‘You didn’t write it, did you?’ said William. ‘I’m only saying who wrote it.’
‘Well, aren’t you going to say who axe it?’ she said pugnaciously.
‘No, I’m not!’ said the stage-manager firmly. ‘You jus’ say the one wot wrote it. You don’t go on saying all them wot axe it.’
‘Well, I’m not going to be in it, then,’ she said. ‘I’m going home.’
William decided to be a woman-hater for the rest of his life.
‘All right,’ he capitulated, ‘if you’re going to be so disagreeable – jus’ like a girl’ – he strode forward again and raised his voice, ‘ The Bloody Hand, wrote, every bit of it, by William Brown – acted by Molly Carter an’ Ginger an’ Douglas an’ Henry – they jus’ learnt wot William Brown wrote. Now, if you’ll be quiet a minute,’ he went on to his silent audience, ‘we’ll begin. You begin,’ he said to the damsel in the lace curtain.
She advanced. The rest of them stood in a corner and watched.
‘She’s on,’ William announced to the audience. ‘We’re off. Go on!’ he repeated to her.
‘I’m jus’ going to,’ she replied irritably, ‘soon as you stop talking.’ Then, changing her voice to one of shrill artificiality, ‘Ho! Where am I? Lorst in a dreadful forest—’
‘It’s meant to be a forest,’ explained the author to the audience.
‘I wish you’d stop keep on saying things,’ said the heroine. ‘I forget where I am. Lorst in a dreadful forest. What shall I do? Ah, me! Crumbs! Who is this who yawns upon my sight?’
‘Dawns!’ corrected the prompter.
‘A fierce villain,’ went on the heroine, ignoring him, ‘methinks. I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Carlo Rupino of the Bloody Hand. Oh Lor! What shall I do? Ah me! He draws nearer.’
‘It is him,’ prompted William.
‘I was jus’ going to say that, if you wouldn’t keep on interrupting. It is him. I was jus’ going to say it. Ah me! What shall I do? Whither shall I flee? Nowhere. Gadzooks! He draws nearer.’
‘I come on now,’ explained William to the audience, holding on to his fern-pot with one hand to steady it. ‘I’m him.’ He advanced threateningly upon the maiden. ‘Aha!’ he sneered. ‘Gadzooks! Doest thou happen to know who I am?’
‘I am lorst in the dreadful forest,’ she replied. ‘Ah me! What shall I do?’
‘I am Carlo Rupino of the Bloody Hand. Go on, faint!’ he urged in an undertone.
‘ ’F you think I’m going to faint on this dirty ole floor,’ she replied, ‘I’m jus’ not. You should have brushed it up a bit ’f you wanted me to faint on it.’
‘You don’t know how to,’ he jeered.
‘I do! I can! I can faint beautifully on our drawing-room carpet. I’m jus’ not going to faint on a dirty ole stable floor an’ I’m not going to be in your nasty ole play ’f you’re not going to be nice to me.’
‘All right, then, don’t be. You jus’ take off my sister’s petticoat, an’ our lace curtain an’ don’t be in it, if you don’t want to be.’
‘Well, I jus’ won’t, if you’re going on like this at me.’
‘Well, ’f you keep on talkin’ not out of the play who’s to know when you’re talkin’ play an’ when you’re jus’ talkin’ yourself?’
‘Anyone with any sense could—’
‘Oh, get on with it,’ said the hero off the scenes. ‘You’ll never get to where I come in, if you’re going on like this all day. Pretend she’s fainted and go on from there.’
‘All right,’ said the villain obligingly. Aha! I hast thee in my power. I wilt hang thee ere dawn dawns from my remote mountain lair.’ The toilet-cover train caught on a nail and the petticoat tore with an echoing sound. ‘That’s right,’ he went on, ‘go on messin’ up my sister’s things, so’s she’ll never be able to wear them again.’
‘ ’F you’re going to keep on being nasty to me,’ said the heroine again, ‘I’m going straight back home an’ I’m not going to be in your ole play.’
‘Well, anyway,’ said William, with a mental determination that his next play should contain no heroines, ‘now we go off and they come on.’
The hero and his friend advanced.
‘Alas!’ said Sir Rufus Archibald Green, ‘I see no trace of her. What canst have happened to her? I hope she hast not met yon horrible ole villain, Carlo Rupino, of the Bloody Hand. Seest thou any footmarks of her, the Hon Lord Leopold?’
The Hon Lord Leopold examined the stable floor.
‘Lookin’ for footmarks,’ explained the stage-manager to the audience.
‘Ah me! None!’ said the Hon Lord Leopold. Then, looking more closely. ‘Crikey! Yes!’ he said. ‘I seest footmarks. ’Tis hers and Carlo Rupino’s. I knowest their boots.’
‘Ah me!’ said the hero. ‘What cattastrop is here? Gadzooks! Let us follow to his remote mountain lair. I will kill him dead and cut out his foul black heart and put an end to his foul black life.’
He waved Mrs Brown’s best umbrella threateningly as he spoke. ‘Now they come off,’ explained William, ‘an’ we come on. Here’s the gallows.’
He carried forward a small reading stand, taken from his father’s study, then advanced holding the hand of the fair Elsabina. The crowd in his top hat and mackintosh stood in attendance.
‘Aha!’ said Carlo Rupino to his victim. ‘I hast thee in my power, thou ole girl! I am now going to hang thee from yon lofty gallows! Go on!’ he addressed the crowd.
The crowd took off his top hat and uttered a feeble ‘Hurray!’
‘You couldn’t hang me from that old thing,’ remarked the heroine scornfully.
‘That’s not in the play,’ said William.
‘I know it isn’t. I’m just saying that myself.’
‘Well, say wot’s in the play.’
At that point the chair, upon which the Great Man was with difficulty sitting, collapsed suddenly, precipitating the Great Man among its fragments. William turned upon him sternly.
‘ ’F you’re going to keep on making noises breaking chairs,’ he said, ‘how d’you think we’re going to get on?’
The Great Man raised himself from the debris with a murmured apology, brushed himself as well as he could, and sat down quietly upon an adjacent packing-case.
‘Well, go on!’ said William to the heroine.
‘Something about “Oh, mercy, spare me!” an’ then I’ve forgot what comes after that.’
‘Well, why didn’t you learn it?’
‘I can’t read your nasty old writing – all blots an’ things spilt on it.’
‘Well, you can’t write a play at all, so you needn’t go making remarks about people’s writing what can.’
‘Oh, go on!’ said the egotistical hero off the stage. ‘Let’s get to where I come on.’
William studied his exercise book carefully.
‘Here’s wot you say,’ he said. ‘“Oh, mercy, spare me—”’
‘I said that.’
‘Be quiet! “Oh, mercy, spare me—”’
‘I said that.’
‘Be quiet! “Oh, mercy, spare me an’ let me return to my dear ole mother an’ father an’ the young gentleman wot I’m going to marry. His name is Sir Rufus Archibald Green.” That’s wot you say.’
‘Well, you’ve said it, so I needn’t say it all over again.’
‘ ’F you think I’m going to say all your stuff for you—’ began William.
Elsabina, bored with the question, pointed an accusing finger at the Great Man.
‘Look at him!’ she said. ‘He’s come in without paying any money.’
Overcome by embarrassment, the Great Man hastily took out a case and handed a ten-shilling note to William. A half-crown would have won rapturous gratitude. A ten-shilling note was beyond their ken. The entire cast gathered round it.
‘It’s paper money.’ said Douglas, impressed.
‘I don’t suppose it’s real,’ said William gloomily. ‘Well, where’re we go
t to?’
He turned quickly, and the fern-pot descended, sharply, extinguishing his head. He struggled with it without success.
‘Can’t anyone do anything?’ said his muffled voice from inside the fern-pot. ‘I can’t go on acting like this – people can’t see me. Well, isn’t anyone going to do anything?’
The cast pulled without success.
‘I didn’t say pull my head off,’ said the stern, sarcastic voice from inside the pot, ‘I said pull the thing off!’
The Great Man arose from his packing-case and came to the rescue. Finally William’s face appeared. William put his hands to his head. ‘Any one’d think you wanted to pull my nose an’ ears off – the way you did it,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get on.’ He turned to the heroine. ‘“No, I will not spare thee. I hatest thy mother and thy father and the young gentleman thou ist going to marry. Thy mother, thy father, and the young gentleman thou ist going to marry wilt see they lifeless body dangling on my remote mountain lair ere dawn dawns. Gadzooks!” Now go on! Scream!’
The heroine screamed.
The crowd took off his top hat and cheered.
‘“I will keep thee in a deep, dark dungeon, with all sorts of rats an’ things crawling about till even, and then – and then—” ’ He consulted his exercise book, ‘ “and then I’ll” – I’ve forgot this bit, and I can’t read wot comes next—’
‘Yah!’ yelled the heroine in shrill triumph.
‘Shut up!’ retorted William. ‘Now, you come on,’ to the hero. ‘Let’s do the rest as quick as we can. I’m getting a bit tired of it. Let’s go down to the pond an’ race boats when we’ve done.’
‘Golly! Yes – let’s!’ said the crowd enthusiastically.
‘Girls won’t be allowed,’ said William to Elsabina. Elsabina elevated her small nose.
‘ ’S if I wanted to sail boats!’ she said scornfully.
William’s father entered the house hastily.
‘Surely the meeting isn’t over, dear?’ said William’s mother.
‘He hasn’t come,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Everybody’s waiting. We met the train, but he wasn’t on it. The station-master says that he came by an earlier one and walked up, but no one can find him. He must have lost his way.’
‘William seems to have collected an old tramp in the stable,’ said Mrs Brown; ‘he may have seen him on the road.’
‘I’ll go and see,’ said Mr Brown.
In the stable a fight was going on between his son in a fur rug and his son’s friend in a tablecloth and a tea cosy. Upon both faces were the remains of corked moustaches. A broken fern-pot and a battered top hat were on the floor. Another boy in a mackintosh and a little girl in a lace curtain were watching.
‘THOU BEASTLY OLE ROBBER,’ DOUGLAS WAS SHOUTING. ‘I WILL KILL THEE DEAD AND CUT OUT THY FOUL, BLACK HEART.’
‘Thou beastly ole robber,’ Douglas was shouting, ‘I will kill thee dead and cut out thy foul, black heart.’
‘Nay!’ yelled his son. ‘I will hang thee from my mountain ere dawn dawns and thy body shall dangle from the gallows—’
A wistful-looking old man on a packing-case was an absorbed spectator of the proceedings. When he saw William’s father he took out his watch with a guilty start.
‘Surely—’ he said. ‘I’d no idea – Heavens!’
He picked up his hat and almost ran.
The Great Man rose to address his audience.
‘Ladies and gentlemen – I must begin by apologising for my late arrival,’ he said with dignity. ‘I have been unavoidably delayed.’
He tried not to meet William’s father’s eye as he made the statement.
CHAPTER 2
THE CURE
Breakfast was not William’s favourite meal. With his father shut off from the world by his paper, and his mother by her letters, one would have thought that he would have enjoyed the clear field thus left for his activities. But William liked an audience – even a hostile one consisting of his own family. True, Robert and Ethel, his elder brother and sister, were there; but Robert’s great rule in life was to ignore William’s existence. Robert would have preferred not to have had a small freckled, snub-nosed brother. But as Fate had given him such a brother, the next best thing was to pretend that he did not exist. On the whole, William preferred to leave Robert alone. And Ethel was awful at breakfast – quite capable of summoning the Head of the Family from behind his Daily Telegraph when William essayed a little gentle teasing. This morning William, surveying his family in silence in the intervals of making a very hearty meal, came to the conclusion, not for the first time, that they were hardly worthy of him: Ethel, thinking she was so pretty in that stuck-up-looking dress, and grinning over that letter from that soft girl. Robert talking about football and nobody listening to him, and glaring at him (William) whenever he tried to tell him what nonsense he was talking about it. No, it wasn’t rounders he was thinking of – he knew ’bout football, thank you, he just did. His mother – suddenly his mother put down her letter.
‘Great-Aunt Jane’s very ill,’ she said.
There was a sudden silence. Mr Brown’s face appeared above the Daily Telegraph.
‘Um?’ he said.
‘Great-Aunt Jane’s very ill,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘They don’t seem to think there’s much chance of her getting better. They say—’ She looked again at the letter as if to make quite sure: ‘They say she wants to see William. She’s never seen him, you know.’
There was a gasp of surprise.
Robert voiced the general sentiment.
‘Good Lord!’ he said. ‘Fancy anyone wanting to see William!’
‘When they’re dying, too,’ said Ethel in equal horror. ‘One would think they’d like to die in peace, anyway.’
‘It hardly seems fair,’ went on Robert, ‘to show William to anyone who’s not strong.’
William glared balefully from one to the other.
‘Children! Children!’ murmured Mrs Brown.
‘How,’ said Mr Brown, ‘are you going to get William over to Ireland?’
‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘that someone must take him.’
‘Good Lord! Who?’
‘Yes, who?’ echoed the rest of the family.
‘I can’t possibly leave the office for the next few weeks,’ said Mr Brown hastily.
‘I simply couldn’t face the crossing alone – much less with William,’ said Ethel.
‘I’ve got my finals coming up next year,’ said Robert. ‘I don’t want to waste any time. I’m working rather hard these vacs.’
‘No one,’ said his father politely, ‘would have noticed it.’
‘I can go alone, thank you,’ said William with icy dignity.
In the end William and Mrs Brown crossed to Ireland together.
‘If William drops overboard,’ was Robert’s parting shot, ‘don’t worry.’
The crossing was fairly eventful. William, hanging over the edge of the steamer, overbalanced, and was rescued from a watery grave by one of the crew who caught him by his trousers as the overbalancing occurred. William was far from grateful.
‘Pullin’ an’ tuggin’ at me,’ he said, ‘an’ I was all right. I was only jus’ lookin’ over the edge. I’d have got back all right.’
But the member of the crew made life hideous for Mrs Brown.
‘You know, lady,’ he muttered, ‘when I saved yer little boy’s life, I give myself such a wrench. I can feel it in my innards now, as it were—’
Hastily she gave him ten shillings. Yet she could not stem the flow.
‘I ’ope, lady,’ he would continue at intervals, ‘when that choild’s growd to be a man, you’ll think sometoimes of the poor ole man wot saved ’is life at the expense of ’is own innards, as you might say, when ’e were a little ’un.’
A speech like that always won half a crown. In the end Mrs Brown spent her time avoiding him and fleeing whenever she saw him coming along the deck. When a meeting was inevitable she hasti
ly gave him the largest coin she could find before he could begin on his ‘innards’.
Meanwhile a passenger had discovered William neatly balanced through a porthole, and earned his undying hatred by hauling him in and depositing him upside down on the floor.
‘Seems to me,’ said William to his mother, ‘that all these folks have come for is to stop other folks having a good time. What do you come on a boat for if you can’t look at the sea – that’s all I want to know?’
A gale rose, and Mrs Brown, pale and distraught, sat huddled up on deck. William hovered round sympathetically.
‘I got some chocolate creams in my other coat. Like some of them?’
‘William, dear, don’t bother to stay here. I’d just as soon you went away and played.’
‘Oh no,’ said William nobly. ‘I wun’t leave you feelin’ bad.’
The boat gave a lurching heave. Mrs Brown groaned.
‘Think you goin’ to be sick, Mother?’ said William with interest.
‘I – I don’t know . . . Wouldn’t you like to go over to the other side for a change?’
William wandered away. Soon he returned, holding in his hands two doughnuts – masses of yellowy, greasy-looking dough, bearing the impress of William’s grimy fingers.
‘I’ve got us one each,’ said William cheerfully. ‘You must be awful hungry, Mother.’
Mrs Brown gave one glance and turned towards the sea.
In Great-Aunt Jane’s drawing-room were assembled Uncle John and Aunt Lucy and Cousin Francis. Francis was about the same age as William, but inordinately fat and clad in white. He had fair curls and was the apple of his parents’ eyes. They had heard of William but none of them had seen him. There was a murmur of excitement as the sound of the taxi was heard, then William and his mother entered. Mrs Brown was still pale. William followed her, scowling defiantly at the world in general.
SOON WILLIAM RETURNED, HOLDING IN HIS HANDS TWO DOUGHNUTS.
‘If you have any brandy—’ said Mrs Brown faintly.
‘Brandy?’ said William cheerfully. ‘I never thought of that. I got you nearly everything else, didn’t I? I wanted to tempt her to eat,’ he explained to the company. ‘I thought of choc’lates an’ cakes an’ cocoa an’ pork pies – I kept askin’ her to try pork pie – there was some lovely ones on the boat – but I never thought of brandy. Have a good drink of it, Mother,’ he encouraged her, ‘an’ then try an’ have a go at the chocolates.’
William Again Page 2
