Just William Read Online Free Page A

Robert in despair. ‘No one ever tries to understand what I feel. After all I’ve told you about her and that
she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen and miles above me and above anyone and you think I feel a “friendly interest” in her. It’s — it’s the one
great passion of my life! It’s—’
    ‘Well,’ put in Mrs Brown mildly, ‘I’ll ring up Mrs Clive and ask if she’s doing anything tomorrow afternoon.’
    Robert’s tragic young face lit up, then he stood wrapped in thought, and a cloud of anxiety overcast it.
    ‘Ellen can press the trousers of my brown suit tonight, can’t she? And, Mother, could you get me some socks and a tie before tomorrow? Blue, I think – a bright blue, you know,
not too bright, but not so as you don’t notice them. I wish the laundry was a decent one. You know, a man’s collar ought to shine when it’s new on. They never put a shine
on to them. I’d better have some new ones for tomorrow. It’s so important, how one looks. She – people judge you on how you look. They—’
    Mrs Brown laid her work aside.
    ‘I’ll go and ring up Mrs Clive now,’ she said.
    When she returned, William had gone and Robert was standing by the window, his face pale with suspense, and a Napoleonic frown on his brow.
    ‘Mrs Clive can’t come,’ announced Mrs Brown in her comfortable voice, ‘but Miss Cannon will come alone. It appears she’s met Ethel before. So you needn’t
worry any more, dear.’
    Robert gave a sardonic laugh.
    ‘ Worry! ’ he said, ‘There’s plenty to worry about still. What about William?’
    ‘Well, what about him?’
    ‘Well, can’t he go away somewhere tomorrow? Things never go right when William’s there. You know they don’t.’
    ‘The poor boy must have tea with us, dear. He’ll be very good, I’m sure. Ethel will be home then and she’ll help. I’ll tell William not to worry you. I’m sure
he’ll be good.’
    William had received specific instructions. He was not to come into the house till the tea-bell rang, and he was to go out and play in the garden again directly after tea. He
was perfectly willing to obey them. He was thrilled by the thought of Robert in the role of the lovelorn hero. He took the situation quite seriously.
    He was in the garden when the visitor came up the drive. He had been told not to obtrude himself upon her notice, so he crept up silently and peered at her through the rhododendron bushes. The
proceeding also happened to suit his character of the moment, which was that of a Red Indian chief.
    Miss Cannon was certainly pretty. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and dimples that came and went in her rosy cheeks. She was dressed in white and carried a parasol. She walked up the drive,
looking neither to right nor left, till a slight movement in the bushes arrested her attention. She turned quickly and saw a small boy’s face, smeared black with burnt cork and framed in
hens’ feathers tied on with tape. The dimples peeped out.
    ‘Hail, O great chief!’ she said.
    William gazed at her open-mouthed. Such intelligence on the part of a grown-up was unusual.
    ‘Chief Red Hand,’ he supplied with a fierce scowl.
    She bowed low, brown eyes alight with merriment.
    ‘And what death awaits the poor white face who has fallen defenceless into his hand?’
    ‘You better come quiet to my wigwam an’ see,’ said Red Hand darkly.
    She threw a glance to the bend in the drive behind which lay the house and with a low laugh followed him through the bushes. From one point the drawing-room window could be seen, and there the
anxious Robert stood, pale with anxiety, stiff and upright in his newly creased trousers (well turned up to show the new blue socks), his soulful eyes fixed steadfastly on the bend in the drive
round which the beloved should come. Every now and then his nervous hand wandered up to touch the new tie and gleaming new collar, which was rather too high and too tight for comfort, but which the