More William (4 page)

‘I say, Cook, could you make a small one – quite a small one – for threepence-halfpenny?’

Cook laughed.

‘I was only pulling your leg, Master William. I’ve got one made and locked up in the larder.’

‘That’s all right,’ said William. ‘I – wanted them to have a cream blancmange, that’s all.’

‘Oh,
they’ll
have it all right; they won’t leave much for you. I only made
one
!’

‘Did you say locked in the larder?’ said William carelessly. ‘It must be a bother for you to
lock
the larder door each time you go in?’

‘Oh, no trouble, Master William, thank you,’ said Cook sarcastically; ‘there’s more than the cream blancmange there; there’s pasties and cakes and other things.
I’m thinking of the last party your ma gave!’

William had the grace to blush. On that occasion William and a friend had spent the hour before supper in the larder, and supper had to be postponed while fresh provisions were beaten up from
any and every quarter. William had passed a troubled night and spent the next day in bed.

‘Oh,
then
! That was a long time ago. I was only a kid then.’

‘Umph!’ grunted the cook. Then, relenting, ‘Well, if there’s any cream blancmange left I’ll bring it up to you in bed. Now that’s a promise. Here, Emma, put
these sandwiches in the larder. Here’s the key! Now mind you
lock it
after you!’

‘Cook! Just come here for a minute.’

It was the voice of William’s mother from the library. William’s heart rose. With Cook away from the scene of action great things might happen. Emma took the dish of sandwiches,
unlocked the pantry door, and entered. There was a crash of crockery from the back kitchen. Emma fled out, leaving the door unlocked. After she had picked up several broken plates, which had
unaccountably slipped from the shelves, she returned and locked the pantry door.

William, in the darkness within, heaved a sigh of relief. He was in, anyway; how he was going to get out he wasn’t quite sure. He stood for a few minutes in rapt admiration of his own
cleverness. He’d scored off Cook! Crumbs! He’d scored off Cook! So far, at any rate. The first thing to do was to find the cream blancmange. He found it at last and sat down with it on
the bread pan to consider his next step.

Suddenly he became aware of two green eyes staring at him in the darkness. The cat was in too! Crumbs! The cat was in too! The cat, recognising its inveterate enemy, set up a vindictive wail.
William grew cold with fright. The rotten old cat was going to give the show away!

‘Here, Pussy! Good ole Pussy!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Nice ole Pussy! Good ole Pussy!’

The cat gazed at him in surprise. This form of address from William was unusual.

‘Good ole Pussy!’ went on William feverishly. ‘Shut up, then. Here’s some nice blancmange. Just have a bit. Go on, have a bit an shut up.’

He put the dish down on the larder floor before the cat, and the cat, after a few preliminary licks, decided that it was good. William sat watching for a bit. Then he came to the conclusion that
it was no use wasting time, and began to sample the plates around him. He ate a whole jelly, and then took four sandwiches off each plate, and four cakes and pasties off each plate. He had learnt
wisdom since the last party. Meanwhile, the cat licked away at the cream blancmange with every evidence of satisfaction. It even began to purr, and as its satisfaction increased so did the purr. It
possessed a peculiar penetrating purr.

‘Cook!’ called out Emma from the kitchen.

Cook came out of the library where she was assisting with the festoon hanging. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘There’s a funny buzzing noise in the larder.’

‘Well, go in and see what it is. It’s probably a wasp, that’s all.’

Emma approached with the key, and William, clasping the blancmange to his bosom, withdrew behind the door, slipping off his shoes in readiness for action.

‘Poor Puss!’ said Emma, opening the door and meeting the cat’s green, unabashed gaze. ‘Did it get shut up in the nasty dark larder, then? Who did it then?’

She was bending down with her back to William, stroking the cat in the doorway. William seized his chance. He dashed past her and up the stairs in stockinged feet like a flash of lightning. But
Emma, leaning over the cat, had espied a dark flying figure out of the corner of her eye. She set up a scream. Out of the library came William’s mother, William’s sister,
William’s brother and Cook.

‘A burglar in the larder!’ gasped Emma. ‘I seed ’im, I did! Out of the corner of my eye, like, and when I looked up ’e wasn’t there no more. Flittin’ up
the ’all like a shadder, ’e was. Oh, lor! It’s fairly turned me inside! Oh, lor!’

‘What rubbish!’ said William’s mother. ‘Emma, you must control yourself.’

‘I went into the larder myself, ’m,’ said Cook indignantly, ‘just before I came in to ’elp with the greenery ornaments, and it was hempty as – hair.
It’s all that silly Emma! Always ’avin’ the jumps she is—’

‘Where’s William?’ said William’s mother with sudden suspicion. ‘William!’

William came out of his bedroom and looked over the balusters.

‘Yes, Mother,’ he said, with that wondering innocence of voice and look which he had brought to a fine art, and which proved one of his greatest assets in times of stress and
strain.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Jus’ readin’ quietly in my room, Mother.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake don’t disturb him, then,’ said William’s sister.

‘It’s those silly books you read, Emma. You’re always imagining things. If you’d read the ones I recommend instead of the foolish ones you will get hold
of—’

William’s mother was safely mounted on one of her favourite hobby horses. William withdrew to his room and carefully concealed the cream blancmange beneath his bed. He then waited till he
heard the guests arrive and exchange greetings in the hall. William, listening with his door open, carefully committed to memory the voice and manner of his sister’s greeting to her friends.
That would come in useful later on, probably. No weapon of offence against the world in general and his own family in particular, was to be despised. He held a rehearsal in his room when the guests
were all safely assembled in the drawing-room.

‘Oh,
how
are you, Mrs Green?’ he said in a high falsetto, meant to represent the feminine voice. ‘And how’s the
darling
baby?
Such
a duck! I’m
dying to see him again! Oh, Delia, darling! There you are!
So
glad you could come! What a perfect darling of a dress, my dear. I know whose heart you’ll break in that! Oh, Mr
Thompson!’ – here William languished, bridled and ogled in a fashion seen nowhere on earth except in his imitations of his sister when engaged in conversation with one of the male sex.
If reproduced at the right moment, it was guaranteed to drive her to a frenzy: ‘I’m
so
glad to see you. Yes, of course I really am! I wouldn’t say it if I
wasn’t!’

The drawing-room door opened and a chatter of conversation and a rustling of dresses arose from the hall. Oh, crumbs! They were going in to supper. Yes, the dining-room door closed; the coast
was clear. William took out the rather battered-looking delicacy from under the bed and considered it thoughtfully. The dish was big and awkwardly shaped. He must find something that would go under
his coat better than that. He couldn’t march through the hall and out of the front door, bearing a cream blancmange, naked and unashamed. And the back door through the kitchen was impossible.
With infinite care but little success as far as the shape of the blancmange was concerned, he removed it from its dish on to his soap dish. He forgot, in the excitement of the moment, to remove the
soap, but, after all, it was only a small piece. The soap dish was decidedly too small for it, but, clasped to William’s bosom inside his coat, it could be partly supported by his arm
outside. He descended the stairs cautiously. He tiptoed lightly past the dining-room door (which was slightly ajar), from which came the shrill, noisy, meaningless, conversation of the grown-ups.
He was just about to open the front door when there came the sound of a key turning in the lock.

William’s heart sank. He had forgotten the fact that his father generally returned from his office about this time.

William’s father came into the hall and glanced at his youngest offspring suspiciously.

‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’

William cleared his throat nervously.

‘Me?’ he questioned lightly. ‘Oh, I was jus’ – jus’ goin’ for a little walk up the road before I went to bed. That’s all I was going to do,
Father.’

Flop! A large segment of the cream blancmange had disintegrated itself from the fast-melting mass, and, evading William’s encircling arm, had fallen on to the floor at his feet. With
praiseworthy presence of mind William promptly stepped on to it and covered it with his feet. William’s father turned round quickly from the stand where he was replacing his walking
stick.

‘What was that?’

William looked round the hall absently. ‘What, Father?’

William’s father now fastened his eyes upon William’s person.

‘What have you got under your coat?’

‘Where?’ said William with apparent surprise.

Then, looking down at the damp excrescence of his coat, as if he noticed it for the first time, ‘Oh, that!’ with a mirthless smile. ‘Do you mean
that
? Oh, that’s
jus’ – jus’ somethin’ I’m takin’ out with me, that’s all.’

Again William’s father grunted.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you’re going for this walk up the road why on earth don’t you go, instead of standing as if you’d lost the use of your feet?’

William’s father was hanging up his overcoat with his back to William, and the front door was open. William wanted no second bidding. He darted out of the door and down the drive, but he
was just in time to hear the thud of a falling body and to hear a muttered curse as the Head of the House entered the dining-room feet first on a long slide of some white, glutinous substance.

‘Oh, crumbs!’ gasped William as he ran.

The little girl next door was sitting in the summer house, armed with a spoon, when William arrived. His precious burden had now saturated his shirt and was striking cold and damp on his chest.
He drew it from his coat and displayed it proudly. It had certainly lost its pristine, white, rounded appearance. The marks of the cat’s licks were very evident; grime from William’s
coat adhered to its surface; it wobbled limply over the soap dish, but the little girl’s eyes sparkled as she saw it.

‘Oh, William, I never thought you really would! Oh, you are wonderful! And I
had
it!’

‘What?’

‘Rice-mould for supper, but I didn’t mind, because I thought – I hoped, you’d come with it. Oh, William, you
are a nice
boy!’

William glowed with pride.

‘William!’ bellowed an irate voice from William’s front door.

William knew that voice. It was the voice of the male parent who has stood all he’s jolly well going to stand from that kid, and is out for vengeance. They’d got to the pears! Oh,
crumbs! They’d got to the pears! And even the thought of Nemesis to come could not dull for William the bliss of that vision.

‘Oh, William,’ said the little girl next door sadly, ‘they’re calling you. Will you have to go?’

‘Not me,’ said William earnestly. ‘I’m not going – not till they fetch me. Here! You begin. I don’t want any. I’ve had lots of things. You eat it
all.’

Her face radiant with anticipation, the little girl took up her spoon.

William leant back in a superior, benevolent manner and watched the smile freeze upon her face and her look of ecstasy change to one of fury. With a horrible suspicion at his heart he seized the
spoon she had dropped and took a mouthful himself.

WILLIAM LEANT BACK IN A SUPERIOR, BENEVOLENT MANNER AND WATCHED THE SMILE FREEZE UPON HER FACE AND HER LOOK OF ECSTASY CHANGE TO ONE OF FURY.

CHAPTER 3

W
hen William first saw him he was leaning against the wall of the White Lion, gazing at the passers-by with a moody smile upon his
villainous-looking countenance.

It was evident to any careful observer that he had not confined his attentions to the exterior of the White Lion.

William, at whose heels trotted his beloved mongrel (rightly named Jumble), was passing him with a casual glance, when something attracted his attention. He stopped and looked back, then,
turning round, stood in front of the tall, untidy figure, gazing up at him with frank and unabashed curiosity.

‘Who cut ’em off?’ he said at last in an awed whisper.

The figure raised his hands and stroked the long hair down the side of his face.

‘Now yer arskin’,’ he said with a grin.

‘Well, who
did
?’ persisted William.

‘That ’ud be tellin’,’ answered his new friend, moving unsteadily from one foot to the other. ‘See?’