“We’d better not put on our saint robes yet – not till we’ve been down to the village to sell the things. Then we’ll put ’em on an’ start preachin’ an’ things. An’, remember – from now on, we’ve gotter call each other ‘Saint’ an’ call everythin’ else ‘brother’ or ‘sister’.”
“Everything?”
“Yes – he did – the other man did.”
“Yes, but William—”
“You’ve gotter call me St William now, Ginger.”
“All right. You call me St Ginger.”
“All right, I’m goin’ to, St Ginger—”
“St William.”
“All right.”
“Well, where you goin’ to sell the slippers?”
“Brother slippers,” corrected William. “Well, I’m goin’ to sell brother slippers at Mr Marsh’s, if he’ll buy ’em.”
“And I’ll take brother ties along too,” said Ginger. “And Henry take brother gloves and Douglas, brother inkstand.”
“Sister inkstand,” said Douglas. “William said—”
“St William,” corrected William patiently.
“Well, St William said we could call things brother or sister, and my inkstand’s going to be sister.”
“Swank,” said St Ginger severely. “Always wanted to be diff’rent from other people.”
Mr Marsh kept a second-hand shop at the end of the village. He refused to allow them more than sixpence each.
“Mean!” exploded St William indignantly, as soon as they’d emerged from Mr Marsh’s dingy little sanctum.
“I suppose now we’re saints,” said St Ginger piously, “that we’ve gotter forgive folks what wrong us like that.”
“Huh! I’m not going to be that sort of saint,” said St William firmly.
Back at the barn, they donned their dressing-gowns.
“Now what do we do first?” said St Ginger.
“Preachin’ to animals,” said William. “Let’s go across to Jenks’s farm an’ try on them.”
They crept rather cautiously into the farmyard.
“I’ll do brother cows,” said St William, “an’ St Ginger do brother pigs, an’ St Douglas do brother goats, an’ St Henry do sister hens.”
They approached their various audiences. Ginger leant over the pigsty. Then he turned to William, who was already striking an attitude before his congregation of cows, and said, “I say, what’ve I gotter say to ’em?”
At that moment, brother goat, being approached too nearly by St Douglas, butted the saintly stomach, and St Douglas sat down suddenly and heavily.
Brother goat, evidently enjoying this form of entertainment, returned to the charge. St Douglas fled, to the accompaniment of an uproarious farmyard commotion.
Farmer Jenks appeared, and, seeing his old enemies, the Outlaws, actually within his precincts, he uttered a yell of fury and darted down upon them.
The saints fled swiftly, St Douglas holding up his too-flowing robe as he went. Brother goat had given St Douglas a good start, and he reached the barn first.
“Well,” said St William, panting, “I’ve finished with preachin’ to animals. They must have changed a good bit since his time. That’s all I can say.”
“Well, what’ll we do now?” said Ginger.
“I should almost think it’s time for dinner,” said William.
It was decided that Douglas and Henry should go down to the village to purchase provisions for the meal. It was decided also that they should go in their dressing-gowns.
For their midday meal, the two saints purchased a large bag of chocolate creams, another of bull’s-eyes, and, to form the more solid part of the meal, four cream buns.
Ginger and William were sitting comfortably in the old barn when the two emissaries returned.
“We’ve had a nice time!” exploded St Henry. “All the boys in the place runnin’ after us an’ shoutin’ at us. Douglas has tore his robe and I’ve fallen in the mud in mine.”
“Well, they’ve gotter last you all the rest of your life,” said St William, “so you oughter take more care of ’em,” and he added with more interest, “What’ve you got for dinner?”
When they had eaten, they rested for a short time from their labours.
“I s’pose they know now at home that we’ve gone for good,” said Henry with a sigh.
Ginger looked out of the little window anxiously.
“Yes. I only hope to goodness they won’t come an’ try to fetch us back,” he said.
But he need not have troubled. Each family thought that the missing member was having lunch with one of the others and felt no anxiety, only a great relief.
And none of the notes upon the mantelpieces had been found.
“What’ll we do now?” said William.
“They built a church,” said Ginger.
“Well, come on,” said William, “let’s see ’f we can find any stones lyin’ about.”
They wandered down the road. They still wore their dressing-gowns, but they wore them with a sheepish air.
Fortunately, the road was deserted. They looked up and down, then St Ginger gave a yell of triumph.
The road was being mended, and there by the roadside, among other materials, lay a little heap of bricks. Moreover, the bricks were unattended. It was the workman’s dinner hour.
“Crumbs!” said the Williamcans in delight.
They fell upon the bricks and bore them off in triumph. Soon they had a pile of them just outside the barn where they had resolved to build the church.
But as they paid their last visit for bricks, they met a little crowd of other children, who burst into loud, jeering cries.
“Look at ’em . . . dear little girlies . . . wearin’ nice long pinnies . . . oh my! Oh, don’ they look sweet? Hello, little darlin’s!”
William flung aside his saintly robe and fought with the leader. The other saints fought with the others. The saints, smaller in number and size than the other side, most decidedly got the best of it, though not without many casualties.
The other side took to its heels.
St William picked his robe up from the mud and began to put it on. “Don’ see much sense in wearin’ these things,” he said.
“You ought to have preached to ’em, not fought ’em,” said Ginger severely.
“Well, I bet he wun’t have preached to ’em if they’d started makin’ fun of him. He’d’ve fought ’em all right.”
“No, he wun’t,” said Ginger firmly. “He di’n’t believe in fightin’.”
“Well, anyway,” said William, “let’s get a move on buildin’ that church.”
They returned to the field.
But the workman had also returned from his dinner hour.
With lurid oaths he tracked them down, and came upon the saints just as they had laboriously laid the first row of bricks for the first wall. He burst upon them with fury.
They did not stay to argue. They fled. Henry cast aside his splendid robe of multicoloured bath towelling into a ditch to accelerate his flight. The workman tired first, after throwing a brick at their retreating forms.
The Williamcans gathered together dejectedly in the barn.
“Seems to me,” said William, “it’s a wearin’ kind of life.”
It was cold. It had begun to rain.
“Brother rain,” said Ginger brightly.
“Yes, an’ I should think it’s about sister teatime,” said William. “An’ what we goin’ to buy it – her – with? How’re we goin’ to get money?”
They thought deeply for a minute.
“Well,” said William at last, voicing the opinion of the whole order, “I’m jus’ about sick of bein’ a saint.”
The rest looked relieved.
“Yes, I’ve had enough,” said William. “There’s no sense in it. An’ I’m almost dyin’ of cold and hunger an’ I’m goin’ home.”
They set off homeward, cold and wet and bruised and very hungry. The saintly repast, though
enjoyable at the time, had proved singularly unsustaining.
But their troubles were not over.
As they went through the village, they stopped in front of Mr Marsh’s shop window.
There in the very middle were William’s father’s slippers, Douglas’s father’s inkstand, Ginger’s father’s tie, and Henry’s father’s gloves – all marked at one shilling.
The hearts of the Williamcans stood still. The thought of their fathers seeing their prized possessions reposing in Mr Marsh’s window, marked one shilling, was a horrid one.
It had not seemed to matter this morning. This morning, they were leaving their homes for ever. It did seem to matter this evening. This evening, they were returning to their homes.
They entered the shop and demanded them. Mr Marsh was adamant. In the end, Henry fetched his sixpence, William a treasured penknife, Ginger a compass, and Douglas a broken steam engine, and their paternal possessions were handed back.
They went home, dejectedly through the rain.
William discovered with relief that his father had not yet come home. He found his note unopened still upon the mantelpiece. He tore it up. He tidied himself superficially. He went downstairs.
“Had a nice day, dear?” said his mother.
He disdained to answer the question.
“There’s just an hour before tea,” she went on. “Hadn’t you better be doing your homework, dear?”
He considered. One might as well drink of tragedy to the very dregs while one was about it. It would be a rotten ending to a rotten day. Besides, there was no doubt about it, Mr Strong was going to make himself very disagreeable indeed if he didn’t know those French verbs for Monday. He might as well . . .
If he’d had any idea how rotten it was being a saint, he jolly well wouldn’t have wasted a whole Saturday over it. He took down a French grammar and sat down moodily before it, without troubling to put it the right way up.
William sat on the crest of the hill, his chin cupped in his hands. He surveyed the expanse of country that swept out before him and, as he surveyed it, he became the owner of all the land and houses as far as he could see.
Finding the confines even of England too cramping for him, he became the ruler of the whole world.
He made sweeping and imperious gestures with his right arm – gestures that sent his servants on missions to the farthest ends of the earth.
It was at this point that William realised he was not alone. A small man had climbed the hill and now sat watching him with interest. Near the small man was a large pack.
“Well, did you catch it?” said the small man pleasantly, as William turned to meet his eye.
“Catch what?” said William.
“The mosquito. I thought you got him that last grab.”
“Yes, I got him all right,” said William coldly. He swept his arm around in another circle and added, “All that land belongs to me. It’s mine as far as you can see.”
The man had a brown, humorous but sad face. He looked impressed.
“But you’re under age, of course. I suppose you have a guardian or an agent of some sort to manage it for you.”
“Oh yes,” said William. “Oh yes, I have a guardian or agent all right.”
“Your parents are both dead, of course?” the man said.
“Oh yes,” said William. “Oh yes, my parents are both dead all right.”
“And where do you live?”
The most imposing house within sight was the Hall.
William pointed to it.
“I live there,” he said.
As a matter of fact, the Hall was rather in the public eye at present. Mr Bott (of Bott’s Sauce) lived there, and Mrs Bott had recently given a staggering subscription to the rebuilding of Marleigh Cottage Hospital.
The result of this was that the Chairman of the Hospital, Lord Faversham, was coming down from London to attend a party at the Hall to which the entire neighbourhood – including the Browns – was invited, and which was to assure for ever Mrs Bott’s place among the neighbouring aristocracy.
William had heard nothing else mentioned in the village for days past.
“I’m giving a large party there next Friday,” he said nonchalantly. “Lord Faversham’s coming to it, and a lot more dukes and earls and things.”
William suddenly caught sight of a little dog lying on the ground behind the pack, fast asleep.
“I say,” he said, “is that your dog?”
“Yes,” said the little man, “it’s Toby. Wake up, Toby. Show the gentleman what you can do, Toby.”
Toby woke up and showed the gentleman what he could do. He could walk on his hind legs and dance and shoulder a stick and pace up and down like a sentry. William watched him ecstatically.
“I say! I’ve never seen such a clever dog!”
“Never was such a dog,” said the little man. “But do people want him? No. Punch and Judy’s out of date, they say. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
William’s eyes opened still further.
“You got a Punch and Judy show?” he said.
The man nodded and pointed to his pack on which the faded letters “Signor Manelli” could be faintly seen.
“Yes,” he said. “Same as my father before me, though my father never had a dog like Toby.”
He was actually an Italian, he said, and had come to England with his father and mother when he was only a few weeks old.
He had never been out of England since, but his ambition was to make enough money to go back to Italy to his father’s people. It was an ambition, however, that he had almost given up hope of fulfilling.
“Well, I like Punch and Judy,” said William, “and if—”
The little man interrupted him, his soft, brown eyes shining. “Listen,” he said, “this party you’re giving on Friday. Couldn’t you engage us for that? I promise that we’d give you our best performance.”
“Er – yes,” said William flatly. “Yes, of course.”
“I’ll come then? What time does the party begin?”
“Er – three o’clock,” said William, struggling with a nightmarish feeling of horror. “But I’m afraid – you see – I mean—”
“I promise you I won’t disappoint your guests. You won’t regret it. I thank you from my heart.”
He had leapt to his feet and was already shouldering his pack.
“Three o’clock on Friday,” he said. “I’ll not disappoint you.”
Already he was swinging down the hill.
“But – look here – wait a minute . . .” William called after him, desperately.
But the little man was already out of sight and earshot.
During the next few days William lived in a double nightmare, of which the subject was sometimes the little man arriving full of hope and pride at the Hall on Friday and being summarily dismissed by an enraged Mr Bott, and sometimes himself on whom the hand of retribution would most surely fall.
“They’re going to have an entertainment,” his mother said at breakfast one morning.
“What sort of entertainment?” said William hopefully.
“Zevrier, the violinist,” said Mrs Brown. “He’s really famous, you know. And terribly modern.”
“I wonder if . . .” said William tentatively. “I mean, don’t you think people would rather have a Punch and Judy show than a violinist?”
“A Punch and Judy show? Don’t be so ridiculous, William. It’s not a children’s party.” By the time Friday actually arrived, however, William’s natural optimism had reasserted itself. The little man had, of course, taken the whole thing as a joke and would never think of it again.
Still, as William wandered about among the guests, he kept an anxious eye upon the entrance gates.
Lord Faversham, wearing an expression of acute boredom, was being ushered by a perspiring Mrs Bott into the tent where Zevrier’s recital was to take place. Then Mrs Bott went to the door to look up and down anxiously for Zevrier.
The tentful of people began to grow restive. It was quarter-past three. The audience didn’t particularly want to hear Zevrier, but it had come to hear him and it wanted to get it over.
Mrs Bott, whose large face now rivalled in colour her husband’s famous sauce, went into the library where her husband had sought temporary refuge with a stiff whisky and soda.
“Botty, he’s not come,” she said hysterically.
“Who’s not come?” said Mr Bott gloomily.
“Zebra, the violin man. Oh, Botty, what shall I do? They’ll all be laughing at me. Oh, Botty, isn’t it awful!”
Mr Bott shook his head. “I can’t help it,” he said. “You would have all this set-out. I warned you it wouldn’t come to no good.”
“But, Botty, there they are, all waiting, an’ nothing happening! Can’t you do something, Botty?”
“What can I do? I can’t play the vi’lin . . .”
Meanwhile, outside the tent, William had turned to see a small, pack-laden figure approaching. His heart froze within him.
“Ah, my little host, I am so sorry to be late. The bus broke down. Ah, here are your guests all ready for me. I will waste no more time . . .”
Still speaking, he entered the tent, mounted the little platform that had been prepared for Zevrier, and began to set up his miniature stage.
William stood for a moment, rooted to the ground by sheer horror, then, his courage suddenly failing him, began to run down the drive and along the road that led to his home.
But just as he was rounding the corner of the boundaries of the Hall estate, he ran into the strange figure – a figure wearing an open collar, flowing tie, and shock of long, carefully waved hair. It carried a violin-case. There was no doubt at all – it was Zevrier.
William was going to hasten past, when he noticed the musician’s expression – ill tempered, querulous. He remembered the appealing, rather helpless friendliness of the little Punch and Judy man. He imagined the inevitable clash between them.
Again the nightmare closed over him.
“Er – please,” he began incoherently.
William's Birthday and Other Stories Page 3