Just William - Richmal Crompton (have you read this book .TXT) 📗

me. You will, dear, won’t you? You and your little mannikin. I want to get a different class of children to join the Band of Hope. Such a sweet name, isn’t it? It would do the village children such a lot of good to meet with children of our class.”

Mrs. Brown was flattered. After all, Mrs. de Vere Carter was one of the Randalls.

“For instance,” went on the flute-like tones, “when I came in and saw your little treasure sitting there so sweetly,” she pointed dramatically to the chair that had lately been graced by William’s presence, “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I must get him to come.’ It’s the refining influence of children in our class that the village children need. What delicious cakes. You will lend him to me, won’t you? We meet once a week, on Wednesday afternoons. May he come? I’ll take great care of him.”

Mrs. Brown hesitated.

“Er⁠—yes,” she said doubtfully. “But I don’t know that William is really suited to that sort of thing. However⁠—”

“Oh, you can’t put me off!” said Mrs. de Vere Carter shaking a playful bejewelled finger. “Don’t I know him already? I count him one of my dearest little friends. It never takes me long to know children. I’m a born child-lover.”

William happened to be passing through the hall as Mrs. de Vere Carter came out of the drawing-room followed by Mrs. Brown.

“There you are!” she said. “I thought you’d be waiting to say goodbye to me.”

She stretched out her arm with an encircling movement, but William stepped back and stood looking at her with a sinister frown.

“I have so enjoyed seeing you. I hope you’ll come again,” untruthfully stammered Mrs. Brown, moving so as to block out the sight of William’s face, but Mrs. de Vere Carter was not to be checked. There are people to whom the expression on a child’s face conveys absolutely nothing. Once more she floated towards William.

“Goodbye, Willy, dear. You’re not too old to kiss me, are you?”

Mrs. Brown gasped.

At the look of concentrated fury on William’s face, older and stronger people than Mrs. de Vere Carter would have quailed, but she only smiled as, with another virulent glare at her, he turned on his heel and walked away.

“The sweet, shy thing!” she cooed. “I love them shy.”

Mr. Brown was told of the proposal.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I can’t quite visualise William at a Band of Hope meeting; but of course, if you want him to, he must go.”

“You see,” said Mrs. Brown with a worried frown, “she made such a point of it, and she really is very charming, and after all she’s rather influential. She was one of the Randalls, you know. It seems silly to offend her.”

“Did William like her?”

“She was sweet with him. At least⁠—she meant to be sweet,” she corrected herself hastily, “but you know how touchy William is, and you know the name he always hates so. I can never understand why. After all, lots of people are called Willy.”

The morning of the day of the Band of Hope meeting arrived. William came down to breakfast with an agonised expression on his healthy countenance. He sat down on his seat and raised his hand to his brow with a hollow groan.

Mrs. Brown started up in dismay.

“Oh, William! What’s the matter?”

“Gotter sick headache,” said William in a faint voice.

“Oh, dear! I am sorry. You’d better go and lie down. I’m so sorry, dear.”

“I think I will go an’ lie down,” said William’s plaintive, suffering voice. “I’ll jus’ have breakfast first.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t. Not with a sick headache.”

William gazed hungrily at the eggs and bacon.

“I think I could eat some, mother. Jus’ a bit.”

“No, I wouldn’t, dear. It will only make it worse.”

Very reluctantly William returned to his room.

Mrs. Brown visited him after breakfast.

No, he was no better, but he thought he’d go for a little walk. Yes, he still felt very sick. She suggested a strong dose of salt and water. He might feel better if he’d been actually sick. No, he’d hate to give her the trouble. Besides, it wasn’t that kind of sickness. He was most emphatic on that point. It wasn’t that kind of sickness. He thought a walk would do him good. He felt he’d like a walk.

Well wrapped up and walking with little, unsteady steps, he set off down the drive, followed by his mother’s anxious eyes.

Then he crept back behind the rhododendron bushes next to the wall and climbed in at the larder window.

The cook came agitatedly to Mrs. Brown half an hour later, followed by William, pale and outraged.

“ ’E’s eat nearly everything, ’m. You never saw such a thing. ’E’s eat the cold ’am and the kidney pie, and ’e’s eat them three cold sausages an’ ’e’s eat all that new jar of lemon cheese.”

“William!” gasped Mrs. Brown, “you can’t have a sick headache, if you’ve eaten all that.”

That was the end of the sick headache.

He spent the rest of the morning with Henry and Douglas and Ginger. William and Henry and Douglas and Ginger constituted a secret society called the Outlaws. It had few aims beyond that of secrecy. William was its acknowledged leader, and he was proud of the honour. If they knew⁠—if they guessed. He grew hot and cold at the thought. Suppose they saw him going⁠—or someone told them⁠—he would never hold up his head again. He made tentative efforts to find out their plans for the afternoon. If only he knew where they’d be⁠—he might avoid them somehow. But he got no satisfaction.

They spent the morning “rabbiting” in a wood with Henry’s fox terrier, Chips, and William’s mongrel, Jumble. None of them saw or heard a rabbit, but Jumble chased a butterfly and a bee, and scratched up a molehill, and was stung by a wasp, and Chips caught a field-mouse, so the time was not wasted.

William’s interest, however, was halfhearted. He was turning over plan after plan in his mind, all of which he finally rejected as impracticable.

He entered the dining-room for lunch rather earlier than usual. Only Robert and Ethel, his elder