Читать книгу The Dawn of Reckoning - James Hilton - Страница 29

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The Town Hall was the only building in Loamport that had any pretensions to art. It had been built about the middle of the nineteenth century, in a style which its architect had imagined to be Gothic and at various times since then a succession of borough surveyors had added a doorway here, an extension there, and so on. If the result was a trifle chaotic, at least the chaos had been given a certain purposeful grimness by half a century of Loamport smoke, which had mercifully obliterated the features of the female Justice, with scales complete, who balanced herself acrobatically in a niche above the main entrance. Further along the side of the building were the twin-sisters Science and Art, with their corners encrusted with dirt and only their breasts washed streaky by fifty years of Loamport rain.

The interior was, if that were possible, less pre possessing than the exterior. Round the painted walls of the public hall were ranged huge gilt-framed full-length portraits of all the mayors that Loamport had ever had—a fearsome and almost terrible array, resplendent in robes of office and complete with the usual scroll. Through windows in the roof a pungent, sinister-looking fog floated in and downwards; it hung over the mayoral portraits like a dim, im palpable shroud; it swayed in languid melancholy in front of the blazing, hissing arc-lights that hung from the roof; it even descended on to the platform and heaped itself against a three-manual organ of incredible and devastating ugliness. This organ, on which anything besides "God Save the King" was very rarely played, was painted like a roundabout, and had immense pipes—chiefly dummy ones—on each of which was inscribed in ornate letters the name of some composer—Gounod, Beethoven, etc.

The scene, however, was quite animated at five minutes past eight on the evening of the political rally. The notables had just seated themselves at the green-baize trestle-tables on the platform, and Philip was among them, looking rather pale under the dazzling incandescent roof-lights. Floor and gallery were packed, and the space at the back of the hall was crowded with men and women standing three and four deep. Sir Charles was obviously pleased. "A much bigger audience than I had ever expected," he whispered with enthusiasm, leaning across to Philip. Philip smiled wanly.

Stella was in one of the shilling reserved seats in the front of the hall. He followed along the rows with his eyes until he saw her, and saw that she was watching him. She smiled, and he smiled back very faintly, not knowing quite whether he ought to or not. Curiously, perhaps, he could not take his eyes off her for long, now that he knew where she was. He kept looking at the red-robed mayors on the walls, at a certain shabby-looking wild-eyed man who leaned forward in the gallery with his head resting on his hands, at the stewards forming a phalanx at the doors, and then, inevitably, his eyes would be on Stella again, and he would see her smiling...Sir Charles rose. What a fat, bloated little man he looked when he stood up and you looked at him sideways! But he was evidently popular. The huge audience cheered for moments on end, and then only desisted when, with smiling face, he held up his hand in protest. But when the sound died down, another could be heard, faint yet sinister, the sound of hissing. Philip looked around trying to locate it. It seemed to come at once from everywhere and from nowhere, from the shilling rows in front (this was unlikely), from the crowd at the back of the hall, from the side-galleries, even (most unlikely of all) from the little group of dazzlingly rosetted stewards by the doorways. And at last when he looked at Stella he could almost imagine that she too had set her teeth together to produce that sibilant, menacing murmur.

Sir Charles was speaking. He seemed to be holding the audience fairly well. Sometimes there were cheers, mutterings of approval, isolated "hear hear's!" Once the wild-eyed man in the gallery opened his mouth and shouted shatteringly "Liar." Philip almost expected the roof to fall. But no—Sir Charles did not seem to be in the least perturbed. "I wish my friend in the gallery would not keep shouting out his name," he said. Roars of laughter...

What a stupid little joke, thought Philip. Did people really think it funny?—What did the man in the gallery think?—What did Stella—why, Stella was laughing also. Then he looked round and saw that everybody on the platform was laughing. Perhaps he had better laugh himself—it would look strange if he were the only one not to laugh. He laughed—suddenly—but by that time everybody else had stopped laughing, and now they looked at him. His laugh had sounded ridiculously like a guffaw...Stella, too, was looking at him, but she was not laughing any more; she was dreadfully serious.

The clock at the back of the hall crawled to the half-hour, and a muffled chime boomed in the belfry somewhere above them. The mayors all stared at him, one behind the other, like men in picture-posters that follow you with their eyes wherever you go. One of them close to the platform looked almost venomous; he had cold, fishy eyes, and must have been a very terrible mayor indeed. "Sir Samuel Blatherwick, M.P., K.C.V.O., thrice Mayor of Loamport."...Thrice, indeed!

Suddenly Sir Charles sat down, and there was another deafening, roof-raising burst of applause. And in the midst of it Sir Charles leaned over and whispered loudly: "Now then, Philip, do your best and take your time. They're an easy lot to night..."

The cheering died away and he felt himself rising from his chair and leaning his knuckles on the table. He felt a cold spot on his hand; he looked down curiously: somebody, it seemed, had upset the ink-bottle, and the funny little black liquid was spreading all over the cloth. Stupid of somebody...The lady next to him moved backward, away from the threatening tide..."Never mind," somebody said close to him. "Don't let it worry you."

"Ladies and Gentlemen..." he shouted, clear ing his throat. He shouted, because he knew that in a large hall you must shout, even if you seem to be deafening everybody.

The river of ink toppled over the edge and dripped on to the floor of the platform. Somebody in the gallery tittered. He looked up, and saw the wild-eyed man wilder-eyed than ever, crouching there with his chin sunk on his hands like an animal meditating a spring. Then he looked at Stella; and for the first time caught her when she was not look ing at him.

"Ladies and Gentlemen...It gives me very great pleasure to be here this evening...visiting Loamport for the first time in my life..."

A voice, a woman's shrill voice with its menacing northern accent, screamed at him from somewhere: "Speak up, young man..."

Loud laughter.

The man in the gallery suddenly sat up with eyes blazing...