Just William (5 page)

They saw nothing of Miss Cannon in the interval, but Thursday dawned bright and clear, and Robert’s anxious spirits rose. He was presented with a watch and chain by his father and with a
bicycle by his mother and a tin of toffee (given not without ulterior motive) by William.

They met Mrs Clive and Miss Cannon at the station and took tickets to a village a few miles away whence they had decided to walk to a shady spot on the riverbank.

William’s dignity was slightly offended by his pointed exclusion from the party, but he had resigned himself to it, and spent the first part of the morning in the character of Chief Red
Hand among the rhododendron bushes. He had added an ostrich feather found in Ethel’s room to his head-dress, and used almost a whole cork on his face. He wore the doormat pinned to his
shoulders.

After melting some treacle toffee in rainwater over his smoking fire, adding orange juice and drinking the resulting liquid, he tired of the game and wandered upstairs to Robert’s bedroom
to inspect his birthday presents. The tin of toffee was on the table by Robert’s bed. William took one or two as a matter of course and began to read the love poems. He was horrified a few
minutes later to see the tin empty, but he fastened the lid with a sigh, wondering if Robert would guess who had eaten them. He was afraid he would. Anyway he’d given him them. And anyway, he
hadn’t known he was eating them.

He then went to the dressing-table and tried on the watch and chain at various angles and with various postures. He finally resisted the temptation to wear them for the rest of the morning and
replaced them on the dressing-table.

Then he wandered downstairs and round to the shed, where Robert’s new bicycle stood in all its glory. It was shining and spotless and William gazed at it in awe and admiration. He came to
the conclusion that he could do it no possible harm by leading it carefully round the house. Encouraged by the fact that Mrs Brown was out shopping, he walked it round the house several times. He
much enjoyed the feeling of importance and possession that it gave him. He felt loath to part with it. He wondered if it was very hard to ride. He had tried to ride one once when he was staying
with an aunt. He stood on a garden bench and with difficulty transferred himself from that to the bicycle seat. To his surprise and delight he rode for a few yards before he fell off. He tried
again and fell off again. He tried again and rode straight into a holly bush. He forgot everything in his determination to master the art. He tried again and again. He fell off or rode into the
holly bush again and again. The shining black paint of the bicycle was scratched, the handle bars were slightly bent and dulled; William himself was bruised and battered but unbeaten.

At last he managed to avoid the fatal magnet of the holly bush, to steer an unsteady zig-zag course down the drive and out into the road. He had had no particular intention of riding into the
road. In fact he was still wearing his befeathered headgear, blacked face, and the mat pinned to his shoulders. It was only when he was actually in the road that he realised that retreat was
impossible, that he had no idea how to get off the bicycle.

What followed was to William more like a nightmare than anything else. He saw a motor-lorry coming towards him and in sudden panic turned down a side street and from that into another side
street. People came out of their houses to watch him pass. Children booed or cheered him and ran after him in crowds. And William went on and on simply because he could not stop. His iron nerve had
failed him. He had not even the presence of mind to fall off. He was quite lost. He had left the town behind him and did not know where he was going. But wherever he went he was the centre of
attraction. The strange figure with blackened, streaked face, mat flying behind in the wind and a head-dress of feathers from which every now and then one floated away, brought the population to
its doors. Some said he had escaped from an asylum, some that he was an advertisement of something. The children were inclined to think he was part of a circus. William himself had passed beyond
despair. His face was white and set. His first panic had changed to a dull certainty that this would go on for ever. He would never know how to stop. He supposed he would go right across England.
He wondered if he were near the sea now. He couldn’t be far off. He wondered if he would ever see his mother and father again. And his feet pedalled mechanically along. They did not reach the
pedals at their lowest point; they had to catch them as they came up and send them down with all their might.

It was very tiring; William wondered if people would be sorry if he dropped down dead.

I have said that William did not know where he was going.

But Fate knew.

The picnickers walked down the hill from the little station to the riverbank. It was a beautiful morning. Robert, his heart and hopes high, walked beside his goddess, revelling in his nearness
to her though he could think of nothing to say to her. But Ethel and Mrs Clive chattered gaily.

‘We’ve given William the slip,’ said Ethel with a laugh. ‘He’s no idea where we’ve gone even!’

‘I’m sorry’ said Miss Cannon, ‘I’d have loved William to be here.’

‘You don’t know him,’ said Ethel fervently.

‘What a beautiful morning it is!’ murmured Robert, feeling that some remark was due from him. ‘Am I walking too fast for you – Miss Cannon?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘May I carry your parasol for you?’ he enquired humbly.

‘Oh, no, thanks.’

He proposed a boat on the river after lunch, and it appeared that Miss Cannon would love it, but Ethel and Mrs Clive would rather stay on the bank.

His cup of bliss was full. It would be his opportunity of sealing lifelong friendship with her, of arranging a regular correspondence, and hinting at his ultimate intentions. He must tell her
that, of course, while he was at college he was not in a position to offer his heart and hand, but if she could wait— He began to compose speeches in his mind.

They reached the bank and opened the luncheon baskets. Unhampered by Robert the cook had surpassed herself. They spread the white cloth and took up their position around it under the shade of
the trees.

Just as Robert was taking up a plate of sandwiches to hand them with a courteous gesture to Miss Cannon, his eyes fell upon the long, white road leading from the village to the riverside and
remained fixed there, his face frozen with horror. The hand that held the plate dropped lifelessly back again on to the tablecloth. Their eyes followed his. A curious figure was cycling along the
road – a figure with a blackened face and a few drooping feathers on its head, and a doormat flying in the wind. A crowd of small children ran behind cheering. It was a figure vaguely
familiar to them all.

‘It can’t be,’ said Robert hoarsely, passing a hand over his brow.

No one spoke.

It came nearer and nearer. There was no mistaking it.

‘William!’ gasped four voices.

William came to the end of the road. He did not turn aside to either of the roads by the riverside. He did not even recognise or look at them. With set, colourless face he rode on to the
riverbank, and straight amongst them. They fled from before his charge. He rode over the tablecloth, over the sandwiches, patties, rolls and cakes, down the bank and into the river.

They rescued him and the bicycle. Fate was against Robert even there. It was a passing boatman who performed the rescue. William emerged soaked to the skin, utterly exhausted,
but feeling vaguely heroic. He was not in the least surprised to see them. He would have been surprised at nothing. And Robert wiped and examined his battered bicycle in impotent fury in the
background while Miss Cannon pillowed William’s dripping head on her arm, fed him on hot coffee and sandwiches and called him ‘My poor darling Red Hand!’

She insisted on going home with him. All through the journey she sustained the character of his faithful squaw. Then, leaving a casual invitation to Robert and Ethel to come over to tea, she
departed to pack.

Mrs Brown descended the stairs from William’s room with a tray on which reposed a half-empty bowl of gruel, and met Robert in the hall.

‘Robert,’ she remonstrated, ‘you really needn’t look so upset.’

Robert glared at her and laughed a hollow laugh.

‘Upset!’ he echoed, outraged by the inadequacy of the expression. ‘You’d be upset if your life was ruined. You’d be upset. I’ve a
right
to be
upset.’

He passed his hand desperately through his already ruffled hair.

‘You’re going there to tea,’ she reminded him.

‘Yes,’ he said bitterly, ‘with other people. Who can talk with other people there? No one can. I’d have talked to her on the river. I’d got heaps of things ready in
my mind to say. And William comes along and spoils my whole life – and my bicycle. And she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve wanted that bicycle
for ever so long and it’s not fit to ride.’

‘But poor William has caught a very bad chill, dear, so you oughtn’t to feel bitter to him. And he’ll have to pay for your bicycle being mended. He’ll have no pocket
money till it’s paid for.’

‘You’d think,’ said Robert with a despairing gesture in the direction of the hall table and apparently addressing it, ‘you’d think four grown-up people in a house
could keep a boy of William’s age in order, wouldn’t you? You’d think he wouldn’t be allowed to go about spoiling people’s lives and – and ruining their
bicycles. Well, he jolly well won’t do it again,’ he ended darkly.

Mrs Brown proceeded in the direction of the kitchen.

‘Robert,’ she said soothingly over her shoulder, ‘you surely want to be at peace with your little brother, when he’s not well, don’t you?’

‘
Peace?
’ he said. Robert turned his haggard countenance upon her as though his ears must have deceived him. ‘
Peace!
I’ll wait. I’ll wait till
he’s all right and going about; I won’t start till then. But – peace! It’s not peace, it’s an
armistice —
that’s all.’

CHAPTER 3

W
illiam was feeling embittered with life in general. He was passing through one of his not infrequent periods of unpopularity. The climax had come
with the gift of sixpence bestowed on him by a timid aunt, who hoped thus to purchase his goodwill. With the sixpence he had bought a balloon adorned with the legs and head of a duck fashioned in
cardboard. This could be blown up to its fullest extent and then left to subside. It took several minutes to subside, and during those minutes it emitted a long drawn-out and high-pitched groan.
The advantage of this was obvious. William could blow it up to its fullest extent in private and leave it to subside in public concealed beneath his coat. While this was going on William looked
round as though in bewildered astonishment. He inflated it before he went to breakfast. He then held it firmly and secretly so as to keep it inflated till he was sitting at the table. Then he let
it subside. His mother knocked over a cup of coffee, and his father cut himself with the bread knife. Ethel, his elder sister, indulged in a mild form of nervous breakdown. William sat with a face
of startled innocence. But nothing enraged his family so much as William’s expression of innocence. They fell upon him, and he defended himself as well as he could. Yes, he was holding the
balloon under the table. Well, he’d blown it up some time ago. He couldn’t keep it blown up for ever. He had to let the air out some time. He couldn’t help it making a noise when
the air went out. It was the way it was made. He hadn’t made it. He set off to school with an air of injured innocence – and the balloon. Observing an elderly and irascible-looking
gentleman in front of him, he went a few steps down a back street, blew up his balloon and held it tightly under his coat. Then, when abreast of the old gentleman, he let it off. The old gentleman
gave a leap into the air and glared fiercely around. He glanced at the small virtuous-looking schoolboy with no obvious instrument of torture at his lips, and then concentrated his glare of fury
and suspicion on the upper windows. William hastened on to the next pedestrian. He had quite a happy walk to school.

School was at first equally successful. William opened his desk, hastily inflated his balloon, closed his desk, then gazed round with his practised expression of horrified astonishment at what
followed. He drove the French master to distraction.

‘Step out ’oo makes the noise,’ he screamed.

No one stepped out, and the noise continued at intervals.

The mathematics master finally discovered and confiscated the balloon.

‘I hope,’ said his father at lunch, ‘that they’ve taken away that infernal machine of yours.’

William replied sadly that they had. He added that some people didn’t seem to think it was stealing to take other people’s things.

‘Then we may look forward to a little peace this evening’ said his father politely. ‘Not that it matters to me, as I’m going out to dinner. The only thing that relieves
the tedium of going out to dinner is the fact that for a short time one has a rest from William.’