William Read online

  William walked away thoughtfully, nibbling his cookie boy’s head. At the corner of the road he met Mrs Hemmings. She was smiling and blushing girlishly. Her companion was a tall man who walked bareheaded, displaying a glorious crop of flaxen curls. Mrs Hemmings smiled at William and he responded with marked coldness.

  ‘Who’s the brat?’ he heard the flaxen-haired man say as he passed.

  For the next few days William was too busy to have much time or thought to spare for Mrs Hemmings’ love affairs. William was a boy of many interests. He had almost forgotten the distress Mrs Roundway had shown on their last meeting when next he wandered down the lane past the little house. But it was a face even less cheerful than before that tried to give him its usual smile through the window.

  Instead of coming down to him to the gate, she just opened the cottage door and beckoned him. He came slowly up and she held out the cookie boy.

  ‘Here’s your cookie boy, love,’ she said.

  William took it absently, and slipped it into his pocket. Then, ‘Is anything the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s only – it’s only Maggie and Bert,’ she said gloomily. ‘I can’t keep it off any longer. It’s comin’ an’ it’s comin’ today.’

  ‘What?’ said William.

  ‘Her takin’ him. What I’ve gone through this last week I couldn’t tell you. She’s flattered with him tellin’ her that he’s loved her all his life an’ stuff like that. He always had a way with women – him and his yellow curls. It’s no use. I’ve done my best all this week but I can’t stop it. There isn’t a woman born as can resist yellow curls. The way I’ve worked this last week – but I’ve got to the end.’

  ‘How have you worked?’ said William with interest.

  ‘Goin’ about with ’em,’ she said simply. ‘Never lettin’ ’em have a minute alone. Sittin’ with ’em. Goin’ for walks with ’em. Fair wore me out, but it were worth it to me if I could stop him askin’ her. If he’d got her alone one second all this week he’d have asked her. She’s sure to see him as he is in time an’ if I can only hold it off till she’s seen him as he is. But today the end comes. Though I don’t know why I’m tellin’ all this to a child, I’m sure.’

  ‘Me?’ said William indignantly. ‘I’m not a child. Why does the end come today?’

  She heaved a deep sigh.

  ‘They’re goin’ for a picnic today. On the river. They’re walkin’ down to the boathouse at Marleigh, an’ they’re goin’ on the river. It’s no use. I can’t do it. I’m not what you’d call a natural walker an’ never have been. This last week’s wore me out. I’d do it till I dropped, mind you, but it’s the rheumatics. They’ve come on me sudden. I couldn’t walk a yard if I was to die for it.’

  William was silent for a minute. One of his few friends in the adult world and one who had never failed him was in trouble. William had only the vaguest appreciation of the cause of the trouble, but her voice and expression told him that it was to her a very real trouble. It was not William’s custom to leave his friends in the lurch . . . He stared in front of him, his freckled face drawn into a thoughtful frown. At last he said:

  ‘D’you think – I s’pose – d’you think he’d do it with me there?’

  Mrs Roundway looked at William. There was nothing romantic about William, nothing remotely suggestive of Cupid in William’s appearance. There was even something about William’s expression that would have chilled sentiment at its very fount.

  ‘No, love,’ she said simply, ‘I’m sure that no one would propose to anyone with you about.’

  William’s mind sped over the day in front of him. He had meant to spend it in the woods as a Red Indian, but it was a small enough sacrifice in return for years of cookie boys.

  ‘S’pose I go with them, then,’ he said, ‘stick to them all the time but as if I’d just come to help carry things. I bet I’d stick to them all right. I’m good at sticking to people whether they want me or not.’

  Her face brightened.

  ‘Oh, could you?’ she said, ‘would you? I’m afraid it would be a very dull day for you.’

  William was afraid so, too, but he said cheerfully:

  ‘I don’t mind,’ and added thoughtfully, ‘it might turn out fun in a sort of way, too.’

  ‘He’s very cunning,’ said Mrs Roundway, ‘very cunning indeed. He’ll try to get rid of you, but – it’ll be all right if you stick to him. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you, love.’

  Maggie came downstairs, smiling and blushing.

  ‘This little boy’s kindly going with you,’ said her sister, ‘to help carry things. There’s rather a lot to carry, you know. You’ll find him very useful.’

  Maggie looked for a moment as if she wasn’t sure that she would, but she was a simple, good-natured soul, so she smiled at William and said:

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s very kind of you.’

  And at that moment Bert appeared, bareheaded as usual, his flaxen curls gleaming in the sun.

  William’s presence was explained to him and there was no doubt at all about his attitude to it. He scowled at William and muttered:

  ‘We don’t want no one to carry things. I bet there’s nothin’ I can’t manage. An’ a lot of use he looks as if he’d be.’

  But Mrs Roundway had diplomatically tied up the provisions in numerous and rather unwieldy parcels, and Bert, after trying unsuccessfully to accommodate them all under his arm, gave up the attempt and presented William with a generous share of them. He would not allow Maggie to carry anything.

  ‘No,’ he said, fixing languishing blue eyes upon her, ‘Never. You oughter be waited on hand and foot same as a queen. If I had my way you’d never do a hand’s turn.’

  Then he met William’s blank stare and ended irritably:

  ‘Come on you, kid. Look sharp an’ mind you don’t drop anything.’

  William’s stare became if possible blanker, but those who knew him would have decided to tread warily. Bert, however, did not know him.

  The three of them set off together down the road. Bert meant to walk next his beloved. He tried to walk next his beloved. But whenever he thought he’d managed it, the walking mass of parcels that was William was always miraculously between them. Bert finally decided to accept the inevitable and walked without further machinations on the other side of William. The sun still glinted on his flaxen curls as he walked and he cast languishing eyes at Maggie.

  ‘Do you remember, Maggie,’ he said, ‘the picnics we useter go when we were young before you broke my heart by marrying Pete?’

  She blushed and lowered her eyes.

  ‘I remember goin’ a few picnics,’ she said. ‘I remember the parish outin’ down at Little Marvel.’

  ‘Yes. Pete was there. I remember watchin’ him and you talkin’. I di’n’t like him, Maggie. I must be honest, I di’n’t like him. I di’n’t think him good enough for you. No one could be that, of course. I remember I watched him and I watched George, too.’

  ‘I heard of a man once,’ said William suddenly, ‘that had seven fingers on each hand.’

  Bert threw him a murderous glance, but Maggie, as William had already discovered, was a simple soul with that consuming curiosity about the abnormal that is one of the marks of an essentially normal mind. She turned to William with sudden interest.

  ‘Countin’ thumbs or without thumbs?’

  ‘Without thumbs,’ said William.

  Maggie spread out her hands in naïve wonder.

  ‘Fancy!’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t think there’d be room for ’em on a person’s hand, would you?’

  ‘And I remember lookin’ at you that afternoon,’ went on Bert languishingly, ‘an’ thinkin’—’

  ‘I s’pose he’d have specially large hands, would he?’ said Maggie to William.

  ‘An’ thinkin’—’ said Bert, raising his voice.

  ‘Yes, he had ’normous hands,’ said William.

  ‘That’d be eight with thumbs, wou
ldn’t it?’ said Maggie, and ‘Eight on a hand! Fancy.’

  ‘An’ thinkin’,’ said Bert, ‘shall I tell you what I was thinkin’, Maggie?’

  ‘Yes, Bert,’ said Maggie absently, and then to William:

  ‘I s’pose he could hold things wonderfully an’ play the piano an’ such-like.’

  ‘Yes,’ said William unblushingly, ‘and he could play two concertinas at once.’

  ‘Lor!’ said Maggie and remained in rapt and silent contemplation of the mental picture his words evoked.

  ‘Maggie,’ said Bert, raising his voice, ‘I’ll tell you what I was thinkin’. I was thinkin’ that I’d never seen in all my life a prettier picture than what you made sittin’ there.’

  Maggie at last transferred her attention to him.

  ‘Oh, Bert!’ she said, blushing and bridling, ‘was you really?’

  ‘Yes, an’—’

  ‘His hands were so strong,’ interrupted William, ‘that he could walk on them same as on his feet. Once he strained his ankle and he walked on his hands for a fortnight till it got well. People got quite used to seeing him going about like that. When it rained he used to carry his umbrella in his teeth.’

  But either he had overstepped the bounds of credibility in his inventions or Maggie was tiring of the eight-fingered man. She merely said ‘Lor!’ halfheartedly, and returned to Bert.

  ‘Was you reelly, Bert?’ she said again with a sigh, ‘an’ I’d no idea.’

  ‘It was Pete held me off; I thought you was sweet on him.’

  ‘I wasn’t then,’ said Maggie, ‘though I took him later. But I remember that picnic an’ me watching you an’ Sadie. There was cold chicken an’ I couldn’t eat any of it. It seemed to choke me.’

  A determined voice came from the walking pyramid of tea paraphernalia.

  ‘I once heard of a man what ate five chickens one after the other straight off for dinner.’

  ‘What!’ said Maggie. ‘Five!’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, ‘five. He ate them straight off one after the other for dinner.’

  ‘All the time I was talkin’ to Sadie,’ said Bert in a tone that was languishing but determined, ‘all the time I was talkin’ to Sadie, I was thinkin’—’

  ‘Legs an’ all?’ said Maggie to William with deep interest, ‘legs an’ all – or jus’ the breast and wings?’

  ‘I was thinkin’—’ put in Bert, raising his voice.

  ‘Legs an’ all,’ said William. ‘Every bit. Left the bones clean as if they’d been scrubbed.’

  ‘Lor!’ gasped Maggie. ‘Five! It hardly seems possible, do it?’

  ‘I was lookin’ at you,’ said Bert, ‘an’ I was thinkin’—’

  ‘I should think he died after it, didn’t he?’ said Maggie. ‘I guess I’d die if I ate five. Five! Lor!’

  ‘He di’n’t die,’ said William, ‘but he was very ill. He’d got to have five operations before he was well again. And when he got well he di’n’t eat anythin’ for a month.’

  ‘Lor!’ gasped Maggie.

  ‘I remember sayin’ to myself as I walked home that night—’ began Bert pathetically.

  ‘I should think that he never wanted to eat chicken again, did he?’

  ‘I remember thinkin’—’

  ‘No. And all the rest of his life,’ said William in a slow, impressive voice, ‘he fainted whenever he saw a chicken.’

  ‘I walked back home that night thinkin’ about you and sayin’ to myself—’

  ‘Must’ve been awkward faintin’ whenever he sor a chicken. I s’pose live ones didn’t worry him. I s’pose it was jus’ cooked ones.’

  ‘Sayin’ to myself,’ said Bert, giving William a look that would have killed anyone else but that slid harmlessly off an aluminium tea kettle, ‘what a fool I’d been not to try ’n’ cut out Pete and—’

  ‘No, it was live ones, too,’ said William; ‘it was all sorts.’

  ‘But you see live ones all over the country. He couldn’t’ve fainted whenever he saw a live one.’

  ‘He did,’ said William very firmly; ‘that’s just what he did. If he went for a country walk he’d be fainting all the time.’

  ‘Lor!’ gasped Maggie, and after a few minutes’ silence again: ‘Lor! ’

  ‘Let’s have tea here,’ said Bert shortly.

  They had reached a picturesque part of the riverside, where trees overhung a grassy bank. Bert ordered William about rather curtly in the preparation of the tea, but when everything was ready he relaxed and turned his languishing smile again upon Maggie.

  ‘Yes, Maggie,’ he said, ‘I’ve had a very unhappy life. I’ve never met anyone but you what understood me. Never. All these years I’ve dreamed of you as a – a sort of – dream. You know what I mean. D’you remember us goin’ a walk once an’ seein’ the sun gleamin’ on the church steeple? An’ that’s what you’ve always been to me – somethin’ high an’ bright – like that church steeple what we saw – somethin’—’

  William hastily swallowed half a bun and said:

  ‘I once heard of a man—’

  Bert groaned, but William repeated firmly:

  ‘I once heard of a man who climbed up a church steeple when he was a boy an’ couldn’t get down an’ had to stay there till he was old.’

  Maggie’s simpering expression vanished like something being wiped off a slate and an expression of amazed interest took its place.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘B-b-but why di’n’t no one fetch him down?’

  ‘Somethin’ high an’ bright,’ repeated Bert doggedly, ‘somethin’ that I’ve always dreamed of as a – a sort of dream.’

  ‘’Cause no one but him could climb so far,’ said William simply, ‘an’ he couldn’t get down.’

  ‘As a sort of beautiful dream,’ said Bert.

  ‘B-but,’ said Maggie, ‘how’d he get food an’ suchlike?’

  ‘They had to throw it up,’ said William. ‘There was a very good thrower in the village. He’d got prizes for throwing all over the country. He used to throw up loaves an’ stuff to this man on the top of the steeple.’

  ‘A beautiful dream,’ said Bert again.

  ‘B-but,’ said Maggie, ‘why di’n’t they fetch him off in an aeroplane?’

  William hadn’t thought of that, but he answered without a second’s hesitation:

  ‘Oh, it was a long time ago. There weren’t any aeroplanes then . . . When he grew out of his clothes the thrower used to throw him up a new suit a size larger an’ so on.’

  ‘Lor!’ said Maggie again and added compassionately: ‘What a terrible life the poor man must’ve had if he was one that didn’t like lookin’ down from a height!’

  ‘He did like lookin’ down from a height,’ said William, who did not wish to make his story too heartrending; ‘he was quite happy up there. He liked it. He could do just what he wanted, you see, an’ there was no one to boss him.’

  ‘Didn’t they never get him down?’ said Maggie.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said William, ‘they got him down in the end. He was nearly an old man when they got him down, though. They had to take the tower down to mend the church an’ of course it brought him down, too. He fell down right into the middle of the church. They’d put all the hassocks piled up together to make a nice soft place for him to fall on.’

  ‘HE FELL DOWN RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE CHURCH,’ SAID WILLIAM. ‘THEY’D PUT ALL THE HASSOCKS PILED UP TOGETHER TO MAKE A NICE, SOFT PLACE!’

  ‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ snapped Bert.

  ‘Don’t you?’ said William very politely.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ snapped Bert, then turning languishingly to Maggie again, ‘Always dreamin’ of you, I was, in those days, Maggie.’

  But Maggie refused to blush or simper in reply to this compliment. The spell was broken. The man on the steeple had broken it.

  ‘I DON’T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT,’ SNAPPED BERT, ANGRILY.

  ‘I should think he found it hard to walk after al
l that time up there,’ she said to William.

  ‘Oh, no, he di’n’t,’ said William, ‘he di’n’t find it a bit hard to walk. You see, his legs had kept strong up there with him not usin’ them. His legs were ever so strong. He could run faster’n anyone with him having saved up his legs all those years.’

  ‘Lor!’ said Maggie again.

  Bert had been fixing upon William a glance that would have made a more sensitive spirit quail. William, not being a sensitive spirit, was hardly aware of it. But suddenly the darkness of the glance lightened.

  ‘Now you’d like to go ’n’ wash the cups up, wouldn’t you?’ he said to William in quite a friendly voice. ‘The best place is jus’ down beyond that bend there. The bank slopes easy right down to the water there. You came to help, di’n’t you? You jus’ step off with the things an’ get ’em washed.’

  William, who had made quite a good tea despite the steeple-dweller’s demands upon his inventive powers, arose slowly and began to collect the remnants of the feast. He was not in the least deceived by Bert’s new manner of friendliness. He knew exactly what was in Bert’s mind. Once William was out of sight and hearing round the bend of the bank, Bert could exert all his fascination, recover his influence, and, uninterrupted by William, press his suit upon the heiress.

  ‘All right,’ said William obligingly, I’ll go ’n’ wash them. You two stay here ’n’ rest till I get back. I’ll wash the cups an’ spoons an’ teapot . . .’

  He collected the things, made as if to depart, then turned suddenly.

  ‘You mean that place jus’ round the corner by the willow-tree?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. You can get right down to the water there.’