Kitabı oku: «Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps. Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer», sayfa 10
And then, just as Abraham seemed to have settled down to the opening stages of a brilliant commercial career of his own building, a great calamity happened. It happened just when it might have been least expected to happen – for all things seemed auspicious for Abraham's greatness. He had bought a handsome house and was furnishing it handsomely. He had just become engaged to the daughter and only child of Alderman John Chepstow, who was a heiress in her own right and might be expected to inherit her father's considerable fortune in due time. Fortune seemed to be smiling upon him in her widest and friendliest fashion. Suddenly she frowned.
One night the quiet, sleeping streets of Sicaster were suddenly roused to hitherto unknown noise and activity. The rushing of feet on the pavement, the rattle of horses' hoofs on the cobble-stones, the throwing up of casements, the inarticulate cries of frightened people – all these things culminated in one great cry —Fire! And men and women rushing into the market-place saw that the stately old shop, Paulsford and Tatham's for sixty years, and Abraham Kellet's for two, was on fire from top to bottom, and that high above the holocaust of flame a thick cloud of black smoke rose slowly towards the moon-lit sky.
Kellet's, late Paulsford and Tatham's, was burnt to the ground ere the daylight came. There was one small fire-engine in the basement of the Town Hall, which spat at the fire as a month-old kitten spits at a mastiff, and when the brigades arrived from Clothford, twelve miles away in one direction, and Wovefield, eight in another, there was little but a few walls. They who saw it, told me that Abraham Kellet, arriving early on the scene and seeing the hopelessness of the situation, took up his stand on the steps of the market-cross, opposite, and watched his property burn until the roof fell in. He never uttered a word all that time, though several spoke to him, and when all was over, he turned away home. Then a reporter tugged at his elbow, and asked him if he was insured. He stared at the man for a moment as if he was mad; then he nodded his head.
"Yes – yes!" he answered. "Oh, yes!"
Everybody was very sorry for Abraham Kellet – although he was insured against fire it seemed to the Sicaster folk that a disaster like this must cripple his business. But they did not know Abraham. He seemed to be the only person who was really unconcerned, and he immediately developed a condition of extraordinary activity. There was a large building in the town which had been built as a circus – before ten o'clock of the morning after the fire Abraham had taken this and had sent circulars round announcing that his business would be carried on there until his new premises were built. He added that the temporary premises would be ready for the reception of customers in four days. Then he completely disappeared. People laughed, and said that he must have lost his reason. How could he have temporary premises open in four days when every rag of his stock had perished? How could he make that old circus, damp and musty, into a place where people could go shopping?
But Abraham was one of those men who refuse to believe in impossibilities. How he managed to do it, no one ever knew who was not actively concerned. But when the temporary premises were opened the old circus had been transformed into a sort of bazaar, and there was such a stock as had never been seen in the old shop. The whole town crowded there, and the county families came, and everybody wanted to congratulate Abraham. But having seen the temporary premises fairly going, Abraham was off on another track – he was busy with architects about the plans of the new shop. He laid the foundation stone of that himself, well within a month of the big fire.
The new shop was finished and opened just twelve months later – competent critics said it was as fine as a London or Paris shop, excepting, of course, for size. The day after the opening Abraham married Miss Chepstow, and indulged himself with a week's holiday. Then Mr. and Mrs. Kellet settled down in their fine house to a life of money-making and social advancement. And Abraham in time had leisure to devote to municipal affairs and became a councillor, and then an alderman, and at last reached the height of his ambition and saw the mayoral chair and chain and robes before him – close at hand.
"I've got my way to make. I shall make it. I'll be Mayor of Sicaster some day!"
II
I thought of all those things, as one will, half-unconsciously, think of memories when something recalls them, as I rode into Sicaster that chilly and foggy November morning to take part in the grand doings which always mark the election of a new mayor in that historic town. There would be ample opportunity for Abraham to display his greatness. First the election in the Council Chamber in the Town Hall; then the procession through the market-place to the parish church; finally, the mayoral banquet in the evening – Abraham, I said to myself, thinking of the time when I used to drive him to school and he shared my dinner, would (as we say in these parts) be in full pomp all day.
I was chilled with my ride, and when I had seen my mare stabled at the King George I turned into the bar-parlour to take a glass of whisky. There were several townsmen hob-a-nobbing there, as they always do when there is a general holiday in the town (and not seldom when there isn't!), and, of course, all the talk was of the mayor-elect. And one man, a tradesman, who as I knew (from sad experience on market-days) was uncommonly fond of hearing himself talk, was holding forth on the grandeur of those careers which begin at the bottom of the ladder and finish at the top.
"The self-made man, gentlemen," he was saying when I entered, "the self-made man is the king of men! What is a Peer of the Realm, gentlemen – yes, I will even go further, and with all respect say, what is the Sovereign in comparison with the man who has made himself out of nothing? Our worthy mayor-elect – "
"Why," said another man, interrupting the wordy one and espying me, "I believe Mr. Poskitt there used to drive Abraham into school in Sicaster here when they were lads together. Wasn't that so, Mr. Poskitt, sir?"
"You are quite right, sir," I replied, "and Mr. Kellet used to say in those days that he would be Mayor of Sicaster."
"Aye, look there now, gentlemen!" exclaimed the loquacious one. "That just proves the argument which – "
But I gave no heed to him – as I have said, I got enough of him on market-days, and my attention had been attracted to a man, a stranger (you know how quickly we country-folk always spot a man who does not belong to us), who sat in a corner of the bar-parlour, which, as I should say, you are all very well aware, is a dimly-lighted room. He sat there, apart from everybody, a glass on the table before him, a cigar in his hand – and the cigar had been lighted, and had gone out, and while the other men talked he made no attempt to relight it, but sat quietly listening. He was an oldish man, well dressed in clothes which were, I considered, of foreign cut and material; his hair was grey and rather long and tangled about his eyes, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat well pulled down over his brows. "An artist gentleman," I thought, and then thought no more about him and finished my whisky and went out into the market-place.
My invitation was to Abraham's private house, from which, in accordance with custom, he was to be escorted by a few private friends to the Town Hall at eleven o'clock. It was a fine, indeed a noble house, standing in the market-place exactly in front of his shop, and the interior was as grand as the exterior – paintings and gildings and soft carpets and luxuries on all sides. Abraham kept a man-servant by that time, and I was conducted in state up a fine staircase to the drawing-room, where I found a goodly company already assembled – the Vicar, and the Town Clerk, and some of the aldermen and big-wigs of the place, and Abraham in his usual – but new – attire of broadcloth and white linen, and his wife and two daughters in silks and satins, and everything very stately. There were rare wines set out on the tables, but I took a drop more whisky. And presently Abraham grasped my arm and led me across to one of the windows overlooking the market-place.
"Poskitt!" he said, in a low voice, "do you remember when you used to drive me into school and share your dinner with me?"
"I do," said I.
He waved his hand – a big white hand, with a fine diamond ring sparkling on it – towards the shop and then around him.
"Didn't I say I would be Mayor of Sicaster?" he said.
"You did," said I.
He put his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat – a favourite trick of his when he stood in the middle of his shop, looking about him – and spread himself out like a turkey-cock.
"And before noon I shall be, Poskitt!" he said. "The poor lad has become the great – "
He suddenly broke off there, and I saw his broad countenance, which was usually ruddy, turn as white as paste. He leaned forward, staring through the window with eyes that looked like to start out of his head. And following his glance I saw, standing on the opposite side of the market-place, and staring curiously at Kellet's house, the stranger whom I had seen a quarter of an hour before in the bar-parlour of the King George. He looked from window to window, up, down, and sauntered carelessly away.
Abraham Kellet pulled himself together and glanced suspiciously at me. There was a queer look on his face and he tried to smile – and at the same time he put his hand to his heart.
"Don't say anything, Poskitt," he said, looking round. "A slight spasm – it's nothing. The excitement, eh, Poskitt? And – it's time we were making a move."
He went back to the middle of the room and asked his company to join him in a final glass before setting out for the Town Hall, at the same time bidding his wife and daughters to be off to their places in the gallery set apart for ladies. And I noticed when he helped himself to a drink that he filled a champagne glass with brandy, and drank it off at a gulp, and that his hand trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips. Others, no doubt, noticed that too, and set it down to a very natural nervousness. He laughed, somewhat too boisterously, at an old-fashioned joke which the Vicar (who was as fond of his fun as he was of old port) made – that, too, might have been put down to nervousness. But I attributed neither the shaking hand nor the forced laughter to nervousness – it seemed to me that Abraham Kellet was frightened.
I told you that it was the custom in those days for the mayor-elect to be accompanied from his private residence to the Town Hall by a company of his friends – it was a further custom that each man walking in this little informal procession should carry what we then called a nosegay, and is now-a-days called a bouquet, of flowers. And so as we filed down the wide staircase of Abraham Kellet's house, each of us received at the hands of the man-servant a fine posy of such autumn blooms as were procurable. Thus decorated we went out into the market-place, passing between two groups of people who had gathered on either side the entrance to see the mayor-elect leave his house. They set up a hearty cheer as Abraham's burly figure came in sight, and that cheering continued all the way to the Town Hall, with an occasional blessing thrown in from old women who hoped, later in the day, to be sharers in the new mayor's bounty. Abraham walked through the market-place with erect head and smiling face, nodding and bowing right and left, but I, walking just behind and a little on one side of him, saw that he kept looking about him as if he were searching for a face.
The Town Hall was full when Abraham's party arrived – full, except for the seats which they had reserved for the favoured. Those for our party were in the front row of the right-hand gallery – when I had got into mine I took a leisurely survey of the scene. The Town Hall at Sicaster is a chamber of some size and pretensions – at one end is a wide and deep platform, behind which is a sculpture representing the surrender of Sicaster Castle at the time of the Civil War, and upon this platform, arranged in their due order of precedence, were already assembled the aldermen and councillors of the borough. They sat in semicircles round the platform – in the middle space stood a velvet-covered table on which were set out the ancient insignia of Sicaster, the mace, the cap of maintenance, the seal, the Bible. Behind this table were set three chairs, the one in the middle being placed on a sort of dais, a much more imposing one than those which flanked it. In front of the platform were seats for the grandees of the town, extending half-way down the hall, the remainder of which was open to the public, who had already packed it to its full extent. The right-hand gallery, in which I sat, was reserved for friends of members of the corporation; the opposite gallery for ladies, and in the front row there, immediately overlooking the platform, were Mrs. Kellet and her daughters, proud and beaming. The gallery at the rear of the hall was, like the lower half below, thrown open to the public. And glancing its packed rows over I saw, sitting immediately over the clock in the centre of the balustrade, the man whom I had seen in the King George and afterwards staring at Abraham Kellet's house.
He was sitting with his elbows fixed on the balustrade in front of him, and his chin propped in his hands, staring intently at the scene and the people. It seemed to me (and even twenty years ago, when I was only a matter of fifty odd years old, I flattered myself a bit on reading people's faces!) that he was recognizing, calling to mind, noting the differences which time makes. Without moving body or head, he let his eyes slowly search the galleries on either side of him just as they were searching the platform when I first saw him. And I began to wonder with a vague uneasiness who this man was and what he did there. Was he a mere stranger, actuated by curiosity to see an old English ceremony, or was he there of set purpose? And why had Abraham Kellet been moved at sight of him? For I was sure he had.
There was a bustle and a stir, and the outgoing Mayor, accompanied by his deputy, the Town Clerk, and the other officials came on to the platform, accompanied by Abraham Kellet and two or three other aldermen, who passed to their usual seats. I saw Abraham, as he sat down, glance around the crowded hall with that glance which I had noticed in the marketplace. And I saw, too, that he did not see the man who sat over the clock. But now that Abraham was there, on the platform, in his aldermanic robes, the man had no eyes for anything but him. He watched him as I have seen a cat watch the hole out of which it knows a mouse is going to emerge.
The proceedings began. As Abraham's proposer and seconder moved his election, Abraham seemed to swell out more and more and his wife's beam assumed a new dignity. All the civic virtues were his, according to Alderman Gillworthy; it was he who, as Chairman of the Watch Committee, had instituted a new system of clothing for the police; it was he who, as Chairman of the Waterworks Committee, had provided Sicaster with pure drinking water. Mr. Councillor Sparcroft dealt more with his moral virtues, remarking that Alderman Gillworthy had exhausted the list of their friend's municipal triumphs. He reminded the Council that Abraham was a shining example of rectitude, and drew the eyes of the whole assemblage on Mrs. Kellet and her daughters when he spoke of him feelingly as a model husband and father. He referred to him as a Sunday-school teacher of well over thirty years' standing; as vicar's churchwarden for over twenty; he was connected with all the benevolent societies, and the poor knew him. Then the councillor, who was celebrated for his oratory, turned to the business side of Abraham's history and sketched his career in trenchant sentences and glowing colours. His humble origin – his early ambitions – his perseverance – his strenuous endeavours – his misfortune at a time when all seemed fair – his mounting, Phoenix-like, from the ashes – his steady climb up the mountain of success – his attainment of its topmost height – all these things were touched on by the councillor, who wound up a flowery speech with a quotation from Holy Scripture – "Seest thou a man diligent in business? – he shall stand before kings!"
There was no opposition to Abraham Kellet – the Council was unanimous. He was duly elected Mayor of Sicaster – the three hundred and seventy-fifth since the old town received its charter.
I suppose there had never been such a moment of emotion in Abraham Kellet's life as when, duly installed in the mayoral chair, wearing the mayoral robes, invested with the mayoral chain, he rose to make his first speech as chief magistrate of Sicaster. For once the pomposity of manner which had grown upon him slipped away; he seemed to revert to a simple, a more natural self. He looked round him; he glanced at his wife and daughters; he caught my eye – it was a full moment before the applause which had greeted the Mayor's rising had died away that he could command himself to speak. When he spoke his first sentences were nervous and hesitating, but he gained confidence when he began to refer to Sparcroft's references to his career as a tradesman.
"You see before you one," he said, "who never knew what it was to fear a difficulty, who refused to believe in obstacles, who always meant to march on with the times, and who – "
He paused there for a second, for he was troubled with a slight cough that morning, and in that second a voice, penetrating, cold and sharp as steel and as merciless as the implacable avenger's hand when it drives steel home, rang out across the hall —
"And who burned his shop in order to get the insurance money!"
I have never had a clear recollection – no, I never had a clear realization – of what followed. I remember a sea of white, frightened faces, a murmur of voices, of seeing the man behind the clock stretching an accusing finger across the space between the gallery and the platform. And I remember Abraham Kellet, palsy-stricken, gripping the table before him and staring, staring at the accusing finger and the man behind it as one might stare at the Evil Thing. It seemed hours before that second passed and a cry, more like the cry of a lost soul than of a man, burst, dryly, hoarsely, from his lips —
"Aynesley! Come back!"
Then in all his mayoral finery he fell heavily across the table, and the mayoral chain rattled against the mace which had been carried before many an honest predecessor for twice two hundred years.
There was no procession to church that day and no mayoral banquet that night, but Sicaster had plenty to talk of, and it is a gossip-loving town. And the shameful story was all true. The fire of many a long year before was a clever piece of incendiarism on Abraham Kellet's part, and his manager Aynesley had detected his guilt and had been squared by Abraham, who had subsequently endeavoured, to put a nice phrase on it, to have him removed. And Aynesley had sworn revenge, and had worked and schemed until he, too, was a rich man – and he had bided his time, waiting to pull Abraham from the pinnacle of his glory just as he reached it.
Vanity of vanities – all is vanity! It is time for our nightcaps.
