William in Trouble Read online

  After running a few minutes, William was disconcerted to find that he had reached a main road. It was the end of the wood. Doubts as to the unexplored nature of the land they had just claimed assailed him, but he dismissed them as irrelevant. The immediate business was to find a good hiding place. They could discuss the other question afterwards. There was a motor-car standing in the road, empty, unattended. It was a four-seater, but the back two seats were covered by a taut waterproof apron stretched from the back of the front seats to the back of the rear seats.

  William’s eyes gleamed. Crumbs! What a good hiding place.

  He opened the door and slipped underneath the apron. He chuckled to himself. He was sure that no one would find him there. He waited gleefully—

  Suddenly he heard voices. People were approaching the car. People were getting into the car. People were starting the car. He grew stiff with horror. He made an inarticulate sound of protest, but it was drowned by the noise of the engine. He realised suddenly that the car was now moving rapidly down the road. Very cautiously he peeped out. Two ladies, both elderly, both prim, both severe-looking, were in the front seats. They held large bunches of leaves and tiny bushes, evidently taken from the wood. One almost turned round, and at sight of her profile, William hastily decided not to reveal his presence, and dived beneath the macintosh apron again. The car sped along. There was a sinking sensation at the pit of William’s stomach. How would his gallant braves fare without him in the virgin forest, and where – where – oh, where was he going—?

  The car turned into a gate – it slid into a garage. The two ladies got down. ‘I think the leaves are just what we wanted,’ said one.

  ‘Beautiful,’ said the other, ‘they will fulfil the purpose most admirably.’

  They went out of the garage, still talking. William waited till the voices had died away in the distance, then very, very cautiously he climbed out of his hiding place. He was in a large garage. He realised with a sinking of the heart that he was not, to put it at its mildest, a reassuring object. The virgin forest had left its marks upon him, it had clutched at his collar and coat and hair with its thorn bushes. It had besmeared his face and clothes and knees and boots impartially with its bogs—

  He crept out of the garage. It was a large garden and a large house. No, it didn’t look quite like an ordinary house. Its windows were uncurtained. Within sat many girls of all sizes, with bobbed hair or plaits. Surprised and interested, he crept nearer.

  A small woman wearing glasses stepped out of a French window and called him. ‘Here, boy!’ she said imperiously.

  William was uncertain whether to obey or whether to turn and flee. But a small girl with a dimpled face and dark curly hair looked out of the window and smiled at him, and William obeyed.

  He entered a class-room with a dais at one end. A large number of girls sat about the room at easels. The lady with spectacles took William by his ear and led him up the room.

  ‘The little model I had arranged for is unable to come, girls,’ she said, ‘so I am going to ask you to draw the gardener’s boy.’

  ‘It must be a new gardener’s boy,’ said a tall thin girl, with interest. ‘I’ve not seen him before.’

  ‘Don’t talk, Gladys,’ said the mistress reprovingly; ‘the point is not whether he is a new or old gardener’s boy. The point is that you are to draw him. Sit down, boy.’

  William, who had already picked out the dimpled dark little girl by the window, sat down quite meekly.

  A girl in the front row gave a shudder.

  ‘Isn’t he dirty?’ she said.

  ‘Never mind,’ said the mistress, ‘I want you to draw him as he is – just an ugly, dirty little boy.’

  She had apparently looked upon William as something as inanimate as a plaster cast, but the ferocious glare which he now turned on her informed her that he was not. She looked slightly disconcerted.

  ‘Er – try to look a little more pleasant, boy,’ she said faintly.

  ‘I do hate having to draw ugly things,’ said the girl in the front row with another shudder.

  A look of apoplectic fury overspread William’s face. He opened his mouth for an indignant rejoinder. But before it emerged the little girl at the window with the dimples and dark curls said, ‘I don’t think he’s ugly.’

  William’s expression of fury turned into a sheepish smirk.

  ‘Don’t talk about him, children,’ said the lady. ‘Draw him.’

  They worked in silence. William looked about him. The frowning critical appraising glare of sixteen girls did not embarrass him at all. Only when he caught the eye of the little girl with the dimples did a dark blush over-spread his earth-bedecked countenance.

  ‘I think I’ve got his ugliness all right,’ said a short, snub-nosed girl earnestly, ‘but I can’t quite get his cross look.’

  ‘Let me look, dear,’ said the mistress.

  She took the sketch and examined it, standing accidentally in William’s line of vision. William craned his neck and looked with interest at his portrait. Then his interest changed again to that intensity of fury that William’s countenance could so ably convey. Certainly the sketch suggested a gorilla rather than a human being.

  ‘Y-yes,’ said the mistress doubtfully, ‘you’ve caught a certain likeness—’

  William opened his mouth again indignantly, when the girl by the window said suddenly, ‘I don’t think he looks cross.’

  William closed his mouth and his ferocity softened once more into a sheepish grin.

  ‘He keeps looking diff’rent,’ complained a girl in the back row.

  ‘Stay the same, boy,’ ordered the mistress imperiously.

  At that minute a bell rang and there was a stampede of girls out of the doorway.

  ‘Gently, girls,’ said the mistress, preparing to follow them. ‘Boy, stay and straighten up the room and put the easels away.’

  William stayed behind, and to his joy discovered that the little girl with the dimples and dark curls was staying behind too. She remained at her easel gazing out of the window. William began to move easels about without any definite plan of campaign.

  ‘I’m not the gardener’s boy,’ he said to the little girl.

  She did not answer.

  ‘I’m an explorer.’

  She made no comment.

  ‘I’ve explored places where no white man ever set his feet before.’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Runnin’ terrible risks from starvation an’ wild animals.’

  Still no answer.

  William picked up a sketch of himself from the floor, looked at it, blinked and swallowed, then screwed it into a vicious ball and flung it into the waste-paper basket.

  ‘I’VE EXPLORED PLACES WHERE NO WHITE MAN EVER SET HIS FEET BEFORE,’ SAID WILLIAM

  ‘I once had all my teeth out without gas,’ he went on, with deliberate untruthfulness, but with a vague desire to restore his self-respect.

  Still no answer.

  ‘I’m here disguised on a secret mission,’ he went on darkly.

  Suddenly the little girl put down her head on her arms and began to cry.

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ said William greatly distressed. ‘What’s the matter? Have you got toothache?’

  ‘No – o!’

  ‘Has anyone been unkind to you?’

  ‘No – o – o – o!’

  ‘Tell me if they have,’ he went on threateningly. ‘I’ll kill ’em for you. I don’ mind how many people I kill. I’ve been where no white man ever—’

  ‘I’m homesick,’ wailed the little girl. ‘I want to go ho-o-o-o-ome.’

  ‘Well – well, you go home then,’ counselled William encouragingly, almost tenderly, ‘you go home. I’ll – I’ll take you home.’

  ‘I c-c-can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She dried her eyes.

  ‘Well, I’m in a play we’re doing this afternoon, and if I don’t turn up for it they’ll know something’s happened, and th
ey’ll c-c-catch me before I get to the station, and bring me b-b-b-back!’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ said William. ‘I-I’ll help you. I tell you, no one’ll ever dare stop me. I’ve been where no white man ever set his feet ’n I’ve had my leg cut off without gas an—’

  ‘Yes,’ said the little girl quite unimpressed, ‘but don’t you see I can’t go at once ’cause I’ve not had dinner yet, an’ I’m hungry, an’ if I ran away after dinner they’ll find out at once and c-c-c-catch me.’

  She burst into sobs again.

  ‘No, don’t,’ said William desperately. ‘Don’t cry. It’s all right. I’ll take care of you. I – I say,’ the light of inspiration shone suddenly in his face, ‘I’ll take your part in the play an’ then they’ll never know you’ve gone an’ you’ll get home all right.’

  She stopped crying and gazed at him, then the hope died from her face and she burst into a wail.

  ‘B-b-but you don’t look like a fa-a-a-airy,’ she sobbed.

  ‘I could make myself look like one,’ said William grimly. ‘I bet I could—Look – look at me now.’

  He gazed into the distance, his features composed into a simper that suggested to an impartial observer a mixture of coyness and imbecility.

  ‘Oh, no-o-o-o!’ she wailed. ‘It doesn’t—Oh, don’t!’

  Disappointed, William dismissed the expression which had been meant to represent the faëry for which in his heart he had such a profound contempt.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if it looks wrong, can’t I cover my face or somethin’?’

  Her tears ceased. Her eyes shone. She clasped her hands.

  ‘Oh, I forgot!’ she said, ‘there’s a veil. They won’t see your face. Oh, you are a nice boy. Will you really do it? Listen, I’ll tell you just what to do. I’m Fairy Daffodil – I’ll get you the clothes in a second. There’s a cap of daffodil petals, and a veil that comes down from them over your face, so that’s all right. And you have to hide behind the green bank at the side of the stage behind a lot of green stuff and leaves. Miss Pink and Miss Grace went into the woods in the car this morning, to get the green stuff and leaves. You go there early, about two, and then when the others come they’ll be so busy getting ready that they won’t bother you. I’ll leave you a book, and you can pretend to be reading, and when it begins you wait there till someone calls, “Fairy Daffodil,” and then you come out and bow and say, “Here am I – speak, Queen.” And when that bit’s over you just sit down on the stool by the side of the queen’s throne and you don’t speak again. It’s quite easy. Oh, it is kind of you, dear boy.’

  William’s freckled countenance flamed again.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothin’,’ he said modestly. ‘It’s nothin’ to what I’d do for you, an’ it’s nothin’ to what I’ve done. Why, I’ve been where no white man’s ever set his feet before. This is nothin’ to that. An’ if they catch you and bring you back,’ he gave a short sinister laugh, ‘well, they’d better look out, that’s all.’

  She gazed at him with bright eyes. ‘Oh, it is kind of you. I – I’d go now, at once, but I’m so hungry and – it’s treacle-tart today.’

  The guests swarmed into the school hall. In the middle of the second row sat William’s father and mother, Mr and Mrs Brown. The room was tastefully decorated with leaves and bracken.

  ‘I like to come to all these affairs, don’t you?’ said the lady next to Mrs Brown. ‘I really didn’t want to have a big girls’ school so near the village, but now it’s come it’s best to be sociable, and I must say they’re always very good about sending out invitations to all their little affairs.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Brown vaguely, ‘and it all looks very nice.’

  The curtain rose and the two ladies continued their conversation in a whisper.

  ‘Very pretty,’ said Mrs Brown.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ said the other. ‘Oh, it’s quite a nice change to come to a thing of this sort once in a way—’

  ‘Well, I must say,’ admitted Mrs Brown, ‘I like to get right away from home sometimes, because, really, at home I’m on pins the whole time, not knowing whatever William’s going to do next. At a place like this I feel safe. It’s nice to be anywhere where I know that William can’t suddenly rise up before my eyes doing something awful.’

  ‘Fairy Daffodil!’ called the fairy herald on the stage.

  A figure arose from behind a leafy barrier, took an ungraceful step forward, tripped over the leafy barrier and crashed to earth – leafy barrier and all. The yellow headgear rolled off on to the floor revealing a tousled head over a stern earth-streaked freckled face.

  ‘What’s your boy like?’ said Mrs Brown’s neighbour, who was not looking at the stage. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.’

  But Mrs Brown’s smile had faded. Her face had become a mask of horror. Her mouth had dropped open. Her neighbour followed her eyes to the stage. The strange apparition was in no wise disconcerted by the contretemps with the leafy barrier. It did not even trouble to recover its headgear. It stood in the middle of the stage and said loudly and ferociously: ‘Here I am—’

  There was a dead silence. Fairy Bluebell, who stood near, inspired by a gallant British determination to carry on in spite of all disasters, prompted, ‘Speak—’

  William looked at her haughtily. ‘I’ve just spoke,’ he said.

  ‘Speak, Queen,’ hissed Bluebell desperately.

  ‘It’s not my turn,’ hissed the Queen back.

  Bluebell stamped.

  ‘Say, “Speak, Queen,”’ she said to William.

  ‘Oh,’ said William, ‘I’m sorry. I forgot that bit. I forgot there was something else. Speak, Queen. That’s all, anyway, isn’t it? Where’s the stool?’

  He looked round, then calmly sat down on the stool, sublimely unaware of actors and audience completely paralysed around him.

  Slowly, very slowly, the power of speech returned to Mrs Brown. Her horror-stricken eyes left the stage. She clasped her husband’s arm. ‘John,’ she said hysterically, ‘it – it – it’s William.’ Mr Brown, too, had gazed open-mouthed at this wholly unexpected apparition of his son. Then he recovered himself.

  ‘Er – nonsense, my dear,’ he said firmly. ‘Never seen the boy before. Do you hear? We’ve never seen the boy before.’

  ‘B-b-b-but we have, John,’ she said. ‘It’s William!’

  ‘Who’s William?’ said Mr Brown wildly. ‘There isn’t any William. Temporarily, I’ve disowned him. I’ve disowned him till we meet again under the shelter of our own roof. I don’t know how he got here or what he’s going to do, and I don’t care. He’s nothing to do with me. I’ve disowned him. I tell you – I’ve disowned him.’

  ‘Oh, John,’ wailed Mrs Brown. ‘Isn’t it awful!’

  ‘WHAT’S YOUR BOY LIKE?’ SAID MRS BROWN’S NEIGHBOUR. ‘I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER SEEN HIM.’

  Everyone agreed afterwards that somebody ought to have done something at once. But the headmistress was out of the room supervising the tea arrangements, and the mistress who was attending to the curtain was shortsighted and deaf, and was thinking of something else at the time and didn’t realise that anything was the matter, and the mistress who was prompting said that for all she knew it was some fresh arrangement made behind her back, and if it had been, it wouldn’t have been the first time it had happened, so how was she to know? Anyway, the play dragged on. But no one took any further interest in the play. The whole interest of the audience was concentrated on the curious apparition inadequately clothed in yellow butter muslin, who had taken its seat at the foot of the throne.

  WILLIAM LOOKED AT FAIRY BLUEBELL HAUGHTILY. ‘IT’S NOT MY TURN,’ HE HISSED. ‘I’VE JUST SPOKE.’

  The apparition itself seemed unaware that it was attracting any attention. It sat down and gazed around it, stern, bored, contemptuous – then a light as at some happy memory came into its face. It pulled up the butter muslin to its waist, revealing muddy boots, muddy legs and muddy trousers, plunged
its hand into its pocket and brought out a nut, which it proceeded to crack with much facial contortion and bared teeth.

  At this point the headmistress entered by the door at the back of the hall. Her face wore a proud smile. Her eyes wandered slowly to the stage. The proud smile dropped from her face. A look of startled horror succeeded it. The Fairy Daffodil had cracked the nut and was proceeding with every appearance of concentration and satisfaction to extract the edible part of it.

  With the air of one dashing to a heroic rescue, the headmistress plunged up the hall and drew the curtain.

  ‘Er – who is that boy?’ said Mr Brown brazenly to a mistress who stood near.

  It was the art mistress.

  ‘He’s our gardener’s boy,’ said the art mistress helplessly, ‘but I don’t know what he’s doing on the stage.’

  ‘You see, dear,’ said Mr Brown to his wife, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘he’s the gardener’s boy.’

  ‘But he isn’t!’ wailed Mrs Brown, ‘he’s William. You know he’s William.’

  The headmistress, purple with rage, plunged behind the curtain and made a grab at the Fairy Daffodil.

  ‘What is the meaning of this, you wicked boy!’ she said.

  The Fairy Daffodil abandoned his half-eaten nut, dodged what he rightly suspected to be an avenging hand and fled.

  ‘Catch him!’ panted the headmistress, ‘catch that boy.’

  The entire cast followed by the entire staff dashed after William and pursued him in a body. Gathering up his impeding yellow robe, William fled like an arrow from a bow – out of a door at the back of the hall, across the garden towards the front gate. He would probably have outrun his pursuers had he not collided with a little girl and a tall man who were just entering the gate. The three of them rolled on the ground together. Then they sat up and looked at each other. The tall man, who had received the full impact of William’s bullet head in his middle regions, caressed those regions with his hands and moaned softly. But the little girl gave a cry of joy and said:

  ‘Oh, it’s the nice boy, Daddy.’ Then to William: ‘I met Daddy on the way to the station, boy. I didn’t know he was coming and I feel quite happy now. He’s given me a lovely tip, and I’ve remembered that I’m playing in the netball match next week and I’d hate to miss that.’