William the Bad

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘It’s the best we’ve got,’ he said. ‘I’ve raised it special. Will it do?’

  Mrs. Bretherton feasted her eyes upon it gloatingly.

  ‘It’ll do lovely,’ she said, and added, ‘It looks finer even than last year’s.’

  ‘I’ll warrant it is,’ said the man. He spoke absently. The proceeding evidently weighed rather heavily upon his spirit.

  ‘You’re sure no one’s got wind of it?’ he said. ‘It’s a risky game to play. They caught Ben Seales over at Middleham at it, you know.’

  Mrs. Bretherton cackled her witch’s cackle.

  ‘Yes, but the fool had no frame in his garden. I’m not as daft as that—’

  She took out her purse, then looked up with a start.

  ‘What was that?’ she said. ‘I thought I heard somethin’ movin’ outside.’

  The nephew listened.

  ‘Cats,’ he said.

  But it wasn’t cats. It was the Outlaws creeping out of their hiding places and making their way through her garden to the road.

  Once on the road they danced their war dance, then set off marching jauntily to Mr. Buck’s.

  Mrs. Roundway won the first prize for her cucumber. Mrs. Bretherton and her nephew had been extremely abusive when faced with the accusation, but neither had made any serious attempt to deny it.

  Mrs. Roundway was in the seventh heaven. She walked on air. She had to pinch herself to make sure that she was awake. She had fulfilled her life’s ambition. She had won the first prize for cucumbers.

  The next day when the Outlaws passed her cottage she came running down the walk to them with something in her apron.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, dears,’ she said, ‘but I’ve not made cookie boys, to-day. Just to mark the day, as it were, I’ve made—’

  And she drew from her apron four beautiful gingerbread cucumbers.

  CHAPTER 9

  A LITTLE INTERLUDE

  So carefully had they kept the secret from him that the whole thing had been arranged and the list of guests drawn up before William discovered that Robert and Ethel were going to give a fancy dress dance. The idea had been originally Ethel’s, but Robert received it with intense enthusiasm, and together they each drew up the list of guests. Their original intention was to keep William out of it altogether. Robert had wild hopes of getting William invited to some other party that night, and hiding all the preparations from him so that he might never know that the dance had been given at all.

  It was Ethel who pointed out the impracticability of this, and it was Mrs. Brown who said:

  ‘But, of course, William must be here for it, dear. I can’t think why you don’t want him. He looks quite nice when he’s just been washed and his hair brushed. And he can wear his Red Indian suit.’

  Robert groaned.

  ‘The whole thing’s doomed, then,’ he said. ‘Doomed.’

  ‘But why, dear?’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘It’s a nice suit. I’ve often thought of having his photograph taken in it.’

  ‘I mean his being there at all,’ said Robert.

  ‘But I think he’ll enjoy it,’ said Mrs. Brown.

  ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt he’ll enjoy it,’ said Robert, bitterly. ‘Couldn’t you send him to an Asylum or an Orphanage or something till it’s over?’

  ‘Of course not, dear,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘They wouldn’t take him.’

  ‘No,’ said Robert bitterly, ‘they’ve got more sense. Well, if he must come, don’t tell him about it till everything’s fixed up. Let’s leave him as little time as possible to wreck the thing.’

  So William was not told till a week before the dance was to take place. He was amazed and hurt by their attitude.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me before? Me? Me spoil things? Why, I’d’ve been helpin’ you all this time if you’d’ve told me. I bet I c’n think of lots of ways of makin’ it go off all right. I don’t think we’d better have dancin’ all the time. Dancin’ always seems a bit dull to me. I vote we have games some of the time. I know a jolly fine game. Half of you go to hide and—’

  But he was informed without undue ceremony that he could shut up and keep his ideas to himself, and that he was jolly lucky to be allowed to come at all, and that if he, Robert, had had his way, he wouldn’t have been.

  ‘All right,’ said William with dignity, ‘if you want to have a rotten show that everyone’ll say how dull it was the next morning, have it. I know lots of jolly things to do to make a party exciting, but I jolly well shan’t tell you any of them now. You’d wish you’d listened to me when everyone’s saying how dull it was the next morning. I never see any fun at all in dancin’. I think it’d be more fun without any girls, too. They only spoil things. Oh, all right, if you want it to be dull. Have you arranged who you’re going to ask?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, the only ones I want asked are Ginger an’ Henry an’ Douglas.’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ said Robert sarcastically. ‘Well it’s not your dance let me tell you, it’s ours, and if I had my way, you wouldn’t be there at all.’

  ‘D’you mean to say,’ said William aghast, ‘that I can’t ask anyone to it?’

  Robert assured him that he did mean to say this. William, unable to believe his ears, appealed to his mother, but she too was quite firm.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ she said. ‘It’s Robert’s and Ethel’s party. You can come to it, of course, but you mustn’t bring any of your friends. You can have a party later.’

  ‘But they’d help, my friends would,’ protested William. ‘They’d come to help. They’d help to make it jolly. They know ever so many games an’ tricks an’ things to make a thing jolly. Seems to me it’s goin’ to be a jolly dull party—all dancin’ an’ girls.’

  ‘But that’s how Robert and Ethel want it, dear.’

  ‘Well, I hope they won’t blame me afterwards when everyone’s sayin’ how dull it was the next morning.’

  ‘No, dear, I’m sure they won’t.’

  ‘I once went to a party like that—all dancin’ and girls—so I know how dull it is. That party I went to was so dull that if Ginger an’ me hadn’t started playin’ “Lions an’ Tamers” no one would have had any fun at all.’

  ‘Well, remember you’re not to ask any of your friends, William. It’s not your party. You can come to it if you’re very good and that’s all.’

  ‘Can I have a fancy dress?’

  ‘You can wear your Red Indian costume.’

  ‘I’d like something new. I’d like a pirate or smuggler or something.’

  ‘No, dear, your Red Indian costume will do quite nicely.’

  William’s sense of grievance increased as he recounted the situation to his Outlaws.

  ‘Jus’ dancin’ an’ games an’ no fun at all,’ he said, ‘an’ they’re choosin’ all the people to invite an’ they won’t let me invite anyone. An’ I’ve gotter wear the ole Red Indian suit, an’ I bet they’re having new things. Pirates and smugglers an’ things like that. I asked if I could invite you so’s to help make things jolly, an’ they said no.’

  It was Ginger who answered.

  ‘Well, why not us dress up an’ come an’ be in the summer house, an’ you come to us there an’ bring us a bit of the supper, an’ I bet we’ll have a jolly line party—jollier than theirs.’

  The Outlaws received the suggestion with cheers, and departed hilariously to consider their costumes.

  William had decided from the beginning to have a more exciting fancy dress than his Red Indian suit. He wore his Red Indian suit nearly every day. Everyone knew his Red Indian suit. He tried to evolve a pirate’s costume out of an old table-cloth, but the result was so disappointing that even William had to own himself beaten. The day before the day of the dance arrived, and he still hadn’t found his costume. But he was not disheartened. He had infinite trust in his star. In the afternoon his mother sent him to the village with a note, and he walked home slowly and thoughtfully, his mind wholly occupied with
the problem of his costume. As he went he glanced absently in at the windows of the cottages he passed. Rose Cottage. Ivy Cottage. Honeysuckle Cottage . . . silly names. But he slackened his pace as he passed Honeysuckle Cottage. He took a special interest in Honeysuckle Cottage. It was a very picturesque cottage, but it was not its picturesqueness that appealed to William. It was the fact that it was always let by its owner, and that it had a sort of clientele in the literary and artistic world, so that it was generally occupied by an author or an artist. William and the Outlaws took a mild interest in the particular ‘luny’ who inhabited Honeysuckle Cottage. They considered most authors and artists ‘lunies.’ Its present tenant was a Mr. Sebastian Buttermere, who had not as yet made much of a name in literary circles, but who, like William, had great faith in his star. William had never met him personally, but he knew him by sight, and considered him a good specimen of the ‘luny’ class in general. So the glance that William threw into the window of Honeysuckle Cottage was a longer and slower one than the glance he threw at Rose Cottage or Ivy Cottage. And it was rewarded. He stiffened and stood motionless. For there inside the room was Mr. Sebastian Buttermere pacing to and fro, his hands behind his back, his eyes fixed on the floor, dressed in the flowing costume of a medieval monk. The explanation of this was that Mr. Sebastian Buttermere had a touching faith in his literary predecessors as well as in his star. He had had a writing-desk copied from the one at which Charles Dickens used to write, and (with much perseverance and hair grease) always arranged his hair in the fashion of Thomas Carlyle. He believed that these things had a real effect upon his art. Lately he had read a life of Balzac, in which he had learnt, rather to his surprise, that it was Balzac’s custom to wear a monk’s habit when he wrote. Mr. Sebastian Buttermere admired the solid success of Balzac’s art and immediately ordered a monk’s habit. It had arrived the day before, and he was wearing it for the first time. He found it cumbersome and rather hot, and at present it seemed rather to stultify his art than to inspire it, but he had no doubt at all that, when he got used to it, it would be the greatest assistance to him. He had the same unquestioning faith in it that he had in Dickens’ writing-table and Carlyle’s coiffeur. He paced to and fro in the room in it, stumbling over it occasionally because his tailor, who wasn’t used to making monk’s habits, and had been very much disconcerted by the order, had made it a little too long.

  William watched him through the window, open-mouthed with amazement. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he knew that it was a fancy dress of some sort. Then Mr. Sebastian Buttermere raised his eyes to the window, and William walked on thoughtfully, his whole mind bent upon the problem of how to obtain the costume for to-morrow night. The situation was complicated by the fact that William was not on good terms with Honeysuckle Cottage. Though William and Mr. Sebastian Buttermere had never met, Mrs. Tibblets (the housekeeper who ‘went’ with the cottage) was an inveterate enemy of William’s. Moreover, though Mr. Sebastian Buttermere had never met William, he had heard of him, and was prepared, when they did meet, to meet on terms of uncompromising hostility. For there were several undischarged accounts between them. At the bottom of Honeysuckle Cottage garden grew a row of hazelnut trees, and upon these Mr. Sebastian Buttermere had set all the hopes that did not centre upon rivalling Dickens and Carlyle and Balzac. He had bought a little book on the culture of the hazelnut tree, and had done all the things that the little book said he ought to do, and he had watched his nuts ripening almost with the pride of the creator. Then one evening William had stripped the trees bare. To do William justice, he did not realise that the nuts were the apples of Mr. Sebastian Buttermere’s eye. He thought that they were just nuts. He looked upon them as wild fruits of the woodland that happened to be growing on a tree in a garden, but were still wild and therefore his lawful spoils. He took for granted that Mr. Sebastian Buttermere, with the usual grown-up distorted view of life, did not even know that there were nuts upon his tree, or if he knew that he took no interest in the fact. And on the evening of the very day on which Mr. Sebastian Buttermere, watching over them with tender eye, had decided that his treasures were ripe enough to be gathered to-morrow, William entered the garden by way of a hole in the hedge and stripped the trees. Stripped them bare. Mr. Sebastian Buttermere was so much upset that he made the hero and heroine of the story he was engaged upon commit suicide, though originally he had meant them to get married and live happy ever after. Mr. Sebastian Buttermere, of course, didn’t know who had stripped his trees, but Mrs. Tibblets did. She’d seen William departing with his bulging pockets too late to do anything but throw a broom after him. She told Mr. Sebastian Buttermere, and together they sang a hymn of hate for Mrs. Tibblets had various small scores of her own against William.

  Then there had been the affair of the tulip bed. Again, to do William justice, he did not know that Mr. Sebastian Buttermere was treasuring that tulip bed, that the tulips were special bulbs of a particularly magnificent kind sent to Mr. Sebastian Buttermere by a friend in Holland. William, who in the character of a smuggler was being hotly pursued by Ginger and Douglas in the characters of excise men, took a short cut through the garden of Honeysuckle Cottage (whose hedge had several convenient holes) and leapt across a circular tulip bedthat stood in his way. William considered that he had cleared the thing rather neatly and left no footprints on the bed to annoy the owner. He had no idea that he had done any damage till he reached the further hedge and looked back to see the snapped-off blooms lying on the ground.

  ‘Silly having flowers on stalks that high,’ he had commented sternly. ‘No one could jump over ’em.’

  But his meditations on the subject had been cut short by the appearance of Mrs. Tibblets, who had also seen the damage, and had emerged tempestuously from the cottage with a flat iron which she hurled after William’s rapidly vanishing form.

  And now, as William moved on thoughtfully from the cottage, his mind went back to these two incidents. He realised that they complicated the situation considerably. Useless to approach the cottage openly and request the loan of the costume for a fancy dress dance. Mrs. Tibblets would only throw something at him as soon as she saw him, and she’d got a fairly good aim for a woman. The flat iron had only just missed him. Still, it was a wonderful costume whatever it was meant to be, and William had set his heart upon it.

  He hung about the cottage all next morning, dodging into the ditch when Mr. Sebastian Buttermere emerged from the cottage door in his hat and coat, carrying a suitcase, and then coming out to watch Mr. Sebastian Buttermere’s retreating figure as it wended its way to the station. Going away for the night. That was all right. It only left Mrs. Tibblets. William glanced at the windows of the cottage and caught sight of Mrs. Tibblets through an upstairs window engaged apparently in dusting a bedroom.

  Very cautiously he approached the window of the room where he had seen Mr. Sebastian Buttermere wearing the intriguing garment. There in front of the window was the writing-desk that was a replica of Charles Dickens’. There behind the door hung the monk’s habit. William’s mind worked quickly. He’d just borrow it for to-night. He’d put it back first thing tomorrow morning. Its owner had obviously gone up to town for the night. No one would know anything about it. The window was open at the bottom, and it seemed almost ungrateful to Fate to miss the chance. He vaulted lightly across the window-sill into the room, took the garment from its hook on the back of the door, bundled it up under his arm, leapt back over the window-sill and set off running down the road. Before he had gone a few yards an upstairs window was thrown up and a boot-tree whizzed past his ear. Mrs. Tibblets had seen him coming out of the garden but, William rightly judged, that was all. She didn’t recognise the rolled-up bundle he held under his arm.

  He took it home joyfully, and retired at once to the shed at the bottom of the garden to try it on. The result was disappointing. It was too big for him in every way. He couldn’t walk in it. It tripped him up at every step. He couldn’t get his hands out of the
sleeve. The thing that came over his head completely extinguished him. And he didn’t know what it was meant to be anyway. He couldn’t get up any enthusiasm for it, in spite of the risks he had undergone to secure it. He left it in the shed and, deeply depressed, made his way to the house. As he was going upstairs he glanced into Robert’s bedroom. Robert was not there, but upon the bed lay a large cardboard box. William slipped cautiously into the room and opened it. He caught his breath with delight. It contained a pirate’s outfit, complete with multi-coloured handkerchief for the head, and an assortment of villainous-looking knives. It was the costume his soul had craved.

  Thoughtfully he went downstairs to the kitchen, where his mother was making jellies and trifles.

  ‘Keep out of here, dear,’ she said, as soon as she saw him, ‘we’re very busy and you mustn’t eat any of it till to-night.’

  ‘I don’t want to eat any of it,’ said William, untruthfully, ‘I came to see if I could help you.’

  Mrs. Brown was touched.

  ‘No, dear,’ she said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can do, but it’s very nice of you to offer.’

  ‘What’s Robert going as?’ said William suddenly.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘Gordon Franklin is lending him a costume. He says that he has several.’

  ‘What’s he lending him?’ said William.

  ‘I don’t know, dear. He said he’d just look something out and send it along. It’s just come, but I haven’t opened it.’

  ‘Has Robert seen it?’ said William.

  ‘Not yet, dear. He’s out getting some balloons and it’s only just come.’

  William hastily departed, deaf to a sudden discovery of Mrs. Brown’s, that he could, help if he liked by taking a note Ethel wanted taking to Dolly Clavis.