Just William (15 page)

‘Oh! I’m
so
glad you’ve come, dear. And is this the baby? The
duck
! Well, den, how’s ’oo, den? Go-o-oo.’

This was William’s mother.

‘Oh, crumbs!’ said William and retreated hastily. He sat down on his bed to wait till the coast was clear. Soon came the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs.

‘Oh, William,’ said his mother, as she entered his room, ‘Mrs Butler’s come with her baby to spend the afternoon, and we’d arranged to go out till teatime with the
baby, but she’s got such a headache, I’m insisting on her lying down for the afternoon in the drawing-room. But she’s
so
worried about the baby not getting out this nice
afternoon.’

‘Oh!’ said William, without interest.

‘Well, Cook’s out and Emma has to get the tea and answer the door, and Ethel’s away and I told Mrs Butler I was
sure
you wouldn’t mind taking the baby out for a
bit in the perambulator.’

William stared at her, speechless. The Medusa’s classic expression of horror was as nothing to William’s at that moment. Then he moistened his lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.

‘
Me?
’ he said. ‘
Me? Me
take a baby out in a pram?’

‘Well, dear,’ said his mother deprecatingly ‘I know it’s your half-holiday, but you’d be out of doors getting the fresh air, which is the great thing. It’s a
nice baby and a nice pram and not heavy to push, and Mrs Butler would be
so
grateful to you.’

‘Yes, I should think she’d be that,’ said William bitterly ‘She’d have a right to be that if I took the baby out in a pram.’

‘Now, William, I’m sure you’d like to help, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like your father to hear that you wouldn’t even do a little thing like that for poor Mrs
Butler. And she’s got such a headache.’

‘A
little thing like that!
’ repeated William out of the bitterness of his soul.

But the Fates were closing round him. He was aware that he would know no peace till he had done the horrible thing demanded of him. Sorrowfully and reluctantly he bowed to the inevitable.

‘All right,’ he muttered, ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

He heard them fussing over the baby in the hall. Then he heard his elder brother’s voice.

‘You surely don’t mean to say, Mother,’ Robert was saying with the crushing superiority of eighteen, ‘that you’re going to trust that child to –
William.’

‘Well,’ said William’s mother, ‘someone has to take him out. It’s such a lovely afternoon. I’m sure it’s very kind of William, on his half-holiday, too.
And she’s got
such
a headache.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Robert in the voice of one who washes his hands of all further responsibility, ‘you know William as well as I do.’

‘Oh, dear!’ sighed William’s mother. And everything so nicely settled, Robert, and you must come and find fault with it all. If you don’t want William to take him out,
will you take him out yourself?’

Robert retreated hastily to the dining-room and continued the conversation from a distance.

‘I don’t want to take him out myself – thanks very much, all the same! All I say is – you know William as well as I do. I’m not finding fault with anything. I am
simply stating a fact.’

Then William came downstairs.

‘Here he is, dear, all ready for you, and you needn’t go far away – just up and down the road, if you like, but stay out till teatime. He’s a dear little baby,
isn’t he? And isn’t it a nice Willy-Billy den, to take it out a nice ta-ta, while it’s mummy goes bye-byes, den?’ William blushed for pure shame.

He pushed the pram down to the end of the road and round the corner. In comparison with William’s feelings, the feelings of some of the early martyrs must have been pure bliss. A nice way
for an Outlaw to spend the afternoon! He dreaded to meet any of his brother-outlaws, yet, irresistibly and as a magnet, their meeting place attracted him. He wheeled the pram off the road and down
the country lane towards the field which held their sacred barn. He stopped at the stile that led into the field and gazed wistfully across to the barn in the distance. The infant sat and sucked
its thumb and stared at him. Finally it began to converse.

‘Blab – blab – blab – blab – blub – blub – blub!’

‘Oh, you shut up!’ said William crushingly. Annoyed at the prolonged halt, it seized its pram cover, pulled it off its hooks, and threw it into the road. While William was picking it
up, it threw the pillow on to his head. Then it chuckled. William began to conceive an active dislike of it. Suddenly the Great Idea came to him. His face cleared. He took a piece of string from
his pocket and tied the pram carefully to the railings. Then, lifting the baby cautiously and gingerly out, he climbed the stile with it and set off across the fields towards the barn. He held the
baby to his chest with both arms clasped tightly round its waist. Its feet dangled in the air. It occupied the time by kicking William in the stomach, pulling his hair, and putting its fingers in
his eyes.

‘It beats me,’ panted William to himself, ‘what people see in babies! Scratchin’ an’ kickin’ and blindin’ folks and pullin’ their hair all
out!’

When he entered the barn he was greeted by a sudden silence.

‘Look here!’ began one outlaw in righteous indignation.

‘It’s a kidnap,’ said William, triumphantly. ‘We’ll get a ransom on it.’

They gazed at him in awed admiration. This was surely the cream of outlawry. He set the infant on the ground, where it toddled for a few steps and sat down suddenly and violently. It then stared
fixedly at the tallest boy present and smiled seraphically.

‘Dad – dad – dad – dad – dad!’

Douglas, the tallest boy, grinned sheepishly. ‘It thinks I’m its father,’ he explained complacently to the company.

‘Well,’ said Henry, who was William’s rival for the leadership of the Outlaws, ‘what do we do first? That’s the question.’

‘In books,’ said the outlaw called Ginger, ‘they write a note to its people and say they want a ransom.’

‘We won’t do that – not just yet,’ said William hastily.

‘Well, it’s not much sense holdin’ somethin’ up to ransom and not tellin’ the folks that they’ve got to pay nor nothin’, is it?’ said Ginger with
the final air of a man whose logic is unassailable.

‘N – oo,’ said William. ‘But—’ with a gleam of hope, ‘who’s got a paper and pencil? I’m simply statin’ a fact. Who’s got a paper
and pencil?’

No one spoke.

‘Oh, yes!’ went on William in triumph. ‘Go on! Write a note. Write a note without paper and pencil, and we’ll all watch. Huh!’

‘Well,’ said Ginger sulkily, ‘I don’t s’pose they had paper and pencils in outlaw days. They weren’t invented. They wrote on – on – on leaves or
something,’ he ended vaguely.

‘Well, go on. Write on leaves,’ said William, still more triumphant. ‘We’re not stoppin’ you, are we? I’m simply statin’ a fact. Write on
leaves.’

They were interrupted by a yell of pain from Douglas. Flattered by the parental relations so promptly established by the baby, he had ventured to make its further acquaintance. With vague
memories of his mother’s treatment of infants, he had inserted a finger in its mouth. The infant happened to possess four front teeth, two upper and two lower, and they closed like a vice
upon Douglas’s finger. He was now examining the marks.

‘Look! Right deep down! See it? Wotcher think of that? Nearly to the bone! Pretty savage baby you’ve brought along,’ he said to William.

‘I jolly well know that,’ said William feelingly. ‘It’s your own fault for touching it. It’s all right if you leave it alone. Just don’t touch it,
that’s all. Anyway, it’s mine, and I never said you could go fooling about with it, did I? It wouldn’t bite
me
, I bet!’

‘Well, what about the ransom?’ persisted Henry.

‘Someone can go and tell its people and bring back the ransom,’ suggested Ginger.

There was a short silence. Then Douglas took his injured finger from his mouth and asked pertinently:

‘Who?’

‘William brought it,’ suggested Henry.

‘Yes, so I bet I’ve done my share.’

‘Well, what’s anyone else goin’ to do, I’d like to know? Go round to every house in this old place and ask if they’ve had a baby taken off them and if they’d
pay a ransom for it back? That’s sense, isn’t it? You know where you got it from, don’t you, and you can go and get its ransom.’

‘I can, but I’m not goin’ to,’ said William finally. ‘I’m simply statin’ a fact. I’m not goin’ to. And if anyone says I daren’t’
(glancing round pugnaciously) ‘I’ll fight ’em for it.’

No one said he daren’t. The fact was too patent to need stating. Henry hastily changed the subject.

‘Anyway, what have we brought for the feast?’

William produced his liquorice water and half-cake, Douglas two slices of raw ham and a dog biscuit, Ginger some popcorn and some cold boiled potatoes wrapped up in newspaper, Henry a cold apple
dumpling and a small bottle of paraffin oil.

‘I knew the wood would be wet after the rain. It’s to make the fire burn. That’s sense, isn’t it?’

‘Only one thing to cook,’ said Ginger sadly, looking at the slices of ham.

‘We can cook up the potatoes and the dumpling. They don’t look half enough cooked. Let’s put them on the floor here, and go out for adventures first. All different ways and
back in a quarter of an hour.’

The Outlaws generally spent part of the afternoon dispersed in search of adventure. So far they had wooed the Goddess of Danger chiefly by trespassing on the ground of irascible farmers in hopes
of a chase which were generally fulfilled.

They deposited their store on the ground in a corner of the barn, and with a glance at the ‘kidnap’, who was seated happily upon the floor engaged in chewing its hat strings, they
went out, carefully closing the door.

After a quarter of an hour Ginger and William arrived at the door simultaneously from opposite directions.

‘Any luck?’

‘No.’

‘Same here. Let’s start the old fire going.’

They opened the door and went in. The infant was sitting on the floor among the stores, or rather among what was left of the stores. There was paraffin oil on its hair, face, arms, frock and
feet. It was drenched in paraffin oil. The empty bottle and its hat lay by its side. Mingled with the paraffin oil all over its person was cold boiled potato. It was holding the apple dumpling in
its hand.

‘Ball!’ it announced ecstatically from behind its mask of potato and paraffin oil.

They stood in silence for a minute. Then, ‘Who’s going to make that fire burn now?’ said Ginger, glaring at the empty bottle.

‘Yes,’ said William slowly, ‘an’ who’s goin’ to take that baby home? I’m simply statin’ a fact. Who’s goin’ to take that baby
home?’

There was no doubt that when William condescended to adopt a phrase from any of his family’s vocabularies, he considerably overworked it.

‘Well, it did it itself. It’s no one else’s fault, is it?’

‘No, it’s not,’ said William. ‘But that’s the sort of thing folks never see. Anyway, I’m goin’ to wash its face.’

‘What with?’

William took out his grimy handkerchief and advanced upon his prey. His bottle of liquorice water was lying untouched in the corner. He took out the cork.

‘Goin’ to wash it in that dirty stuff?’

‘It’s made of water – clean water – I made it myself, so I bet I ought to know, oughtn’t I? That’s what folks wash in, isn’t it – clean
water?’

‘Yes,’ said Ginger bitterly, ‘and what are we goin’ to drink, I’d like to know? You’d think that baby had got enough of our stuff – our potatoes and our
apple dumpling, an’ our oil – without you goin’ an’ givin’ it our liquorice water as well.’

William was passing his handkerchief, moistened with liquorice water, over the surface of the baby’s face. The baby had caught a corner of it firmly between its teeth and refused to
release it.

‘If you’d got to take this baby home like this,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t be thinking much about drinking liquorice water. I’m simply
statin’—’

‘Oh, shut up saying that!’ said Ginger in sudden exasperation. ‘I’m sick of it.’

At that moment the door was flung open and, slowly, in walked a large cow closely followed by Henry and Douglas.

Henry’s face was one triumphant beam. He felt that his prestige, eclipsed by William’s kidnapping coup, was restored.

‘I’ve brought a cow,’ he announced, ‘fetched it all the way from Farmer Litton’s field – five fields off, too, an’ it took some fetching,
too.’

‘Well, what for?’ said William after a moment’s silence.

Henry gave a superior laugh.

‘What for! You’ve not read much about outlaws, I guess. They always drove in cattle from the surroundin’ districks.’

‘Well, what for?’ said William again, giving a tug at his handkerchief, which the infant still refused to release.

‘Well – er – well – to kill an’ roast, I suppose,’ said Henry lamely.

‘Well, go on,’ said William. ‘Kill it an’ roast it. We’re not stoppin’ you, are we? Kill it an’ roast it – an’ get hung for murder. I
s’pose it’s murder to kill cows same as it is to kill people – ’cept for butchers.’

The cow advanced slowly and deprecatingly towards the ‘kidnap’, who promptly dropped the handkerchief and beamed with joy.

‘Bow-wow!’ it said excitedly.

‘Anyway, let’s get on with the feast,’ said Douglas.

‘Feast!’ echoed Ginger bitterly. ‘Feast! Not much feast left! That baby William brought’s used all the paraffin oil and potatoes, and it’s squashed the apple
dumpling, and William’s washed its face in the liquorice water.’

Henry gazed at it dispassionately and judicially.

‘Yes – it looks like as if someone had washed it in liquorice water – and as if it had used up all the oil and potatoes. It doesn’t look like as if it would fetch much
ransom. You seem to have pretty well mucked it up.’

‘Oh, shut up about the baby’ said William picking up his damp and now prune-coloured handkerchief. ‘I’m just about sick of it. Come on with the fire.’

They made a little pile of twigs in the field and began the process of lighting it.