you – tyrant—’

  ‘I shan’t either. Go away, you nasty beast, go away!’

  At that moment two things happened. The mouse put its little whiskered head out of its retreat to reconnoitre and Terence, determined to make friends with this new and strange acquaintance, leapt upon the grand piano on to the very top of Mr Evelyn Courtnay. Two screams rent the air – one a fine soprano, one a fine tenor.

  ‘I can see it. Oh, this will kill me!’

  ‘Get down, you brute. Get down!’

  At this critical moment William entered like a deus ex machina. He swooped down upon the mouse before it realised what was happening, caught it by its tail and dropped it through the open window. Then he picked up Terence and did the same with him. Miss Felicia Courtnay, tearful and trembling, descended from her chair and literally fell upon William’s neck.

  ‘Oh you brave boy!’ she sobbed. ‘You brave boy! What should I have done without you?’

  ‘I happened to see you through the window trying to catch the mouse,’ said William, looking at her with an inscrutable expression and wide innocent eyes, ‘an’ I di’n’ want to disturb you by comin’ in myself so I just put the cat in an’ when I saw that wasn’t no good I jus’ come in myself.’

  Mr Evelyn Courtnay had descended hastily from his grand piano and was smoothing his hair with both hands and glaring at William.

  ‘Thank the dear little boy, Evelyn,’ said Miss Felicia giving her nephew a cold glance. ‘I don’t know what I should have done without his protection. He practically saved my life.’

  Mr Evelyn Courtnay glared still more ferociously at William and muttered threateningly.

  ‘A little child rushing in where grown men fear to tread,’ misquoted Miss Felicia sententiously, still beaming fondly at William. ‘He must certainly stay to dinner after that.’

  Mr Evelyn Courtnay, to his fury, had to provide William with a large meal to which William did full justice, munching in silence except when Miss Felicia’s remarks demanded an answer. Miss Felicia ignored her nephew and talked with fond and grateful affection to William only. It was William who volunteered the information that her nephew taught him science.

  ‘I hope he’s kind to you,’ said Miss Felicia.

  William gave her a pathetic glance like one who wishes to avoid a dark and painful subject.

  ‘I – I expect he means to be,’ he said sadly.

  William departed immediately after dinner. He seldom risked an anticlimax
. He possessed the artistic instinct. Mr Evelyn Courtnay accompanied him to the door.

  ‘No need to talk of this, my boy,’ said Mr Courtnay with elaborate nonchalance.

  William made no answer.

  ‘And no need to do those lines,’ said Mr Courtnay.

  ‘Thank you,’ said William. ‘Good night.’

  He walked briskly down the road. He’d enjoyed the evening. Its only draw back was that he could never tell anyone about it. For William, with all his faults, was a sportsman.

  But he’d scored! He’d scored! He’d scored!

  And Old Stinks was coming back next week!

  Unable to restrain his feelings, William turned head over heels in the road.

  CHAPTER 13

  WILLIAM AND UNCLE GEORGE

  It was William who bought the horn-rimmed spectacles. He bought them for sixpence from a boy who had bought them for a shilling from a boy to whose dead aunt’s cousin’s grandfather they had belonged.

  William was intensely proud of them. He wore them in school all the morning. They made everything look vague and blurred, but he bore that inconvenience gladly for the sake of the prestige they lent him.

  Ginger borrowed them for the afternoon and got all his sums wrong because he could not see the figures, but that was a trifling matter compared with the joy of wearing horn-rimmed spectacles. Douglas bagged them for the next day and Henry for the day after that. William had many humble requests for the loan of them from other boys which he coldly refused. The horn-rimmed spectacles were to be the badge of superiority of the Outlaws.

  On the third day one of the masters who discovered that the horn-rimmed spectacles were the common property of William and his boon companions and were, optically speaking, unnecessary, forbade their future appearance in school. The Outlaws then wore them in turn on the way to school and between lessons.

  ‘My father,’ said Douglas proudly, as he and William and Ginger strolled through the village together, ‘ ’s got a pair of spectacles an’s gotter wear ’em always.’