William's Happy Days Page 3

  ‘Me old Dad’s penknife! Glory be! Me old Dad’s penknife!’

  The ’bus was waiting at the top of the hill. William leapt upon it just as it started off, not turning to look behind him till he was safe in its shelter. No one was in sight. The proprietor of the shop had evidently given up the chase. William glanced about him. It was the same conductor as on his former journey. His face had brightened as William entered.

  ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘I never thought they’d let you come back.’

  ‘Why not?’ said William.

  ‘There’s a circus down at Hadley with performing monkeys. I thought they’d have kept you for that.’

  William replied breathlessly but with spirit:

  ‘Oh no. They said they weren’t doin’ much business. The people in Hadley’d seen you so often that the performin’ monkeys seemed quite or’din’ry.’

  With such conversation they zestfully beguiled the journey till they reached William’s stopping place. There the conductor made playful feints of kicking him off the ’bus, to which William responded by a whirlwind display of fists. The conductor watched his disappearing figure wistfully as the ’bus went on its journey. The only other passengers were a septuagenarian clergyman, and a tall angular woman who had already reproved him for giving her a dirty sixpence among her change. William walked on jauntily homewards. He’d had a jolly exciting afternoon, and he’d learnt how to make whistles. He took from his pocket the whistle that he’d made, and raising it to his lips drew a piercing blast. His heart swelled with pride. It was every bit as good as the one the old man had made. He’d got that too somewhere in another pocket. He put in his hand for it. His hand encountered a mysterious envelope with something hard inside. It was pinned. William unpinned it, took it out and opened it. Money. He stood gazing at it with an expression of mystification. Money. What on earth—And then suddenly he’d remembered. Hallett’s. The fish. The errand he’d gone into Hadley for. He hadn’t once thought of it since the moment he’d boarded the ’bus to go into Hadley. The shilling. He’d been going to have a shilling for it. A shilling to buy Christmas presents for his family. It was too late to go back to Hadley now. And he hadn’t any money to go back with even if it weren’t. He’d spent the money his mother had given him for his ’bus fare, and if he used the money she’d given him for the fish he couldn’t buy the fish. It was rotten. He wouldn’t get that shilling and everyone would be mad about it. They’d go on and on and on at him. Expecting a person to remember everything like that. How could a person remember everything? All the excitement of the afternoon had faded. He remembered the whistles, but the thrill had faded even from the whistles. He couldn’t give all his family whistles for Christmas presents. He wouldn’t even have time for teaching his glorious new craft to the other Outlaws. He’d have to spend all his time between now and Christmas performing menial tasks for his family in order to earn enough money to buy Christmas presents for them. William suspected (not for the first time) that Christmas was an overrated festival.

  He walked slowly and apprehensively up the garden path, steeling himself to meet his mother’s reproaches. He even searched round for possible excuses but found none. The idea of pretending to have acted from humanitarian principles because he thought it wrong to kill fishes occurred to him, but was dismissed as untenable in view of the fact that he spent the larger part of his holidays angling for fish in the village stream with a bent pin on the end of a string.

  He entered the house slowly with a sinking heart.

  His mother came out of the drawing-room.

  ‘Oh, William darling, I’m so sorry. I quite forgot that Hallett’s closed this afternoon,’ went on Mrs. Brown. ‘It’s so stupid of them to have a different closing afternoon from the other shops. I remembered as soon as you’d gone.’

  William tried to assume the expression of one who had gone on an errand to a shop and found it closed. ‘Did you feel very cross with me, darling?’ went on his mother.

  ‘No,’ said William sweetly. ‘No, not at all, mother.’

  ‘I felt so much annoyed with myself because I think nothing’s so annoying as a fruitless journey and I know you hate going into the town. We’re going to have omelettes instead of fish so it’s all right. I’m afraid you had a very dull afternoon.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said William with an expression of suffering patience, ‘it’s quite all right, mother.’

  ‘You’ve brought the money back?’

  He handed her the money.

  ‘You can have the shilling, of course, dear, just as if you’d done it, because it was only the accident of the shop being closed that prevented you. And another sixpence because it must have been so annoying for you.’

  William swaggered down the road, his whistle at his lips, emitting blasts with every breath. One hand was in his pocket, lovingly fingering his shilling and his sixpence. He’d go to the Penny Bazaar and buy his presents first and then that’d be over, and no one would be able to talk about ingratitude and things like that, and, if they didn’t like the presents he bought them, they could jolly well do without. They wouldn’t be able to say he hadn’t bought them any anyway. And he ought to have a good lot over because he wasn’t going to spend more than he could help on their presents. Everyone said that it was the thought that mattered not the actual value of the present so he’d jolly well take them at their word. Then he’d meet the other Outlaws and teach them how to make whistles. Life seemed to stretch before him—one long glorious opportunity for whistle making.

  He gathered breath and blew a piercing blast—a pæan of exultation and triumph and joy of life.

  CHAPTER 2

  WILLIAM AND THE SCHOOL REPORT

  It was the last day of term. The school had broken up, and William was making his slow and thoughtful way homeward. A casual observer would have thought that William alone among the leaping, hurrying crowd was a true student, that William alone regretted the four weeks of enforced idleness that lay before him. He walked draggingly and as if reluctantly, his brow heavily furrowed, his eyes fixed on the ground. But it was not the thought of the four weeks of holiday that was worrying William. It was a suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that he wasn’t going to have the four weeks of holiday.

  The whole trouble had begun with William’s headmaster—a man who was in William’s eyes a blend of Nero and Judge Jeffreys and the Spanish Inquisitioners, but who was in reality a harmless inoffensive man, anxious to do his duty to the youth entrusted to his care. William’s father had happened to meet him in the train going up to town, and had asked him how William was getting on. The headmaster had replied truthfully and sadly that William didn’t seem to be getting on at all. He hadn’t, he said, the true scholar’s zest for knowledge, his writing was atrocious and he didn’t seem able to spell the simplest word or do the simplest sum. Then, brightening, he suggested that William should have coaching during the holidays. Mr. Parkinson, one of the Junior form masters who lived near the school, would be at home for the four weeks, and had offered to coach backward boys. An hour a day. It would do William, said the headmaster enthusiastically, all the good in the world. Give him, as it were, an entirely new start. Nothing like individual coaching. Nothing at all. William’s father was impressed. He saw four peaceful weeks during which William, daily occupied with his hour of coaching and its complement of homework, would lack both time and spirit to spread around him that devastation that usually marked the weeks of the holiday. He thanked the headmaster profusely, and said that he would let him know definitely later on.

  William, on being confronted with the suggestion, was at first speechless with horror. When he found speech it was in the nature of a passionate appeal to all the powers of justice and fair dealing.

  ‘In the holidays,’ he exclaimed wildly. ‘There’s lors against it. I’m sure there’s lors against it. I’ve never heard of anyone having lessons in the holidays. Not anyone! I bet even slaves didn’t have lessons in the holidays. I
bet if they knew about it in Parliament, there’d be an inquest about it. Besides I shall only get ill with overworkin’ an’ get brain fever same as they do in books, an’ then you’ll have to pay doctors’ bills an’ p’raps,’ darkly, ‘you’ll have to pay for my funeral too. I don’t see how anyone could go on workin’ like that for months an’ months without ever stoppin’ once an’ not get brain fever and die of it. Anyone’d think you wanted me to die. An’ if I did die I shun’t be surprised if the judge did something to you about it.’

  His father, unmoved by this dark hint, replied, coolly, ‘I’m quite willing to risk it.’

  ‘An’ I don’t like Mr. Parkinson,’ went on William gloomily, ‘he’s always cross.’

  ‘Perhaps I can arrange it with one of the others,’ said Mr. Brown.

  ‘I don’t like any of them,’ said William, still more gloomily, ‘they’re all always cross.’

  He contemplated his wrongs in silence for a few minutes, then burst out again passionately:

  ‘’T’isn’t as if you weren’t makin’ me pay for that window. It’s not fair payin’ for it an’ havin’ lessons in the holidays.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the window,’ explained Mr. Brown wearily.

  ‘I bet it is,’ said William darkly. ‘What else is it if it’s not for the window? I’ve not done anythin’ else lately.’

  ‘It’s because your work at school fails to reach a high scholastic standard,’ said Mr. Brown in a tone of ironical politeness.

  ‘How d’you know?’ said William after a moment’s thought. ‘How d’you know it does? You’ve not seen my report. We don’t get ’em till the last day.’

  ‘Your headmaster told me so.’

  ‘Ole Markie?’ said William. ‘Well,’ indignantly, ‘I like that. I like that. He doesn’t teach me at all. He doesn’t teach me anythin’ at all. I bet he was jus’ makin’ it up for somethin’ to say you. He’d got to say somethin’ an’ he couldn’t think of anythin’ else to say. I bet he tells everyone he meets that their son isn’t doing well at school jus’ for somethin’ to say. I bet he’s got a sort of habit of saying it to everyone he meets an’ does it without thinkin’.’

  ‘All right,’ said William’s father firmly, ‘I’ll make no arrangements till I’ve seen your report. If it’s a better one than it usually is, of course, you needn’t have coaching.’

  William felt relieved. There were four weeks before the end of the term. Anything might happen. His father might forget about it altogether. Mr. Parkinson might develop some infectious disease. It was even possible, though William did not contemplate the possibility with any confidence, that his report might be better. He carefully avoided any reference to the holidays in his father’s hearing. He watched Mr. Parkinson narrowly for any signs of incipient illness, rejoicing hilariously one morning when Mr. Parkinson appeared with what seemed at first to be a rash but turned out on closer inspection to be shaving cuts. He even made spasmodic effort to display intelligence and interest in class, but his motive in asking questions was misunderstood, and taken to be his usual one of entertaining his friends or holding up the course of the lesson, and he relapsed into his usual state of boredom, lightened by surreptitious games with Ginger. And now the last day of the term had come, and the prospect of holiday coaching loomed ominously ahead. His father had not forgotten. Only last night he had reminded William that it depended on his report whether or not he was to have lessons in the holidays. Mr. Parkinson looked almost revoltingly healthy, and in his pocket William carried the worst report he had ever had. Disregarding (in common with the whole school) the headmaster’s injunction to give the report to his parents without looking at it first, he had read it apprehensively in the cloak-room and it had justified his blackest fears. He had had wild notions of altering it. The word ‘poor’ could, he thought, easily be changed to ‘good’, but few of the remarks stopped at ‘poor’, and such additions as ‘Seems to take no interest at all in this subject’ and ‘Work consistently ill prepared’ would read rather oddly after the comment ‘good.’

  William walked slowly and draggingly. His father would demand the report, and at once make arrangements for the holiday coaching. The four weeks of the holidays stretched—an arid desert—before him.

  ‘But one hour a day can’t spoil the whole holidays, William,’ his mother had said, ‘you can surely spare one hour out of twelve to improving your mind.’

  William had retorted that for one thing his mind didn’t need improving, and anyway it was his mind and he was quite content with it as it was, and for another, one hour a day could spoil the whole holidays.

  ‘It can spoil it absolutely,’ he had protested. ‘It’ll just make every single day of it taste of school. I shan’t be able to enjoy myself any of the rest of the day after an hour of ole Parkie an’ sums an’ things. It’ll spoil every minute of it.’

  ‘Well, dear,’ Mrs. Brown had said with a sigh, ‘I’m sorry, but your father’s made up his mind.’

  William’s thoughts turned morosely to that conversation as he fingered the long envelope in his pocket. There didn’t seem to be any escape. If he destroyed the report and pretended that he had lost it, his father would only write to the school for another, and they’d probably make the next one even more damning to pay him out for giving them extra trouble. The only possibility of escape was for him to have some serious illness, and that, William realised gloomily, would be as bad as the coaching.

  To make things worse an aunt of his father’s (whom William had not seen for several years) was coming over for the day, and William considered that his family was always more difficult to deal with when there were visitors. Having reached the road in which his home was, he halted irresolute. His father was probably coming home for lunch because of the aunt. He might be at home now. The moment when the report should be demanded was, in William’s opinion, a moment to be postponed as far as possible. He needn’t go home just yet. He turned aside into a wood, and wandered on aimlessly, still sunk in gloomy meditation, dragging his toes in the leaves.

  ‘If ever I get into Parliament,’ he muttered fiercely, ‘I’ll pass a lor against reports.’

  He turned a bend in the path and came face to face with an old lady. William felt outraged by the sight of her—old ladies had no right to be in woods—and was about to pass her hurriedly when she accosted him.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve lost my way, little boy,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I was directed to take a short cut from the station to the village through the wood, and I think I must have made a mistake.’

  William looked at her in disgust. She was nearly half a mile from the path that was a short cut from the station to the village.

  ‘What part of the village d’you want to get to?’ he said curtly.

  ‘Mr. Brown’s house,’ said the old lady, ‘I’m expected there for lunch.’

  The horrible truth struck William. This was his father’s aunt, who was coming over for the day. He was about to give her hasty directions, and turn to flee from her, when he saw that she was peering at him with an expression of delighted recognition.

  ‘But it’s William,’ she said. ‘I remember you quite well. I’m your Aunt Augusta. What a good thing I happened to meet you, dear! You can take me home with you.’

  William was disconcerted for a moment. They were in reality only a very short distance from his home. A path led from the part of the wood where they were across a field to the road where the Browns’ house stood. But it was no part of William’s plan to return home at once. He’d decided to put off his return as far as possible, and he wasn’t going to upset his arrangements for the sake of anyone’s aunt, much less his father’s.

  He considered the matter in frowning silence for a minute, then said:

  ‘All right. You c’n come along with me.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear boy,’ said the old lady brightening. ‘Thank you. That will be very nice. I shall quite enjoy having a little talk with you. It’s severa
l years since I met you, but, of course, I recognised you at once.’

  William shot a suspicious glance at her, but it was evident that she intended no personal insult. She was smiling at him benignly.

  She discoursed brightly as William led her further and further into the heart of the wood and away from his home. She told him stories of her far off childhood, describing in great detail her industry and obedience and perseverance and love of study. She had evidently been a shining example to all her contemporaries.

  ‘There’s no joy like the joy of duty done, dear boy,’ she said. ‘I’m sure that you know that.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said William shortly.

  As they proceeded on into the wood, however, she grew silent and rather breathless.

  ‘Are we—nearly there, dear boy?’ she said.

  They had almost reached the end of the wood, and another few minutes would have brought them out into the main road, where a ’bus would take them to within a few yards of William’s home. William still had no intention of going home, and he felt a fierce resentment against his companion. Her chatter had prevented his giving his whole mind to the problem that confronted him. He felt sure that there was a solution if only he could think of it.

  He sat down abruptly on a fallen tree and said casually:

  ‘I’m afraid we’re lost. We must’ve took the wrong turning. This wood goes on for miles an’ miles. People’ve sometimes been lost for days.’

  ‘With—with no food?’ said Aunt Augusta faintly.

  ‘Yes, with no food.’

  ‘B-but, they must have died surely?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, ‘quite a lot of ’em were dead when they found ’em.’

  Aunt Augusta gave a little gasp of terror.