William’s heart was less stony than he liked to think. Her terror touched him and he relented.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I think p’raps that path’ll get us out. Let’s try that path.’
‘No,’ she panted. ‘I’m simply exhausted. I can’t walk another step just now. Besides it might only take us further into the heart of the wood.’
‘Well, I’ll go,’ said William. ‘I’ll go an’ see if it leads to the road.’
‘No, you certainly mustn’t,’ said Aunt Augusta sharply, ‘we must at all costs keep together. You’ll miss your way and we shall both be lost separately. I’ve read of that happening in books. People lost in forests and one going on to find the way and losing the others. No, I’m certainly not going to risk that. I forbid you going a yard without me, William, and I’m too much exhausted to walk any more just at present.’
William, who had by now tired of the adventure and was anxious to draw it to an end as soon as possible, hesitated, then said vaguely:
‘Well . . . s’pose I leave some sort of trail same as they do in books.’
‘But what can you leave a trail of?’ said Aunt Augusta.
Suddenly William’s face shone as if illuminated by a light within. He only just prevented himself from turning a somersault into the middle of a blackberry bush.
‘I’ve got an envelope in my pocket,’ he said. ‘I’ll tear that up. I mean—’ he added cryptically, ‘it’s a case of life and death, isn’t it?’
‘Do be careful then, dear boy,’ said Aunt Augusta anxiously. ‘Drop it every inch of the way. I hope it’s something you can spare, by the way?’
‘Oh yes,’ William assured her, ‘it’s something I can spare all right.’
He took the report out of his pocket, and began to tear it into tiny fragments. He walked slowly down the path, dropping the pieces, and taking the precaution of tearing each piece into further fragments as he dropped it. There must be no possibility of its being rescued and put together again. Certain sentences, for instance the one that said, ‘Uniformly bad. Has made no progress at all,’ he tore up till the paper on which they were written was almost reduced to its component elements.
The path led, as William had known it would, round a corner and immediately into the main road. He returned a few minutes later, having assumed an expression of intense surprise and delight.
‘S’all right,’ he announced, ‘the road’s jus’ round there.’
Aunt Augusta took out a handkerchief and mopped her brow.
‘I’m so glad, dear boy,’ she said. ‘So very glad. What a relief! I was just wondering how one told edible from inedible berries. We might, as you said, have been here for days . . . Now let’s just sit here and rest a few minutes before we go home. Is it far by the road?’
‘No,’ said William. ‘There’s a ’bus that goes all the way.’
‘S’POSE I LEAVE A TRAIL,’ SAID WILLIAM, ‘SAME AS THEY DO IN BOOKS?’
He took his seat by her on the log, trying to restrain the exuberant expansiveness of his grin. His fingers danced a dance of triumph in his empty pockets.
‘I was so much relieved, dear boy,’ went on Aunt Augusta, ‘to see you coming back again. It would have been so terrible if we’d lost each other. By the way, what was the paper that you tore up, dear? Nothing important, I hope?’
William had his face well under control by now.
‘It was my school report,’ he said, ‘I was jus’ takin’ it home when I met you.’
He spoke sorrowfully as one who has lost his dearest treasure.
Aunt Augusta’s face registered blank horror.
‘You—you tore up your school report?’ she said faintly.
‘I had to,’ said William. ‘I’d rather,’ he went on, assuming an expression of noble self-sacrifice, ‘I’d rather, lose my school report than have you starve to death.’
It was clear that, though Aunt Augusta was deeply touched by this, her horror still remained.
‘But—your school report, dear boy,’ she said. ‘It’s dreadful to think of your sacrificing that for me. I remember so well the joy and pride of the moment when I handed my school report to my parents. I’m sure you know that moment well.’
William, not knowing what else to do, heaved a deep sigh.
‘Was it,’ said Aunt Augusta, still in a tone of deep concern and sympathy, ‘was it a specially good one?’
‘We aren’t allowed to look at them,’ said William unctuously; ‘they always tell us to take them straight home to our parents without looking at them.’
‘Of course. Of course,’ said Aunt Augusta. ‘Quite right, of course, but—oh, how disappointing for you, dear boy. You have some idea no doubt what sort of a report it was?’
‘Oh yes,’ said William, ‘I’ve got some sort of an idea all right.’
‘And I’m sure, dear,’ said Aunt Augusta, ‘that it was a very, very good one.’
William’s expression of complacent modesty was rather convincing.
‘Well . . . I—I dunno,’ he said self-consciously.
‘I’m sure it was,’ said Aunt Augusta. ‘I know it was. And you know it was really. I can tell that, dear boy, from the way you speak of it.’
‘Oh . . . I dunno,’ said William, intensifying the expression of complacent modesty that was being so successful. ‘I dunno . . .’
‘And that tells me that it was,’ said Aunt Augusta triumphantly, ‘far more plainly than if you said it was. I like a boy to be modest about his attainments. I don’t like a boy to go about boasting of his successes in school. I’m sure you never do that, do you, dear boy?’
‘Oh no,’ said William with perfect truth. ‘No, I never do that.’
‘But I’m so worried about the loss of your report. How quietly and calmly you sacrificed it.’ It was clear that her appreciation of William’s nobility was growing each minute. ‘Couldn’t we try to pick up the bits on our way to the road and piece them together for your dear father to see?’
‘Yes,’ said William. ‘Yes, we could try’n’ do that.’
He spoke brightly, happy in the consciousness that he had torn up the paper into such small pieces that it couldn’t possibly be put together.
‘Let’s start now, dear, shall we?’ said Aunt Augusta; ‘I’m quite rested.’
They went slowly along the little path that led to the road.
Aunt Augusta picked up the ‘oo’ of ‘poor’ and said, ‘This must be a “good” of course,’ and she picked up the ‘ex’ of ‘extremely lazy and inattentive’ and said, ‘This must be an “excellent” of course,’ but even Aunt Augusta realised that it would be impossible to put together all the pieces.
‘I’m afraid it can’t be done, dear,’ she said sadly. ‘How disappointing for you. I feel so sorry that I mentioned it at all. It must have raised your hopes.’
‘No, it’s quite all right,’ said William, ‘it’s quite all right. I’m not disappointed. Really I’m not.’
‘I know what you’re feeling, dear boy,’ said Aunt Augusta. ‘I know what I should feel myself in your place. And I hope—I hope that I’d have been as brave about it as you are.’
William, not knowing what to say, sighed again. He was beginning to find his sigh rather useful. They had reached the road now. A ’bus was already in sight. Aunt Augusta hailed it, and they boarded it together. They completed the journey to William’s house in silence. Once Aunt Augusta gave William’s hand a quick surreptitious pressure of sympathy and whispered:
‘I know just what you are feeling, dear boy.’
William, hoping that she didn’t, hastily composed his features to their expression of complacent modesty, tinged with deep disappointment—the expression of a boy who has had the misfortune to lose a magnificent school report.
His father was at home, and came to the front door to greet Aunt Augusta.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Picked up William on the way?’
He spoke without enthusiasm. He wasn’t
a mercenary man, but this was his only rich unmarried aunt, and he’d hoped that she wouldn’t see too much of William on her visit.
‘WE WERE COMPLETELY LOST, RIGHT IN THE HEART OF THE WOOD,’ SAID AUNT AUGUSTA. ‘BUT THIS DEAR BOY WENT ON TO EXPLORE.’
Aunt Augusta at once began to pour out a long and confused account of her adventure.
‘And we were completely lost . . . right in the heart of the wood. I was too much exhausted to go a step farther, but this dear boy went on to explore and, solely on my account because I was nervous of our being separated, he tore up his school report to mark the trail. It was, of course, a great sacrifice for the dear boy, because he was looking forward with such pride and pleasure to watching you read it.’
WILLIAM GAZED INTO THE DISTANCE AS IF HE SAW NEITHER HIS FATHER NOR AUNT AUGUSTA.
William gazed into the distance as if he saw neither his father nor Aunt Augusta. Only so could he retain his expression of patient suffering.
‘Oh, he was, was he?’ said Mr. Brown sardonically, but in the presence of his aunt forbore to say more.
During lunch, Aunt Augusta, who had completely forgotten her exhaustion and was beginning to enjoy the sensation of having been lost in a wood, enlarged upon the subject of William and the lost report.
‘Without a word and solely in order to allay my anxiety, he gave up what I know to be one of the proudest moments one’s schooldays have to offer. I’m not one of those people who forget what it is to be a child. I can see myself now handing my report to my mother and father and watching their faces radiant with pride and pleasure as they read it. I’m sure that is a sight that you have often seen, dear boy?’
William, who was finding his expression of virtue hard to sustain under his father’s gaze, took refuge in a prolonged fit of coughing which concentrated Aunt Augusta’s attention upon him all the more.
‘I do hope he hasn’t caught a cold in that nasty damp wood,’ she said anxiously. ‘He took such care of me, and I shall never forget the sacrifice he made for me.’
‘Was it a good report, William?’ said Mrs. Brown with tactless incredulity.
William turned to her an expressionless face.
‘We aren’t allowed to look at ’em,’ he said virtuously. ‘He tells us to bring ’em home without lookin’ at ’em.’
‘But I could tell it was a good report,’ said Aunt Augusta. ‘He wouldn’t admit it but I could tell that he knew it was a good report. He bore it very bravely but I saw what a grief it was to him to have to destroy it—’ Suddenly her face beamed. ‘I know, I’ve got an idea! Couldn’t you write to the headmaster and ask for a duplicate?’
William’s face was a classic mark of horror.
‘No, don’t do that,’ he pleaded, ‘don’t do that. I-I-I,’ with a burst of inspiration, ‘I shun’t like to give ’em so much trouble in the holidays.’
Aunt Augusta put her hand caressingly on his stubbly head. ‘Dear boy,’ she said.
William escaped after lunch, but, before he joined the Outlaws, he went to the wood and ground firmly into the mud with his heel whatever traces of the torn report could be seen.
It was tea time when he returned. Aunt Augusta had departed. His father was reading a book by the fire. William hovered about uneasily for some minutes.
Then Mr. Brown, without raising his eyes from his book, said, ‘Funny thing, you getting lost in Croome Wood, William. I should have thought you knew every inch of it. Never been lost in it before, have you?’
‘No,’ said William, and then after a short silence:
‘I say . . . father.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Brown.
‘Are you—are you really goin’ to write for another report?’
‘What sort of a report actually was the one you lost?’ said Mr. Brown, fixing him with a gimlet eye, ‘Was it a very bad one?’
William bore the gimlet eye rather well.
‘We aren’t allowed to look at ’em, you know,’ he said again innocently. ‘I told you we’re told to bring ’em straight home without looking at ’em.’
Mr. Brown was silent for a minute. As I said before, he wasn’t a mercenary man, but he couldn’t help being glad of the miraculously good impression that William had made on his only rich unmarried aunt.
‘I don’t believe,’ he said slowly, ‘that there’s the slightest atom of doubt, but I’ll give you the benefit of it all the same.’
William leapt exultantly down the garden and across the fields to meet the Outlaws.
They heard him singing a quarter of a mile away.
CHAPTER 3
THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE
It was Hubert’s mother’s idea that the Outlaws versus Hubert Laneites feud should be abolished.
‘Christmas, you know,’ she said vaguely to William’s mother, ‘the season of peace and goodwill. If they don’t bury the hatchet at this season they never will. It’s so absurd for them to go on like this. Think how much happier they’d be if they were friends.’
Mrs. Brown thought, murmured ‘Er—yes,’ uncertainly, and added, ‘I’ve tried, you know, but boys are so funny.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Lane earnestly (Mrs. Lane was large and breathless and earnest and overdressed), ‘but they’re very sweet, aren’t they? Hubie’s awfully sweet. I simply can’t think how anyone could quarrel with Hubie. We’ll make a real effort this Christmas to put an end to this foolish quarrel, won’t we? I feel that if only your Willie got to know my Hubie properly, he’d simply love him, he would really. Everyone who really knows Hubie loves him.’
Mrs. Brown said, ‘Er—yes,’ still more uncertainly, and Mrs. Lane continued: ‘I’ve thought out how to do it. If you’ll invite Hubie to Willie’s party, we’ll insist on his coming, and we’ll invite Willie to Hubie’s, and you insist on his coming, and then it will be all right. They’ll have got to know each other, and, I’m sure, learnt to love each other.’
Mrs. Brown said ‘Er—yes,’ more uncertainly than ever. She felt that Mrs. Lane was being unduly optimistic, but still it would be nice to see the end of the feud that was always leading William into such wild and desperate adventures.
‘Then we’ll begin by—’
‘Begin and end, my dear Mrs. Brown,’ said Mrs. Lane earnestly, ‘by making them attend each other’s Christmas parties. I’m absolutely convinced that they’ll love each other after that. I know anyway that Willie will love Hubie, because, when you really get to know Hubie, he’s the most lovable boy you can possibly imagine.’
Mrs. Brown said ‘Er—yes,’ again, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, and so the matter was settled.
When it was broached to William, he was speechless with horror.
‘Him?’ he exploded fiercely when at last the power of speech returned to him. ‘Ask him to my Christmas party? I’d sooner not have a Christmas party at all than ask him to it. Him! Why I wun’t go to the King’s Christmas party, if he was going to be there. Not if I had to be beheaded for it. Him? Well, then I jolly well won’t have a party at all.’
But Mrs. Brown was unexpectedly firm. The overtures, she said, had come from Hubert’s mother, and they could not with decency be rejected. It was the season of peace and goodwill (‘No one’s ever peaceful or goodwillin’ to me at it,’ put in William bitterly); and we must all bury the hatchet and start afresh.
‘I don’t want to bury no hatchet,’ said William tempestuously, ‘ ’cept in his head. Him! Wantin’ to come to my party! Cheek!’
But William’s tempestuous fury was as usual of no avail against his mother’s gentle firmness.
‘It’s no use, William,’ she said. ‘I’ve promised. He’s to come to your party, and you’re to go to his, and Mrs. Lane is quite sure that you’ll be real friends after it.’
‘Me friends with him!’ exploded William. ‘I’ll never be friends with him ’cept in a lunatic asylum an’—’
‘But William,’ said his mother, stemming his flood of frenzied oratory, ‘I’m sur
e he’s a very nice little boy when you get to know him.’
William replied to this by a (partially) dumb and very realistic show of physical nausea.
But faced by the alternative of Hubert Lane and his friends as guests at his party or no party at all, William bowed to the inevitable.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll have him then an’—all right, I won’t do anythin’ to him or to any of them I’ll wait till it’s all over. I’ll wait till he’s been to my party an’ I’ve been to his, an’ then—well, you’ll be jolly sorry you ever made us do it ’cause we’ll have such a lot to make up.’
Mrs. Brown, however, was content with her immediate victory. She sent an invitation to Hubert Lane and to Bertie Franks (Hubert’s friend and lieutenant) and to Hubert’s other friends, and they all accepted in their best copper-plate handwriting. William and his Outlaws went about sunk deep in gloom.
‘If it wasn’t for the trifle an’ the crackers,’ said William darkly, ‘I wouldn’t have had it at all—not with him. An’ it’ll have to be a jolly fine trifle, practic’ly all cream, to make it worth while.’ His mood grew darker and darker as the day approached. He even discussed with his Outlaws the possibility of making a raid on the larder before the party, and carrying off trifles and jellies and fruit salad into the woods, leaving the Hubert Laneites to arrive and find the cupboard bare and their hosts flown. It was a tempting plan, but after dallying with it fondly for a few days they reluctantly gave it up, as being not really worth its inevitable consequences. Instead, they steeled themselves to go through the affair in the dogged spirit of martyrdom, their sufferings allayed only by the thought of the trifle and crackers, and the riot of hositilities that could take place as soon as the enforced Christmas truce was over. For the prospect of the end of the feud brought no glow of joy to the Outlaws’ hearts. Without the Hubert Lane feud life would be dull indeed.
As the day of the party drew nearer, curiosity lightened the gloom of their spirits. How would the Hubert Laneites behave? Would they come reluctantly, surlily, at the bidding of authority, or would they come in a Christmas spirit of peace and goodwill, genuinely anxious to bury the hatchet? The latter possibility was too horrible to contemplate. Rather let them come in the spirit in which the Outlaws were prepared to receive them—a spirit in which one receives a deadly foe in time of truce, all their thoughts and energies centred on the happy moment when hostilities might be resumed.
William's Happy Days Page 4
