William Again (20 page)

THEY CREPT DOWNSTAIRS AND THROUGH THE HALL IN SILENCE.

‘The clown, William!’ he gasped in ecstasy.

William sighed – a deep sigh of intense happiness.

They secured good seats in the second row from the bottom and sat in silence – a curious couple – their eager eyes fixed on that figure o’ dreams with a loose white suit and a chalked
face. He held a small camera and he was offering to take the photographs of the people who came in. At last a farmer and his wife agreed to be photographed. He posed them carefully in the middle of
the ring, the lady in a chair, her hands folded in her lap, the man standing by her side, his hand on her shoulder. Then he told them not to move. He said he was going to photograph them from
behind first. He went behind and disappeared through the door of the tent. The couple stayed motionless with sheepish grins on their faces. The suppressed titters of the audience increased to roars
of laughter. It was some time before the rustic couple realised that the clown was not photographing them carefully from behind. William enjoyed the joke. He emitted guffaw after guffaw while
Grandfather Moore’s shrill cackle joined in.

‘He’s gone away, William!’ he piped between his laughter. ‘He’s gone right away! They think he’s taking them from behind!’

At last the joke dawned upon the bucolic couple, and they went to their places amid applause.

Then began the circus proper. The ring-master came on – a magnificent creature with long moustachios and a white shirt front. He waved his whip. Then all held their breath, for in there pranced
a coal-black horse, and on its back one of the visions of beauty, whose pictures had been on the poster – golden hair, red cheeks, white tights, and short, white, frilly skirts.

To William she was Beauty personified. In the fickleness of his youth he decided not to marry the little girl next door after all. He would marry her instead. He would be a clown and marry her.
He watched her with fascinated eyes. She rode round the ring barback – she then rode round standing on the horse’s back and blowing them kisses. William blushed violently when he imagined
one came to him.

‘Golly!’ he breathed.

‘Isn’t she fine?’ said Grandfather Moore.

‘Isn’t she
just?
said William.

All the while the majestic ring-master stood in the centre of the ring twirling his moustachios and flicking his long, curling whip.

Then a man brought her a white horse, and she raced round the ring, leaping gracefully from horse to horse at full gallop. Oh, the dreadful moment when William thought she might fall. He would
have leapt from his seat and saved her, dying, perhaps, in the attempt. His thoughts lingered fondly on the scene. Then she leapt through the paper hoop again and again, landing gracefully upon the
black or white back. William grew impatient for the time when he should be old enough to be a clown and marry her. The thought of the dancing class had faded altogether from his mind. The thoughts
of youth may be long, long thoughts, but its memories are distinctly short.

SHE RODE ROUND THE RING BAREBACK – BLOWING THEM KISSES. WILLIAM BLUSHED VIOLENTLY WHEN HE IMAGINED ONE CAME TO HIM.

Then the clown came on again. How they roared at him. He tried to get on to a horse and he couldn’t; he tried to stand on a chair and he couldn’t; he tried to do conjuring tricks and
he dropped everything; he tried to walk across the ring and he slipped at every step. He fell over his trousers; he fell over the ring-master; he quarrelled with the ring-master; the ring-master
knocked him down; he said the funniest things William had ever heard in all his life. William was literally exhausted with laughing; Grandfather Moore was hoarse. Occasionally his cackling laugh
cracked feebly on the top note.

Open-mouthed and tense they watched a collie dog carry in its puppy, nurse it, give it a bottle of milk and put it in its cradle; watched the elephant pick out numbers at the direction of the
ring-master; watched the monkey ride a bicycle and pelt the clown with sawdust. But the last item was the most stupendous. It was called ‘The Prairie on Fire’. There were real flames –
red, rolling flames; and through them, and in headlong flight before them, came cattle and horses and buggies, whose occupants stood up lashing on the horses and casting glances of terror at the
flames. The golden-haired beauty was wringing her hands in the last buggy but one. The monkey was on the seat with the driver.

‘Crumbs!’ gasped William.

Grandfather Moore was beyond words.

Almost dazed and drunk with happiness they went out into the darkness at the end. They walked in silence till they were almost at the gate of William’s house.

Then William spoke.

‘I don’t care what they do to me. It was worth it – jolly well worth it.’

Grandfather Moore gave a chuckle.

‘That
was
a circus, William! I saw a fine one when I was a boy too. I didn’t care what I did to get to a circus.’

William felt that he had found a kindred spirit.

‘Did you learn dancin’?’ he asked with interest.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘No,’
said Grandfather Moore emphatically.

The bond between them grew stronger.

The hall and staircase were empty as they crept cautiously in through the front door. Mr Brown, Mrs Brown, Ethel and Aunt Lilian were still playing bridge in the drawing-room. Silently, on
tiptoe, they crept upstairs to bed.

Mrs Brown was apologetic at breakfast.

‘I was so sorry about the circus, dear,’ she said to William. ‘It just came on an awkward day when no one could take you. There’s sure to be one again soon. You shall go
to that.’

‘Thank you, Mother,’ said William, his eyes fixed upon his plate.

‘You didn’t mind very much, did you, dear?’ she continued.

‘No, Mother,’ said William meekly.

Aunt Lilian beamed across at her charge.

‘Doesn’t
he look well this morning? I don’t know
when
I remember him looking so well. A good long night does him no end of good. I’m so glad I persuaded him
to go to bed directly after tea.’

William’s eyes and Grandfather Moore’s eyes met for a second across the table.

CHAPTER 12

WILLIAM SELLS THE TWINS

W
illiam and Ginger, William’s faithful friend and ally, were in a state of bankruptcy. They lacked even the paltry twopence necessary to buy
sweets in these days of inflated prices, and life was unendurable. They had approached the adult members of their respective families, only to meet that callousness and indifference so
characteristic of adults in their dealings with the young . . .

They sat in the open space of ground behind Ginger’s house, and solemnly considered their assets.

The twins
really
belonged to Ginger. That is to say, they were Ginger’s cousins and were paying a visit to Ginger’s family. They had been there a week now, and to Ginger it
had been a very long week. On their arrival, he had found to his horror that he was expected to take an interest in them, even to the extent of taking them about with him wherever he went.

He had almost become accustomed, by now, to their continual presence, but still he disliked them intensely. In all his daring adventures and escapades and games he was to be hampered by the two
of them, George and John, both placid, both plump, both three and a half years old. He had to listen to William’s comments on their appearance and mental powers, comments with which he
privately agreed, but which, for the sake of the honour of his family, he was obliged to resent and avenge . . .

Today, to add insult to injury, his mother had told him to ‘see that they kept clean’, as their mother was coming to take them home that afternoon. That, at any rate, was a blessing.
It would be the last day of his persecution. But the ignominy . . . that a desperate bravado should have to spend his noble energy keeping children clean . . .

George and John were sitting now on the ground, pulling up bits of grass and eating them. William and Ginger watched them scornfully.

‘Pity we can’t make a bit of money out of them,’ said William.

‘Umph,’ agreed Ginger. ‘They’ve been enough trouble.’

A speculative look came into William’s eye.

‘ ’F we’d lived in historical times,’ he said, ‘we might have sold them as slaves like wot Miss Jones told us about.’

Ginger gasped at the daring idea. Then his eye fell upon them gloomily.

‘No one would have bought ’em,’ he said. ‘No one wot knew them ’s well as I do.’

‘You silly!’ said William. ‘They
wouldn’t
know them. They’d just see them in a kind of particular place and think they looked nice—’

‘Well, they don’t!’

‘– or cheap and jus’ buy them.’

‘Well, wot for? Fancy anyone payin’ money for them! . . . For
those
!’

‘You’re so silly,’ said William patiently. ‘They’d jus’ buy ’em once when they were quite little an’ jus pay once for ’em and then have
’em all the rest of their lives to do work for ’em an’ they’d never pay any more after they’d jus’ paid for ’em once – see?’

Ginger brightened.

‘D’you think anyone
would?
he said.

William replied with superior scorn.

‘ ’F you’d been listening in history today you’d know that people don’t do it now. Someone or other stopped ’em.’

Ginger considered this deeply.

‘You never know,’ he said; ‘it might be comin’ in fashion again. Things do. We might try it. You never know. Someone might jus’ like the look of ’em or think
’em cheap or—’

Even William was horrified.

‘Yes,’ he broke in, ‘an’ then when you’ve sold ’em, what’ll you say to their mother? . . . Jus’ you tell me that! What’ll you say to their
mother when you’ve sold ’em?’

Ginger had been considering deeply. Suddenly his brow cleared.

‘I know. We could watch where they took ’em to – the ones that bought ’em – an’ rescue ’em ’fore anyone knows anything about it.’

‘Sounds all right,’ said William guardedly.

Ginger turned to his charges.

‘You’d like to be slaves, wun’t you?’ he asked brightly and persuasively.

‘Yiss!’
chorused George and John.

‘You see?’ said Ginger triumphantly to William. ‘I’ll go an’ fix things up. ’S worth tryin’ anyway.’

‘Sounds
all right,’ said William again doubtfully; and added gloomily out of the vast store of his experience, ‘but you never know where things ends.’

A few minutes later Ginger brought two large luggage labels, each inscribed:

and on the back of each label was printed: