William the Good (2 page)

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
tonight.

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.

WILLIAM MOVED HIS SEAT SO THAT HE COULD SEE HIS SISTER THROUGH THE CRACK OF THE DOOR.

ETHEL WENT ACROSS THE HALL TO THE DINING-ROOM. SHE LOOKED ABOUT HER FURTIVELY.

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 bonbon 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 role 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?’

‘OH, ETHEL’S NOT ILL OR ANYTHING!’ SAID WILLIAM. ‘IT’S ONLY THAT SHE DRINKS.’
‘W-WHAT?’ SAID MRS MORTON.

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 bonbon 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.