Free William the Fourth by Richmal Crompton Page A

d’Arceys came to the Grange. A branch of the d’Arcey family, you know. Lord
d’Arcey and Lady d’Arcey and Lady Barbara d’Arcey. Lady Barbara was seven years of age. She was fair, frilly, fascinating. Lady d’Arcey engaged a dancing-master to come down
from London once a week to teach her dancing. They invited several of the children of the village to join. They invited William. His mother was delighted, but William – freckled, untidy, and
seldom clean – was horrified to the depth of his soul. No entreaties or threats could move him. He said he didn’t care what they did to him; he said they could kill him if they liked.
He said he’d rather be killed than go to an ole dancing class anyway, with that soft-looking kid. Well, he didn’t care who her father was. She was a soft-looking kid, and he
wasn’t going to no dancing class with her. Wildly ignoring the rules that govern the uses of the negative, he frequently reiterated that he wasn’t going to no dancing class with her. He wouldn’t be seen speaking to her, much less dancing with her.
    His mother almost wept.
    ‘You see,’ she explained to Ethel, William’s grown-up sister, ‘it puts us at a sort of disadvantage. And Lady d’Arcey is so nice, and it’s so
kind of them to ask William!’
    William’s sister, however, took a wholly different view of the matter.
    ‘It might put them,’ she said, ‘a good deal more against us if William went !’
    William’s mother admitted that there was something in that.
    William lay in the loft, reclining at length on his front, his chin resting on his hands. He was engaged in reading. On one side of him stood a bottle of liquorice water, which
he had made himself; on the other was a large slab of cake, which he had stolen from the larder. On his freckled face was the look of scowling ferocity that it always wore in any mental effort. The
fact that his jaws had ceased to work, though the cake was yet unfinished, testified to the enthralling interest of the story he was reading.
    ‘Black-hearted Dick dragged the fair maid by the wrist to the captain’s cave. A bottle of grog stood at the captain’s right hand. The captain slipped a mask over his eyes, and
smiled a sinister smile. He twirled his long black moustachios with one hand.
    ‘“Unhand the maiden, dog,” he said.
    ‘Then he swept her a stately bow.
    ‘“Fair maid,” he said, “unless thy father bring me sixty thousand crowns tonight, thy doom is sealed. Thou shalt swing from yon lone pine-tree!”
    ‘The maiden gave a piercing scream. Then she looked closely at the masked face.
    ‘“Who – who art thou?” she faltered.
    ‘Again the captain’s sinister smile flickered beneath the mask.
    ‘“Rudolph of the Red Hand,” he said.
    ‘At these terrible words the maiden swooned into the arms of Black-hearted Dick.
    ‘“A-ha,” said the grim Rudolph, with a sneer. “No man lives who does not tremble at those words.”
    ‘And again that smile curved his dread lips, as he looked at the yet unconscious maiden.
    ‘For well he knew that the sixty thousand crowns would be his that even.
    ‘ “Let her be treated with all courtesy – till tonight,” he said as he turned away’
    William heaved a deep sigh and took a long draught of liquorice water.
    It seemed an easy and wholly delightful way of earning money
    ‘They’re awfully nice people,’ said Ethel the next day at breakfast, ‘and it is so kind of them to ask us to tea.’
    ‘Very,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘and they say, “Bring the little boy”.’
    The little boy looked up, with the sinister smile he had been practising.
    ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Ha!’
    He wished he had a mask, because, though he felt he could manage the smile quite well, the narrative had said nothing about the expression of the upper part of Rudolph of the Red Hand’s
face. However, he felt that his customary scowl would do quite well.
    ‘You’ll come, dear, won’t you?’ said Mrs Brown