William The Outlaw

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘Valley,’ murmured Ginger.

  ‘An’ I kep’ tellin’ my father an’ my brother that their clothes looked to me’s if they wanted brushin’ or cleanin’ or pressin’ or somethin’ an’ I was goin’ to tell ’em about this man what’d come an’ do it for them, but,’ mournfully, ‘they din’t give me a chance to get’s far as that. Seems to me that it’s very funny that one can’t try’n help a poor man what’s out of work without bein’ treated like that about it.’

  Again the Outlaws murmured sympathy, then Douglas spoke up.

  ‘I thought I’d try’n get him as a sort of man nurse so I acted like I was goin’ queer in my head.’

  ‘What did they do?’ said William.

  An expression of agony passed over Douglas’s face.

  ‘Gave me Gregory powder,’ he said, ‘an’ I couldn’t sort of seem to make ’em understand I was actin’ queer in the head. They seemed to think I was actin’ ordin’ry. Anyway when they got reely mad I had to stop it ’cause I was afraid they’d start on me with more Gregory powder, an’ it’s a wonder I’m not poisoned dead with the first lot. It’s more diff’cult than you’d think,’ he ended meditatively, ‘to make folks think you’re queer in the head.’

  ‘So nobody’s got nothing,’ William summed up the situation sadly and ungrammatically.

  But Ginger was more cheerful.

  ‘Well, there’s lots other houses in the village ’sides ours,’ he said, ‘an’ there’s lots other fam’lies in the village ’sides ours. I votes we start on them. Seems to me that people outside your own fam’ly always give you more ’f a chance to explain what you mean than people in your fam’ly. They don’t start bein’ mad at you before you’ve reely got to what you want to say like people in your own fam’ly do.’

  The Outlaws considered the suggestion in silence. Then William pointed out its obvious disadvantage.

  ‘Yes, but most of the people round here,’ he said simply, ‘know us, an’ so it wun’t be much use.’

  ‘There’s someone new come to The Limes,’ said Henry, ‘I heard my mother talkin’ about them.’

  ‘So did I mine,’ said Douglas, ‘he’s an artist.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said William, ‘so did I mine. An’ he’s got – a daughter what’s the most beautiful girl what Robert’s ever seen.’

  ‘Well, let’s try him,’ said Ginger, ‘he oughter want someone to look after his clothes or drive his car or nurse him when he’s queer in the head or something. Who’ll try him? I votes William does first.’

  ‘All right,’ said William who was always ready for any fresh adventure. ‘I’ll go straight off now ’fore he gets anyone else.’

  William entered the garden gate of The Limes and looked cautiously around him. There was no one in sight. The building was a long, low one with French windows opening straight on to the garden.

  William was furtively exploring this in order to see how the land lay before venturing up to the front door when a voice called out:

  ‘Boy! Hi! Come here!’

  A man had suddenly appeared at one of the downstairs windows and was beckoning to him.

  Warily William approached. The man had a pointed beard, and very bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Boy!’ he called again.

  ‘Uh-huh?’ said William non-committally, coming up to the window. The room inside was evidently a studio. Several easels stood about and the table was littered with tubes of paint and palettes.

  ‘Just what I wanted,’ said the man, ‘a boy – a real human boy – of the ruffian type, too. Splendid! My boy, I’ve been longing for you all morning. I’ve tried to materialise you. You are probably at this moment nothing but the creature of my brain. I wished for a boy and a boy appeared. I was just thinking that I must go out into the highways and byways to search for one when lo! the boy my thoughts had conjured up stood before us. I’m a superman, a magician. I always had a suspicion that I might be. Come in, boy.’

  Distrustfully William entered the studio. The man gazed at him rapturously.

  ‘Just what I wanted,’ he said, ‘a dirty rapscallion of a boy with a crooked tie and a grimy collar.’

  This insult stung William to retaliation. He gazed coldly at the artist who had a smear of yellow paint down one side of his face, and said:

  ‘Bet I’m as clean as you are . . . an’ as to ties—’ his gaze wandered down to the artist’s flowing bow and stayed there meaningly.

  ‘Spirited withal!’ commented the artist, ‘better and better. . . . Come in.’

  William came in.

  ‘Sit down.’

  William sat down.

  ‘Now I’m going to draw you,’ went on the artist. ‘I’m a genius whose immortal masterpieces are but inadequately recognised by his generation, therefore perforce I eke out a modest livelihood illustrating magazine stories, and some idiot here,’ he touched a manuscript, ‘has written one about a boy. Fancy writing a story about a boy. Now where shall I find a boy? thought I. I wish I had a boy, and lo! a boy appears. . . . Keep still, boy. Stand just so . . . look here . . . and keep quite still.’

  William, his brain working quickly, stood just so, looked there and kept quite still.

  The artist sketched in silence, putting William into various postures. At the end he passed him the sketches for his inspection. William gazed at them coldly.

  ‘Not much like me,’ he commented.

  ‘Think not?’ said the artist, ‘probably you have an idealised conception of your appearance.’

  William looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘I’ve not got anythin’ like what you said,’ he remarked, ‘never even heard of it so I can’t have. Would you like a man to drive your motor-car?’

  ‘I’ve not got a motor-car,’ said the artist, busily engaged in putting finishing touches into his sketch.

  ‘Well,’ said William, ‘what about someone to brush your clothes?’

  ‘I prefer my clothes unbrushed,’ said the artist; ‘dust protects the material.’

  William considered this point of view with interest, storing it up for future use, then returned to the point at issue.

  ‘Wun’t you like someone to look after you when you’re queer in the head?’

  ‘No,’ said the artist, ‘it’s more fun not having anyone to look after you when you’re queer in the head.’

  He put the sketches on to one side and took up a manuscript from the table.

  ‘Good Lord,’ he groaned as he glanced through it, ‘Charles the First’s time. Why the dickens do they write stories about Charles the First’s time? Where the deuce am I to get anyone to sit for me in the costume of Charles the First’s time? Tell me that.’

  William told him.

  ‘I know a man what’d come to sit to you,’ he said, promptly, ‘he’d want payin’.’

  ‘Oh, he would, would he?. . . All right, I’ll pay him. But the question is, has he got a costume of Charles the First’s time?’

  ‘I don’t—’ began William, then stopped. ‘Oh, yes, I expect so. . . . Oh yes, he’s sure to have. Oh, yes, we’ll get him one anyway.’

  ‘A protégé?’ said the artist.

  ‘Uh-huh?’ said William. ‘No. He’s as nice as what you are. Nicer.’

  ‘Touché,’ said the artist. ‘Well, bring him along in his Charles I costume and I’ll pay him half a crown an hour.’

  The remuneration seemed princely to William.

  ‘A’right,’ he said, impressed. ‘A’right. I’ll bring him along. An’ if you find out you want any other sort of man he’ll be that, too. He can do anythin’.’

  With that he departed and joined the Outlaws who were still waiting for him in the road.

  ‘Well, you have been a time,’ said Ginger.

  ‘Gottim a job,’ swaggered William.

  ‘What as?’

  ‘Bein’ drawed. He’s got to have special clothes. Any of you gotta Charles the First dress? He’s got to have one.’

  ‘Crumbs, no!’ said th
e Outlaws.

  ‘Well,’ said William, ‘we’ve got to get him one. I’ve got him the job an’ the rest of you got to get him the dress.’

  ‘He might have one already,’ said Ginger the optimist. ‘He might’ve been to a fancy dress dance in one.’

  The other Outlaws looked doubtful.

  ‘No harm goin’ to see anyway,’ said William.

  So they went to see.

  The little girl with blue eyes and auburn curls was sitting on the doorstep. She looked prettier than ever. And she was still crying.

  ‘Cheer up,’ said William, ‘we’ve got your father a job.’

  She continued to cry.

  ‘Has he got a Charles the First dress?’ asked William. ‘If he has he can come to the job straight away.’

  ‘He can’t come to no job at all,’ said the little girl mopping her blue eyes languidly with the corner of her pinafore, ‘he’s ill.’

  The Outlaws stared at her.

  ‘Crumbs!’ said William appalled.

  She stared at the Outlaws.

  ‘Go away,’ she said, ‘I don’t like you.’

  The Outlaws went away, but despite her professed dislike of them it never occurred to them to relax their efforts on her behalf.

  ‘We’ll jus’ have to get a Charles the First dress an’ do it for her an’ take him the money,’ said William.

  ‘How’ll we get a Charles the First dress?’ said Douglas.

  ‘Oh, we will somehow,’ said William, cheerfully, ‘somehow we will. See if we don’t.’

  With this they separated and went to their respective homes for tea.

  William was rather silent at tea. He was silent because he was thinking about the Charles the First costume. He was rather vague as to what a Charles the First costume was like, but he had a well-founded suspicion that the only fancy costume he possessed – a much-worn Red Indian costume – would not pass muster in its stead. He wondered whether they could transform it in some way to a Charles the First costume by adding an old lace curtain for instance, or wearing a waste-paper basket as a headdress instead of the feathered band. . . . His sister, he knew, had a fairy queen dress. Mentally he considered the picture of the fairy queen dress superimposed upon the Red Indian costume. It would look sort of queer and after all historical dresses had to look sort of queer – that was the most important thing about them – so it might do. Robert seemed to be talking a good deal. William began to listen idly.

  ‘I’ve seen her again,’ Robert was saying, ‘she was looking out of a window upstairs. I heard him call to her. She’s called Gloria. . . . Haven’t you really seen her, mother?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Brown mildly, ‘I’ve not seen either of them.’

  A glorious blush overspread Robert’s face.

  ‘She’s wonderful,’ he said, ‘marvellous. I simply can’t describe her. But it seems so strange that one never sees her in the village. One just catches accidental glimpses of her as one passes the house by chance. . . . It seems so strange that one doesn’t see her about . . . Gloria, that’s her name. I heard him call her that. I think it’s such a beautiful name, don’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Mrs Brown doubtfully; ‘somehow it suggests to me the name of a gas cooker or a furniture polish, but I daresay that it is beautiful really.’

  ‘She’s beautiful anyway,’ said Robert hotly.

  William was listening intently. Mrs Brown, perceiving this, hastily changed the conversation. She was aware that William took an active and not always a kindly interest in his brother’s frequently changing love affairs.

  ‘You’re going to the fancy dress dance tonight, aren’t you, dear?’ she said to Robert.

  ‘Yes,’ said Robert.

  ‘Did you decide on the pierrot’s costume, after all?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Robert, ‘didn’t I tell you? Victor’s going to lend me his Charles the First costume. He’d meant to go in it but his cold’s so bad that he can’t go at all, so he’s sending it over to me.’

  ‘How kind,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘William, dear, do stop staring at your brother and get on with your tea.’

  William obligingly began to demolish a slice of cake in a way that argued a rhinoceros’s capacity of mouth and an ostrich’s capacity for digestion. Having assuaged the pangs of hunger for the time being, he turned to Robert.

  ‘You got that costume upstairs, Robert?’ he said guilelessly.

  ‘Perhaps I have and perhaps I haven’t,’ said Robert.

  Thoughtfully William demolished another piece of cake.

  Then he said, still thoughtfully, and to no one in particular:

  ‘I’d sort of like to see a Charles the First dress. I sort of think it might be good for my history. I think,’ with a burst of inspiration, ‘that I’d sort of learn the dates of him better if I’d seen his clothes. It’s history, an’ my report said I din’t take enough int’rest in history. Well, I’d sort’ve take a better int’rest in it if I’d seen his clothes. It’d sort of make it more int’resting. I bet I’d get an ever so much better hist’ry report next term if I could only see the Charles the First dress what Robert’s got.’

  ‘Well, you can’t,’ said Robert firmly.

  ‘And you’ve had quite enough cake, dear,’ said his mother.

  William turned to the buns, picked out the largest he could see and returned to the attack.

  ‘I’m not doin’ anythin’ particular this evenin’, Robert,’ he said, ‘I’ll help you dress if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, I don’t,’ said Robert.

  ‘And don’t talk with your mouth full, William,’ said his mother.

  William finished the bun in silence, then returned yet again to the attack.

  ‘I bet I could show you how to put it on, Robert. They’re awful hard to put on are Charles the First dresses. I don’t s’pose you could do it alone. I’d be able to show you the way the things went on. Prob’ly you’ll have ’em all laughin’ at you if you try to put ’em on alone. I’ll go up now if you like an’ put them out ready for you the way they ought to go on.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like,’ said Robert, ‘and you can shut up.’

  William took another very large bun for consolation. Robert looked at him dispassionately.

  ‘To watch him eating,’ he remarked, ‘you’d think he was something out of the Zoo.’

  That remark destroyed any compunction that William might otherwise have had on Robert’s behalf in the events that followed.

  Robert, fully attired in his Charles the First costume discreetly covered by an overcoat, came downstairs. He wore a look of pleasure and triumph.

  The pleasure was caused by his appearance which he imagined to be slightly more romantic than it really was. The triumph was triumph over William. He knew that William had been anxious to see the costume, from what Robert took to be motives of idle curiosity with a not improbable view to jeering at him afterwards. Robert, who considered that he owed William a good deal for one thing and another (notably for a watch which William had dismembered in the interests of Science the week before), had determined to frustrate that object. Directly after tea he had locked his bedroom door and pocketed the key, and a few minutes later he had had the satisfaction of seeing William furtively trying the handle. William, however, was not about the hall as he descended the stairs.

  The costume had proved satisfactorily magnificent, but the drawback to the whole affair was that SHE would not be there to see it. At that moment he would have given almost anything in exchange for the certainty that SHE would see him in his glory. For Robert considered that the costume made him look very handsome indeed. He did not see how any girl could look at him in it and remain completely heart whole. . . . If only SHE were to be there. . . .

  He took down his hat, bade farewell to his mother and set off down the drive. A small boy whom he could not see, but who, he satisfied himself, was not William (it was Henry) stepped out of the bushes, handed him a note and disappeared. He went down
to the end of the drive and, standing beneath the lamp-post in the road, read it. It was typewritten.

  ‘Dear Mr Brown,’ it read,

  ‘I have seen you in the road passing by our house, and because you look good and kind, I turn to you for help. Will you please rescue me from my father? He keeps me a prisoner here. He is mad, but not mad enough to be put in an asylum. He thinks he’s living in the reign of Charles the First and he won’t let anyone into the house unless they’re dressed in Charles the First clothes, so I don’t know how you’ll get in. If you can get in please humour him and let him draw you because he thinks that he is an artist, and when once he’s drawn you he’ll probably let you do what you like. Then please rescue me and take me to my aunt in Scotland and she will reward you.

  ‘GLORIA GROVES.’

  The letter was the result of arduous toil on the part of the Outlaws. Every word had been laboriously looked up in the dictionary and then laboriously typed in secret by Henry on his father’s typewriter.

  Robert stood reading it, his face paling, his mouth and eyes opening wide with astonishment. He looked down at the costume which was visible beneath his coat.

  ‘Charles the First costume,’ he gasped. ‘Well . . . By Jove . . . of all the coincidences!’

  Then, with an air of courage and daring, he set off towards The Limes.

  William entered the studio unannounced. The artist looked up from his easel.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘you back?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, ‘that man I told you about’s comin’.’

  ‘Costume and all?’ said the man.

  ‘Yes,’ said William, ‘but I’d better explain to you a bit about him first. He’s queer in the head.’

  ‘In other words you’re bringing me the village idiot.’

  ‘Yes,’ said William relieved at having the matter put so succinctly.

  ‘It’s sort of like that. He’s not dangerous, but he dresses up in Charles the First costume (that’s why I thought he’d do for you) an’ he thinks it is Charles the First time an’ so you’ve got to talk to him as if it was Charles the First time jus’ to keep him quiet. He’ll get mad if you don’t. He’ll be drawed all right ’cause he likes bein’ drawed but the minute he sees any girls he always wants to start rescuin’ them an’ takin’ them up to their aunts in Scotland.’