Still William Read Online Free PDF Page B

scowling.
    ‘Huh!’ he said, and it is impossible to convey in print the scorn of that monosyllable as uttered by William. ‘ A girl! ’
    Then he returned to his whittling.
    William’s mother met Mrs Bott at the Vicar’s. Mrs Bott, who always found strangers more sympathetic than people who knew her well, confided her troubles to Mrs
Brown. Her troubles included her own rheumatism, Mr Bott’s liver, and the carelessness of Violet Elizabeth’s nurse.
    ‘Always reading these here novelettes, the girl is. I hope you’ll come and see me, dear, and didn’t someone say you had a little boy? Do bring him. I want Violet Elizabeth to
get to know some nice little children.’
    Mrs Brown hesitated. She was aware that none of her acquaintances would have described William as a nice little child. Mrs Bott misunderstood her hesitation. She laid a fat-ringed hand on her
knee.
    ‘I know, dear. You’re careful who the little laddie knows, like me. Well now, you needn’t worry. I’ve brought up our Violet Elizabeth most particular. She’s a
girlie who wouldn’t do your little boysie any harm—’
    ‘Oh,’ gasped Mrs Brown, ‘it’s not that.’
    ‘Then you’ll come, dearie, and bring the little boysie with you, won’t you?’
    She took Mrs Brown’s speechlessness for consent.
    ‘ Me? ’ said William indignantly. ‘Me go to tea with that ole girl? Me? ’
    ‘She – she’s a nice little girl,’ said Mrs Brown weakly.
    ‘I saw her,’ said William scathingly, ‘curls and things.’
    ‘Well, you must come. She’s expecting you.’
    ‘I only hope,’ said William sternly, ‘that she won’t ’spect me to talk to her.’
    ‘She’ll expect you to play with her, I’m sure,’ said his mother.
    ‘Play!’ said William. ‘Play? With a girl? Me? Huh!’
    William, pale and proud, and dressed in his best suit, his heart steeled to his humiliating fate, went with his mother to the Hall the next week. He was silent all the way there. His thoughts
were too deep for words. Mrs Brown watched him anxiously.
    An over-dressed Mrs Bott was sitting in an over-furnished drawing-room. She rose at once with an over-effusive smile and held out over-ringed hands.
    ‘So you’ve brought dear little boysie,’ she began.
    The over-effusive smile died away before the look that William turned on her.
    ‘Er – I hadn’t thought of him quite like that,’ she said weakly, ‘but I’m sure he’s sweet,’ she added hastily.
    William greeted her coldly and politely, then took his seat and sat like a small statue scowling in front of him. His hair had been brushed back with so much vigour and application of liquid
that it looked as if it were painted on his head.
    ‘Would you like to look at a picture book, boysie?’ she said.
    William did not answer. He merely looked at her and she hastily turned away to talk to Mrs Brown. She talked about her rheumatism and Mr Bott’s liver and the incompetence of Violet
Elizabeth’s nurse.
    Then Violet Elizabeth entered. Violet Elizabeth’s fair hair was not naturally curly but as the result of great daily labour on the part of the much maligned nurse it stood up in a halo of
curls round her small head. The curls looked almost, if not quite, natural. Violet Elizabeth’s small pink and white face shone with cleanliness. Violet Elizabeth was so treasured and guarded
and surrounded with every care that her small pink and white face had never been known to do anything else except shine with cleanliness. But the pièce de résistance about Violet
Elizabeth’s appearance was her skirts. Violet Elizabeth was dressed in a white lace-trimmed dress with a blue waistband and beneath the miniature blue waistband, her skirts stood out like a
tiny ballet dancer’s in a filmy froth of lace-trimmed petticoats. From this cascade emerged Violet Elizabeth’s bare legs, to disappear ultimately into white silk socks and white
buckskin shoes.
    William gazed at this engaging apparition in