More William (22 page)

Her eyes were dreamy with ecstasy. William stirred uneasily on his seat.

‘I tol’ you it was
rot
,’ he said. ’There isn’t any Father Christmas. It’s jus’ an’ ole tale folks tell you when you’re a kid,
an’ you find out it’s not true. He won’t send no supper jus’ ’cause he isn’t anythin’. He’s jus’ nothin’ – jus’ an ole
tale—’

‘Oh, shut
up
!’ William turned sharply at the sound of the shrill voice from the bed within the room. ‘Let the kid ’ave a bit of pleasure lookin’ forward to
it, can’t yer? It’s little enough she ’as, anyway.’

William arose with dignity.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Go‘bye.’

He strolled away down the street.

‘
Softie!
’

It was a malicious sweet little voice.

‘
Swank!
’

William flushed but forbore to turn round.

That evening he met the little girl from next door in the road outside her house.

‘Hello, Joan!’

‘Hello, William!’

In these blue eyes there was no malice or mockery. To Joan William was a godlike hero. His very wickedness partook of the divine.

‘Would you – would you like to come an’ make a snowman in our garden, William?’ she said tentatively.

William knit his brows.

‘I dunno,’ he said ungraciously. ‘I was jus’ kinder thinkin’.’

She looked at him silently, hoping that he would deign to tell her his thoughts, but not daring to ask. Joan held no modern views on the subject of the equality of the sexes.

‘Do you remember that ole tale ‘bout Father Christmas, Joan?’ he said at last.

She nodded.

‘Well, s’pose you wanted somethin’ very bad, an’ you believed that ole tale and sent a bit of paper up the chimney ‘bout what you wanted very bad and then you never
got it, you’d feel kind of rotten, wouldn’t you?’

She nodded again.

‘I did one time,’ she said. ‘I sent a lovely list up the chimney and I never told anyone about it and I got lots of things for Christmas and not
one
of the things
I’d written for!’

‘Did you feel awful rotten?’

‘Yes, I did. Awful.’

‘I say, Joan,’ he said importantly, ‘I’ve gotter secret.’

‘
Do
tell me, William!’ she pleaded.

‘Can’t. It’s a crorse-me-throat secret!’

She was mystified and impressed.

‘How
lovely
, William! Is it something you’re going to do?’

He considered.

‘It might be,’ he said.

‘I’d love to help.’ She fixed adoring blue eyes upon him.

‘Well, I’ll see,’ said the lord of creation. ‘I say, Joan, you comin’ to my party?’

‘Oh,
yes
!’

‘Well, there’s an awful lot comin’. Johnnie Brent an’ all that lot. I’m jolly well not lookin’ forward to it, I can
tell
you.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry! Why did you ask them, William?’

William laughed bitterly.

‘Why did I invite them?’ he said. ‘
I
don’t invite people to my parties.
They
do that.’

In William’s vocabulary ‘they’ always signified his immediate family circle.

William had a strong imagination. When an idea took hold upon his mind, it was almost impossible for him to let it go. He was quite accustomed to Joan’s adoring homage. The scornful
mockery of his auburn-haired friend was something quite new, and in some strange fashion it intrigued and fascinated him. Mentally he recalled her excited little face, flushed with eagerness as she
described the expected spread. Mentally also he conceived a vivid picture of the long waiting on Christmas Eve, the slowly fading hope, the final bitter disappointment. While engaging in furious
snowball fights with Ginger, Douglas, and Henry, while annoying peaceful passers-by with well-aimed snow missiles, while bruising himself and most of his family black and blue on long and glassy
slides along the garden paths, while purloining his family’s clothes to adorn various unshapely snowmen, while walking across all the ice (preferably cracked) in the neighbourhood and being
several times narrowly rescued from a watery – grave while following all these light holiday pursuits, the picture of the little auburn-haired girl’s disappointment was ever vividly
present in his mind.

The day of his party drew near.

‘
My
party,’ he would echo bitterly when anyone of his family mentioned. ‘I don’t
want
it. I don’t
want
ole Johnnie Brent an’ all that
lot. I’d just like to uninvite ’em all.’

‘But you want Ginger and Douglas and Henry,’ coaxed his mother.

‘I can have them any time an’ I don’t like ’em at parties. They’re not the same. I don’t like
anyone
at parties. I don’t
want
a
party!’

‘But you
must
have a party, William, to ask back people who ask you.’

William took up his previous attitude.

‘Well, where’s the
sense
of it?’ he groaned.

As usual he had the last word, but left his audience unconvinced. They began on him a full hour before his guests were due. He was brushed and scrubbed and scoured and cleaned. He was compressed
into an Eton suit and patent leather pumps and finally deposited in the drawing-room, cowed and despondent, his noble spirit all but broken.

The guests began to arrive. William shook hands politely with three strangers shining with soap, brushed to excess, and clothed in ceremonial Eton – suits who in ordinary life were Ginger,
Douglas, and Henry. They then sat down and gazed at each other in strained and unnatural silence. They could find nothing to say to each other. Ordinary topics seemed to be precluded by their
festive appearance and the formal nature of the occasion. Their informal meetings were usually celebrated by impromptu wrestling matches. This being debarred, a stiff, unnatural atmosphere
descended upon them. William was a ‘host’, they were ‘guests’; they had all listened to final maternal admonitions in which the word ‘manners’ and
‘politeness’ recurred at frequent intervals. They were, in fact, for the time being, complete strangers.

Then Joan arrived and broke the constrained silence.

‘Hullo, William! Oh, William, you do look
nice
!’

William smiled with distant politeness, but his heart warmed to her. It is always some comfort to learn that one has not suffered in vain.

‘How d’you do?’ he said with a stiff bow.

Then Johnnie Brent came and after him a host of small boys and girls.

William greeted friends and foes alike with the same icy courtesy

Then the conjurer arrived.

Mrs Brown had planned the arrangement most carefully. The supper was laid on the big dining-room table. There was to be conjuring for an hour before supper to ‘break the ice’. In the
meantime, while the conjuring was going on, the grown-ups who were officiating at the party were to have their meal in peace in the library.

William had met the conjurer at various parties and despised him utterly. He despised his futile jokes and high-pitched laugh and he knew his tricks by heart. They sat in rows in front of him
– shining-faced, well-brushed little boys in dark Eton suits and gleaming collars, and dainty white-dressed little girls with gay hair ribbons. William sat in the back row near the window,
and next to him sat Joan. She gazed at his set, expressionless face in mute sympathy He listened to the monotonous voice of the conjurer.

‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will proceed to swallow these three needles and these three strands of cotton and shortly to bring out each needle threaded with a strand of cotton. Will any
lady step forward and examine the needles? Ladies ought to know all about needles, oughtn’t they? You young gentlemen don’t learn to sew at school, do you? Ha! Ha! Perhaps some of you
young gentlemen don’t know what a needle is! Ha! Ha!’

William scowled, and his thoughts flew off to the little house in the dirty back street. It was Christmas Eve. Her father was ‘comin’ out’. She would be waiting, watching with
bright, expectant eyes for the ’spread’ she had demanded from Father Christmas to welcome her returning parent. It was a beastly shame. She was a silly little ass, anyway, not to
believe him. He’d told her there wasn’t any Father Christmas.

‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will bring out the three needles threaded with the three strands of cotton. Watch carefully, ladies and gentlemen. There! One! Two! Three! Now, I don’t
advise you young ladies and gentlemen to try this trick. Needles are very indigestible to some people. Ha! Ha! Not to me, of course! I can digest anything – needles, or marbles, or matches,
or glass bowls – as you will soon see. Ha! Ha! Now to proceed, ladies and gentlemen.’

William looked at the clock and sighed. Anyway, there’d be supper soon, and that was a jolly good one, ‘cause he’d had a look at it.

Suddenly the inscrutable look left his countenance. He gave a sudden gasp and his whole face lit up. Joan turned to him.

‘Come on!’ he whispered, rising stealthily from his seat.

The room was in half darkness and the conjurer was just producing a white rabbit from his left toe, so that few noticed William’s quiet exit by the window followed by that of the blindly
obedient Joan.

‘You wait!’ he whispered in the darkness of the garden. She waited, shivering in her little white muslin dress, till he returned from the stable wheeling a handcart, consisting of a
large packing case on wheels and finished with a handle. He wheeled it round to the open French window that led into the dining-room. ‘Come on!’ he whispered again.

FEW NOTICED WILLIAM’S EXIT BY THE WINDOW, FOLLOWED BY THE BLINDLY OBEDIENT JOAN.

Following his example, she began to carry the plates of sandwiches, sausage rolls, meat pies, bread and butter, cakes and biscuits of every variety from the table to the handcart. On the top
they balanced carefully the plates of jelly and blancmange and dishes of trifle, and round the sides they packed armfuls of crackers.

At the end she whispered softly, ‘What’s it for, William?’

‘It’s the secret,’ he said. ‘The crorse-me-throat secret I told you.’

‘Am I going to help?’ she said in delight.

He nodded.

‘Jus’ wait a minute,’ he added, and crept from the dining-room to the hall and upstairs.

He returned with a bundle of clothing which he proceeded to arrange in the garden. He first donned his own red dressing gown and then wound a white scarf round his head, tying it under his chin
so that the ends hung down.

‘I’m makin’ believe I’m Father Christmas,’ he deigned to explain. ‘An’ I’m makin’ believe this white stuff is hair an’ beard.
An’ this is for you to wear so’s you won’t get cold.’

He held out a little white satin cloak edged with swansdown.

‘Oh, how
lovely
, William! But it’s not my cloak! It’s Sadie Murford’s!’

‘Never mind! You can wear it,’ said William generously.

Then, taking the handle of the cart, he set off down the drive. From the drawing-room came the sound of a chorus of delight as the conjurer produced a goldfish in a glass bowl from his head.
From the kitchen came the sound of the hilarious laughter of the maids. Only in the dining-room, with its horrible expanse of empty table, was silence.

They walked down the road without speaking till Joan gave a little excited laugh.

‘This is
fun
, William! I do wonder what we’re going to do.’

‘You’ll see,’ said William. ‘I’d better not tell you yet. I promised a crorse-me-throat promise I wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘All right, William,’ she said sweetly. ‘I don’t mind a bit.’

The evening was dark and rather foggy, so that the strange couple attracted little attention, except when passing beneath the street lamps. Then certainly people stood still and looked at
William and his cart in open-mouthed amazement.

At last they turned down a back street towards a door that stood open to the dark, foggy night. Inside the room was a bare table at which sat a little girl, her blue, anxious eyes fixed on the
open door.

‘I hope he gets here before Dad,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t like Dad to come and find it not ready!’

The woman on the bed closed her eyes wearily.

‘I don’t think he’ll come now, dearie. We must just get on without it.’

The little girl sprang up, her pale cheek suddenly flushed.

‘Oh,
listen
,’ she cried;
‘something’s
coming!’

They listened in breathless silence, while the sound of wheels came down the street towards the empty door. Then – an old handcart appeared in the doorway and behind it William in his
strange attire, and Joan in her fairy-like white – white cloak, white dress, white socks and shoes – her dark curls clustered with gleaming fog jewels.

The little girl clasped her hands. Her face broke into a rapt smile. Her blue eyes were like stars.

‘Oh, oh!’ she cried. ‘It’s Father Christmas and a fairy!’

Without a word William pushed the cart through the doorway into the room and began to remove its contents and place them on the table. First the jellies and trifles and blancmanges, then the
meat pies, pastries, sausage rolls, sandwiches, biscuits, and cakes – sugar-coated, cream-interlayered, full of plums and nuts and fruit. William’s mother had had wide experience and
knew well what food most appealed to small boys and girls. Moreover, she had provided plentifully for her twenty guests.