William the Fourth (21 page)

‘Here are some pamphlets that we should take round with us . . .’

He spread them out on the table. William was interested. He could not see them properly from where he was. He leant forward through his frame. He could just see the words, ‘Peace and
Prosperity . . .’ He leant forward further. He leant forward too far. Accidentally attaching his frame round his neck on his way he descended heavily from the hatch. There was only one thing
to do to soften his fall. He did it. He clutched at his uncle’s neck as he descended. A confused medley consisting of William, his uncle, the frame and his uncle’s chair rolled to the
floor where they continued to struggle wildly.

‘Oh, my
goodness,’
squealed the young man with the large nose hysterically.

Somehow in the melee that ensued, William managed to preserve his frame. He arrived home breathless and dishevelled but still carrying his frame. He was beginning to experience a feeling almost
akin to affection for this companion in adversity

‘What’s the matter?’ said William’s father sternly ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Me?’ said William in a voice of astonishment. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, you,’ said his father. ‘You come in here like a tornado, half dressed, with your hair like a neglected lawn—’

William hastily smoothed back his halo of stubby hair and fastened his collar.

‘Oh,
that,’
he said lightly. ‘I’ve only jus’ been out – walking an’ things.’

Mrs Brown looked up from her darning.

‘I think you’d better go and brush your hair and wash your face and put on a clean collar, William,’ she suggested mildly

‘Yes, Mother,’ agreed William without enthusiasm. ‘Father, did you know that the Lib’rals are goin’ to make bread an’ everything cheaper an’ –
an’ prosperity an’ all that?’

‘I did not,’ said Mr Brown dryly from behind his paper.

‘I’d give it a good brushing,’ said his wife.

‘If there weren’t no ole rackshunary Conservy here,’ said William, ‘I s’pose there wouldn’t be no reason why the Lib’ral shouldn’t get
in?’

‘As far as I can disentangle your negatives,’ said Mr Brown, ‘your supposition is correct.’

‘I simply can’t
think
why it always stands up so straight,’ said Mrs Brown plaintively

‘Well, then, why don’t they
stop
’em?’ said William indignantly. ‘Why do they
let
the old Conservies come in an’ spoil things an’ keep
bread up – why don’t they
stop
’em – why—’

Mr Brown uttered a hollow groan.

‘William,’ he said grimly. ‘Go – and – brush – your – hair.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’m jus’ goin’.’

Mr Cheytor, the Conservative candidate, had addressed a crowded meeting and was returning wearily to his home.

He opened the door with his latchkey and put out the hall light. The maids had gone to bed. Then he went upstairs to his bedroom. He opened the door. From behind the door rushed a small
whirlwind. A rough bulletlike head charged him in the region of his abdomen. Mr Cheytor sat down suddenly. A strange figure dressed in pyjamas, and over those a dressing-gown, and over that an
overcoat, stood sternly in front of him.

‘You’ve gotter
stop
it,’ said an indignant voice. ‘You’ve gotter stop it an’ let the Lib’rals get in – you’ve gotter
stop—’

Mr Cheytor stood up and squared at William. William, who fancied himself as a boxer, flew to the attack. The Conservative candidate was evidently a boxer of no mean ability, but he lowered his
form to suit William’s. He parried William’s wild onsets, he occasionally got a very gentle one in on William. They moved rapidly about the room, in a silence broken only by
William’s snortings. Finally Mr Cheytor fell over the hearthrug and William fell over Mr Cheytor. They sat up on the floor in front of the fire and looked at each other.

‘Now,’ said Mr Cheytor soothingly. ‘Let’s talk about it. What’s it all about?’

‘They’re goin’ to make bread cheaper – the Lib’rals are,’ panted William, ‘an’ you’re tryin’ to stoppem an’
you—’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Cheytor, ‘but we’re going to make it cheaper, too.’

William gasped.

‘You?’ he said. ‘The Rackshunaries? But – if you’re both tryin’ to make bread cheaper why’re you fightin’ each other?’

‘You know,’ said Mr Cheytor, ‘I wouldn’t bother about politics if I were you. They’re very confusing mentally. Suppose you tell me how you got here.’

‘I got out of my window and climbed along our wall to the road,’ said William simply, ‘and then I got on to your wall and climbed along it into your window’

‘Now you’re here,’ said Mr Cheytor, ‘we may as well celebrate. Do you like roasted chestnuts?’

‘Um-m-m-m-m-m,’ said William.

‘Well, I’ve got a bag of chestnuts downstairs – we can roast them at the fire. I’ll get them. By the way, suppose your people find you’ve gone?’

‘My uncle may’ve come to see my father by now, so I don’t mind not being at home jus’ now’

Mr Cheytor accepted this explanation.

‘I’ll go down for the chestnuts then,’ he said.

Fortune was kind to William. His uncle was very busy and thought he would put off the laying of his complaint before William’s father till the next week. The next week he
was still more busy. Encountering William unexpectedly in the street he was struck by William’s (hastily assumed) expression of wistful sadness, and decided that the whole thing may have been
a misunderstanding. So the complaint was never laid.

Moreover, no one had discovered William’s absence from his bedroom. William came down to breakfast the next day with a distinct feeling of fear, but one glance at his preoccupied family
relieved him. He sat down at his place with that air of meekness which in him always betrayed an uneasy conscience. His father looked up.

‘Good morning, William,’ he said. ‘Care to see the paper this morning? I suppose with your new zeal for politics—’

‘Oh, politics!’ said William contemptuously. ‘I’ve given ’em up. They’re so – so,’ frowning he searched in his memory for the phrase,
‘They’re so – confusing ment’ly’

His father looked at him.

‘Your vocabulary is improving,’ he said.

‘You mean my hair?’ said William with a gloomy smile. ‘Mother’s been scrubbin’ it back with water same as what she said.’

William walked along the village street with Ginger. Their progress was slow. They stopped in front of each shop window and subjected the contents to a long and careful scrutiny.

‘There’s nothin’
there
I’d buy ’f I’d got a thousand pounds.’

‘Oh, isn’t there? Well, I jus’ wonder. How much ’ve you got, anyway?’

‘Nothin’. How much have you?’

‘Nothin’.’

‘Well,’ said William, continuing a discussion which their inspection of the General Stores had interrupted, ‘I’d rather be a Pirate than a Red Indian –
sailin’ the seas an’ finding hidden treasure—’

‘I don’t quite see,’ said Ginger with heavy sarcasm, ‘what’s to prevent a Red Indian finding hidden treasure if there’s any to find.’

‘Well,’ said William heatedly, ‘you show me a single tale where a Red Indian finds a hidden treasure. That’s all I ask you to do. Jus’ show me a
single
tale
where a—’

‘We’re not talkin’ about tales. There’s things that happen outside tales. I suppose everything in the world that can happen isn’t in tales. ’Sides, think of
the war-whoops. A Pirate’s not got a war-whoop.’

‘Well, if you think—’

They stopped to examine the contents of the next shop window. It was a second-hand shop. In the window was a medley of old iron, old books, broken photograph frames and dirty china.

‘An’ there’s nothin’
there
I’d wanter buy if I’d got a thousand pounds,’ said William sternly. ‘It makes me almost glad I’ve
got
no money. It mus’ be mad’ning to have a lot of money an’ never see anything in a shop window you’d want to buy’

Suddenly Ginger pointed excitedly to a small card propped up in a corner of the window, ‘Objects purchased for Cash.’

‘William,’ gasped Ginger. ‘The frame!’

A look of set purpose came into William’s freckled face. ‘You stay here,’ he whispered quickly, ‘an’ see they don’t take that card out of the window,
an’ I’ll fetch the frame.’

Panting, he reappeared with the frame a few minutes later. Ginger’s presence had evidently prevented the disappearance of the card. An old man with a bald head and two pairs of spectacles
examined the frame in silence, and in silence handed William half a crown. William and Ginger staggered out of the shop.

‘Half a crown!’ gasped William excitedly. ‘Crumbs!’

‘I hope,’ said Ginger, ‘you’ll remember who suggested you buying that frame.’

‘An’ I
hope,’
said William, ‘that you’ll remember whose sixpence bought it.’

This verbal fencing was merely a form. It was a matter of course that William should share his half a crown with Ginger. The next shop was a pastry-cook’s. It was the type of
pastry-cook’s that William’s mother would have designated as ‘common’. On a large dish in the middle of the window was a pile of sickly-looking yellow pastries full of
sickly-looking yellow butter cream. William pressed his nose against the glass and his eyes widened.

‘I say’ he said, ‘only a penny each. Come on in.’

They sat at a small marble-topped table, between them a heaped plate of the nightmare pastries, and ate in silent enjoyment. The plate slowly emptied. William ordered more. As he finished his
sixth he looked up. His uncle was passing the window talking excitedly to Mr Morrisse’s agent. Across the street a man was pasting up a poster, ‘Vote for Cheytor’. William
regarded both with equal contempt. He took up his seventh penny horror and bit it rapturously.

‘Fancy’ he said scornfully ‘fancy people worryin’ about what
bread
costs.’

CHAPTER 13

WILLIAM MAKES A NIGHT OF IT

W
illiam had disliked Mr Bennison from the moment he appeared, although Mr Bennison treated him with most conscientious kindness. William disliked
the way Mr Bennison’s hair grew and the way his teeth grew and the way his ears grew, and he disliked most of all his agreeable manner to William himself. He was not used to agreeable manners
from adults, and he distrusted them.

Mr Bennison was a bachelor and wrote books on the training of children. He believed that children should be led, not driven, that their little hearts should be won by kindness, that their
innocent curiosity should always be promptly satisfied. He believed that children trailed clouds of glory. He knew very few. He certainly did not know William.

Mr Bennison had met Ethel, William’s sister, while she was staying with an aunt. Ethel possessed blue eyes and a riot of auburn hair of which William was ashamed. He considered that red
hair was quite inconsistent with beauty. He found that most young men who met Ethel did not share that opinion.

Although Mr Bennison had reached the mature age of forty without having found any passion to supersede his passion for educational theories, he experienced a distinct quickening of his
middle-aged heart at the sight of Ethel with her forget-me-not eyes and copper locks. William never could understand what men ‘saw in’ Ethel. William considered her interfering and
bad-tempered and stingy, and everything that an ideal sister should not be. Yet there was no doubt that adult males ‘saw something’ in her.

And William had the wisdom to make capital out of this distorted idea of beauty whenever he could.

William was in that state of bankruptcy which occurred regularly in the middle of each week. He was never given enough pocket money to last from Saturday to Saturday. That was one of his great
grievances against life. And just now there were some pressing calls on his purse.

It was Ginger, William’s boon companion, who had seen the tops in the shop window and realised suddenly that the top season was upon them once more. The next day, almost the whole school
was equipped with tops.

Only William and Ginger seemed topless. To William, a born leader, the position was intolerable. It was Wednesday. The thought of waiting till Saturday was not for one moment to be entertained.
Money must somehow or other be raised in the interval.

Tops of a kind could be bought for sixpence, but the really superior tops – the tops which befitted the age and dignity of William and Ginger – cost one shilling, and William and
Ginger, never daunted by difficulties, determined to raise the sum by the next day. ‘We mus’ get a shilling each,’ said William, with his expression of grim and fixed
determination, ‘an’ we’ll buy ’em tomorrow.’

‘Well, you know what my folks are like,’ said Ginger despondently. ‘You know what it’s like tryin’ to get money out of ’em.
“Save
your pocket
money,” they say. If they’d
give
me enough I’d be able to save. What’s sixpence? Could anyone save sixpence? It’s gone in a day – sixpence is. An’
they say “save”,’ he ended bitterly. ‘Well,’ said William, ‘all I can say is that no one’s folks can be stingier than mine, and that if I can get a
shilling—’

‘Yes, but you’ve not got it yet, have you?’ taunted Ginger. ‘No,’ said William confidently, ‘but you wait till tomorrow!’