Still William (26 page)

Oh, surely he deserved a bit of food after all he’d been through. His eyes shone eagerly and hungrily through his horn-rimmed spectacles. If he just undid his muffler enough to eat a bit
of fruit salad – and that chocolate cake –
and
the one with green icing – oh,
and
that one with nuts on the top – surely eating just a little like that
wouldn’t give him away. He couldn’t starve for ever.

And what was going to happen to him, anyway? He couldn’t stay all his life in a bath-chair in that garden starving and growling at people – he was jolly sick of it already, but he
didn’t know what to do – they’d have to find out sometime – and he didn’t know what they’d do when they did find out – and he was sick of the whole thing
– and it was all Ginger’s fault going off and leaving him and— He looked across the lawn at them. His gaze through the horn-rimmed spectacles was wistful.

To his horror he saw Emmeline being launched across the lawn to him by Frederica. Emmeline wore a super-sweet expression and carried in her hand a bunch of roses. She laid them on the bath-chair
with an artless and confiding smile.

‘Dear, great great-Uncle George,’ she said in her squeaky little voice. ‘We’re all so glad to see you and love you so much an’—’

The elders were watching the tableau with proud smiles, and William was summoning his breath for a really ferocious growl when suddenly everyone turned round. A little old man, purple with
anger, had appeared running up the drive.

‘Where is he?’ screamed the little old man in fury. ‘They said he came in here – my bath-chair – where is he? – The thief – the
blackguard – how dare he? – I’ll teach him – where is he?’

William did not wait to be taught. With admirable presence of mind he tore off his wrappings, flung away his horn-rimmed spectacles, and dashed with all his might through the opening in the
hedge and across the back lawn. The little old man caught up a trowel that the gardener had left near a bed and flung it after William. It caught him neatly on the ankle and changed his swift
flight to a limp.

‘Dear Uncle George,’ cooed Frederica to the old man, ‘I don’t know what’s happened, but I
always
said you could walk quite well if you liked.’

With a howl of fury the old man turned on her, snatched up the bowl of fruit salad and emptied it over her.

Meanwhile the muscular young medical student had overtaken William just as he was disappearing through the gate and in spite of William’s struggles was administering fairly adequate
physical correction . . . Occasionally Nemesis did overtake William.

The next day William met Ginger on the way to school.

‘Well,
you’re
brave, aren’t you?’ he said sarcastically. ‘Goin’ off an’ leavin’ me an’ not rescuin’ me nor
nothin’.’

‘I like that,’ said Ginger indignantly. ‘What could I do, I’d like to know? You
would
ride an’ me push. ’F you’d bin unselfish an’ pushed
an’ me rode
you’d
’ve got off.’

This was unanswerable, but while William was trying to think out an answer Ginger said scornfully:

‘You still practisin’ havin’ a false leg? I stopped clickin’ ever so long ago. I should think you was tired of that old game.’

‘Well, I’m
not
!
’
said William with great self-possession. ‘I’m goin’ to go on some time yet jus’ to show I
can
.’

Just then Emmeline appeared on the road, wearing the horn-rimmed spectacles.

‘I say, those is ours!’ said Ginger.

‘Oh,
no
!’ said Emmeline with a shrill triumphant laugh. ‘I found them on our front lawn. They’re
mine
now. You ask William Brown
how
I found them on
our front lawn. But they’re
mine
now. So there!’

For a moment William was nonplussed. Then a beatific smile overspread his freckled face.

‘Dear great great-Uncle George!’ he mimicked in a shrill falsetto. ‘We’re all so glad to see you – we love you so much.’

Emmeline gave a howl of anger and ran down the road holding her horn-rimmed spectacles on as she ran.

‘Boo-hoo!’ she sobbed. ‘
Nasty
William Brown! Comin’ into our garden an’ breathin’ our air an’ runnin’ over our beds an’ makin’
Uncle George cross an’ wastin’ our fruit salad an’ bein’ nasty to me –
Nasty
William Brown – they’re my spectacles, they is –
Boo-hoo!’

‘I say, what happened yesterday?’ said Ginger when she had disappeared.

‘Oh, I almost forget,’ said William evasively. ‘I growled at ’em an’ scared ’em no end an’ I didn’t get any tea an’ he threw somethin’
at me’ – Oh, a lot of things like that – I almost forget – But,’ with sudden interest, ‘how much did she give you?’

‘Sixpence,’ said Ginger proudly, taking it out of his pocket.

‘Come on!’ said William joyfully, giving a cheerful little limp forward. ‘Come on an’ let’s spend it.’

CHAPTER 14

W
illiam was, as not infrequently, under a cloud. His mother had gone to put some socks into one of his bedroom drawers and had found that most of
the drawer space was occupied by insects of various kinds, including a large stag beetle, and that along the side of the drawer was their larder, consisting of crumby bits of bread and a little
pool of marmalade.

‘But it
eats
marmalade,’ pleaded William. ‘The stag beetle does. I know it does. The marmalade gets a little less every day.’

‘Because it’s soaking into the wood,’ said Mrs Brown sternly.
‘That’s
why. I don’t know why you
do
such things, William!’

‘But they’re doing no harm,’ said William. ‘They’re
friends
of mine. They
know
me. The stag beetle does anyway and the others will soon. I’m
teaching the stag beetle tricks . . .
Honest
, it knows me and it knows its name. Call ‘Albert’ to it and see if it moves.’

‘I shall do nothing of the sort, William. Take the creatures out at once. I shall have to scrub the drawers and have everything washed. You’ve got marmalade and crumbs all over your
socks and handkerchiefs.’

‘Well, I moved ’em right away when I put them in. They’ve sort of spread back.’

‘Why ever didn’t you keep the things outside?’

‘I wanted to have ’em and play with ’em at nights an’ mornin’s.’

‘And here’s one of them
dead
!’

‘I hope it didn’t die of anythin’ catchin’,’ said William anxiously. ‘I shun’t like Albert to get anythin’. There’s no
reason
for
’em to die. They’ve got plenty of food an’ plenty of room to play about in an’ air gets in through the keyhole.’

‘Take them
away
!’

William lovingly gathered up his stag beetle and woodlice and centipedes and earwigs and took them downstairs, leaving his mother groaning over the crumby marmalady drawer . . .

He put them into cardboard boxes and punched holes in the tops. He put Albert, the gem of the collection, in a small box in his pocket.

Then it began to rain and he came back to the house.

There was nothing to do . . .

He wandered from room to room. No one was in. The only sounds were the sounds of the rain and of his mother furiously scrubbing at the drawer upstairs. He wandered into the kitchen. It was
empty. On the table by the window was a row of jam jars freshly filled and covered. His mother had made jam that morning. William stood by the table, half sprawling over it, resting his head on his
hands and watched the rain disconsolately. There was a small knife on the table. William took it up and, still watching the rain, absent-mindedly ‘nicked’ in all the taut parchment
covers one by one. He was thinking of Albert. As he nicked in the parchment, he was vaguely conscious of a pleasant sensation like walking through heaped-up fallen leaves or popping fuchsia buds or
breaking ice or treading on nice fat acorns . . . He was vaguely sorry when the last one was ‘nicked’.

Then his mother came in.

‘William!
’ she screamed as she saw the jam jars.

‘What’ve I done now?’ said William innocently. ‘Oh . . . those! I jus’ wasn’t thinking what I was doin’. Sorry!’

Mrs Brown sat down weakly on a kitchen chair.

‘I don’t think anyone ever had a boy like you ever before, William,’ she said with deep emotion. ‘The work of
hours
. . . And it’s
after
time for you
to get ready for Miss Lomas’s class. Do go, and then perhaps I’ll get a little peace!’

Miss Lomas lived at the other end of the village. She held a Bible class for the Sons and Daughters of Gentlefolk every Saturday afternoon. She did it entirely out of the
goodness of her heart, and she had more than once regretted the goodness of her heart since that Son of Gentlefolk known to the world as William Brown had joined her class. She had worked hard to
persuade Mrs Brown to send him. She thought that she could influence William for good. She realised when William became a regular attendant of her class that she had considerably overestimated her
powers. William could only be persuaded to join the class because most of his friends, not without much exertion of maternal authority, went there every Saturday. But something seemed to have
happened to the class since William joined it. The beautiful atmosphere was destroyed. No beautiful atmosphere was proof against William. Every Saturday Miss Lomas hoped that something would have
happened to William so that he could not come, and every Saturday William hoped equally fervently that something would have happened to Miss Lomas so that she could not take the class. There was
something dispirited and hopeless in their greeting of each other . . .

William took his seat in the dining-room where Miss Lomas always held her class. He glanced round at his fellow students, greeting his friends Ginger and Henry and Douglas with a hideous
contortion of his face . . .

Then he took a large nut out of his pocket and cracked it with his teeth.

‘
Not
in here, William,’ said Miss Lomas faintly.

‘I was goin’ to put the bits of shell into my pocket,’ said William. ‘I wasn’t goin’ to put ’em on your carpet or anything, but ’f you don’t
want me to’s all right,’ he said obligingly, putting nut and dismembered shell into his pocket.

‘Now we’ll say our verses,’ said Miss Lomas brightly but keeping a fascinated apprehensive eye on William. ‘William, you begin.’

‘ ’Fraid I din’t learn ’em,’ said William very politely. ‘I was goin’ to last night an’ I got out my Bible an’ I got readin’
’bout Jonah in the whale’s belly an’ I thought maybe it’d do me more good than St Stephen’s speech an’ it was ever so much more
int’restin’.’

‘That will do, William,’ said Miss Lomas. ‘We’ll – er – all take our verses for granted this afternoon, I think. Now, I want to give you a little talk on
Brotherly Love.’

‘Who’s Saint Valentine?’ said William who was burrowing in his prayer book.

‘Why, William?’ said Miss Lomas patiently.

‘Well, his day seems to be comin’ this month,’ said William.

Miss Lomas, with a good deal of confusion, launched into a not very clear account of the institution of Saint Valentine’s Day.

‘Well, I don’t think much of
him
’s a saint,’ was William’s verdict, as he took out another nut and absent-mindedly cracked it, ‘writin’ soppy
letters to girls instead of gettin’ martyred prop’ly like Peter an’ the others.’

Miss Lomas put her hand to her head.

‘You misunderstand me, William,’ she said. ‘What I meant to say was— Well, suppose we leave Saint Valentine till later, and have our little talk on Brotherly Love first .
. .
Ow-w-w
!’

Albert’s box had been accidentally opened in William’s pocket, and Albert was now discovered taking a voyage of discovery up Miss Lomas’s jumper. Miss Lomas’s spectacles
fell off. She tore Albert off and rushed from the room.

William gathered up Albert and carefully examined him. ‘She might have hurt him, throwing him about like that,’ he said sternly. ‘She oughter be more careful.’

Then he replaced Albert tenderly in his box.

‘Give us a nut,’ said Ginger.

Soon all the Sons and Daughters of Gentlefolk were cracking nuts, and William was regaling them with a racy account of Jonah in the whale’s belly, and trying to entice Albert to show off
his tricks . . .

‘Seems to me,’ said William at last thoughtfully, looking round the room, ‘we might get up a good game in this room . . . something sort of quiet, I mean, jus’ till she
comes back.’

But the room was mercifully spared one of William’s ‘quiet’ games by the entrance of Miss Dobson, Miss Lomas’s cousin, who was staying with her. Miss Dobson was very
young and very pretty. She had short golden curls and blue eyes and small white teeth and an attractive smile.

‘My cousin’s not well enough to finish the lesson,’ she said. ‘So I’m going to read to you till it’s time to go home. Now, let’s be comfortable. Come
and sit on the hearthrug. That’s right. I’m going to read to you
Scalped by the Reds
.’

William drew a breath of delight.

At the end of the first chapter he had decided that he wouldn’t mind coming to this sort of Bible class every day.

At the end of the second he had decided to marry Miss Dobson as soon as he grew up . . .

When William woke up the next morning his determination to marry Miss Dobson was unchanged. He had previously agreed quite informally to marry Joan Crewe, his friend and
playmate and adorer, but Joan was small and dark haired and rather silent. She was not gloriously grown-up and tall and fair and vivacious. William was aware that marriage must be preceded by
courtship, and that courtship was an arduous business. It was not for nothing that William had a sister who was acknowledged to be the beauty of the neighbourhood, and a brother who was generally
involved in a passionate if short-lived
affaire d’amour
. William had ample opportunities of learning how it was done. So far he had wasted these opportunities or only used them in a
spirit of mockery and ridicule, but now he determined to use them seriously and to the full.