William the Good Read online

  They were as impressed as even William could wish them to be.

  ‘What play?’ demanded Ginger.

  ‘One the Lit’ry Society’s gettin’ up,’ said William airily.

  ‘What’s it called?’ said Douglas.

  William did not know what it was called, so he said with an air of careless importance:

  ‘That’s a secret. I’ve not got to tell anyone that.’

  ‘Well, what are you actin’ in it?’ said Henry.

  William’s swagger increased.

  ‘I’m the most important person in it,’ he said. ‘They jolly well couldn’t do it at all without me.’

  ‘You the hero?’ said Ginger incredulously.

  ‘Um,’ admitted William. ‘That’s what I am.’

  After all, he thought, surely in a play where you were continually hearing and talking about the wind, the wind might be referred to as the hero. Anyway, he soothed his conscience by telling it that as he was the only man in the piece, he must be the hero.

  ‘They’re all women,’ he continued carefully, ‘so of course they had to get a man in from somewhere to be the hero.’

  The Outlaws were not quite convinced, and yet there was something about William’s swagger. . . .

  ‘Well,’ said Ginger, ‘I s’pose if you’re the hero you’ll be havin’ rehearsals with ’em?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William. ‘Course I will!’

  ‘All right,’ challenged Ginger. ‘Tell us where you’re havin’ the nex’ one an’ we’ll see.’

  ‘At Mrs Bruce’s nex’ Tuesday afternoon at three,’ said William promptly.

  ‘All right,’ said the Outlaws, ‘an’ we’ll jolly well see.’

  So next Tuesday at three o’clock they jolly well saw. Hidden in the bushes in Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce’s (let us call her by her full name. She hated to hear it as she said ‘murdered’) garden they saw the cast of A Trial of Love arrive one by one at the front door. And with them arrived William – the only male character – swaggering self-consciously but quite obviously as an invited guest up Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce’s front drive. He was fully aware of the presence of his friends in the bushes, though he appeared not to notice them. His swagger as he walked in at the front door is indescribable.

  The Outlaws crept away silent and deeply impressed. It was true. William must be the hero of the play. They were torn between envy of their leader and pride in him. Though all of them would have liked to be the hero of a play, still they could shine in William’s reflected glory. Their walk as they went away from Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce’s front gate reflected something of William’s swagger. William was a hero in a play. Well, people’d have to treat them all a bit diff’rent after that.

  The rehearsal was on the whole a great success. William, afraid that his friends might be listening at the window and not wishing them to guess the comparative insignificance of his role, reduced his whistle to a mere breath. Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce said encouragingly: ‘Just a leetle louder. William,’ but Miss Greene-Jones said hastily: ‘Well, perhaps it would be as well to keep it like that for rehearsals, dear, and to bring it out just a leetle bit louder on the night.’

  So William, still afraid that the Outlaws were crouched intently outside the window, kept it like that.

  It was decided at the end that William need not attend all the rehearsals. The cast found his stare demoralising, and his habit of transferring his piece of chewing-gum (he’d had it for three weeks now) from his mouth to his pocket and from his pocket to his mouth disconcerting. Also he would at intervals take a nut from another pocket and crack it with much noise and facial contortion. He always made a very ostentatious show of collecting all the shells and putting them into yet another pocket, but Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce’s horrified gaze watched a little heap of broken nutshells steadily growing upon her precious carpet by William’s feet. William himself fondly imagined that he was behaving in an exemplary way. He had even offered each of them one of his nuts and had been secretly much relieved at their refusal. They could not, he thought, expect him to offer them a chew of his chewing-gum. . . . But he was supremely bored and was not sorry when informed that it would be best for them to rehearse the play without wind and thunder till they were a little more accustomed to it.

  He was not summoned to another rehearsal for a fortnight. The play was, as Miss Georgina Hemmersley said, ‘taking shape beautifully.’ Miss Georgina Hemmersley as a Cavalier looked quite dashing, despite her forty-odd years, and Miss Featherstone as the Roundhead looked also very fine, though she too had passed her first youth. It was, however, as she said, only fair that those who had been in the society longest should have the best parts. . . . Miss Gwladwyn, they all agreed, made a sweetly pretty heroine.

  William arrived with all his paraphernalia of coconuts and squibs and tin tray, and, he considered, put up the best show of all of them. True, the rest of the cast seemed a little irritable. They kept saying: ‘Quietly, William.’ ‘William, not so loud.’ ‘William, we can’t hear ourselves speak.’ ‘William, stop making that deafening noise. Well, there isn’t any wind now.’ At the end Miss Greene-Joanes, who had seemed strangely excited all the time, burst out:

  ‘Now, I’ve got some news for you all. . . . William, you needn’t stay.’ William began to make elaborate and protracted preparations for his departure, but, intensely curious, lingered within earshot. ‘I didn’t tell you before we began, because I knew it would make you too excited to act. It did me. You’ll never guess who’s staying in the village.’

  ‘Who?’ chorused the cast breathlessly.

  ‘Sir Giles Hampton.’

  The cast uttered screams of excitement. The Cavalier said, ‘What for?’ and the Roundhead said, ‘Who told you?’ and the comic aunt and uncle said simultaneously, ‘Good heavens!’

  ‘He’s had a nervous breakdown,’ said Miss Greene-Joanes, ‘and he’s staying at the inn here because of the air, and he’s supposed to be incognito, but of course people recognise him. As a matter of fact, he’s telling people who he is because he’s not really keen on being incognito. Actors never are really. They feel frightfully mad if people don’t recognise them.’

  ‘What’s he like to look at?’ said the comic aunt breathlessly.

  ‘Tall and important-looking and rather handsome with very bushy eyebrows.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll come?’ said all the cast simultaneously.

  ‘I don’t know but – William, will you go home and stop dropping nutshells on the carpet.’

  There was a silence while all the cast waited impatiently for William to take his leave. With great dignity William took it. He was annoyed at his unceremonious ejection. Thinking such a lot of themselves and their old play, and where would they be, he’d like to know, without the wind and the thunder and the horses’ hooves and all the rest of it? . . . Treating the most important person in the play the way they treated him. . . .

  He walked down the road scowling morosely, absent-mindedly cracking nuts and scattering nutshells about him as he went. . . . At the end of the road he collided with a tall man with bushy eyebrows.

  ‘You should look where you’re going, my little man,’ said the stranger.

  ‘Come to that, so should you,’ remarked William, who was still feeling embittered.

  The tall man blinked.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he said majestically.

  ‘No,’ said William simply, ‘an’ I bet you don’t know who I am either.’

  ‘I am a very great actor,’ said the man.

  ‘So’m I,’ said William promptly.

  ‘So great,’ went on the man, ‘that when they want me to play a part they give me any money I choose to ask for it.’

  ‘I’m that sort, too,’ said William, thrusting his hands deep into his trouble pockets. ‘I asked for sixpence an’ they gave it me straight off. It’s goin’ to a new football.’

  ‘And do you know why I’m here, my little man?’ said the stranger.
r />   ‘No,’ said William without much interest and added, ‘I’m here because I live here.’

  ‘I’m here,’ said the man, ‘because of my nerves. Acting has exhausted my vitality and impaired my nervous system. I’m an artist, and like most other artists am highly strung. Do you know that sometimes before I go on to the stage I tremble from head to foot.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said William coolly. ‘I never feel like that when I’m actin’.’

  ‘Ah!’ smiled the man, ‘but I’m always the most important person in the plays I act in.’

  ‘S’m I,’ retorted William. ‘I’m like that. I’m the most important person in the play I’m in now.’

  ‘Would you like to see the programme of the play I’ve just been acting in in London?’ continued the actor, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket.

  William looked at it with interest. It contained a list of names in ordinary-sized print; then an ‘and’ and then ‘Giles Hampton’ in large letters.

  ‘Yes,’ said William calmly, ‘that’s the way my name’s going’ to be printed in our play.’

  ‘What play is it?’ said the man yielding at last to William’s irresistible egotism.

  ‘It’s called A Trial of Love, said William. ‘It’s for my football an’ their cinematograph.’

  ‘Ha-ha!’ said the man. ‘And may – may – ah – distinguished strangers come to it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William casually, ‘anyone can come to it. You’ve gotter pay at least. Everyone’s gotter pay.’

  ‘Well, I must certainly come,’ said the distinguished stranger. ‘I must certainly come and see you play the hero.’

  The dress rehearsal was not an unqualified success, but as Miss Featherstone said that was always a sign that the real performance would go off well. In all the most successful plays, she said, the dress rehearsal went off badly. William quite dispassionately considered them the worst-tempered set of people he’d ever come across in his life. They snapped at him if he so much as spoke. They said that his wind was far too loud, though it was in his opinion so faint and distant a breeze that it was hardly worth doing at all. They objected also to his thunder and his horses’ hooves. They said quite untruly that they were deafening. A deep disgust with the whole proceedings was growing stronger and stronger in William’s breast. He felt that it would serve them right if he washed his hands of the whole thing and refused to make any of their noises for them. The only reason why he did not do this was that he was afraid that if he did they’d find some one else to do it in his place. Moreover he was feeling worried about another matter. He was aware that he did not take in the play such an important part as he had given his friends to understand. He had given them to understand that he took the principal part and was on the stage all the time, whereas, though he quite honestly considered that he took the principal part, he wasn’t on the stage at all. Then there was that man with bushy eyebrows he’d met in the village. He’d probably come, and William had quite given him to understand that he had his name on the programme in big letters and took a principal part. . . .

  ‘Thunder, William,’ said Miss Gwladwyn irritably, interrupting his meditations. ‘Why don’t you keep awake and follow where we are!’

  William emitted a piercing whistle.

  ‘Not wind,’ she snapped. ‘Thunder.’

  William beat on his tin tray.

  Miss Greene-Joanes groaned.

  ‘That noise,’ she said, ‘goes through and through my head. I can’t bear it!’

  ‘Well, thunder is loud,’ said William coldly. ‘It’s nachrally loud. I can’t help thunder being’ nachrally loud.’

  ‘Thunder more gently, William,’ commanded Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce.

  Just to annoy them William made an almost inaudible rumble of thunder, but to his own great annoyance it didn’t annoy them at all. ‘That’s better, William,’ they said; and gloomily William returned to his meditation. He’d seen the programme and had hardly been able to believe his eyes when he saw that his name wasn’t on it at all. They hadn’t even got his name down as the wind or the thunder or the horses’ hooves or anything. . . . If it hadn’t been for that sixpence he’d certainly have chucked up the whole thing. . . .

  They’d got to the snow-storm scene now. The curtains were half drawn across and in the narrow aperture appeared Miss Gwladwyn, the heroine. It was a very complicated plot, but at this stage of it she’d been turned out of her home by her cruel Roundhead father and was wandering in search of her lost Cavalier lover.

  She said, ‘How cold it is! Heaven, wilt thou show me any pity?’ and turned her face up to the sky, and tiny snow-flakes began to fall upon her face. The tiny snow-flakes were tiny bits of paper dropped down through a tiny opening in the ceiling by her well-mannered little nephew. He did it very nicely. William did not pay much attention to it. He was beginning to consider the whole thing beneath his contempt.

  It was the evening of the performance. The performers were making frenzied preparations behind the scenes. Mr Fleuster was to draw the curtain, Miss Featherstone’s sister was to prompt, and William was to hand out programmes. Mr Fleuster has not come into this story before, but he had been trying to propose to Miss Gwladwyn for the last five years and had not yet been able to manage it. Both Miss Gwladwyn and Miss Gwladwyn’s friends had given him ample opportunities, but opportunities only seemed to make him yet more bashful. When he had not an opportunity he longed to propose, and when an opportunity of proposing came he lost his head and didn’t do it. Miss Gwladwyn had done everything a really nice woman can do; that is to say, she had done everything short of actually proposing herself. Her friends had arranged for him to draw the curtain in the hopes that it would bring matters to a head. Not that they really expected that it would. It would, of course, be a good opportunity, and as such would fill him with terror and dismay.

  Mr Fleuster, large and perspiring, stood by the curtain, pretending not to see that Miss Gwladwyn was standing quite near him and that no one else was within earshot, and that it was an excellent opportunity.

  William stood sphinx-like at the door distributing programmes. His cogitations had not been entirely profitless. He had devised means by which he hoped to vindicate his position as hero. For one thing he had laboriously printed out four special programmes which he held concealed beneath the ordinary programmes, and which were to be distributed to Ginger, Douglas, Henry, and the actor, if the actor should come. He had copied down the dramatis personæ from the ordinary programme, but at the end he had put an ‘and’ and then in gigantic letters:

  Wind

  Shots

  William Brown.

  Rain

  And All

  Thunder

  Other Noises

  Horses’ Hooves

  Seeing Ginger coming he hastily got one of his homemade programmes out and assuming his blankest expression handed it to him.

  ‘Good ole William,’ murmured Ginger as he took it.

  Then Henry came, and Henry also was given one.

  ‘Why aren’t you changin’ into your things?’ said Henry.

  ‘I don’t ackshully come on to the stage,’ admitted William. ‘I’m the most important person in the play as you’ll soon jolly well see, but I don’t ackshully come on to the stage.’

  He was glad to have got that confession off his chest.

  Then Douglas came. He handed the third of his privately printed programmes to Douglas with an air of impersonal officialism, as if he were too deeply occupied in his duties to be able to recognise his friends.

  There was only one left. That was for the actor. If the actor came. William peered anxiously down the road. The room was full. It was time to begin.

  ‘William Brown!’ an exasperated voice hissed down the room. William swelled with importance. Everyone would know now that they couldn’t begin without him. He continued to gaze anxiously down the road. There he was at last.

  ‘William Brown!’

  The actor was
almost at the door. He carried a parcel under his arm.

  ‘William Brown,’ said someone in the back row obligingly, ‘they want you.’

  ‘William – Brown!’ hissed Mrs Bruce Monkton-Bruce’s face, appearing frenzied and bodiless like the Cheshire cat between the curtains.

  The actor entered the hall. William thrust his one remaining programme into his hand.

  ‘Thought you were the hero,’ said the actor, gazing at him sardonically.

  William met his sardonic gaze unblinkingly.

  ‘So I am,’ he said promptly, ‘but the hero doesn’t always come on to the stage. Not in the newest sort of plays, anyway.’ He pointed to the large-lettered part of the programme. ‘That’s me,’ he said modestly. ‘All of it’s me.’

  With this he hastened back behind the curtain, leaving the actor reading his programme at the end of the room.

  He was received with acrimony by a nerve-racked cast.

  ‘Keeping us all waiting all this time.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear us calling?’

  ‘It’s nearly twenty-five to.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said William in a superior manner that maddened them still further. ‘You can begin now.’

  Miss Featherstone’s sister took her prompt-book, Mr Fleuster seized the curtain-strings, the cast entered the stage, William took his seat behind, and the play began.

  Now William’s plans for making himself the central figure of the play did not stop with the programmes. He considered that the noises he had been allowed to make at the rehearsals had been pitifully inadequate, and he intended tonight to produce a storm more worthy of his powers. Who ever heard of the wind howling in a storm the way they’d made him howl all these weeks? He knew what the wind howling in a storm sounded like and he’d jolly well make it sound like that. There was his cue. Someone was saying, ‘Hark how the storm rages. Canst hear the wind?’

  At the ensuing sound the prompter dropped her book and the heroine lost her balance and brought down the property mantelpiece on to the top of her. William had put a finger into each corner of his mouth in order to aid nature in the rendering of the storm. The sound was even more piercing than he had expected it to be. That, thought William, complacently noticing the havoc it played with both audience and cast, was something like a wind. That would show ’em whether he was the hero of the play or not. With admirable presence of mind the cast pulled itself together and continued. William’s next cue was the thunder.