‘You did that all right, din’t you?’ said Ginger, not without satisfaction.
William rose wearily, picking up the empty basket. He was too disheartened even to save what was left of the paint.
‘Oh, let’s leave it and go home,’ said Ginger.
‘Oh, yes, that’s all right,’ burst out William. ‘It’s all right for you. You’ve not to go home and say you’ve lost a valu’ble white cat, in a highly nervous state, wot someone was giving to Ethel.’
‘Well, what can I do?’ snapped Ginger.
‘You can perduce some sort of a cat,’ said William firmly. ‘That’s all I say. You let the first one loose all over the place, and you can perduce another. That’s all I say I’m not going home without some sort of a cat. I don’t mind about it bein’ valu’ble, or white, or nervous; but I must go home with some sort of a cat. All I ask you is to perduce some sort of a cat.’
‘I wish you’d stop saying that,’ said Ginger, irritably.
‘Well, perduce one an’ I will,’ said William, imperturbably.
‘There ought to be lots of cats about,’ said Ginger. ‘Let’s go to the road again.’
They went down the village street. Only one cat was to be seen. William and Ginger approached it cautiously.
‘Pretty pussy!’ said William, hoarsely.
‘Puss, puss, puss!!’ said Ginger, in honeyed accents.
‘Pretty pussy! Pretty pussy! An’ I feel more like mur-derin’ it,’ said William.
The cat sidled up to them.
William picked it up, stroking it affectionately with an expression of intense hatred on his face.
‘Open the basket, Ginger, quickly.’
‘Mother!’ came a shrill voice to his rear. ‘Boys is stealin’ our cat!’
William dropped the cat and fled down the road, followed by a broomstick, flung after him by the cat’s owner, and a stone thrown by the child. The extent to which William’s spirit had been broken by his troubles was shown by the fact that he endured these outrages without retaliation.
When it was safe to relax his speed, he turned to Ginger.
‘I’ll try one more cat,’ he said, ‘and that’s all. I’ve done with cats after that.’
They found one more cat. It responded to William’s oily flattering. It deigned to be taken up in his arms and stroked.
It was not till it was almost lowered into the basket that it showed the falseness of its friendliness. Its wildness then surpassed even the wildness of the first occupant of the fateful basket.
‘Well, I’ve done with cats,’ said William solemnly, withdrawing his hand from his mouth and watching the furry, flying creature in the distance. ‘I’ve done with cats. If they was to come in crowds now, askin’ to be put in the basket, I wun’t touch them. I’ve done with cats. I’ll feel sick whenever I see a cat for the rest of my life.’
A boy came down the road, his pockets bulging with something that moved.
‘What’s that?’ said William, without interest or spirit.
The boy took out a small furry animal.
‘Ferrit. Me Dad catches rabbits with ’um! You’ve gotter be careful ’ow you ’olds ’em.’
‘Will you sell it?’ asked William sadly, taking out his half-crown.
‘It’s not a cat,’ said Ginger, wearily.
But William had not lost his optimism.
‘Some folks don’t know much about animals,’ he said, hopefully. ‘They might think it was a cat!’
William’s father and mother and sister were in the morning-room when he entered with his basket. He held it out to Ethel.
‘There’s your cat,’ he said.
‘From Mr Romford?’
‘Yes,’ said William, gloomily.
She opened the lid a fraction, then shut it in silence. She looked mystified.
‘It isn’t a cat!’
William’s face was expressionless.
‘All I can say is wot he told me,’ he said in a monotonous voice. ‘He said it was a valu’ble white cat, in a highly nervous state.’
‘This?’
‘It may have got a bit mixed up on the way, but that’s what he said. He said that it was a valu’ble white cat, in a highly nervous state.’
‘You needn’t keep on saying that,’ said Ethel, irritably.
‘It’s wot he said,’ said William, doggedly. ‘He said distinctly that it was a valu’ble white cat, in a—’
‘Be quiet, William!’
William’s father came across the room and held the lid open, peering in. Suddenly he withdrew his finger with a yell of pain and rushed from the room, uttering muffled curses.
‘Do you mean to say, William,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘that Mr Romford sent Ethel that – whatever it is?’
‘All I can say is wot he told me,’ said William. ‘He said it was a valu’ble—’
‘Mother, if William says that once more I shall go mad.’
William came across to it curiously.
‘Let’s have a look at it,’ he said. ‘Oo – ow – ow! It’s bit me!’
It was out of the basket suddenly and across the room. Ethel gave a piercing scream. It met Jumble in the hall, and a mad chase ensued – scampering down the hall – round the drawing-room – the crashing of a small table and all its ornaments – the ferocious growling of Jumble – then silence.
‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter, or what the animal is, or whether it’s killed Jumble or Jumble’s killed it – but how any man could send . . . for a Christmas present, too . . . William your finger’s bleeding, and it’s covered with dirt. You’d better go and wash it.’
‘BE QUIET, WILLIAM,’ SAID WILLIAM’S SISTER. WILLIAM’S FATHER LIFTED THE LID AND PEERED IN. SUDDENLY HE WITHDREW HIS FINGER WITH A YELL OF PAIN.
‘Yes, Mother,’ said William meekly.
Then he saw a man coming up the drive carrying the dirty, bedraggled white cat.
‘Look!’ he said in an awestruck voice. ‘That’s him.’
‘It’s Mr Romford,’ said Ethel.
She went out into the hall. The conversation was distinctly audible.
‘How d’you do, Miss Brown? I’m afraid there’s been some little accident. I’ve—’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Ethel, coldly. ‘But we don’t want any more cats here.’
‘I’m afraid there’s been a mis—’
‘The kindest thing to think, Mr Romford,’ said Ethel, ‘is that you hadn’t the least idea what you were doing.’
‘There’s been a mis—’
‘My father and my poor little brother have been very badly injured. These things often prove fatal.’
‘There’s been a mis—’
‘My mother is terribly upset by it. You must excuse me if—’
‘I can explain, Miss Brown—’
‘I dare say you can. You must excuse me. Goodbye.’
She shut the door and returned to the morning-room.
‘Go and wash you hands, William,’ said Mrs Brown.
William was watching Mr Romford’s crestfallen departure. His indignation returned.
‘Makin’ me his cat-carrier!’ he muttered.
‘William, will you go?’
‘An’ how much do you think he gave me for bringing it?’
‘I’ve no idea, and if once the dirt gets right into a bite like that—’
‘Nothin’,’ said William, dramatically, as he turned to the door.
CHAPTER 7
WILLIAM’S SECRET SOCIETY
William considered that the microbe world was treating him unfairly. Mild chickenpox would be, on the whole, a welcome break in the monotony of life. It would mean delicacies such as jelly and cream and chicken. It would mean respite from the pressing claims of education. It would afford an excuse for disinclination to work for months afterwards. William was an expert in the tired look and deep sigh that, for many months after an illness, would touch his mother’s h
eart and make her tell him to put his books away and go out for a walk. No one could rival William in extracting the last ounce of profit from the slight indisposition.
And now Henry, Douglas and Ginger, William’s bosom friends and companions in crime, had all succumbed to chickenpox, and chickenpox had passed William by, leaving him aggrieved and lonely. William himself spared no effort. He breathed in heavily the atmosphere of Ginger’s Latin Grammar, on which Ginger had been lately engaged, as soon as he heard that Ginger had fallen a victim. It was no use. William caught nothing.
So William was left alone, bereft of his faithful friends, gloomily picturing their existence as one glorified holiday But his troubles did not end there. Mr Cremer, William’s peaceful and long-suffering form master, became ill, and the next morning his place was taken by Mr French.
William’s attitude to his schoolmasters was, as a rule, one of pitying forbearance, but he was, on the whole, quite kindly disposed to them. He indulged their whims, he smiled at their jokes, he endured their sarcasm; but he refused to concentrate his mental powers on x’s and y’s and dates like 1815 in the few precious hours that were at his disposal in the evening. Instead of doing homework, he preferred to play at Red Indians or Pirates, or to hunt for rats and rabbits with Jumble, his mongrel dog.
Until the coming of Mr French, William’s relations with his schoolmasters had been fairly amicable. Mr Cremer was a pacifist. He wanted peace at any price. He frankly avoided conflict with William. If he saw William quietly engaged in drawing beetles during his lesson, he did not expostulate. He thanked Heaven for it. He was not a proud man.
But Mr French definitely disliked William. He kept him in till unreasonable hours in the evening. Upon William’s making a quiet and unostentatious exit by way of the window when his back was turned, he followed William to his home, appeared suddenly when William was sitting down to a delayed but welcome meal, and led him ignominiously back.
When William and his special friends, according to their time-honoured custom, had bought a large pork pie, to be passed surreptitiously round for a bite each, in order to beguile the tedium of a geometry lesson, Mr French descended upon William as he was in the act of making the first bite, and condemned him to consume the mountainous whole before the assembled form. It was not that the pork pie was really too much for William’s digestive capacity. It was that even William felt the procedure to be lacking in dignity. Moreover, there was a stormy meeting afterwards of shareholders in the pie, who demanded their money back . . .
But it was when William had spent the whole of afternoon school laboriously writing the first chapter of what was to be an epoch-making story, and Mr French had seized upon it, read it aloud to the form, and then burnt it publicly and disdainfully, that William felt it was time that something happened to Mr French. He was proud of that story; he thought it sounded a jolly good yarn, even when read by Mr French, who didn’t seem to know how to pronounce half the words.
‘The pleecemen rushed upon the outlor as he stood there so proud an’ manly.
‘“Ho, ho!” he cried. “Come on, varlets, an’ I’ll jolly well show you.”
‘With one sweep of his gorry blade three pleecemen’s heads roled of into a heep. He shot another through the brane, another fell strangled, an’ another, wot had a week hart, fell down dead at the horrible site. Only one was left.
‘The outlor gave a snarling laugh through his clenshed teeth.
‘“Come on varlets,” he said, waving his gorry blade in one hand an’ his gun in the other, an’ holding a dagger in his clenshed teeth.
‘But the pleeceman slank of.
‘“Coward!” taunted the outlor through clenshed teeth.’
William felt strongly that it was a very good story He’d have to write the whole thing out again now. It was certainly time something happened to Mr French. He went home planning vengeance.
He walked home slowly, his brow drawn into a stern frown, not leaping in and out of the ditch, or hurling missiles at passing friends or enemies, as was his usual custom. His thoughts were so entirely taken up with schemes of vengeance that he walked past the turning that led to his home and found himself in a road through which he did not often pass.
Two boys stood outside the gate of a house. They were boys whom William’s mother would have designated as ‘common’. William, whose tastes were lamentably low, looked at them with interest. He felt suddenly lonely and eager for the society of his kind. The opportunity of an introduction soon occurred. The larger of the two boys looked up to find William’s scowling gaze fixed upon him.
‘Ullo, Freckles!’ he called, accompanying the insult with a grimace of obviously hostile intent.
William, forgetting all thoughts of Mr French in the exhilaration of the moment, advanced threateningly.
‘You jus’ say that again,’ he said.
The red-haired boy obligingly said it again, and William closed with him. They rolled across the road and into the ditch and out of it again. William pulled the red-haired boy’s nose and the red-haired boy rubbed William’s head in the dust. It was quite a friendly fight – merely an excuse for the display of physical energy
The second boy sat on the fence and watched. Every now and then he spat in the dust with a certain conscious pride. At last, friendly relations having been established by the bout, William and the red-haired boy sat up in the dust and looked at each other.
‘What’s your name?’ demanded William.
‘Sam. Wot’s yourn?’
‘William. D’you go to school?’
The red-haired boy looked scornful.
‘School? Me? No much! I’m workin’, I am. I works there, I does.’ He cocked his thumb in the direction of the house. ‘ ’E ain’t much catch, though, ’e ain’t. Stingy ole blighter – never so much as says ‘take an apple or two’, or ‘take a bunch of grapes or two’ – not ’e – an’ me the gardener’s boy.’
He relapsed into pensive gloom at this recital of his woes.
‘So don’t you never get none?’ said William sympathetically.
‘Don’ I?’ said Sam with a wink. ‘Wot d’yer think? That’s all I asks yer. Wot d’yer think? But it ’ud be friendlier in ’im ter ask me ter ’ave one or two. Not,’ he admitted, ‘as it makes much difference. But ’e’s a stingy bloke – allus ’as been. ’E’s one of these ’ere schoolteachers. Kinder disagreeable in ’is manner.’
‘What’s his name?’ said William, with sudden interest.
‘Ole Frenchy we calls ’im,’ said Sam. ‘An’ don’ ’e think ’e’s clever? Not ’arf. Ho my!’
Into William’s inscrutable countenance had come a gleam of light. For a moment his thoughts worked silently and daringly.
‘Would you like,’ he said at last, ‘to b’long to a secret serciety?’
Sam put his cap on one side and chewed a blade of grass ruminatively.
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Never tried. Leastways, not as I can call to mind.’
‘Well,’ said William, persuasively, ‘you can try now. I want to start one an’ you can b’long. I want you to b’long ’cause you’re his gardener’s boy an’ can do things – ’cause he’s awful mean an’ made me eat all the ole pie an’ burnt my tale an’ said lots of things an’ I want to make a secret serciety for payin’ him out.’
Sam seemed to grasp the situation.
‘Orl right,’ he said, ‘an’ wot do I get fer it?’
This slightly nonplussed William.
‘Oh,’ he said vaguely, ‘it’s a serciety – you jus’ b’long – you – er – well, you jus’ b’long.’
Sam was considering the idea.
‘Let’s ’ave ’im,’ he said, pointing at the boy who was still sitting on the fence and spitting proudly at intervals. ‘ ’E’s errand boy at the grocer’s, he is, an’ ’e’s offen round ’ere. ’E’s called Halbert, ’e is.’
Albert was approached, and expressed himself willing to join.
‘I don’t mind b’lon
ging,’ he said, with a sigh of deep feeling. ‘I wouldn’t mind murderin’ of ’im sometimes, when ’e tells me to get out of ’is garding scornful like. I would ’a’ murdered ’im long ago if it ’adn’t been for my poor ole mother.’
Even William was startled.
‘You needn’t murder him,’ he said, hastily. ‘He’s only gotter be paid out.’
The Secret Society of Vengeance met for the first time the next afternoon, in an old barn on the hillside.
Albert had brought a friend of the name of Leopold to swell their numbers. Leopold wore a tweed cap, many sizes too large for him, pulled down over his eyes. It gave him a daredevil air. He announced, in a husky voice, that he ‘din’ care nuffin’ fer no one, so there!’
William looked round at his small band with a proud heart. Though he had not forgotten the aims of his secret society, it was the fact of its existence that really thrilled him.
‘Now we’ve gotter take a sacred an’ solemn oath,’ he said, ‘an’ sign it in our blood, an’ get a secret password an’ a secret sign an’ a secret langwidge.’
Leopold created a diversion by announcing, briefly and gruffly, that no one was going to sign nothing in his blood. When threatened with ejection by William, and taunted with cowardice by Sam, he flung himself upon them in dramatic fury. They moved hastily aside in opposite directions, and his outstretched fist came heavily in contact with a nail in the barn door. As an adequate supply of blood seemed to be promptly assured, he lost his anger and became unbearably conceited, parading his bleeding fist and commenting on some people he knew who would have made a fuss and no mistake over a little thing like that. He didn’t mind a little thing like that – he’d – well, anyway, hurry up with that oath, or it would be drying up.
William had found in his pocket a grimy piece of paper and the stump of a pencil, and was writing with a set, purposeful expression.
‘Now listen,’ he said at last. ‘This is wot I’ve wrote: “We, wot our names are sined in blood under this riting, take an oath to revenge to the deth any member of this serciety wot is treated unfair. This is a Secret Serciety. The punishment for anyone wot does not revenge anyone else, or wot tells about the Serciety, is not to be spoke to or played with by any of the other people in the Serciety for ever till deth.”’
William Again Page 8