William the Bad

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we’re camping. We came yesterday. Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths has kindly brought us. She’s our Sunday School superintendent.’

  ‘Oh,’ said William, and after a slight pause: ‘You her Sunday School class?’

  ‘No,’ said the boy, speaking very earnestly and precisely, ‘we’re taken from all the various Sunday School classes. We’re the boys in the Sunday School who’ve had no bad marks of any kind throughout the year. Never late, never absent, and no mistakes in our collects and no talking marks.’

  ‘Oh!’ said William faintly.

  So overwhelmed was he by this recital of their virtues, that had it not been for the project that was forming in his mind he would have hastened away and given these infant Samuels a wide berth for the rest of their sojourn. Instead, he said insinuatingly:

  ‘What d’you do here all day?’

  ‘We go for walks,’ said the boy, ‘we’re making a wild flower collection. It’s very interesting. We’ve found quite a lot of new specimens here already. And sometimes we play games.’

  ‘What sort of games?’ said William.

  ‘Quiet games,’ said the boy. ‘Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths doesn’t like rough games.’

  ‘I could lend you a cricket bat,’ said William, still with his ulterior purpose in view.

  But the boy shook his head.

  ‘We don’t play cricket. It isn’t really safe. You often hear of quite nasty accidents in cricket.’

  ‘Crumbs!’ breathed William, but he still kept his purpose in view.

  ‘I could tell you,’ he said carelessly, ‘of a jolly fine fight that you could help in if you want—’

  But the boy’s face had paled with horror.

  ‘We never fight,’ he said, ‘it’s wrong to fight. I’ve known of people who’ve got very badly hurt fighting. No one who’s been in a fight is ever given a Sunday School good conduct medal.’

  At this William and Ginger turned hastily away.

  ‘No use wastin’ any time over them!’ said Ginger disconsolately.

  ‘N-no,’ agreed William, but he spoke thoughtfully, and added: ‘Still—there’s a good many of them. They’d made a jolly fine band.’

  ‘Hundreds of that sort wouldn’t make a jolly fine band,’ said Ginger.

  ‘I dunno,’ said William. ‘Of course, we’d have to think out a plan.’

  ‘Hundreds of plans wouldn’t be no good with them,’ said Ginger bitterly.

  But William, who was always less inclined to pessimism than Ginger, said slowly:

  ‘Of course, it would have to be a very cunnin’ sort of plan.’

  They were passing the smaller tent now and from it there suddenly issued a tall lady with white shingled hair, wearing a long green smock.

  ‘Good afternoon, boys dear,’ she said, brightly, ‘have you come to look at our little encampment? This is what I call our Virtue Rewarded Camp. All these dear boys that you see about have earned this little summer holiday by being clean and tidy and obedient and punctual and industrious every Sunday all through the year. Now that’s a record to be proud of, isn’t it? And my dear boys are proud of it. Never a minute late for Sunday School and not a single word wrong in the collect. Not a single minute and not a single word. They deserve to be rewarded, don’t they? And their reward is this beautiful holiday during which we’re going to try to complete our wild flower collection and perhaps begin the study of geology.’ She looked doubtfully at William and Ginger. ‘Are you interested in such things, dear boys? If you are we should welcome you as companions on our little expeditions.’

  ‘Thanks awfully,’ said William, non-committally. He still wore his thoughtful expression. After a pause he said:

  ‘Aren’t they—aren’t they goin’ to do anythin’ else but get wild flowers an’ such-like?’

  ‘Well, dear boy, I think that we are going to have a great treat on Tuesday. A missionary lecture is to be given at the Village Hall by a missionary who has just returned from Central Asia, and I think that we shall make an effort to attend even if it means missing an afternoon of our precious flower hunting. Did you know, dear boy, that there are over a hundred different specimens of wild flowers in this neighbourhood?’

  William made an indeterminate noise that might have meant that he did or that he didn’t, and the lady went on:

  ‘You may join any of our expeditions. You will only derive benefit from associating with these dear boys of mine.’ She inspected them more closely, and added: ‘Though I must ask you to make yourselves a leetle more clean and tidy before you join us.’

  ‘I was all right when I started out,’ said William hastily. William evidently had reasons of his own for wishing to propitiate the lady. ‘If I’m untidy now I must have got it since I started out. There’s dirt in the air, you know, an’ you can’t help it blowin’ on to you and the wind blows your hair untidy however tidy it is when you start out. I’ll get tidy again when I get back home.’

  ‘I hope you will,’ said the lady graciously, ‘look at my dear boys—how neat and clean they keep themselves. You should take a lesson from them.’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to,’ said William unctuously. ‘I’ll go’n’ ask ’em how they do it. ‘

  Raising his cap to her with elaborate politeness, he went on to a group of her boys who were sitting round a wooden table outside their tent pasting pressed flowers into albums and tentatively began a conversation with them.

  But it was, from William’s point of view, quite fruitless. They were interested in their flower collection, they were interested in the prospect of the missionary lecture on Tuesday, they were interested in their own neatness and punctuality and industry and obedience, but they were not interested in anything else. If they had been, of course, they would not have been there. Several times William by circuitous routes brought the subject round to fighting, but blank horror met each reference to it.

  ‘No, we never fight. Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths wouldn’t like it. It’s rough and unkind and it spoils your clothes.’

  ‘I don’t want to fight anyone,’ said a small boy with a piously upturned nose. ‘I love everyone.’

  ‘Yes, but when you want to do somethin’ excitin’—’ began William.

  The boy with the upturned nose interrupted him.

  ‘When I want somethin’ excitin’ I go out to try to find a fresh flower for my collection.’

  William went home dejectedly. He knew when he had met with defeat. Never would he or anyone else fire these young paragons with the joy of conflict. And yet he did not wholly abandon hope. Ten boys—ten potential ‘savvidges’ for his band . . . He didn’t see at present how they were going to be enrolled in his band, but he did not wholly abandon hope.

  He hung about the camp for the next few days entering into conversation with the campers, but still without success. Any mention of fighting inspired in them the deepest horror and disgust. They pointed out to him that no one who fought ever got a Sunday School Good Conduct Medal, they assured him that they didn’t want to fight because they loved everyone, and they showed him with pride the separate badges they had won for cleanness and tidiness and punctuality and quietness. They spent their days going for walks in very orderly formation with Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths, preparing meals, washing up and being read aloud to by Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths, who had brought quite a library of edifying books for the purpose. Sometimes they played guessing games and paper games. They all told William how much they were looking forward to the missionary lecture on Tuesday. William, who, as I have said, had not entirely abandoned hope despite the unpromising nature of the situation, exercised great cunning and hid his true nature from them. That does not, of course, mean that he pretended to share their enthusiasm. It means that by exercise of great self-control he listened to their views in silence and refrained from physical assault.

  ‘They wun’t be any good,’ he said despondently to Ginger, ‘even if anyone got them to fight. They’re so stupid. That’s what I’ve
always thought about all this bein’ clean an’ tidy,’ he went on, warming to his theme. ‘It takes all your strength so that there’s none to go to your brain or the fighting part of you. Look at ’em. It proves it, don’t it? Look at ’em. It all comes of them usin’ up their strength bein’ clean an’ tidy so that there’s none of it left to go to their brains or the fighting part of them. Well, it’ll be a lesson to me. I want to keep my strength for my brain an’ the fighting part of me. I don’t want it all used up in keepin’ clean an’ tidy.’

  ‘Yes, but what’re we goin’ to do about Hubert?’ said Ginger anxiously. ‘It’s Tuesday to-morrow an’ even if they could fight, they wun’t be any good ’cause they’re all goin’ to this missionary lecture. Haven’t you made a plan yet?’

  ‘How can I make a plan?’ said William testily, ‘with nothin’ to make a plan from? You can’t make plans out of nothin’, can you? If they’d been ornery boys I’d’ve made a plan out of them.’

  ‘If they’d been ornery boys,’ said Ginger bitterly, ‘they wun’t’ve been here at all.’

  ‘We’ll try’n’ think out a plan this afternoon,’ said William.

  ‘We can’t,’ said Ginger, still more bitterly, ‘we’re goin’ to Betty Brewster’s birthday party.’

  Their gloom deepened. Both of them hated birthday parties, and yet both of them were continually being forced by their parents to attend them. It seemed particularly ignominious to have to attend a little girl’s party.

  ‘There may be a decent tea, of course,’ said Ginger, trying to find a bright side to the situation.

  ‘It’d need to be a jolly decent tea,’ said William mournfully, ‘to make up for Betty Brewster and that set. I shun’t be surprised if they even have musical chairs an’ postman’s knock.’

  He made a sound expressive of deep nausea, then resumed his expression of mournful resignation.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll call for you and we’ll go together,’ said Ginger.

  ‘All right,’ said William, ‘an’ we’ll go as slow as we can, an’ hope they have postman’s knock first so’s we miss it. I shun’t mind jus’ gettin’ there for tea and cornin’ home straight after, though even then they’d serve all the girls first an’ they’d eat up all the trifle, an’ there’d only be jelly when it comes to us.’

  Ginger called for him as he had promised, and together they set off very slowly down the road. The vigorous process of cleaning and tidying, to which they had both been subjected, had increased their melancholy, and they had not even the spirit to walk in the ditch or on the top of the fence that bordered the road.

  ‘Funny,’ said William gloomily, ‘that rotten things always seem to happen to you all in a lump. This party an’ Hubert Lane’s fight. Hundreds of rotten things,’ he went on bitterly, ‘all at the same time. Same as that man that swallowed a whale in the Bible.’

  ‘You’re thinkin’ of Job,’ said Ginger, who was slightly better informed scripturally, ‘an’ the man that swallowed a whale was Jonah. An’ he didn’t swallow it. It swallowed him.’

  ‘I bet it didn’t,’ said William, glad of an excuse for an argument. ‘I bet he swallowed it. I remember quite well. Rotten things kept happenin’ to him. He got a boil an’ fell down in some ashes an’ then swallowed a whale. An’ when he’d swallowed the whale his friends came round to comfort him an’ tell him it was his own fauit for not being more careful.’

  They were just passing the Sunday School encampment, and Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths, still in the apple-green smock, was hovering about the gate. She looked rather worried, and held a letter in her hand. She brightened as her eyes fell upon William and Ginger. They were indeed a sight to brighten any Sunday School superintendent’s eyes—neatly dressed, with shining boots and tightly-gartered stockings, with well brushed hair and polished faces, walking slowly and quietly down the road. She had seen very little of them on their previous visits to her camp, as they had carefully avoided her, but she recognised them as the two boys to whom she had spoken on the first day of her holiday.

  ‘Boys dear?’ she called over the gate.

  They approached reluctantly. The nearer inspection evidently pleased her still more.

  ‘Out for a walk this nice afternoon?’ she said. ‘No exercise like a nice quiet walk. I always tell my dear boys that. Much better than those rough games. And I’m glad to see that you’ve remembered to make yourselves nice and tidy before starting out. Some boys forget that, but I’m glad that you don’t. Where do you live, boys dear?’

  William and Ginger indicated their houses. Both could be seen from the road. Further conversation revealed the fact that she had met both William’s and Ginger’s mother at a tea party at the Vicarage the day before, which she had attended while her charges were putting the afternoon’s ‘bag’ of wild flowers into their albums. She gazed at the two of them thoughtfully and in silence for a few moments. Finally she said:

  ‘I suppose that you’re going to the missionary meeting to-morrow, dear boys?’

  William made a sound that might have meant that he was, and she gazed at them still more thoughtfully, then said:

  ‘Now I’m going to confide in you two dear boys. I’m going to tell you all about my little dilemma.’

  William, who’d no idea what a dilemma was, but thought it was an internal complaint, made another sound that might have meant anything, and she continued:

  ‘A very dear friend of mine who lives over at Melfield has written to ask me to go over to see her to-morrow afternoon. It’s the only afternoon that she has free during our little holiday here and so—well, you see the dilemma, don’t you, dear boys? I wanted to take my own dear boys to the missionary lecture at the Village Hall and I can’t be in two places at once. I want to see my dear old friend and I want to take my dear boys to the missionary lecture. That’s my little dilemma.’

  She ended dramatically and William feeling that some response was demanded made another sound that might have meant anything. She laid a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Thank you for your sweet sympathy, dear boy. Now I’m coming to the really important part of my little dilemma. No one else can go to see my old friend for me but someone else could conduct my dear boys to the Village Hall for me. If I could find two dear boys to play host, to call for my own dear boys here, to conduct them to the Village Hall and to bring them safely back, I should be very grateful to those two dear boys.’

  Something glowed and flickered in William’s eyes but he spoke in a high-pitched voice of extreme innocence that to those who knew him was a sign of brewing mischief. Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths, unfortunately for herself and fortunately for William, did not know him.

  ‘Me and Ginger will do that for you,’ he said.

  ‘Dear boys!’ murmured Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths pressing her hand affectionately upon William’s shoulder, ‘dear boys! How sweet of you. When I saw you coming down the road—such dear clean tidy boys, walking so quietly and decorously, just as I like my own dear boys to walk, I thought that perhaps my little dilemma was solved. Dear boys. Will you call here then to-morrow at 2.30 and conduct my dear boys to the Village Hall for the lecture and then bring them back here. I hope to be back from visiting my friend when you return from the lecture. Thank you, dear boys. Now I mustn’t keep you any longer from the enjoyment of your walk.’

  ‘WILL YOU CALL HERE TO-MORROW, AND CONDUCT MY DEAR BOYS TO THE VILLAGE HALL?’

  They went on quickly to Betty Brewster’s. William was distrait throughout the party. He sat by himself in a corner, frowning thoughtfully, a far-away look in his eye. Mrs. Brewster said afterwards that she’d dreaded having to ask that William Brown to the party but that he’d seemed enormously improved. At the end he waited till Ginger was ready to walk home with him.

  ‘Let’s go round to the old barn,’ he said as soon as Ginger joined him. ‘I’ve gotter sort of plan.’

  The next afternoon William and Ginger, inordinately clean and tidy, walked neatly and precisely down the road
to the gate where Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths awaited them. Her eyes lit up with approval as they approached.

  ‘Dear boys,’ she said, ‘how nice and clean you look. My dear boys are quite ready for you. They have spent this morning polishing up their medals.’

  The campers emerged from the tents—spick and span and wearing shining medals on their coats. Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths ranged them in twos in the road and addressed them.

  ‘Now, dear boys, I want you to walk quietly down to the Village Hall with your dear hosts, who know the way and exactly where your reserved seats are, and at the end of the lecture to walk quietly back home again. Be kind to all dumb animals that you meet on the way and help old people across the road. Goodbye, boys dear. Ready, steady—march!’

  The little procession set off. Mrs. Griffiths-Griffiths watched it fondly till it had vanished from sight, and then set off to the station.

  William and Ginger marched in silence at the head of the procession. One boy left the ranks to be kind to a dumb animal who responded by biting him in the leg. Another left it to lead an old man across the road. It turned out, however, that the old man had not wanted to cross the road and told him so in terms unbefitting his venerable old age.

  Except for those two incidents the journey proceeded uneventfully. But it did not proceed to the Village Hall. It proceeded along the outskirts of the village up through a field and into the old barn.

  ‘Where’s this?’ said the boy with the tumed-up nose inquiringly.

  ‘This is the Village Hall,’ said Ginger.

  They had been brought up to believe what they were told and so they believed him. Sitting accommodation of a more or less adequate nature was ranged about the floor—broken chairs, stools and packing-cases.

  ‘Sit down on these,’ said Ginger. The campers were accustomed to doing what they were told without question, so they sat down, gazing about them at the walls of the old barn with mild interest but with no suspicion. William had disappeared. Ginger addressed the audience.