William's Happy Days

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘No,’ said the lady. ‘I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t seem quite honest to me, somehow.’

  ‘It always seems quite honest to me,’ William assured her.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it is honest to you, because—well, of course, your parents ought to know whether you’re really ill or not; but with me it’s different.’

  This moral distinction was too subtle for William. He shook his head with a puzzled frown.

  ‘The only difference I can see is that it’s easier for you,’ he said. ‘Anyway, that’s what I’d do. An’ I’ll help you if you like. I’ll tell people that I saw you fall downstairs an’ break your leg. An I’ll say that you’re not havin’ any doctors, ’cause you don’t like ’em or—’ His face beamed with sudden inspiration. ‘I say! How’d it be if I put on a false beard (Robert’s got one), an’ a hat an’ coat of father’s an’ came in pretending to be a doctor?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said the lady, laughing. ‘No, it wouldn’t do at all. But it’s very kind of you to think of it. Very kind indeed. And now I suppose you ought to be going home.’

  William rose reluctantly. He would have been quite happy to have spent the rest of the afternoon talking to the lady and eating iced buns.

  ‘Thanks awfully,’ he said as he took his departure, ‘an’ you leave all that fancy stall stuff to me. I bet I get you some things for it.’

  The lady thanked him very politely, and he set off down the road.

  In his breath was a fierce determination to stock the lady’s fancy stall for her, regardless of consequences to himself. His first efforts were unsuccessful. He met a small boy returning from the Kindergarten with the result of a day’s work, in the shape of a kettle-holder, in his hands.

  He was a credulous child, and William soon induced him to part with the kettle-holder in exchange for an acorn, which, William affirmed, had magic properties and would protect him from the witches and wizards of which, William further assured him, the neighbouring woods were full. The child walked on happily, carrying the acorn, and William walked on happily, carrying the kettle-holder. But this peaceful picture was shattered by the advent of the child’s mother, who had heard its story with indignation and immediately set off in pursuit of William.

  She overtook him, retrieved the kettle-holder, announcing at the same time her intention of teaching him to interfere with their ’Erbert again. The lesson, as far as William was concerned, took the form of a sharp impact of the lady’s hand upon the side of his head, which precipitated him into the ditch and caused another, but milder, display of heavenly bodies.

  He climbed out of the ditch with slow dignity and fixed a stern eye upon ’Erbert, who was watching proceedings with a mixture of delight and anxiety.

  ‘Well, don’t blame me now if they get you,’ he said ominously, and set off at full speed down the road, pursued by ’Erbert’s sobs and the threats of ’Erbert’s infuriated mother.

  At home he found a visitor having tea with his mother. As the buns and chocolate biscuits and lemonade he had eaten were now but a memory, he washed his face and hands (without undue attention to detail), inadequately smoothed back his hair, and descended to the hall.

  Then he entered the drawing-room, and, regardless of the fact that both their plates were full, began to hand the cake-stand to his mother and the visitor, with a flourish that made his mother close her eyes in silent prayer for her best cake plates. Then he sat down, and fixed his eyes meaningly on his mother, moving them occasionally to the cake-stand.

  His mother looked at him helplessly.

  ‘Your tea will be ready in the dining-room at five, dear,’ she said at last, ‘but you may have a piece of bread and butter now if you like.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said William apologetically. ‘It does sort of seem a long time between lunch and tea.’ Giving a wide interpretation to the words ‘bread and butter,’ he took the largest piece of cake he could see after a fairly lengthy inspection.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs. Brown hastily to the visitor, wishing to turn her attention from the phenomenon of William engaged in eating cake.

  ‘Oh, I was talking about Mrs. Porker,’ said the visitor, drawing her eyes with reluctance from the fascinating sight. ‘Such a ridiculous woman! You remember that dreadful little dog of hers? The shape of a football and so bad-tempered that no one could go near it? It used to sit at table with her at every meal and have chicken, always freshly cooked, because it didn’t like twice-cooked meat.

  ‘Well, it died last week, and the woman’s going about in deep mourning. She’s having the other fancy stall at the bazaar, you know. Such hard lines on Miss Rossiter. She’s got simply nothing for her stall. Of course, she generally makes a lot of things herself, but with being ill she’s not able to. Mrs. Porker went round to all the people while Miss Rossiter was ill, and told them to give all their things to her because Miss Rossiter wouldn’t be having a stall, and they did. And now, of course, Miss Rossiter’s well and going to have a stall, and there’s nothing for it, and Mrs. Porker’s delighted, because she hates her just because she used to own the Hall and knows everyone; and people have all given to Mrs. Porker and simply won’t give again to Miss Rossiter, because you know getting anything out of people round here’s like getting blood out of a stone—’

  She paused for a long overdue breath, and William, looking at her fixedly, remarked:

  ‘There isn’t blood inside a stone.’

  ‘I know,’ said the visitor, ‘that’s the point.’

  ‘Why did you say there was then?’ said William.

  ‘I didn’t,’ said the visitor. ‘I said that getting anything out of people round here’s like getting blood out of a stone.’

  ‘But you can’t get blood out of a stone,’ said William.

  ‘I know. That’s what I meant.’

  ‘Why did you say you could then?’ said William.

  ‘William,’ said his mother, ‘I think that it’s your tea-time now.’

  William swept up the final scrapings of cake-crumbs from his plate, put them into his mouth and made his way into the dining-room, where a solid tea, consisting of thick slices of bread and jam, awaited him. A grim-looking individual in black dress and apron (the Browns’ long-suffering housemaid) was just setting a glass of milk at his place. William eyed the meal with disfavour, then uttered what was meant to represent an ironic laugh.

  ‘No one ever thinks of givin’ me anythin’ decent to eat. I might die of starvation for anything any of you’d care.’

  The housemaid looked him up and down.

  ‘I’ve not seen many people looking less like dying of starvation than what you do,’ was her comment.

  ‘Oh, you think that, do you?’ said William bitterly. ‘Well, that’s all you know about it. Let me tell you, people dyin’ of starvation don’t look thin. They sort of swell up, an’ I bet that if I look fat that’s why it is. I’m swelled up with starvation.’

  He pointed scornfully to the plate of bread and jam. ‘Expectin’ anyone to live on that! Dry bread, same as what they give to people in dungeons!’

  ‘It’s not dry bread,’ said the housemaid.

  ‘It is dry bread,’ said William, ‘dry bread with a bit of jam on. That’s all it is. What I say is, if the people in this house want to kill me, why don’t they do it with a knife or a gun, ’stead of tryin’ to starve me to death?’

  But he was already attacking the plate of bread and jam with every appearance of relish, and the housemaid, muttering, ‘You and your nonsense!’ was preparing to leave the room when William called her back indistinctly through a mouthful of bread and jam.

  ‘I say Ellen,’ he said, ‘there’s a loony in the drawing-room with mother. She’s escaped from an asylum.’

  ‘Get out!’ said Ellen, but lingered in the doorway for further details.

  ‘Honest, she must have,’ said William. ‘She thinks that there’s blood inside stones. She said so.’

  ‘Go on! She
never!’ said Ellen, incredulous, but willing to be convinced.

  ‘She did,’ said William. ‘She said so. I bet there’s keepers lookin’ for her somewhere this minute. I shouldn’t be surprised if she’s murdered mother by now, goin’ vi’lent of a sudden like what they do. She said so. She said you’d find blood inside a stone if you cut it open.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Ellen, again preparing to leave the room.

  ‘I say, Ellen,’ said William. ‘What do they have on fancy stalls?’

  ‘Fancy things, of course,’ said Ellen.

  ‘What sort of fancy things?’

  ‘Ornaments and handkerchiefs and—and pretty things.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do for one then, would you?’ said William, with obvious delight at his own wit.

  ‘I’d do a sight better than you,’ retorted Ellen with spirit.

  Then she went out of the room, but left the door open. William noticed with satisfaction that she stood for a second at the drawing-room door, gazing into it with fearful curiosity.

  William proceeded to eat his bread and jam, but his mind was entirely taken up by the thought of Miss Rossiter and her fancy stall. Ornaments and handkerchiefs and pretty things. His eye roamed round the room. There were plenty of ornaments. He decided to take one secretly to Miss Rossiter every day for her fancy stall.

  ‘EXPECTIN’ ANYONE TO LIVE ON THAT!’ SAID WILLIAM. ‘DRY BREAD, SAME AS WHAT THEY GIVE TO PEOPLE IN DUNGEONS!’

  Pretty things. Ethel’s room was full of things that people call pretty—powder bowls and dolls and cushions. He’d take some of these along, too. And he’d just trust to his family’s not missing them and not recognising them on the day of the bazaar. William was a very trustful boy. He felt elated at the thought of his undertaking. He’d show that old Mrs. Porker. He’d show her! If only he could survey her forces. How could he manage to enter the Hall unobserved, and see what Mrs. Porker had got for her stall, so as to be sure to outshine her? People, he ruminated, were always reading in the papers about robbers who got into houses by saying that they had come to look at the gas meter. He imagined himself going to the front door of the Hall and saying that he had come to look at the gas meter. He was trying hard to make this picture seem convincing (even with the false beard it somehow wasn’t), when his mother entered with a note.

  ‘Mrs. Meddows has just gone, dear,’ she said, ‘and I’d be so glad if you’d take a note to the Hall to Mrs. Porker. It’s about the bazaar arrangements. Tell them that there’s an answer.’

  William walked up the long, winding drive and knocked on the front door. He knocked long and loudly because he was pretending that he was a detective going alone and unarmed to the house where the villain lived with his ill-gotten gains. He was going first to make the villain give him a written confession and then to summon his men and have him arrested. His men, of course, were hidden among the laurels in the shrubbery.

  In the course of the struggle (previous to the writing of the confession), William and the villain would fall downstairs together, but fortunately William would be on the top. At this very moment, as his knocks echoed through the empty house, he pictured the villain crouching fearfully in a corner of the room in which the stolen treasure was hidden, listening . . .

  William redoubled the violence of his knocks, imagining the cowering figure cowering back yet more fearfully, before ‘with the courage born of despair,’ as the last book he had read put it, he came down to face the avenger. The door opened suddenly. An indignant butler appeared, and William returned to real life.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ said the butler angrily.

  ‘Nothin’,’ retorted William. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Do you think we’re all deaf?’ proceeded the butler with displeasure.

  ‘I dunno what you are,’ said William. ‘You look as if you might be anything.’

  ‘What have you come for?’ said the butler, deciding to cease his attempts at repressing the irrespressible.

  ‘Gotter note for Mrs. Porker,’ said William; ‘an’ it wants an answer.’

  He was entering jauntily, when the butler put out a large hand to push him back.

  ‘I’ll take the note,’ he said with majestic aloofness. ‘You stay out there.’

  ‘Huh!’ said William darkly, returning to his character of a famous detective. ‘You’d better be careful what you do to me. You’d be jolly surprised if you knew who I was. I’ve gotter right to go into any house I like, I have.’

  At this point a very stout woman, dressed in black and freely ornamented with pearls and diamonds, appeared in the hall, and said:

  ‘What’s the matter, Jenkins?’

  Jenkins turned his majestic countenance towards her, and said in a voice expressive of patient suffering:

  ‘It’s a boy, madam, with a note. He was insisting on coming into the house.’

  ‘Well, why shouldn’t he,’ said the lady, ‘if he’s got a note?’

  ‘Look at his boots, madam,’ said Jenkins in a tone of still deeper suffering.

  ‘Well, you can sweep up a bit of mud, can’t you?’ said the lady tartly. ‘What d’you think you’re paid for?’

  ‘IT’S A BOY, MADAM, WITH A NOTE,’ SAID JENKINS, ‘HE WAS INSISTING ON COMING INTO THE HOUSE.’

  Jenkins turned on her a look before which a duchess had quailed, but the lady’s protective armour of pearls and diamonds merely shot back defiance, so he turned to vanish slowly through a green baize door, his dignity unimpaired.

  ‘Thinks he can come it over me,’ muttered the lady angrily, ‘ ’Im an’ ’is dukes!’

  Then she swept William into a small morning-room, and said:

  ‘Sit down, or ’ave a look round just as you like,’ and she sat down herself to answer his mother’s letter.

  William had a look round. He found a Chinese mandarin that he could set nodding, an ivory elephant that he could balance on top of a clock, and a pair of silver nutcrackers. He experimented with these by cracking a small piece of coal surreptitiously abstracted from the coal box. This last attracted the lady’s attention.

  ‘’Ere,’ she said, ‘stop muckin’ about like that.’

  Impressed by her tone and vocabulary, William stopped mucking about like that, and sat down on a small sofa, where he contented himself with drawing out strands of fringe that edged a cushion and absent-mindedly eating them.

  Finally the lady turned round.

  ‘Well, I’ve wrote to your ma,’ she said, ‘tellin’ ’er all about where ’er stall’s to be an’ refreshments an’ so on. Now you come with me an’ ’ave a look at the things I’ve got for my stall. Make ’em all sit up, they will.’

  She led William upstairs to a room that was literally knee deep in fancy articles. Cushions, mats, dolls, fans, fancy handkerchiefs, nightdress-cases, handkerchief-cases and lace-trimmed underclothing, lay massed in heaps everywhere. William gazed about him in dismay.

  ‘Crumbs!’ he gasped.

  ‘There!’ said the lady proudly. ‘That’s going to be a stall an’ a half, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, ‘but—but,’ he went on with exaggerated innocence, ‘but I think there’s too much an’ it’ll spoil it. I’d give some of these things to the other person.’

  ‘What other person?’

  ‘Well,’ said William, trying to be very diplomatic, ‘isn’t there someone else havin’ a fancy stall?’

  For he had realised that the entire ‘fancy’ element of his home, brought bit by bit, and day by day to Miss Rossiter’s, would have no chance against this collection.

  ‘’Er!’ spat out Mrs. Porker viciously, and her large face purpled angrily. ‘’Er! That Rossiter woman! Why d’you think I’ve slaved myself to skin an’ bone’—William shot a fascinated glance at her ample proportions—‘over this ’ere stall? To show ’er up, that’s why! She’s ’ardly got six penn’orth of stuff, she ’asn’t, an’ she won’t ’ave neither. Look small, beside all this, won�
��t she—’er an’ her pedigree tree!’

  ‘It’s a beech tree,’ said William. ‘It just meets the other, but you can’t get across.’

  But Mrs. Porker wasn’t listening.

  ‘Look at me,’ she continued dramatically, ‘an’ tell me if there’s any reason why the swells shouldn’t call on me same as they used to on ’er.’

  William looked at her. He felt vaguely that there was some reason, but he felt, too, that it would be difficult as well as indiscreet to express it in words.

  ‘Why don’t they call?’ went on his hostess explosively. ‘I’ll tell you why they don’t. ’Cause of ’er an’ ’er champagne of calamity!’

  ‘Her what?’ said William, interested.

  ‘Well, say it yourself if you can say it any better,’ said the lady with spirit. ‘I seed it in a book, so it must be all right.’ Then her indignation suddenly left her, and she gazed mournfully about her. ‘Though it’s ’ard to put any ’eart into anything now with my little Pongo— Did you know my little Pongo?’

  William fixed her with a blank look. There had been an occasion not very long ago when Mrs. Porker had narrowly rescued Pongo from the jaws of death in the person of Jumble. But, though William had cheered Jumble on to the deed, he had remained in the background, and it was evident that the lady did not connect him with the incident.

  ‘Pongo?’ he said with an air of imbecility meant to express innocence.

  ‘My dear, dear little four-footed friend,’ said Mrs. Porker, wiping away a tear; ‘ ’e crossed over last week.’

  ‘Crossed over?’ said William. ‘What was he? Oxford.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ said Mrs. Porker indignantly.

  ‘You said he’d crossed over,’ said William. ‘I thought you meant from Oxford to Cambridge or from Lib’ral to Conservative, or something like that.’

  ‘I meant ’e died, of course,’ said Mrs. Porker irritably, then returned to her lamentations.