William—the good

THE Christmas holidays had arrived at last and were being celebrated by the Brown family in various ways.

Ethel and her friends were celebrating it by getting up a play which was to be acted before the village on Christmas Eve. Mrs. Brown was celebrating it by having a whist drive, and William was celebrating it by having influenza.

Though William is my hero, I will not pretend that he made a good invalid. On the contrary he made a very bad one. He possessed none of those virtues of patience, forbearance, and resignation necessary to a good invalid. William, suffering from influenza, was in a state of violent rebellion against fate. And he was even worse when the virulence of the attack had waned and he could sit up in bed and partake of nourishment.

There was, he bitterly complained, nothing to do.

Kind friends brought him in jig-saw puzzles, but, as he informed those about him incessantly, he didn’t see what people saw in jig-saw puzzles. He didn’t like doing them and he didn’t see any good in them when they were done. As an occupation, they were, he gave his family to understand, beneath his contempt. His family offered him other occupations. One of his aunts kindly sent him a scrap album, and another kindly sent him a book of general knowledge questions. He grew more morose and bitter every day. No, he didn’t want to do any of those things. He wanted to get up. Well, why not? Well, to-morrow then? Well, WHY NOT?

Well, he’d always said that the doctor wasn’t any use.

He’d said so ever since he wouldn’t let him stay in bed when he felt really ill—that day last term when he hadn’t done any of his homework. And now, now that it was holidays, he made him stay in bed. He simply couldn’t think why they went on having a man like that for a doctor, a man who simply did everything he could to annoy people. That was all the doctoring he knew, doing everything he could to annoy people. It was a wonder they weren’t all dead with a doctor like that. No, he didn’t want to do cross-word puzzles.

What did he want to do then?

He wanted to get up and go out. He wanted to go and play Red Indians with Ginger and Douglas and Henry. He wanted to go to the old barn and play Lions and Tamers. He wanted to go and be an Outlaw in the woods. That was what he wanted to do. Well, then, if he couldn’t do anything he wanted to do what did they keep asking him what he wanted to do for?

In disgust he turned over on his side, took up a book which a great-aunt had sent him the day before and began to read it.

Now it was a book which in ordinary circumstances would not have appealed to William at all. It was a book in the “Ministering Children” tradition with a hero as unlike William as could possibly be imagined. William merely took it up to prove to the whole world how miserably, unutterably bored he was. But he read it. And because he was so bored, the story began to grip him. He read it chapter by chapter, even receiving his mid-morning cup of beef tea without his usual execrations.

It was perhaps because of his weakened condition that the story gripped him. The hero was a boy about William’s age, whose angelic character made him the sunshine of his home. He had a beautiful sister who, he discovered, was a secret drinker. He pleaded with her to give up the fatal habit. That was a very beautiful scene. It had, however, little effect upon the sister. She became a thief. The youthful hero saw her steal a valuable piece of old silver in a friend’s house. At great risk of being himself suspected of the crime he took it back and replaced it in the friend’s house. The sister was so deeply touched by this that she gave up her habits of drink and theft and the story ended with the youthful hero, his halo gleaming more brightly than ever, setting out to rescue other criminals from their lives of crime.

“Gosh!” said William as he closed the book, “an’ only eleven, same as me.”

At once, William ceased to long to play Red Indians with Ginger and Henry and Douglas. Instead he began to long to rescue those around him from lives of crime.

Downstairs, Ethel and her mother were talking. “Have you settled the parts for your play yet, dear?” said Mrs. Brown.

“N-no,” said Ethel, “it’s all rather annoying. Mrs. Hawkins has taken up the whole thing, and is managing everything. Of course, we can’t stop her, because, after all, she’s going to finance the whole show, and have footlights put up and make it awfully posh, but still—she’s insisting on our doing scenes from ‘As You Like It.’ She would want Shakespeare. She’s so deadly dull herself.”

“And you’ll be Rosalind, I suppose?” said Mrs. Brown quite placidly.

Ethel was always the heroine of any play she acted in.

But Ethel’s face grew slightly overcast.

“Well,” she said, “that’s the question. Mrs. Hawkins is having a sort of trial at her house. It lies between me and Dolly Morton and Blanche Jones. She wants to hear us all read the part. She’s going to have all the committee at her house on Tuesday to hear us all read the part. It does seem rather silly, doesn’t it? I mean, making such a fuss about it. However——”

“Well, darling,” said Mrs. Brown, “when you are at the Hawkins’ I wish you’d ask them if they can let us have one bon-bon dish. I haven’t quite enough for all the tables at the whist drive, and Mrs. Hawkins kindly said she’d lend me as many as I liked.”

“Very well,” said Ethel absently. “I shall feel mad if she gives the part to Dolly Morton or Blanche Jones. I’ve had much more experience and after all——”

After all, Ethel’s silence said, she was far and away the prettiest girl in the village. She heaved a sigh.

Mrs. Brown, as if infected with the general melancholy, also heaved a sigh.

“The doctor says that William can get up to-morrow,” she said.

Ethel groaned.

“Well,” said her mother wearily, “he can’t be worse up than he’s been in bed the last few days.”

“Oh, can’t he?” said Ethel meaningly.

“But he’s been quite good this afternoon,” admitted Mrs. Brown in a voice almost of awe, “reading a book quietly all the time.”

“Then he’ll be awful to-morrow,” prophesied Ethel, gloomily, and with the suspicion of a nasal intonation.

Mrs. Brown looked at her suspiciously. “You haven’t got a cold, have you, Ethel?” she said.

“No,” said Ethel hastily.

“Because if you have,” said Mrs. Brown, “it’s probably influenza, and you must go to bed the minute you feel it coming on.”

William was downstairs. He did not, strangely enough, want to go out and play Red Indians with Henry, Douglas and Ginger. That lassitude which is always the after effect of influenza was heavy upon him. William, however, did not know that this was the cause.

He mistook it for a change of heart. He believed his character to be completely altered. He did not want to be a rough boy ranging over the countryside any longer. He wanted to be a boy wearing a halo and rescuing those around him from lives of crime. He watched Ethel meditatively where she sat on the other side of the room reading a newspaper. She looked irritatingly virtuous.

William found it difficult to imagine her drinking in secret or stealing pieces of silver from a neighbour’s drawing-room. It was, he reflected, just his luck to have a sister who was as irritating a sister as could be, and yet who would afford him no opportunity of rescuing her from a life of crime. His expression grew more and more morose as he watched her. There she sat with no thought in her mind but her silly magazine, resolutely refusing either to drink or steal.

As a matter of fact, Ethel had other thoughts in her mind than the magazine upon which she was apparently so intent. Ethel was afraid. There was no doubt at all that a cold was developing in Ethel’s head, and Ethel knew that, should her mother guess it, she would be summarily despatched to bed and would not be able to attend Mrs. Hawkins’ meeting, and that the result would be that either Dolly Morton or Blanche Jones would be Rosalind in the play.

Now, Ethel had set her heart upon being Rosalind. She felt that she would die of shame if Dolly Morton or Blanche Jones were chosen as Rosalind in her stead. And, therefore, the peculiar feeling of muzziness, the difficulty of enunciating certain consonants that she was at present experiencing, filled her with apprehension. A cold was coming on. There was no doubt of it at all. If only it could escape her mother’s notice till after to-day!

After to-day, when she was chosen as Rosalind, Ethel was willing to retire to bed and stay there as long as her mother wanted, but not till then. Hence she was silent and avoided her mother as much as possible. She might, of course, take something to stave it off (though she knew that that was generally impossible), but her mother had the keys of the medicine cupboard, and to ask for anything would arouse suspicion.

The muzziness was growing muzzier every minute, and she had a horrible suspicion that her nose was red.

Suddenly she remembered that when William’s cold began, her mother had bought a bottle of “Cold Cure,” and given it to him after meals for the first day before the cold changed to influenza and he had to go to bed. She believed that it was still in the sideboard cupboard in the dining-room. She’d sneak it upstairs and take some. It might just stave it off till to-night.

She looked up and met William’s earnest gaze. What was he looking at her like that for? He’d probably noticed that she’d got a cold and he’d go and tell her mother. It would be just like him. He’d blurt out, “Mother, Ethel’s got a cold,” and she’d be packed off to bed and not be able to go to Mrs. Hawkins’, and Dolly Morton or Blanche Jones would be Rosalind and she’d die of shame. She stared at him very haughtily, and then went off to the dining-room for the bottle of “Cold Cure.”

But her manner had attracted William’s attention. He moved his seat so that he could see her through the crack of the door. She went across the hall to the dining-room. She looked about her furtively. She tiptoed to the hall again and looked up and down to make sure that no one saw her. Then very furtively she went back into the dining-room. She opened the sideboard cupboard and with a quick guilty movement took out a bottle and hid it under her jumper. A bottle! William gaped. His eyes bulged. A bottle! Still looking furtively around her she went upstairs. William followed just as furtively. He heard her bolt her bedroom door. He put his eye to the keyhole and there he saw her raise the bottle to her lips. He was amazed, but he had to believe the evidence of his eyes. She was a secret drinker. Ethel was a secret drinker!

His spirits rose. He must set about the work of reforming her at once. The first thing to do was to plead with her. That in the book had been a very moving and beautiful scene.

He was waiting for her in the morning-room when she came down. Yes, she did look like a secret drinker now that he came to look at her more particularly. She’d got a red nose. They always had red noses. She threw him a haughty glance, took up her magazine and began to read it. Then suddenly she was shaken by an enormous sneeze. It came upon her unawares, before she could stop it. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t the sort of sneeze you could stop. It was the sort that proclaimed to all the world that you have a cold, perhaps influenza, and that you ought to be in bed.

Thank heaven, thought Ethel, her mother was in the village shopping. William, however, was gazing at her reproachfully. He was, she supposed, wondering bitterly why she was allowed to go about with a cold when he’d been sent to bed at once. She gazed at him defiantly. William, as a matter of fact, had not noticed the sneeze at all. His mind was so taken up by the problem of how to plead with her to give up her habit of secret drinking.

He began rather sternly.

“Ethel, I know all about it.”

“Whatever do you mean?” said Ethel feebly, “all about it! Why, I’m perfectly all right. Perfectly all right. Anyone can do it once. Once is nothing. It—it’s good for you to do it once.”

Of course, she’d say that, thought William. In his book the sister had said that it was the first time——

“Have you only done it once, Ethel?” he said earnestly.

“Of course,” she snapped, “that was the first time.”

She must have known that he’d seen her through the keyhole. He couldn’t think what to say next. He’d quite forgotten what the boy in the book had said, but he remembered suddenly Ethel’s pride in her personal appearance.

“It’s making you look awful,” he said.

“It isn’t,” snapped Ethel; “my nose is a tiny bit red, but it’s not due to that at all.”

“I bet it is,” said William.

“It isn’t,” said Ethel. “Anyway”—and she became almost humble in her pleading—“anyway—you won’t say anything to mother about it, will you? Promise.”

“Very well,” said William.

He promised quite willingly, because he didn’t want his mother interfering in it any more than Ethel did. He wanted to have the sole glory of saving Ethel from her life of crime, and if their mother knew, of course, she’d take the whole thing out of his hands.

“Ethel,” said Mrs. Brown tentatively, “I wonder—I’d be so much obliged if you’d take William with you to Mrs. Hawkins’. He’s getting so restless indoors, and I daren’t let him go out and play, because you know what he is. He’d be walking in the ditch and getting his feet wet and getting pneumonia or something. But if he goes with you it will be a nice little change for him, and you can keep an eye on him, and—well”—vaguely—“it’ll be about Shakespeare, and that’s improving. His last school report was awful. And, as I say, it will be a nice little change for him.”

Ethel knew that her mother was thinking about a nice little change for herself, rather than for William, but, chiefly lest her pronunciation of certain consonants should betray her, she acquiesced.

“Then I can get on with the preparations for the whist drive,” said Mrs. Brown, “and you won’t forget to ask for the bon-bon dish, will you, dear?”

Ethel said “No” (or rather “Do”), and felt grateful to the whist drive because she knew that it was preoccupation with it that prevented her mother from recognising the symptoms of a cold in the head which were becoming more and more pronounced every minute.

William showed unexpected docility when ordered to accompany Ethel to Mrs. Hawkins’. He felt that he had not so far acquitted himself with any conspicuous success in his rôle of reformer of Ethel. He could not flatter himself that anything he had said would have saved her from drink. He might get another chance during the afternoon.

There was quite a large gathering at Mrs. Hawkins’. There was Mrs. Hawkins and her daughter Betty. There was the Committee of the Dramatic Society. There were Dolly Morton, brought by Mrs. Morton, and Blanche Jones, brought by Mrs. Jones. They were first of all given tea by Mrs. Hawkins in the morning-room. “And then we’ll have our little reading,” she added.

She accepted William’s presence with resignation and without enthusiasm.

“Of course, dear,” she said to Ethel, “I quite understand. I know they’re trying, especially when they’ve been ill. Yes, it’s a joy to have him. You’ll be very quiet, won’t you, my little man, because this is a very serious occasion. Very serious indeed.”

Ethel sat down next to Betty Hawkins, and a great depression stole over her. She knew perfectly well that she could not be chosen as Rosalind in competition with Dolly Morton or Blanche Jones, or indeed with anyone at all.

She was feeling muzzier and muzzier every minute. Her eyes were watery. Her nose was red. She knew that with the best will in the world she was incapable of giving full value to the beauty of Rosalind’s lines.

“I show bore birth than I am bistress of,” she quoted softly to herself, “and would you yet I were berrier?”

No, it was quite hopeless. Moreover, Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Jones were both very wealthy, and fairly recent additions to the neighbourhood, and she had a suspicion that Mrs. Hawkins was trying to ingratiate herself with them. Yet she felt that she simply couldn’t go on living if she didn’t get the part of Rosalind. Mrs. Hawkins handed her a cup of tea. William had wandered away. He had gone over to the bay window where Mrs. Morton sat alone. Mrs. Morton was inclined to be superior and wasn’t quite sure whether or no she were compromising herself in any way by allowing herself to be drawn into Mrs. Hawkins’ circle. So she sat as far aloof from it as she could. Of course, she wanted Dolly to be chosen as Rosalind. On the other hand, it was never wise to be too friendly with people till you knew exactly where they stood.

William sat down on the window seat next to her, watching Ethel morosely. Everyone must know that she’d been drinking. Her nose was as red as anything now.

Suddenly, Mrs. Morton said to him:

“Your sister doesn’t look very well.”

“Oh, she’s all right,” said William absently. “I mean, she’s all right in one way. She’s not ill or anything.” Then he added casually: “It’s only that she drinks.”

“W-what?” said Mrs. Morton, putting her cup down hastily upon an occasional table, because she felt too unnerved to hold it any longer.

“She drinks,” said William more clearly and with a certain irritation at having to repeat himself. “Din’t you hear what I said? I said she drinks. She keeps a bottle of it in her room and locks the door an’ drinks it. It’s that what makes her look like that.”

“B-but,” gasped Mrs. Morton, “how terrible.”

“Yes,” asserted William carelessly, “it’s terrible all right. She takes it up to her bedroom in a bottle an’ locks the door and drinks it there, an’ then comes out lookin’ like that.”

Mrs. Morton’s worst fears were justified. Whatever sort of people had she let herself be drawn among? She rose, summoned her daughter with a regal gesture, and turning to Mrs. Hawkins said with magnificent hauteur:

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hawkins, but I’ve just remembered a most important engagement, and I’m afraid I must go at once.”

And she swept out, followed by the meek Dolly.

Gradually Mrs. Hawkins recovered from her paralysis.

“Well,” she gasped, “what simply extraordinary behaviour! I never heard—— Well, I wouldn’t have her daughter now for Rosalind not for a thousand pounds.”

William, left high and dry on his window seat, continued thoughtfully to consume cakes. Perhaps he oughtn’t to have told her that. It had seemed to upset her. Well, he wouldn’t tell anyone else, though he did rather want people to know about the noble work he was doing in reforming Ethel. What was the use of reforming anyone if people didn’t know you were doing it?

“William, dear,” said Mrs. Hawkins sweetly, “would you like to go into the dining-room and see if you can find anything you’d like to read on the shelves there?”

William went, and conversation became general.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” said Ethel to Betty Hawkins. “Mother asked me to ask you to lend us a bon-bon dish for the whist drive. We find we won’t have quite enough after all.”

“Oh, rather. I’ll get one for you.”

“Don’t bother. Tell me where to get it.”

“Well, there’s one on the silver table in the drawing-room. I’ll get it and wrap it up for you.”

“No, don’t bother. I can slip it into my bag. I can get out much more easily than you can.”

Thus it was that William, returning from the dining-room to inform the company that he hadn’t been able to find anything interesting to read, was met by the sight of his sister creeping out of the morning-room where everyone was assembled and going alone into the empty drawing-room.

William glued his eye to the crack in the door and watched her.

She took a piece of silver from a table and slipped it into her hand-bag and then returned to the drawing-room, without noticing him. He stood for a minute motionless, amazed. Crumbs! Crumbs! She was just like the girl in the book. She stole as well as being a secret drinker. He must do something at once. He must get the thing she’d stolen and put it back in its place again. That was what the boy in the book had done.

He returned to the morning-room. They hadn’t begun the trial reading yet: they were all talking at once. They were discussing recent social happenings in the village. Mrs. Jones, as a newcomer, was feeling slightly out of it, and Mrs. Jones had a lively sense of her own importance and did not like feeling out of it. She had previously, of course, been kept in countenance by Mrs. Morton, and she was still wondering what had made Mrs. Morton go off like that. But there was no doubt at all that people weren’t making enough fuss of her, so she rose and said with an air of great dignity:

“Mrs. Hawkins, I am suffering from a headache. May I go into your drawing-room and lie down?”

She had often found that that focused the attention of everyone upon her. It did in this instance. They all leapt to their feet solicitously, fussed about her, escorted her to the drawing-room, drew down the blinds and left her well pleased with the stir she had made.

This, she thought, ought to assure the part of Rosalind for Blanche. They wouldn’t surely risk making her headache worse by giving the part to anyone else. Meanwhile, William was seated upon the floor between Betty Hawkins and Ethel. His whole attention was focused upon Ethel’s bag which she had carelessly deposited upon the floor. Very slowly, very furtively, inch by inch, William was drawing it towards him. At last he was able to draw it behind him. No one had seen. Betty and Ethel were talking about the play.

“Do, I don’t really bind what I ab,” Ethel was saying, untruthfully.

Very skilfully, William took the silver dish out of the bag, slipped it into his pocket and put back the bag where it had been before. Then, murmuring something about going to look at the books again, he slipped from the room and went back to the drawing-room to replace it. He had quite forgotten Mrs. Jones, but just as he was furtively replacing the dish upon the table, her stern, accusing voice came from the dark corner of the room where the couch stood.

“What are you doing, boy?”

William jumped violently.

“I—I—I’m putting this back,” he explained.

“What did you take it away for?” said Mrs. Jones still more sternly. William hastened to excuse himself.

“I din’ take it,” he said. “Ethel took it,” then, hastening to excuse Ethel. “She—she sort of can’t help taking things. I always,” he added virtuously, “try’n put back the things she’s took.”

Mrs. Jones raised herself, tall and dignified, from her couch.

“Do you mean to say,” she said, “that your sister stole it.”

“Yes,” said William. “She does steal things. We always try’n put them back when we find things she’s stole. I found this just now in her bag.”

“A kleptomaniac,” exclaimed Mrs. Jones, “and I am expected to allow my daughter to associate with such people!”

Quivering with indignation, she returned to the morning-room. William followed her.

“Feeling better?” said Mrs. Hawkins brightly, “because if you are, I think we might begin the reading.”

“I find,” said Mrs. Jones icily, “that I cannot, after all, stay for the reading. I must be getting home at once. Come, Blanche!”

When she’d gone, Mrs. Hawkins looked about her in helpless amazement.

“Isn’t it extraordinary?” she said. “I simply can’t understand it. It’s an absolute mystery to me what’s come over them. Now, have I said a single thing that could have annoyed them?”

They assured her that she hadn’t.

“Well,” she said, “it’s just as well to have no dealings with people as unaccountable as that, so, Ethel dear, you’d better take Rosalind after all.”

“Thag you so buch,” said Ethel gratefully.

“You’ve got a little cold, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I hab,” admitted Ethel, “perhaps I’d better go hobe dow. Bother asked me to ask you kidly to led her a bod-bod dish ad Betty kidly let me hab this frob the drawing-roob.”

She opened her bag.

“It’s god,” she gasped.

William was looking very inscrutable, but his mind was working hard. There was more in this, he decided, than had met his eye.

Betty had gone into the drawing-room and now returned with the bon-bon dish.

“You never took it,” she said.

“But I did,” persisted Ethel. “I dow I did. It’s bost bysterious.”

“You’d better get home to bed, my dear,” said Mrs. Hawkins.

“Yes. I’m awfully glad I’b goig to be Rosalid. Cub od, Williab.”

William did not speak till they’d reached the road. Then he said slowly:

“She’d lent you that silver thing, Ethel?”

“Of course,” said Ethel shortly.

“An’—an’ you’ve—you’ve just got a bad cold?” he continued.

Ethel did not consider this worth an answer, so they walked on in silence.

“Well, dear?” said Mrs. Brown when they reached home.

“I’b goig to be Rosalid,” said Ethel, “but I’ve got a bit of co’d, so I think I’ll go to bed.” In her relief at having been chosen as Rosalind, she became expansive and confidential. “I knew I’d god a co’d this borning, an’ I sneaked up that boddle of co’d cure ad drank sobe id my bed roob, but it didn’t do any good.”

William blinked.

“Was it—was it the cold cure stuff you were drinkin’ in your room, Ethel?”

“You’d better go to bed, too, William,” said his mother. “The doctor said that you were to go to bed early this week.”

“All right,” said William with unexpected meekness. “I don’t mind going to bed.”

Still looking very thoughtful, William went to bed.

“Was he all right at Mrs. Hawkins’?” said his mother anxiously to Ethel.

“Oh, yes,” said Ethel, “he was quite good.”

“I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Brown, relieved, “because you know he sometimes does such extraordinary things when he goes out.”

“Oh, no,” said Ethel, preparing to follow William up to bed, “he was quite all right.” She was silent for a minute, as she remembered the abrupt departures of Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Jones, and the mysterious disappearance of the bon-bon dish from her bag.

“Sobe rather fuddy things did happed,” she said, “but Williab couldn’t possibly have beed respodsible for any of theb.”