Читать книгу Clayhanger - Arnold Bennett - Страница 43

“Here, lad!” said his father to Edwin, as soon as he had scraped up the last crumbs of cheese from his plate at the end of dinner on the following day.

Edwin rose obediently and followed him out of the room. Having waited at the top of the stairs until his father had reached the foot, he leaned forward as far as he could with one hand on the rail and the other pressing against the wall, swooped down to the mat at the bottom, without touching a single step on the way, and made a rocket-like noise with his mouth. He had no other manner of descending the staircase, unless he happened to be in disgrace. His father went straight to the desk in the corner behind the account-book window, assumed his spectacles, and lifted the lid of the desk.

“Here!” he said, in a low voice. “Mr. Enoch Peake is stepping in this afternoon to look at this here.” He displayed the proof—an unusually elaborate wedding card, which announced the marriage of Mr. Enoch Peake with Mrs. Louisa Loggerheads. “Ye know him as I mean?”

“Yes,” said Edwin, “The stout man. The Cocknage Gardens man.”

“That’s him. Well ye’ll tell him I’ve been called away. Tell him who ye are. Not but what he’ll know. Tell him I think it might be better”—Darius’s thick finger ran along a line of print—“if we put—‘widow of the late Simon Loggerheads Esquire,’ instead of—‘Esq.’ See? Otherwise it’s all right. Tell him I say as otherwise it’s all right. And ask him if he’ll have it printed in silver, and how many he wants, and show him this sample envelope. Now, d’ye understand?”

“Yes,” said Edwin, in a tone to convey, not disrespectfully, that there was nothing to understand. Curious, how his father had the air of bracing all his intellect as if to a problem!

“Then ye’ll take it to Big James, and he can start Chawner on it. Th’ job’s promised for Monday forenoon.”

“Will Big James be working?” asked Edwin, for it was Saturday afternoon, when, though the shop remained open, the printing office was closed.

“They’re all on overtime,” said Mr. Clayhanger; and then he added, in a voice still lower, and with a surreptitious glance at Miss Ingamells, the shop-woman, who was stolidly enfolding newspapers in wrappers at the opposite counter, “See to it yourself, now. He won’t want to talk to her about a thing like that. Tell him I told you specially. Just let me see how well ye can do it.”

“Right!” said Edwin; and to himself, superciliously: “It might be life and death.”

“We ought to be doing a lot o’ business wi’ Enoch Peake, later on,” Mr. Clayhanger finished, in a whisper.

“I see,” said Edwin, impressed, perceiving that he had perhaps been supercilious too soon.

Mr. Clayhanger returned his spectacles to their case, and taking his hat from its customary hook behind him, over the job-files, consulted his watch and passed round the counter to go. Then he stopped.

“I’m going to Manchester,” he murmured confidentially. “To see if I can pick up a machine as I’ve heard of.”

Edwin was flattered. At the dinner-table Mr. Clayhanger had only vouchsafed that he had a train to catch, and would probably not be in till late at night.

The next moment he glimpsed Darius through the window, his arms motionless by his sides and sticking slightly out; hurrying in the sunshine along Wedgwood Street in the direction of Shawport station.