William Again (3 page)

‘ ’F you’re going to keep on making noises breaking chairs,’ he said, ‘how d’you think we’re going to get on?’

The Great Man raised himself from the debris with a murmured apology, brushed himself as well as he could, and sat down quietly upon an adjacent packing-case.

‘Well, go on!’ said William to the heroine.

‘Something about “Oh, mercy, spare me!” an’ then I’ve forgot what comes after that.’

‘Well, why didn’t you learn it?’

‘I can’t read your nasty old writing – all blots an’ things spilt on it.’

‘Well, you can’t write a play at all, so you needn’t go making remarks about people’s writing what can.’

‘Oh, go on!’ said the egotistical hero off the stage. ‘Let’s get to where I come on.’

William studied his exercise book carefully.

‘Here’s wot you say,’ he said. ‘“Oh, mercy, spare me—”’

‘I said that.’

‘Be quiet! “Oh, mercy, spare me—”’

‘I
said
that.’

‘Be
quiet!
“Oh, mercy, spare me an’ let me return to my dear ole mother an’ father an’ the young gentleman wot I’m going to marry. His name is Sir
Rufus Archibald Green.” That’s wot you say.’

‘Well, you’ve said it, so I needn’t say it all over again.’

‘ ’F you think I’m going to say all your stuff for you—’ began William.

Elsabina, bored with the question, pointed an accusing finger at the Great Man.

‘Look at him!’ she said. ‘He’s come in without paying any money.’

Overcome by embarrassment, the Great Man hastily took out a case and handed a ten-shilling note to William. A half-crown would have won rapturous gratitude. A ten-shilling note was beyond their
ken. The entire cast gathered round it.

‘It’s paper money.’ said Douglas, impressed.

‘I don’t suppose it’s
real,’
said William gloomily. ‘Well, where’re we got to?’

He turned quickly, and the fern-pot descended, sharply, extinguishing his head. He struggled with it without success.

‘Can’t anyone do anything?’ said his muffled voice from inside the fern-pot. ‘I can’t go on acting like this – people can’t
see
me. Well,
isn’t anyone going to
do
anything?’

The cast pulled without success.

‘I didn’t say pull my head off,’ said the stern, sarcastic voice from inside the pot, ‘I said pull the
thing
off!’

The Great Man arose from his packing-case and came to the rescue. Finally William’s face appeared. William put his hands to his head. ‘Any one’d think you wanted to pull my
nose an’ ears off – the way you did it,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get on.’ He turned to the heroine. ‘“No, I will not spare thee. I hatest thy mother and thy
father and the young gentleman thou ist going to marry. Thy mother, thy father, and the young gentleman thou ist going to marry wilt see they lifeless body dangling on my remote mountain lair ere
dawn dawns. Gadzooks!” Now go on! Scream!’

The heroine screamed.

The crowd took off his top hat and cheered.

‘“I will keep thee in a deep, dark dungeon, with all sorts of rats an’ things crawling about till even, and then – and then—” ’ He consulted his exercise
book, ‘ “and then I’ll” – I’ve forgot this bit, and I can’t read wot comes next—’

‘Yah!’
yelled the heroine in shrill triumph.

‘Shut up!’ retorted William. ‘Now, you come on,’ to the hero. ‘Let’s do the rest as quick as we can. I’m getting a bit tired of it. Let’s go down
to the pond an’ race boats when we’ve done.’

‘Golly! Yes –
let’s
!’ said the crowd enthusiastically.

‘Girls won’t be allowed,’ said William to Elsabina. Elsabina elevated her small nose.

‘ ’S if I wanted to sail
boats
!’ she said scornfully.

William’s father entered the house hastily.

‘Surely the meeting isn’t over, dear?’ said William’s mother.

‘He hasn’t come,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Everybody’s waiting. We met the train, but he wasn’t on it. The station-master says that he came by an earlier one and
walked up, but no one can find him. He must have lost his way.’

‘William seems to have collected an old tramp in the stable,’ said Mrs Brown; ‘he may have seen him on the road.’

‘I’ll go and see,’ said Mr Brown.

In the stable a fight was going on between his son in a fur rug and his son’s friend in a tablecloth and a tea cosy. Upon both faces were the remains of corked moustaches. A broken
fern-pot and a battered top hat were on the floor. Another boy in a mackintosh and a little girl in a lace curtain were watching.

‘THOU BEASTLY OLE ROBBER,’ DOUGLAS WAS SHOUTING. ‘I WILL KILL THEE DEAD AND CUT OUT THY FOUL, BLACK HEART.’

‘Thou beastly ole robber,’ Douglas was shouting, ‘I will kill thee dead and cut out thy foul, black heart.’

‘Nay!’ yelled his son. ‘I will hang thee from my mountain ere dawn dawns and thy body shall dangle from the gallows—’

A wistful-looking old man on a packing-case was an absorbed spectator of the proceedings. When he saw William’s father he took out his watch with a guilty start.

‘Surely—’ he said. ‘I’d no idea –
Heavens!
’

He picked up his hat and almost ran.

The Great Man rose to address his audience.

‘Ladies and gentlemen – I must begin by apologising for my late arrival,’ he said with dignity. ‘I have been unavoidably delayed.’

He tried not to meet William’s father’s eye as he made the statement.

CHAPTER 2

THE CURE

B
reakfast was not William’s favourite meal. With his father shut off from the world by his paper, and his mother by her letters, one would
have thought that he would have enjoyed the clear field thus left for his activities. But William liked an audience – even a hostile one consisting of his own family. True, Robert and Ethel, his
elder brother and sister, were there; but Robert’s great rule in life was to ignore William’s existence. Robert would have preferred not to have had a small freckled, snub-nosed
brother. But as Fate had given him such a brother, the next best thing was to pretend that he did not exist. On the whole, William preferred to leave Robert alone. And Ethel was awful at breakfast
– quite capable of summoning the Head of the Family from behind his
Daily Telegraph
when William essayed a little gentle teasing. This morning William, surveying his family in silence in the
intervals of making a very hearty meal, came to the conclusion, not for the first time, that they were hardly worthy of him: Ethel, thinking she was so pretty in that stuck-up-looking dress, and
grinning over that letter from that soft girl. Robert talking about football and nobody listening to him, and glaring at him (William) whenever he tried to tell him what nonsense he was talking
about it. No, it
wasn’t
rounders he was thinking of – he knew ’bout football, thank you, he just did. His mother – suddenly his mother put down her letter.

‘Great-Aunt Jane’s very ill,’ she said.

There was a sudden silence. Mr Brown’s face appeared above the
Daily Telegraph.

‘Um?’ he said.

‘Great-Aunt Jane’s very ill,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘They don’t seem to think there’s much chance of her getting better. They say—’ She looked again at
the letter as if to make quite sure: ‘They say she wants to see William. She’s never seen him, you know.’

There was a gasp of surprise.

Robert voiced the general sentiment.

‘Good Lord!’ he said. ‘Fancy anyone wanting to see
William
!’

‘When they’re dying, too,’ said Ethel in equal horror. ‘One would think they’d like to die in peace, anyway.’

‘It hardly seems fair,’ went on Robert, ‘to show William to anyone who’s not strong.’

William glared balefully from one to the other.

‘Children! Children!’ murmured Mrs Brown.

‘How,’ said Mr Brown, ‘are you going to get William over to Ireland?’

‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘that someone must take him.’

‘Good Lord! Who?’

‘Yes, who?’ echoed the rest of the family.

‘I can’t possibly leave the office for the next few weeks,’ said Mr Brown hastily.

‘I simply couldn’t face the crossing alone – much less with William,’ said Ethel.

‘I’ve got my finals coming up next year,’ said Robert. ‘I don’t want to waste any time. I’m working rather hard these vacs.’

‘No one,’ said his father politely, ‘would have noticed it.’

‘I can go alone,
thank
you,’ said William with icy dignity.

In the end William and Mrs Brown crossed to Ireland together.

‘If William drops overboard,’ was Robert’s parting shot, ‘don’t worry.’

The crossing was fairly eventful. William, hanging over the edge of the steamer, overbalanced, and was rescued from a watery grave by one of the crew who caught him by his trousers as the
overbalancing occurred. William was far from grateful.

‘Pullin’ an’ tuggin’ at me,’ he said, ‘an’ I was all right. I was only jus’ lookin’ over the edge. I’d have got back all
right.’

But the member of the crew made life hideous for Mrs Brown.

‘You know, lady,’ he muttered, ‘when I saved yer little boy’s life, I give myself such a wrench. I can feel it in my innards now, as it were—’

Hastily she gave him ten shillings. Yet she could not stem the flow.

‘I ’ope, lady,’ he would continue at intervals, ‘when that choild’s growd to be a man, you’ll think sometoimes of the poor ole man wot saved ’is life at
the expense of ’is own innards, as you might say, when ’e were a little ’un.’

A speech like that always won half a crown. In the end Mrs Brown spent her time avoiding him and fleeing whenever she saw him coming along the deck. When a meeting was inevitable she hastily
gave him the largest coin she could find before he could begin on his ‘innards’.

Meanwhile a passenger had discovered William neatly balanced through a porthole, and earned his undying hatred by hauling him in and depositing him upside down on the floor.

‘Seems to me,’ said William to his mother, ‘that all these folks have come for is to stop other folks having a good time. What do you come on a boat for if you can’t look
at the sea – that’s all I want to know?’

A gale rose, and Mrs Brown, pale and distraught, sat huddled up on deck. William hovered round sympathetically.

‘I got some chocolate creams in my other coat. Like some of them?’

‘William, dear, don’t bother to stay here. I’d just as soon you went away and played.’

‘Oh no,’ said William nobly. ‘I wun’t leave you feelin’ bad.’

The boat gave a lurching heave. Mrs Brown groaned.

‘Think you goin’ to
be
sick, Mother?’ said William with interest.

‘I – I don’t know . . . Wouldn’t you like to go over to the other side for a change?’

William wandered away. Soon he returned, holding in his hands two doughnuts – masses of yellowy, greasy-looking dough, bearing the impress of William’s grimy fingers.

‘I’ve got us one each,’ said William cheerfully. ‘You must be awful hungry, Mother.’

Mrs Brown gave one glance and turned towards the sea.

In Great-Aunt Jane’s drawing-room were assembled Uncle John and Aunt Lucy and Cousin Francis. Francis was about the same age as William, but inordinately fat and clad in
white. He had fair curls and was the apple of his parents’ eyes. They had heard of William but none of them had seen him. There was a murmur of excitement as the sound of the taxi was heard,
then William and his mother entered. Mrs Brown was still pale. William followed her, scowling defiantly at the world in general.

SOON WILLIAM RETURNED, HOLDING IN HIS HANDS TWO DOUGHNUTS.

‘If you have any brandy—’ said Mrs Brown faintly.

‘Brandy?’ said William cheerfully. ‘I never thought of that. I got you nearly everything else, didn’t I? I wanted to tempt her to eat,’ he explained to the company.
‘I thought of choc’lates an’ cakes an’ cocoa an’ pork pies – I
kept
askin’ her to try pork pie – there was some lovely ones on the boat – but I never
thought of brandy. Have a good drink of it, Mother,’ he encouraged her, ‘an’ then try an’ have a go at the chocolates.’