‘A caller,’ said Aunt Emma. ‘Did you see?’
‘Yes, in the dining-room,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I saw her hat through the window.’
‘Curse!’ said Uncle Frederick.
‘The maids must have shown her in before they went up to change. I’m simply not going to see her. On Christmas Day, too! I’ll just wait till she gets tired and goes or till one of the maids comes down and can send her away!’
‘Sh!’ said Uncle Frederick. ‘She’ll hear you.’
Aunt Emma lowered her voice.
‘I don’t think she’s a lady,’ she said. ‘She didn’t look it through the window.’
‘Perhaps she’s collecting for something,’ said Mrs Brown.
‘Well,’ said Aunt Emma sinking her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘If we stay in here and keep very quiet she’ll get tired of waiting and go.’
William was torn between an interested desire to be safely out of the way when the dénouement took place and a disinterested desire to witness the dénouement. The latter won and he stood at the back of the group with a sphinx-like expression upon his freckled face . . .
They waited in silence for some minutes then Aunt Emma said, ‘Well, she’ll stay for ever it seems to me if someone doesn’t send her away. Frederick, go and turn her out.’
They all crept into the hall. Uncle Frederick went just inside and coughed loudly. Annabel did not move. Uncle Frederick came back.
‘Deaf!’ he whispered. ‘Stone deaf! Someone else try.’
Ethel advanced boldly into the middle of the room. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said clearly and sweetly.
Annabel did not move. Ethel returned.
‘I think she must be asleep,’ said Ethel.
‘She looks drunk to me,’ said Aunt Emma, peeping round the door.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if she was dead,’ said Robert. ‘It’s just the sort of thing you read about in books. Mysterious dead body found in drawing-room. I bet I can find a few clues to the murder if she is dead.’
‘Robert!’ reproved Mrs Brown in a shrill whisper.
‘Perhaps you’d better fetch the police, Frederick,’ said Aunt Emma.
‘I’ll have one more try,’ said Uncle Frederick.
He entered the room.
‘Good afternoon,’ he bellowed.
Annabel did not move. He went up to her.
‘Now look here, my woman—’ he began, laying his hand on her shoulder . . .
Then the dénouement happened.
Mr Fairly burst into the house like a whirlwind still slightly inebriated and screaming with rage.
‘Where’s the thief? Where is he? He’s stolen my figure. He’s eaten my tea. I shall have to eat my supper for my tea and my breakfast for my supper . . . I shall be a meal wrong always . . . I shall never get right. And it’s all his fault. Where is he? He’s stolen my charwoman’s clothes. He’s stolen my figure. He’s eaten my tea. Wait till I get him!’ He caught sight of Annabel, rushed into the drawing-room, caught her up in his arms and turned round upon the circle of open-mouthed spectators. ‘I hate you!’ he screamed, ‘and your nasty little calendars and your nasty little boys! Stealing my figure and eating my tea . . . I’ll light the fire with your nasty little calendar. I’d like to light the fire with your nasty little boy!’
‘I’LL HAVE ONE MORE TRY,’ SAID UNCLE FREDERICK, AND ENTERED THE ROOM. ‘GOOD AFTERNOON,’ HE BELLOWED.
With a final snort of fury he turned, still clasping Annabel in his arms, and staggered down the front steps. Weakly, stricken and (for the moment) speechless, they watched his departure from the top of the steps. He took to his heels as soon as he was in the road. But he was less fortunate than William. As he turned the corner and vanished from sight, already two policemen were in pursuit. He was screaming defiance at them as he ran. Annabel’s head wobbled over his shoulder and her bonnet dangled by a string.
ANNABEL DID NOT MOVE
Then, no longer speechless, they turned on William.
‘I told you,’ said Robert to them when there was a slight lull in the storm. ‘You wouldn’t take any advice. If it wasn’t Christmas Day I’d hang him myself.’
‘But you won’t let me speak!’ said William plaintively. ‘Jus’ listen to me a minute. When I got to his house he said, he said mos’ distinct, he said, “Please use this—”’
‘William,’ interrupted Mrs Brown with dignity. ‘I don’t know what’s happened and I don’t want to know but I shall tell your father all about it directly we get home.’
Uncle Frederick saw them off at the station the next day.
‘Does your effort at truth continue today as well?’ he said to William.
‘I s’pose it’s Boxing Day too,’ said William. ‘He din’ mention Boxing Day. But I s’pose it counts with Christmas.’
‘I won’t ask you whether you’ve enjoyed yourself then,’ said Uncle Frederick. He slipped another half-crown into William’s hand. ‘Buy yourself something with that. Your Aunt chose the Church History book and the instruments. I’m really grateful to you about— Well, I think Emma’s right. I don’t think she’ll ever come again.’
The train steamed out. Uncle Frederick returned home. He had been too optimistic. Lady Atkinson was in the drawing-room talking to his wife.
‘Of course,’ she was saying, ‘I’m not annoyed. I bear no grudge because I believe the boy’s possessed! He ought to be ex— exercised . . . You know, what you do with evil spirits.’
It was the evening of William’s return home. His father’s question as to whether William had been good had been answered as usual in the negative and, refusing to listen to details of accusation or defence (ignoring William’s ‘But he said mos’ distinct, he said, “Please use this—”’ and the rest of the explanation always drowned by the others), he docked William of a month’s pocket money But William was not depressed. The ordeal of Christmas was over. Normal life stretched before him once more. His spirits rose. He wandered out into the lane. There he met Ginger, his bosom pal, with whom on normal days he fought and wrestled and carried out deeds of daring and wickedness, but who (like William) on festivals and holy days was forced reluctantly to shed the light of his presence upon his own family. From Ginger’s face, too, a certain gloom cleared as he saw William.
‘Well,’ said William, ‘’v you enjoyed it?’
‘I had a pair of braces from my aunt,’ said Ginger bitterly. ‘A pair of braces!’
‘Well, I had a tie an’ a Church History book.’
‘I put my braces down the well.’
‘I chopped up my tie into little bits.’
‘Was it nice at your aunt’s?’
William’s grievances burst out.
‘I went to church an’ took what that man said an’ I’ve been speaking the truth one with another an’ leadin’ a higher life an’ well, it jolly well din’t make it the happiest Christmas of my life what he said it would . . . It made it the worst. Everyone mad at me all the time. I think I was the only person in the world speakin’ the truth one with another an’ they’ve took off my pocket money for it. An’ you’d think ’f you was speakin’ the truth yourself you might take what anyone else said for truth an’ I keep tellin’ ’em that he said mos’ distinct, “Please use this house as if it were your own”, but they won’ listen to me! Well, I’ve done with it. I’m goin’ back to deceit an’ – an’ – what’s a word beginnin’ with hyp—?’
‘Hypnotism?’ suggested Ginger after deep thought.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ said William. ‘Well, I’m goin’ back to it first thing tomorrow mornin’.’
CHAPTER 4
WILLIAM STARTS THE HOLIDAYS
The Christmas holidays had arrived and William and the other Outlaws whooped their way home from school at the unusual hour of 11 a.m., to the unaffected dismay of their families. They had listened to a stirring address from their form master (who felt as little regret at parting from the Outlaws as the Outlaws felt at parting from
him), but they had been more intent upon the unauthorised distribution and mastication of a bag of nuts they had bought on the way to school than upon the high ideals which their form master was holding up for them, and so missed many words of counsel and inspiration which might (or might not) have made a difference to their whole lives.
Anyway, having finished the nuts (and deposited the shells in the satchel of their enemy, Hubert Lane), the Outlaws leapt out of the school buildings and whooped and scuffled and shouted their way home.
‘We’ve broke up!’ yelled William, as he entered the hall, and flung his satchel with a clatter upon the floor.
Mrs Brown came out of the morning-room, rather pale at this invasion of her usual morning quiet.
‘I – I’d forgotten you were breaking up today, William,’ she said. Her tone betrayed no ecstatic joy at the realisation of the fact.
William turned a somersault, and came into violent collision with a small table which held a vase of flowers.
‘Sorry,’ said William, still cheerfully, as he repaired the damage as best he could. (That is to say, he picked up the table, replaced the vase on it, picked up the flowers, put them in the vase – mostly wrong way up – and rubbed the spilt water into the carpet with his foot.)
‘Oh, don’t, William!’ moaned his mother. ‘I’ll ring for Emma – your boots are so dirty.’
‘Sorry,’ said William again, slightly hurt, ‘I was only tryin’ to help.’
‘Haven’t – haven’t you come home rather early?’ said Mrs Brown.
‘No,’ said William heartily, ‘we always come out this time breaking-up mornings. We’ve broke up.’ He chanted on a note that made Mrs Brown draw her brows together, and raise her hands to her ears.
‘William darling,’ she said plaintively. Then, ‘What are you going to do, dear – just till lunch-time, I mean?’
There was a note of resigned hopelessness in her voice. Mrs Brown was a woman without any political ambition whatever, but if Mrs Brown had been put in charge of the Education Department of the Government for a month, she would have made several drastic changes without any hesitation. She would have made a law that no holidays should last longer than a week, and if they did, free treatment for nervous breakdown was to be provided for all mothers of families, and that on ‘break-up days’ school should continue until late in the evening. Mrs Brown considered it adding insult to injury to send children home at eleven o’clock in the morning on the last day of term.
‘Er – what are you going to do till lunch, dear?’ said Mrs Brown again.
William considered the possibilities of the universe.
‘I might go into the garden an’ practise with my bow and arrow,’ he said.
‘Oh, no, dear,’ said Mrs Brown, closing her eyes, ‘please don’t do that! It does annoy your father so when the windows get broken.’
‘Oh!’ said William indignantly. ‘I keep explainin’ about that. I wasn’t aimin’ at that window. It was just that my hand slipped jus’ when I was shootin’ it off. I was aimin’ at somethin’ quite diff’rent.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘but your hand might slip again.’
‘No, I don’t think it will,’ said William hopefully. ‘I’ll try an’ keep it steady – and it doesn’t always break windows, you know, even when it slips.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Not the bow and arrows, William,’ and added with consummate tact, ‘You don’t want to risk breaking things so near Christmas, you know, William.’
There was certainly some sense in that. It was an argument that appealed to William.
‘Well,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘there’s the airgun. It’s quite different from the bow and arrows,’ he put in hastily. ‘I think p’raps I oughter keep on practisin’ with the airgun, in case there’s another war.’
‘No, William,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Not the airgun.’ Then tentatively and without much hope, ‘You – you wouldn’t like to do a little quiet school work, would you, William dear, so as to keep your hand in for next term?’
‘No, thank you,’ said William quite firmly.
‘I think it would be rather a good idea,’ said Mrs Brown, still clinging to the vision of peace that the proposal summoned up to her eyes.
William considered for a moment in gloomy silence the vision of unadulterated boredom that the proposal summoned up to his eyes. Then he brightened.
‘I don’t think so, mother,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think it fair on the other boys to go workin’ in the holidays.’
While Mrs Brown was slowly recovering from this startling vision of William conscientiously refraining from holiday work for the sake of his class-mates, William had yet another idea.
‘S’pose I try to mend that clock that’s gone wrong – the one in the dining-room,’ he said brightly.
Mrs Brown groaned again. William had hoped that she’d forgotten the last occasion he’d tried to mend a clock, but she hadn’t.
William had certainly succeeded in reducing it into its component parts, but having done that had not been able to resist the temptation of trying to make a motor boat of the component parts, and when finally they were taken to the clock-maker, it was discovered that three or four important component parts were missing.
William suspected a duck who had been on the pond when William had launched his motor boat and the pond had taken the motor boat to its bosom. William insisted that he had salvaged all the parts that the muddy bosom of the pond could be induced to yield, and that if there were any missing that duck must have eaten them.
William watched the duck with morbid interest for some days and imagined several times that it looked pale and unhappy. Anyway, the upshot of it all was that William’s father had to buy a new clock, and that William went without pocket-money for several months. But all this had been more than a year ago. William wished that the memories of grown-ups were not so inordinately long. He’d have liked to try his hand at a clock again.
‘No, William,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘most certainly not.’
‘Well, what shall I do?’ said William, slightly aggrieved.
Mrs Brown had an idea.
‘Well, William, it’s so near Christmas time – wouldn’t you like to be thinking out some little presents for people?’
‘I’ve hardly any money,’ said William, and added enigmatically, ‘what with windows and things.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Brown encouragingly, ‘it isn’t the money you spend on them that people value. It’s the thought behind it. I’m sure that with a little thought you could make some very nice presents for your relations and friends.’
William considered the idea in silence for some minutes. Then he brightened. It seemed to appeal to him.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go an’ think upstairs, shall I?’
Mrs Brown drew a breath of relief.
‘Yes, William,’ she said, ‘I think that will be very nice.’
The plan seemed to succeed beyond Mrs Brown’s fondest dreams. She did not see or hear of William for the rest of the morning. It was almost as if he were still at school. He appeared at lunch, but was silent and thoughtful. A sense of peace stole over Mrs Brown.
After lunch, Ethel and Robert came to her in the morning-room.
‘I say,’ said Robert in a mystified voice, ‘I thought William was breaking up today.’
‘He is,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘He has broken up. He came home about eleven o’clock.’
‘He’s very quiet,’ said Ethel lugubriously.
Mrs Brown smiled a fond, maternal smile. ‘Dear little boy,’ she said. ‘He’s upstairs thinking out his Christmas presents to people.’
‘Well,’ said Robert, ‘let’s make the most of it, and talk over the party.’
Robert and Ethel were giving a party to their friends, and William was being let into it as little as possible. Mingled with an elder brother and sister’s instinctive feeling that the admission of a small schoolboy brother into their plans w
ould in some way cheapen the whole thing was an equally instinctive fear of William. Pies in which William had a finger had a curious way of turning into something quite unexpected. William could generally prove that it had nothing to do with him, but still – the result was the same.
So Robert’s and Ethel’s party was a ‘secret’, only to be discussed when William was safely out of the way. William, of course, knew that it was to take place and professed an utter indifference to it, while privately he spent a good deal of time and ingenuity trying to ferret out the details of it. So far they had managed to keep secret from him the fact that after supper there was going to be a short one-act play.
Ethel and Robert had lately joined the Dramatic Society and at present no function of any kind was complete to them without a one-act play. The shining lights of the Dramatic Society (including Ethel and Robert) were going to take part in the play. They kept this part of it particularly a secret from William, because William rather fancied himself both as actor and playwright, and they felt that if William knew that a play was going to take place under his roof it would be practically impossible to protect the play from the devastating effects of William’s interest in it.
They discussed the dancing (which was to take place before supper) and the supper, and the play (which was to take place after supper), and Ethel’s dress and Mrs Brown’s dress, and the invitation list and the extra ‘help’ they would need for the evening, and whether Robert’s dress-suit had better go to the tailors to be pressed or not.
William at Christmas Page 5