Still William (5 page)

Then Violet Elizabeth entered. Violet Elizabeth’s fair hair was not naturally curly but as the result of great daily labour on the part of the much maligned nurse it stood up in a halo of
curls round her small head. The curls looked almost, if not quite, natural. Violet Elizabeth’s small pink and white face shone with cleanliness. Violet Elizabeth was so treasured and guarded
and surrounded with every care that her small pink and white face had never been known to do anything else except shine with cleanliness. But the pièce de résistance about Violet
Elizabeth’s appearance was her skirts. Violet Elizabeth was dressed in a white lace-trimmed dress with a blue waistband and beneath the miniature blue waistband, her skirts stood out like a
tiny ballet dancer’s in a filmy froth of lace-trimmed petticoats. From this cascade emerged Violet Elizabeth’s bare legs, to disappear ultimately into white silk socks and white
buckskin shoes.

William gazed at this engaging apparition in horror.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Violet Elizabeth primly.

‘Good afternoon,’ said William in a hollow voice.

‘Take the little boysie into the garden, Violet Elizabeth,’ said her mother, ‘and play with him nicely.’

William and Violet Elizabeth eyed each other apprehensively.

‘Come along, boy,’ said Violet Elizabeth at last, holding out a hand.

William ignored the hand and with the air of a hero bound to his execution, accompanied Violet Elizabeth into the garden.

Mrs Brown’s eyes followed them anxiously.

‘Whath your name?’ said Violet Elizabeth.

She lisped! She would, thought William bitterly, with those curls and those skirts. She would. He felt at any rate relieved that none of his friends could see him in the unmanly situation
– talking to a kid like that – all eyes and curls and skirts.

‘William Brown,’ he said, distantly, looking over her head as if he did not see her.

‘How old are you?’

‘Eleven.’

‘My nameth Violet Elizabeth.’

He received the information in silence.

‘I’m thix.’

He made no comment. He examined the distant view with an abstracted frown.

‘Now you muth play with me.’

William allowed his cold glance to rest upon her.

‘I don’t play little girls’ games,’ he said scathingly. But Violet Elizabeth did not appear to be scathed.

‘Don’ you know any little girlth?’ she said pityingly. ‘I’ll teach you little girlth gameth,’ she added pleasantly.

‘I don’t
want
to,’ said William. ‘I don’t
like
them. I don’t
like
little girls’ games. I don’t want to know
’em.’

Violet Elizabeth gazed at him open-mouthed.

‘Don’t you
like
little girlth?’ she said.

‘Me?’
said William with superior dignity. ‘Me? I don’t know anything about ’em. Don’t want to.’

‘D-don’t you like me?’ quavered Violet Elizabeth in incredulous amazement. William looked at her. Her blue eyes filled slowly with tears, her lips quivered.

‘I like you,’ she said. ‘Don’t you like me?’

William stared at her in horror.

‘You – you
do
like me, don’t you?’

William was silent.

A large shining tear welled over and trickled down the small pink cheek.

‘You’re making me cry,’ sobbed Violet Elizabeth. ‘You are. You’re making me cry, ’cause you won’t say you like me.’

‘I – I do like you,’ said William desperately. ‘Honest – I do. Don’t cry. I do like you. Honest!’

A smile broke through the tear-stained face.

‘I’m tho glad,’ she said simply. ‘You like all little girlth, don’t you?’ She smiled at him hopefully. ‘You, do don’t you?’

William, pirate and Red Indian and desperado, William, woman-hater and girl-despiser, looked round wildly for escape and found none.

Violet Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears again.

‘You
do
like all little girlth, don’t you?’ she persisted with quavering lip. ‘You do, don’t you?’

It was a nightmare to William. They were standing in full view of the drawing-room window. At any moment a grown-up might appear. He would be accused of brutality, of making little Violet
Elizabeth cry. And, strangely enough, the sight of Violet Elizabeth with tear-filled eyes and trembling lips made him feel that he must have been brutal indeed. Beneath his horror he felt
bewildered.

‘Yes, I do,’ he said hastily, ‘I do. Honest I do.’

She smiled again radiantly through her tears. ‘You with you wath a little girl, don’t you?’

‘Er – yes. Honest I do,’ said the unhappy William.

‘Kith me,’ she said raising her glowing face.

William was broken.

He brushed her cheek with his.

‘Thath not a kith,’ said Violet Elizabeth.

‘It’s my kind of a kiss,’ said William.

‘All right. Now leth play fairieth. I’ll thow you how.’

On the way home Mrs Brown, who always hoped vaguely that little girls would have a civilising effect on William, asked William if he had enjoyed it. William had spent most of the afternoon in
the character of a gnome attending upon Violet Elizabeth in the character of the Fairy Queen. Any attempt at rebellion had been met with tear-filled eyes and trembling lips. He was feeling
embittered with life.

‘If all girls are like that—’ said William. ‘Well, when you think of all the hundreds of girls there must be in the world – well, it makes you feel sick.’

Never had liberty and the comradeship of his own sex seemed sweeter to William than it did the next day when he set off whistling carelessly, his hands in his pockets, Jumble at his heels, to
meet Ginger and Douglas across the fields.

‘You didn’t come yesterday,’ they said when they met. They had missed William, the leader.

‘No,’ he said shortly, ‘went out to tea.’

‘Where?’ they said with interest.

‘Nowhere in particular,’ said William inaccurately.

A feeling of horror overcame him at the memory. If they knew – if they’d seen . . . He blushed with shame at the very thought. To regain his self-respect he punched Ginger and
knocked off Douglas’s cap. After the slight scuffle that ensued they set off down the road.

‘What’ll we do this morning?’ said Ginger.

It was sunny. It was holiday time. They had each other and a dog. Boyhood could not wish for more. The whole world lay before them.

‘Let’s go trespassin’,’ said William the lawless.

‘Where?’ enquired Douglas.

‘Hall woods – and take Jumble.’

‘That ole keeper said he’d tell our fathers if he caught us in again,’ said Ginger.

‘Lettim!’ said William, with a dare-devil air, slashing at the hedge with a stick. He was gradually recovering his self-respect. The nightmare memories of yesterday were growing
faint. He flung a stone for the eager Jumble and uttered his shrill unharmonious war-whoop. They entered the woods, William leading. He swaggered along the path. He was William, desperado, and
scorner of girls. Yesterday was a dream. It must have been. No mere girl would dare even to speak to him. He had never played at fairies with a girl – he, William the pirate king, the robber
chief.

‘William!’

He turned, his proud smile frozen in horror.

A small figure was flying along the path behind them – a bare-headed figure with elaborate curls and very short lacy bunchy skirts and bare legs with white shoes and socks.

‘William,
darling
! I thaw you from the nurthery window coming along the road and I ethcaped. Nurth wath reading a book and I ethcaped. Oh, William darling, play with me again,
do
. It
wath
so nith yethterday.’

William glared at her speechless. He was glad of the presence of his manly friends, yet horrified as to what revelations this terrible young female might make, disgracing him for ever in their
eyes.

‘Go away,’ he said sternly at last, ‘we aren’t playing girls’ games.’

‘We don’t like girls,’ said Ginger contemptuously.

‘William doth,’ she said indignantly. ‘He thaid he did. He thaid he liked all little girlth. He thaid he withed he wath a little girl. He kithed me an’ played fairieth
with me.’

A glorious blush of a rich and dark red overspread William’s countenance.

‘Oh!’
he ejaculated as if astounded at the depth of her untruthfulness, but it was not convincing.

‘Oh, you
did
!’ said Violet Elizabeth. Somehow that was convincing. Ginger and Douglas looked at William rather coldly. Even Jumble seemed to look slightly ashamed of him.

‘Well, come along,’ said Ginger, ‘we can’t stop here all day talking – to a
girl
.’

‘But I want to come with you,’ said Violet Elizabeth. ‘I want to play with you.’

‘We’re going to play boys’ games. You wouldn’t like it,’ said Douglas who was somewhat of a diplomatist.

‘I
like
boyth gameth,’ pleaded Violet Elizabeth, and her blue eyes filled with tears, ‘
pleath
let me come.’

‘All right,’ said William. ‘We can’t stop you comin’. Don’t take any notice of her,’ he said to the others. ‘She’ll soon get tired of
it.’

They set off. William, for the moment abashed and deflated, followed humbly in their wake.

In a low-lying part of the wood was a bog. The bog was always there but as it had rained in the night the bog today was particularly boggy. It was quite possible to skirt this
bog by walking round it on the higher ground, but William and his friends never did this. They preferred to pretend that the bog surrounded them on all sides as far as human eye could see and that
at one false step they might sink deep in the morass never to be seen again.

‘Come along,’ called William who had recovered his spirits and position of leadership. ‘Come along, my brave fellows . . . tread careful or instant death will be your fate, and
don’t take any notice of her, she’ll soon have had enough.’

For Violet Elizabeth was trotting gaily behind the gallant band.

They did not turn round or look at her, but they could not help seeing her out of the corners of their eyes. She plunged into the bog with a squeal of delight and stamped her elegant white-clad
feet into the black mud.

‘Ithn’t it lovely?’ she squealed. ‘Dothn’t it feel nith – all thquithy between your toth – ithn’t it
lovely
? I
like
boyth
gameth.’

They could not help looking at her when they emerged. As fairy-like as ever above, her feet were covered with black mud up to above her socks. Shoes and socks were sodden.

‘Ith a
lovely
feeling!’ she commented delightedly on the other side. ‘Leth do it again.’

But William and his band remembered their manly dignity and strode on without answering. She followed with short dancing steps. Each of them carried a stick with which they smote the air or any
shrub they passed. Violet Elizabeth secured a stick and faithfully imitated them. They came to a clear space in the wood, occupied chiefly by giant blackberry bushes laden with fat ripe
berries.

‘Now, my brave fellows,’ said William, ‘take your fill. ’Tis well we have found this bit of food or we would e’en have starved, an’ don’ help her or get
any for her an’ let her get all scratched an’ she’ll soon have had enough.’

They fell upon the bushes. Violet Elizabeth also fell upon the bushes. She crammed handfuls of ripe blackberries into her mouth. Gradually her pink and white face became obscured beneath a thick
covering of blackberry juice stain. Her hands were dark red. Her white dress had lost its whiteness. It was stained and torn. Her bunchy skirts had lost their bunchiness. The brambles tore at her
curled hair and drew it into that state of straightness for which Nature had meant it. The brambles scratched her face and arms and legs. And still she ate.

‘I’m getting more than any of you,’ she cried. ‘I geth I’m getting more than any of you. And I’m getting all of a
meth
. Ithn’t it
fun
? I
like boyth gameth.’

They gazed at her with a certain horrified respect and apprehension. Would they be held responsible for the strange change in her appearance?

They left the blackberry bushes and set off again through the wood. At a sign from William they dropped on all fours and crept cautiously and (as they imagined) silently along the path. Violet
Elizabeth dropped also upon her scratched and blackberry stained knees.

‘Look at me,’ she shrilled proudly. ‘I’m doing it too. Juth like boyth.’

‘Shh!’ William said fiercely.

Violet Elizabeth ‘Shh’d’ obediently and for a time crawled along contentedly.

‘Are we playin’ bein’ animalth?’ she piped at last.

‘Shut
up
!’ hissed William.

Violet Elizabeth shut up – except to whisper to Ginger who was just in front, ‘I’m a thnail – what you?’ Ginger did not deign to reply.

At a sign from their leader that all danger was over the Outlaws stood upright. William had stopped.

‘We’ve thrown ’em off the scent,’ he said scowling, ‘but danger s’rounds us on every side. We’d better plunge into the jungle an’ I bet
she’ll soon’ve had enough of plungin’ into the jungle.’

They left the path and ‘plunged’ into the dense, shoulder-high undergrowth. At the end of the line ‘plunged’ Violet Elizabeth. She fought her way determinedly through the
bushes. She left remnants of her filmy skirts on nearly every bush. Long spidery arms of brambles caught at her hair again and pulled out her curls. But Violet Elizabeth liked it.
‘Ithn’t
it fun
?’ she piped as she followed.

Under a large tree William stopped.

‘Now we’ll be Red Indians,’ he said, ‘an’ go huntin’. I’ll be Brave Heart same as usual and Ginger be Hawk Face and Douglas be Lightning Eye.’

‘An’ what shall I be?’ said the torn and stained and wild-headed apparition that had been Violet Elizabeth.

Douglas took the matter in hand.

‘What thall I be?’ he mimicked shrilly. ‘What thall I be? What thall I be?’

Violet Elizabeth did not run home in tears as he had hoped she would. She laughed gleefully.

‘It doth thound funny when you thay it like that!’ she said delightedly. ‘Oh, it doth! Thay it again! Pleeth thay it again.’