William the Fourth (22 page)

William had spoken confidently, but he felt far from confident. He knew by experience the difficulty of extorting money from his family. He had tried pathos, resentment,
indignation, pleading, and all had failed on every occasion. He was generally obliged to have recourse to finesse. He only hoped that on this occasion Fate would provide circumstances on which he
could exercise his finesse.

He entered the drawing-room, and it was then that he first saw Mr Bennison. It was then that he took a violent and definite dislike to Mr Bennison, yet he had a wild hope that he might be a
profitable source of tips. With a mental vision of the tops before his eyes he assumed an expression of virtue and innocence.

‘So this,’ said Mr Bennison, with a genial smile, ‘is the little brother.’

William’s expression of virtue melted into a scowl. William was eleven years old. He objected to being called a ‘little’ anything.

‘I heard there was a little brother,’ went on the visitor, perpetrating the supreme mistake of laying his hand upon William’s tousled head. ‘“Will” is the
name, is it not? “Willie” for short, I presume? Ha! Ha!’

Mrs Brown, noting fearfully the expression upon her son’s face, interposed.

‘We call him William,’ she said rather hastily.

‘I’ll call him “Willie” – for short,’ smiled Mr Bennison, patting William’s unruly locks.

Mr Bennison laboured under the delusion that he ‘got on with’ children. It was well for his peace of mind that William’s face was at that moment hidden from him. It was only
the thoughts of the top which might be the outcome of all that made William endure the indignity.

‘And I have brought a present for Willie-for-short,’ went on Mr Bennison humorously

William’s heart rose. It might be a top. It might be something he could exchange for a top. Best of all, it might be money.

But Mr Bennison took a book out of his pocket and handed it to William.

The book was called ‘A Child’s Encyclopædia of Knowledge.’

Mrs Brown, who could see William’s face, went rather pale.

‘Say “Thank you”, William dear,’ she said nervously, then, hastily covering William’s murmured thanks, ‘How very kind of you, Mr Bennison. How very kind.
He’ll be most interested. I’m sure he will, won’t you, William, dear? Er – I’m sure he will.’

William freed himself from Mr Bennison’s hand, and went towards the door.

‘You will remember,’ went on Mr Bennison pleasantly, ‘that in my “Early Training of the Young” I lay down the rule that every present given to a child should tend
to his or her mental development. I do not believe in giving a child presents of money before he or she is sixteen. No really wise faculty of choice is developed before then. I expect you remember
that in my “Parents’ Help”, I said—’

William crept quietly from the room.

He went first of all to Ethel’s bedroom.

She was reading a novel in an armchair.

‘Go away!’ she said to William.

In the midst of his preoccupation William found time to wonder again what people ‘saw in’ her. Well, if they only
knew
her as well as he did . . . But the all-important
question was the question of tops.

‘Ethel,’ he said in a tone of brotherly sweetness and Christian forgiveness, ‘have you got any tops left? You must have had tops when you were young. I wonder if you’d
like to give ’em to me ’f you’ve got any left, an’ I’ll use ’em up for you.’

‘Well, I’ve not,’ snapped Ethel, ‘so go away.’

William turned to the door, then turned back as if struck by a sudden thought.

‘D’you remember, Ethel,’ he said, ‘that I took a spider out of your hair for you las’ summer? I wondered ’f you’d care to lend me a shilling jus’
till my next pocket money—’

‘You
put
it in my hair first,’ said Ethel indignantly, ‘and I jolly well won’t, and I wish you’d go away’

William looked at her coldly

‘How
people can say you’re ’tractive—’ he said. ‘Well, all I can say is wait till they
know
you, an’ that man downstairs coming jus’
’cause of you an’ worrin’ folks’ lives out an’ strokin’ their heads an’ givin’ ’em books – well, you’d think he’d be ashamed,
an’ you’d think you’d be ashamed, too!’

Ethel had flushed.

‘You needn’t think I want him,’ she said. ‘I should think I’m the only person who can grumble about
him
being here. I have to stay up here all the afternoon
just because I can’t bear the nonsense he talks when I’m down.’

‘How long’s he staying?’ said William.

‘Oh, a week,’ said Ethel viciously. ‘He said he was motoring in the neighbourhood, and mother asked him to stay a week. She likes him. He’s got three cars and a lot of
money, and he can talk the hind leg off a donkey and she likes him. All I can say’ she said bitterly, ‘is that I’m going to have a nice week!’

‘What about a shilling?’ said William, returning to the more important subject. ‘Look here, ’f you lend me a shilling now I’ll give you a shillin
an
a penny
when I get my pocket money on Saturday. I’ll not forget. A shillin
an
a penny for a shilling. I should think you’d call it a bargain.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ said Ethel, ‘and I wish you’d go –
away’

‘I don’t call you very gen’rous, Ethel,’ said William loftily.

‘No, and I’m not likely to be generous or feel generous with that man in the house,’ said Ethel.

William was silent. He was silent for quite a long time. William’s silences generally meant something.

‘S’pose,’ he said at last, ‘s’pose he went tomorrow, would you feel generous, then?’

‘I would,’ said Ethel recklessly. ‘I’d feel it quite up to two shillings in that case. But he won’t go. Don’t you think it! And-will-you-go
away?

William went, rather to her surprise, without demur.

He walked very slowly downstairs. His brow was knit in thought.

Mr Bennison was still talking to Mrs Brown in the drawing-room.

‘Oh, yes, that is one of my very firmest tenets. I have laid stress on that in all my books. The child’s curiosity must always be appeased. No matter at what awkward time the child
propounds the question, he or she must be answered courteously and fully. Curiosity must be appeased the moment it appears. If a child came to me in the middle of the night for knowledge,’ he
laughed uproariously at his joke, ‘I trust I should give it to the best of my ability, fully, and – er – as I said . . . Ah, here is our little Willie-for-short.’

Still holding his ‘Child’s Encyclopædia of Knowledge’, William turned and quickly left the room.

Mr Bennison had had a good dinner and a pleasant talk with Ethel before he came to bed.

The talk had been chiefly on his side, but he preferred it that way. He was thinking how pleasant would be a life in which he could talk continuously to Ethel, while he looked at her blue eyes
and auburn hair.

He wrote a chapter of his new book, heading it ‘Common Mistakes in the Treatment of Children’.

He insisted in that chapter that children should be treated with reverence and respect. He laid down his favourite rule: ‘A child’s curiosity must be immediately satisfied when and where it appears, irrespective of inconvenience to the adult.’

Then he got into bed.

The bed was warm and comfortable and he was drifting blissfully into a dreamless sleep when the door opened and William, clad in pyjamas and carrying the ‘Child’s Encyclopædia
of Knowledge’, appeared.

‘ ’Scuse me disturbin’ you,’ said William politely, ‘but it says in this book what you kindly gave me somethin’ about Socrates’ (William pronounced it
in two syllables ‘So-crates’) ‘an’ I thought p’raps you wun’t mind explaining to me what they are. I dunno what Socrates are.’

Mr Bennison was on the whole rather pleased. In all his books he had insisted that if the child came for knowledge at midnight the child’s curiosity must be satisfied then and there, and
he was glad of an opportunity of living up to his ideals. He dragged his mind back from the rosy mists of sleep and endeavoured to satisfy William’s thirst for knowledge.

He talked long and earnestly about Socrates, his life and teaching and his place in history. William listened with an expressionless face.

Whenever the other seemed inclined to draw his remarks to a close William would gently interpose a question which would set his eloquence going again at full flow But Mr Bennison’s eyes
began to droop and his eloquence began to languish. He looked at his watch. It was 12.30.

‘I think that’s all, my boy’ he said with quite a passable attempt at bluff, hearty kindness in his voice.

‘You haven’t quite ’splained to me—’ began William.

‘I’ve told you all I know,’ said Mr Bennison irritably

William, still clasping his book, went quietly from the room.

Mr Bennison turned over and began to go to sleep. It took a little time to get over the interruption, but soon a delicious drowsiness began to steal over him.

Going – going—

William entered the room again, still carrying his ‘Child’s Encyclopædia of Knowledge’.

‘It says in this book what you kindly gave me,’ he said earnestly, ‘all about Compound Interest, but I don’t quite understand—’

William was very clever at not understanding Compound Interest. He had an excellent repertoire of intelligent questions about Compound Interest. At school he could, for a consideration,
‘play’ the Mathematics master on Compound Interest for an entire lesson while his friends amused themselves in their own way in the desks behind.

Mr Bennison’s eloquence was somewhat lacking in lucidity and inspiration this time, but he struggled gallantly to clear the mists of William’s ignorance. At times the earnestness of
William’s expression touched him. At times he distrusted it. At no time did it suggest those clouds of glory that he liked to associate with children. By 1.30 he had talked about Compound
Interest till he was hoarse.

‘I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you,’ he said with an air of irritation which he vainly endeavoured to hide. ‘Er – shut the door after you.
It’s very draughty when you leave it open – er – dear boy’

William, with the utmost docility, went out of the room.

Mr Bennison turned over and tried to go to sleep. It did not seem so easy to go to sleep this time. There is something about explaining Compound Interest to the young and ignorant that is very stimulating to the brain.

He tried to count sheep going through a stile and they persisted in turning into the figures of a Compound Interest sum. He tried to call back the picture of domestic happiness with which the
sight of William’s sister had inspired him earlier in the evening, and always the vision of William’s earnest, inscrutable countenance rose to spoil it.

Sheep – one – two – three – four – five—

The door opened, and William appeared with the open book once more in his hand.

‘In this book what you kindly gave me,’ he began, ‘it tells about the stars an’ the Lion an’ that, an’ I can’t find the Lion from the window, though the
stars are out. I wondered ’f you’d kindly let me look through yours.’

Sheep and stile vanished abruptly. After a short silence pregnant with unspoken words, Mr Bennison sat up in bed. He looked very weary as he stared at William, but he was doggedly determined to
act up to his ideals.