William Again (19 page)

‘Gosh!’ ejaculated William in rapture and admiration.

There were several closed vans, but to William it was as if they were open. Clearly in imagination he saw the scene within. There sat laughing clowns and beautiful women with filmy skirts that
stuck out round their knees. He could imagine the clowns pouring forth an endless succession of jokes, each with suitable contortions. The beautiful women would be laughing till their sides ached.
He wished he had a clown for a father. Imagination almost faltered at the blissful thought. A ragged man leading one of the horses looked curiously at him – a small boy leaning against a lamp post
with all his soul in his eyes.

Slowly and reluctantly he went home to supper and bed. He dreamed of horses and lions, and tigers and clowns, and a life of untrammelled joy and jollity.

‘There’s a circus on the green,’ he announced at breakfast.

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ ordered his father.

William looked at him coldly. A clown would not have said this. He wondered on what principle parents were chosen. He sometimes wished he had been given some voice in the choosing of his. There
were one or two improvements he could think of. He swallowed with slow dignity. Then: ‘There’s a circus on the green,’ he announced again.

‘Yes, dear,’ said his mother soothingly. ‘Ethel, pass the marmalade to your father. What were you saying, dear?’

Whereupon William’s father proceeded with a monologue upon the Labour question that he had begun a few minutes previously. William sighed. He waited till the next pause.

‘I’m
goin
’ to the circus,’ he announced firmly.

That brought their attention to him.

‘I don’t see how you can, dear,’ said his mother slowly. ‘It’s only staying for this afternoon and evening, and it’s the dancing class this
afternoon—’

‘Dancin’!
’ repeated William in horror. ‘Shurly you don’t expect me to go to
dancin’
, with a circus on the green?’

‘I’ve paid for the twelve lessons,’ said Mrs Brown firmly, ‘and Miss Carew is very particular about your not missing without a real excuse.’

‘Well, there’s this evening,’ said William.

‘You know Grandfather and Aunt Lilian are coming,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘and they’d be most hurt if we went out the first evening.’

‘Well, they’re comin’ to stay a
week,’
said William with the air of one who exercises super-human patience; ‘shurly they won’t mind if I’m out
for
one
night? Shurly they aren’t as fond of me as all that? I should think Aunt Lilian would be
glad
I’m out from the things she said about me last time she came. You
know she said—’

‘You can’t go alone,’ said Mrs Brown wearily. ‘It doesn’t begin till eight. It’s an absurd hour to begin. You can’t stay up so late, for one thing, and
you can’t go alone, for another—’

‘Why
NOT
?’ said William with growing exasperation. ‘Aren’t I
eleven?
I’m not a
child.
I—’

William’s father lowered his newspaper.

‘William,’ he said, ‘the effect upon the nerves of the continued sound of your voice is something that beggars description. I would take it as a personal favour if it could
kindly cease for a short time.’

William was crushed. The fact that he rarely understood his father’s remarks to him had a good deal to do with the awe in which that parent was held. Clowns, he thought to himself
smoulderingly didn’t say things that no one knew what they meant. Anyway, he was going to that circus. He finished his breakfast in dignified silence with this determination fixed firmly in
his mind. He was going to that circus.
He was going to that circus.

‘Fold up your table napkin, William.’

Slowly and deliberately he performed the operation.

‘I bet clowns don’t have the beastly things,’ he remarked dispassionately.

With which enigmatical remark he departed from the bosom of his family. He was escorted to the dancing class in the afternoon by his elder sister Ethel. He signified his disgust at this want of
trust in him by maintaining a haughty silence except occasionally unbending so far as to ejaculate in a voice of scornful indignation,
‘Dancin’!
Huh! –
Dancin’!
’

During the dancing class his attention wandered. Miss Carew’s patience changed gradually to wearied impatience.

‘Slide the right foot, children,
right
foot, William Brown! Now chassé to the left. I said
left,
William Brown. Now three steps forward.
Forward,
William Brown.
I didn’t say stand still, did I? Now, take your partner’s hand – your
partner’s,
William Brown – Henry is not your partner.’ William’s real partner glared at
him.

William performed evolutions tardily, faultily, and mechanically. He saw not a roomful of small boys and girls, shining with heat and cleanliness, dominated by Miss Carew’s commanding
voice and eager gaze. He saw not his own partner’s small indignant face; he saw a ring, a ringmaster, a clown, lions, tigers, elephants – a circus!

He was aroused by a sudden wail from his small partner. ‘I don’t want to dance wif William! I don’t like dancing wif William. I want to dance wif someone else. William does
everyfin’ wrong!’

William gazed at her with a reddening countenance. The dancing class stopped dancing to watch. The maiden found a small handkerchief hidden in a miniature pocket and began to sob into it.
‘I could dance
nice
wif someone nice. I can’t dance wif William. He does it all wrong.’

‘
Me?
’ said William in horror. ‘I’ve not done anything. I dunno what she’s cryin’ for,’ he explained to the room helplessly. ‘I’ve not
done nothin’ to her.’

‘You’re enough to make any little girl cry,’ said Miss Carew sharply ‘the way you dance!’

‘Oh,
dancin’,’
said William scornfully. Then, ‘Well, I do it all right in the end. I’m only a bit slow. I’m thinkin’ of sumthin’ else,
that’s all. That’s nothing for her to cry for, is it? Cryin’ because other people dance slow. There’s no sense in that, is there?’

The sobs increased. It was a warm afternoon, and Miss Carew’s exasperation changed to a dull despair.

‘Will any kind little girl take William Brown for a partner, and give Mary a rest?’

There was no answer; William was aware of a distinct sense of mortification.

‘Well, I don’t
want
any of ’em,’ he said huffily. ‘I’ll dance slow by myself. I’d sooner dance by myself than with an ole cryin’ girl.
I’ll’ – a brilliant idea struck him – ‘I’ll go home, shall I? I shan’t mind going home.’ His cheerfulness grew. ‘Then she,’ he indicated his late
partner, ‘can do it quick by herself and give up cryin’. I’ll go home. I don’t mind goin’ home.’

‘No, you
won’t,’
said Miss Carew. ‘I’ll give – I’ll give a chocolate to any little girl who will dance with William Brown.’

A stout little girl, famed for her over-indulgence in sweets, volunteered. William received her with an air of resigned patience.

‘Well, don’t
cry
over me,’ he said sternly. She was less disposed to suffer in silence than his previous partner.

‘He’s treading on my toes,’ she announced in shrill complaint when the dancing was once more in full swing.

The goaded William burst forth. ‘Her feet are all over the place. I can’t keep
off them.
She moves them about so quick. She puts them just where I’m going to tread on
purpose. I don’t
want
to tread on her ole feet. Well, I can’t do what you say and not tread on her feet, ’cause when I do my feet, how you say do them, they go on her feet
’cause she’s got her feet there first ’cause she’s quicker than me an’—’

Miss Carew raised her hand to her brow.

‘William,’ she said wearily, ‘I really don’t know why you learn dancing.’

‘I learn dancin’,’ said William bitterly, ‘ ’cause they
make
me.’

The various tribulations of the dancing class almost drove the thought of the circus from his head. But he saw the tent as he went home. It was in darkness, as the afternoon performance was
over, and the only sign of life he could see was a thin dog chewing a turnip at the tent door. He supposed that the clowns and princess-riders were having tea in the brilliantly lit interiors of
the closed caravans. He could imagine their sallies of wit and mirth; he listened for their roars of laughter, but the caravan walls were thick and he could hear nothing but a noise that might have
been a baby crying, only William supposed it could not be that, for no baby who was lucky enough to live in a circus could surely be so misguided and ungrateful as to cry

‘I guess no one ever made
them
learn dancin’,’ he said feelingly.

He found that Grandfather Moore and Aunt Lilian had already arrived.

William had never met his grandfather before, and he gazed in astonishment at him. He had met old people before, but he had not thought that anything quite so old as Grandfather Moore had ever
existed or ever could exist. He was little, and wrinkled, and shrivelled, and bald. His face was yellow, with tiny little lines running criss-cross all over it; his bright little eyes seemed to
have sunk right back. When he smiled he revealed a large expanse of bare gum, with three lonely-looking teeth at intervals. He had a few hairs, just above his neck at the back, otherwise his head
was like a shining new egg. William was fascinated. He could hardly keep his eyes off him all tea-time.

Aunt Lilian’s life work was looking after Grandfather Moore. It filled every minute of her time. She was a perfect daughter.

‘May he sit with his back to the light?’ she said. ‘You know you’re better with your back to the light, dear. Bread and milk, please. Yes, he always has that, don’t
you, dear? Are you quite comfortable? Wouldn’t you like a cushion? Get that footstool, William. This is William, dear – little William.’

‘William,’ he repeated, and smiled.

William felt strangely flattered.

‘He’s getting a bit simple,’ sighed Aunt Lilian, ‘poor darling!’

She was firm after tea.

‘You’ll go to bed now, dear, won’t you? You always like to go to bed early after a journey, don’t you? He always likes to go to bed early after a long journey,’ she
explained to the company.

She helped him upstairs tenderly and left him in his room.

William was despatched to bed at half past seven as usual. They were surprised at his meekness. They thought he must have forgotten about the circus. They carefully avoided all mention of it.
But William’s silence was the silence of the tactician. Open attack had failed. He was now prepared to try secrecy.

Up in his room he sat down to consider the most unostentatious modes of exit from the house. There was the possibility of going downstairs and through the hall on stockinged feet so quickly as
to escape notice. But there was always the chance of somebody’s coming out into the hall at the critical minute, and then all would be lost. Or there was the possibility of climbing down from
his window, but his room was on the third storey, and he had never yet attempted a descent from that height. Just beneath his room was Grandfather Moore’s room. From the window of Grandfather
Moore’s room an old fig tree afforded a convenient ladder to the ground. Grandfather Moore had gone to bed directly after tea. He would surely be asleep now. Anyway, William decided to risk
it. He crept down the steps to Grandfather Moore’s room and cautiously opened the door. The room was lit up, and before the fire sat Grandfather Moore, fully dressed. It was now impossible to
withdraw The bright little eyes were fixed on him, and Grandfather Moore smiled.

‘William!’ he said with pleasure. Then, ‘I’ve not gone to bed yet.’ He was obviously revelling in his wickedness.

William came in and shut the door.

‘Can I get through your window?’ he said shortly.

‘Yes,’ said Grandfather Moore. ‘Where do you want to get to?’

‘I’m going to a circus,’ said William firmly.

The bright eyes grew wistful.

‘A circus!’ said the little old man. ‘I went to a circus once – years and years ago. Horses and elephants and—’

‘Lions an’ tigers an’ camels an’ – an’ – an’ clowns,’ supplied William.

‘Yes, clowns,’ said the old man eagerly. ‘I remember the clown. Oh, he was a funny fellow! Are you going alone?’

‘Yes,’ said William, crossing to the window.

‘Do they know you’re going?’

‘No.’

The little old man began to tremble with excitement.

‘William – I want to see a circus again. Let me come too.’

William was nonplussed.

‘You can’t climb down this tree,’ he said judicially. ‘I was goin’ climbin’ down this tree.’

‘I’ll go downstairs,’ suggested Grandfather Moore. ‘You wait for me outside. I’ll come out to you.’

But William’s protective interests were aroused.

‘No; if you’re goin’, I’ll stay with you.’

He found the old man’s hat and coat and helped him on with them. The old man was quivering with eagerness.

‘There will be a clown, won’t there, William? There
will
be a clown?’

‘I
know
there’s a clown,’ William assured him.

They crept downstairs and through the hall in silence. Fortune favoured them. No one came out. Mr Brown, Mrs Brown, Ethel and Aunt Lilian were playing bridge in the drawing-room. The hall door
stood open.

Outside Grandfather Moore gave a wicked chuckle.

‘Lilian – she thinks I’m in bed,’ he said.

‘ShH!
Come on!’ whispered William.

Outside the tent door he remembered suddenly that he possessed no money. His last penny had been spent on a bag of popcorn the day before. Grandfather Moore was crestfallen. He said he had no
money, but a systematic search revealed a shilling in the corner of his coat pocket, and his face lit up.

‘It’s all right, William,’ he said gleefully.

A stream of people were entering the tent. There was the ring, the sawdust, the stands for the horses, the sea of people, the smell that is like no other smell on earth – the smell of the
circus! William’s heart was too full for words. He could hardly believe his eyes. It was all too wonderful to be true. And there in the ring was a clown – a jolly red-nosed, laughing clown.
Grandfather Moore clutched his arm.