Читать книгу Clayhanger - Arnold Bennett - Страница 47

It was while he was paying for the cartridge-paper—he being, as was indeed proper, on the customers’ side of the counter—that a heavy loutish boy in an apron entered the shop, blushing. Edwin turned away. This was Miss Ingamells’s affair.

“If ye please, Mester Peake’s sent me. He canna come in this afternoon—he’s got a bit o’ ratting on—and will Mester Clayhanger step across to th’ Dragon to-night after eight, with that there peeper (paper) as he knows on?”

At the name of Peake, Edwin started. He had utterly forgotten the matter.

“Master Edwin,” said Miss Ingamells drily. “You know all about that, don’t you?” Clearly she resented that he knew all about that while she didn’t.

“Oh! Yes,” Edwin stammered. “What did you say?” It was his first piece of real business.

“If you please, Mester Peake sent me.” The messenger blundered through his message again word for word.

“Very well. I’ll attend to it,” said Edwin, as nonchalantly as he could.

Nevertheless he was at a loss what to do, simple though the situation might have seemed to a person with an experience of business longer than Edwin’s. Just as three hours previously his father had appeared to be bracing all his intellect to a problem that struck Edwin as entirely simple, so now Edwin seemed to be bracing all his intellect to another aspect of the same problem. Time, revenging his father! … What! Go across to the Dragon and in cold blood demand Mr. Enoch Peake, and then parley with Mr. Enoch Peake as one man with another! He had never been inside the Dragon. He had been brought up in the belief that the Dragon was a place of sin. The Dragon was included in the generic term—‘gin-palace,’ and quite probably in the Siamese-twin term—‘gaming-saloon.’ Moreover, to discuss business with Mr. Enoch Peake … Mr. Enoch Peake was as mysterious to Edwin as, say, a Chinese mandarin! Still, business was business, and something would have to be done. He did not know what. Ought he to go to the Dragon? His father had not foreseen the possibility of this development. He instantly decided one fundamental: he would not consult Miss Ingamells; no, nor even Maggie! There remained only Big James. He went across to see Big James, who was calmly smoking a pipe on the little landing at the top of the steps leading to the printing office.

Big James showed no astonishment.

“You come along o’ me to the Dragon to-night, young sir, at eight o’clock, or as soon after as makes no matter, and I’ll see as you see Mr. Enoch Peake. I shall be coming up Woodisun Bank at eight o’clock, or as soon after as makes no matter. You be waiting for me at the back gates there, and I’ll see as you see Mr. Enoch Peake.”

“Are you going to the Dragon?”

“Am I going to the Dragon, young sir!” exclaimed Big James, in his majestic voice.