They had been walking slowly down the road, and had now reached the small Georgian house where Mr. Ferris lived. William observed this with secret horror, and tried to hasten past it, but the little girl had halted at the gate.
‘Oh, William, it won’t take you a minute. This is his house an’ you can go in now an’ ask him. William, do. William, please do. William, I thought you liked me.’
‘I do,’ said the goaded William. ‘I tell you I do like you. I-I-I-don’t want to go scarin’ him now he’s got ole Markie’s work to do’s well as his own. If I went scarin’ him mos’ prob’ly he’d have to go away for a rest cure same as old Markie, an’ then there’d be no one to look after the school an’ I’d get into trouble. Well, they might put me in prison for it an—an’,’ he decided that the colours might as well be laid on thick, ‘an’ I might die of hunger and rats crawling over me same as people in pictures.’
But this harrowing description left her unmoved.
‘Oh, you couldn’t, William, you couldn’t. You needn’t look at him much. Jus’ enough to make him say that Reggie needn’t stay in. You needn’t frighten him dreadfully. Just do your Look. You know William. The way you do. Oh, William, do do, DO! William, if you don’t it means that you don’t love me a bit! Oh, William!’
William gazed into her tear-filled eyes and was lost.
‘A’right,’ he muttered, ‘a’right, I’ll go.’
‘Oh, William. I knew you would.’
William made great play of straightening his collar and tie and pulling up his stockings. After all every second helped. Anything might happen to relieve the situation. Mr. Ferris might fall dead suddenly of heart disease, as people did in books. There continued to be no signs in the house of this sudden calamity, however, and when his tie had been straightened so that it was impossible to straighten it any more, and his stockings pulled up till it was impossible to pull them up any more, there was nothing to do but to walk slowly and draggingly up to the front door. His heart was a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach. His one comfort was that the little girl could not hear what was said at the front door.
He raised the knocker and let it fall. A housemaid appeared at the door.
William moistened his dry lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.
‘’Scuse me,’ he said, ‘but can you please tell me if Mr. Jones lives here?’
The housemaid stared at him indignantly. She saw him pass the house every morning on his way to school, and she knew that he knew quite well that Mr. Ferris lived there.
‘’Course he don’t,’ she said, and added threateningly, ‘and get off with you!’
William got off with him as quickly as possible, assuming, however, an arrogant swagger and stern expression as he reached the road.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said regretfully, ‘she says he’s out now an’ so I’m afraid I can’t do it. An’ I’ve got to be gettin’ home quick now or I’ll be late for tea an’—’
‘But, William, he isn’t out. I’ve seen him through the window. She was telling a story. William, do go again. Go an’ say that you know he’s there. Go an’ make him say Reggie needn’t be kept in. Oh William, please.’
Again her eyes brimmed with beseeching tears. William turned and walked very very slowly up to the front door again. He had propped the gate open in case his retreat should be a precipitous one. He raised the knocker and dropped it. The housemaid reappeared.
‘’Scuse me,’ said William in a lifeless tone, his eyes fixed stonily upon her waistband, ‘’scuse me but I’ve forgotten if you said that Mr. Jones lived here or not.’
And then, just as the housemaid was opening her mouth to reply in obvious indignation, the tall and muscular figure of Mr. Ferris appeared in the passage.
‘What is it?’ he said sharply. ‘What do you want? Come in here.’
Nightmare horror closed upon William as he entered the acting head master’s study. He swallowed hard and fixed his blank gaze upon the ceiling.
‘Well,’ said the acting head master again, ‘what is it?’
William tried to speak but his throat was dry. Then quite suddenly inspiration and his voice came to him at the same moment.
‘P—please, sir,’ he said, ‘I-I din’t quite understand one part of the lesson you gave us this mornin’.’
The acting head master threw a sharp glance of suspicion at the boy who made this astounding statement, but, though pale, the boy looked earnest enough. It was obviously no practical joke.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘What part was it?’
His tone was not encouraging. It was the first visit of this sort he had received and he meant it to be the last.
As William’s memory of the arithmetic lesson was a complete blank, it was as well that Mr. Ferris took down the book, opened it, and handed it to him.
‘It was this,’ said William putting his finger down at random on the page.
‘It’s quite simple,’ said the acting head master curtly, ‘you can’t have been listening.’
He gave a short sharp explanation and ended:
‘That’s quite clear, isn’t it? Good afternoon.’
William swaggered down the path to the little girl.
‘Oh, William!’ she said clasping her hands. ‘Is it all right? Has he promised?’
William uttered his short sinister laugh.
‘I bet I’ve scared him,’ he said. ‘I bet he’ll think twice before he keeps your brother in again.’
‘But William, did he say he needn’t stay in tomorrow? Did he promise?’
‘He din’t axchully promise,’ admitted William, ‘but’—he assumed his swagger again—‘but I bet I scared him all right. Huh! I bet I scared him. I bet everyone’ll find him a bit different after this.’
‘Oh but, William, do make him promise. Oh, William, I shan’t sleep a minute to-night unless he axchully promises. Oh William!’
And such power had the beseeching eyes that before William knew what he was doing he found himself again on Mr. Ferris’ door-step raising the knocker. The housemaid, who appeared almost immediately, gazed at him open-mouthed, her indignation fading into a sort of fascinated horror at this, his third appearance.
Without taking her eyes from him, she called faintly over her shoulder.
‘It’s that boy again, sir.’
And from the study came an irritated ‘What the dickens does he want now? Come in here, whats-your-name!’
William entered.
‘Well, what d’you want now?’ said Mr. Ferris sharply.
William swallowed several times, and finally said in a hoarse and indistinct voice:
‘Please, sir, I thought you beckoned to me from the window.’
‘You thought I b—? Get out and if I see any more of you—’
But William was already hastening down the garden path.
‘’S all right,’ he said in rather a shaken voice to the little girl, ‘he’s axchully promised now.’
‘Oh, William!’ Her gratitude and relief were comforting. ‘Oh, William, you are clever. I’m so grateful. I’ll go’n’ tell Reggie now. He’s been terribly upset. An’ I’m goin’ to buy a little present for him ’cause he’s been so terribly upset. I’ve got sixpence. William, do come an’ help me choose something for him.’
William, shaken as he was by the ordeal through which he had just passed, nevertheless showed a touching interest in Reggie’s present. For William had vivid memories of a certain cake, consisting chiefly of butter cream, obtainable at the village confectioner’s, that had once incapacitated him for two days. On that occasion William had eaten twelve of them at a sitting. He had, after that occasion, so completely lost the taste for them it was difficult to realise now that they had once been nectar and ambrosia to him, but still the fact remained that they had been, and there was no reason why they shouldn’t be to Reggie, nor was there any reason why they shouldn’t have the same effect on him as they had had on William. It was a pleasant and consoling thought . . .
Reggie undergoing the agonies that had convinced William that he was on his deathbed . . . Reggie returning to school a few days later, a pale and chastened shadow of his former self. The detention would be forgotten, of course, and William would still occupy his cherished and hard-won position of hero in the little girl’s heart.
‘Those are the ones,’ he said persuasively to the little girl, as they stood with their faces glued to the window. ‘Those there. I bet he’d sooner have some of those for a present than anything.’
‘Oh, but William!’ she said aghast, ‘they look awful.’
‘They’re not,’ he assured her. ‘They’re rippin’!’
‘They don’t look as if they were a bit good for you.’
‘Oh, but they are,’ said William unblushingly. ‘They’re jolly good for you. If ever I’m feelin’ weak, I buy some of those an’ they make me feel strong again d’rectly.’
‘How many shall I get?’
‘Get twelve. They’re a halfpenny each. Spend all your sixpence on them.’
‘Oh William!’
‘Go on. He’ll be jolly grateful, I bet. They’ll cheer him up like anything. I bet they will.’
He drew her, half reluctant, into the shop and said firmly:
‘Sixpennoth of cream blodges, please. Big ’uns.’
When, leaving the little girl at her gate, he finally departed homewards, he felt more hopeful than an hour ago he would have believed possible.
The next day he got up early, and made his way to the house where Reggie and the little girl lived. He hoped to see a doctor’s car at the door, but the drive was empty. He looked up at the windows hoping to see a white-clad nurse, or at any rate some signs of desperate illness, but all he saw was Reggie, leaning out of the window, be-curled and white suited as usual and looking riotously healthy. Dismay closed over him once more.
He was turning to walk thoughtfully homeward, when he heard a shout behind him, and turned to see the little girl running after him down the road.
‘Oh, William!’ she called. ‘William, I was jus’ comin’ to your house to tell you. William, we’re going away. William, I hate leaving you, but isn’t it exciting?’
‘Goin’ away?’ said William blankly.
‘Yes. My daddy’s got to go to America on business, an’ he’s got to be there for a year an’ we’re all goin’ with him. And he’s got to go at once and we’re all going to-morrow. And we’re not going to school to-day because we’re going to help pack and—oh, William, if it wasn’t for leaving you I’d be so excited. William, do say you’ll miss me.’
‘Yes, I’ll miss you,’ said William.
But his dismay at her news was tempered by relief. It simplified a situation that was growing too complicated even for William. After all, better lose the little girl and keep her admiration, than keep the little girl and lose her admiration.
‘Reggie’s sorry to leave school,’ she said, ‘because he’s so fond of his lessons.’
William turned from a mental picture of himself as seen by the little girl to a mental picture of Reggie and the cream blodges.
‘Did—did he eat them?’ he said wonderingly.
‘Yes,’ said the little girl. ‘He ate them just before supper. He loved them.’
‘Jus’—jus’ before supper?’ said William feebly. ‘Did—did he eat his supper after them?’
‘Oh yes. It was his favourite supper, you see. It was trifle with lots of cream.’
Despite his curls and white suit and unbounded cheek, there was something about Reggie that inspired unwilling respect. Twelve cream blodges and then trifle with lots of cream. The thought brought a strange unpleasant qualm even to that hard-boiled organ, William’s stomach.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’d better be gettin’ back home to breakfast.’
‘William, will you meet me to-night after school to say good-bye properly?’
‘A’right,’ said William graciously.
Reggie’s absence created a certain amount of interest, which William made the most of.
‘Where is he?’ he said with a sinister laugh in answer to Ginger’s question. ‘Yes, I bet there’s a lot of people would like to know that. I bet a lot of people would like to know where he is. You said I’d not gotter plan, din’t you? Well p’raps you’ll think a bit different now. Huh! Yes, I bet a lot of people would like to know where he is.’
This attitude was rather effective till the form master, over-officiously as William thought, explained Reggie’s disappearance. Even that, however, William carried off rather well.
‘Oh yes,’ he said darkly, ‘his father’s got to go to America. Oh yes. Oh yes, an, why’s his father got to go to America?’
‘On business,’ explained Henry simply.
William laughed. ‘Huh! Oh yes, that’s what he says. That’s what he says all right. Yes, that what he says. Yes, I din’t let you into my plan ’cause it was a bit too dangerous. Yes, it’s a bit dangerous, let me tell you, gettin’ a whole family drove out of a country like this. Yes, I bet you’d be s’prised if I told you some of the adventures I’ve had over this, but I’d said I’d get ’em drove out of the country an’ I have. It takes more’n a few spies an’ villains an’ such-like to scare me.’
But even William couldn’t carry it off, and, as the morning wore on and their incredulity increased, he found it necessary to resort to physical violence on the person of anyone who mentioned his ‘plan.’
He still felt light-hearted with relief at Fate’s intervention, however, when he went to his farewell interview with the little girl. He was rather looking forward to that last interview with her. There were some finishing touches to be put to the portrait of him that he hoped to leave in her mind.
She was waiting for him at the spot where they generally met.
‘Oh, William,’ she greeted him. ‘It’s dreadful saying good-bye to you. William, I’ve written a note saying good-bye properly’—she gave him a note which he slipped complacently into his pocket—‘for you to read when I’ve gone. Oh, William, I shall think of you every single day. I do love you, William.’
‘It’s quite all right,’ said William in a tone of vague politeness.
‘William, Mr. Ferris came to see us this afternoon, and I thanked him for letting Reggie off staying in, though, of course, he couldn’t help doing when you told him to.’
The smile froze on William’s face. ‘You—you said that?’ he said faintly.
‘Yes,’ said the little girl innocently, ‘and we talked about you an’ how you can make people do what you want them to do by jus’ lookin’ at ’em. An’ I said, didn’t he feel awful the first time you went to him—the time you scared him almost to death, you know, an’ said, “You jus’ better look out what you do to me an’ jus’ you jolly well don’t forget that”.’
A strange icy sensation was playing up and down William’s spine.
‘You—you said that?’ he said in a whisper that was only just audible.
‘Yes,’ said the little girl.
‘An’—an’ what did he say?’ whispered William.
The solid earth seemed to have been cut away from under his feet. He was suspended in mid-air.
‘He said, yes, he felt awful. I tried to make him ’scribe to me what you looked like, when you had your Look on, ’cause I told him you wouldn’t do it to me ’cause of scarin’ me, an’ he said it was too terrible to ’scribe.’
William’s eyes were protruding with horror, but with an almost superhuman effort he retained his fixed and ghastly smile.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, I’d better be gettin’ on or I’ll be late for tea.’
He took his leave of her as in a dream, and walked homewards as in a nightmare. The only possible solution of the situation, he decided, was for the end of the world to come now at once, but William had learnt by experience that that event never takes place when summoned.
‘No,’ he said to himself bitterly. ‘No, if it comes at all, it’ll prob’ly
come when I’ve jus’ caught a fish an’ before I’ve had time to show it to anyone, or when someone’s jus’ brought me an ice cream an’ before I’ve had time to eat it,’ and added, addressing the event with a fierce sardonic bitterness, ‘yes, that’s what you jus’ would do.’
He entered the house gloomily.
His mother was in the kitchen, taking advantage of the cook’s afternoon out to make a cake. He stood at the door, watching her morosely. It says much for the blackness of his spirit, that he made no attempt to secure any of the uncooked cake mixture for which he had a passion.
‘Aren’t you rather late home, dear?’ said his mother. ‘Mr. Ferris has just come to see your father. They’re in the morning room.’
William thought that he had that afternoon plumbed the depth of horror, but he found that further depths remained, for, at this statement, it was as if his stomach had been suddenly wafted away from him, leaving a vacuum in its place.
‘What’s he come for?’ he said at last, hoarsely.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘He just asked to speak to your father, and I took him in there. I do hope you haven’t been getting into any mischief, William.’
Even in this ruin of William’s fortune, his face mechanically assumed its look of outraged innocence.
‘Me?’ he said in the tone of offended surprise that, like his look of innocence, seemed to come of its own accord to meet a familiar need. ‘No. ’Course not.’
He went draggingly out into the garden.
In the garden he remembered suddenly that Mr. Luton of Jasmine Villas had slipped on a banana skin in the village street and broken his leg. It was an idea . . . They couldn’t do anything to you if you’d got a broken leg.
He crept into the dining-room, took a banana from a dish on the sideboard, ate it, and carried the skin out to the garden. There he carefully laid it on a path, returned to the end of the path, then advanced jauntily, head in air. He walked over it ten times, without success. He couldn’t even slip on the thing, much less break his leg on it. Next he climbed to the roof of the summer-house and fell from it, meaning to break his collar-bone. (They couldn’t do anything to you if you’d got a broken collar-bone.) He landed unhurt on his feet. At this point he heard his mother calling from the front door.
William's Happy Days Page 15
