Still William (16 page)

‘I SAY, MR MARCH,’ YELLED WILLIAM, ‘IS IT DIVORCE OR BIGAMY IF YOU CHANGE YOUR WIFE?’

‘I say, Hubert,’ whispered William to Hubert. ‘We’ve gotter secret. You come over here ’n we’ll tell you.’

Hubert put a Bulls’ Eye into his mouth, pocketed the packet and accompanied William to where Ginger and Douglas were, his goggle eyes still more a-goggle with excitement. Joan and Violet
Elizabeth were busying themselves in transforming the interior of the barn into two semi-detached villas with great exercise of handkerchief-dusters and imagination.

‘HA, HA!’ LAUGHED MR MARCH. ‘EXCELLENT! WHICH OF YOU IS NOT SATISFIED WITH HIS SPOUSE?’

‘Douglas,’ whispered William confidentially, ‘ ’s found out a secret about this field. He got it off a witch.’ Hubert was so surprised that his spectacles fell off.
He replaced them and listened open-mouthed.

‘There’s a grass in this field that if you tread on it makes you invisible. Now we’re just goin’ to tread about a bit to see ’f we can find it an’ we
don’ want to leave you out of it so you can come and tread about a bit with us case we find it.’

Hubert was thrilled and flattered.

‘I bet I find it first,’ he squeaked excitedly.

They tramped about in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly William said in a voice of great concern:

‘I say, where’s Hubert gone?’

‘I’m here,’ said Hubert, a shade of anxiety in his voice.

William looked at him and through him.

‘Where’s Hubert gone?’ he said again. ‘He was here a minute ago.’

‘I’m here!’ said Hubert again plaintively.

Ginger and Douglas looked first at and through Hubert and then all around the field.

‘Yes, he seems to have gone,’ said Ginger sadly. ‘I’m ’fraid he mus’ have found the grass!’

‘I-I’m here!’ squeaked Hubert desperately, looking rather pale.

‘I’ll jus’ see if he’s hidin’ over there,’ said William and proceeded literally to walk through Hubert. Hubert got the worst of the impact and sat down
suddenly and heavily.

‘Boo-hoo!’ he wailed rising to his feet. He was promptly walked into by Ginger and sat down again with another yell.

‘ ’S mos’ mysterious where he’s got to,’ said William. ‘Let’s call him!’

They yelled ‘Hubert!’ about the field, callously disregarding that youth’s sobbing replies. Whenever he rose to his feet one of them walked through him and he sat down again
with a bump and a yell.

‘Did the witch say anything about makin’ them visible again?’ said William anxiously.

‘No,’ said Douglas sadly. ‘I’m ’fraid he’ll always be invisible now and he’ll die slow of starvation ’cause no one’ll ever see him to give
him anything to eat.’

Hubert began to bellow unrestrainedly. He rose to his feet, dodged both Ginger and Douglas who made a dart in his direction, and ran howling towards the stile.

‘Boo-hoo! I’m going home. Boo-hoo! I don’ wanter die!’

As soon as he reached the stile, Ginger and Douglas and William gave a shout.

‘Why,
there’s
Hubert at the stile.’

Hubert ceased his tears and hung over the stile.

‘Can you see me now?’ he said anxiously. ‘Am I all right now?’

He wiped his tears and began to clean his spectacles and straighten his collar. He was a tidy boy.

‘Yes, Hubert,’ said the Outlaws. ‘It’s all right now. We can see you now. You mus’ have jus’ trod on the grass. But it’s all right now. Aren’t you
comin’ back to play?’

Hubert placed one foot cautiously over the stile.

‘Ginger!’ said William excitedly, ‘I believe he’s beginning to disappear again.’

With a wild yell, Hubert turned and fled howling down the road.

‘Well, we’ve got rid of
him
,’ said William complacently, ‘and if I’m not clever I don’ know who
is
!’

Over-modesty was not one of William’s faults.

‘Well, I bet you’re not quite as clever as you
think
you are,’ said Ginger pugnaciously.

‘How d’you know that?’ said William rising to the challenge. ‘How d’you know how clever I think I am? You mus’ think yourself jolly clever ’f you think
you know how clever I think I am!’

The discussion would have run its natural course to the physical conflict that the Outlaws found so exhilarating if Joan and Violet Elizabeth had not at this moment emerged from the barn.

‘You
have
been making a noith!’ said Violet Elizabeth disapprovingly. ‘Wherth the boy with the Bullth Eyth?’

‘Heth gonth awath,’ said William unfeelingly.

‘I want a Bullth Eye. You’re a nathty boy to let him go away when I want a Bullth Eye.’

‘Well, you can go after himth,’ said William, less afraid of her tears now that he was surrounded by his friends. But Violet Elizabeth was too angry for tears.

‘Yeth and I thall!’ she said. ‘You’re a nathty rude boy an’ I don’t love you and I don’t want you for a huthband. I want the boy with the Bullth
Eyth!’

‘What about divorce or big or whatever it is?’ said William, taken aback by her sudden and open repudiation of him. ‘What about that? What about being hung?’

‘If anyone trith to hang me,’ said Violet Elizabeth complacently, ‘I’ll thcream and thcream and thcream till I’m thick. I can.’

Then she put out her tongue at each of the Outlaws in turn and ran lightly down the road after the figure of Hubert which could be seen in the distance.

‘Well, we’ve got rid of
her
too,’ said William, torn between relief at her departure and resentment at her scorn of him, ‘and she can play her silly games with
him. I’ve had enough of them. Let’s go an’ sit on the stile and see who can throw stones farthest.’

They sat in a row on the stile. It counted ten to hit the telegraph post and fifteen to reach the further edge of the opposite field.

Ethel, who had been to the village to do the household shopping, came past when the game was in full swing.

‘I’ll tell father,’ she said grimly to William. ‘He said you oughtn’t to throw stones.’

William looked her up and down with his most inscrutable expression.

‘ ’F it comes to that,’ he said distantly, ‘he said you oughtn’t to wear high heels.’

Ethel flushed angrily and walked on.

William’s spirits rose. It wasn’t often he scored over Ethel and he feared that even now she would have her revenge.

He watched her go down the road. Coming back along the road was Mr March. As he met Ethel a deep flush and a sickly smile overspread his face. He stopped and spoke to her, gazing at her with a
sheep-like air. Ethel passed on haughtily. He had recovered slightly when he reached the Outlaws, though traces of his flush still remained.

‘Well,’ he said with a loud laugh. ‘Divorce or bigamy? Which is it to be? Ha, ha! Excellent!’

He put his walking stick against Ginger’s middle and playfully pushed him off the stile backwards. Then he went on his way laughing loudly.

‘I said he was cracked!’ said Ginger climbing back to his perch.

‘He’d jus’ about suit Ethel then,’ said William bitterly.

They sat in silence a few minutes. There was a faraway meditative look in William’s eyes.

‘I say,’ he said at last, ‘ ’f Ethel married him she’d go away from our house and live in his, wun’t she?’

‘U-hum,’ agreed Ginger absently as he tried to hit the second tree to the left of the telegraph post that counted five.

‘I wish there was some way of makin’ them fall in love with each other,’ said William gloomily.

‘Oh, there is, William,’ said Joan. ‘We’ve been learning it at school. Someone called Shakespeare wrote it. You keep saying to both of them that the other’s in love
with them and they fall in love and marry. I know. We did it last term. One of them was Beatrice and I forget the other.’

‘You said it was Shakespeare,’ said William.

‘No, he’s the one that tells about it.’

‘Sounds a queer sort of tale to me,’ said William severely. ‘Couldn’t you write to him and get it a bit plainer what to do?’

‘Write to him!’ jeered Ginger. ‘He’s dead. Fancy you not knowin’ that! Fancy you not knowin’ Shakespeare’s dead!’

‘Well, how was I to know he was dead? I can’t know everyone’s name what’s dead, can I? I bet there’s lots of dead folks’ names what you don’
know!’

‘Oh, do you?’ said Ginger. ‘Well, I bet I know more dead folks’ names than you do!’

‘He said that anyway,’ interposed Joan hastily and pacifically. ‘He said that if you keep on making up nice things and saying that the other said it about them they fall in
love and marry. It must be true because it’s in a book.’

There was a look of set purpose in William’s eyes.

‘It’ll take a bit of arrangin’,’ was the final result of his frowning meditation, ‘but it might come off all right.’

William’s part was more difficult than Joan’s. William’s part consisted in repeating to Ethel compliments supposed to emanate from Mr March. If Ethel had had
the patience to listen to them she would have realised that they all bore the unmistakable imprint of William’s imagination.

William opened his campaign by approaching her when she was reading a book in the drawing-room.

‘I say, Ethel,’ he began in a deep soulful voice, ‘I saw Mr March this afternoon.’

Ethel went on reading as if she had not heard.

‘He says,’ continued William mournfully, sitting on the settee next to Ethel, ‘he says that you’re the apple of his life. He says that he loves you with a mos’
devourin’ passion. He says that you’re ab’s’lutely the mos’ beauteous maid he’s ever come across.’

‘Be quiet and let me read!’ said Ethel without looking up from her book.

‘He says,’ went on William in the same deep monotonous voice, ‘he says that he doesn’t mind your hair bein’ red though he knows some people think it’s ugly.
That’s noble of him, you know, Ethel. He says—’

Ethel rose from the settee.

‘If you won’t be quiet,’ she said, ‘I’ll have to go into another room.’

She went into the dining-room and, sitting down in an armchair, began to read again.

After a short interval William followed and taking the armchair opposite hers, continued:

‘He says, Ethel, that he’s deep in love with you and that he doesn’t mind you bein’ so bad-tempered. He likes it. Anyway he ’spects he’ll get used to it. He
says he adores you jus’ like what people do on the pictures. He puts his hand on his stomach and rolls his eyes whenever he thinks of you. He says—’

‘Will – you – be – quiet?’ said Ethel angrily.

‘No, but jus’ listen, Ethel,’ pleaded William. ‘He says—’

Ethel flounced out of the room. She went to the morning-room, locked the door, and, sitting down with her back to the window, continued to read. After a few minutes came the sound of the windows
being cautiously opened and William appeared behind her chair.

‘I say, Ethel, when I saw Mr March he said—’

Ethel gave a scream.

‘If you mention that man’s name to me once more, William, I’ll – I’ll tell Father that you’ve been eating the grapes in the hothouse.’

It was a random shot but with a boy of William’s many activities such random shots generally found their mark.

He sighed and slowly retreated from the room by way of the window.

Ethel’s attitude made his task a very difficult one . . .

Joan’s task was easier. Joan had free access to her father’s study and typewriter and Joan composed letters from Ethel to Mr March. William ‘borrowed’
some of his father’s notepaper for her and she worked very conscientiously, looking up the spelling of every word in the dictionary and re-typing every letter in which she made a mistake. She
sent him one every day. Each one ended, ‘Please do not answer this or mention it to me and do not mind if my manner to you seems different to these letters. I cannot explain, but you know
that my heart is full of love for you.’

One letter had a PS: ‘I would be grateful if you would give half a crown to my little brother William when next you meet him. I am penniless and he is such a nice good boy.’

Anyone less conceited than Mr March would have suspected the genuineness of the letters, but to Mr March they seemed just such letters as a young girl who had succumbed to his incomparable charm
might write.

It was William who insisted on the PS though Joan felt that it was inartistic. It had effect, however. Mr March met William on the road the next morning and handed him a half-crown, then with a
loud guffaw and ‘Divorce or bigamy, eh?’ pushed William lightly into a holly bush and passed on. Mr March’s methods of endearing himself to the young were primitive . . . But the
half-crown compensated for the holly bush in William’s estimation. He wanted to make the PS a regular appendage to the letter but Joan firmly refused to allow it.

After a week of daily letters written by Joan and daily unsuccessful attempts on the part of William to introduce imaginary compliments from Mr March into casual conversation with Ethel, both
felt that it was time for the denouement.

The final letter was the result of a hard morning’s work by William and Joan.

   Will you meet me by the river near Fisher’s Lock tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock? Will you wear a red carnation and I will wear a red rose as gages of our love?
I want to tell you how much I love you, though I am sure you know. Let us be married next Monday afternoon. Do not speak to me of this letter but just come wearing a red carnation and I will come
wearing a red rose as gages of our love. I hope you will love my little brother William too. He is very fond of caramels.