William in Trouble (23 page)

‘There you are, kid,’ he said airily, and walked off with a slight swagger to treat himself to a very large stone ginger at the village pub.

William gazed after him open-mouthed with gratitude.

‘I – I’ll
do
something for Robert for this,’ he said with husky earnestness.

William had not meant to attend the garden fête at the neighbouring village of West Mellings. He decided, however, at the last moment to accompany his family there,
partly because he had heard that there would be roundabouts and coconut shies, and he had two whole shillings out of the five still left, partly because he was still inspired by gratitude towards
Robert and a desire to express his gratitude in some tangible form, and he hoped that the fête would give him some opportunity of doing this. He had paid for his air gun with what he fondly
imagined to be a crushing air, and though Mr Beezum certainly did not look as small as William thought he ought to look, still William hoped that he had taught him a lesson that would last him the
rest of his life. He had purposely refrained from spending any of the remaining money in Mr Beezum’s shop in order to enforce the stern lesson he was teaching Mr Beezum.

‘I’ve got another four shillings left,’ he said meaningly as he received the mended air gun.

‘Well, I hope you won’t go spending of it all at once same as you generally do,’ said Mr Beezum, taking the wind out of his sails. ‘Why don’t you save
it?’

This suggestion was, of course, beneath contempt, and William walked out of the shop in scornful silence.

His family received the news that he had decided to accompany them to the garden fête without enthusiasm.

‘I don’t think you’ll
enjoy
it, dear,’ said his mother doubtfully.

‘I bet I will,’ said William, cheerfully, ‘there’s ice cream an’ roundabouts an’ coconut shies an’ things. I bet I’ll enjoy it.’

His mother sighed.

‘You’ll
try
to keep clean, dear, won’t you?’ she pleaded, with horrible visions before her eyes of William as he usually appeared at the end of even a few
minutes’ enjoyment. ‘Remember that you’ll be coming home with us. You don’t want to disgrace us, do you?’

William ignored this question.

‘Oh, blow the kid!’ said Robert. ‘What does he want to come for? He’s sure to mess things up.’

Robert had forgotten the five shillings and was fortunately unaware that the consuming passion in William’s mind at present was a burning desire to do him service.

‘I
might
,’ said William mysteriously. ‘I
might
be able to
help.
You don’t
know
yet how I might be able to help.’

Then he departed with great dignity, leaving Robert staring after him blankly.

The fête afternoon passed off more or less uneventfully. William made first for the ice-cream stall, next for the toffee stall, then bought a stick of rock and a bar of chocolate from an
itinerant tray bearer, then went to the coconut shies, where he failed to win a coconut, but succeeded in hitting a passing curate.

The curate, who was a very good young man, took it on the whole quite well.

‘You should be more careful, my little man,’ he said, rubbing the side of his head and smiling a smile that was meant to express Christian forgiveness and geniality. (It didn’t
at all. It expressed only an excusable desire to smack William’s head, barely held in check by a strong sense of duty and regard for appearances.)

William, who hadn’t meant to hit the curate, explained that the sun was in his eyes, and watched the protrusion on the curate’s forehead increase to the proportion of a fair-sized
egg with proprietary interest. Then he went to the roundabouts and rounded about on a gigantic cockerel in blissful happiness, sucking a large stick of rock, till he had got down to his last
sixpence. Then he saw Ethel coming to fetch him to join his family for tea.

He had lost his cap, his hair stood straight on end, the rock and toffee and chocolate and ices had left visible marks of their passing in large circles round his mouth. His efforts at the
coconut shy stall had sent his collar and tie round to the region of his left ear, his hands were black and sticky and his knees, where he had fallen when jumping to and fro over the fence at the
back of the coconut shy stall, were covered with mud.

Ethel shuddered and winced at the sight. The thought of this object’s joining the well-dressed Brown party around the dainty little table in the enclosure was too horrible.

‘Do you want any tea, William?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said William, his mouth full of rock.

Ethel handed him sixpence.

‘I’ll give you that,’ she said, ‘not to want any tea.’

William pocketed it.

‘Now do you want any tea?’ said Ethel.

‘No,’ said William, trying unsuccessfully to jump over the bran tub (which was left temporarily unattended) and bringing bran tub and himself to the ground. He got up, brushed off a
certain amount of bran from his person and hurried away from the scene of disaster.

Reaching the shelter of a large tree, he took out Ethel’s sixpence to gaze at it fondly. It did not occur to him to wonder why Ethel did not want him to want any tea. The ways of the
grown-up world were so full of mystery that he never even attempted to solve them. He’d got sixpence – that was the main thing – and he could get far nicer things himself with
sixpence than you ever got at any old grown-up tea. Whistling discordantly, with his hands in his pockets, he set off to buy another stick of rock, then he bought another bar of chocolate, then he
had another ride on the roundabout, then he had another coconut shy.

Ethel returned to the tea enclosure where several elegantly-dressed friends had now joined the Browns. Ethel felt a glow of pride at her diplomacy.

‘William doesn’t want any tea,’ she said.

‘Oh
dear
,’ said Mrs Brown, much perturbed, ‘I do hope he’s not going to be ill – Ethel, did he
look
ill?’

‘No,’ said Ethel.

‘But – but he’s
always
ready for a meal as a rule,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Oh, he’s all right,’ said Robert.

‘I’ll take his temperature the minute we get home,’ said Mrs Brown, still anxious.

Then they forgot William. There was a very elegant young man among the friends who was much impressed by Ethel, and there was a very pretty girl who was having a nice little flirtation with
Robert. And all went merry as a marriage bell till, in the middle of a funny story told by the young man, the smile froze on Ethel’s face and her eyes filled with horror. In silence they
followed her eyes.

A figure was walking jauntily along on the other side of the rope that separated the tea enclosure from the rest of the fête ground. It had no cap. Its hair stood up on end. A dirty collar
(clean only an hour ago) and tie set up on end under one ear. Dark coloured rings, suggestive of toffee and chocolate, surrounded its mouth. Its knees were black; its bootstrings untied, its
clothes covered with mud and bran. In one hand it held a stick of rock; in the other an ice-cream horn. It licked them alternately.

Suddenly it caught sight of the elegant party watching it in horror-stricken silence from the other side of the rope. A radiant smile overspread the grimy countenance. The figure was evidently
quite unaware of the appearance it presented.

‘Hello!’ it said cheerfully, ‘I’m having a
jolly
good time, are you?’

After tea there were races. Robert went in for the race for those over sixteen. Robert had not the slightest doubt that he would win. He had been distinctly annoyed after tea to observe that he
was followed wherever he went by the horrible rock-licking, ice-cream-sucking figure of William. He imagined that William did this to annoy him. He did not know that William was inspired solely by
a desire to prove his gratitude. It was certainly embarrassing for Robert to have to explain to the very pretty girl that the terrible object was his brother. He imagined that the pretty
girl’s manner cooled perceptibly after that disclosure. But he meant to reinstate himself by winning the race.

‘HELLO!’ SAID WILLIAM CHEERFULLY. ‘I’M HAVING A
JOLLY
GOOD TIME, ARE YOU?’

At the starting place he was next to the Vicar’s son, whom he disliked on sight – a ferret-faced boy with protruding teeth and who had also been hanging round the pretty girl, and
who had, Robert bitterly reflected, no ghastly brother, like William, to spoil his chances.

William hovered round Robert giving him unasked advice between the alternate sucks of rocks and ice cream.

‘Run for all you’re worth, Robert,’ – suck – ‘Yes, bend down like that for startin’,’ – suck – ‘and then
jump
forward,’ – suck – ‘then run jus’ to keep near the front,’ – suck – ‘an’ then, then give a sud’n
sprint
an’—’

‘Shut up,’ hissed Robert fiercely from his stooping position at the starting line.

William was still feeling grateful for the five shillings.

‘All right, Robert,’ he said meekly, as he regretfully swallowed the last of his ice-cream horn, and moved hastily across the field to the winning tape. Robert said afterwards that
if it hadn’t been for the sudden vision of William’s horrible figure – rocky and branny and muddy and dishevelled, waving and cheering at the winning tape when he thought
he’d left him safely behind at the starting line – he’d have won the race without any doubt at all.

‘Well,’ said William, crestfallen. ‘I
thought
I looked all right. I
thought
I looked same as I looked when we started out. I’d seen myself in the glass then
and I looked all right. How was I to know I’d changed? – an’ I was only saying, ‘Go it, Robert,’ – an’ ‘Good ole Robert,’ an’ things like
that, trying to
help
him!’

‘Well, you didn’t help me,’ said Robert, bitterly.

For the sad truth is that Robert came in neck-and-neck with the Vicar’s ferret-faced son. At least it looked to the spectators like a neck-and-neck ending and evidently it also did to the
umpire, for he gave it as a draw, and they drew lots and the ferret-faced boy won and was presented with a silver cup and went in friendly confabulation with the pretty girt.

Robert was furious. Moreover he was confident that he had really won the race. He had won it, he claimed, by a fraction of a head. His nose had reached the winning tape before the ferret-faced
boy’s. And it was William’s putting him off so that had prevented his winning by several yards. William suddenly appearing like that and shouting and yelling and waving his arms and
looking so
awful –
enough to put anyone off. He went into the Vicarage before he returned home and saw the cup in the Vicar’s study.

‘There it was,’ he said bitterly when he rejoined the others. ‘
My
cup – there on a bracket in the Vicar’s study, and I’d be carryin’ it home
now
if everyone had their rights. It’d be on the silver-table in the drawing-room with my other cup now, if everybody had their rights.’

The ferret-faced boy passed him, accompanied by the pretty girl, and Robert ground his teeth. And William, swallowing the last fraction of rock, made a great decision.

The next morning, William gathered together his boon companions – Ginger, Henry and Douglas, known collectively as the Outlaws – and addressed them earnestly.

‘We’ve gotter
help
Robert, ’cause he gave me five shillings last week an’ – you remember – I gave all of you sweets out of it – an’
it’s
his
cup really, but the other boy’s got it an’ we’ve gotter get it off the bracket in the Vicar’s study and put it on the silver-table in the drawing-room
with Robert’s other cup – poor ole Robert wot really won it all the time.’

The Outlaws, who had not attended the garden fête, were rather vague as to the meaning of this tirade, but they were used to following William’s leadership. What they chiefly
demanded of life was excitement, and William seldom failed to supply it in large doses to them.

They walked through the wood and over the hill to West Mellings. ‘Walk,’ perhaps is not quite the right word, ‘Walk,’ suggests a decorous, unexciting mode of progression
that did not apply to the Outlaws at all. They ran along the ditches, they balanced (or failed to balance) on the top of fences, they scouted each other as Red Indians through the woods, they
played leapfrog in the lanes, they climbed trees and they held races and they deliberately walked through every stream they found – but at last, after several hours, and an expenditure of
energy that would have taken them at walking pace there and back half-a-dozen times, they arrived at the village of West Mellings.

‘What we goin’ to do?’ said Ginger cheerfully, throwing a stone at a telegraph post and hitting a hen, who fled down the road with loud screams of indignation to her native
farm.

William assumed the stern air of a leader of men.

‘We’ve gotter go to the Vicarage.’ he said, ‘and get back Robert’s cup. It’s on a bracket in the Vicar’s study, ’cause his son took it (though it
b’longs
to Robert), and it’s gotter go on to the silver-table in our drawing-room, where Robert’s other cup is an’ where it
b’longs.
’