Still William (12 page)

But just now Farmer Jenks was away staying with a brother and Mrs Jenks was confined to bed, and the farm labourers quite wisely preferred to leave the Outlaws as far as possible to their own
devices. So the Outlaws were coming more and more to regard that field of Farmer Jenks’ as their private property.

The afternoon of the exhibition was unusually warm. The exhibition opened at two o’clock. To the stile that led from the road was attached a notice.

THIS WAY T

O WEMBLEY D

E LUCKS

and on the hole in the hedge by which spectators were to enter Farmer Jenks’ field was pinned another notice.

THIS WAY T

O WEMBL

EY DE L

UCKS.

At two thirty, which was the time advertised for the opening, a small and suspicious-looking group of four school children had gathered at the stile. William, his face and bare legs thickly
covered with boot blacking and tightly clutching an old sack across his chest, met them, frowning sternly.

‘One penny each
please
!’ he said aggressively. ‘An’ I’m part of the exhibition an’ I’m a native an’ come this way
please
an’
hurry up.’

There was a certain amount of bargaining on the part of the tallest boy who refused to give more than a halfpenny, saying that he could black himself and look in the looking glass for nothing if
that was all there was ’n a nexhibition, and there was a small scene caused by a little girl who refused to pay anything at all, and yet insisted on accompanying them in spite of
William’s stern remonstrances, and finally followed in the wake of the party howling indignantly, ‘I’m
not
a cheat.
You’re
a cheat – you narsy ole black
boy an’ I won’ give you a penny an’ I
will
come to your narsy old show, so there! Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!’

William shepherded his small flock through the hole in the hedge. Then he took his stand behind a little piece of wood on which were ranged pieces of half-dry plasticine tortured into strange
shapes. With a dramatic gesture William flung aside his piece of sacking and stood revealed in an old pale blue bathing costume that had belonged to his sister Ethel in her childhood.

‘Now you can look at me first,’ he said in a deep unnatural voice. ‘I’m a native of South Africa dressed in native coschume an’ this here is native orn’ments
made by me an’ you can buy the orn’ments for a penny each,’ he added not very hopefully.

‘Yes,’ said the tallest boy, ‘an’ we can do
without
buyin’ ’em equ’ly well.’

‘Yes, an’ I’d jus’ as soon you
din’
buy ’em,’ said William proudly but untruthfully, ‘ ’cause they’re worth more’n a
penny an’ I’ll very likely get a shillin’ each for ’em before the exhibition’s over.’

‘Huh!’ said the boy scornfully. ‘Well, wot’s next? ’S not worth a penny
so
far.’

‘ ’F it’d been worth a penny
so
far,’ said William, ‘d’you think I’d’v let you see it
all
for a penny? Why don’ you try to
talk
sense
?’

The small girl at the tail of the procession was still sobbing indignantly.

‘I’m
not
a cheat. Boo
-hoo-hoo
an’ I won’t give the narsy boy my Sat’day penny. I
won’t
. I wanter buy sweeties wiv it an’ I’m
not
a cheat, boo-hoo-hoo!’

‘A’
right
,’ said the goaded William. ‘You’re not then an’ don’t then an’ shut up.’

‘You’re being very
wude
to me,’ said the young pessimist with a fresh wail.

Beyond William were three other sacking-shrouded figures, each behind a piece of wood on which were displayed small objects.

‘Now I’m a guide,’ said William returning to his hoarse, unnatural voice. ‘This way please ladies an’ gentlemen an’ we’d all be grateful if the lady
would kin’ly shut up.’ This remark occasioned a fresh outburst of angry sobs on the part of the aggrieved lady. ‘This,’ taking off the first sackcloth with a flourish and
revealing Ginger dressed in an old tapestry curtain, the exposed parts of his person plentifully smeared with moist boot blacking, ‘this is a native of Australia, and these are native wooden
orn’ments made by him. Talk Australian, Native.’

The confinement under the sacking had been an austere one and the day was hot and streams of perspiration mingling with the blacking gave Ginger’s countenance a mottled look. Before him
were wooden objects roughly cut into shapes that might have represented almost anything. As examples of art they belonged decidedly to the primitive school.

‘Go on, Ging— Native, I mean. Talk Australian,’ commanded William.

‘Monkey, donkey, fluky, tim-tim,’ said Ginger, ‘an’
crumbs
, isn’t it hot?’

‘Call that Australian?’ said the audience indignantly.

‘Well,’ said William loftily, ‘he’s nat’rally learnt a bit of English comin’ over here.’ Then, taking up one of the unrecognisable wooden shapes and
handing it to the little girl: ‘Here, you can have that if you’ll shut up an’ it’s worth ever so much,
I
can tell you. It’s valu’ble.’

She took it, beaming with smiles through her tears.

‘I ’spect some of you’d like to
buy
some?’ said William.

‘TALK AUSTRALIAN!’ COMMANDED WILLIAM. ‘MONKEY, FLUKY, TIM-TIM,’ SAID GINGER. ‘CALL THAT AUSTRALIAN?’ SAID THE AUDIENCE INDIGNANTLY.

His audience hastily and indignantly repudiated the suggestion.

‘What do I do
now
?’ said Ginger.

‘You jus’ wait for the next lot,’ said William covering him up with the sacking. Ginger sat down again muttering disconsolately about the heat beneath his sacking.

Henry was a Canadian and Douglas was an Egyptian. Both were pasted with blacking and both shone with streaky moisture. Henry wore a large cretonne cushion cover and Douglas wore a smock that had
been made for use in charades last Christmas. Both obligingly talked in their native language. Douglas, who was learning Latin, said, ‘Bonus, bona, bonum, bonum, bonam, bonum,’ to the
fury and indignation of his audience.

In front of Henry were balls of moist clay; in front of Douglas were twigs tied together in curious shapes. The sightseers refused all William’s blandishing persuasions to buy.

‘Well, it’s
you
I’m thinking of,’ said William. ‘ ’F you go home without takin’ these int’restin’ things made by natives you’ll
be sorry and then it’ll be too late. An’ you mayn’t ever again see ’em to buy an’ you’ll be sorry. An’ if you bought ’em you could put ’em in a
museum an’ – an’ they’d always be int’restin’.’

The smallest boy was moved by William’s eloquence to pay a penny for a clay ball, then promptly regretted it and demanded his penny back.

It was while this argument was going on that Violet Elizabeth appeared.

‘Wanter be a native like Ginger – all black,’ she demanded loudly.

William, who was harassed by his argument with the repentant purchaser of native ware, turned on her severely.

‘You oughter pay a penny comin’ into this show,’ he said.

‘I came in a different hole, a hole of my own so I’m not going to,’ said Violet Elizabeth, ‘an’ I wanter be a native like Ginger an’ Henry an’ Douglas
– all lovely an’ black.’

‘Well, you can’t be,’ said William firmly.

Tears filled her eyes and she lifted up her voice.

‘Wanterbean-a-a-tive,’ she screamed.

‘All right,’ said William desperately. ‘
Be
a native. I don’t care.
Be
a native. Get the blacking from Ginger. I don’t care.
Be
one an’
don’t blame
me
. The next is the amusements, ladies
an’
gentlemen.’

There were three amusements. The first consisted in climbing a tree and lowering oneself from the first branch by a rope previously fastened to it by William. The second consisted in being
wheeled once round the field in a wheelbarrow by William. The third consisted in standing on a plank at the edge of the pond and being gently propelled into the pond by William. The entrance fee to
each was one penny.

‘Yes,’ said the tallest boy indignantly, ‘an’ s’pose we fall off the plank into the water?’

‘That’s part of the amusement,’ said William wearily.

The smallest boy decided after much thought to have a penny ride in a wheelbarrow . . .

Mrs Bott was walking proudly up the lane. She had in train, not an earl exactly, but distantly related to an earl. At any rate he was County – most certainly County. So
far County had persistently resisted the attempts of Mrs Bott to ‘get in’ with it. Mrs Bott had met him and captured him and was bringing him home to tea. She had brushed aside all his
excuses. He walked beside her miserably, looking round for some way of escape. Already in her mind’s eye Mrs Bott was marrying Violet Elizabeth to one of his nephews (she came to the
reluctant conclusion that he himself would be rather too old when Violet Elizabeth attained a marriageable age) and was killing off all his relations in crowds by earthquakes or floods or wrecks or
dread diseases to make quite sure of the earldom. Ivory charmeuse for Violet Elizabeth, of course, and the bridesmaids in pale blue georgette . . .

Suddenly they came to a paper notice pinned very crookedly on a stile in the hedge.

The distant relation to the peer of the realm brightened. He stroked his microscopic moustache.

‘I say!’ he said. ‘Sounds rather jolly, what?’

Mrs Bott who had assumed an expression of refined disgust hastily exchanged it for one of democratic tolerance.

‘Yars,’ she said in her super-county-snaring accent, ‘doesn’t it? We always trai to taike an interest in the activities of the village.’

‘I say, I think I’ll just go in and see,’ he said.

He hoped that it would throw her off but as a ruse it was a failure.

‘Oh yars!’ she said. ‘Let’s! I think it’s so good for the village to feel the upper clarses take an interest in them.’

The hole in the hedge proved too small for Mrs Bott’s corpulency, but the depressed connection of the peerage found a larger one further up which afforded quite a broad passage when the
hedge was held back.

They entered the field.

William, his blacking and perspiration falling in drops on to his pale blue native costume, had just finished the wheelbarrow ride. His hair stood up round his face in matted clusters. He
scowled at the newcomers.

‘You come to the exhibition?’ he said sternly. ‘ ’Cause you’ve gotter pay a penny ’f you have.’

The Honourable Marmaduke Morencey took out a sixpence and gave it to William. William unbent.

‘ ’F you come round with me,’ he said, ‘I’ll guide you. I’m a guide – a native guide. I’m a South African, I am.’

‘Rahly?’ said the Honourable Marmaduke.

‘How very quaint!’ sighed Mrs Bott with a kindly smile. ‘I do wish my little gurl was heah. She’d have loved it. But I don’t let her mix with common children.
She’s so carefully gorded. She’s in the gorden with her nurse now. She’s a beautiful chehild, and gorded most careful from childhood.’

Henry’s canvas was removed and the Honourable Marmaduke smiled a weary smile and Mrs Bott imitated it carefully but not very exactly.

Ginger was shown and the Honourable Marmaduke’s smile became less weary.

Douglas was shown and the Honourable Marmaduke almost (not quite) laughed. He certainly murmured: ‘I say . . . By Jove, you know . . . isn’t it? What?’ Even William realised
that no higher praise could be expected of him than that.

‘I
do
wish my Vahlet Elizabeth was here,’ said Mrs Bott. ‘She’d be
sow
int’rested – but, there, I’ve always kept her gorded from common
children.’

Then the last shrouded figure threw off its covering and jumped excitedly into the air. It was dressed in stays and small frilled knickers. Hair, face, arms and legs were covered with blacking
(William had ‘borrowed’ a good supply from the store cupboard. He was never a boy for half measures).

‘I’m a Nindian,’ squeaked Violet Elizabeth, leaping up and down joyfully in her scanty attire. ‘I’m a native-Indian in a native-Indian coshume an’ I’m
goin’ to do a native-Indian dance. I’m a Nindian. I’m a Nindian!’

With a scream that rent the very heavens Mrs Bott made a grab at her erring child.

At that moment from the other end of the field came a bellow of rage that drowned even the voice of Mrs Bott. The Outlaws, paralysed with terror, saw the dread form of their foe advancing upon
them wrathfully across the field. Farmer Jenks had returned home unexpectedly.

‘Grr-r-r-r-r,’ he roared as he ran. ‘I’ll – I’ll – I’ll – Gu-r-r-r-r-r . . . Ye young . . . I’ll . . . G-r-r-r-r-r . . . At ’em,
Rover! Kill ’em, Rover! Eat ’em, Rover! Ye young . . . I’ll . . . Gr-r-r-r-r!’

The Outlaws awaited no explanation. Like so many flashes of lightning they were through the hole in the hedge and already halfway to the stile.

After them with little gasps of ‘By Jove! I say, you know!’ panted the languid aristocrat. Seeing Rover behind him he shed his languidness and sprinted as he had never sprinted in
his aristocratic life before. Rover pursued them to the stile then returned thoughtfully chewing a piece of the aristocratic nether garments.