‘Yes, it’s lovely, dear,’ she said, ‘I told Hubie to get nice things.’
Douglas’s present was a splendid penknife, and Henry’s a fountain-pen, while the corresponding presents for the Hubert Laneites were an indiarubber and a note-book. The Hubert Laneites watched their presents passing into the enemies’ hands with expressions of helpless agony. But Douglas’s parcel had more than a penknife in it. It had a little bunch of imitation flowers with an india-rubber bulb attached and a tiny label, ‘Show this to William and press the rubber thing.’ Douglas took it to Hubert. Hubert knew it, of course, for he had bought it, but he was paralysed with horror at the whole situation.
‘Look, Hubert,’ said Douglas.
A fountain of ink caught Hubert neatly in the eye. Douglas was all surprise and contrition.
‘I’m so sorry, Hubert,’ he said, ‘I’d no idea that it was going to do that. I’ve just got it out of my parcel and I’d no idea that it was going to do that. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Lane. I’d no idea that it was going to do that.’
‘Of course you hadn’t, dear,’ said Mrs. Lane. ‘It’s Hubies’s own fault for buying a thing like that. It’s very foolish of him indeed.’
Hubert wiped the ink out of his eyes and sputtered helplessly.
Then William discovered that it was time to go.
‘Thank you so much for our lovely presents, Hubert,’ he said politely, ‘we’ve had a lovely time.’
And Hubert, under his mother’s eye, smiled a green and sickly smile.
The Outlaws marched triumphantly down the road, brandishing their spoils. William was playing on his mouth organ, Ginger was flashing his electric light, Henry waving his fountain-pen, and Douglas slashing at the hedge with his penknife.
Occasionally they turned round to see if their enemies were pursuing them, in order to retrieve their treasures.
But the Hubert Laneites were too broken in spirit to enter into open hostilities just then.
As they walked, the Outlaws raised a wild and inharmonious pæan of triumph.
And over the telephone Mrs. Lane was saying to Mrs. Brown:
‘Yes, dear, it’s been a complete success. They’re the greatest friends now. I’m sure it’s been a Christmas that they’ll all remember all their lives.’
CHAPTER 4
WILLIAM HELPS THE CAUSE
When first William and his friends heard of the Grand Bazaar that was to be held in the grounds of the Hall in aid of the Church Schools of the district, they were wholly unmoved.
They didn’t take any interest in bazaars, they didn’t take any interest in the grounds of the Hall, which were very prim and uninteresting, and they didn’t take any interest in the Church Schools of the district.
The present tenants of the Hall were an ultra correct couple of unimpeachable aristocracy, who treated the village and its inhabitants as if they didn’t exist. William and his friends did not resent this. It was, they considered, preferable to the attitude of some other of their neighbours, but it made the Veritys negligible as human beings. They were not the kind of people who would join in fun, or the kind of people who objected to fun. Out of both these kinds the Outlaws could be counted on to extract entertainment. The Veritys merely ignored fun. Sir George Verity was reputed to have one of the finest collections of miniatures in England, and Lady Verity the most paralysing way with a pair of lorgnettes.
Her name figured in lists of guests at important functions. Her photograph appeared in the papers in elegant but languid poses, looking as if she hadn’t really wanted to be taken, and wished they’d hurry up and get it over.
The village was vaguely proud of them, though slightly piqued at being so completely ignored by them. It loved to read of his miniatures and her dresses, but it didn’t like being stared at distantly from the haughty fastness of a Rolls Royce.
Had the bazaar for the Church Schools been a purely local effort, the Veritys would have lent it neither their countenance nor their grounds. But it wasn’t. The other parishes for miles around were joining in it, and the Bishop was coming to it, therefore the Veritys offered their grounds, their countenances, and their names at the head of the subscription list.
The first meeting was to be held at the Hall, and an invitation had been sent to most of the local people, including William’s mother, to attend. Mrs. Brown was mildly interested.
‘I don’t mind what I do,’ she confided to her family. ‘Only I do hope they don’t put me on the rummage stall. It’s so wearing.’
‘I’d try’n’ get on the refreshment stall if I were you,’ William advised her, ‘that’s the stall I’d always try’n’ get on if I helped at bazaars an’ things. Not that I’d ever get on anythin’ I wanted to,’ he added bitterly. ‘I never have any luck.’
William was recovering from ’flu, and was not feeling his brightest and best. The doctor had said that he was not to go back to school till next week, and Mrs. Brown was finding the days almost as long as did William himself. For all William’s friends were at school, and William alone, bored and irritable, with no outlets for his energy (which seemed quite unimpaired by his illness), was not the most restful of companions.
They gave him books to read, but William unfortunately was not a reader. Instead he experimented with the hot water system, trying to ‘lay on’ water from the bathroom to his bedroom in rubber tubes and being surprised and aggrieved by the resultant floods.
‘Well, I didn’t know it was goin’ to do that. It mus’ be somethin’ wrong with the way the pipes are made in this house. Well, it ought to’ve jus’ flowed through the tube an’ not made a mess at all. Well, I can’t help it. I’ve gotter do somethin’, haven’t I?’
On the morning of the bazaar meeting at the Hall he had tried to make an electric train out of a small electric battery and the cook’s favourite cake tin, in which he had bored holes in order to affix wheels taken from an old toy engine. The cook had swooped down on him in fury in the middle, and, flinging herself incautiously upon the ‘train’, had received an electric shock. Though not seriously hurt, she had screamed continuously for a quarter of an hour, and it had taken all Mrs. Brown’s tact to calm her.
‘Well, all I can say, ’m’,’ she said after saying a good deal more, ‘is that if I’m to be left in the same house with that there limb this afternoon I hands in me notice here and now.’
She was a good cook, so Mrs. Brown hastened to assure her that she wouldn’t be left alone in the house with that there limb, and then turned to consider the situation. She might, of course, stay at home, but she did want to attend the meeting at the Hall. She asked William if he’d like to go for a good long walk that afternoon, and he replied without any hesistation that he wouldn’t.
Then she glanced at her invitation. It plainly said: ‘Please bring anyone else who may be interested.’
‘William,’ she said firmly, ‘you must come with me to the meeting this afternoon.’
‘Me?’ said William indignantly. ‘Me? D’you mean me?’
‘Of course I mean you,’ said Mrs. Brown wearily, ‘I can’t leave you here. You won’t go for a walk and so you must come with me.’
William, changing his tactics, adopted the air of a suffering invalid.
‘I’m not strong enough,’ he said in a faint voice, ‘I’ve only jus’ finished bein’ ill. Seems to me you want to kill me takin’ me out to meetin’s when I ought to be restin’ at home.’
‘Well, if you’ll go to bed and rest, you can stay here,’ said his mother.
‘It’s not that sort of restin’ I mean,’ said William hastily, ‘I mean jus’ goin’ gently about an’—an’, well, jus’ goin’ gently about.’
‘As you did this morning?’
‘Yes,’ said William unguardedly.
‘That settles it,’ said his mother. ‘You must come with me. I don’t want to lose cook. We’ve never had anyone else who got the Yorkshire pudding just as your father likes it.’
‘You don’t mind losin
’ me,’ muttered William fiercely, ‘riskin’ my life draggin’ me out to meetin’s when I ought to be stayin’ gently at home gettin’ up my strength to go back to school. That’s why I don’t want to go to the meetin’, because I want to get strong again to go back to school. I don’t want to get behind in my work.’
But it was useless, and William knew that it was useless. His mother was determined. So he surrendered himself in a spirit of gloomy pessimism to be washed and brushed till he shone again, and arrayed in his hated best suit. He had an inspiration in the middle, and said that he was feeling very ill, but on being offered a dose of his medicine said that he felt quite well again.
‘Though if I do die of it,’ he said bitterly—‘and I shouldn’t be surprised if I do, bein’ dragged out to meetin’s when I ought to be restin’ quietly at home—I hope you won’t be worried rememb’rin’ that it was all your fault.’
His mother assured him that she wouldn’t, and he relapsed into a gloomy silence.
He glared ferociously at the footman who opened the door of the Hall for them, at the butler who announced them, at Lady Verity, tall and elegant and miles and miles and miles away, who received them, and at all the other members of the meeting who sat around them. The Bishop was not there. There were several clergymen from the surrounding villages, a few local people, and—William. The meeting was as dull as such meetings generally are. Lady Verity wore an air of frigid aristocracy and suffering patience, as if she already regretted having involved herself in an affair that brought all these very ordinary people into her drawing-room.
‘I’ve been speaking to the Bishop about it,’ she said, ‘and he suggests that, as the bazaar is for the Church Schools, one stall or entertainment should be undertaken by children. He thinks that it would be very nice.’
‘Splendid idea,’ said a breezy young clergyman from a village about seven miles off, who had only lately come there and hadn’t heard of William. ‘Simply splendid. It had better be the local children, of course. And not too many of them. How about’—his eyes wandered to William, whose expression of gloom gave him a misleading appearance of earnestness and virtue—‘how about putting this young man in charge of it?’
There was a gasp from those who knew William, but the young man went on breezily:
‘I take it that, as he’s here, it means that he’s interested in the scheme. I propose that we get him to collect one or two friends. and run one of the shows. Good policy to get the younger generation to help the cause.’
‘I think that would be splendid,’ said Lady Verity, whose one aim was to get the meeting over as quickly as possible. ‘I’ll tell the Bishop that’s settled, then. And now what’s the next thing to decide?’
Those who knew William had been so paralysed, and the thing had been arranged so quickly, that, by the time their power of speech returned to them, the discussion had left William far behind. In fact when Mrs. Brown at last found her voice and said, ‘Oh, no, I think not. Really it wouldn’t do at all,’ the discussion had reached refreshments, and Lady Verity had just suggested that they should have tea on the terrace.
‘But why wouldn’t it do, Mrs. Brown?’ said Lady Verity, raising her lorgnettes. ‘The terrace seems to me an excellent place for tea.’
And Mrs. Brown realised that she had protested too late.
Though William preserved his blankest expression throughout the meeting, a close observer would have noticed that his gloom had lightened considerably.
The Vicar held a hasty consultation with Mrs. Brown immediately after the meeting. Relations between William and the Vicar were not cordial. The Vicar was a good man and an earnest worker, but he didn’t understand even well-conducted boys, and he regarded William as one might regard a barrel of gunpowder that a spark will serve to ignite.
‘I’m afraid it’s too late to do anything,’ he said. ‘Unless you go back now and tell her that he’s quite unsuited to be in charge of any side show.’
But Mrs. Brown objected to criticism of William from people outside the family, even the Vicar.
‘Oh, I think he’ll be all right,’ she said rather coldly. ‘He’s really a very good worker when he gives his mind to anything.’
The Vicar, who had had frequent proofs of the result of William’s work, hoped desperately that he wouldn’t give his mind to this.
‘You’d better not let him sell anything, anyway,’ he said, remembering the time when William had inadvertently sold his wife’s best coat, carelessly laid down for a moment upon the rummage stall.
‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs. Brown hastily, ‘of course not. And, of course, I’ll keep an eye on him.’
‘I should think that it would be best for him to be in charge of some quiet competition.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘I’m sure that he’ll do his best. I know that he sometimes makes mistakes, but he’s really a very good boy.’
Mrs. Brown frequently made this statement, in the vague hope apparently that if she said it often enough it might become true.
‘Er—yes,’ said the Vicar in an unconvinced tone of voice.
‘Well, we’ll arrange details at our next meeting.’
William had not been listening to this conversation. He had been standing a short distance away, sunk deep in meditation. Though he still made spasmodic efforts to preserve his martyred expression, it was obvious that his meditations were not wholly unpleasant. When he saw that the conversation between his mother and the Vicar was over, he detached himself from his meditation, raised his cap with exaggerated politeness to the Vicar, and set off homeward with his mother.
‘Well, you’ve been a very good boy, William,’ said Mrs. Brown, who was relieved to have the afternoon safely over.
‘For that show I’m goin’ to have,’ said William slowly, ‘I think I’ll get up a wild beast show.’
‘William!’ gasped Mrs. Brown. ‘You mustn’t think of such a thing.’
William looked at her in surprise.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘They said I could have a show, din’t they? Well, they want to get money, don’t they? Well, I bet people’ll pay money to see a wild beast show, wun’t they?’
‘But William!’ Mrs. Brown was still gasping with horror. ‘You mustn’t think of such a thing. You—you can’t get any wild beasts for one thing, and even if you could—’
‘Oh, can’t I?’ said William. ‘I got up a jolly good wild beast show once and I could do it again too. Douglas’s cat’s jus’ like a wild beast when you fasten it up an’ one of Henry’s white mice is a jolly good biter an’ Jumble carries on jus’ like a wild beast if you keep sayin’ “rats” to him an’ Ginger can act like a tiger so’s you’d hardly know the diff’rence an’—’
‘No, William. It’s out of the question, so you mustn’t think of it. They said “show,” but they didn’t mean a show of that sort. They meant a competition.’
‘All right. I’ll get up some wrestlin’ matches. Anyone’d pay to see me and Ginger wrestlin’. I got all the buttons off his shirt the last time we had one. An’ I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll challenge anyone in the audience to wrestle with me. I’ll wear bathing drawers so’s they can see my muscles an’—’
‘No, William!’ cried Mrs. Brown wildly.
‘Well, then, a boxin’ match. I’m a jolly good boxer an’ I’ve made a jolly good pair of boxin’ gloves out of an’ old pair of gloves of father’s, stuffin’ ’em with paper. Las’ time I had a boxin’ match with Ginger, I made his nose bleed so’s it went on bleedin’ for nearly five minutes. Well, anyone’d pay to see that, wun’t they? He made mine bleed, too, but it din’t bleed as long as his. An’ we’d challenge anyone in the audience to come an’ box with us, an’ I jolly well bet that—’
‘No, William! They don’t mean that sort of a competition.’
‘What sort do they mean then?’
‘Some sort of guessing competition.’
‘All right. Ginger’n’ me’ll act wild animals an’ they c
an guess which ones we’re actin’.’
‘No, William! They mean something quiet.’
‘Well, we’ll do it in dumb show an’—’
‘No, William! You can’t choose your own competition like that. You must wait and see what they tell you to do.’
‘I bet it’ll be somethin’ jolly dull then,’ said William gloomily.
He did not accompany Mrs. Brown to the next meeting, at which it was decided that William and his friends were to conduct a ‘Butterfly Competition’.
The idea of the butterfly competition was that each competitor, upon payment of sixpence, should be given a piece of paper and be allowed three ‘squeezes’ from an assortment of paint tubes. This was then folded in the middle, and the effect that was judged to represent the best ‘butterfly’ won the prize.
William received the news of this with sardonic amusement. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you think that people are goin’ to like doin’ that better than watchin’ me an’ Ginger wrestlin’ an’ boxin’—all I can say is that you’ve got a jolly funny idea of what people like.’
‘If you don’t think it’s going to be interesting,’ said Mrs. Brown with a gleam of hope, ‘why not give it up and let someone else take it on?’
But it appeared that William was not prepared to do this.
‘Oh no,’ said William, ‘I bet there’s not many things that I can’t make int’restin’ even if they’re not interestin’ to start with.’
There was a sinister sound about this, but William, after his first outburst, seemed to be quite amenable. He promised to preside quietly over the tent, and to see that Douglas, Henry and Ginger, his helpers, were quiet too. He promised not to make a speech.
‘You’re there just to hand people’s papers to them and take their money, and tell them what to do,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘and to collect the butterflies they’ve done and see that they’re written their names on, and then put them neatly aside for one of the Committee to judge. Do you understand, William?’
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