William Again (6 page)

‘William! Hi! William! Where have you been? Mother says come in at once!’

It was Ethel leaning out of an upstairs window. The sight of her pretty white-clad figure brought no pleasure to her brother’s heart. He put out his tongue at her and sadly opened the
garden gate.

‘You’d better not come in,’ he said faintly to his companion, in a last feeble attempt to avert the catastrophe which Fate seemed determined to bring upon him, ‘he gets
vilent
about this time of day.’

With firm set lips his companion followed him.

‘I must do my
duty,’
she said sternly.

Mr Brown looked up from the evening paper as his younger son entered. At first he merely noticed that his younger son looked unusually sheepish. Then he noticed that his son
was followed by a tall, thin lady of prim appearance and uncertain age, wearing
pince-nez.
Mr Brown groaned inwardly. Had William killed her cat or merely broken one of her windows?

‘Er – good evening,’ he said.

‘Good evening,’ said the visitor. ‘I have been spending the afternoon with your little boy.’

Mr Brown sent William a speaking glance. He didn’t mind what caricatures William picked up outside the house, but he wished he’d keep them there. William refused to meet his
father’s glance. He sat on the edge of a chair looking rather pale, his cap in his hand, measuring with his eye the distance between the chair and the half-open door.

‘Very kind of you,’ murmured Mr Brown.

‘He has told me something of the state of things in his home,’ burst out the visitor. ‘I saw at once that he was unhappy and half-starved.’

Mr Brown’s jaw dropped. William very slowly and cautiously tiptoed to the door.

‘He told me about you and his mother. I was sure – I am sure – that you don’t realise what you are doing – what your – er – failing – means to this innocent child.’

Mr Brown raised a hand to his brow.

‘Your conscience, you see,’ said the visitor triumphantly, ‘troubles you. Why should the memory of childhood mean to that dear boy blows and curses and unkindness – and just
because you are a slave to your baser appetites?’

Mr Brown removed his hand from his brow.

‘You’ll pardon my interrupting you,’ he said feebly, ‘but perhaps you would be good enough to give me some slight inkling of what you are talking about.’

‘Ah, you
know,’
she said fervently, ‘in your soul – in your conscience – you know! Why pretend to me? I have had that dear child’s company all afternoon and know
what he has suffered.’ Here Mrs Brown entered and the visitor turned to her. ‘And you,’ she went on, ‘you must be his mother. Can’t you – won’t you – give it up
for the sake of your child?’ Her voice quivered with emotion.

‘I think, my dear,’ said Mr Brown, ‘that you had better send for a doctor. This lady is not well.’

‘But who
is
she?’ said Mrs Brown.

‘I don’t know,’ said her husband; ‘she’s someone William found.’

The someone William found flung out her arms.

‘Won’t you?’ she cried eloquently. ‘Can’t you – for the sake of your own happiness as well as his – give it up?’

They stared at her.

‘Madam,’ said Mr Brown despairingly, ‘what do you wish us to give up?’

‘Drink,
’ she answered dramatically.

Mr Brown sat down heavily.

‘Drink!
’ he echoed.

Mrs Brown gave a little scream.

‘Drink!’
she said. ‘But we’re both teetotallers.’

It was the turn of the visitor to sit down heavily.

‘Surely,’ she said, ‘that boy did not deceive me!’

‘Madam,’ said that boy’s father bitterly, ‘it is more than probable.’

When the visitor, protesting, apologising, expostulating, and still not quite convinced, had been escorted to the door and seen off the premises, Mr Brown turned grimly to his
wife.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘where is that boy?’

But a long and energetic search of house and garden failed to reveal any traces of him. It was not till an hour later that William, inspired more by pangs of hunger than by pangs of conscience,
emerged from the boot cupboard in the kitchen and surrendered himself to justice.

CHAPTER 4

WILLIAM THE REFORMER

W
illiam’s regular attendance at church on Sunday mornings did not betoken any deeply religious feelings on his part. It was rather the result
of pressure from without, weekly applied and resisted by William with fresh indignation on each occasion. His church-going was a point on which his family insisted. It was not that they hoped that
any real improvement of William would result from it. As a matter of fact, it generally seemed to have the opposite effect upon him. But it meant that those of his family who did not go to church
had one morning at least in the sure knowledge that William’s strident voice could not dispel their Sabbath peace and calm, nor could William, with his curious genius for such things, spring
any awkward situation suddenly upon them, while those who went to church had the comfortable knowledge that William, cowed, and brushed, and washed, and encased in his hated best suit, and scowling
at the vicar from the front pew, could do little harm beside the strange scuffling with his feet that he seemed able to produce without even moving them. Moreover, they ‘knew where he
was’. It was something to ‘know where he was’.

This Sunday the usual preliminaries took place.

‘I’m not going to church this morning,’ Robert happened to say, carrying a deck-chair into the garden.

‘An’ I’m not, either,’ said William, as he seized another chair. The would-be light finality of his tone did not deceive even himself.

‘You must go, dear,’ said his mother placidly. ‘You know you always do.’

‘Yes, but why me an’ not him?’ demanded William, pale with outrage. ‘Why him not go an’ me go?’

Robert calmly stated his position.

‘If William’s not going to church, I’m going, and if William’s going to church, I’m not. All I want is
peace.’

‘I shun’t make a noise if I stayed at home,’ said William in a tone of righteous indignation at the idea. ‘I’d jus’ sit qui’tly readin’. I
don’t feel like bein’ rough or anything like that. I’m not feelin’ well at all,’ he ended plaintively.

Mr Brown came downstairs, top hatted and gloved.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

‘William’s too ill to go to church,’ said Robert in an unfeeling tone of voice.

William raised his healthy, ruddy countenance.

‘I’d like to go to church,’ he explained to his father. ‘I’m disappointed not to go. But I jus’ don’t feel well. I’m took ill sudden. I’d
jus’ like to go an’ lie down qui’tly – out of doors,’ he stipulated hastily. ‘I feel ’s if I went to church I might worry everybody with bein’ so ill. I
feel’ – his Pegasean imagination soared aloft on daring wings – ‘I feel ’s if I might
die
if I went to church this mornin’ feelin’ ’s ill as I do
now.’

‘If you’re as bad as that,’ Mr Brown said callously, as he brushed his coat, ‘I suppose you might as well die in church as anywhere.’

This remark deprived William of the power of speech for some time.

‘Well,’ he said at last, darkly and bitterly, ‘I only hope you won’t be
too
sorry afterwards – when you think of what you’ve done. I only hope
that –
I only hope that when you think of what you’ve done
afterwards –
you won’t be
too
sorry. When you—’

‘Hurry up, dear,’ said his mother patiently. ‘Don’t keep us all waiting.’

Sitting between Ethel and his mother in the front pew, William allowed his thoughts to wander at their own sweet will. He found the Litany very long and trying. Its monotony
had been relieved only by a choirboy who occasionally brightened William’s existence by putting out his tongue at him from behind the cover of his psalter. From that a contest in grimaces had
arisen, begun furtively, but growing reckless in the heat of rivalry, till a choirman had intervened by digging the choirboy from behind, while Mrs Brown leant forward and frowned at William.
William retired from the contest feeling distinctly exhilarated. He considered that most decidedly he had won. The choirboy could not have capped that last one of his. In a half-hearted way he
began to listen to the sermon.

‘We all owe our duty to others,’ the clergyman was saying. ‘We must all try to save others beside ourselves. Not one of us must rest content till we have recalled from evil
ways at least one of those around us. How many there are going down the broad path of evil who want just the word to recall them to the path of virtue – just the word that the youngest here could
say . . . ?’

William considered this view. He found it distinctly intriguing. He had been so frequently urged to reform himself that the appeal had lost its freshness. But to reform someone else. There was
much more sense in that; he wouldn’t mind doing that. His spirits rose. He’d rather like to try reforming someone else.

They stood up for the hymn. The choirboy was singing lustily. William caught his eye and began to imitate his more open-mouthed efforts. This led to a second contest in grimaces, checked for a
second time when at its height by the choirman and Mrs Brown. William returned to his meditations. Yes, it would be a noble deed to reform someone else, much more interesting and less monotonous
and possibly more successful than the reforming of himself hitherto solely enjoined upon him.

But who? That was the question.

After due consideration that afternoon in the apple tree (where William did most of his deep thinking) he came to the reluctant conclusion that he must exclude his family from
the list of possible reformees. This was not because he did not think that his family were in need of reformation. It was not because he thought them beyond reformation, though he certainly was of
that opinion. It was rather because he doubted whether any member of his family was sufficiently broad-minded to receive reformation at his hands.

There is a certain proverb about a prophet in his own country. His thoughts wandered over several masters at his school, whom he considered to be in crying need of reformation, but the same
applied to them. When, finally, the tea-bell sounded forth its summons, he was still undecided on whom to apply his latent powers of reformation.

His family, who had not passed so peaceful a Sunday afternoon for weeks, looked at him in curiosity as he entered the dining-room.

‘What have you been doing all afternoon, dear?’ said his mother solicitously.

‘Jus’ thinkin’,’ said William coldly. Meditation on his family’s need for reformation had made him realise afresh all he suffered at their hands.

‘Not dead yet?’ said Robert jocularly.

‘No,’ said William with a quelling glance, ‘though anyone
might
be with what I’ve got to put up with. It’s a good thing I’m
strong.
’

He then transferred his attention to a large piece of bread and butter and the conversation drifted away from him. Idly he listened to it.

‘It’s so funny,’ Ethel, his grown-up sister, was saying, ‘to come to a country place like this and take no part in the life. He’s so mysterious. He took Beechwood
over a month ago and hardly a soul’s seen him. He never has anyone in and he never goes out.’

‘Of course,’ contributed Robert with the air of a man of the world, ‘a country place like this is an ideal place for murderers or other criminals to hide in. That’s
notorious. Much safer than London.’

‘And hardly anyone’s seen him,’ said Ethel.

‘What does he look like?’ said William excitedly.

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ said Ethel.

‘Don’t listen to their nonsense, dear,’ said Mrs Brown.

But William was afire. Here was someone to be reformed at his very doors – no mere ordinary trivial wrong-doer, but a murderer, a criminal, the real thing. He was longing to begin. He could
hardly wait till he had finished his bread and butter.

‘May I go, Mother?’ he said hastily, swallowing a quarter of a slice of bread as he spoke.

‘You’ve had no cake, dear,’ said his mother in surprise.

William gave a look of set purposeful determination.

‘I don’t want
cake
today,’ he said in the voice of one who scornfully waves aside some trifle unworthy of him. With that he strode frowning from the room.

‘I do hope he’s not ill,’ said Mrs Brown uneasily. ‘He’s been awfully quiet today.’

‘He’s given us the first peaceful Sunday we’ve had for years,’ said Ethel.

‘It’s not over yet,’ said Robert, in a voice of warning.

William was already on his way to Beechwood. In the road he found Ginger, his bosom friend on weekdays. On Sundays the two families, inspired solely by a selfish desire for
peace, tried to keep them as far apart as possible.

‘Sunday!’
said Ginger, bitterly voicing unconsciously the grievance of the majority of his countrymen. ‘There’s nothing to
do
!’

‘I’ve
jolly well got something to do,
I
can tell you,’ said William in a voice in which mystery and self-importance were mingled.

Ginger brightened.

‘Lemme help!’ he pleaded. ‘Lemme help an’ I’ll give you half the next thing anyone gives me.’

‘S’pose it’s something you can’t make a half of?’ said William guardedly.

‘Well, then, I’ll let you have it in turn with me,’ said Ginger generously.

‘Fair turns?’ said William.

‘Rather!’ said Ginger.

‘All right, then,’ said William. ‘Come on!’

Ginger set off happily by his side.

‘What you goin’ to do, William?’ he asked.

William sank his voice mysteriously.

‘I’m going to
re
form,’ (William put the accent on the first syllable), ‘a murderer – make him give up murdering – same as what he said in church this
mornin’.’

‘Crikey!’ said Ginger, impressed.

They crept in at the open gates of Beechwood.

‘How’re you goin’ to begin?’ said Ginger in a loud whisper.

‘Dunno yet,’ said William, who always trusted to the inspiration of the moment.