Just William Part 29

He avoided Henry, Douglas and Ginger. Henry, Douglas and Ginger had sworn to be at the church door to watch William descend from the carriage in the glory of his white satin apparel, and William felt that friendship could not stand the strain.

He sat with Dorita on the cold and perilous perch of the garden wall and discussed Cousin Sybil and the wedding. Dorita's language delighted and fascinated William.

"She's a soppy old luny," she would remark sweetly, shaking her dark curls. "The soppiest old luny you'd see in any old place on _this_ old earth, you betcher life! She's made of sop. I wouldn't be found dead in a ditch with her--wouldn't touch her with the b.u.t.t-end of a bargepole.

She's an a.s.sified cow, she is. Humph!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE'S A SOPPY OLD LUNY!" DORITA REMARKED SWEETLY.]

"Those children are a _leetle_ disappointing as regards character--to a child lover like myself," confided Miss Grant to her intellectual _fiance_. "I've tried to sound their depths, but there are no depths to sound. There is none of the mystery, the glamour, the 'clouds of glory'

about them. They are so--so material."

The day of the ordeal drew nearer and nearer, and William's spirits sank lower and lower. His life seemed to stretch before him--youth, manhood, and old age--dreary and desolate, filled only with humiliation and shame. His prestige and reputation would be blasted for ever. He would no longer be William--the Red Indian, the pirate, the daredevil. He would simply be the Boy Who Went to a Wedding Dressed in White Satin.

Evidently there would be a surging crowd of small boys at the church door. Every boy for miles round who knew William even by sight had volunteered the information that he would be there. William was to ride with Dorita and Michael in the bride's carriage. In imagination he already descended from the carriage and heard the chorus of jeers. His cheeks grew hot at the thought. His life for years afterwards would consist solely in the avenging of insults. He followed the figure of the blushing bride-to-be with a baleful glare. In his worst moments he contemplated murder. The violence of his outburst when his mother mildly suggested a wedding present to the bride from her page and maid of honour horrified her.

"I'm bein' made look ridiclus all the rest of my life," he ended. "I'm not givin' her no present. I know what I'd _like_ to give her," he added darkly.

"Yes, and I _do_, too."

Mrs. Brown forebore to question further.

The day of the wedding dawned coldly bright and sunny. William's expressions of agony and complaints of various startling symptoms of serious illnesses were ignored by his experienced family circle.

Michael was dressed first of the three in his minute white satin suit and sent down into the morning-room to play quietly. Then an unwilling William was captured from the darkest recess of the stable and dragged pale and protesting to the slaughter.

"Yes, an' I'll _die_ pretty soon, prob'ly," he said pathetically, "and then p'r'aps you'll be a bit sorry, an' I shan't care."

In Michael there survived two of the instincts of primitive man, the instinct of foraging for food and that of concealing it from his enemies when found. Earlier in the day he had paid a visit to the kitchen and found it empty. Upon the table lay a pound of b.u.t.ter and a large bag of oranges. These he had promptly confiscated and, with a fear of interruption born of experience, he had retired with them under the table in the morning-room. Before he could begin his feast he had been called upstairs to be dressed for the ceremony. On his return (immaculate in white satin) he found to his joy that his treasure trove had not been discovered. He began on the b.u.t.ter first. What he could not eat he smeared over his face and curly hair. Then he felt a sudden compunction and tried to remove all traces of the crime by rubbing his face and hair violently with a woolly mat. Then he sat down on the Chesterfield and began the oranges. They were very yellow and juicy and rather overripe. He crammed them into his mouth with both little fat hands at once. He was well aware, even at his tender years, that life's sweetest joys come soonest to an end. Orange juice mingled with wool fluff and b.u.t.ter on his small round face. It trickled down his cheeks and fell on to his white lace collar. His mouth and the region round it were completely yellow. He had emptied the oranges out of the bag all around him on the seat. He was sitting in a pool of juice. His suit was covered with it, mingled with pips and skin, and still he ate on.

His first interruption was William and Dorita, who came slowly downstairs holding hands in silent sympathy, two gleaming figures in white satin. They walked to the end of the room. They also had been sent to the morning-room with orders to "play quietly" until summoned.

"_Play?_" William had echoed coldly. "I don't feel much like _playing_."

They stared at Michael, openmouthed and speechless. Lumps of b.u.t.ter and bits of wool stuck in his curls and adhered to the upper portion of his face. They had been washed away from the lower portion of it by orange juice. His suit was almost covered with it. Behind he was saturated with it.

"_Crumbs!_" said William at last.

"_You'll_ catch it," remarked his sister.

Michael retreated hastily from the scene of his misdeeds.

"Mickyth good now," he lisped deprecatingly.

They looked at the seat he had left--a pool of crushed orange fragments and juice. Then they looked at each other.

"_He'll_ not be able to go," said Dorita slowly.

Again they looked at the empty orange-covered Chesterfield and again they looked at each other.

"Heth kite good now," said Michael hopefully.

Then the maid of honour, aware that cold deliberation often kills the most glorious impulses, seized William's hand.

"Sit down. _Quick!_" she whispered sharply.

Without a word they sat down. They sat till they felt the cold moisture penetrate to their skins. Then William heaved a deep sigh.

"_We_ can't go now," he said.

Through the open door they saw a little group coming--Miss Grant in shining white, followed by William's mother, arrayed in her brightest and best, and William's father, whose expression revealed a certain weariness mingled with a relief that the whole thing would soon be over.

"Here's the old sardine all togged up," whispered Dorita.

"William! Dorita! Michael!" they called.

Slowly William, Dorita and Michael obeyed the summons.

When Miss Grant's eyes fell upon the strange object that was Michael, she gave a loud scream.

"_Michael!_ Oh, the _dreadful_ child!"

She clasped the centre of the door and looked as though about to swoon.

Michael began to sob.

"_Poor_ Micky," he said through his tears. "He feelth tho thick."

They removed him hastily.

"Never mind, dear," said Mrs. Brown soothingly, "the other two look sweet."

But Mr. Brown had wandered further into the room and thus obtained a sudden and startling view of the page and maid of honour from behind.

"What? Where?" he began explosively.

William and Dorita turned to him instinctively, thus providing Mrs.

Brown and the bride with the spectacle that had so disturbed him.

The bride gave a second scream--shriller and wilder than the first.

"Oh, what have they done? Oh, the _wretched_ children! And just when I wanted to feel _calm_. Just when all depends on my feeling _calm_. Just when----"

"We was walkin' round the room an' we sat down on the Chesterfield and there was this stuff on it an' it came on our clothes," explained William stonily and monotonously and all in one breath.

"_Why_ did you sit down," said his mother.

"We was walkin' round an' we jus' felt tired and we sat down on the Chesterfield and there was this stuff on it an' it came on----"

"Oh, _stop_! Didn't you _see_ it there?"