BILL

By Barry Pain

THE STORY OF A BOY WHOM THE GODS LOVED.

BILL came slowly up the steps from a basement flat in Pond Buildings, crossed the pavement, and sat down on the kerb-stone in the sunshine, with his feet in a delightful puddle. He was reflecting.

“All that fuss about a dead byeby!” he said to himself.

He was quite a little boy, with a dirty face, gipsy eyes, and a love for animals. He had slept the deep sleep of childhood the night before, and had heard nothing of what was happening. In the early morning, however, he had been enlightened by his father—a weak man, with a shuffling gait, who tried to do right and generally failed.

“Bill, cummere. Larst night there were a byeby come to be your sister if she’d grow’d. But she didn’t live more’n hour. An’ that’s why your awnt’s ’ere, an’ mind yer do whort she tells yer, an’ don’t go inter the other room, an’ don’t do nothin’ ’cep’ whort yer told, or I’ll break yer ’ead for yer, sure’s death, I will!”

Then Bill’s father had gone away to his work, being unable to afford the loss of a day; and Bill’s vehement, red-haired aunt had come into the kitchen, and shaken him, and abused him, and given him some breakfast. Bill’s aunt was one of those unfortunate people who cannot love one person without hating three others to make up for it. Just at present she was loving Bill’s mother, her sister, very much, and retained her self-respect by being very strict with Bill’s father, with Bill himself, and with the doctor. She instructed Bill that he was not to go to school that morning. He was to remain absolutely quiet in the kitchen, because he might be wanted to run errands and do odd jobs. For some time Bill had obeyed her, and then monotony tempted him to include the little yard at the back in his definition of the kitchen. All the basement flats in Pond Buildings have little yards at the back. Most of the inhabitants use them as drying-grounds. In some of them there is a dead shrub or the remains of a sanguine geranium that failed; in all of them there are cinders and very old meat-tins. Now, when Bill went out into the yard, he found the black cat, which he called Simon Peter, asleep in the sun on the wall. Simon Peter did not belong to any one; she roamed about at the back of Pond Buildings, dodged anything that was thrown at her, and ate unspeakable things. She had formed a melancholy and unremunerative attachment to Bill; her name had been suggested to him by stray visits to a Sunday-school, forced on him during a short season when his father, to use his own phrase, had got religion. “Siming Peter,” said Bill, as he scratched her gently under the ear, “Siming Peter, my cat, come in ’ere along o’ me and ’ave some milk.”

It is not at all probable that Simon Peter was deceived by this. She must have known that, with the best intentions in the world, Bill could not do so much as this for her. Yet she blinked at him with her lazy green eyes, and followed him from the yard into the kitchen. Bill filled a saucer with water, and put it down on the ground before her. “There yer are, Siming Peter,” he said; “an’ that’s better for yer nor any milk.” Simon Peter put up her back slowly, mewed contemptuously, and trotted out into the yard again. Bill, dashing after her, trod on the saucer and broke it, and overturned a chair. In another moment he was in the clutches of his fierce aunt.

“Do you want to kill your blessed mother, you devil? Didn’t I tell yer to sit quoite? An’ a good saucer broke, with the poor dead corpse of your byeby sister lyin’ in the next room. Go hout! You’re more nuisance nor you’re wuth. See ’ere. Don’t you show your ugly ’ead ’ere agin afore night. An’ when yer comes back I’ll tell your father of yer, an’ ’e ’ll skin yer alive. Dinner? Not for such as you. Hout yer git.”

So Bill had been turned out, and now sat with his feet in a delightful puddle, reflecting for a minute or two on dead babies, injustice, puddles, and other things. It was a larger puddle, as far as Bill could see, than any other in the street, and it was this which made it so charming. But a puddle is of no use to any one who has not got something to float on it. If you have something to float on it you can imagine boats, and races, and storms, and it becomes a magnificent playground for the imagination; otherwise the biggest puddle is simply a puddle, and it is nothing more. So Bill started down the street to look for something which would float, a scrap of paper or a straw. He was stopped by a lanky unkempt girl with yellow hair, who was leaning on a broom that was almost bald, outside an open door. She was four or five years older than Bill, and she was very fond of him. The girls of the wretched neighbourhood for the most part rather petted Bill; they did so, without knowing their reason, because he was quaint, and pretty, and little. He was rather dirty it was true, but then so were they; and for the most part they were not so pretty.

“Bill,” said the yellow-haired girl, “why awnt yer at school? You’ll ketch it, Bill.”

“No, I ’ont. They kep’ me, ’cos we’ve got a byeby, an’ the byeby’s dead. Then they tunned me out for breakin’ a saucer when I was goin’ after Siming Peter what I were feedin’, an’ I ain’t to ’ave no dinner, and I ain’t to come back afore night, and when I do come back I’m goin’ to be walloped. I wish I was dead!”

“Oh, Bill, you are a bad boy; what are yer goin’ to do?”

“Play ships at that puddle. I was lookin’ for sutthin’ what ’ud do for ships, an’ can’t find nothin’.”

“An’ what’ll yer do about dinner?”

“I ain’t goin’ to ’ave no dinner,” said Bill, solemnly, “I’m goin’ to starve. They don’t keer. Dead byebies is what they like.”

The lanky girl leaned her broom against the wall, sat down on the doorstep, and commenced the research of a pocket; the pocket yielded her one penny.

“Look ’ere, Bill,” she said, “you take this and git yourself sutthin’ to eat.”

Bill shook his head, and pressed his lips together. He was much moved.

]“I ’ad it give me a week ago, and I sived it ’cos there warn’t nothin’ what I wanted. So you take it. I don’t want it. If yer like, yer can give us a kiss for it.” She pressed it into his hand. “There ain’t no other little boy I know what I’d give it to,” she added rather inconsistently.

Bill nodded his head, and the lips grew a little tremulous. He had been treated cruelly all the morning, and this sudden change to sympathy and generosity was almost too much for him. He kissed the yellow-haired girl—once timidly and then suddenly with great affection.

“Why, Bill,” she said, “I ain’t done nothin’ to ’urt yer, yer look ommust as if yer was goin’ to cry.”

“No, I ain’t,” replied Bill, finding words with difficulty, “but—but I ’ate ev’rybody in the world ’cep’ you.”

Then he walked away with great dignity, and every nerve in his excitable little body quivering. He felt on the whole rather more wretched than before. The contrast made him feel both sides of it more deeply. He had forgotten now about the beautiful puddle and his intention to play ships. He wandered down the main street, and then down a side street which led behind a grim, frowning church. And here he found something which attracted his attention. It was a dirty little shop which a small tobacconist and an almost microscopical grocer had used successively as a last step before bankruptcy. It had then remained for some time unoccupied. But now the whole of the window was occupied with one great bright picture, before which a small crowd had gathered. It represented a beautiful mermaid swimming in a beautiful sea, accompanied by a small octopus and some boiled shrimps. Her hair was very golden and very long; her eyes were very blue; she was very pink and very fat. Underneath was the announcement—

THE MERMAID OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC!

Positively to be Seen Within!!

FOR A FEW DAYS ONLY.

ADMISSION ONE PENNY

An old man was standing in the doorway, with a tattered red curtain behind him, supplying further details of the history and personal appearance of the mermaid. He looked slightly military, distinctly intemperate, and very unfortunate, yet he was energetic.

“What it comes to is this—for a few days only I am offering two ’igh-class entertainments at the price of one. The performance commences with an exhibition by that most marvellous Spanish conjurer, Madumarsell Rimbini, and concludes with that unparalleled wonder of the world, the mermaid of the Western Pasuffolk. I have been asked frequent if it pays me to do this. No, it does not pay me. I am doing it entirely as an advertisement. Kindly take notice that this mermaid is not a shadder, faked up with lookin’ glasses. She is real—solid—genuine—discovered by an English officer while cruisin’ in the Western Pasuffolk, and purchased direct from ’im by myself. The performance will commence in one minute. If any gentleman is not able to stay now, I may remark that the performances will be repeated agin this evenin’ from seven to ten. What it comes to is this—for a few days only, etc.”

Of course Bill had seen shows of a kind before. He had seen a ’bus horse stumble, and almost pick itself up, and stumble again, and finally go down half on the kerb-stone. That had been attractive, but there had been nothing to pay for it. Again, in his Sunday-school days, he had been present at an entertainment where the exhilaration of solid buns and dissolving views had been gently tempered by a short address. That too was attractive, but it had been free. And now it would not be possible to see this beautiful buoyant creature swimming in clear shrimp-haunted waters unless he paid a penny for it, the only penny that he possessed. Never before had he paid anything to go anywhere. The temptation was masterful. It gripped him, and drew him towards the tattered red curtain that hung over the entrance. In another minute he had paid his penny, and stood within.

At one end of the shop a low stage had been erected. On the stage was something which looked like a large packing-case with a piece of red baize thrown over it. There was a small table, on which were two packs of playing-cards and a brightly coloured pill-box, and a tired fat woman in a low dress of peculiar frowziness. As the audience entered she put a smile on her face, where it remained fixed as if it had been pinned. The performance commenced with three clumsy card-tricks. Then she requested some one in the audience to put a halfpenny in the painted pill-box and see it changed into a shilling. The audience felt that they had been weak in paying a penny to see the show, and on this last point they were adamant. They would put no halfpennies in no pill-boxes. They were now firm. So also was the Spanish conjurer, and this trick was omitted. She intimated that she would now proceed to the second part of the entertainment, the exhibition of the mermaid of the Western Pacific. She removed, dramatically, the red-baize cover, disclosing a glass case. The audience pressed forward to examine its contents. The case was filled for the most part with those romantic rocks and grasses which conventionality has appointed to be a suitable setting for stuffed canaries, or stuffed dogs, or anything that is stuffed. There was a background of painted sky and sea; and in the front there was a small, most horrible figure, looking straight at Bill out of hideous, green, glassy eyes. It was not the lovely creature depicted in the window outside. It was a monstrous thing, a contemptible fraud to the practised intelligence, but to Bill’s childish, excitable mind a thing of unspeakable horror and fascination. The lower half was a wilted, withered fish; then came a girdle of seaweed, and then something which was near to being human, yellow and waxy, with a ghastly face, a bald head, and those eyes that would keep looking at Bill. He shut his own eyes for a second; when he opened them again the monstrous thing was still looking at him.

There were two men standing near to Bill. One of them was a very young and very satirical carpenter, with a foot-rule sticking out of his coat-pocket. “So that’s a mermaid!” he remarked. “Yer call that a mermaid—oh!—indeed, a mermaid—oh, yes!”

“Seems to me,” said the other man, middle-aged, cadaverous, and dressed in rusty black, “that it’s a sight more like a dead byeby.”

“Well, you ought to know,” replied the satirical carpenter, grinning.

Bill heard this. So in that basement flat in Pond Buildings, Bill’s home, there was something lying quite still and waiting for him, to frighten him. He had never thought what a dead baby would be like. His mind began to work in flashes. The first flash reminded him of some horrible stories which his red-haired, vehement aunt had told him, to terrify him into being good. He had objected at the close of one story that dead people could not walk about.

“You don’t know,” his aunt had replied, “nobody knows, what dead people can do.” In the second flash he imagined that he had gone home, had been lectured by his aunt, and beaten by his father, and had cried himself to sleep. He would wake up at night, when all was quiet—he felt sure of it—and the room would not be quite dark. He would see by the white moonlight a horrible, yellow, waxy thing crawling across the floor. It would not go to the right or to the left, but straight towards him. It would be his dead baby sister, and it would have a face like the face of the mermaid, and it would stare at him. He would be unable to call out. It would come nearer and nearer, and at last it would touch him. Then he would die of fright.

No, he would not go home, not until the dead baby had been taken away.

As the audience crowded out through the narrow doorway, Bill touched the man in shabby black:

“Please, sir, ’ow long is it afore they bury dead babies?”

The man stared at him searchingly. “What do yer want to know that for? Depends on the weather partly, and on the inclinations of the bereaved party. ‘Soon as possible’ ’s allus my advice, but they let it go for days frequent.”

Bill thanked him, and walked aimlessly away. He could not get the terror out of his mind. He walked through street after street, so absorbed in horrible thoughts that he hardly noticed what direction he was taking, and only just escaped being run over. He had been wandering for over an hour when he came across two boys, whom he knew, playing marbles. This was companionship and diversion for his thoughts. For some time he watched the game with interest, and then one of the players pulled from his pocket two large marbles of greenish glass, and set them rolling. Bill turned away at once, for he had been reminded of those green eyes. He imagined that they were still looking at him; but, in his imagination, they belonged not to the mermaid, but to the dead baby. He wished again and again that he had never been to that show. He was growing almost desperate with terror. Of course, his state of mind was to some extent due to the fact that he had eaten nothing for eight hours. But then, Bill did not know this. Suddenly he gave a great start, and a gasp for breath, for he had been touched on the shoulder. He looked up and saw his father. Now Bill’s father had drunk two glasses of bad beer during his dinner hour, and in consequence he was feeling somewhat angry and somewhat self-righteous, for his head was exceedingly weak and poor. He addressed Bill very solemnly—

“Loit’rin’ in the streets! loit’rin’ and playin’ in the streets! What’s the good o’ my bringing of yer up in the fear o’ Gawd?”

Bill had no answer to make; so his father aimed a blow at him, which Bill dodged.

“All right,” his father continued, “I’m sent out on a jorb, and I ain’t got the time to wallup yer now. But you mark my words—this very night, as sure as my name’s what it is, I’ll knock yer blawstid ’ead off.”

At any other time this would have frightened Bill. But now it came as a positive relief. There is no fear so painful, so maddening, as the fear of the supernatural. The promise that he should have his head knocked off had in itself but little charm or attraction. But in that case he knew what to fear and from whence to fear it. It took his thoughts away for a few minutes from the horror of that dead baby, whose ghastly face he pictured to himself so clearly. But it was only for a few minutes; the face came back again to his mind and haunted him. He could not escape from it. He was more than ever determined that he would not go home; he dared not spend a night in the next room to it. Already the afternoon was closing in, and Bill had no notion where he was to go for the night. For the present he decided to make his way to the green; he would probably meet other boys there that he knew.

The green to which he went is much frequented by the poor of the south-west. The railway skirts one side of it, and gives it an additional attraction to children. Bill was tired out with walking. He flung himself down on the grass to rest. His exhaustion at last overcame his fears, and he fell asleep. He slept for a long time, and in his sleep he had a dream.

It was, so it seemed to him in his dream, late in the evening, and he was standing outside the door of the basement flat. He had knocked, and was waiting to be admitted. Suddenly he noticed that the door was just ajar. He pushed it open and entered. He called, but there was no answer. All was dark. The outer door swung to with a bang behind him. He thought that he would wait in the kitchen by the light of the fire until some one came. He felt his way to the kitchen and sat down in front of the fire.

It had burnt very low, and the furniture was only just distinguishable by the light of it. As he was waiting he heard very faintly the sound of breathing. It did not frighten him; but he could not understand it, because as far as he could see there was no living thing in the room except himself. He thought that he would strike a light and discover what it was. The matches were in a cupboard on the right-hand side of the fireplace. He could only just reach the fastening, and it took him some little time to undo it. The moment the fastening was undone the door flew open, and something yellowish-white fell or rather leapt out upon him, fixing little quickly-moving fingers in his hair. With a scream he fell to the floor. He had shut his eyes in horror, but he felt compelled to open them again to see what this thing was that clung to him, writhing and panting. A little spurt of flame had shot up, and showed him the face. Its eyes were blinking and rolling. Its mouth moved horribly and convulsively, and there was foam on the white lips. The face was close to his own; it drew nearer; it touched him. It was wet.

Bill suddenly woke and sprang to his feet, shivering and maddened with terror. The green was dark and deserted. A cold, strong wind had sprung up, and he heard it howling dismally. An impulse seized him to run—to run for his life. For a moment he hesitated; and then, under the shadow of the wall, slinking along in the darkness, he saw something white coming towards him, and with a quick gasp he turned and ran. He paid no heed to the direction in which he was going; he dared not look behind, for he felt sure that the nameless horror was behind him; he ran until he was breathless, and then walked a few paces, and ran again. As he crossed the road on the outer edge of the green, a policeman stopped and looked at him suspiciously. Bill did not even see the policeman. His one idea was escape.

It happened that he ran in the direction of the river. He had left the road now, and was following a muddy track that led through some grimy, desolate market-gardens. All around him there was horror. It screamed in the screaming wind with a voice that was half human; it took shape in the darkness, and lean, white arms, convulsively active, seemed to be snatching at him as he passed; the pattering of blown leaves was changed by it into the pattering of something ghastly, coming very quickly after him. For one second he paused on the river’s brink; and then, pressing both his hands tightly over his eyes, he flung himself into the water.

And the river went on unconcerned, and the laws of Nature did not deviate from their regular course. So the boy was drowned. It was a pity; for he was in some ways a lovable boy, and there were possibilities in him.

Bill’s aunt was putting the untidy bedroom straight when his mother, opening her eyes and turning a little on the bed, said, in a low, tired voice—

“I want Bill. Wheer’s Bill?”

“I sent ’im out, dearie; ’e’ll be back d’rectly. Don’t you worry yourself about Bill. Why, that drattid lamp’s a-shinin’ strite onto your eyes. I’ll turn it down.”

There was a moment’s pause, while the vehement woman—quiet enough now—arranged the lamp and took her place by the bedside. She smoothed the young mother’s faded hair with one hand. “Go to sleep, dearie,” she said.

Then she began to sing in a hushed, quavering voice. It was a favourite hymn, and for devotional purposes she rarely used more than one vowel-sound—

“Urbud wuth me! Fust fulls thur uvvun-tud.”