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William The Conqueror

Page 21

by Richmal Crompton


  The Lanites always followed meekly anyone who would take the lead.

  ‘It’s rather dusty,’ said another Lanite with distaste.

  ‘Never mind,’ said a third, ‘it’s not for long.’

  ‘Ugh! There’s spiders an’ things,’ said a fourth disgustedly.

  This conversation tells you all you need (and, I hope, want) to know about the Hubert Lanites.

  ‘Let’s shut the door so’s he won’t see us,’ said Bertie Franks.

  Someone shut the door and from within came sounds of Hubert Lanites settling into hiding places, moving boxes, clambering over obstacles and uttering exclamations of disgust as they did so.

  Very quietly William slipped across and turned the key in the lock. Evidently no one heard him.

  ‘Coming!’ yelled Hubert Lane from downstairs.

  ‘Don’t shout so, darling,’ said Aunt Emmy’s flutelike voice. ‘Say it quietly. Little gentlemen never raise their voices.’

  Hubert Lane came slowly upstairs. He paused at each landing, but did not explore. Some instinct seemed to lead him straight up to the attic. He stopped at the open window that led out on to the roof. His orderly mind knew that that should be shut. And it was open. They must have gone out on to the roof.

  After a moment’s hesitation he got out of the window and began to explore the recesses of the chimney pots. Like a flash William, who was watching behind the door, streaked to the window, shut it and bolted it. Hubert turned in dismay and William had a vision of Hubert’s fat pale face staring open-mouthed through the pane before, with admirable presence of mind, he moved two large table leaves that stood near, to shut out the sight. That disposed of Hubert. There was no real danger. The window gave on to a stretch of flat roof, bounded by a parapet and there was no fear of the cautious Hubert venturing even near the parapet.

  The Outlaws streamed out of their hiding place to join their leader. It was evident that William had some plan.

  ‘Come along,’ he said tersely, ‘an’ do jus’ what I do.’

  They followed him trustfully on his bold course downstairs – right down to the hall where Aunt Emmy stood smiling painfully and pinning up her ever descending hair.

  Very faintly from upstairs from behind the barrier of window pane and table leaves there came to them an indignant protesting ‘Hi!’ It was only just audible and fortunately Aunt Emmy, as well as being nearsighted, was what she called a ‘leetle short of hearing – not really deaf, you know’.

  As to most of us, hens are just hens – though we realise that they must have distinguishing marks of feature and expression invisible to us whereby their nearest and dearest know them – so to Aunt Emmy boys were just boys.

  About ten boys had ascended the stairs and now about ten boys descended. It did not occur to her that they might not be the same boys. Even had she been less short-sighted that possibility would not have occurred to her. She certainly did notice that their former spick and span appearance was sadly blurred, but she knew that there is no power on earth that can keep a boy tidy longer than five minutes. She knew that there is a powerful Law of Attraction between Boys and Dirt and that you cannot with impunity interfere with the Laws of Nature.

  She threw a glance of distaste at the Outlaws’ ruffled hair, crooked collars and suits covered with whiting and cobwebs. She closed her eyes for a minute at the sight as though enduring untold agony. Then she mastered her feelings and inquired faintly:

  WILLIAM HAD A VISION OF HUBERT’S FAT FACE STARING OPEN-MOUTHED THROUGH THE WINDOW.

  ‘Where’s Hubert, dears? He should have conducted his little guests downstairs.’

  William, his freckled face as expressionless as a mummy’s, spoke in a mincingly polite tone of voice: ‘Hubert said he was coming down in a minute and would we begin supper without him, please.’

  Aunt Emmy was taken aback.

  She went to the bottom of the staircase.

  ‘Hubert, darling!’ she called. Very, very faintly from the far away came the indignant protesting ‘Hi!’ of Hubert locked out upon the tiles. The real guests were still crouching behind packing cases in the attic waiting to be ‘found’.

  Hubert’s ‘Hi’ was too faint to reach Aunt Emmy’s short hearing. She might, of course, have gone on a voyage of discovery in search of the missing Hubert had not the sight of the ‘guests’ surging forthwith into the dining-room recalled her to the scene of action. She looked at them reproachfully.

  ‘I think, perhaps, Hubert has gone to tidy himself,’ she said, ‘and I think, perhaps, it would be as well if you little boys did the same.’

  The ‘little boys’ ignored this suggestion, and, sitting down at the table, began to eat.

  Aunt Emmy had always had a vague suspicion that she disliked boys, and the suspicion now grew to a certainty.

  These boys might have made up their minds to consume all the most attractive food on the table in the shortest possible time. They refused sandwiches and bread and butter. They devoured iced cakes as fast as poor Aunt Emmy could hand them round. They demanded trifle and blancmange and creams. They ate ravenously as though it were some mighty task they had set themselves. They got through enormous quantities of food. They ate in silence, ignoring all Aunt Emmy’s polite remarks about the weather and questions as to how they were getting on with their lessons at school. They worked like Trojans. The dish of iced cakes was empty. The trifle dish was empty. The cream dish was empty. The blancmange dish was empty.

  Only plates of wholesome bread and butter, of sandwiches and of plain cake stood untouched.

  Aunt Emmy looked round aghast.

  Louder and more indignant grew the Hubertian ‘Hi’s!’ from upstairs. And another sound had joined them – a sound of the pattering of many hands on a distant door. The real guests had evidently awakened to the fact that something had gone wrong somewhere.

  ‘Do you hear a – a sort of sound?’ said Aunt Emmy, doubtfully, putting her hand to her ear. William looked up as if straining his ears to catch the ever-growing racket.

  ‘What sort of a sound?’ he demanded, fixing Aunt Emmy with his stern unblinking gaze.

  ‘I – I think I’ll go and see whatever dear Hubert’s doing,’ said Aunt Emmy faintly, and, her hair coming down more violently than ever, she fled from the horrible spectacle of these ungentlemanly little boys eating like – well, like nothing Aunt Emmy had ever seen before.

  AUNT EMMY LOOKED ROUND AGHAST.

  William opened the dining-room window, and the Outlaws, their bodies sated with the joy of the Lanite feast, their souls sated with the joy of vengeance, crept out into the night. The Lanites had openly mocked them and spoilt their conjuring show. They had eaten the Lanites’ supper. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth – a supper for a dead cat. They were quits!

  THE DISH OF ICED CAKES WAS EMPTY. THE TRIFLE DISH WAS EMPTY. THE CREAM-CAKE DISH WAS EMPTY. ONLY WHOLESOME BREAD AND BUTTER AND PLAIN CAKE REMAINED.

  Aunt Emmy found and rescued the infuriated Lanites, brought them down to the relatively Spartan fare left them by the Outlaws, and then went away to have a nervous breakdown quietly by herself. Never would she have anything to do with boys again – never, never, never! She got through her nervous breakdown as quickly as she could and then returned to brighten up the victims of this terrible catastrophe. But the gloom that had fallen over the proceedings was too heavy to be lifted; even by Aunt Emmy’s brightness.

  Mr Lane was not in the best of tempers when he returned home. He was taking a gloomy view of life generally. The vindictive cheerfulness and persistent healthiness of his aunt had had a very embittering effect on him. And the story of the Outlaws marauding expedition proved to be the last straw. So he sat down at once and wrote a very strong letter to the Outlaws’ fathers.

  The fathers of the Outlaws were quite accustomed to receiving strong letters from Mr Lane. Whenever a boy annoyed Hubert, Hubert’s father wrote a strong letter to the boy’s father. And quite often the father did nothing at all be
yond dropping the strong letter into the waste-paper basket. But this was, of course, a serious matter. Verbal or even bodily insults, to Hubert Lane and his followers, might be, metaphorically speaking, dropped into the waste-paper basket, but consuming vast quantities of Lane food uninvited, was, in the eyes of the adult world, a serious matter, and the heavy hand of parental retribution descended upon the Outlaws that night.

  But the effect of the heavy hand of parental retribution is always short-lived.

  The next morning the Outlaws sallied out to school undaunted even to bumptiousness. The Lanites looked gloomy and infuriated and they glowered ferociously at the Outlaws silently during school. After school the Outlaws in a body approached the Lanites in a body.

  ‘You jolly well caught it last night,’ said Hubert derisively.

  ‘Hush, darling!’ said William, in a shrill falsetto. ‘Say it quietly. Little gentlemen never raise their voices.’

  ‘I’ll tell my father,’ said Hubert, in fury.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of them,’ counselled Bertie Franks. ‘My mother told me never to have anything to do with them.’

  But the Outlaws now began to rub their hands round their stomachs in vulgar mock show of appreciation, smacking their lips and screwing up their faces.

  ‘Cream cakes,’ said William. ‘Coo! Jolly good!’

  ‘Trifle!’ murmured Ginger rapturously.

  ‘Sugar cakes!’ said Ginger. ‘Oh, crumbs!’

  This was more than even the Hubert Lanites could stand. Unwarlike as they were, accustomed to take their stand behind Mr Lane’s strong letters and avoid open conflict, they threw caution to the winds, and hurled themselves to mortal combat with the Outlaws.

  It was a good fight and revealed unsuspected resources of courage and prowess in the Hubert Lanites.

  It ended in a general mix-up of Outlaws and Lanites in a muddy ditch.

  There Outlaws and Lanites sat up panting and covered with mud, and looked at each other.

  And slowly over the faces of all dawned a grin of satisfaction.

  ‘Go home and tell your father now,’ said William to Hubert.

  And Hubert, swelling with pride and joy after his first real fight, said: ‘No, I won’t. An’ – an’ we’ll fight you again,’ and added hastily (for though he’d enjoyed it he’d had quite enough for one day), ‘tomorrow.’

  Richmal Crompton was born in Lancashire in 1890. The first story about William Brown appeared in Home magazine in 1919, and the first collection of William stories was published in book form three years later. In all, thirty-eight William books were published, the last one in 1970, after Richmal Crompton’s death.

  ‘Probably the funniest, toughest children’s books ever written’

  Sunday Times on the Just William series

  ‘Richmal Crompton’s creation [has] been famed for his cavalier attitude to life and those who would seek to circumscribe his enjoyment of it ever since he first appeared’

  Guardian

  Books available in the Just William series

  Just William

  More William

  William Again

  William the Fourth

  Still William

  William the Conqueror

  William the Outlaw

  William in Trouble

  William the Good

  William at War

  First published 1926

  This selection first published 1984 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-447-21401-4 EPUB

  All stories copyright © Richmal C. Ashbee

  This selection copyright © Richmal C. Ashbee 1984

  Foreword copyright © Charlie Higson 2009

  Illustrations copyright © Thomas Henry Fisher Estate

  The right of Richmal C. Ashbee to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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