Читать книгу Mr Weston's Good Wine - T. F. Powys - Страница 9

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Michael stepped down from the car and stood a little way in front of it, in order to see whether each letter of the advertisement showed as clear as it should. He was satisfied that they did, and so returned to the place beside Mr. Weston that was illuminated by a little lamp, and again handed to that gentleman the book that he had asked for.

There was nothing in the least strange or queer in the arrival of these two, unless the reader wishes to feel it so. For why should not these gentlemen, residing for the moment in a free country, set up their advertisement in the sky, and look in their trade account for a few likely customers?

The old horse that was feeding in the field near by came to the gate again and looked curiously at the car.

Mr. Weston opened the book. Only the first page appeared to contain any names at all, and these names were not many, for evidently in the whole compass of the little village of Folly Down, even though he had taken the trouble to advertise his name in the sky, Mr. Weston could not very well expect a large sale for his wine.

But a firm that is pretty well established in the world and has a very large surplus of capital, may be allowed its whim, which in this case was, we may almost say, to take note of a sparrow that, in flying after its mate a little too hastily from a bough to the thatch, chances to fall. And, indeed, any expert in business must acquiesce here, and agree that, though the actual gain in money may be small, it certainly pays the management of a large store to send a representative—though, perhaps, not the only son of the founder—into the less populated villages, where he may study at first hand the needs of simple people in order to ease them of their pennies.

It has often been said, and most wisely, that no man in trade, whether in a large or a little way of business, can know too much about the habits, the manners, and the wants of his customers.

Evidently, before Mr. Weston set out upon his travels he had made careful and detailed enquiries, so that he might know beforehand the kind of people that he was to meet and most probably trade with. He was well aware that no one should be content with the opinion given in a county directory as to what the villages most need and what they will buy.

Mr. Weston read the first name.

‘ “Mr. Joseph Kiddle.”—And who is he?’

‘Mr. Kiddle is a dealer in cattle,’ replied Michael, ‘who does a very good trade. He buys cows and bulls and little pigs, that he sells again for as much as he can get to the neighbouring farmers; but amongst all his deals he has one grand and noble ambition, and that is to cheat Mr. Mumby.’

‘A high ideal to live for,’ said Mr. Weston, smiling; ‘and what is Mr. Mumby?’

‘He is the Folly Down squire,’ replied Michael. ‘He has the front pew at church, takes the best seat at the inn’—(‘I like that better,’ said Mr. Weston)—‘and he also owns the land and a meek wife. He possesses three elderly and plain maidservants, blames the weather a great many times in the day, and has two sons who prefer fornication to married bliss.’

‘And is the selling of cattle at a profit all that Mr. Kiddle does?’ asked Mr. Weston.

‘He is a merry man,’ replied Michael, ‘and he calls his wife, who is a little strange sometimes, “a lean barrener.” His daughters he eyes as if they were plump heifers, and he is never tired of making fun of poor Mr. Bird because he will not drink beer.’

‘And what does Mr. Bird drink?’ enquired Mr. Weston, who naturally wished to take advantage of a chance word that might lead to business.

‘Only water from his well,’ replied Michael disdainfully.

‘But his name is written here as a likely customer,’ observed Mr. Weston thoughtfully, ‘and I should be glad to know a little more about him.’

‘Mr. Bird,’ said Michael, ‘lives in a very poor way. He feeds the robins with crumbs; he watches the little running brooks and the foolish daisies, and he longs every morning for the evening to come. Do you wish to know more?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Weston, ‘I do.’

‘He is despised, and I will add, if you have no objection, he is rejected of men. His cup, his platter, and his purse are nearly always empty. But even with so many troubles and trials—for his life has been full of them—Mr. Bird might be happy if he were not in love.’

‘Ah,’ sighed Mr. Weston, ‘it is certainly a very curious thing, that wherever I go upon this round globe I hear that word mentioned. The word has a mild sound; it is used sweetly in poetry and is sung romantically in hymns; it is also uttered affectionately in dark lanes behind trees, and sometimes at street corners; but it appears, for all its mildness, to have something in it very forcible and violent. I am extremely sorry for Mr. Bird, for from your description I believe that he might easily be one of our best customers. It must be a great misfortune to him to be so tormented. But does he do nothing to overrule, or at least to counteract, the ways of so harsh a tyrant?’

‘Mr. Bird,’ continued Michael, ‘does his best to conquer love; he preaches Christianity to the beasts of the field. He has already been fortunate enough to convert Mr. Mumby’s bull, and only a few weeks ago he began to tell a young sow, that he feeds sometimes with cabbages, the story of its Saviour.’

Mr. Weston laid his hand affectionately upon his companion’s knee. Evidently he did not wish to interrupt him rudely.

‘But do you know,’ he asked, ‘whether, supposing that we were fortunate enough to sell any of our goods to Mr. Bird, he would be likely to pay our bill?’

‘The pigs trust him,’ replied Michael, ‘for only yesterday, when he walked a very long distance upon the downs, hoping to tell the story of the Cross to a fox that he had once seen there, two enamoured pigs that were shortly to farrow followed Mr. Bird home, clambering over stiles, climbing hedges, crossing ploughed fields, wading the watercourses, traversing grassy lanes, until they reached his cottage gate, where he turned to greet them kindly and told them about the Lord. That is, of course, but a solitary incident in the life of Mr. Bird to show how much he is trusted even by the brutes, and though no tradesman can ever be quite sure, yet I feel that if we could persuade Mr. Bird to buy our wine we might trust him too. He is poor, and the poor nearly always remember, having so little credit given to them, that the day of reckoning is sure to come; and, besides, Mr. Bird is not happy, and so he would be more likely, on that account alone, to remember a debt. Mr. Luke Bird loves Jenny Bunce.’

Mr. Weston shut the heavy book with a bang.

‘How often I have to remind you, Michael,’ he said a little sternly, ‘that in our trade report the women come last. Ours is the only business, you know, that they do not dominate, and I have yet to meet the woman that can tell the difference between white and red port when her eyes are shut. Alas! I have known more than one of them—excuse my mentioning such trivial circumstances, Michael—to leave a bottle of good Burgundy beside a horrid gas stove until it boiled. Women may enter the House of Lords, but never our whitewashed board-room.’

Mr. Weston appeared to be a little more moved than such a subject warranted, but after a moment or two he became placid again, opened the book, and turned to the next name.

‘ “Mr. Thomas Bunce,” ’ he read, ‘ “of the Angel Inn.” ’

‘His trade is obvious,’ said Mr. Weston, rubbing his hands gleefully, ‘and it is very much like ours, though it cannot well be supposed that the beer sold at the Angel is so good in quality or so happy in its effects as our good wine. But tell me, Michael, for you know how inquisitive I am, whether honest Mr. Bunce has any peculiar habit or notion that separates him from his fellow-men and gives him character?’

Michael was silent. He blushed slightly, and looked down at his boots.

‘I hardly like to tell you,’ he remarked.

‘But you may,’ said Mr. Weston.

‘Mr. Bunce, then, if you must know,’ observed Michael, ‘has, for a great number of years, been in the habit of blaming some one for all the troubles that come to the village of Folly Down.’

‘And who may this some one be,’ asked Mr. Weston, ‘that Thomas Bunce is so ready to blame for all the sorrows and worries of yonder small village?’

Michael blushed more deeply than before, and moved as far as his seat would allow him away from his master.

‘Mr. Bunce blames God Almighty for every bad thing that is done.’

‘He’s a bold man,’ said Mr. Weston, and turned to the book again.

‘ “Mr. Grunter,” ’ he read, ‘ “Mr. Meek and Mr. Vosper.” ’

‘These three,’ said Michael, ‘are people who have a certain importance in Folly Down. Mr. Meek is a very small shopkeeper——’

‘Licensed to sell wine?’ enquired Mr. Weston excitedly.

‘Alas! no,’ replied Michael, ‘he is only licensed to sell tobacco. And as he wishes others to be contented with what he sells, he shows a good example by being vastly pleased and contented by whatever he hears. Mr. Meek is the best listener in Folly Down. Everything that he hears spoken by man or woman or little child is of interest to him. He is even willing to listen to his own wife, and especially so if she is talking at her doorway, which she often does. Mr. Meek, if he be in company, rarely speaks one word himself, and if he does so it is only to encourage the others to talk the more. He is a little man with a fine strut, and he buttons his coat very tightly.

‘Mr. Grunter occupies a high and exalted position in Folly Down. He is the church clerk, and is said also to be an expert lover.’

‘A young man in his bloom?’ suggested Mr. Weston.

‘You are very much mistaken,’ said Michael; ‘Mr. Grunter is old, he is also uncouth and flabby; his knees bend outwards as he walks; he has a large homely face, and his looks, to put them as nicely as I can, do not express wisdom.’

‘He might be the greater fool if they did,’ said Mr. Weston. ‘But what has Mr. Vosper done to distinguish himself before the worms have him?’

‘He has done nothing,’ observed Michael, ‘except what his wife has told him to do; but he has a strange fancy concerning the Angel Inn, where he thinks that one day he may meet an important personage.’

‘A modest ambition,’ said Mr. Weston, smiling. ‘But kindly tell me, Michael, and that at once, if you please, what do these three gentlemen drink?’

‘All that they can get,’ replied Michael readily enough.

‘Honest men,’ cried Mr. Weston gleefully. ‘We must trade with them at Christmas.’

Mr. Weston looked at the book.

‘Either my eyes are grown dim, or else the next name is written rather small,’ he said, ‘for I cannot read it, and I should be obliged, Michael, if you would decipher it for me.’

Michael leant over Mr. Weston’s shoulder and read aloud: ‘ “The Rev. Nicholas Grobe.” ’

As soon as Michael had pronounced this name in his usual clear manner of utterance, Mr. Weston bowed his head in deep thought. He seemed to be trying to recollect some incident or other of times gone by that had at the moment escaped his memory. He now appeared to remember what he wanted, and his look showed a certain sadness at the recollection.

He leaned forward with his head in his hands, as if following the incident discovered in his thoughts; he had gone on to think of some one connected with it—a friend that he used to have, who, for some reason or other, had ceased to believe that his friendship could ever have been a real thing, or he real either.

Mr. Weston’s companion always showed the utmost consideration for his partner’s moods—for the head of the firm would sometimes grow thoughtful—and Michael would always wait patiently, never even whistling a common catch, until his superior was ready to renew the conversation.

Mr. Weston turned a little from Michael, who fancied that he wiped his eyes, but he soon said gaily enough:

‘Ha! the Rev. Nicholas Grobe. And pray, what are his ideas about life?’

‘Mr. Grobe,’ said Michael, looking a little curiously at his master,’ has very different opinions from Mr. Thomas Bunce.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr. Weston.

‘You may think it a little strange when I tell you that Mr. Grobe never blames any one, and God less than any, and that for a very simple reason—because he does not believe in Him. As you no doubt understood from the appellation of “Reverend” before his name, Mr. Grobe is the pastor of the village, but in all Folly Down there is only one person who does not believe in God, and he is that man. Mr. Grobe preaches twice every Sunday, but he never names God in his sermons.’

‘He must, then,’ said Mr. Weston, ‘find the Holy Trinity a useful institution.’

‘Once he believed in the Founder of Life,’ said Michael, ‘but he turned from Him, for he could not—and he has often told himself so—believe any more in one who could be so horrid and so cruel.’

‘That’s rather strong,’ observed Mr. Weston.

‘No truer and no stronger than his own experience has been. Mr. Grobe was once wedded to a lovely and sprightly girl. She loved him, though she teased him, most devotedly. She became a mother, but died in a cruel and bloody accident when her child, Tamar, was a little girl.’

‘Although Mr. Grobe is an honest man, and an honest man is a noble work,’ said Mr. Weston, ‘and though after what has happened he says there is no God, yet it must be quite impossible that he should go so far as to say that there is no such thing as Mr. Weston’s Good Wine.’

‘He drinks London gin,’ said Michael.

‘Then there is hope of him,’ exclaimed Mr. Weston, slapping his knee, ‘for if he drinks gin, however moderately, there is no reason why he should not one day, perhaps even this very evening, enjoy a glass of our wine. We have often heard of the like happening before, and I have known many a meek gentleman—a quiet, moderate liver—who has met a sad sorrow in his life, turn to us when all else had failed, and to our wine to comfort him.’

‘His own sorrow,’ said Michael, ‘has opened his eyes to a world of sorrow, and though he sees time flowing like a river and sweeping all things away—sorrow and sadness and joy—yet he cannot deny the certainty that all men are swept away too, and so soon. We may be sure, too, that Mr. Grobe wishes to remember for as long a time as he can his own personal grief, for in his grief is ever contained the thought of her whom he loved.

‘Sometimes,’ continued Michael, ‘during the long autumn evenings, when Mr. Grobe sits surrounded by his books’—(‘I hope mine is one of them,’ said Mr. Weston, and Michael nodded)—‘with gin and tobacco near by, he almost fancies that such a gracious evening can lengthen out interminably, and so he likes to be sure that the lamp—I believe you mention a lamp in your book, sir, as being a guide; in Mr. Grobe’s case, a guide to the gin bottle—is always full of oil.

‘Upon such an evening, when the right silence reigns, Mr. Grobe’s melancholy feeds upon itself; his sorrow lingers and hovers in the dark corners of the room that are away from the light. Mr. Grobe then feels his loss, if such an evening be but long enough, as something that can almost be kind and loving to him. The long days, when the sun mounts high in the heavens and sinks but slowly, weary Mr. Grobe. The spring flowers, so virgin-like in their beauty, make him but go out to the fields to weep. The glorious summer, the hot noon of all the seasons, only dooms his steps to falter; and the harvest saddens him, for that season shows how all things, even a green blade of corn, tend to their end. It is only a long autumn evening that can soothe Mr. Grobe’s soul.’

‘The very man for our good wine,’ said Mr. Weston cheerfully.