William The Conqueror Read online

  ‘Had a nice day, dear?’ said his mother.

  He disdained to answer the question.

  ‘There’s just an hour before tea,’ she went on; ‘hadn’t you better be doing your homework, dear?’

  He considered. One might as well drink of tragedy the very dregs while one was about it. It would be a rotten ending to a rotten day. Besides, there was no doubt about it – Mr Strong was going to make himself very disagreeable indeed, if he didn’t know those French verbs for Monday. He might as well – If he’d had any idea how rotten it was being a saint he jolly well wouldn’t have wasted a whole Saturday over it. He took down a French grammar and sat down moodily before it without troubling to put it right way up.

  CHAPTER 5

  WILLIAM AND THE LOST TOURIST

  WILLIAM, Ginger, Douglas and Henry were on their way home from school. Owing to the absence of one of the masters they had been given an extra hour to learn their homework. William had not used it to the best advantage. He had spent the first part of it making rats out of ink-sodden blotting-paper till he was summoned to the front of the room where his activities should be under the eye of Authority.

  There, under compulsion, he opened his Shakespeare and idly committed to memory the lines chosen for his edification by his English master:

  ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

  I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

  The evil that men do lives after them,

  The good is oft interred with their bones,’

  he murmured monotonously to himself, rubbing his eyes with his ink-stained fingers till the ink gradually overspread his freckled countenance. There was nothing unusual in that. As his mother plaintively remarked, William could never touch ink without ‘getting all over with it’. She would have felt almost uneasy had William ever returned home from school without his customary coating of ink or mud.

  William wandered home with Ginger and Douglas and Henry, chanting blithely: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.’

  ‘Who was this Shakespeare, anyway?’ said William.

  ‘He was a pote,’ said Douglas unctuously, ‘an’ he – well, he just lived an’ died.’

  ‘Din’ he do anythin’?’ said William.

  ‘He wrote po’try.’

  ‘That’s not doin’ anythin’,’ said William contemptuously. ‘I can write po’try – I mean din’ he fight or somethin’?’

  ‘It says in the beginning of the book he acted,’ said Henry rather vaguely.

  ‘Huh!’ said William. ‘That’s nothin’. I can act. I don’ think much of him.’

  ‘There’s stachoos up to him in places,’ said Henry, still with his air of comprehensive knowledge.

  ‘Well, if that’s all he did,’ said William with disgust, ‘they might jus’ as well put stachoos up to me. I can write po’try an’ act if that’s all he did.’

  William’s heroes were all men of action. He was not a patron of the Arts.

  They were passing Mrs Maloney’s cottage. Mrs Maloney lived alone with a dog and a cat and a canary. She was very old and very cantankerous.

  She hated everyone, but her hatred of boys was the absorbing passion of her life. And of all boys in the world the boys she most hated were the Outlaws. It was probably that alone which kept her alive. She visibly failed in health on the days on which she had no encounter with the Outlaws. On the days when she had joined battle with them she looked less infirm. On the date when she successfully routed them she looked almost hale and hearty.

  The Outlaws were afraid of Mrs Maloney and Mrs Maloney’s dog and Mrs Maloney’s cat. They firmly believed her to be a witch. It was that fear which made it a point of honour with them never to pass the cottage without some act of daring aggression. To the Outlaws danger was the very breath of life.

  There was a hole in the side of her garden hedge that bordered the field by the side of the road, and on their way home the Outlaws took it in turn to enter the field, crawl through the hole, and walk (or generally run) down Mrs Maloney’s garden path to her gate and out into the road. They did no harm to the garden. But the sight of the hateful creatures in her garden threw the old lady into a frenzy. Considering her age and infirmities, she could move with remarkable speed, and not infrequently one or other of the Outlaws fell into her clutches.

  That was a thrill full of ecstasy and terror for the Outlaws – a thing to dream of and talk of with bated breath and – dare again. Her cat and dog were loyal lieutenants who shared her hatred of the whole race of boys. The dog had bitten Henry and the cat had scratched Ginger only the week before.

  Today it was William’s turn to creep through the hole. Mrs Maloney was standing near the door. She was generally there ready for the fray when the Outlaws came home from school. Today Fate was not on their side. Ginger, Henry and Douglas were at the gate ready to open it for William’s flying figure, but on this occasion William’s figure did not fly. It was stuck in the hole.

  When it emerged it was to face a furious Mrs Maloney, who grabbed his ears with claw-like hands, and thrusting her witch’s face close to his, shook his head till it seemed to him that every one of his teeth was permanently loosened from its setting. He tore himself away at last and fled down to the gate that his friends were holding open for him. But that was not the end. William’s cap had been shaken off, and with horror they saw Mrs Maloney pick it up, carry it up to her door and fling it down furiously and contemptuously upon the bench outside.

  The Outlaws held a hasty meeting. It was unthinkable to go home in defeat, leaving their leader’s cap in the hands of the enemy. They would never hold up their heads again. They discussed plans, standing in the middle of the road, watched suspiciously by the enemy from her back-door, where she still kept guard over her trophy.

  ‘We’ve gotter get it back,’ said Ginger sternly. ‘It’s William’s cap, so I votes William goes in an’ gets it back.’

  ‘Yes, you’d feel like going back,’ said William bitterly, ‘if she’d shook everything loose in your head. All the bones an’ muscles an’ brains an’ things that oughter be stickin’ together’s all loose all over the place. You don’ know what it feels like.’

  William being literally shaken from his position of leadership and being able to discuss nothing but the hypothetical condition of the inside of his head, Ginger evolved a masterly plan.

  He found a long stick, and while William, Douglas and Henry drew down the enemy to the gate by short and daring excursions into the garden as if in attempts at rescue, Ginger leant over the hedge by the side of the cottage and fished up William’s cap with his stick. The Outlaws then marched off yelling triumphantly, carrying William’s cap proudly upon the end of the stick, while its late captor gibbered at them over the gate in inarticulate rage.

  It was a half-holiday, and after, at his mother’s earnest request, removing as much ink from his face and hands as could be removed by that hurried process known to William as ‘washing’, he sat down to lunch with a clear conscience.

  ‘Half-holiday,’ he murmured, ‘an’ I’ve done my homework – at least,’ he qualified his assertion, ‘I’ve done some of it – “The good has often entered into bones”.’

  ‘What are you talking about, William?’ said his mother. ‘And your face isn’t clean yet.’

  ‘Well, I’ve done all I can to it,’ said William virtuously, ‘I’ve washed it.’ He threw a glance at his reflection in the glass. ‘You oughter be able to tell by my hair that I’ve washed it.’

  William’s hair stood up round his face in damp, vertical spikes.

  ‘Go and brush it, William,’ said Mrs Brown wearily.

  ‘Well, you know,’ said William as though delivering a final deeply considered judgment, ‘I’ve sometimes thought it’s best to let your hair grow the way it grows nat’rally. Some hair grows flat nat’rally. Then you oughter brush it flat. But mine doesn’t. It nat’rally grows up like this, an’ I’ve sometimes thought it’s better
to leave it to grow its own way. It’s more nat’ral. If—’

  ‘Go and brush it, William,’ said Mrs Brown.

  William went slowly upstairs. He came down, his hair sleek and plentifully damped, murmuring: ‘Fre’en’s, Rome and countrymen, lend me some ears, I come to – well, anyway, the evil and the good men do lives into ’em.’

  ‘Now, William, stop talking nonsense and eat your lunch,’ said Mrs Brown patiently.

  ‘That’s jus’ what I think,’ said William, ‘an’ yet he’s got stachoos put up to him an’ no end of a fuss.’

  After a hearty meal William set out joyously to join his companions. They had made no plans for the afternoon. They usually left things to Fate, and Fate seldom failed to provide them with an exciting programme.

  They had arranged to meet at the corner of the road that led to Ginger’s house. William was early at the trysting place. There was nothing to be seen at the corner but a car, and in the car were a weeping young woman and a sleeping old man. William stood and gaped. The weeping young woman was astonishingly beautiful, and William, in spite of his professed scorn of the feminine sex, was very susceptible to beauty.

  William blinked and coughed.

  The young woman turned sapphire-blue swimming eyes to him and gulped.

  ‘Say, kid,’ she said with an American twang and intonation that completed the enslavement of William, ‘say, kid, what’s the name of this lil’ old town?’

  William was too much confused to reply for a moment. During that moment fresh tears welled up into the blue eyes.

  ‘I feel jus’ like nothing,’ sobbed the lady. ‘I’ve lost the way an’ I’ve lost the map an’ I don’t know where I am an Pop’s gone to sleep an’ – I – I don’t know where I’ve got to.’

  ‘Where did you want to get to?’ asked William.

  ‘Stratford,’ said the lady. ‘Stratford-on-Avon, that Shakespeare guy’s place. If we don’t do it today we’ll never do it. We’ve not got one single other day left an’ it’ll kill me not to do it. Everyone I know’s done it an’ to go back home an’ say I’ve not seen Stratford – well, I’d never hold up my head again – never – and I’ve lost the way and the map and Pop’s gone to sleep and—’

  She ended in a sob that reduced William’s already melting heart to complete liquefaction.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said consolingly.

  He didn’t mean anything in particular. It was only a vague expression of sympathy and comfort. But the lady looked at him, her eyes suddenly alight with hope.

  ‘You mean—’ she gasped, ‘you mean that this is Stratford? Oh, how dandy! Do you really mean that?’

  Stronger and older characters than William would have decided to mean that when fixed by those pleading hopeful blue eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ said William after a moment’s silence, which represented a short, victorious struggle with a never very recalcitrant conscience, ‘this is Stratford all right.’

  The lady leapt in her seat. Gone were all traces of tears.

  ‘Say, kid, I jus’ adore you. Now I’ve got to see it all jus’ as quick as I can. Never mind Pop. He can go on sleeping. He hates looking at things, anyway. He goes to sleep on purpose.’

  She opened the door and jumped down.

  ‘Now the first thing I wanta see is Anne Hathaway’s cottage. Can you direct me to that, little boy? Or – say are you doing anything particular this afternoon?’

  ‘No,’ said the unscrupulous William, deciding that Ginger, Henry and Douglas could get on very well without him.

  ‘Well, now, would you be a reel cherub, and personally conduct me?’

  ‘Yes, I would,’ said William eagerly. He did not repent his rash statement as to the precise locality of Stratford-on-Avon. He almost believed it. If this vision wished it to be Stratford it was Stratford.

  They set off down the road together.

  ‘Is it far?’ said the fair American eagerly.

  William began to consider. He realised that he had embarked upon an adventure that would require careful handling, but William was not the boy to retire from any adventure before he was compelled.

  He looked up and down the road.

  ‘Whose cottage did you say?’ he said at last.

  ‘Anne Hathaway’s.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s not far now,’ said William, hoping for the best.

  The lady became confidential. She told him that her name was Miss Burford – Sadie Burford – and she jus’ loved this lil’ ole country, but Stratford was the thing she’d longed most passionately to see, and this was the happiest day of her life and wasn’t it just the cutest little place and she’d be grateful to him all her life, she would sure.

  William enjoyed it. He enjoyed walking with her, he enjoyed watching her astounding beauty, he enjoyed her twang. He was already practising it silently in his mind.

  They turned the bend in the road and there in front of them was Mrs Maloney’s cottage.

  Miss Burford gave a little scream of ecstasy.

  ‘Thatched!’ she said. ‘This must be Anne Hathaway’s cottage.’

  ‘Yes, this is it,’ agreed William, torn between relief at having discovered an Anne Hathaway’s cottage and consternation at the prospect of a second rencontre with Mrs Maloney in one day. He could see Mrs Maloney looking out of the window. William, as an artist, occasionally overreached himself. He made the mistake of not leaving well alone. Now, wishing to give a further touch of verisimilitude to the whole situation, he said carelessly—

  ‘An’ there’s Anne Hathaway lookin’ out of the window.’

  ‘Does an Anne Hathaway still live here?’ said Miss Burford excitedly.

  ‘Well, I thought that was what you said,’ said William bewildered.

  ‘But I meant the one that lived hundreds of years ago.’

  William was still more bewildered.

  ‘She’ll be dead by now,’ he said, after a slight pause. But he wished the radiant vision to have everything she wanted. If she wanted an Anne whatever it was, she should have it.

  ‘There’s another living there now,’ he went on.

  ‘How dandy!’ said Miss Burford. ‘A descendant, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed William. ‘Yes – that’s what she is.’

  ‘Well – I’ve got to hurry. Will you knock, or shall I? Perhaps you know her?’

  ‘Oh, y-yes, I k-know her all right,’ stammered William, edging away as he spoke, his eyes fixed fearfully upon the cottage door. ‘You – you don’t wanter go right in, do you?’

  ‘I sure do,’ asserted Miss Burford.

  ‘I – I wun’t if I was you,’ said William earnestly. ‘I wun’t go. She’s awful bad-tempered, Mrs Maloney is – I mean Anne what you said is.’

  ‘But I must go in – People do, I know.’

  ‘Better not,’ said William desperately, ‘she’s – she’s deaf, too.’

  ‘But I can shout.’

  ‘That’s no use. She can’t hear shouting. And she’s mad, too – she’s sort of forgotten her name – she – she sort of thinks she’s someone else – so it’s no use goin’ in, what with her bein’ deaf an’ mad. It’s not reely safe. An’ it’s best from outside. It’s not anything like as nice inside as it is outside.’

  ‘But I’ve known people who’ve gone inside,’ persisted Miss Burford. ‘I’ve known them personally. It must be possible. It can’t be very dangerous.’

  She advanced boldly and knocked at the door. William stood in the background palely composed, but ready to flee if necessary. The door opened a few inches and Mrs Maloney’s wrinkled face appeared round it. At the sight of William it became distorted with rage.

  ‘Ah-h-h!’ she growled. ‘Ye little pest, ye—’

  William, whose valour was wholesomely intermingled with discretion, was on the point of turning to flee and leaving this strange situation to disentangle itself as best it could, when he saw Miss Burford slip something into Mrs Maloney’s hand, at which Mrs Maloney’s wrath
simmered down into a sullen distrust.

  ‘Could I,’ said Miss Burford, with disarming sweetness, ‘could I just look at your historical cottage, Miss Hathaway?’

  ‘’Ysterical yourself,’ snapped the owner; ‘an’ me name’s Mrs Maloney, I’d have ye to know.’

  Miss Burford turned to William with a sad smile.

  ‘Poor woman!’ she whispered.

  Then she entered the kitchen. Mrs Maloney stood holding her ten-shilling note with both hands and watching her guest suspiciously. William’s sole thought was to keep as near the door as possible in view of possible developments. Miss Burford looked round at the old-fashioned cottage, the old dresser and the flagged floor with a sigh of rapture.

  ‘How lovely!’ she breathed. ‘How perfect!’

  Mrs Maloney’s suspicions deepened.

  Then Miss Burford looked rather puzzled. ‘I’ve seen photographs of it. I’ve sure got a wretched memory, but I had an idea there were more things in it, somehow. I’ve only a vague kind of idea of it, but I certainly thought there were more things in it.’

  In his capacity of stage-manager, William spoke up with desperate boldness.

  MRS MALONEY’S WRINKLED FACE APPEARED. AT THE SIGHT OF WILLIAM IT BECAME DISTORTED WITH RAGE.

  ‘There was,’ he said, ‘there was a lot more things, but they had to take ’em away when she – when she got like this.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Mrs Maloney sharply. ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Miss Burford pacifically.

  WILLIAM WAS ON THE POINT OF TURNING TO FLEE.

  But the suspicious rage upon the old lady’s face was not without effect. Miss Burford herself began to edge hastily towards the door. Mrs Maloney, purple-faced, uttered a threatening sound expressive of fury, and Miss Burford, throwing dignity to the winds, followed William’s already fleeing figure.

  ‘How awful!’ she panted, when they had reached the safe refuge of the road. ‘Poor woman! She’s sure plumb crazy! But,’ with a sigh of content, ‘I’ve seen it. That’s all I wanted to do. I can say I’ve seen it now.’ She took from her pocket a little note-book, opened it and ticked off ‘Stratford’ and ‘Anne Hathaway’s Cottage’. ‘There! Now I don’t care how soon Pop takes me home.