William in Trouble Read online

  At this point the gym mistress, the vanguard of the pursuit, arrived and seized William by one ear, the art mistress arrived next and seized him by the other ear. The head girl arrived next, and, not wanting to be out of it, seized him by the scruff of his neck. The rank and file of the pursuers now arrived and seized him by any portion of his anatomy that happened to be unoccupied. Thus seized at all available points, he was marched off to the headmistress. A crowd of visitors was pouring out of the side door. Among the first came Mr and Mrs Brown. Mr Brown gave one glance at his son in this ignominious plight and plunged back to lose himself among the crowd. Mrs Brown, distraught and torn between husband and son, finally followed him.

  ‘Oh, John,’ she said wringing her hands, ‘aren’t you going to do anything?’

  ‘Not I,’ said Mr Brown. ‘I told you I’d disowned him.’

  It was an hour later. The visitors had been collected again. A concert and many recitations had been given. The prizes had been distributed. The headmistress, at the earnest request of the tall man, had pardoned William’s escapade. The visitors were having tea in the garden. William sat at a little table with the tall man and the little girl. He was blissfully happy. He was consuming unlimited quantities of cakes, and every now and then the little girl smiled at him very sweetly.

  ‘I won’t be so silly any more, Daddy,’ she said. ‘We’d had a midnight feast last night and I’d eaten thousands and thousands of mince tarts and that always makes me feel a little sad the next day and—’

  ‘One minute,’ said her father. ‘I can see a business friend of mine there. Hello, Brown,’ he called.

  Mr Brown approached the table. William’s jaunty air dropped from him. He blinked. His jaw dropped. Crumbs! His father! He bent down as if to pick something off the ground and remained in that position, hoping thus to remain undiscovered.

  ‘This is my daughter, Brown,’ said the tall man after greeting him. Then he seized William by the scruff of his neck and raised his head. William tried to avold his father’s gaze. ‘I’m not sure who this youngster is, so I can’t introduce him properly. All I know about him is that he’s been where no white man ever set foot before and he’s had all his teeth taken out without gas – but perhaps you know him?’

  ‘I didn’t know either of those facts about him,’ admitted Mr Brown drily, ‘but,’ his sardonic eye forced his son’s to meet it, ‘I have met him before.’

  CHAPTER 3

  WILLIAM AND THE CHINESE GOD

  Mr Markson, the headmaster of William’s school, was very large and very red-faced and very loud-voiced and very irascible. Behind this mask of terror Mr Markson was in reality a rather shy and very well-meaning man. He liked big boys and got on well with them. He disliked small boys and glared at them and roared at them on principle.

  William and his friends came in contact with this ogre seldom, and on occasions of decided unpleasantness.

  In their eyes he was all the fabulous masters of antiquity and all the ogres of fairyland rolled into one. They trembled beneath his rolling eye and booming voice. Which was just as well, because these were about the only things beneath which they did tremble.

  They were discussing this grim potentate on their way home from school.

  ‘He’s the nasty temperedest man in the world,’ said Ginger solemnly. ‘I know he is. I know there’s not another man as nasty tempered as what he is in all the world.’

  ‘He swished Rawlings for jus’ walkin’ through the stream in the playground,’ contributed Henry, ‘an’ Rawlings is short-sighted, you know. An’ he said he din’t see the stream till he’d got right over it, but ole Markie swished him jus’ the same.’

  ‘When he jus’ looks at me,’ admitted Ginger, ‘it makes me feel kinder queer.’

  ‘Yes, an’ when he yells like what he does,’ said Douglas, ‘it makes me jump like – like—’

  ‘Like a frog,’ suggested Ginger helpfully.

  ‘Frog yourself!’

  ‘I din’ mean you was a frog,’ explained Ginger. ‘I only meant you jumped like a frog.’

  ‘Well, I don’t jump like a frog more’n other people do,’ said Douglas pugnaciously.

  ‘Oh, shut up arguing,’ said Henry, who had been enjoying the collective indictment of ‘Old Markie’, and did not wish it to tail off into a combat between Douglas and Ginger. ‘I guess,’ he went on darkly, ‘that if some people knew what he was like really an’ – an’ the way he shouts an’ swishes people an’ – an’ carries on, I guess he’d be put in prison or hung or something. There’s laws,’ he added vaguely, ‘to stop people goin’ on at other people the way he does.’

  William had listened to this conversation in silence. William disliked belonging to the majority of the terrorised. He preferred always to belong to the minority of the terror-inspiring, or at least of the intrepid. He gave a short, scornful laugh.

  ‘I’m not frightened of him,’ he said with a swagger.

  They gazed at him, aghast at this patent untruth.

  ‘Oh, aren’t you?’ said Ginger meaningly.

  ‘No, an’ I’m not,’ retorted William. ‘I wun’t mind sayin’ anythin’ to him, I wun’t. I wun’t mind – I wun’t mind jus’ tellin’ him what I thought of him any time, I wun’t.’

  ‘Oh, wun’t you?’ said Ginger disagreeably, piqued by this unexpected attitude of William’s. ‘Oh, no,’ sarcastically, ‘you’re not frightened of him, you aren’t. You wasn’t frightened of him las’ Tuesday, was you?’

  William was momentarily disconcerted by this reference to an occasion when he had incurred the public wrath of the monster for scuffling in prayers, and had been summoned to his study afterwards. But only momentarily.

  ‘P’raps you thought I was,’ he conceded in a tone of kindly indulgence. ‘I daresay you thought I was. I daresay you judge eve’body by yourself an’ thought I was.’

  ‘Well, you looked frightened,’ said Henry.

  ‘An’ you sounded frightened,’ said Ginger, and mimicked ‘“Yes, sir . . . No, sir . . . please I didn’t mean to, sir.”’

  William looked at them with an air of superior pity.

  ‘Yes, I daresay you thought I was frightened,’ he said, and added darkly, ‘you see you din’t hear what I said to him in his study afterwards. I guess,’ he added with a short meaning laugh, ‘he’ll leave me alone after that.’

  The others were dumbfounded by this attitude. For a minute the sheer impudence of it deprived them of the power of speech. Ginger recovered first.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘we’re jus’ at his house now. All right, if you’re not frightened of him, go in. Jus’ go an’ ring at the door an’ tell him you’re not frightened of him.’

  ‘He knows,’ said William simply.

  But they were closing him in around the gate, preventing his further progress down the road.

  ‘Well go in an’ tell him again,’ said Douglas, ‘case he’s forgot.’

  William, at bay, looked up at Mr Markson’s house, inappropriately termed The Nest. He wished that he had not made his gesture of defiance in its immediate vicinity. Then a cheering thought occurred to him.

  ‘An’ I would, too,’ he said, striking a heroic attitude. ‘An’ I would ’f he was at home. But he’s at school. He’s at school till six o’clock today.’

  ‘All right, go an’ walk into his house an’ take somethin’ jus’ to show you aren’t frightened of him,’ said Ginger.

  ‘That’d be stealin’,’ said William piously.

  ‘You could take it back afterwards,’ said Douglas. ‘You aren’t fright’ned of him, so it’d be all right.’

  ‘No, I’m not goin’ to,’ said William.

  Henry crowed triumphantly.

  ‘You’re fright’ned of him,’ they jeered.

  Suddenly William’s blood was up. When William’s blood was up things happened.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll – I’ll show you.’

  Without waiting to consider his de
cision in the calm light of reason he went boldly up to the front door. There his courage began to fail. He knew that no power on earth would nerve his arm to knock on the ogre’s dreaded front door. But there was a drawing-room to the right of the door. One of the French windows leading from this drawing-room on to the drive was open.

  The drawing-room seemed to be empty. Steeling his heart and spurring his flickering courage by the thought of his jeering friends without, William plunged into the room, seized the first thing he saw, plunged out, and with a beating heart and unsteady knees ran down the drive to join the little crowd of boys gaping through the gate of The Nest.

  His panic left him as he neared safety and his swagger returned. He held out his booty on one hand. It was a small and (though William did not know it) very valuable Chinese figure of a god.

  ‘There!’ he said. ‘I’ve been in his drawing-room and fetched that.’

  They gazed at him speechless. William had once again consolidated his position as leader.

  ‘Sorter pot thing out of his drawin’-room,’ he explained carelessly. ‘D’you think I’m afraid of him now?’ he ended with a short derisive laugh.

  Henry found his voice. ‘Well, you’ve gotter put it back now,’ he said, ‘an’ – an’ p’raps that won’t be ’s easy ’s takin’ it.’

  ‘’F you think it was easy takin’ it—’ began William indignantly.

  But at that moment a tall figure – ferocious-looking even in the distance – appeared at the end of the lane.

  William had been wrong. Mr Markson was not staying at school till six.

  By the time Mr Markson reached the gate of The Nest, William and his friends were mere specks on the horizon.

  In the safe refuge of his bedroom William took the Chinese figure out of his pocket and looked at it distastefully. He didn’t know how to get the beastly thing back, and he was sure there’d be a fuss if he didn’t get the beastly thing back, and he wished he’d never taken the beastly thing, and he blamed Douglas and Ginger and Henry for the whole affair.

  If only they’d taken his word that he wasn’t frightened of old Markie, instead of making him go in and get the beastly thing – and ten to one old Markie would catch him as he was putting it back and – and – and there’d be a norful fuss.

  He considered the advisability of giving it a temporary hiding place in one of his drawers among his handkerchiefs or shirts or collars, then dismissed the idea. His mother might find it and demand explanations. On the whole, his pocket was the safest place for the present.

  He went downstairs feeling gloomy and disillusioned. All the people one read about in books – Odysseus and Tarzan and the rest of them – could do anything they liked and nothing ever happened to them, while he couldn’t even say he wasn’t fright’ned of old Markie without getting a beastly little pot thing shoved on to him, that there’d be an awful fuss about if anyone found out he’d got it.

  He wandered downstairs, his mind still occupied with the problem of returning the china image before Mr Markson had discovered its absence. Suppose someone had seen him go in and fetch it and told old Markie, and old Markie summoned him into his study tomorrow morning after prayers. William turned hot and cold at the thought. That gesture of defiance and courage had been very effective and enjoyable at the time, but its consequences might be unpleasant.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ inquired Mrs Brown solicitously as William entered the drawing-room.

  ‘Why?’ said William guiltily, afraid that in some way his appearance betrayed his late escapade.

  ‘You look so sad,’ said his mother fondly.

  William emitted his famous laugh – short and bitter.

  ‘Huh!’ he ejaculated. ‘I bet you’d be sad if—’

  He decided on second thoughts not to make any detailed explanation and stopped short.

  ‘If what, dear?’ said Mrs Brown sympathetically.

  ‘If you’d got all the troubles what I’ve got,’ said William darkly.

  ‘Yes, but what sort of troubles, dear?’ said Mrs Brown.

  ‘Oh, people botherin’ you an’ not b’lievin’ what you say an’ – an’ gettin’ things you don’t want shoved on to you,’ said William gloomily.

  At this point he caught sight of his reflection in a full-length mirror on the wall and was greatly disconcerted to discover that the Chinese figure made a bulge in his pocket that seemed to call aloud for comment. At any minute his mother might demand to know what it was. He took advantage of her turning to the window to transfer the figure from his pocket to a small table by the wall just where he stood. He put it well at the back of a lot of other ornaments. Surely no one would notice it there. It could surely stay there quite safely till the coast was clear for taking it back, anyway.

  He heaved a deep sigh and passed a hand over his brow. Life was very wearing – and there’d certainly be a most awful fuss if anyone found out – an’ all Henry’s and Ginger’s and Douglas’s fault – it ought to be a lesson to them to believe what people said in the future. Anyway – he found great comfort in the thought – he’d shown ’em.

  He joined his mother at the window, scowling gloomily. Suddenly his gloomy scowl changed to a look of rigid horror. Mr Markson was coming along the road with Ethel . . . now they were turning in at the gate of William’s house. And there on a table in the drawing-room, which presumably they would soon enter, reposed Mr Markson’s Chinese image. William had had many nightmares in his time but none as bad as this.

  Ethel, although William’s sister, was admittedly the prettiest girl for miles around, and Mr Markson, although William’s headmaster, was beneath his mask of ferocity quite a simple-hearted man, who liked pretty girls and had been much attracted by Ethel when introduced to her the week before.

  They entered the room almost immediately, followed by two old ladies who were friends of Mrs Brown. Mr Markson took no notice of William. He knew, of course, that there was a small boy in the room who might or might not be a pupil at his school, but out of school hours Mr Markson ignored all small boys on principle.

  To William suddenly the Chinese image on the little table seemed to dominate the room. It seemed to tower above every other object, not excluding the grandfather clock. It seemed to yell aloud to its owner: ‘Hi, you! I’m here! I’m here! I’m here! I’m here!’

  Instinctively William stepped in front of the table, placing his small but solid person between the now hateful image and its rightful owner. Standing thus, red-faced with apprehension and determination, he glared fiercely around the room as though daring anyone to attempt to dislodge him. There was a How-Horatius-kept-the-Bridge air about him.

  Ethel and Mr Markson and Mrs Brown and one of the old ladies sat at the other end of the room and began to discuss animatedly a forthcoming village pageant. The other old lady drifted across to William and sat down on a chair near him. She pointed kindly to another chair near her.

  ‘Sit down, little boy,’ she said, ‘pray don’t stand, though it’s nice to see a little boy so polite nowadays.’

  William’s scowl deepened.

  ‘I’d rather stand, thanks,’ he said.

  But the old lady persisted.

  ‘No, do sit down,’ she said with a pleasant smile. ‘I want to have a nice long talk with you; I’m so fond of little boys. But you must sit down or I shan’t feel comfortable.’

  William was disconcerted for a minute, then he recovered his aplomb.

  ‘I – I can’t sit down,’ he said mysteriously.

  The lady gaped at him, amazed.

  ‘Why, dear?’ she said sympathetically.

  ‘I’ve hurt my legs,’ said William with a flash of inspiration. ‘I can’t bend my knees. Not for sitting down. I gotta stand.’

  He scowled at her more ferociously than ever as he spoke.

  ‘My poor little boy,’ said the old lady sympathetically. ‘I’m so sorry. Do you have to stand up all the time? What do the doctors say?’

  ‘They say
– they say jus’ that,’ said William lamely, ‘that I’ve gotta stand up all the time.’

  ‘But there’s – hope of your being cured, I suppose, dear?’ said the old lady anxiously.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ William reassured her.

  ‘When do they say you’ll be all right?’ went on the lady earnestly.

  ‘Oh, any time after today,’ said William unthinkingly.

  ‘You can lie down, I suppose?’ said the old lady, evidently much distressed by William’s mysterious complaint.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said William, who by this time had almost convinced himself of the reality of his disease. ‘I can go to bed at night and that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, dear, won’t you come and lie down now?’ said the old lady. ‘We’ll go over to the window and you can lie down on the sofa and I’ll sit on the chair near, and we’ll have a nice little talk. It’s so nice over there in the sunshine.’

  William moistened his lips.

  ‘I – I think I won’t move, thank you,’ said William.

  ‘But you can walk, dear, can’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I can walk, but—’ he stopped and gazed around, seeking inspiration from the wallpaper and ceiling.

  ‘It’s so nice and light over there,’ coaxed the old lady.

  Inspiration came again with a flash. William’s face cleared.

  ‘I’m not s’posed to be in the light,’ he said brightly, ‘because I’ve got bad eyes.’

  ‘I’VE HURT MY LEGS,’ SAID WILLIAM, WITH A FLASH OF INSPIRATION. ‘I CAN’T BEND MY KNEES.’

  The old lady gazed at him weakly.

  ‘Bad – bad eyes, did you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William pleasantly, relieved to have found another plausible excuse for not relinquishing his post. ‘I can’t stand the light,’ he explained earnestly. ‘I’ve gotta stay in dark places ’cause of my eyes.’

  ‘B-but how terrible,’ said the old lady, horrified to the depth of her kindly old soul. ‘Bad legs and bad—It’s almost incredible.’ She gazed in silence at his stolid and almost crudely healthy countenance, while a dim suspicion crept into her mind that it was, indeed, incredible. ‘Can’t sit down or bend your knees?’ she repeated in amazement.