William Again

by Richmal Crompton

  The little boy put out his tongue at her.

  ‘A native form of greeting, doubtless,’ said the Vicar’s wife.

  ‘Oo, it is William Brown,’ persisted the little girl shrilly.

  ‘If you say that again, dear,’ said the parent, ‘I shall have to take you home. It isn’t kind. It may hurt the little boy’s feelings. He’s come a long, long way from a place where every prospect pleases and only man is vile, and you ought to be kind to him. How would you like to go to a strange faraway country and then have people say you were William Brown?’

  This seemed unanswerable. The small child subsided.

  Mr Theophilus Mugg looked anxiously towards the gate.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be coming,’ he said. ‘Shall we – er – adjourn to the drawing-room for tea and – er – hear Mr Habbakuk Jones’s – er – address afterwards?’

  There was an animated murmur of acquiescence.

  ‘The – er – child of the sun,’ went on Mr Mugg, ‘can stay out and we will – er – send his tea to him.’

  William’s expression brightened.

  ‘Swishy,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ translated the Vicar’s wife to the rest of the audience.

  The small child had wandered round to the wake of William.

  ‘He’s not black all the way down,’ she shrilled. ‘He is—’ She stopped abruptly, remembering the maternal threat. ‘Well, anyway, he is,’ she ended decidedly.

  ‘Of course he must be black all the way down. Don’t be silly,’ said the parent.

  ‘They may not be,’ said an old lady with a kind face. ‘Of course, one imagines they are, but, after all, one sees nothing but the exposed portions.’

  At this point William, who was very hot, raised a hand to his brow to wipe away the perspiration. The sun was certainly having some effect upon his complexion. A pale patch followed the track of his hand. His hand in its downward journey rubbed upon his green shirt. A black patch followed its track. There was a sudden silence.

  The Vicar’s wife voiced the general sentiments.

  ‘Curious!’ she said.

  ‘Surely,’ said the old lady in a trembling voice, ‘we haven’t been imposed upon?’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Mr Mugg, pale but firm. ‘I have known Mr Habbakuk Jones from childhood. He is incapable of deception.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the old lady, ‘it’s the effect of the sudden change of climate acting upon the pigment of the skin.’

  There was a murmur of relief at the suggestion. William merely scowled at them. He was wondering how soon and on what pretest he could escape to the woods. He felt that he had exhausted the powers of entertainment of the present position, but he did not wish to miss the tea.

  ‘We will not discuss the matter in the hearing of the child,’ said Mr Muggs.

  ‘But he doesn’t speak English,’ put in the old lady,

  ‘He may understand it,’ said Mr Mugg with dignity. ‘Let us – er – discuss the matter over the – er – cup that cheers but not inebriates – ahem!’

  Rather bewildered and looking back suspiciously at the inscrutable William, the company moved indoors. The old lady soon appeared with a heavily laden tray which she placed in front of William. She seemed about to make some kind remark, but meeting William’s implacable frown, retired hastily.

  ‘He’s certainly beginning to look very annoyed,’ she announced excitedly in the drawing-room.

  ‘It is—’ began the small shrill voice, then stopped abruptly.

  It was just as William was consuming the last of a large plate of cakes that he noticed a couple of figures coming towards the house. One was a clergyman. The other was a boy about William’s age, rather more swarthy than the average boy, and clad in an ordinary grey flannel suit. Nobody knew exactly what happened then. Certainly on that occasion William was not the aggressor. The newcomer may have disliked the look of William with his now streaky face and curious costume, he may have been hungry and found the sight of William, devouring the last cake, unbearable, he may simply have been feeling the heat. The fact remains that he hurled himself upon William with the agility of a wild cat, and William in sheer panic rushed through the open French window into the drawing-room, followed by his antagonist. The two of them charged through the crowded room. They left in their wake Mr Theophilus Mugg sitting upon a dish of cakes upon the floor, the Vicar’s wife soaked in hot tea, the old lady mixed up with the fragments of a Venetian vase, and the parent of the child beneath the grand piano. Once outside the front door William doubled, threw off his pursuer and made for the woods.

  He had made up his mind to go home and take the stuff off. It was coming off, anyway. It was possible that he might be home for tea. It was possible – he was rather doubtful about this, but determined to be optimistic – that his father might not come to hear of the affair. Anyway, it had been fun. It had been fun in the woods, and those old loonies had been fun, and the cakes had been scrummy.

  In the garden peace was restored. The audience sat once more in orderly rows. At the table sat Mr Theophilus Mugg, the Reverend Habbakuk Jones and the native protégé, now cool and peaceful and replete with cakes and milk. A name was being whispered from mouth to mouth among the audience. The Reverend Habbakuk Jones rose to his feet.

  IN SHEER PANIC WILLIAM RUSHED THROUGH THE OPEN FRENCH WINDOW INTO THE DRAWING-ROOM, FOLLOWED BY HIS ANTAGONIST.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he began.

  From the back now rose a shrill, excited voice. ‘I said it was William Brown.’

  CHAPTER 9

  JUST WILLIAM’S LUCK

  William had accompanied his mother on a visit to Aunt Ellen. Mrs Brown was recovering from an attack of influenza, and the doctor had ordered a change.

  William did not accompany her because his presence was in any way likely to help her convalescence. On the contrary it was warranted to reduce any person of normal health to a state of acute nervous breakdown. He accompanied her solely because the rest of the family refused to be left in charge of him.

  As his grown-up brother Robert somewhat ungraciously put it, ‘Mother’s ill already, and William can’t make her much worse . It’s no use getting the whole lot of us knocked up. Besides, Mother likes William.’ He made the last statement in the tone of voice in which one makes a statement that is almost incredible, but true.

  William was an entirely well-meaning boy. That fact must be realised in any attempt to estimate his character, but Fate had a way of putting him into strange situations, and the world in general had a way of misunderstanding him. At least, so it always seemed to William . . .

  William was bored by Aunt Ellen, and Aunt Ellen’s house, and Aunt Ellen’s garden, and Aunt Ellen’s cat, and Aunt Ellen’s conversation, and Aunt Ellen’s powers of entertainment.

  Aunt Ellen had suggested many ways in which he might spend his first afternoon with her while his mother rested. He might sit in the garden and read. She’d rather he didn’t go outside the garden alone, because he might meet rough boys, and she was sure his dear mother was most particular whom he met. So she gave him a book called Little Peter, the Sunshine of the Home, and put a chair for him in the garden.

  ‘It’s a beautiful book, William,’ she said, ‘and I think will do you good. It’s a true book, written by the boy’s mother, as the preface tells you. He is a beautiful character. I love the book, myself. We’ll have a nice little talk about it when you’ve read it. It might prove the turning-point in your life. I’m sure you’ll wish you knew Peter and his dear mother.’

  William, after reading a few pages, began, as she had predicted, to wish he knew Peter and his mother. He wished he knew Peter in order to take the curl out of that butter-coloured hair and the fatuous smile from the complacent little mouth that stared at him from every illustration. Driven at last to fury, he dropped Peter down the well, and began to look for more congenial occupations.

  He tried to play with the cat, but the cat, not being used to Will
iam’s method of playing, scratched him on the cheek and escaped under the bicycle shed, whither William could not follow him. William next climbed the apple tree, but; like the rest of Aunt Ellen’s establishment, the apple tree was not ‘used to boys’, and the first branch upon which William took his stand precipitated him on to the lawn, and almost down the well, to join his victim, Peter, the Sunshine of the Home. Next he took up a few of Aunt Ellen’s cherished chrysanthemums to compare the length of their roots at different stages, replanting them when he heard Aunt Ellen’s footsteps approaching—

  ‘William, darling,’ she said reproachfully, ‘have you finished the book?’

  ‘Umph,’ answered William non-committally.

  ‘You must read very quickly, darling. I’ll get you another. I have another book about Peter, you’ll be glad to hear.’

  William coughed politely.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I jus’ don’t feel like any more readin’. I’d like more to do somethin’. I’m tired of doin’ nothin’.’

  She looked at him helplessly.

  ‘But what do you want to do, William darling?’

  ‘Dunno. Any sort of a game would do,’ he said graciously.

  The only game in Aunt Ellen’s house was an old archery set, a relic of her Victorian youth. She brought it down for William.

  ‘You see, you shoot at the target, darling,’ she explained.

  ‘Thanks,’ said William, brightening considerably. ‘You needn’t bother lending me the target.’

  Aunt Ellen retreated upstairs to continue her interrupted nap.

  It was only when William, in a perfectly laudable attempt to shoot an apple down from the apple tree, had broken the landing window, driven the cat into a hysterical state of fury, and landed an arrow full in the back of the next-door gardener, that Aunt Ellen raised herself once more from the bed that was usually the scene of such untroubled rest. She rescued William, in a state of indignation, from the cat and gardener, and suggested a little walk. She felt, somehow, less sure of the contaminating influence of the outside world on William’s character.

  ‘Everyone’s got to practise,’ said William indignantly. ‘Well, I was only practising. I’d have got my eye in soon. I hadn’t got my eye in when I hit ’em. Everyone’s got to practise. No one’s born with their eye in. If I went on about five minutes longer, I wouldn’t be hittin’ anythin’ ’cept wot I wanted to. And then,’ he added darkly, with a vague mental vision of the world in general, and Peter and the cat and the gardener in particular, at his mercy, ‘then some folks had better look out.’

  Aunt Ellen shuddered.

  ‘Darling, don’t you think a little walk would do you good?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said William. ‘May I take the bow and arrows?’

  ‘I think not,’ said Aunt Ellen.

  ‘All right,’ said William despondently.

  William started off down the road. Aunt Ellen returned once more to her slumbers. Peace reigned once more over the house. But not over William. William walked slowly and dejectedly, his hands in his pockets. A week of sheer boredom lay before him – of a garden arranged purely for the grown-up world, of books containing obnoxious Peters, of irate gardeners, of spiteful cats. He didn’t think that he was going to enjoy himself. He didn’t think that there was going to be anything to do. He didn’t think that his walk that afternoon would contain anything of the least interest.

  He didn’t know any boys here. He didn’t want to know any boys in a place like this. They were probably all Peters. He felt a burning hatred of Peter. He wouldn’t mind meeting Peter . . .

  He was tired of walking along the high road. He crawled through a hole in the hedge and found himself in someone’s garden. He didn’t care. He was in the reckless mood of the outlaw. He walked along the lawn and up to the house. He didn’t care. He’d like to see anyone try to turn him out. That ole gardener – that ole cat – that ole Peter. Then he stopped suddenly –

  Through an open window he could see a room, and a man sitting at a writing desk. On the writing desk was a pile of books: What to Do with Baby, Hints on the Upbringing of Children, Every Mother’s Reference Book, and others of the same nature. There were also several typewritten manuscripts and several copies of a magazine, The Monthly Signal: A Magazine for Mothers.

  But it was not on these that William fastened his scowling gaze. It was on a book, or rather a pile of books, from whose covers the simpering, curly-haired face of the hateful Peter looked out upon the world.

  The man who sat at the desk was reading a letter. There was a look of fear upon his face. Suddenly he looked up and met William’s unflinching gaze. They stared at each other for a few moments, then the man put down the letter and ran from the room. Obviously it was the sight of William that had moved him. In a less defiant mood towards the world in general William might have taken to his heels. Now he stood his ground, frowning ferociously at the man as he came out of the front door. But his ferocity was not needed.

  ‘I say,’ began the man, ‘do you live near here?’

  William’s frown did not relax.

  ‘Stayin’ here,’ he admitted ungraciously.

  ‘I say,’ said the man again, ‘could you help me? Just for this afternoon. I’ll give you everything you want – a shilling, two shillings, ten shillings,’ he went on wildly, ‘anything. You can come to this garden any day you like as long as you stay here. You can bird’s-nest in the wood. I’ve got a boy’s tricycle you can have and – you can do anything you like in the garden – there’s a pond behind the house—’

  ‘Can I have all those things you said, and do all those things you said?’ said William guardedly.

  ‘Yes – yes – if you’ll do what I tell you just for this afternoon.’

  ‘I’d do anything for those things,’ said William simply.

  ‘Come in,’ said the man nervously. ‘There’s not much time. She’ll be here any moment.’

  ‘When she comes,’ said the man quickly – ‘she’ll be here any minute now – I want you to pretend you’re called Peter and I’m your mother – do you see?’

  William was outraged.

  ‘Me – Peter – that boy?’ At his tone of contempt the man’s eyes blinked.

  ‘But he’s a charming boy,’ he said indignantly. ‘Everyone says so – I could show you letters—’

  Only at the mental vision of the pond, the tricycle, the wood, the garden, the ten shillings, did William’s conscience allow him to pocket his pride.

  ‘He’s more like a monkey out of the zoo than a boy,’ he said bitterly. ‘But I’ll do it if you’ll never tell anyone I pretended to be him.’

  The man’s pride was evidently wounded by William’s attitude.

  ‘I should have thought it an honour – I’ve had most flattering notices. I could show you letters. However, there’s no time to argue – as I said, she may be here any minute. I shan’t be here – you must see her alone – say you’re Peter – I’m afraid you’re the wrong type, sadly. Your hair doesn’t curl and it’s the wrong colour, and you’re too big, and your expression’s wrong – not sensitive enough, or gentle enough, or wistful enough—’

  William was rather sensitive about his personal appearance. He accepted it with resignation, as the subject of numberless jokes from his own family, but he resented comments on it from outsiders.

  ‘All right,’ he said coldly, ‘if all that’s wrong with me, you’d better get someone else wot’s got his soft, silly face.’

  ‘No, no,’ said the man wildly. ‘I didn’t mean anything – and there’s no time, I’m afraid, to procure a more sympathetic type. She may be here any minute – all I want is you to meet her and pretend to be Peter – I shan’t be here – you must say that this is your home, and your mother’s in bed with a bad headache, and is sorry she can’t receive her – then she’ll go away – come and tell me when she’s gone away – see?’

  ‘Umph,’ agreed William.

  A tall, angular f
igure was coming up the drive.

  The man fled into the house with a groan.

  Mr Monkton Graham was a literary man. That is to say, he wrote ‘The Mothers’ Page’ for The Monthly Signal: A Magazine for Mothers. He signed it ‘Peter’s mother’. The page always centred round Peter.

  ‘Peter’s mother’ told how she dealt with Peter’s measles and whooping cough, and clothes, and temper (though Peter’s disposition was really angelic), and how she arranged Peter’s parties and treats and daily routine, and lessons and holidays, and how she influenced him for good with her sweet unselfishness and motherly wisdom, and what sweet things Peter did and said and thought. Peter was a decided cult. Mothers wrote to ‘Peter’s mother, care of the office, Monthly Signal’, for advice about John, or Henry, or Jimmie, or even Ann.

  Mr Monkton Graham was thinking of starting a Joan. Mothers sent flowers and photographs of John and Henry and Jimmie to him. Someone had even sent a tricycle to Peter. Mr Monkton Graham had written a letter of thanks in a round and childish hand. They asked for photographs of Peter. Mr Monkton Graham possessed an old photograph of a nephew of his. He had this ‘touched up’ and sent it out to Peter’s admirers. It appeared in the magazine. The nephew was in South Africa, and would hardly have recognised it in any case. It created quite a furore.

  At first Mr Monkton Graham’s work had not been laborious. It had consisted of reading a paragraph in a standard reference book on the rearing of children, expanding it, Peterising it and adding the ineffably ‘sweet’ touch of ‘Peter’s mother’ that earned him his six guineas a week. But success went to his head.

  He wrote a book about Peter. It was wildly popular. He wrote another. It was still more wildly popular. He received letters and presents and photographs innumerable. They voted him a second ‘Dearest’ and Peter a second ‘Fauntleroy’. He knew fame – even though a strictly incognito fame – at last. He always replied to his admirers – ‘sweet’ little letters, breathing the very spirit of ‘Peter’s mother’.

  But last week, after a good dinner when he saw the world through a rosy mist, his usual discretion had deserted him. He had written to an admirer of Peter giving the name of the village and house where he lived. He had at the time not realised the significance of what he was doing. It only occurred to him the next morning when the letter was posted and the rosy mist had faded. The horrible thing had really happened. The woman had written to say that she was coming to see ‘darling Peter’s mother’ that day. The letter had come by the midday post, and the visitor might be there any minute.