William gave vent to the dark emotions of his soul.
‘All I say is,’ he said, ‘that if you knew my family you’d be jolly glad to go anywhere alone if you was me.’
The lady made little clicking noises with her tongue expressive of sorrow and concern.
‘Dear, dear, dear!’ she said. ‘And are you going to have tea now?’
William assumed his famous expression of suffering patience.
‘I’ve got no money. It’s not much use goin’ to have tea anywhere when you haven’t got no money.’
‘Haven’t they given you any money for your tea?’ said the lady indignantly.
‘Not they!’ said William with a bitter laugh.
‘They wun’t of let me come if they’d known. They wun’t of paid anything for me. It was a frien’ gave me the ticket jus’ to giv’ me a bit of pleasure,’ he said pathetically, ‘but they wun’t even give me money for my tea.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the lady, ‘you had a late lunch and they thought—’
‘Huh!’ ejaculated William. ‘I din’ have any lunch worth speakin’ of.’ He thrust aside the mental picture of two helpings of steak and three of rice pudding.
‘You poor child,’ said the lady. ‘Come along, I’ll give you your tea.’
‘Thanks,’ said William humbly and gratefully, trudging off with her in the direction of the village inn.
He felt torn between joy at the immediate prospect of a meal and pity for his unhappy home life. William, generally speaking, had only to say a thing to believe it. He saw himself now as the persecuted victim of a cruel and unsympathetic family, and the picture was not without a certain pleasure. William enjoyed filling the centre of the stage in any capacity whatsoever.
‘I suppose,’ said the lady uncertainly, as William consumed boiled eggs with relish, ‘that your family are kind to you.’
‘You needn’t s’pose that,’ said William, his mouth full of bread and butter, his scowling gaze turned on her lugubriously. ‘You jus’ needn’t s’pose that. Not with my family.’
‘They surely aren’t cruel to you?’ said the lady in horror.
‘Crule,’ said William with a shudder, ‘jus’ isn’t the word. All I say is, crule isn’t the word.’
The lady leant across the table.
‘Little boy,’ she said soulfully, ‘you must tell me all. I want to help you. I go about the world helping people, and I’m going to help you. Don’t be frightened. You know people can be put in prison for being cruel to children. If I reported the case to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children—’
William was slightly taken back.
‘Oh, I wun’t like you to do that!’ he said hastily. ‘I wun’t like to get them into trouble.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but you must think of your happiness, not theirs!’
She watched, fascinated, as William finished a third plate of bread and butter, and yet his hunger seemed to be unappeased. She was not acquainted with the digestive capacity of an average healthy boy of eleven.
‘LITTLE BOY,’ SHE SAID SOULFULLY, ‘YOU MUST TELL ME ALL . . . IF I REPORTED THE CASE TO THE SOCIETY FOR PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN—’
‘I can see you’ve been starved,’ she said, ‘and I could tell at once from your expression that you were unhappy Have you any brothers and sisters?’
William, who had now reached the second stage of his tea, put half a cake into his mouth, masticated and swallowed it before replying.
‘Two,’ he said briefly. ‘One each. Grown-up. But they jus’ care nothin’ but their own pleasure. Why,’ he went on warming to his theme, ‘this morning I bought a few sweets with jus’ a bit of money I happened to have, an’ he took them from me and threw them into the fire. Jus’ threw them into the fire.’
The lady made the sympathetic clicking sound with her tongue.
‘Dear! Dear! Dear!’ she said again. ‘How very unkind!’
William somewhat reluctantly refused the last piece of cake. He had, as a matter of fact, done full justice to the excellent meal provided by the village inn. It had given him a feeling of gentle, contented melancholy. He was basking in the thought of his unhappy home life.
‘I’m sorry to keep reminding you of it,’ said the lady, ‘but I feel I really want to get to the bottom of it. There’s generally only one explanation of an unhappy home. I’ve investigated so many cases. Does your father drink?’
William nodded sadly.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s it.’
‘Oh,’ breathed the lady, ‘your poor mother!’
But William wanted no division of sympathy
‘Mother drinks, too,’ he said.
‘You poor, poor child!’ said the lady
William wondered whether to make Robert and Ethel drink too, then decided not to. As an artist he knew the value of restraint.
‘Never mind,’ said the lady, ‘you shall have one happy afternoon, at any rate.’
She took him to the village shop and bought him chocolates, and sweets, and bananas, and a top. William found some difficulty in retaining an expression suggestive of an unhappy home life, but he managed it fairly successfully.
He began to feel very sleepy on the way home. He had had a lovely time. His pockets were full of sweets and chocolates, and he held his top in his hand. He even felt that he could forgive his family. He’d heap coals of fire on Robert’s head by giving him a chocolate . . . He was almost asleep when the charabanc drew up at the post office. Everyone began to descend. He took a polite and distant farewell of the elderly lady and set off for his home. But he found that the elderly lady was coming with him.
‘Where do you live?’ she said.
‘Oh,’ said William vaguely ‘jus’ somewhere along here.’
‘I’m coming to see your father,’ said the lady in a determined voice.
William was aghast.
‘Oh – er – I wun’t do that if I was you!’ he said.
‘I often find,’ she said, ‘that a drunkard does not realise what unhappiness he makes in his home. I often find that a few words of warning are taken to heart—’
‘You’d better not,’ said William desperately. ‘He dun’t mind wot he does! He’d throw knives at you or shoot you or cut your head off soon as not. He’ll be jus’ mad drunk when we get in. He went off to the public house jus’ after breakfast. You’d better not come near our house . . . All I say is, you might jus’ as well be dead as coming to our house.’
‘But what about you?’
‘Oh, I’m used to it,’ said William valiantly. ‘I don’t mind. Please, you’d better not come,’ he urged. ‘I’m thinkin’ of you—’
‘I shan’t feel that I’ve done my duty till I’ve at any rate tried to make him see his sin.’
They were in the street now in which William’s family were living. William looked pale and desperate. Matters seemed to have gone beyond his control. Suddenly he had an idea. He would lead her past the house and on and on till one or other of them dropped from fatigue. She’d have to go home some time. She couldn’t go on all night. He could say he’d forgotten where he lived. He began to dislike her intensely. Fussy ole thing! Believing everything everyone said to her! Interfering with other people’s drunken fathers! He was creeping cautiously and silently past his house by the side of his unsuspecting companion, when a shrill cry reached him.
‘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
William’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.
William Again Page 4
