Still William (19 page)

‘How kind! How very kind . . . My dear young friend, forgive this emotion. The world is hard. I am not used to kindness. It unmans me . . .’

He wiped away his tears with a large mauve and yellow handkerchief. William gazed at it fascinated.

‘If you will excuse me, my dear young friend,’ went on Mr Fairly, ‘I will retire to my bedroom where I have the wherewithal to write and indite a letter of thanks to your most
delightful and charming relative. I beg you to make yourself at home here . . . Use my house, my dear young friend, as though it were your own . . . ’

He waved his arms and retreated unsteadily to an inner room, closing the door behind him.

William sat down on a chair and waited. Time passed, William became bored. Suddenly a fresh aspect of his Christmas resolution occurred to him. If you were speaking the truth one with another
yourself, surely you might take everything that other people said for truth . . . He’d said, ‘Use this house, my dear young friend, as though it were your own . . .’ Well, he
would. The man prob’ly meant it . . . well, anyway, he shouldn’t have said it if he didn’t . . . William went across the room and opened a cupboard. It contained a medley of
paints, two palettes, two oranges and a cake. The feeling of oppression that had followed William’s Christmas lunch had faded and he attacked the cake with gusto. It took about ten minutes to
finish the cake and about four to finish the oranges. William felt refreshed. He looked round the studio with renewed interest. A lay figure sat upon a couch on a small platform. William approached
it cautiously. It was almost life-size and clad in a piece of thin silk. William lifted it. It was quite light. He put it on a chair by the window. Then he went to the little back room. A bonnet
and mackintosh (belonging to Mr Fairly’s charwoman) hung there. He dressed the lay figure in the bonnet and mackintosh. He found a piece of black gauze in a drawer and put it over the
figure’s face as a veil and tied it round the bonnet. He felt all the thrill of the creative artist. He shook hands with it and talked to it. He began to have a feeling of deep affection for
it. He called it Annabel. The clock struck and he remembered the note he was waiting for . . . He knocked gently at the bedroom door. There was no answer. He opened the door and entered. On the
writing-table by the door was a letter:

Then came a blot – mingled ink and emotion – and that was all. Words had failed Mr Fairly so completely that he lay outstretched on the sofa by the window sleeping
the sleep of the slightly inebriated. William thought he’d better not wake him up. He returned to the studio and carried on his self-imposed task of investigation. He found some acid drops in
a drawer adhering to a tube of yellow ochre. He separated them and ate the acid drops but their strong flavour of yellow ochre made him feel sick and he returned to Annabel for sympathy . . .

Then he thought of a game. The lay figure was a captured princess and William was the gallant rescuer. He went outside, opened the front door cautiously, crept into the hall, hid behind the
door, dashed into the studio, caught up the figure in his arms and dashed into the street with it. The danger and exhilaration of a race for freedom through the streets with Annabel in his arms was
too enticing to be resisted. As a matter of fact the flight through the streets was rather disappointing. He met no one and no one pursued him . . .

He staggered up the steps to Aunt Emma’s house still carrying Annabel. There, considering the matter for the first time in cold blood, he realised that his rescue of Annabel was not likely
to be received enthusiastically by his home circle. And Annabel was not easy to conceal. The house seemed empty but he could already hear its inmates returning from their walk. He felt a sudden
hatred of Annabel for being so large and unhideable. He could not reach the top of the stairs before they came in at the door. The drawing-room door was open and into it he rushed, deposited
Annabel in a chair by the fireplace with her back to the room, and returned to the hall. He smoothed back his hair, assumed his most vacant expression and awaited them. To his surprise they crept
past the drawing-room door on tiptoe and congregated in the dining-room.

‘A caller,’ said Aunt Emma. ‘Did you see?’

‘Yes, in the dining-room,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I saw her hat through the window.’

‘Curse!’ said Uncle Frederick.

‘The maids must have shown her in before they went up to change. I’m simply
not
going to see her. On Christmas day, too! I’ll just wait till she gets tired and goes or
till one of the maids comes down and can send her away!’

‘Shh!’ said Uncle Frederick. ‘She’ll hear you.’

Aunt Emma lowered her voice.

‘I don’t think she’s a lady,’ she said. ‘She didn’t look it through the window.’

‘Perhaps she’s collecting for something,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Well,’ said Aunt Emma sinking her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘if we stay in here and keep very quiet she’ll get tired of waiting and go.’

William was torn between an interested desire to be safely out of the way when the dénouement took place and a disinterested desire to witness the dénouement. The latter won and he
stood at the back of the group with a sphinx-like expression upon his freckled face . . .

They waited in silence for some minutes then Aunt Emma said: ‘Well, she’ll stay for ever it seems to me if someone doesn’t send her away. Frederick, go and turn her
out.’

They all crept into the hall. Uncle Frederick went just inside and coughed loudly. Annabel did not move. Uncle Frederick came back.

‘Deaf!’ he whispered. ‘Stone deaf! Someone else try.’

Ethel advanced boldly into the middle of the room. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said clearly and sweetly.

Annabel did not move. Ethel returned.

‘I think she must be asleep,’ said Ethel.

‘She looks drunk to me,’ said Aunt Emma, peeping round the door.

‘I shouldn’t wonder if she was dead,’ said Robert. ‘It’s just the sort of thing you read about in books. Mysterious dead body found in drawing-room. I bet I can
find a few clues to the murder if she is dead.’

‘Robert!
’ reproved Mrs Brown in a shrill whisper.

‘Perhaps you’d better fetch the police, Frederick,’ said Aunt Emma.

‘I’ll have one more try,’ said Uncle Frederick.

He entered the room.

‘Good afternoon,’ he bellowed.

Annabel did not move. He went up to her.

‘Now look here, my woman—’ he began, laying his hand on her shoulder . . .

Then the dénouement happened.

Mr Fairly burst into the house like a whirlwind still slightly inebriated and screaming with rage.

‘Where’s the thief? Where is he? He’s stolen my figure. He’s eaten my tea. I shall have to eat my supper for my tea and my breakfast for my supper . . . I shall be a meal
wrong always . . . I shall never get right. And it’s all his fault. Where is he? He’s stolen my charwoman’s clothes. He’s stolen my figure. He’s eaten my tea. Wait
till I get him!’ He caught sight of Annabel, rushed into the drawing-room, caught her up in his arms and turned round upon the circle of open-mouthed spectators. ‘I
hate
you!’ he screamed. ‘And your nasty little calendars and your nasty little boys! Stealing my figure and eating my tea . . . I’ll light the fire with your nasty little calendar.
I’d like to light the fire with your nasty little boy!’

With a final snort of fury he turned, still clasping Annabel in his arms, and staggered down the front steps. We akly, stricken and (for the moment) speechless, they watched his departure from
the top of the steps. He took to his heels as soon as he was in the road. But he was less fortunate than William. As he turned the corner and vanished from sight, already two policemen were in
pursuit. He was screaming defiance at them as he ran. Annabel’s head wobbled over his shoulder and her bonnet dangled by a string.

‘I’LL HAVE ONE MORE TRY,’ SAID UNCLE FREDERICK, AND ENTERED THE ROOM. ‘GOOD AFTERNOON,’ HE BELLOWED.

Then, no longer speechless, they turned on William.

‘I
told
you,’ said Robert to them when there was a slight lull in the storm. ‘You wouldn’t take any advice. If it wasn’t Christmas day I’d hang him
myself.’

‘But you won’t let me
speak
!’ said William plaintively. ‘Jus’ listen to me a minute. When I got to his house he said, he said mos’ distinct, he said,
“Please use this—”’

ANNABEL DID NOT MOVE.

‘William,’ interrupted Mrs Brown with dignity. ‘I don’t know what’s happened and I don’t
want
to know but I shall tell your father
all
about it
directly
we get home.’

Uncle Frederick saw them off at the station the next day.

‘Does your effort at truth continue today as well?’ he said to William.

‘I s’pose it’s Boxing Day too,’ said William. ‘He din’ mention Boxing Day. But I s’pose it counts with Christmas.’

‘I won’t ask you whether you’ve enjoyed yourself then,’ said Uncle Frederick. He slipped another half-crown into William’s hand. ‘Buy yourself something with
that. Your Aunt chose the Church History book and the instruments. I’m really grateful to you about— Well, I think Emma’s right. I don’t think she’ll ever come
again.’

The train steamed out. Uncle Frederick returned home. He had been too optimistic. Lady Atkinson was in the drawing-room talking to his wife.

‘Of course,’ she was saying, ‘I’m not annoyed. I bear no grudge because I believe the boy’s
possessed
! He ought to be ex – exercised . . . You know,
what you do with evil spirits.’

It was the evening of William’s return home. His father’s question as to whether William had been good had been answered as usual in the negative and, refusing to
listen to details of accusation or defence (ignoring William’s, ‘But he
said
mos’ distinct, he said, “Please use this—”’ and the rest of the
explanation always drowned by the others), he docked William of a month’s pocket money. But William was not depressed. The ordeal of Christmas was over. Normal life stretched before him once
more. His spirits rose. He wandered out into the lane. There he met Ginger, his bosom pal, with whom on normal days he fought and wrestled and carried out deeds of daring and wickedness, but who
(like William) on festivals and holy days was forced reluctantly to shed the light of his presence upon his own family. From Ginger’s face, too, a certain gloom cleared as he saw William.

‘Well,’ said William, ‘ ’v you enjoyed it?’

‘I had a pair of braces from my aunt,’ said Ginger bitterly. ‘A pair of
braces
!’

‘Well, I had a tie an’ a Church History book.’

‘I put my braces down the well.’

‘I chopped up my tie into little bits.’

‘Was it nice at your aunt’s?’

William’s grievances burst out.

‘I went to church an’ took what that man said an’ I’ve been speaking the truth one with another an’ leadin’ a higher life an’ well, it jolly well
din’t make it the happiest Christmas of my life what he said it would . . . It made it the worst. Every one mad at me all the time. I think I was the only person in the world speakin’
the truth one with another an’ they’ve took off my pocket money for it. An’ you’d think ’f you was speakin’ the truth yourself you might take what anyone else
said for truth an’ I keep tellin’ ’em that he said mos’ distinct, “Please use this house as if it were your own,” but they won’ listen to me! Well,
I’ve done with it. I’m goin’ back to deceit an’ – an’ – what’s a word beginnin’ with hyp—?’

‘Hypnotism?’ suggested Ginger after deep thought.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said William. ‘Well, I’m goin’ back to it first thing tomorrow mornin’.’

CHAPTER 10

W
illiam’s family was staying at the seaside for its summer holidays. This time was generally cordially detested by William. He hated being
dragged from his well-known haunts, his woods and fields and friends and dog (for Jumble was not the kind of dog one takes away on a holiday). He hated the uncongenial atmosphere of hotels and
boarding houses. He hated the dull promenades and the town gardens where walking over the grass and playing at Red Indians was discouraged. He failed utterly to understand the attraction that such
places seemed to possess for his family. He took a pride and pleasure in the expression of gloom and boredom that he generally managed to maintain during the whole length of the holiday. But this
time it was different. Ginger was staying with his family in the same hotel as William.