William Again (4 page)

Mrs Brown shivered slightly and sipped the brandy.

‘This, William,’ said Aunt Lucy, ‘is your cousin Francis.’

Cousin Francis held out his hand. ‘How do you do, William?’

William took the proffered hand. ‘How do you do?’ he said loudly, and added
sotto voce,
‘Fatty.’

Thus was war declared.

Mrs Brown was feeling better.

‘How is Great-Aunt Jane?’ she said.

‘Sinking,’ said Uncle John in a voice of deepest gloom. ‘Sinking fast – sinking fast.’

William’s expression grew animated.

‘Where is she?’ he said. ‘Is she out in the sea?’

‘Little boys,’ said Uncle John still gloomily, ‘should be seen and not heard.’

At this point the nurse entered.

‘She can see the little boy now,’ she said, ‘if he’s come.’

‘Let the dear children go together,’ suggested Aunt Lucy.

‘Excellent,’ said Uncle John in his hushed, sepulchral voice. ‘Excellent – together.’

William and Francis went upstairs behind the nurse.

The bedroom was large and dim. At the far end lay Great-Aunt Jane, propped up in a high old-fashioned bed. The nurse took them across.

‘I only wanted to see William,’ said Great-Aunt Jane feebly. ‘The other need not have come. So this is Margaret’s youngest, is it? I’ve seen the others, Robert and
Ethel. But I hadn’t seen this one. I didn’t want to die without seeing all my family. He’s not as beautiful as Francis, but he’s less fat. Do you trail clouds of glory,
William? Francis trails clouds of glory.’

‘Clouds of fat more like,’ said William, who was beginning to be bored by the whole affair. Great-Aunt Jane closed her eyes.

‘I’m going to rest a little,’ she said. ‘You can stay here and get me anything I want while nurse goes to have her tea.’

The nurse went.

Great-Aunt Jane fell asleep.

William and Francis were left alone in the dim bedroom, sitting on chairs, one on each side of the big bed as the nurse had placed them. The silence grew oppressive. William fidgeted, then
opened hostilities.

‘Hello, Fatty!’ he whispered over Great-Aunt Jane’s recumbent form.

‘’F you call me that again,’ whispered Francis, ‘I’ll tell my mother.’

‘ ’F you went telling tales of me, I’d pull your long hair off.’

Francis searched in his mind, silent for a few minutes, for a suitable term of opprobrium.

‘Freckles!’ he hissed across the bed at last.

‘Softy!’ returned William.

This was warfare after his own heart.

‘ ’F I got hold of you I could throw you out of the window.’

‘You couldn’t. You’d just roll about. You couldn’t throw anything. You’re too fat.’

‘I told you what I’d do if you called me that again.’

‘Tell-tale! Tell-tale! Silly ole tell-tale!’

Still the deadly insults were being hurled across the bed in whispers, and still Great-Aunt Jane slept.

‘I could bash your old freckled face in,’ whispered Francis.

‘I could knock your ole long-haired head off.’

‘I could pull your ears off.’

‘Come on, then. Have a try.’

‘Come on yourself!’

Worked up to fighting pitch, they stole round their corners of the bed to the open space at the foot. Then they hurled themselves upon each other.

They fought with fierce satisfaction, tearing at each other’s hair, punching each other’s heads, squirming and rolling on the floor. Suddenly they became aware of a spectator.
Great-Aunt Jane was sitting up in bed, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright.

‘Go it, William!’ she said. ‘Get one in on his nose. That’s right, Fatty; well fended! Go on, William. Another, another! No biting, Fatty. Go— Oh, dear!’

There were footsteps on the stairs.

‘Quick!’ said Great-Aunt Jane.

They darted to their seats, smoothing their hair as they went.

The nurse entered.

‘Whatever—’ she began, then looked round the peaceful room. ‘Oh, it must have been in the street!’

‘GO IT, WILLIAM!’ GREAT-AUNT JANE CRIED . . . ! ANOTHER, ANOTHER!’ . . .

Great-Aunt Jane opened her eyes.

‘I feel much better,’ she said.
‘Ever
so much better.’

‘You
look
better,’ said the nurse. ‘I hope the children were good.’

‘Good as gold!’ said Great-Aunt Jane, with the ghost of a wink at William.

‘Look at them,’ said the nurse, smiling. ‘Both purple in the face with holding their breaths. They’d better go now.’

Again Great-Aunt Jane winked at William. Downstairs Uncle John was standing, gloomy as ever, by the fireplace.

‘How is she?’ he said, as they entered.

‘I think she’s risin’ a bit,’ said William.

‘What did you say he did this morning?’ said Great-Aunt Jane to the nurse.

‘He got up early,’ said the nurse, ‘and found a mouse in the mousetrap. He put it into a cardboard box and almost covered the creature in cheese, and made holes in the lid and
put it into his pocket. He wanted to keep it. Then the thing gnawed its way out at breakfast and stampeded the whole table. It ran over Francis, and he yelled, and his father nearly fainted.
William was much annoyed. He said he’d meant to teach it tricks.’

‘It was yesterday, wasn’t it,’ said Great-Aunt Jane, ‘that he dared Fatty to walk on the edge of the rain tub, and he overbalanced and fell in?’

‘Yes – and Fatty got in a temper and bit him, and they fought and rolled down the bank together into the pond.’

‘And Tuesday—’

‘Tuesday he brought the scarecrow in from the field in the evening and put it in front of the fire where his uncle usually stands, and it was rather dark, and they hadn’t lit up yet,
and his aunt came in and talked to it for quite a long time before she discovered. She’s rather shortsighted, you know.’

‘There was a terrible scuffle going on somewhere last night,’ said Great-Aunt Jane eagerly.

‘Oh, yes – his Uncle John went downstairs about eleven for a book he’d forgotten, and William heard him and thought he was a burglar, and attacked him from behind. They fell
downstairs on top of each other, and then William got his uncle rolled up in the hall rug with a pair of gloves in his mouth and his eyeglasses broken before he found out who he was – he’s a
curious boy!’

Great-Aunt Jane was sitting up and looking quite bright.

‘He certainly lends an interest to life. I feel ever so much better since he came. You might send him up now, if he’s in, Nurse, will you?’

On her way down the nurse met Uncle John.

‘How long is this young ruffian going to be here?’ he said furiously. William had successfully dispelled the air of hallowed gloom from the house. ‘He’s sent my nerves to
pieces already – what his effect on that poor sufferer must be—’

‘THERE WAS A TERRIBLE SCUFFLING GOING ON SOMEWHERE, LAST NIGHT’

‘He seems to be strengthening
hers,’
said the nurse. ‘She’s just sent for him.’

‘That means a few minutes’ peace for the rest of the house, at any rate,’ he said.

William entered the sickroom sullenly. He was thoroughly bored with life. Even his enemy, Fatty, was not to be found. Fatty retired every afternoon with his mother to lie down.

‘Good afternoon, William,’ said Great-Aunt Jane, ‘are you enjoying your visit?’

‘Well,’ said William vaguely, striving to temper truth with politeness, ‘I wun’t mind going home now. I’ve had enough.’ He sat down on her bed and became
confidential. ‘We’ve been here for weeks an’ weeks—’

‘Four days,’ amended Great-Aunt Jane.

‘Well, four days, then,’ said William, ‘an’ there’s nothing left to do, an’ they make a fuss if I make a noise; an’ I’ve got a lizard in a box at
home and I’m tryin’ to teach it tricks, an’ it’ll have forgot me if I stay here much longer. It was just gettin’ to know me. I could tell by its eyes. An’ they
might forget to feed it or
anything –
there’s nothing to
do
here, an’ Mother’s not been well since the sea made her sick, an’ I keep sayin’ – why wait
till she’s all right to go back – case the sea makes her sick again; better go back while she’s feelin’ bad and get it all over again without the fuss of gettin’ all right
an’ then gettin’ bad again; an’ I keep sayin’,
why
are we stoppin’ here and stoppin’ here an’ stoppin’ here – an’ everyone sayin’
“Shh!”
when you make a noise, or sing, or anything. I say –
why?’

Great-Aunt Jane’s sunken lips were quivering, her eyes twinkling.

‘And why are you stoppin’ an’ stoppin’ an’ stoppin’?’

‘She says ’cause you’re not out of danger, and we must stop till we know which way it is. Well,’ he waxed still more confidential, ‘what I say is, shurely you
know
which way you’re goin’ to be. Can’t you tell us? Then if you’re goin’ to get better we’ll go, an’ if you’re not—’

‘Yes, what then?’ said Great-Aunt Jane.

‘Then we’ll go, too. You don’t want me hangin’ round when you’re dyin’,’ he said coaxingly. ‘I’d like as not make a noise, or something, and
disturb you – and that lizard might have got out if I go waitin’ here much more – like wot that mouse did.’

Great-Aunt Jane drew a deep breath of utter content.

‘You’re too priceless to be true, William,’ she said.

‘Can’t you tell me which way?’ said William ingratiatingly.

‘Yes,’ said Great-Aunt Jane, ‘I’m going to get better.’

‘Oh, crumbs!’ he said joyfully. ‘Can I go and tell Mother to pack?’

‘You’ve turned the corner,’ said the doctor to Great-Aunt Jane an hour later. ‘We needn’t worry about you any more. All these relations of yours
can pack up and go.’

‘William’s packed already,’ said the nurse. ‘That boy is a cure!’

Great-Aunt Jane laughed.

‘Yes, he’s a cure, all right,’ she said.

CHAPTER 3

THAT BOY

W
illiam had gone away with his family for a holiday, and he was not enjoying it. For one reason it was not the sea. Last summer they had gone to
the sea and William had enjoyed it. He had several times been rescued from a watery grave by passers-by. He had lost several pairs of new shoes and socks by taking them off among the rocks and then
roaming so far afield barefoot that he forgot where he had left them and so came home without them. He got wet through every day as a matter of course. Through the house where his family stayed his
track was marked by a trail of sand and seaweed and small deceased crabs. He had upon one occasion floated out to sea in a boat which he had found on the beach and loosened from its moorings, and
narrowly escaped being run down by a steamer. At the end of the holiday by the sea Mrs Brown had said weakly, ‘Let it be somewhere inland next year.’

William found things monotonous inland. There were no crabs and nothing to do. Robert and Ethel, his grown-up brother and sister, had joined a tennis club and were out all day. Not that William
had much use for Robert and Ethel. He preferred them out all day as a matter of fact.

‘All I say
is,’
he said aggrievedly to his mother, ‘that no one cares whether I’m havin’ a nice time or not. You think that s’long as father can go
golfin’ – or
tryin
’ to golf – and those two playin’ tennis – or what they
call
tennis’ – he added scornfully, ‘and you can sit knittin’, it’s
all
right.
You don’t think of
me.
No one thinks of me. I might just as well not be here. All I say
is,’
he ended, ‘I might jus’ as well be
dead
for all the trouble some people take to make me happy.’

His mother looked at his scowling freckled countenance.

‘Well, dear,’ she said, ‘there are plenty of books about the house that you haven’t read.’

‘Books,’
said William scornfully. ‘Sir Walter Scott’s ole things – I don’t call that
books.’

‘You can go for walks.’

‘Walks!’
said William. ‘It’s no use goin’ walks without Jumble.’

His father lowered his newspaper. ‘Your arithmetic report was vile,’ he said. ‘You might occupy your time with a few sums. I’ll set them for you.’

William turned upon his parent a glance before which most men would have quailed. Even William’s father, inured as he was by long experience to that glare of William’s, retired
hastily behind his paper. Then, with a short and bitter laugh, William turned on his heel and left the room. That was the last straw. He’d finished with them. He’d simply finished with
them.