More William (6 page)

Mr Lewes bowed with a set, stern, self-conscious expression, as though to convey to all that his celebrity was more of a weight than a pleasure to him. Mrs de Vere Carter bridled and fluttered,
for
Fiddle Strings
had a society column and a page of scrappy ‘News of the Town’, and Mrs de Vere Carter’s greatest ambition was to see her name in print.

Mr Lewes sat back in his chair, took his teacup as though it were a fresh addition to his responsibilities, and began to talk. He talked apparently without even breathing. He began on the
weather, drifted on to art and music, and was just beginning a monologue on The Novel, when William rose and crept from the room like a guilty spirit. He found Mr Blank under the library table,
having heard a noise in the kitchen and fearing a visitor. A cigar and a silver snuffer had fallen from his pocket to the floor. He hastily replaced them. William went up and took another look at
the wonderful ears and heaved a sigh of relief. While parted from his strange friend he had a horrible suspicion that the whole thing was a dream.

‘I’ll go to the larder and get you sumthin’,’ he said. ‘You jus’ stay there.’

‘I think, young gent,’ said Mr Blank, ‘I think I’ll just go an’ look round upstairs on the quiet like, an’ you needn’t mention it to no one.
See?’

Again he performed the fascinating wink.

They crept on tiptoe into the hall, but – the drawing-room door was ajar.

‘William!’

William’s heart stood still. He could hear his mother coming across the room, then – she stood in the doorway. Her face filled with horror as her eyes fell upon Mr Blank.

‘
William!
’ she said.

William’s feelings were beyond description. Desperately he sought for an explanation for his friend’s presence. With what pride and sangfroid had Robert announced his uninvited
guest! William determined to try it, at any rate. He advanced boldly into the drawing-room.

‘This is Mr Blank, Mother,’ he announced jauntily. ‘He hasn’t got no ears.’

Mr Blank stood in the background, awaiting developments. Flight was now impossible.

The announcement fell flat. There was nothing but horror upon the five silent faces that confronted William. He made a last desperate effort.

‘He’s bin in the war,’ he pleaded. ‘He’s – killed folks.’

Then the unexpected happened.

Mrs de Vere Carter rose with a smile of welcome. In her mind’s eye she saw the touching story already in print – tattered hero – the gracious lady – the age of Democracy.
The stage was laid and that dark, pale young man had only to watch and listen.

‘Ah, one of our dear heroes! My poor, brave man! A cup of tea, my dear,’ turning to William’s thunderstruck mother. ‘And he may sit down, may he not?’ She kept her
face well turned towards the sardonic-looking Mr Lewes. He must not miss a word or gesture. ‘How
proud
we are to do anything for our dear heroes! Wounded, perhaps? Ah, poor man!’
She floated across to him with a cup of tea and plied him with bread and butter and cake. William sat down meekly on a chair, looking rather pale. Mr Blank, whose philosophy was to take the goods
the gods gave and not look to the future, began to make a hearty meal. ‘Are you looking for work, my poor man?’ asked Mrs de Vere Carter, leaning forward in her chair.

Her poor man replied with simple, manly directness that he ‘was dam’d if he was. See?’ Mr Lewes began to discuss The Drama with Robert. Mrs de Vere Carter raised her voice.

‘
How
you must have suffered! Yes, there is suffering ingrained in your face. A piece of shrapnel? Ten inches square? Right in at one hip and out at the other? Oh, my poor man!
How
I feel for you. How all class distinctions vanish at such a time. How—’

She stopped while Mr Blank drank his tea. In fact, all conversation ceased while Mr Blank drank his tea, just as conversation on a station ceases while a train passes through.

Mrs Brown looked helplessly around her. When Mr Blank had eaten a plate of sandwiches, a plate of bread and butter, and half a cake, he rose slowly, keeping one hand over the pocket in which
reposed the silver ornaments.

‘Well ’m,’ he said, touching his cap. ‘Thank you kindly. I’ve ’ad a fine tea. I ’ave. A dam’ fine tea. An’ I’ll not forget yer
kindness to a pore ole soldier.’ Here he winked brazenly at William. ‘An’ good day ter you orl.’

Mrs de Vere Carter floated out to the front door with him, and William followed as in a dream.

Mrs Brown found her voice.

‘We’d better have the chair disinfected,’ she murmured to Ethel.

Then Mrs de Vere Carter returned smiling to herself and eyeing the young editor surmisingly.

‘I witnessed a pretty scene the other day in a suburban drawing-room . . .’ It might begin like that.

William followed the amazing figure round the house again to the library window. Here it turned to him with a friendly grin.

‘ARE YOU LOOKING FOR WORK, MY POOR MAN?’ ASKED MRS DE VERE CARTER.

‘I’m just goin’ to ’ave that look round upstairs now. See?’ he said. ‘An’ once more, yer don’t need ter say nothin’ to no one.
See?’

With the familiar, beloved gesture he drew his old cap down over his eyes, and was gone.

William wandered upstairs a few minutes later to find his visitor standing at the landing window, his pockets bulging.

‘I’m goin’ to try this ’ere window, young gent,’ he said in a quick, business-like voice. ‘I see yer pa coming in at the front gate. Give me a shove. Quick,
nar.’

Mr Brown entered the drawing-room.

‘Mulroyd’s had his house burgled now,’ he said. ‘Every bit of his wife’s jewellery gone. They’ve got some clues, though. It’s a gang all right, and one
of them is a chap without ears. Grows his hair long to hide it. But it’s a clue. The police are hunting for him.’

He looked in amazement at the horror-stricken faces before him. Mrs Brown sat down weakly.

‘Ethel, my smelling salts! They’re on the mantelpiece.’

Robert grew pale.

‘Good Lord – my silver cricket cup,’ he gasped, racing upstairs.

The landing window had been too small, and Mr Blank too big, though William did his best.

There came to the astounded listeners the sound of a fierce scuffle, then Robert descended, his hair rumpled and his tie awry, holding William by the arm. William looked pale and apprehensive.
‘He was there,’ panted Robert, ‘just getting out of the window. He chucked the things out of his pockets and got away. I couldn’t stop him. And – and William was
there—’

William’s face assumed the expression of one who is prepared for the worst.

‘The plucky little chap! Struggling with him! Trying to pull him back from the window! All by himself!’

‘I
wasn’t
,’ cried William excitedly. ‘I was
helping
him. He’s my
friend.
I—’

But they heard not a word. They crowded round him, praised him, shook hands with him, asked if he was hurt. Mrs de Vere Carter kept up one perpetual scream of delight and congratulation.

‘The
dear
boy! The little
pet
! How
brave
! What
courage
! What an
example
to us all! And the horrid, wretched man! Posing as a
hero
. Wangling
himself into the sweet child’s confidence. Are you hurt, my precious? Did the nasty man hurt you? You
darling
boy!’

When the babel had somewhat subsided, Mr Brown came forward and laid a hand on William’s shoulder.

‘I’m very pleased with you, my boy,’ he said. ‘You can buy anything you like tomorrow up to five shillings.’

William’s bewildered countenance cleared.

‘Thank you, Father,’ he said meekly.

CHAPTER 4

‘A
knight,’ said Miss Drew, who was struggling to inspire her class with enthusiasm for Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the
King’, ‘a knight was a person who spent his time going round succouring the oppressed.’

‘Suckin’ wot?’ said William, bewildered.

‘Succour means to help. He spent his time helping anyone who was in trouble.’

‘How much did he get for it?’ asked William.

‘Nothing, of course,’ said Miss Drew, appalled by the base commercialism of the twentieth century. ‘He helped the poor because he
loved
them, William. He had a lot of
adventures and fighting and he helped beautiful, persecuted damsels.’

William’s respect for the knight rose.

‘Of course,’ said Miss Drew hastily, ‘they needn’t necessarily be beautiful, but, in most of the stories we have, they were beautiful.’

There followed some stories of fighting and adventure and the rescuing of beautiful damsels. The idea of the thing began to take hold of William’s imagination.

‘I say,’ he said to his chum Ginger after school, ‘that knight thing sounds all right. Suckin’ – I mean helpin’ people an’ fightin’ an’ all
that. I wun’t mind doin’ it an’ you could be my squire.’

‘Yes,’ said Ginger slowly, ‘I’d thought of doin’ it, but I’d thought of
you
bein’ the squire.’

‘Well,’ said William after a pause, ‘let’s be squires in turn. You first,’ he added hastily.

‘Wot’ll you give me if I’m first?’ said Ginger, displaying again the base commercialism of the age.

William considered.

‘I’ll give you first drink out of a bottle of ginger ale wot I’m goin’ to get with my next money. It’ll be three weeks off ’cause they’re takin’
the next two weeks to pay for an ole window wot my ball slipped into by mistake.’

He spoke with the bitterness that always characterised his statements of the injustice of the grown-up world.

‘All right,’ said Ginger.

‘I won’t forget about the drink of ginger ale.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Ginger simply. ‘I’ll remind you all right. Well, let’s set off.’

‘’Course,’ said William, ‘it would be
nicer
with armour an’ horses an’ trumpets, but I ’spect folks ’ud think anyone a bit soft wot went
about in the streets in armour now, ’cause these times is different. She said so. Anyway, she said we could still be knights an’ help people, di’n’t she? Anyway, I’ll
get my bugle. That’ll be
something
.’

William’s bugle had just returned to public life after one of its periodic terms of retirement into his father’s keeping.

William took his bugle proudly in one hand and his pistol (the glorious result of a dip in the bran tub at a school party) in the other, and, sternly denying themselves the pleasures of
afternoon school, off the two set upon the road of romance and adventure.

‘I’ll carry the bugle,’ said Ginger, ‘’cause I’m squire.’

William was loath to give up his treasure.

‘Well, I’ll carry it now,’ he said, ‘but when I begin fightin’ folks, I’ll give it you to hold.’

They walked along for about a mile without meeting anyone. William began to be aware of a sinking feeling in the region of his waist.

‘I wonder wot they
eat
,’ he said at last. ‘I’m gettin’ so’s I wouldn’t mind sumthin’ to eat.’

‘We di’n’t ought to have set off before dinner,’ said the squire with after-the-event wisdom. ‘We ought to have waited till
after
dinner.’

‘You ought to have
brought
sumthin’,’ said William severely. ‘You’re the squire. You’re not much of a squire not to have brought sumthin’ for me
to eat.’

‘An’ me,’ put in Ginger. ‘If I’d brought any I’d have brought it for me more’n for you.’

William fingered his minute pistol.

‘If we meet any wild animals . . .’ he said darkly.

A cow gazed at them mournfully over a hedge.

‘You might go an’ milk that,’ suggested William. ‘Milk ’ud be better’n nothing.’

‘
You
go an’ milk it.’

‘No, I’m not squire. I bet squires did the milkin’. Knights wun’t of done the milkin’.’

‘I’ll remember,’ said Ginger bitterly, ‘when you’re squire, all the things wot you said a squire ought to do when I was squire.’

They entered the field and gazed at the cow from a respectful distance. She turned her eyes upon them sadly.

‘Go on!’ said the knight to his reluctant squire.

‘I’m not good at cows,’ objected that gentleman.

‘Well, I will, then!’ said William with reckless bravado, and advanced boldly upon the animal. The animal very slightly lowered its horns (perhaps in sign of greeting) and emitted a
sonorous mo-o-o-o-o. Like lightning the gallant pair made for the road.

‘Anyway,’ said William gloomily, ‘we’d got nothin’ to put it in, so we’d only of got tossed for nothin’, p’raps, if we’d gone on.’

They walked on down the road till they came to a pair of iron gates and a drive that led up to a big house. William’s spirits rose. His hunger was forgotten.

‘Come on!’ he said. ‘We might find someone to rescue here. It looks like a place where there might be someone to rescue.’

There was no one in the garden to question the right of entry of two small boys armed with a bugle and a toy pistol. Unchallenged they went up to the house. While the knight was wondering
whether to blow his bugle at the front door or by the open window, they caught sight suddenly of a vision inside the window. It was a girl as fair and slim and beautiful as any wandering knight
could desire. And she was speaking fast and passionately.