Читать книгу Tregarthen's Wife - Fred M. White - Страница 10

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THE boats had come in from the sea, the cod and ling and halibut and skate had been counted and sold at starvation rates to the Wadebridge hucksters, the Tres and Pols and Pens had gone home to clean up and don their Sunday suits of serge for the meeting. There was no talk of the sea to-night, no slow dissertation on the merits of Jim's new boat or James's new sails. They were all going to the meeting, though as yet they had not made up their minds as to what form the Jubilee offering would take. Old Jim Challen had one scheme and Mr. John Hawkes had another. They were old and ponderous rivals, these, opposed on the great question of Bait, opposed in religion, and as extreme as the poles in politics. If there were two social parties in Trevose they were the Challen and Hawkes parties. For the present opinion was pretty equally divided as to which party would carry the meeting. Like other great leaders, Challen and Hawkes had no mind to take their followers too far into their confidence. It was understood that they both had weighty schemes to propose, philanthropic works, large social improvements, and the like.

Pressed by trusted lieutenants to divulge the nature of their scheme, the leaders shook their heads solemnly, and merely requested those under them to wait. Then they would look out to sea in respectful silence, doubtless revolving mighty matters in a brain that staggered before the stupendous task.

An old tithe barn hard by the Coastguard had been despoiled of its herring nets, and swept and garnished for the occasion. There were forms borrowed from the schoolroom, a platform on tar barrels, and sundry odd oil-lamps that rendered the brown faces sombre, Rembrandtesque. Flanked by a few 'captains' and such gentry, the rector took the chair.

Those toilers of the sea were slow, slack to catch a point, but terribly in earnest. They followed the rector's neat opening address with a flattering attention. From where she was seated, Mary noted the swarth, mahogany faces with interest, for she recognized the great force behind the gathering. This was a little of the grim earnestness, a pinch of the mighty block of it that has made the British Empire what it is. She could imagine a ship come headlong into the bay before the snarling teeth of the gale, and every man there thrashing out his life to save her.

The rector concluded his opening address with an invitation for suggestions. Throats were cleared here, and a scuffling of feet marked a lapse in the state of tension. As to the rector, he had quite an open mind on the matter. They were a poor community, and they could not expect to get much money together, certainly not more than fifty pounds. It was for them to lay this sum out to the best advantage.

For a long time nobody spoke or moved. Challen turned a lamp up and then down again. Hawkes scraped his pipe noisily, filled it and puffed huge clouds. Then the two leaders smiled at each other darkly.

"John Hawkes," Challen said huskily, "d'ye hear me?"

"Could hear ye above a gale a'most, James," Hawkes said, not ungraciously.

There was a growl of laughter, for this was repartee of a high order, a little personal, perhaps; but what would you have better than the model of the Commons?

"What I was going to say——" Challen floundered. He had got his speech now, and was struggling to get in his depth. "What I was going to say is this. May happen you've gotten some sort of idea, and may happen you've not. But down to the quayhead a fortnight come Saturday I heard as how so to speak you had. If you have, why not speak it? You're older than me, John."

"Less 'un a year," John Hawkes said, with great modesty. "Less 'un a year, James. And I've never been far as Exeter, like some folk."

Challen generously waved the implied compliment to his superior travel aside. In sooth, both were eager to begin, and both too bashful to start. When the matter was discussed later in quay debate lasting the best part of a week, public opinion gave Challen a point over his age argument.

"What I says is—let the older man begin," Challen maintained stoutly.

Applause followed. It seemed to lift John Hawkes unwillingly to his feet. He was a man of bulk, and the action of his skin was proceeding finely. The big red face glistened in the dim light.

"I've been thinking," he said, with a sigh for that painful operation. "And I've worked it all out. What do we live for here? what keeps us? Why, fish. And if there was no fish we should just starve. It's hard work getting the fish, and it's hard work getting a price for it afterwards. If so be as we could send our catch to Wadebridge, why, there'd be more money for us. But we can't; and why? Because we haven't got any proper con—conveyance to take ut."

Like more favoured orators, Hawkes paused here, and the expected applause followed. The speaker wiped his big face and drew inspiration from tobacco. Every man present instantly pulled at his pipe till the chairman dissolved into a blue mist and was seen no more for the present.

"Then, I says, let us have a fish-cart," Hawkes spoke from the haze. The fragrant curtain seemed to give him courage. "Let us have a Jubilee fish-cart; let us celebrate the fiftieth reign of Her Majesty with a Jubilee fish-cart, so as to save us carrying the catch up the hill, and so as to get a better price for the catch in Wadebridge. Stick a brass plate with an inscription on it, if you like; but the fish-cart, say I."

Suspicious sounds might have been heard to proceed from the direction where the chairman was mercifully concealed. Perhaps the tobacco was too much for him, old smoker as he was; perhaps he had gone off into a reverie, and was recalling some boyish escapade.

"I would give five dollars for a good look at the rector's face," Miriam whispered, under cover of the wild applause that burst with suspicious spontaneity from the Hawkes faction. "Don't laugh, Mary, or they may turn us out, and if we lost the conclusion of this I should never be happy again. A Jubilee fish-cart!"

"I know, I know," Mary said faintly. "If you have a large rusty pin concealed about your person, oblige me by giving me a vicious jab. Miriam, I am afraid I am going to laugh and spoil everything."

Fortunately the disaster was averted. A newcomer opened the door, and the fresh, sweet, sea-laden breeze carried the canopy of smoke away. At the amazing earnestness painted on every face there Mary grew grave. Positively there were only three people present who saw the exquisite humour of the suggestion, and its absurdity. But there was more to come. The applause had died away, and Challen was anxiously counting his forces. He was fearful lest Hawkes' brilliant suggestion might have influenced the wobblers. Already the assurance of victory was on Hawkes' shining face.

"Hast done, John?" he asked. "Hast anything else to say?"

Hawkes admitted that he had finished. He intimated that his oratorial effort might have lacked the polished grace of more practised speakers, but he was still under the impression that for real usefulness it could not be approached. He turned benignly to his rival.

"Happen you might have some sort of idea, James," he remarked suavely.

James Challen rose ponderously. Clad in his sea-boots and shaggy guernsey, he was the heaviest and biggest man in the village. Yet his voice was small, and he had the air of one who is detected in something childishly wrong. The gravity of the occasion seemed to weigh him down. But the eyes of his faction were upon him, and he smiled feebly. They were all so terribly in earnest. Not a villager amongst them had the faintest idea of the humour of the situation. The smell of the nets and the tar and the sea was in their nostrils, and the need of a fish-cart was a dire and pressing thing. It might have been held by some that Her Most Gracious Majesty had been spared to reign for fifty years specially for the benefit of Trevose and the staple industry.

"There's things worser wanted," Challen shot out. The words came from him with the force of a catapult, and his faction applauded. As a matter of fact Hawkes' suggestion was real genius from the local point of view, and even the faction secretly admitted it. But it was just possible that Challen had something better to suggest.

"That man," Mary whispered, "hasn't a notion what to say."

"It is coming," Miriam replied. "I can see the great light of inspiration coming into his eye. He beams and his face shines."

"So would yours if you were his size," Mary retorted.

A vast pleased smile was stealing over Challen's face. His supporters caught the expression, and their hearts were uplifted. Jim Challen was going to surpass himself; and he did.

"There's a power of sense in what John Hawkes said," he observed ponderously. "But those who travel sees things"—he had once been as far as Plymouth—"and ideas come to folks at times. I'm not denying the need of a fish-cart, I'm not denying its uses. I dare say if I'd ha' thought of it fust, I should ha' proposed the fish-cart 'stead of John Hawkes."

At this ingenious confession and implied compliment Hawkes applauded, as also did both factions. The mirth was timely, for it enabled Mary to laugh. It was an opportunity that she needed badly.

"But there's something better," Challen resumed solemnly. "What is it we want mor'n a fish-cart, mor'n anything Trevose asks for? What the papers call a crying need. It's a long step from here to St. Minver churchyard, and there's seven hundred foot of hill to climb. And we've all got to climb it some of these days, lads. When one of us dies the rest carries him up the hill on their shoulders. It ain't right, and we ought to have a proper hearse. Therefore I propose that we don't have no truck with fish-carts, but that we have a Jubilee hearse instead."

Challen had made his effort at last. He stood with the proud consciousness of one who has made a great new discovery. His faction applauded, whilst the faction led by Hawkes protested. There was a deal of noise and confusion, which was a merciful thing for three people present. Mary bent over her handkerchief and laughed without restraint; Miriam smiled broadly. She was one of those lucky people who can laugh inside. One sharp clear laugh had come from the rector's lips ere he recollected himself. It was a great effort, but he managed it. In after days he told proudly how he had fought down the flesh in face of so fierce and clinging a temptation.

His eyes were grave now, but his lips were twitching. He rose to impose silence upon the gravely excited audience. They were arguing in little knots, but there was no sign of temper anywhere. In all his experience of these men, he had never once seen one of them in a rage. Intensely eager and intensely in earnest they are, but passion is not of their blood. Nor, unfortunately, is humour either, or they could not have been blind to the lighter vein of the situation. Jubilee hearse or Jubilee fish-cart—that was the question that cleft Trevose in twain to-night. Guy sought to throw oil on the ruffled sea.

"Had we not better put it to the vote?" he suggested gravely. He had the air of importance that prevails at parish meetings and such-like notable gatherings; he seemed to assume that the glittering eye of hemispheres was on Trevose to-night. "Gentlemen, this is a great and solemn occasion. It should not be marred by unseemly strife. We will put the question to the vote, and the majority will decide. I am certain that my friends John Hawkes and James Challen will be guided by the wishes of the majority."

"Big lump, big lot," Challen said gracefully.

"Bigger crew, bigger share," Hawkes responded, with an apt touch of local colour.

"Very well," Guy resumed. "Those in favour of John Hawkes' proposal hold up their hands. There! Now let me count."

A forest of brown hairy hands shot up in the musty air, and Guy proceeded to count them carefully, naming the owner of each hand. In a way he was conferring immortality upon them, and they seemed to appreciate the fact. And then it so fell out that for the two proposals there was exactly the same number of votes, namely, forty-seven for each. The rector explained the deadlock, and placed himself in the hands of the meeting.

"Ain't there no such thing as a casting vote?" a plaintive voice asked.

Guy shook his head solemnly. On a less momentous occasion he might have been tempted to exercise the prerogative of the chair, but he dared not accept his responsibility. As a matter of fact, he knew that dire results would follow. He would be pretty sure to mortally offend forty-seven worthy but somewhat bigoted individuals. The victorious leader would be regarded darkly by his fellows, he would be watched carefully and all his actions noted. Dark suggestions of bribery and corruption would be in the air. The hint that this or that, as the case might be, had been seen in confabulation with the rector outside his gate would be construed into part of a Machiavellian conspiracy. It might have been no more than a mere friendly discussion as to the best way of growing carrots; but what of that? And, moreover, the rector had his own views as to the suitability of fish-carts and hearses as a fit and proper memorial of a remarkable and beneficent reign.

There was a deadlock. Eye looked into eye, seeking inspiration. For a long time nothing was heard beyond the shuffling of feet and the sound of hard breathing. And then Robert Treagle slowly rose.

They watched him with petrified astonishment. Treagle was the silent member of the community. They were all given to long pause and frequent lapses into rumination, but in Robert they had taciturnity reduced to a fine art. Never in the history of the village had Treagle ever hazarded or originated a remark of his own.

"There don't seem to be much sense here," he said impatiently, and in a voice that seemed to come from his boots. "What Jim says is good, and what James says is good; but neither ain't going to give way, and there's an end on it. What I says is this—give us something that will do for a hearse and do for a fish-cart. When it ain't wanted for one thing it can be used for another. Now then! And if you fancy as I'm going to stand maundering here all night, why, you're mistaken."

The speaker turned resolutely away, his big boots clanking on the beaten floor of the barn. He banged the door behind him as he passed into the night. But nobody laughed—the meeting remained as stolid and earnest as ever.

"The best thing we can do," the rector said, in a small stifled voice, "is to adjourn the meeting for a fortnight, so that you may come to some understanding. You may adopt one scheme or you may adopt the other—possibly you may like to take up the brilliant and original suggestion made by Robert Treagle."

The audience began to file out slowly. Nobody proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman, nobody had any further use for him. There were more weighty things to be discussed than mere rectors. He, good man, was only too grateful for his merciful release. All up the hillside he was laughing gently whilst the tears were rolling down his cheeks.

"What will happen at the next meeting?" Mary asked.

"There will not be another meeting," Guy replied. "They will wrangle decorously over this thing for fully twelve months, it will be a fruitful topic of discussion next winter. At intervals it will crop up for years. The hero of the occasion will be Treagle. But there will be no more meetings."

Mary laughed freely. She laughed at intervals all the way up the steep rocky road as some fresh humorous point occurred to her. She could not call to mind anything that had amused her so much.

They grew quieter at length as they approached the rectory. Mary drew her jacket a little closer around her. She looked up at the clear sky and the powdered glory of the stars, and a chill breath smote her cheek.

"It is surely very cold," she said.

"Ay," the rector murmured. "There will be frost to-night."

And Mary said nothing, thinking of the flowers on Tregarthen.