William in Trouble (5 page)

‘They may’ve all died of starvation ’cause there doesn’t seem much to
eat
round here,’ said William, who was feeling hungry.

‘Well, wun’t we have found their bones if they’d done that?’ said Douglas the practical.

‘Pity we didn’t meet any wild animals. We might’ve killed and eaten ’em,’ said Henry.

‘We ought t’ve brought supplies,’ said Douglas, ‘we’re miles off civilisation an’ we’ve got nothin’ to eat.’ He looked round. ‘I
s’pose,’ he went on, hovering between hope and despair, ‘no one
has
got anythin’ to eat?’

All searched their pockets. The only edible object was a stunted walnut that William found in his trouser pocket. They looked at it without interest.

‘It’ll be difficult to divide,’ said William thoughtfully.

‘Let’s keep it till we’re abs’lutely starvin’,’ said Ginger.

‘We may be eatin’ each other before we’ve finished,’ said Douglas gloomily.

This suggestion seemed to enliven them.

‘Drawin’ lots so as to be quite fair,’ stipulated Henry.

‘You’d have a job to catch
me
,’ prophesied William jauntily.

‘Let’s sit down an’ have a rest,’ said Henry.

They sat down and after a stone-throwing competition in which Ginger accidentally dealt himself a black eye, and William won, they began to consider the possibilities of the place.

‘I don’ feel like penetratin’ any further, do you?’ said Douglas.

‘We ought to’ve brought a Union Jack to plant it here,’ said Ginger, holding grass to his eye in the vague hope that it possessed medicinal properties. ‘They do, you
know. Jus’ to show that they’ve discovered it.’

‘We’ll bring one tomorrow,’ said Henry, ‘my sister’s got a little one.’

‘I say,’ said William, ‘it’s a fine place for Hide-an’-Seek. Let’s have a game. Who’ll be It?’

‘Ginger,’ suggested Henry unfeelingly, ‘’cause his eye’s almost closed up to start with.’

‘Anyone’d
think
,’ said Ginger bitterly, ‘that you weren’t sorry for me.’

‘I’m not,’ said Henry simply. ‘Why, people what explored Mount Everest got frozen toes an’ things. You ought to think yourself jolly
lucky
to have only a
black eye.’

‘Well, what about
you
? You’ve got nothin’.’

‘Yes, I’m luckier still,’ agreed Henry, still unfeelingly. ‘But
you
ought’ve brought along a bit of gas to stop you dyin’ of pain.’

As a combat seemed imminent, William intervened.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Ginger, count a hundred.’

Ginger closed his remaining eye and the others then scattered to hide.

After running a few minutes, William was disconcerted to find that he had reached a main road. It was the end of the wood. Doubts as to the unexplored nature of the land they
had just claimed assailed him, but he dismissed them as irrelevant. The immediate business was to find a good hiding place. They could discuss the other question afterwards. There was a motor-car
standing in the road, empty, unattended. It was a four-seater, but the back two seats were covered by a taut waterproof apron stretched from the back of the front seats to the back of the rear
seats.

William’s eyes gleamed. Crumbs! What a good hiding place.

He opened the door and slipped underneath the apron. He chuckled to himself. He was sure that no one would find him there. He waited gleefully—

Suddenly he heard voices. People were approaching the car. People were getting into the car. People were starting the car. He grew stiff with horror. He made an inarticulate sound of protest,
but it was drowned by the noise of the engine. He realised suddenly that the car was now moving rapidly down the road. Very cautiously he peeped out. Two ladies, both elderly, both prim, both
severe-looking, were in the front seats. They held large bunches of leaves and tiny bushes, evidently taken from the wood. One almost turned round, and at sight of her profile, William hastily
decided not to reveal his presence, and dived beneath the macintosh apron again. The car sped along. There was a sinking sensation at the pit of William’s stomach. How would his gallant
braves fare without him in the virgin forest, and where – where – oh, where was he going—?

The car turned into a gate – it slid into a garage. The two ladies got down. ‘I think the leaves are just what we wanted,’ said one.

‘Beautiful,’ said the other, ‘they will fulfil the purpose most admirably.’

They went out of the garage, still talking. William waited till the voices had died away in the distance, then very, very cautiously he climbed out of his hiding place. He was in a large garage.
He realised with a sinking of the heart that he was not, to put it at its mildest, a reassuring object. The virgin forest had left its marks upon him, it had clutched at his collar and coat and
hair with its thorn bushes. It had besmeared his face and clothes and knees and boots impartially with its bogs—

He crept out of the garage. It was a large garden and a large house. No, it didn’t look quite like an ordinary house. Its windows were uncurtained. Within sat many girls of all sizes, with
bobbed hair or plaits. Surprised and interested, he crept nearer.

A small woman wearing glasses stepped out of a French window and called him. ‘Here, boy!’ she said imperiously.

William was uncertain whether to obey or whether to turn and flee. But a small girl with a dimpled face and dark curly hair looked out of the window and smiled at him, and William obeyed.

He entered a class-room with a dais at one end. A large number of girls sat about the room at easels. The lady with spectacles took William by his ear and led him up the room.

‘The little model I had arranged for is unable to come, girls,’ she said, ‘so I am going to ask you to draw the gardener’s boy.’

‘It must be a new gardener’s boy,’ said a tall thin girl, with interest. ‘I’ve not seen him before.’

‘Don’t talk, Gladys,’ said the mistress reprovingly; ‘the point is not whether he is a new or old gardener’s boy. The point is that you are to draw him. Sit down,
boy.’

William, who had already picked out the dimpled dark little girl by the window, sat down quite meekly.

A girl in the front row gave a shudder.

‘Isn’t he
dirty
?’ she said.

‘Never mind,’ said the mistress, ‘I want you to draw him as he is – just an ugly, dirty little boy.’

She had apparently looked upon William as something as inanimate as a plaster cast, but the ferocious glare which he now turned on her informed her that he was not. She looked slightly
disconcerted.

‘Er – try to look a little more pleasant, boy,’ she said faintly.

‘I do hate having to draw
ugly
things,’ said the girl in the front row with another shudder.

A look of apoplectic fury overspread William’s face. He opened his mouth for an indignant rejoinder. But before it emerged the little girl at the window with the dimples and dark curls
said, ‘
I
don’t think he’s ugly.’

William’s expression of fury turned into a sheepish smirk.

‘Don’t talk about him, children,’ said the lady. ‘
Draw
him.’

They worked in silence. William looked about him. The frowning critical appraising glare of sixteen girls did not embarrass him at all. Only when he caught the eye of the little girl with the
dimples did a dark blush over-spread his earth-bedecked countenance.

‘I think I’ve got his
ugliness
all right,’ said a short, snub-nosed girl earnestly, ‘but I can’t quite get his
cross
look.’

‘Let me look, dear,’ said the mistress.

She took the sketch and examined it, standing accidentally in William’s line of vision. William craned his neck and looked with interest at his portrait. Then his interest changed again to
that intensity of fury that William’s countenance could so ably convey. Certainly the sketch suggested a gorilla rather than a human being.

‘Y-yes,’ said the mistress doubtfully, ‘you’ve caught a certain likeness—’

William opened his mouth again indignantly, when the girl by the window said suddenly, ‘
I
don’t think he looks cross.’

William closed his mouth and his ferocity softened once more into a sheepish grin.

‘He keeps looking
diff’rent
,’ complained a girl in the back row.

‘Stay the same, boy,’ ordered the mistress imperiously.

At that minute a bell rang and there was a stampede of girls out of the doorway.

‘Gently, girls,’ said the mistress, preparing to follow them. ‘Boy, stay and straighten up the room and put the easels away.’

William stayed behind, and to his joy discovered that the little girl with the dimples and dark curls was staying behind too. She remained at her easel gazing out of the window. William began to
move easels about without any definite plan of campaign.

‘I’m not the gardener’s boy,’ he said to the little girl.

She did not answer.

‘I’m an explorer.’

She made no comment.

‘I’ve explored places where no white man ever set his feet before.’

Still no answer.

‘Runnin’ terrible risks from starvation an’ wild animals.’

Still no answer.

William picked up a sketch of himself from the floor, looked at it, blinked and swallowed, then screwed it into a vicious ball and flung it into the waste-paper basket.

‘I’VE EXPLORED PLACES WHERE NO WHITE MAN EVER SET HIS FEET BEFORE,’ SAID WILLIAM

‘I once had all my teeth out without gas,’ he went on, with deliberate untruthfulness, but with a vague desire to restore his self-respect.

Still no answer.

‘I’m here disguised on a secret mission,’ he went on darkly.

Suddenly the little girl put down her head on her arms and began to cry.

‘Oh, don’t,’ said William greatly distressed. ‘What’s the matter? Have you got toothache?’

‘No – o!’

‘Has anyone been unkind to you?’

‘No – o – o – o!’

‘Tell me if they have,’ he went on threateningly. ‘I’ll kill ’em for you. I don’ mind how many people I kill. I’ve been where no white man
ever—’

‘I’m homesick,’ wailed the little girl. ‘I want to go ho-o-o-o-ome.’

‘Well – well, you
go
home then,’ counselled William encouragingly, almost tenderly, ‘you
go
home. I’ll – I’ll
take
you
home.’

‘I c-c-can’t.’

‘Why not?’

She dried her eyes.

‘Well, I’m in a play we’re doing this afternoon, and if I don’t turn up for it they’ll know something’s happened, and they’ll c-c-catch me before I get
to the station, and bring me b-b-b-back!’

‘No, they
won’t
,’ said William. ‘I-I’ll help you. I tell you, no one’ll ever dare stop me. I’ve been where no white man ever set his feet
’n I’ve had my leg cut off without gas an—’

‘Yes,’ said the little girl quite unimpressed, ‘but don’t you see I can’t go at once ’cause I’ve not had dinner yet, an’ I’m hungry,
an’ if I ran away after dinner they’ll find out at once and c-c-c-catch me.’

She burst into sobs again.

‘No, don’t,’ said William desperately. ‘Don’t cry. It’s all right. I’ll take care of you. I – I say,’ the light of inspiration shone
suddenly in his face, ‘I’ll take your part in the play an’ then they’ll never know you’ve gone an’ you’ll get home all right.’

She stopped crying and gazed at him, then the hope died from her face and she burst into a wail.

‘B-b-but you don’t look like a fa-a-a-airy,’ she sobbed.

‘I could
make
myself look like one,’ said William grimly. ‘I bet I could—Look – look at me now.’

He gazed into the distance, his features composed into a simper that suggested to an impartial observer a mixture of coyness and imbecility.

‘Oh, no-o-o-o!’ she wailed. ‘It doesn’t—Oh,
don’t
!’

Disappointed, William dismissed the expression which had been meant to represent the faëry for which in his heart he had such a profound contempt.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘if it looks wrong, can’t I cover my face or somethin’?’

Her tears ceased. Her eyes shone. She clasped her hands.

‘Oh, I
forgot!
’ she said, ‘there’s a veil. They won’t see your face. Oh, you are a
nice
boy. Will you
really
do it? Listen, I’ll tell you
just
what to do. I’m Fairy Daffodil – I’ll get you the clothes in a second. There’s a cap of daffodil petals, and a veil that comes down from them over your face, so
that’s
all right. And you have to hide behind the green bank at the side of the stage behind a lot of green stuff and leaves. Miss Pink and Miss Grace went into the woods in the car
this morning, to get the green stuff and leaves. You go there early, about two, and then when the others come they’ll be so busy getting ready that they won’t bother you. I’ll
leave you a book, and you can pretend to be reading, and when it begins you wait there till someone calls, “Fairy Daffodil,” and then you come out and bow and say, “Here am I
– speak, Queen.” And when that bit’s over you just sit down on the stool by the side of the queen’s throne and you don’t speak again. It’s quite easy. Oh, it is
kind
of you, dear boy.’