William in Trouble (14 page)

‘Well, that’s a nice way to carry on,’ said Ginger indignantly, ‘when we were jus’ tryin’ to make him comfortable.’

‘He prob’ly thought we
meant
him to eat ’em,’ explained William, ever loyal to his pets. ‘I think it’s jolly clever of him.’

‘Well, there’s only Rameses left,’ said Douglas.

Rameses was quite awake by now. He was quietly swearing and tearing at his basket-work.

‘He’ll have to go back home,’ said Ginger, ‘they’d miss him an’ he’d have the whole place down before morning ’f we kept him here – I say, I
believe I heard someone moving—’

They listened. Someone was moving. Someone was opening the kitchen door and coming down the hall.

Like lightning the Outlaws streaked out of the window, and, still carrying Rameses in his basket, disappeared in the distance.

It was the next morning. Joan had returned – more adorable than ever. The Outlaws had assembled at her back gate in a little sheepish crowd to wait till she came out.
They had intended to pay her a state call and ring boldly at the front-door bell, but their courage had failed them, their swagger had dropped from them, and instead they hung sheepishly about her
back gate, casting furtive glances at her window and pretending a sudden violent interest in the hedge and the ditch at that point of the road. But Joan saw them and ran out to them at once with no
pretence of indifference, with none of that quality known to the Outlaws and their contemporaries as ‘swank.’

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed with shining eyes, ‘how
lovely
to see you all again!’

William swallowed and blinked. He had always suspected Joan of being the supreme product of her sex and now he was sure of it.

‘What you doin’ this afternoon?’ he said, with an attempt at his old superior nonchalance.

‘I’m going out to tea,’ said Joan. ‘Oh, but it
is
so nice to see you all again.’

‘We’d got a sort of show for you, that’s all,’ said William indifferently, ‘but’s all right if you’re goin’ out to tea.’

Joan clasped her hands. ‘Oh, of
course
I’ll come, William. Of
course
I’ll come. I won’t go out to tea. I jus’ simply won’t. And how
nice
of you to do it. And how
nice
of you to come round here to see me.’

William slashed carelessly at the grass around him with his ash switch (William always carried an ash switch for the purpose of slashing at the grass and fences and hedges around him).

‘Oh, we jus’ happened to be passing,’ he said with elaborate unconcern. ‘You – you’ll come then?’

‘Oh,
yes
, William – what time?’

‘’Bout three. We’ll fetch you.’

‘HOW LOVELY TO SEE YOU ALL AGAIN!’ EXCLAIMED JOAN.

‘Oh, William, how
lovely.
’

So
that
was all right.

The Outlaws approached Rose Mount School stealthily in single file. They wanted to spy out first the movements and position of their enemy, the caretaker, and to make sure that
the properties and artistes were as they had left them. They peeped cautiously through the kitchen window. The kitchen was empty. So far, so good. They went round to the other side of the house.
And there they received their first shock. The drawing-room, so gloriously empty last night, was full now of females standing about and talking excitedly in groups. One of them caught sight of the
Outlaws, flung up the window and called:

‘Go away, boys, at once! Do you hear? Shoo! Go away at once or I’ll send for the police.’

The Outlaws, speechless with astonishment and dismay, faded into the bushes.

‘Well!’ said Ginger eloquently.

‘Crumbs!’ said William.

‘My eye!’ said Douglas.

‘Where’ve they come from?’ said Henry.

‘Let’s try the other side,’ said William recovering from his stupor of astonishment.

They tried the other side. The Library also seemed bewilderingly full of females. Ginger, venturing incautiously near the window, his eyes agog with amazement and horror, was spied by one of
them. She strode to the window and flung it open.

‘Go away at once, you naughty little boys,’ she said. ‘Don’t you know that this is private property? Go away at once, I say!’

Again the Outlaws faded into the bushes.

‘
Well
,’ said Douglas, ‘what we goin’ to do now—’

‘An’ my father’s hat’s there,’ said Ginger.

‘An’ my sister’s monkey’s there,’ said Henry.

‘An’ what we goin’ to do for this afternoon?’

‘An’ who
are
they?’

‘Well, we’ve gotta do
somethin
’,’ said William firmly.

‘All right. S’pose you go an’ ring at the front door an’ ask for our things,’ said Ginger.

‘Yes, an’ s’pose
you
do,’ said William.

‘Well, I’m not afraid.’

‘An’
I’m
not afraid.’

‘All right, go then.’

‘All right, I will,’ said William. ‘I’ll go now. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of anyone in the whole world.’

Determined to justify this summary of his character, the intrepid hero emerged from the bushes and walked up to the front door. He rang the bell with unnecessary violence in order to demonstrate
to all within that he wasn’t afraid of anyone in the whole world. A small fat female in horn-rimmed spectacles came to the door.

‘What do you want, boy?’ she said severely.

‘Please,’ said William hoarsely, with a mixture of defiance and humility in his bearing (defiance to prove that he feared no foe in horn-rimmed spectacles or anything else, and
humility to propitiate the severity which shone from the lady’s every feature). ‘Please can we jus’ come in an’ fetch a few things—’

‘Go away at once,’ said the lady angrily. ‘You’re the little boys I saw hanging round here a few minutes ago. And if you don’t go away at
once
, I’ll
send for the police.’

‘Please,’ said William, dropping his defiance and becoming abjectly humble, ‘please, there’s jus’ a few of our things here—’

‘There are
none
of your things here, you naughty little boy! How
dare
you tell such stories. I’ll ring up for the police this
instant
if you
don’t—’

William faded again into the bushes.

‘’S no good,’ he said despondently to his companions, ‘they won’t let us in.’

‘Yes, an’ what about my aunt’s parrot,’ said Douglas indignantly, ‘starvin’ to death in the cellar. An’ I specks they’ve found out he’s gone
now at my aunt’s an’ they’ll be makin’ no end of a fuss. An’ there he’ll be for months an’ months starvin’ to death.’

‘Yes, an’ what about my father’s hat?’ said Ginger, ‘an’ he’s goin’ to a wedding next week.’

‘And what about Monk?’ said Henry, ‘she’d forgot him jus’ at first, but she was lookin’ round for some-thin’ when I came out an’ I bet it was
Monk. Well, an’ if he has to stay here for months an’ months there’ll be a nice fuss.’

‘Let’s try the kitchen window,’ said Douglas. ‘There wasn’t anyone in the kitchen when we came in an’ I bet we can get down into the cellar from the
kitchen.’

This suggestion was considered and approved of, and Douglas, as the author of it, was entrusted with the delicate mission of scouting in the region of the kitchen to make sure that the coast was
clear. He departed with an ostentatious elaboration of secrecy that would have done credit to a cinema villain.

He returned looking crestfallen.

‘I say,’ he said in an awed whisper, ‘the kitchen’s full of ’em now. They’re messin’ about with eggs an’ cookery books an’
things.’

Blank dejection descended upon the Outlaws.

‘Well,’ said Douglas pathetically, ‘jus’
think
of my poor ole parrot starvin’ to death in a dark cellar.’

‘Oh, do shut up about your ole parrot. It’d got enough stuff to keep it alive for years an’ years. What about my father’s hat an’ Henry’s sister’s Monk?
I bet we’ll catch it hotter from our fathers than you will from an ole aunt.’

This suggestion of inferiority of retribution touched Douglas’s honour to the quick.

‘I bet you won’t, then,’ he said indignantly, ‘’cause she’ll tell my father an’ I bet I’ll get it’s hot as
anyone.
’

‘I say –
look
!’ said Ginger excitedly.

He was peering over the bushes towards a little rose garden that lay secluded in the grounds of Rose Mount School. In it stood a lady of uncertain years, leaning against a sundial, obviously
engaged in trying to decipher the inscription.

‘I say,’ whispered William, ‘she looks – she looks sort of soft. I vote someone goes an’ talks to her an’ tries to find out how long they’ll all be
here.’

It was decided that Ginger should do this. Ginger, though of villainous appearance, was supposed by his contemporaries to have a winning way with members of the fair sex.

So Ginger, assuming an ingratiating smile and watched closely by his friends through the bushes, approached the lady by the sundial.

‘G’mornin’,’ he said, raising his cap with a flourish.

It was easier to raise his hat with a flourish than to replace it with a flourish. As a result of innumerable wettings his cap had shrunk to about half the size of the lining and so sat unevenly
upon his bullet head.

‘Good morning,’ said the lady quite pleasantly.

Ginger’s spirits rose. Evidently life had not yet inspired her with that dislike of small boys with which it seemed to have inspired the majority of her sex.

‘Please,’ continued Ginger with nauseating but well-meaning politeness, ‘could you tell me, tell me – er – what all these people’s doin’
here?’

‘It’s a retreat, little boy,’ said the lady kindly.

Ginger brightened.

‘A retreat?’ he said. ‘Why, is there a war goin’ on somewhere?’

‘No, dear,’ explained the lady still kindly. ‘We’re the Society for the Study of Psychical Philosophy.’

‘Oh,’ said Ginger.

‘And we’re meeting here for a course of lectures and discussions. We’re going to do
everything
ourselves. We’ve sent the caretaker home because the spirits have
told us that it is degrading to ask any other human being to perform personal service for another. Tolstoy, of course, held the same tenets, did he not?’

‘Uh,’ said Ginger blankly. Then, after a slight pause, ‘You goin’ to be here long?’

‘For some weeks, we hope. You learn Latin, little boy, do you not? I wonder if you can translate this motto for me.’

But Ginger had disappeared. He was returning with his gloomy tidings to his friends.

‘
Weeks!
’ gasped Douglas. ‘An’ the poor ole parrot down there in the cellar starvin’ to death.’

‘An’ my father goin’ to a wedding next week,’ groaned Ginger.

‘An’ they’ll be
sure
to blame me for Monk,’ said Henry. ‘They blame me for
everything.
’

But again Ginger’s watchful eye had spied something.

‘Look,’ he said in an awed voice, ‘they’re all goin’ into that room an’ sitting down. One of ’em’s goin’ to make a speech.’

Impelled by curiosity the Outlaws drew near the window. The window was open. They crouched beneath it and listened. A very tall female dressed in a green sweater began to speak.

THE OUTLAWS CROUCHED BENEATH THE WINDOW AND LISTENED.

‘Friends,’ she said, ‘I have summoned this meeting for a very special – a very serious – reason. We have agreed that no useful work can be done in a house where the
spirits of the house are unfriendly to us. Friends,’ she made a dramatic pause, ‘the spirits of this house are unfriendly to us. It is with deep grief hut not without due consideration
that I say it. The spirits of this house are unfriendly to us. We all know what valuable psychic powers Mrs Heron possesses. Mrs Heron’s psychic powers have been of the greatest assistance to
us in our researches. Mrs Heron says that never has she had so clear, so unmistakable a revelation as she had last night. Mrs Heron will describe it to you herself.’