William the Good Read online

  There was quite a large gathering at Mrs Hawkins’. There was Mrs Hawkins and her daughter Betty. There was the Committee of the Dramatic Society. There were Dolly Morton, brought by Mrs Morton, and Blanche Jones, brought by Mrs Jones. They were first of all given tea by Mrs Hawkins in the morning-room. ‘And then we’ll have our little reading,’ she added.

  She accepted William’s presence with resignation and without enthusiasm.

  ‘Of course, dear,’ she said to Ethel, ‘I quite understand. I know they’re trying, especially when they’ve been ill. Yes, it’s a joy to have him. You’ll be very quiet, won’t you, my little man, because this is a very serious occasion. Very serious indeed.’

  Ethel sat down next to Betty Hawkins, and a great depression stole over her. She knew perfectly well that she could not be chosen as Rosalind in competition with Dolly Morton or Blanche Jones, or indeed with anyone at all.

  She was feeling muzzier and muzzier every minute. Her eyes were watery. Her nose was red. She knew that with the best will in the world she was incapable of giving full value to the beauty of Rosalind’s lines.

  ‘I show bore birth than I am bistress of,’ she quoted softly to herself, ‘and would you yet I were berrier?’

  No, it was quite hopeless. Moreover, Mrs Morton and Mrs Jones were both very wealthy, and fairly recent additions to the neighbourhood, and she had a suspicion that Mrs Hawkins was trying to ingratiate herself with them. Yet she felt that she simply couldn’t go on living if she didn’t get the part of Rosalind. Mrs Hawkins handed her a cup of tea. William had wandered away. He had gone over to the bay window where Mrs Morton sat alone. Mrs Morton was inclined to be superior and wasn’t quite sure whether or no she were compromising herself in any way by allowing herself to be drawn into Mrs Hawkins’ circle. So she sat as far aloof from it as she could. Of course, she wanted Dolly to be chosen as Rosalind. On the other hand, it was never wise to be too friendly with people till you knew exactly where they stood.

  William sat down on the window-seat next to her, watching Ethel morosely. Everyone must know that she’d been drinking. Her nose was as red as anything now.

  Suddenly, Mrs Morton said to him, ‘Your sister doesn’t look very well.’

  ‘Oh, she’s all right,’ said William absently. ‘I mean, she’s all right in one way. She’s not ill or anything.’ Then he added casually: ‘It’s only that she drinks.’

  ‘W-what?’ said Mrs Morton, putting her cup down hastily upon an occasional table, because she felt too unnerved to hold it any longer.

  ‘She drinks,’ said William more clearly and with a certain irritation at having to repeat himself. ‘Din’t you hear what I said? I said she drinks. She keeps a bottle of it in her room and locks the door an’ drinks it. It’s that what makes her look like that.’

  ‘B-but,’ gasped Mrs Morton, ‘how terrible.’

  ‘Yes,’ asserted William carelessly, ‘it’s terrible all right. She takes it up to her bedroom, in a bottle an’ locks the door and drinks it there, an’ then comes out lookin’ like that.’

  Mrs Morton’s worst fears were justified. Whatever sort of people had she let herself be drawn among? She rose, summoned her daughter with a regal gesture, and turning to Mrs Hawkins said with magnificent hauteur:

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hawkins, but I’ve just remembered a most important engagement, and I’m afraid I must go at once.’

  And she swept out, followed by the meek Dolly.

  Gradually Mrs Hawkins recovered from her paralysis.

  ‘Well,’ she gasped, ‘what simply extraordinary behaviour! I never heard – Well, I wouldn’t have her daughter now for Rosalind not for a thousand pounds.’

  William, left high and dry on his window seat, continued thoughtfully to consume cakes. Perhaps he oughtn’t to have told her that. It had seemed to upset her. Well, he wouldn’t tell anyone else, though he did rather want people to know about the noble work he was doing in reforming Ethel. What was the use of reforming anyone if people didn’t know you were doing it?

  ‘William, dear,’ said Mrs Hawkins sweetly, ‘would you like to go into the dining-room and see if you can find anything you’d like to read on the shelves there?’

  ‘OH, ETHEL’S NOT ILL OR ANYTHING!’ SAID WILLIAM. ‘IT’S ONLY THAT SHE DRINKS.’

  ‘W-WHAT?’ SAID MRS MORTON.

  William went, and conversation became general.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ said Ethel to Betty Hawkins. ‘Mother asked me to ask you to lend us a bonbon dish for the whist drive. We find we won’t have quite enough after all.’

  ‘Oh, rather. I’ll get one for you.’

  ‘Don’t bother. Tell me where to get it.’

  ‘Well, there’s one on the silver table in the drawing-room. I’ll get it and wrap it up for you.’

  ‘No, don’t bother. I can slip it into my bag. I can get out much more easily than you can.’

  Thus it was that William, returning from the dining-room to inform the company that he hadn’t been able to find anything interesting to read, was met by the sight of his sister creeping out of the morning-room where everyone was assembled and going alone into the empty drawing-room.

  William glued his eye to the crack in the door and watched her.

  She took a piece of silver from a table and slipped it into her handbag and then returned to the drawing-room, without noticing him. He stood for a minute motionless, amazed. Crumbs! Crumbs! She was like the girl in the book. She stole as well as being a secret drinker. He must do something at once. He must get the thing she’d stolen and put it back in its place again. That was what the boy in the book had done.

  He returned to the morning-room. They hadn’t begun the trial reading yet: they were all talking at once. They were discussing recent social happenings in the village. Mrs Jones, as a newcomer, was feeling slightly out of it, and Mrs Jones had a lively sense of her own importance and did not like feeling out of it. She had previously, of course, been kept in countenance by Mrs Morton, and she was still wondering what had made Mrs Morton go off like that. But there was no doubt at all that people weren’t making enough fuss of her, so she rose and said with an air of great dignity:

  ‘Mrs Hawkins, I am suffering from a headache. May I go into your drawing-room and lie down?’

  She had often found that that focused the attention of everyone upon her. It did in this instance. They all leapt to their feet solicitously, fussed about her, escorted her to the drawing-room, drew down the blinds and left her well pleased with the stir she had made.

  This, she thought, ought to assure the part of Rosalind for Blanche. They wouldn’t surely risk making her headache worse by giving the part to anyone else. Meanwhile, William was seated upon the floor between Betty Hawkins and Ethel. His whole attention was focused upon Ethel’s bag which she had carelessly deposited upon the floor. Very slowly, very furtively, inch by inch, William was drawing it towards him. At last he was able to draw it behind him. No one had seen. Betty and Ethel were talking about the play.

  ‘Do, I don’t really bind what I ab,’ Ethel was saying, untruthfully.

  Very skilfully, William took the silver dish out of the bag, slipped it into his pocket and put back the bag where it had been before. Then, murmuring something about going to look at the books again, he slipped from the room and went back to the drawing-room to replace it. He had quite forgotten Mrs Jones, but just as he was furtively replacing the dish upon the table, her stern, accusing voice came from the dark corner of the room where the couch stood.

  ‘What are you doing, boy?’

  William jumped violently.

  ‘I – I – I’m putting this back,’ he explained.

  ‘What did you take it away for?’ said Mrs Jones still more sternly. William hastened to excuse himself.

  ‘I din’ take it,’ he said. ‘Ethel took it,’ then, hastening to excuse Ethel. ‘She – she sort of can’t help taking things. I always,’ he added virtuously, ‘try’n put back the things she
’s took.’

  Mrs Jones raised herself, tall and dignified, from her couch.

  ‘Do you mean to say,’ she said, ‘that your sister stole it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said William. ‘She does steal things. We always try’n put them back when we find things she’s stole. I found this just now in her bag.’

  ‘A kleptomaniac,’ exclaimed Mrs Jones, ‘and I am expected to allow my daughter to associate with such people!’

  Quivering with indignation, she returned to the morning-room. William followed her.

  ‘Feeling better?’ said Mrs Hawkins brightly, ‘because if you are, I think we might begin the reading.’

  ‘I find,’ said Mrs Jones icily, ‘that I cannot, after all, stay for the reading. I must be getting home at once. Come, Blanche!’

  When she’d gone, Mrs Hawkins looked about her in helpless amazement.

  ‘Isn’t it extraordinary?’ she said. ‘I simply can’t understand it. It’s an absolute mystery to me what’s come over them. Now, have I said a single thing that could have annoyed them?’

  They assured her that she hadn’t.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s just as well to have no dealings with people as unaccountable as that, so, Ethel dear, you’d better take Rosalind after all.’

  ‘Thag you so buch,’ said Ethel gratefully.

  ‘You’ve got a little cold, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I hab,’ admitted Ethel, ‘perhaps I’d better go hobe dow. Bother asked me to ask you kidly to led her a bodbod dish and Betty kidly let me hab this frob the drawing-roob.’

  She opened her bag.

  ‘It’s god,’ she gasped.

  William was looking very inscrutable, but his mind was working hard. There was more in this, he decided, than had met his eye.

  Betty had gone into the drawing-room and now returned with the bonbon dish.

  ‘You never took it,’ she said.

  ‘But I did,’ persisted Ethel. ‘I dow I did. It’s host bysterious.’

  ‘You’d better get home to bed, my dear,’ said Mrs Hawkins.

  ‘Yes. I’m awfully glad I’b goig to be Rosalid. Cub od, Williab.’

  William did not speak till they’d reached the road. Then he said slowly:

  ‘She’d lent you that silver thing Ethel?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ethel shortly.

  ‘An – an’ you’ve – you’ve got a bad cold?’ he continued.

  Ethel did not consider this worth an answer, so they walked on in silence.

  ‘Well, dear?’ said Mrs Brown when they reached home.

  ‘I’b goig to be Rosalid,’ said Ethel, ‘but I’ve got a bit of co’d, so I think I’ll go to bed.’ In her relief at having been chosen as Rosalind, she became expansive and confidential. ‘I knew I’d god a co’d this borning, an’ I sneaked up that boddle of co’d cure ad drank sobe id my bedroob, but it didn’t do any good.’

  William blinked.

  ‘Was it – was it the cold cure stuff you were drinkin’ in your room, Ethel?’

  ‘You’d better go to bed, too, William,’ said his mother. ‘The doctor said that you were to go to bed early this week.’

  ‘All right,’ said William with unexpected meakness. ‘I don’t mind going to bed.’

  Still looking very thoughtful, William went to bed.

  ‘Was he all right at Mrs Hawkins?’ said his mother anxiously to Ethel.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Ethel, ‘he was quite good.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ said Mrs Brown, relieved, ‘because you know he sometimes does such extraordinary things when he goes out.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Ethel, preparing to follow William up to bed, ‘he was quite all right.’ She was silent for a minute, as she remembered the abrupt departures of Mrs Morton and Mrs Jones, and the mysterious disappearance of the bonbon dish from her bag.

  ‘Sobe rather fuddy things did happed,’ she said, ‘but Williab couldn’t possibly have beed respodsible for any of theb.’

  CHAPTER 2

  WILLIAM – THE GREAT ACTOR

  IT was announced in the village that the Literary Society was going to give a play on Christmas Eve. It was a tradition that a play should be given in the village every Christmas Eve. It did not much matter who gave it or what it was about or what it was in aid of, but the village had begun to expect a play of some sort on Christmas Eve. William’s sister Ethel and her friends had at first decided to do scenes from As You Like It, but this had fallen through partly because Ethel had succumbed to influenza as soon as the cast was arranged, and partly because of other complications too involved to enter into.

  So the Literary Society had stepped into the breach, and had announced that it was going to act a play in aid of its Cinematograph Fund. The Literary Society was trying to collect enough money to buy a cinematograph. Cinematographs, the President said, were so educational. But that was not the only reason. Membership of the Literary Society had lately begun to fall alarmingly, chiefly because, as everyone freely admitted, the meetings were so dull. They had heard Miss Greene-Joanes read her paper on ‘The Influence of Browning’ five times, and they had had the Debate on ‘That the Romantic School has contributed more to Literature than the Classical School’ three times, and they’d had a Sale of Work and a Treasure Hunt and a picnic and there didn’t seem to be anything else to do in the literary line. Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce, the Secretary, said that it wasn’t her fault. She’d written to ask Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett, E. Einstein, M. Coué and H. G. Wells to come down to address them and it wasn’t her fault that they hadn’t answered. She’d enclosed a stamped addressed envelope in each case. More than once they’d tried reading Shakespeare aloud, but it only seemed to send the members to sleep and then they woke up cross.

  But the suggestion of the cinematograph had put fresh life into the Society. There had been nearly six new members (the sixth hadn’t quite made up her mind) since the idea was first mooted. The more earnest ones had dreams of watching improving films, such as those depicting Sunrise on the Alps or the Life of a Kidney Bean from the cradle to the grave, while the less earnest ones considered that such films as the Three Musketeers and Monsieur Beaucaire were quite sufficiently improving. So far they had had a little Bring and Buy Sale in aid of it, and had raised five and elevenpence three farthings, but as Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce had said that was not nearly enough because they wanted a really good one.

  The play was the suggestion of one of the new members, a Miss Gwladwyn. ‘That ought,’ she said optimistically, ‘to bring us in another pound or two.’

  The tradition of the Christmas Eve plays in the village included a silver collection at the door, but did not include tickets. It was rightly felt that if the village had to pay for its tickets, it would not come at all. The silver collection at the door, too, was not as lucrative as one would think because the village had no compunction at all about walking past the plate as if it did not see it even if it was held out right under its nose. It was felt generally that ‘a pound or two’ was a rather too hopeful estimate. But still a pound, as Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce so unanswerably pointed out, was a pound, and anyway it would be good for the Literary Society to get up a play. It would, she said, with her incurable optimism, ‘draw them together.’ As a matter of fact, experience had frequently proved the acting of a play to have precisely the opposite effect. . . . They held a meeting to discuss the nature of the play. There was an uneasy feeling that they ought to do one of Shakespeare’s or Sheridan’s, or, as Miss Formester put it, vaguely, ‘something of Shelley’s or Keats’,’ but the more modest ones thought that though literary, they were not quite as literary as that, and the less modest ones, as represented by Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce, said quite boldly and openly that though those authors had doubtless suited their own generations, things had progressed since then. She added that she’d once tried to read She Stoops to Conquer, and hadn’t been able to see what people saw in it.

  ‘Of course,’ admitted Miss Georgine Hemmersle
y, ‘the men characters will be the difficulty.’ (The membership of the Literary Society was entirely feminine.) ‘I have often thought that perhaps it would be a good thing to try to interest the men of the neighbourhood in our little society.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Featherstone doubtfully, thinking of those pleasant little meetings of the Literary Society, which were devoted to strong tea, iced cakes, and interchanges of local scandal. ‘I don’t know. Look at it how you will as soon as you begin to have men in a thing, it complicates it at once. I’ve often noticed it. There’s something restless about men. And they aren’t literary. It’s no good pretending they are.’

  The Society sighed and agreed.

  ‘Of course it has its disavantages at a time like this,’ went on Miss Featherstone, ‘not having any men, I mean, because, of course, it means that we can’t act any modern plays. It means we have to fall back on plays of historical times. I mean wigs and things.’

  ‘I know,’ said Miss Gwladwyn demurely, ‘a perfectly sweet little historical play.’

  ‘What period is it, dear?’ said Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce.

  ‘It’s the costume period,’ said Miss Gwladwyn simply. ‘You know. Wigs and ruffles and swords. Tudor. Or is it Elizabethan? It’s about the Civil War, anyway, and it’s really awfully sweet.’

  ‘What’s the plot of it?’ said the Literary Society with interest.

  ‘Well,’ said Miss Gwladwyn, ‘the heroine’ (a certain modest bashfulness in Miss Gwladwyn’s mien at this moment showed clearly that she expected to be the heroine), ‘the heroine is engaged to a Roundhead, but she isn’t really in love with him. At least she thinks she is, but she isn’t. And a wounded Cavalier comes to her house to take refuge in a terrible storm, and she takes him in meaning to hand him over to her fiancé, you know. Her father’s a Roundhead, of course, you see. And then she falls in love with him, with the Cavalier, I mean, and hides him, and then the fiancé finds him and she tells him that she doesn’t love him, but she loves the other. That’s an awfully sweet scene. There’s a snow-storm. I’ve forgotten exactly how the snow-storm comes in, but I know that there is one, and it’s awfully effective. You do it with tiny bits of paper dropped from above. It makes an awfully sweet scene. There are heaps of characters too,’ she went on eagerly, ‘we could all have quite good parts. There’s a comic aunt and a comic uncle and awfully sweet parts for my – I mean her parents and quite a lot of servants with really good parts. There’d be parts and to spare for everyone. Some of us could even take two. It’s an awfully sweet thing altogether.’