WILLIAM AND WHITE SATIN
"I'd simply love to have a page," murmured Miss Grant wistfully. "A
wedding seems so--second-rate without a page."
Mrs. Brown, her aunt and hostess, looked across the tea-table at her
younger son, who was devouring iced cake with that disregard for
consequences which is the mark of youth.
"There's William," she said doubtfully. Then, "You've had quite enough
cake, William."
Miss Grant studied William's countenance, which at that moment expressed
intense virtue persecuted beyond all bearing.
"_Enough!_" he repeated. "I've had hardly any yet. I was only jus'
beginning to have some when you looked at me. It's a plain cake. It
won't do me any harm. I wu'nt eat it if it'd do me any harm. Sugar's
_good_ for you. Animals eat it to keep healthy. _Horses_ eat it an' it
don't do 'em any _harm_, an' poll parrots an' things eat it an' it don't
do 'em any----"
"Oh, don't argue, William," said his mother wearily.
William's gift of eloquence was known and feared in his family circle.
Then Miss Grant brought out the result of her study of his countenance.
"He's got such a--_modern_ face!" she said. "There's something
essentially mediaeval and romantic about the idea of a page."
Mrs. Brown (from whose house the wedding was to take place) looked
worried.
"There's nothing mediaeval or romantic about William," she said.
"Well,"--Miss Grant's intellectual face lit up--"what about his cousin
Dorita. They're about the same age, aren't they? Both eleven. Well, the
_two_ of them in white satin with bunches of holly. Don't you think?
Would you mind having her to stay for the ceremony?" (Miss Grant always
referred to her wedding as "the ceremony.") "If you don't have his hair
cut for a bit, he mightn't look so bad?"
William had retired to the garden with his three bosom friends--Ginger,
Henry, and Douglas--where he was playing his latest game of
mountaineering. A plank had been placed against the garden wall, and up
this scrambled the three, roped together and wearing feathers in their
caps. William was wearing an old golf cap of his mother's, and mentally
pictured himself as an impressive and heroic figure. Before they reached
the top they invariably lost their foothold, rolled down the plank and
fell in a confused and bruised heap at the bottom. The bruises in no way
detracted from the charm of the game. To William the fascination of any
game consisted mainly in the danger to life and limb involved. The game
had been suggested by an old alpenstock which had been thoughtlessly
presented to William by a friend of Mr. Brown's. The paint of the
staircase and upstairs corridor had been completely ruined before the
family knew of the gift, and the alpenstock had been confiscated for a
week, then restored on the condition that it was not to be brought into
the house. The result was the game of mountaineering up the plank. They
carried the alpenstock in turns, but William had two turns running to
mark the fact that he was its proud possessor.
Mrs. Brown approached William on the subject of his prospective _role_
of page with a certain apprehension. The normal attitude of William's
family towards William was one of apprehension.
"Would you like to go to Cousin Sybil's wedding?" she said.
"No, I wu'nt," said William without hesitation.
"Wouldn't you like to go dressed up?" she said.
"Red Injun?" said William with a gleam of hope.
"Er--no, not exactly."
"Pirate?"
"Not quite."
"I'd go as a Red Injun, or I'd go as a Pirate," he said firmly, "but I
wu'nt go as anything else."
"A page," said Miss Grant's clear, melodious voice, "is a mediaeval and
romantic idea, William. There's the glamour of chivalry about it that
should appeal strongly to a boy of your age."
William turned his inscrutable countenance upon her and gave her a cold
glare.
They discussed his costume in private.
[Illustration: "WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO TO COUSIN SYBIL'S WEDDING?" SHE
ASKED. "NO, I WU'NT," SAID WILLIAM WITHOUT HESITATION.]
"I've got a pair of lovely white silk stockings," said his mother.
"They'd do for tights, and Ethel has got a satin petticoat that's just
beginning to go in one place. I should think we could make some sort of
costume from that, don't you? We'll buy some more white satin and get
some patterns."
"No, I won't wear Ethel's ole clothes," said William smouldering. "You
all jus' want to make me look ridiclus. You don't care how ridiclus I
look. I shall be ridiclus all the rest of my life goin' about in Ethel's
ole clothes. I jus' won't do it. I jus' won't go to any ole weddin'. No,
I _don't_ want to see Cousin Sybil married, an' I jus' _won't_ be made
look ridiclus in Ethel's ole clothes."
They reasoned and coaxed and threatened, but in vain. Finally William
yielded to parental authority and went about his world with an air of a
martyr doomed to the stake. Even the game of mountaineering had lost its
charm and the alpenstock lay neglected against the garden wall. The
attitude of his select circle of friends was not encouraging.
"Yah! _Page!_ Who's goin' to be a _page_? Oh, crumbs. A page all dressed
up in white. _Dear_ little Willie. Won't he look swe-e-e-et?"
Life became very full. It was passed chiefly in the avenging of insults.
William cherished a secret hope that the result of this would be to
leave him disfigured for life and so unable to attend the wedding.
However, except for a large lump on his forehead, he was none the worse.
He eyed the lump thoughtfully in his looking-glass and decided that with
a little encouragement it might render his public appearance in an
affair of romance an impossibility. But the pain which resulted from one
heroic effort at banging it against the wall caused him to abandon the
plan.
Dorita arrived the next week, and with her her small brother, Michael,
aged three. Dorita was slim and graceful, with a pale little oval face
and dark curling hair.
Miss Grant received her on the doorstep.
"Well, my little maid of honour?" she said in her flute-like tones.
"Welcome! We're going to be such friends--you and me and William--the
bride" (she blushed and bridled becomingly) "and her little page and her
little maid of honour. William's a boy, and he's just a _leetle_ bit
thoughtless and doesn't realise the romance of it all. I'm sure you
will. I see it in your dear little face. We'll have some lovely talks
together." Her eyes fell upon Michael and narrowed suddenly. "He'd look
sweet, too, in white satin, wouldn't he?" turning to Mrs. Brown. "He
could walk between them.... We could buy some more white satin...."
When they had gone the maid of honour turned dark, long-lashed, demure
eyes upon William.
"Soft mug, that," she said in clear refined tones, nodding in the
direction of the door through which the tall figure of Miss Grant had
just disappeared.
William was vaguely cheered by her attitude.
"Are you keen on this piffling wedding affair?" she went on carelessly,
"'cause I jolly well tell you I'm not."
William felt that he had found a kindred spirit. He unbent so far as to
take her to the stable and show her a field-mouse he had caught and was
keeping in a cardboard box.
"I'm teachin' it to dance," he confided, "an' it oughter fetch a jolly
lot of money when it can dance proper. Dancin' mice do, you know. They
show 'em on the stage, and people on the stage get pounds an' pounds
every night, so I bet mice do, too--at least the folks the mice belong
to what dance on the stage. I'm teachin' it to dance by holdin' a
biscuit over its head and movin' it about. It bit me twice yesterday."
He proudly displayed his mutilated finger. "I only caught it yesterday.
It oughter learn all right to-day," he added hopefully.
Her intense disappointment, when the only trace of the field-mouse that
could be found was the cardboard box with a hole gnawed at one corner,
drew William's heart to her still more.
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 butt-end of a bargepole.
She's an assified cow, she is. Humph!"
[Illustration: "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 butter 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 butter 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 butter 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 butter 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?"
William considered.
"Well, we was jus' walking round the room," he said, "an' we jus' felt
tired and we sat----"
"_Stop_ saying that."
"Couldn't we make _cloaks_?" wailed the bride, "to hang down and cover
them all up behind. It wouldn't take long----"
Mr. Brown took out his watch.
[Illustration: "THERE WAS THIS STUFF ON THE CHESTERFIELD, AND IT CAME ON
OUR CLOTHES," WILLIAM EXPLAINED STONILY ALL IN ONE BREATH.]
"The carriage has been waiting a quarter of an hour already," he said
firmly. "We've no time to spare. Come along, my dear. We'll continue the
investigation after the service. You can't go, of course, you must stay
at home now," he ended, turning a stern eye upon William. There was an
unconscious note of envy in his voice.
"And I did so _want_ to have a page," said Miss Grant plaintively as she
turned away.
Joy and hope returned to William with a bound. As the sound of wheels
was heard down the drive he turned head over heels several times on the
lawn, then caught sight of his long-neglected alpenstock leaning against
a wall.
"Come on," he shouted joyfully. "I'll teach you a game I made up. It's
mountaineerin'."
She watched him place a plank against the wall and begin his perilous
ascent.
"You're a mug," she said in her clear, sweet voice. "I know a
mountaineering game worth ten of that old thing."
And it says much for the character and moral force of the maid-of-honour
that William meekly put himself in the position of pupil.
It must be explained at this point that the domestics of the Brown
household were busy arranging refreshments in a marquee in the garden.
The front hall was quite empty.
In about a quarter of an hour the game of mountaineering was in full
swing. On the lowest steps of the staircase reposed the mattress from
William's father's and mother's bed, above it the mattress from Miss
Grant's bed, above that the mattress from William's bed, and on the top,
the mattress from Dorita's bed. In all the bedrooms the bedclothes lay
in disarray on the floor. A few nails driven through the ends of the
mattresses into the stairs secured the stability of the "mountain."
Still wearing their robes of ceremony, they scrambled up in stockinged
feet, every now and then losing foothold and rolling down to the pile of
pillows and bolsters (taken indiscriminately from all the beds) which
was arranged at the foot of the staircase. Their mirth was riotous and
uproarious. They used the alpenstock in turns. It was a great help. They
could get a firm hold on the mattresses with the point of the
alpenstock. William stood at the top of the mountain, hot and panting,
his alpenstock in his hand, and paused for breath. He was well aware
that retribution was not far off--was in the neighbouring church, to be
quite exact, and would return in a carriage within the next few minutes.
He was aware that an explanation of the yellow stain was yet to be
demanded. He was aware that this was not a use to which the family
mattresses could legitimately be put. But he cared for none of these
things. In his mind's eye he only saw a crowd of small boys assembled
outside a church door with eager eyes fixed on a carriage from which
descended--Miss Grant, Mrs. Brown, and Mr. Brown. His life stretched
before him bright and rose-coloured. A smile of triumph curved his lips.
"Yah! Who waited at a church for someone what never came? Yah!"
"I hope you didn't get a bad cold waitin' for me on Wednesday at the
church door."
"Some folks is easy had. I bet you all believed I was coming on
Wednesday."
[Illustration: THEY USED THE ALPENSTOCK IN TURNS--IT WAS A GREAT HELP.]
Such sentences floated idly through his mind.
"I say, my turn for that stick with the spike."
William handed it to her in silence.
"I say," she repeated, "what do you think of this marriage business?"
"Dunno," said William laconically.
"If I'd got to marry," went on the maid of honour, "I'd as soon marry
_you_ as anyone."
"I wu'nt mind," said the page gallantly. "But," he added hastily, "in
ornery clothes."
"Oh, yes," she lost her foothold and rolled down to the pile of pillows.
From them came her voice muffled, but clear as ever. "You betcher life.
In ornery clothes."