William Again (14 page)

He went out with the stream of spectators at the end in a golden dream of happiness. He saw himself, browned from head to foot, brandishing some weapon and dancing on bare brown feet in a savage
land. He was so rapt in his daydream that he collided with a tall lank sixth-form boy who was coming along the passage carrying a box.

‘Look out where you’re going, can’t you?’ said that superior individual coldly. ‘Do you want me to drop this stuff all over the place?’

He pointed with a languid hand to ‘this stuff.’ ‘This stuff’ was sticks of brown and red and black greasepaint, pots of cold cream, and tins of powder.

William’s eyes brightened.

‘Shall I carry it for you?’ he said meekly. ‘So’s to save you trouble?’

The sixth-form boy started. William’s attitude towards his intellectual superiors generally lacked that respect which is the due of intellectual superiors.

‘Er – all right,’ he said, handing the box to William and walking on down the passage.

William walked meekly behind with the box in his arms. Very neatly as he turned the corner he transferred two sticks of brown greasepaint from the tray to his own pocket. He sternly informed his
conscience (never a very active force with William and quite easily subdued) as he did so that he’d helped to pay for the beastly things, hadn’t he, anyway, by paying (or getting his
mother to pay) two shillings for a rotten seat in the rotten back row, where he could only see by squinting round the feather in Dawson’s mother’s hat, and anyway he’d like to
know whose business it was but his. His conscience retired, completely crushed.

At the door of the sixth-form room he handed the box to the secretary of the Dramatic Society.

The secretary of the Dramatic Society entered the holy sanctum.

‘That young Brown’s manners,’ he remarked patronisingly to his peers, ‘seem to be improving.’

William surveyed the effect in the looking-glass. It was perfect. He had completely used up the two sticks of brown greasepaint upon the exposed parts of his person. He found
the question of clothing rather a difficulty. He possessed no garment of the type that the aborigines had worn, but his ordinary suit was, of course, unthinkable. Football shorts seemed better – and a green football shirt that had been Robert’s. They partook in some way of the nature of fancy dress. Robed in them he surveyed himself again in the glass and a blissful smile stole over
his cocoa-hued face. He was a perfect aborigine. It only remained to go out into the world to seek adventures.

Adventures came readily to William even when attired and coloured simply as a boy. He hardly dared to think what might happen to him as an aborigine – provided, of course, that he could get
clear of the parental abode. Otherwise his mahogany career might come to an abrupt and untimely end. He looked cautiously out of the window. There was no one in sight. He lowered himself to earth
by means of a tree that grew conveniently near his window.

‘William!’

The voice came from the drawing-room.

William beat a hasty retreat into a clump of laurel and remained motionless.

‘I’m sure I heard that boy . . .
William
!’

He decided to take the bull by the horns.

‘Yes, Mother!’ he called obediently.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m jus’ sittin’ in the garden an’ thinkin’, Mother,’ said William, in a voice of honeyed wistfulness.

Mrs Brown, deeply touched, sought out her husband.

WILLIAM SURVEYED HIMSELF AGAIN IN THE GLASS, AND A BLISSFUL SMILE STOLE OVER HIS COCOA-HUED FACE.

‘You know, dear,’ she said, ‘there’s something awfully sweet about William sometimes.’

William, having gained the open field, felt a sensation of extreme relief. For some time he crawled about in ditches tracking imaginary wild animals and scalping imaginary
white men. Then the occupation began to pall, and he began to regret having carried off the coup in solitude. A few more aborigines might have been jollier. However, the brown was staying on all
right, and that was a comfort. He left the fields and went into the woods. There he ran and leapt and climbed trees for a blissful half-hour. He also shot an entire menagerie of animals and
slaughtered innumerable hosts of white men unaided. He went along the woods, then across three fields (by way of the ditches), and then down the valley, and then close by the side of a garden with
which he was not previously acquainted. And it looked an interesting garden – just the sort of garden for an aborigine intent upon enjoying life to the full. He saw a shrubbery, an orchard, a
stream, and some very climbable trees. He scrambled through a hole in the hedge to the detriment of the green football shirt and shorts. Then he ran riot in the jungle and along the sides of the
raging torrent. In a fierce encounter caused by the joint attack of a lion and elephant and a rhinoceros (William did things upon a large scale) he ran (in pursuit, not in flight) to the further
end of the shrubbery. There he was surprised to find an open lawn and a large concourse of people. The people sat in rows in chairs. There was something expectant in their expression. A tall man in
black was standing in front of them with a watch in his hand. They were obviously waiting for something. When they saw William they rose as one man.

‘There
he is,’ they said.

Before the bewildered William could realise what was happening they surrounded him on all sides and drew him on to the lawn. The clergyman held him by the hand.

‘Don’t be frightened, little boy,’ he said kindly.

‘I don’t suppose he understands English,’ said a tall, thin lady in a small sailor hat. ‘They don’t, you know – out there.’

A large motherly woman bore down upon him with a glass of milk and a bun. William was hungry. In moments of uncertainty his rule was to lie low and take the good things provided by the gods
without question. Moreover, it was perhaps safer in the circumstances not to understand English – at any rate, not till he had consumed the bun and milk. They led him to a table facing the audience
and put the bun and milk before him. People in the farther rows of chairs craned their necks to see him. He gave them his inscrutable frown in the intervals of drinking and consuming large
mouthfuls of bun. The man stood up and addressed the gathering in a high-pitched, drawling voice.

‘I need not inform my friends that we – er – see before us our – er – little protégé from Borneo and – er – let me say that he – er – does us credit.’ He placed his
hand upon William’s head and looked down at William with a proud smile.

Meeting William’s unflinching, unsmiling glare, his smile faded and he quickly drew back his hand.

‘Er – credit,’ he resumed, putting a hand to his collar as he moved a step farther from William, ‘to – er – those who may be strangers here this afternoon let me say that we –
er – of this – er – parish have – er – for the past two years – made ourselves responsible for the – er – rearing and – er – education of a little native of Borneo.’

He paused for applause, which was set going by the Vicar’s wife, who was the tall, thin lady in the small sailor hat.

‘The Reverend Habbakuk Jones, who is – er – at the native mission school, has come – er – over to see us – bringing – er – our little native protégé.’ Again he smiled
lovingly and drew near to William. William, whose mouth was fuller of currant bun than European etiquette would have sanctioned, raised his face, and, without interrupting the process of
mastication, gave Mr Theophilus Mugg such a look as sent him precipitately to the farther end of the table.

‘Er – protégé,’ said Mr Theophilus Mugg uncomfortably. ‘The Reverend Habbakuk Jones wrote this – er – morning to say that he would call with the – er –
child’ – he looked distrustfully at William – ‘and leave him in our – er – loving care – while he – er – visited a relative in the – er – vicinity. He – er – promised to be – er – with us
– by half past three to – er – deliver his address. He – er – evidently dropped his address. He – er – evidently dropped the – er – little boy – at the gate and – er – will soon be – er – present
himself.’

He sat down as far away from William’s eye as possible and wiped his brow. A crowd with a large preponderance of the feminine element gathered round William as he drained the last drop of
milk. A fat, motherly woman handed him a piece of chocolate gingerly, as though he were a strange sort of wild animal.

‘I wonder if he’ll speak,’ said someone wistfully.

‘I expect he’ll make some sort of thanks for the bun and milk and chocolates,’ suggested someone else.

‘Not in English, I expect,’ said a third hopefully.

William rose to the occasion.

‘Blinkely men ong,’ he said clearly. There was a murmur of rapt admiration.

‘Hindustani, I believe,’ said the Vicar’s wife doubtfully. ‘My father was in India several years.’

William soared to further heights.

‘Clemmeny fal tog,’ he said.

‘The darling!’ said the old lady. ‘I’m sure he’s saying something beautiful.’ She held out a second slab of chocolate. ‘I
love
those Eastern
languages, so –
musical.’

WILLIAM ROSE TO THE OCCASSION. ‘BLINKELY MEN ONG,’ HE SAID CLEARLY.

‘It’s certainly Hindustani,’ said the Vicar’s wife. ‘It all comes back to me.’

‘Oh, what was he saying?’

‘He was saying,’ said the Vicar’s wife, ‘ “Thank you for your kindness and food.” ’

‘How beautiful!’ said the fat lady, handing him a third slab of chocolate. ‘I was taking this home for my son,’ she explained, ‘but I’d
much
rather
give it to our dear little native protégé
.
Isn’t it a beautiful thought that we reared and clothed him all this time?’

‘I distinctly remember making that little green shirt,’ said the Vicar’s wife.

‘Bluff iffn,’ said William, who was growing bold.

‘The angel!’ said the fat lady. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel you’d do
anything
for him? What’s his name?’ she said to Mr Theophilus Mugg.
‘I’d love to call him by his name.’

‘I – er – am not sure of his name,’ said Mr Theophilus Mugg with dignity.

‘But wasn’t it mentioned in the letter?’

‘It was spelt,’ said Mr Theophilus Mugg with increasing dignity. ‘Needless to say, it was not pronounced. I have no wish to make myself ridiculous in the boy’s
eyes.’

‘The mystery of these dark-skinned races,’ said the Vicar’s wife. ‘The beautiful inscrutable faces of them. The
knowledge,
the
wisdom
they seem to
hold.’

‘Certainly it is not an English cast of countenance,’ said Mr Theophilus Mugg.

‘Bunkum allis lippis,’ said William, feeling that something further was expected of him.

‘Most
certainly
Hindustani,’ said the Vicar’s wife.

It was here that a small voice piped from the back row, ‘It’s William Brown!’

William, who was enjoying himself intensely, glared fiercely in the direction of the voice.

‘Hush, hush, dear!’ said the shocked voice of a parent. ‘Of course it isn’t William Brown. It’s a poor little boy from a distant land over the sea – or
India’s coral strand,’ she murmured vaguely.

‘It
is
William Brown,’ persisted the shrill voice.

‘He may bear a resemblance to William Brown,’ said the parent, ‘but William Brown is white, I suppose, and this little boy is black.’

‘Yes,’ said a small, half-convinced voice, ‘I s’pose so.’

They approached the table.

‘My little girl,’ said the parent pleasantly, ‘sees a resemblance in the child to one of her schoolfellows.’

‘Would you like to talk to the little boy?’

The little boy put out his tongue at her.

‘A native form of greeting, doubtless,’ said the Vicar’s wife.

‘Oo, it
is
William Brown,’ persisted the little girl shrilly.

‘If you say that again, dear,’ said the parent, ‘I shall have to take you home. It isn’t kind. It may hurt the little boy’s feelings. He’s come a long, long
way from a place where every prospect pleases and only man is vile, and you ought to be kind to him. How would you like to go to a strange faraway country and then have people say you were William
Brown?’