‘I’d like a party,’ he said, ‘if you’ll let me ask—’ There followed a list of the more rowdy members of the juvenile male population of the neighbourhood. Mrs. Brown paled.
‘Oh, but William,’ she said, ‘they’re so rough, and if we give a party at all we must have little Susie Chambers and Clarence Medlow and all the people who’ve asked you—’
‘Then I won’t have one,’ said William, ‘anyone’d think it was a funeral treat you were tryin’ to give me, not a birthday treat. It’s not my funeral.’
‘No, it’s more likely to be ours,’ said Ethel. ‘I can still hear the noise of that slate-pencil.’
‘I don’t see how you can when it’s stopped,’ said William, the matter-of-fact. ‘You can’t hear things that aren’t there to hear. At least not if you’re not balmy.’
He was evidently going to elaborate this theme in relation to Ethel, but Mrs. Brown stopped him with a hasty ‘That will do, William,’ and William returned to a mournful contemplation of his birthday.
‘You can have Ginger and Henry and Douglas to tea,’ said his mother, but it appeared that William didn’t want Ginger and Henry and Douglas to tea. He explained that she always stopped them playing any interesting games when they did come to tea, and he’d rather go out with them and play interesting games in the fields or woods than have them to tea and get stopped every time they started an interesting game.
‘Well, anyway,’ he said at last, brightening, ‘I needn’t go to the dancing-class on my birthday afternoon.’
The dancing-class was at present the bane of William’s life. He had been dismissed from one dancing-class some years ago as a hopeless subject, but Mrs. Brown, in whose breast hope sprang eternal, had lately entered him for another that was held in a girls’ school in the neighbourhood. It took place on Wednesday afternoon, William’s half-holiday, and it was an ever-present and burning grievance to him. He was looking forward to his birthday chiefly because he took for granted that he would be given a holiday from the dancing-class. But it turned out that there, too, Fate was against him. Of course he must go to the dancing-class, said Mrs. Brown. It was only an hour, and it was a most expensive course, and she’d promised that he shouldn’t miss a single lesson, because Mrs. Beauchamp said that he was very slow and clumsy, and she really hadn’t wanted to take him. William, stung by these personal reflections, indignantly retorted that he wasn’t slow and clumsy, and, anyway, he liked being slow and clumsy. And as for her not wanting to take him, he bet she was jolly glad to get him and he could dance as well as any of them if he wanted to, but he didn’t believe in dancing and he never had and he never would, and so he didn’t see the sense of making him go to a dancing-class, especially on his birthday. He added sarcastically that he noticed anyway that she (meaning Mrs. Brown) took jolly good care not to go to a dancing-class on her birthday.
Mrs. Brown was quietly adamant. She was paying a guinea for the course, she said, and she’d promised that he shouldn’t miss any of it.
To William, wallowing with a certain gloomy relish in his ill-fortune, it seemed the worst that could possibly happen to him. But it wasn’t. When he heard that Ethel’s admirer, Mr. Dewar, was coming to tea on his birthday, his indignation rose to boiling point.
‘But it’s my birthday,’ he protested. ‘I don’t want him here on my birthday.’
William had a more deeply-rooted objection to Mr. Dewar than to any of Ethel’s other admirers. Mr. Dewar had an off-hand facetious manner, which William had disliked from his first meeting with him. But lately the dislike had deepened, till William’s happiest dreams now took the form of shooting Mr. Dewar through the heart with his bow and arrow, or impaling him on a fence with his penknife or handing him over to the imaginary wild beasts who obeyed William’s slightest behest.
For in the very early days of their acquaintance Mr. Dewar had once come upon William, dressed in his Red Indian suit, cooking an experimental mixture of treacle and lemonade in an old sardine tin over a smoking fire in the shrubbery, and since then he had never met William, without making some playful reference to the affair. ‘Here comes the great chief Wild Head. Hast thou yet finished yon pale face thou wast cooking, friend?’
Or he would refer to William as ‘the great chief Dark Ears,’ ‘the great chief Sans Soap’ or ‘the great chief Black Collar.’ Or he would say with heavy sarcasm: ‘How the flames of thy fire leapt up to the sky, great Chief! I still feel the heat of it upon my face.’
William did not consider his character of Indian Chief to be a subject for jesting, but his black looks, in Mr. Dewar’s eyes, only added to the fun.
And this hated creature was coming to tea on his birthday, and would probably insinuate himself so much into Ethel’s good graces that he would be coming now every day afterwards to darken William’s life by his insults.
‘But, William,’ said his mother, ‘you wouldn’t have a party or anyone to tea, so you can’t complain.’
‘You don’t want us all to go into a nunnery because it’s your birthday, do you?’ said Ethel.
William wasn’t quite sure what a nunnery was, but it sounded vaguely like a ‘monkery,’ so he muttered bitterly, ‘You’d suit one all right,’ and went out of the room so that Ethel could not continue the conversation.
He awoke on the morning of his birthday, still in a mood of unmelting resentment. He dressed slowly and his thoughts were a sort of refrain of his grievances. A dancing-class and that man to tea on his birthday. On his birthday. A dancing-class and that man to tea on his birthday. A dancing-class and that man to tea on his birthday. A dancing-class. On his birthday . . .
He went downstairs morosely to receive his presents.
Ethel, of course, had not dared to give him a bottle of throat mixture. She would have liked to, because she still felt very strongly about the slate pencil, but she had learnt by experience that it was wiser not to embark upon a course of retaliation with William, because you never knew where it would lead you. So she had bought for him instead a note-book and pencil, which was as nearly an insult as she dared offer him. She assumed a very kindly expression as she presented it, and William’s gloom of spirit deepened, because he had a suspicion that she meant it as an insult, and yet he wasn’t sure, and it would be as galling to his pride to accept it with gratitude when she meant it as an insult, as it would be to accept it as an insult when she meant it kindly. He kept a suspicious eye upon her while he thanked her, but she showed no signs of guilt. His mother’s present to him was a dozen new handkerchiefs with his initials upon each, his father’s a new leather pencil-case. William thanked them with a manner of cynical aloofness of which he was rather proud.
During morning school he took a gloomy satisfaction in initiating one of his new handkerchiefs into its new life. In the course of the morning it was used to staunch the blood from William’s nose after a fight in the playground, to wipe the mud from William’s knees after a fall in a puddle, to mop up a pool of ink from William’s desk, to swaddle the white rat that that William had brought to school with him, and as a receptable for the two pennyworth of Liquorice All Sorts that had been Ginger’s present to him. At the end of the morning its eleven spotless brothers would have passed it by unrecognised.
‘Now, William,’ said his mother anxiously at lunch, ‘you’ll go to the dancing-class nicely this afternoon, won’t you?’
‘I’ll go the way I gen’rally go to things. I’ve only got one way of goin’ anywhere. I don’t know whether it’s nice or not.’
This brilliant repartee cheered him considerably, and he felt that a life in which one could display such sarcasm and wit was after all to a certain degree worth living. But still—no Jumble. A dancing-class. That man to tea. Gloom closed over him again. Mrs. Brown was still looking at him anxiously. She had an uneasy suspicion that he meant to play truant from the dancing-class.
When she saw him in his hat and coat after lunch she said again: ‘William, you are going to the dancing-class, aren’t you?’
William walked past her with a short laugh that was wild and reckless and dare-devil and bitter and sardonic. It was, in short, a very good laugh, and he was proud of it.
Then he swaggered down the drive, and very ostentatiously turned off in the opposite direction to the direction of his dancing-class. The knowledge that his mother’s anxiety had deepened at the sight of this, was balm to his sore spirit. He did not really intend to play truant from the dancing-class. The consequences would be unpleasant, and life was, he considered, quite complicated enough without adding that. He walked on slowly for some time with an elaborate swagger, and then turned and retraced his steps in the direction of the dancing-class with furtive swiftness. To do so he had to pass the gate of his home, but he meant to do this in the ditch so that his mother, who might be still anxiously watching the road for the reassuring sight of his return, should be denied the satisfaction of it.
He could not resist, however, peeping cautiously out of the ditch when he reached the gate, to see if she were watching for him. There was no sign of her at door or windows, but—there was something else that made William rise to his feet, his eyes and mouth wide open with amazement. There, tied to a tree in the drive near the front door, were two young collies, little more than pups. Two dogs. He’d asked his family for two dogs and here they were. Two dogs. He could hardly believe his eyes. He stared at them, and shook himself to make sure that he was awake. They were still there. They weren’t part of a dream. His heart swelled with gratitude and affection for his family. How he’d misjudged them! How terribly he’d misjudged them! Thinking they didn’t care two pins about his birthday, and here they’d got him the two dogs he’d asked for as a surprise, without saying anything to him about it. Just put them there for him to find. His heart still swelling with love and gratitude, he went up the drive. As he went the church clock struck the hour. He’d only just be in time for the dancing-class now, even if he ran all the way. His mother had wanted him to be in time for the dancing-class, and the sight of the two dogs had touched his heart so deeply that he wanted to do something in return to please his mother. He’d hurry off to the dancing-class at once, and wait till he came back to thank them for the dogs. He was sure that his mother would rather he was in time for the dancing-class than that he went in now to thank her for the dogs.
He stooped down, undid the two leads from the tree, and ran off again down the drive, the two dogs leaping joyfully beside him. In the road he found the leads rather a nuisance. The two dogs ran in front of him and behind him, leapt up at him, circled round him, and finally tripped him up so that he fell sprawling full length upon the ground. When this had happened several times it occurred to him to take off their leads. They still leapt and gambolled joyfully about him as he ran, evidently recognising him as their new owner. One was slightly bigger and darker than the other, but both were very young and very lively and very lovable. Soon he grew out of breath, and began to walk. The collies began to walk, too, but had evidently preferred running. The smaller one began to direct his energies to burrowing in the ditches, and the larger one to squeeze his lithe young body through the hedge. Having squeezed it through the hedge, he found himself to his surprise in a field of sheep. He did not know that they were sheep. It was his first day in the country. He had only that morning left a London shop. But dim, wholly incomprehended, instincts began to stir in him. William, watching with mingled consternation and delight, saw him round up the sheep in the field, and begin to drive them pell-mell through the hedge into the road; then, hurrying, snapping, barking, drive them down the road towards William’s house. On the way lay another field of sheep, separated by a hedge from the road. The collie plunged into this field, too, drove the occupants out into the road to join his first flock, and began to chivvy the whole jostling perturbed flock of them down the road towards William’s house.
William stood and watched the proceeding. The delight it afforded him was tempered with apprehension. He had not forgotten the occasion when he had tried to train Jumble to be a sheep dog. He had learnt then that farmers objected to their sheep being rounded up and removed by strange dogs, however well it was done (and William had persisted at the time, and still persisted, that Jumble made a jolly fine sheep dog). William’s mind worked quickly in a crisis. The white undulating company was already some way down the road. Impossible to bring them back. Still more impossible to separate them into their different flocks.
The collie had now made his way into a third field in search of recruits, while his main army waited for him meekly in the road. William hastily decided to dissociate himself from the proceedings entirely, to have been walking quietly to his dancing-class, and not to have noticed that one of his dogs had left him to collect sheep from all the neighbouring fields. Better to let one of his dogs go than risk losing both . . .
He hurried on to the dancing-class, occasionally turning round to throw a glance of fascinated horror at the distant sea of sheep that was still surging down the road. At their rear was William’s new pet, chivvying them with gusto, his tail arched proudly like a plume.
William reluctantly turned the corner that hid the wonderful sight from him, and walked up the drive of the girls’ school where the dancing-class was held. Aware of a group of little girls in dancing-frocks clustered at the downstairs window, he assumed a manly swagger, and called out curt commands to his attendant hound. (‘Here, sir. To heel! Down sir!’) Near the front door he tied the collie to a tree with the lead, and entered a room where a lot of little boys—most of whom William disliked intensely—were brushing their hair and washing their hands and changing their shoes. William changed his shoes, studied his hair in the glass and decided that it really didn’t need brushing, wiped his hands on his trousers to remove any removable dirt, and began to scuffle with his less sedate fellow pupils.
At last a tinkly little bell rang, and they made their way to the large room where the dancing-class was held. From an opposite door was issuing a bevy of little girls, dressed in fairy-like frills and furbelows with white socks and dancing-shoes. Followed them an attendant army of mothers and nurses, who had been divesting them of stockings or gaiters and outdoor garments. William greeted as many of these fairy-like beings as would condescend to look at him with his most hideous grimace. The one he disliked most of all (a haughty beauty with auburn curls) was given him as a partner.
‘Need I have William?’ she pleaded pitifully. ‘He’s so awful.’
‘I’m not,’ said William indignantly. ‘I’m no more awful than her.’
‘Have him for a few minutes, dear,’ said Mrs. Beauchamp, who was tall and majestic and almost incredibly sinuous, ‘and then I’ll let you have someone else.’
The dancing-class proceeded on its normal course. William glanced at the clock and sighed. Only five minutes gone. A whole hour of it. The longest hour of the week. And on his birthday. His birthday. Even the thought of his two new dogs did not quite wipe out that grievance.
‘Please may I stop having William now? He’s doing the steps all wrong.’
William defended himself with spirit.
‘I’m doin’ ’em right. It’s her what’s doin’ ’em wrong.’
The smallest and meekest of the little girls was given to William as a partner, because it was felt that she would be too shy to protest. For some minutes she tried conscientiously to dance with William, then she said reproachfully:
‘You seem to have such a lot of feet. I can’t put mine down anywhere where yours aren’t.’
‘I’ve only got two,’ he said distantly, ‘same as other people. When I’ve got mine down, you should find somewhere else to put yours.’
‘If I do you tread on them,’ said the little girl.
‘Well, you can’t expect me not to have feet, can you?’ said William. ‘Seems to me that what you all want to dance with is someone without any feet at all. Seems to me the best way to do is for me to put mine down first, and then you look where mine aren’t and put yo
urs there.’
‘NEED I HAVE WILLIAM?’ SHE PLEADED PITIFULLY. ‘HE’S SO AWFUL.’
‘I’M NOT,’ SAID WILLIAM INDIGNANTLY. ‘I’M NO MORE AWFUL THAN HER.’
They proceeded to dance on this system till Mrs. Beauchamp stopped them, and gave William another partner—a little girl with untidy hair and a roguish smile. She was a partner more to William’s liking, and the dance developed into a competition as to who could tread more often on the other’s feet. The little girl was unexpectedly nimble at this, and performed a sort of pas seul upon William’s dancing slippers. He strove to evade her, but she was too quick for him. It was, of course, a pastime unworthy of a famous Indian chief, but it was better than dancing. He unbent to her.
‘It’s my birthday to-day and I’ve had two dogs give me.’
‘Oo! Lucky!’
‘An’ I’ve got one already, so that makes three. Three dogs I’ve got.’
‘Oo, I say! Have you got ’em here?’
‘I only brought one. It’s in the garden tied to a tree near the door.’
‘Oo, I’m goin’ to look at it when we get round to the window!’
‘Yes, you have a look. It’s a jolly fine dog. I’m goin’ to train it to be a huntin’ dog. You know, train it to fetch in the wild animals I shoot. One of the others is a performin’ dog and the other’s a sheep dog. They’re all jolly clever. One of them’s with the vet. now an’ I don’t know if he’ll come out alive. They kill ’em as soon as look at ’em, vets. do. Chokin’ ’em and stranglin’ ’em. I bet what I’ll do is to rescue him. Go with these other two dogs an’ rescue him. I bet I can train ’em to hold the vet. down while I rescue Jumble from him. I’m not afraid of anyone and neither are my dogs.’
Mrs. Beauchamp was watching his steps with a harassed frown, and it was evident that it was only a question of seconds before she interfered.
‘Not of her or of anyone,’ said William, meaning Mrs. Beauchamp. ‘Got you.’
William's Happy Days Page 9
