Just William (11 page)

‘What’s that?’ asked the audience breathlessly.

William was slightly uneasy. He was not sure whether this fresh development would add lustre or dishonour to his show.

‘Yes,’ he said darkly to gain time, ‘what is it? I guess you’d like to know what it is!’

‘Garn! It’s jus’ snorin’.’

‘Snorin’!’ repeated William. ‘It’s not ornery snorin’, that isn’t. Jus’ listen, that’s all! You couldn’t snore like that, I bet.
Huh!’

They listened spellbound to the gentle sound, growing louder and louder till at its loudest it brought rapt smiles to their faces, then ceasing abruptly, then silence. Then again the gentle
sound that grew and grew.

William asked Henry in a stage whisper if they oughtn’t to charge extra for listening to it. The audience hastily explained that they weren’t listening, they ‘jus’
couldn’t help hearin’.’

A second batch of sightseers had arrived and were paying their entrance pennies, but the first batch refused to move. William, emboldened by success, opened the door and they crept out to the
landing and listened with ears pressed to the magic door.

Henry now did the honours of showman. William stood, majestic in his glorious apparel, deep in thought. Then to his face came the faint smile that inspiration brings to her votaries. He ordered
the audience back into the showroom and shut the door. Then he took off his shoes and softly and with bated breath opened Aunt Emily’s door and peeped within. It was rather a close afternoon,
and she lay on her bed on the top of her eiderdown. She had slipped off her dress skirt so as not to crush it, and she lay in her immense stature in a blouse and striped petticoat, while from her
open mouth issued the fascinating sounds. In sleep Aunt Emily was not beautiful.

William thoughtfully propped up a cushion in the doorway and stood considering the situation.

In a few minutes the showroom was filled with a silent, expectant crowd. In a corner near the door was a new notice:

William, after administering the oath of silence to a select party in his most impressive manner, led them shoeless and on tiptoe to the next room.

From Aunt Emily’s bed hung another notice:

They stood in a hushed, delighted group around her bed. The sounds never ceased, never abated. William only allowed them two minutes in the room. They came out reluctantly, paid
more money, joined the end of the queue and re-entered. More and more children came to see the show, but the show now consisted solely in Aunt Emily.

The China rat had licked off all its stripes; Smuts was fast asleep; Ginger was sitting down on the seat of a chair and Douglas was on the back of it, and Ginger had insisted at last on air and
sight and had put his head out where the two sheets joined; the Russian Bear had fallen on to the floor and no one had picked it up; Chips lay in a disconsolate heap, a victim of acute melancholia
– and no one cared for any of these things. Newcomers passed by them hurriedly and stood shoeless in the queue outside Aunt Emily’s room eagerly awaiting their turn. Those who came out
simply went to the end again to wait another turn. Many returned home for more money, for Aunt Emily was 1d extra and each visit after the first, ½d
.
The Sunday School bell pealed
forth its summons, but no one left the show. The vicar was depressed that evening. The attendance at Sunday School had been the worst on record. And still Aunt Emily slept and snored with a rapt,
silent crowd around her. But William could never rest content. He possessed ambition that would have put many of his elders to shame. He cleared the room and reopened it after a few minutes, during
which his clients waited in breathless suspense.

When they re-entered there was a fresh exhibit. William’s keen eye had been searching out each detail of the room. On the table by her bed now stood a glass containing teeth, that William
had discovered on the washstand, and a switch of hair and a toothless comb, that William had discovered on the dressing-table. These all bore notices:

Were it not that the slightest noise meant instant expulsion from the show (some of their number had already suffered that bitter fate) there would have been no restraining the
audience. As it was, they crept in, silent, expectant, thrilled to watch and listen for the blissful two minutes. And Aunt Emily never failed them. Still she slept and snored. They borrowed money
recklessly from each other. The poor sold their dearest treasures to the rich, and still they came again and again. And still Aunt Emily slept and snored. It would be interesting to know how long
this would have gone on, had she not, on the top note of a peal that was a pure delight to her audience, awakened with a start and glanced around her. At first she thought that the cluster of small
boys around her was a dream, especially as they turned and fled precipitately at once. Then she sat up and her eyes fell upon the table by her bed, the notices, and finally upon the petrified
horror-stricken showman. She sprang up and, seizing him by the shoulders, shook him till his teeth chattered, the tinsel crown fell down, encircling ears and nose, and one of his moustaches fell
limply at his feet.

‘You wicked boy!’ she said as she shook him. ‘You
wicked, wicked, wicked
boy!’

He escaped from her grasp and fled to the showroom, where, in sheer self-defence, he moved a table and three chairs across the door. The room was empty except for Henry, the blue dog, and the
still sleeping Smuts. All that was left of the giant was the crumpled sheets. Douglas had, with an awestricken ‘By Jove!’ snatched up his rat as he fled. The last of their clients was
seen scrambling along the top of the garden wall on all fours with all possible speed.

Mechanically William straightened his crown.

‘She’s woke,’ he said. ‘She’s mad wild.’

He listened apprehensively for angry footsteps descending the stairs and his father’s dread summons, but none came. Aunt Emily could be heard moving about in her room, but that was all. A
wild hope came to him that, given a little time, she might forget the incident.

‘Let’s count the money—’ said Henry at last.

They counted.

‘Four an’ six!’ screamed William. ‘Four an’ six! Jolly good, I
should
say! An’ it would only have been about two shillings without Aunt Emily,
an’ I thought of her, didn’t I? I guess you can all be jolly grateful to me.’

All right,’ said Henry unkindly. ‘I’m not envying you, am I? You’re welcome to it when she tells your father.’

And William’s proud spirits dropped.

Then came the opening of the fateful door and heavy steps descending the stairs.

William’s mother had returned from her weekly visit to her friend. She was placing her umbrella in the stand as Aunt Emily, hatted and coated and carrying a bag, descended. William’s
father had just awakened from his peaceful Sunday afternoon slumber, and, hearing his wife, had come into the hall.

Aunt Emily fixed her eye upon him.

‘Will you be good enough to procure a conveyance?’ she said. After the indignities to which I have been subjected in this house I refuse to remain in it a moment longer.’

Quivering with indignation she gave details of the indignities to which she had been subjected. William’s mother pleaded, apologised, coaxed. William’s father went quietly out to
procure a conveyance. When he returned she was still talking in the hall.

‘A crowd of vulgar little boys,’ she was saying, ‘and horrible indecent placards all over the room.’

He carried her bag down to the cab.

‘And me in my state of health,’ she said as she followed him. From the cab she gave her parting shot.

And if this horrible thing hadn’t happened, I might have stayed with you all the winter and perhaps part of the spring.’

William’s father wiped his brow with his handkerchief as the cab drove off.

‘How dreadful!’ said his wife, but she avoided meeting his eye. ‘It’s – it’s
disgraceful
of William,’ she went on with sudden spirit. ‘You
must speak to him.’

‘I will,’ said his father determinedly. ‘William!’ he shouted sternly from the hall.

William’s heart sank.

‘She’s told,’ he murmured, his last hope gone.

‘You’d better go and get it over,’ advised Henry.

‘William!’ repeated the voice still more fiercely.

Henry moved nearer the window, prepared for instant flight if the voice’s owner should follow it up the stairs.

‘Go on,’ he urged. ‘He’ll only come up for you.’

William slowly removed the barricade and descended the stairs. He had remembered to take off the crown and dressing gown, but his one-sided moustache still hung limply over his mouth.

His father was standing in the hall.

‘What’s that horrible thing on your face?’ he began.

‘Whiskers,’ answered William laconically.

His father accepted the explanation.

‘Is it true,’ he went on, ‘that you actually took your friends into your aunt’s room without permission and hung vulgar placards around it?’

William glanced up into his father’s face and suddenly took hope. Mr Brown was no actor.

‘Yes,’ he admitted.

‘It’s disgraceful,’ said Mr Brown, ‘
disgraceful!
That’s all.’

But it was not quite all. Something hard and round slipped into William’s hand. He ran lightly upstairs.

‘Hello!’ said Henry, surprised. ‘That’s not taken long. What—’

William opened his hand and showed something that shone upon his extended palm.

‘Look!’ he said. ‘Crumbs! Look!’ It was a bright half-crown.

CHAPTER 6

I
t was raining. It had been raining all morning. William was intensely bored with his family.

‘What can I do?’ he demanded of his father for the tenth time.

‘
Nothing!
’ said his father fiercely from behind his newspaper.

William followed his mother into the kitchen.

‘What can I do?’ he said plaintively.

‘Couldn’t you just sit quietly?’ suggested his mother.

‘That’s not
doin’
anything,’ William said. ‘I
could
sit quietly all day,’ he went on aggressively, ‘if I wanted.’

‘But you never do.’

‘No, ’cause there wouldn’t be any
sense
in it, would there?’

‘Couldn’t you read or draw or something?’

‘No, that’s lessons. That’s not doin’ anything!’

‘I could teach you to knit if you like.’

With one crushing glance William left her.

He went to the drawing-room, where his sister Ethel was knitting a jumper and talking to a friend.

‘And I heard her say to him—’ she was saying. She broke off with the sigh of a patient martyr as William came in. He sat down and glared at her. She exchanged a glance of
resigned exasperation with her friend.

‘What are you doing, William?’ said the friend sweetly.

‘Nothin’,’ said William with a scowl.

‘Shut the door after you when you go out, won’t you, William?’ said Ethel equally sweetly.

William at that insult rose with dignity and went to the door. At the door he turned.

‘I wun’t stay here now,’ he said with slow contempt, ‘not even if – even if – even if,’ he paused to consider the most remote contingency, ‘not
even if you wanted me,’ he said at last emphatically.