William the Good (13 page)

‘It’s him,’ said the voice. ‘I don’t see him but I know it’s him. He’s left the thing there. Look! Pouring out. It must be him.’

‘Let’s go straight in to change and then go and tell his father. I’m still soaked.’

The head disappeared; the sound of indignant voices grew fainter; a distant door closed.

William emerged from behind the rain butt and hastened to turn off the tap and put away the hose pipe. . . . All that beastly cat’s fault. Now he came to think of it hose pipes always had
been unlucky for him. There’d been that little affair at the doctor’s only a few months ago. . . .

Well, he’d better get on with the rest of it and try and get the shilling safely before they were dry enough to come and see his father. What had she told him to do next? Weed the bed on
the lawn. William promptly knelt down and weeded the bed on the lawn with commendable thoroughness. There was no doubt at all in William’s mind as to what constituted a weed. In
William’s mind a weed was any plant he did not know the name of. William knew the names of very few plants. When he had finished weeding the bed contained a few straggling stocks and asters
and one marguerite. By his side lay a pile of uprooted lobelias, petunias, calceolarias, veronicas and other plants. He carried these carefully to the rubbish heap, then gazed with pride at the bed
on which he had been working.

‘Looks a bit tidier now,’ he said.

Only one more thing to do. What was that? Oh, a basket of strawberries. He got a basket from the greenhouse and proceeded to the strawberry bed. He sat down there and a languorous content stole
over him.

Ethel appeared dressed in the printed chiffon. She looked very dainty and bewitching. She’d decided to send the land girl’s suit to the next parish jumble sale
– it really wasn’t her style. . . . William ought to have finished now. She’d give him his shilling and then she’d tell her father that she’d done what she’d
said she’d do in the garden and she jolly well wouldn’t offer to do any more. Anyway, a new gardener would be coming next week. . . . She suddenly stopped motionless, her eyes wide open
in horrified amazement. The rose bed was still unwatered, but the garden path was completely swamped. Her eyes wandered slowly to the bed on the lawn which she had told William to weed. It was as
William had left it – completely denuded except for half a dozen straggling plants whose presence only emphasised its desolation. There was no sign of William. Ethel went round to the kitchen
garden. William was sitting on the path by the strawberry bed still in a state of languorous content. Ethel stared from the empty basket to the empty strawberry bed and from the empty strawberry
bed to William’s gently moving mouth.

‘You
naughty
boy!’ said Ethel. ‘You’ve
eaten
them, every one!’

William awoke with a start from his state of languorous content and looked at the basket and the strawberry bed. He was almost as amazed and horrified as Ethel.

‘I say,’ he said. ‘I din’t meant to eat ’em
all.
I din’t honest. I only meant to try jus’ one or two jus’ to make sure they was all right
before I started pickin’ ’em. I – I expect really it’s the birds that did it when they saw I wasn’t lookin’.
Honest
, I don’t think I could’ve
eaten ’em all – I’m sure I only ate just a few – jus’ to see they was all right.’

Ethel’s fury burst forth.

‘I shan’t give you any money and I shall tell father the
minute
he comes in.’

This reminded William of something else.

‘I say, Ethel,’ he said anxiously. ‘No one’s – no one’s been in to see father jus’ lately, have they?’

‘Oh,’ snapped Ethel. ‘Why?’

‘No, nothin’,’ said William. ‘I mean I jus’ thought p’raps someone might be jus’ sort of comin’ to see him, that’s all.’

Ethel turned on her heel and walked away. Slightly to relieve his feelings William put out his tongue at her back. He might have known Ethel would let him slave for her for all this time and
then not give him a penny. It was just like Ethel. He’d known her all his life and he might have known she’d play him a mean trick like that. Getting him to work like a slave and
promising him a shilling and then not giving him a penny jus’ because – well jus’ because of hardly anything.

A great despondency possessed William, He seemed to be farther off the eight and six than ever. . . . Ethel being Ethel would not be likely to forget to tell his father and presumably the
recipients of the contents of the hose pipe were already drying themselves in preparation for their visit. . . . He was in for a rotten time. He wouldn’t have minded if he’d got the
eight and six. He wouldn’t mind anything if he’d got the eight and six. He decided that it would be as well to leave the strawberry bed, so after carefully wiping his mouth to remove
any chance stains, he wandered disconsolately round to the front of the house. His mother was coming out of the front door, dressed in her best clothes.

It struck Mrs Brown that her younger son was looking rather pathetic. She was short-sighted and she often mistook William’s expression of fury and disgust for one of pathos. It was a
mistake which had often served William well.

‘Would you like to come with me, dear?’ she said pleasantly.

‘Where to?’ said William guardedly.

‘To a nice little Sale of Work in Miss Milton’s garden,’ said his mother. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’

William was sure he wouldn’t, but it occurred to him that he might as well be at Miss Milton’s nice little Sale of Work as anywhere. Better than staying at home where his father and
the next-door neighbours might arrive any minute.

‘A’right,’ said William graciously. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘Very well, dear. I’ll wait for you. Go and wash and brush yourself.’

‘I have washed and brushed myself,’ said William. ‘I did it specially well this morning to last the day.’

‘Well, it hasn’t done, dear,’ said Mrs Brown simply. ‘So go and do it again.’

With a deep, deep sigh expressive of bitterness and disillusion and unexampled patience under unexampled wrongs, William went to do it again.

The first person he saw at the Sale of Work was Ethel in the printed chiffon accompanied by the young man with projecting teeth. William, who had detached himself from his
mother, passed them without acknowledging them and hoped that they felt small. As a matter of fact they had not noticed him. He wandered about the garden. It might have been a more or less
enjoyable affair for there were bran tubs and coconut shies and Aunt Sallies on a small scale – had William not been weighed down by his heavy financial anxieties. He was obsessed by the
thought of the eight and six.

There simply didn’t seem any way in the world of getting eight and six. . . .

He found his mother and assuming that expression that he found so useful in his dealings with her said: ‘Mother, please may I have a little money to spend here?’

His mother was obviously touched by his tone and expression, but after a brief inward struggle seemed to conquer her weaker feelings.

‘I’m afraid not, William dear, because you know what your father said about the landing window last week. But I’ll give you just one penny, because it’s all in a good
cause and I’m sure your father didn’t mean when it was a case of charity. But not more than one penny.’

So Mrs Brown gave him a penny which he pocketed carefully as the nucleus of the eight and six.

Then he began to wander disconsolately round the grounds again. A small tent bearing the legend ‘Crystal Gazer’ attracted his attention. He looked at it with interest for some time,
then turned to a bystander.

‘What’s a Crystal Gazer?’ he asked.

‘A sort of fortune teller,’ answered the bystander absently.

A sort of fortune teller . . . perhaps a fortune teller might tell him how to get eight and six. . . . William went off to find his mother. She was serving at a stall. He assumed his pathetic
expression and wistful voice again.

‘Mother, please,’ he said. ‘May I have my crystal gazed?’

But Mrs Brown was busy and the effect of William’s pathetic expression and wistful voice was beginning to wear off.

‘No dear,’ she said very firmly. ‘I don’t believe in it. I think it very wrong to meddle with the future.’

William walked back to the tent deeply interested. The fact that his mother considered it wrong invested it with a sort of glamour in his eyes, and ‘meddling with the future’ sounded
vaguely exciting. The tent was not opened yet, but was due to open in ten minutes. Already a queue of prospective clients was lined up before the doorway. William wandered round to the back of the
tent. He had forgotten even the eight and six in a consuming curiosity about the crystal gazing. The back of the tent was quite deserted. Cautiously William descended to his hands and knees, held
up the canvas and peeped underneath. Inside the tent was the young man with projecting teeth and a girl whom William recognised as the young man’s sister. The young man was just giving her a
paper.

‘She doesn’t know you’re going to do it, does she?’ the young man was saying.

‘No. And I shall be wearing this veil. It quite hides my face.’

‘Well, just say to her what’s on this paper, will you?’

‘All right.’ The girl put the paper on the table and said, ‘Now do get out. I’ve got to start.’

The young man got out and after a few minutes the queue began to enter one by one. William lay on the ground and listened beneath the canvas flap. He found it rather dull. When it was a girl the
crystal gazer saw either a dark man or a fair man in the crystal and when it was a man the crystal gazer saw either a dark girl or a fair girl in the crystal. . . .

WILLIAM LAY ON THE GROUND AND LISTENED.

It was so dull that William was just going to abandon his post of eavesdropping when Ethel entered. He saw the crystal gazer move the paper on her table, concealed from Ethel by a book, so that
she could read it.

‘I see someone,’ she read impressively from the paper, ‘whose life is closely bound up with yours. At present you do not appreciate him. You are harsh and cold to him. But he
has great qualities which you have not yet discovered. He is a far nobler character than you think.’

‘I SEE SOMEONE,’ THE CRYSTAL GAZER SAID IMPRESSIVELY, ‘WHOSE LIFE IS CLOSELY BOUND UP WITH YOURS.’
‘WHO IS HE?’ SAID ETHEL, WITH INTEREST.

‘Who is he?’ said Ethel, with interest.

‘I will show you how to tell who he is,’ said the crystal gazer. ‘I can see him here. He is giving you a present. I can even see the time. It is just five minutes after you
leave this tent. I see him again. He is sitting next to you at tea. I see him again. He is meeting you on your way home. He asks you a question. Let me tell you that the happiness of your whole
life depends upon your saying “yes”. That is all I have to tell.’

Looking deeply impressed Ethel left the tent by the front.

Looking equally impressed William left the tent by the back.

It was exactly five minutes after Ethel left the tent when William, carrying a penny bag of monkey nuts, met the young man carrying a five-shilling bunch of roses and wearing a fatuous
smile.

‘You lookin’ for Ethel?’ said William.

‘Yes.’

‘She’s right over the other end by the gate,’ said William.

The young man hastened off towards the gate.

William went to his mother’s stall where Ethel was helping and handed her the bag of monkey nuts.

‘Here’s a little present for you, Ethel,’ he said.

Suspiciously Ethel opened it. Ordinarily she would have accepted it either as a deliberate insult or as a feeble attempt to buy her silence about the hose pipe and the strawberries. But she
looked at the clock. It was just five minutes after her departure from the crystal gazer’s tent. . . .

She threw a bewildered glance at William’s expressionless face and received the bag with a confused murmur. It was certainly curious, a present just five minutes after leaving the tent . .
. someone she didn’t appreciate. The young man did not find her till ten minutes afterwards and she was still puzzling so deeply over her mysterious present from William at the exact minute
foretold by the crystal gazer that she hardly noticed the roses at all – merely murmured ‘thanks’ and put them on the side table and went on thinking about William presenting her
with a bag of monkey nuts at the exact minute foretold by the crystal gazer.