Читать книгу Son of a Hundred Kings - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 27

Alfred Hull deserved the name of Calamity by which he was known in Balfour. He was an elderly man with a long black beard and an air of deep gloom, wearing a pea jacket, a variety of overcoat much in use because of its relatively small cost (it came only a few inches below the waist), and with a limp leather Bible under his arm.

His greeting, as he came into the room with a shuffling step, consisted of one word, uttered in a tone of reproof, “ ’Tilda!”

“Yes, Uncle Alfred.”

“I’ve heard what you’ve done.” His voice implied that the Christians, William and Matilda, had murdered someone and buried the body in the cellar, or had been guilty of something equally terrible. His eyes roved about the room and came to rest on Ludar, who had finished his meal and, for the first time since his pilgrimage began, was feeling no ill effects. “So! This is the boy. This is the boy, is it?”

William asked in a tone which was almost sharp, “How did you hear about it, Uncle Alfred?”

“Sergeant Feeny’s sister lives next door to us. She came over before she had finished the supper dishes and told us the news. I lost no time. I put on my hat and coat—and my muffler and overshoes—and here I am!”

Calamity Hull helped himself to a chair in the kitchen and carried it in. Placing it directly in front of the boy, he sat down, crossed one knee over the other, and set the Bible on top. Then he fixed his deep-set eyes on the newcomer.

“Now,” he said. “Here we have this boy. He looks like a healthy enough boy. There are no outward signs, at least, of depravity. There’s nothing about him to suggest that some morning you may wake up to find your throats cut. Observe his hands. They are ordinary hands, cleaner, if anything, than most boys’. But can you be sure they’re not itching, as we sit here, for matches? How can we be sure he isn’t waiting the first chance to set the house on fire?” He held one of his own hands in front of him. “You know nothing about this boy. You have no way of telling what thoughts fill the mind behind that face. He may be full to the bursting point of jealousy, ingratitude, gluttony, filthiness. How do you know what designs he’s hatching?” He shook his head and then turned to his niece. “I put it to you, ’Tilda. Is this wise? Is it the kind of risk you should take? Is it the kind of thing a Hull of Coldwater should do?”

While this speech was being delivered William looked first distressed and then resentful. He was so incensed that he kept his eyes lowered as he replied to the visitor.

“This—this is uncalled for, Uncle Alfred. If you wanted to say such things you might at least—well, you might have waited to say them to us and not—not before the boy.”

“I have no such foolish scruples,” said Uncle Alfred. “When I think a thing should be said, I say it. If feelings are hurt, let them be hurt.”

“Do you really think, Uncle Alfred,” asked Tilly, whose satisfaction with the arrangement had been oozing from her visibly as she listened, “that there might be—that there actually might be—danger?”

Calamity Hull took the Bible in his hands and held it up. “There must be something here to cover the case. I’ll search for it and, when I find it, I’ll come back and read it to you. It will be something to make you see sense.” Releasing one hand from its hold, he raised it to his head with one finger cocked over an imaginary trigger. “Have you ever heard the word heredity? Do you know what it means? Well, ’Tilda, think it over before you get yourselves committed.”

Ludar had listened with the fatalistic acceptance forced on him by a childhood in which he had been continually repressed and subjected to criticism. It had been too good to be true then, this quiet home where kindness had been shown him. This old man with the dark beard and eyes which could chill a boy’s blood at one glance had come to put an end to things. What, he wondered with a sense of rising panic, would happen to him now? Would he be turned out of the house before he had a chance to set it on fire with matches (but he was afraid of matches and never touched them) or—or cut someone’s throat? Would they even wait to let him get dressed?

He looked in his distress toward William Christian and could tell that the latter was very angry. Was he angry because he had been cheated? Because he had not known what a bad character he, Ludar, was before he agreed to bring him home?

William was so angry that his shoulders twitched and his face became red around the eyes. He began to pace about the room. “I won’t have it!” he said. “Not in my own house. Such talk! I guess I know a good boy when I see one.” He came to a stop beside the visitor and glared down at him. “Do you know what I think? I think the Hull family went to Coldwater when they came out to this country because they knew the name of the place fitted them. They’re always throwing cold water! Every last one.”

“William Christian!” cried his wife. “How dare you say such things!”

“Now that I’m started, I may say a lot more things. Things I’ve been storing up to say.”

The differences between the three might have developed into a real quarrel if someone had not chosen this moment to rap on the side door. William went out to the kitchen, and they could hear him say as he opened the door, “Well, Catherine,” in a voice from which all ill feeling had departed. He called in to them, “It’s Catherine, Tilly.”

Catherine McGregor, who lived in the two-story white brick house next door (which was comparatively grand, having a veranda and a bathroom), came into the room like a dove of peace. She was rather small and very pretty and as friendly as a young puppy.

“So this is the little boy,” she said. She walked over to the Morris chair and went down on one knee to bring her face closer to his. “Why, what a very nice little boy! What is your name?”

“Ludar, miss.”

“Ludar? And a very nice name it is. It’s a most unusual name and it seems to suit you.” She glanced up over her shoulder at Mrs. Christian. “Don’t you think it’s just perfect for him?”

Tilly’s mind was still full of the doubts which Calamity Hull had instilled. She said in a far from convinced voice, “Well, perhaps it is, Catherine.”

“I’m so glad, Ludar, that you’ve come here to live,” went on the pretty neighbor, transferring all her attention back to the boy. “I’ll get out the sled I had when I was a little girl and I’ll take you out for rides. And we’ll throw snowballs and have a grand time, won’t we?”

Ludar’s spirits rose a little. He thought to himself, “Perhaps this nice lady will tell them I’m not a bad boy and they needn’t send me away.” He sat up in the chair so suddenly that the coat slipped from around his thin bare shoulders. “Yes, miss,” he said. “But I’ve never played in snow. Won’t it be very cold, miss?”

William had been moving in chairs from the kitchen, plain wooden chairs with spindle backs which he had made himself. He put one down in front of the girl. “How did you hear about Ludar?” he asked.

“In the usual way.” Catherine laughed. “Mrs. Chief Jarvis’s servant girl is a sister of Margaret. Margaret was through for the day, but she came back to tell us. So of course I had to come in and see my new neighbor.”

She got to her feet and walked back to the kitchen, motioning Tilly to follow her. When they were alone the girl whispered: “I have another reason for coming, Mrs. Christian. I hope you won’t mind.”

“I’m glad you came when you did,” the older woman whispered back. “The two men were having a quarrel. William was in a great rage.”

Catherine could not restrain herself from laughing. She had straight fair hair and an oval face with a few freckles on the bridge of her nose, and when she laughed she brought one dimple into play. “Uncle Billy in a rage? I won’t believe it.”

“But he was.” Tilly shook her head solemnly. “I thought—I really thought he was going to strike Uncle Alfred.”

“Well, of course ...” The girl’s tone left the impression that this made everything understandable. “But what I want to tell you is this, Mrs. Christian. Clyde’s coming too. Any minute now. Clyde Carson, you know. He doesn’t go to our house because Father gets into a rage when he does. So I told Clyde—it was yesterday afternoon and I just happened to be in W. and M. Appleby’s store—that I would be here tonight and that he might drop in and see me for a minute or two. You don’t mind, do you?”

“N-no.” Tilly spoke as though the explanation had poured out too rapidly for her to grasp it all. “But why, Catherine, doesn’t your father want him in the house?”

The girl’s brow clouded. “Oh, that father of mine! He thinks Clyde isn’t worthy. That’s the word he always uses in our arguments. You see, Aunt Tilly——Do you mind if I call you that?”

Mrs. Christian’s face flushed with gratification. It had quite apparently been a sore point with her that up to this moment their lively young neighbor had called her husband Uncle Billy but had never progressed beyond Mrs. Christian with her.

“Mind? No, no, child. I’d like you to.”

“Well, Aunt Tilly, Clyde’s people aren’t much. They live away down in the East Ward, and Clyde’s father has a little grocery store. Clyde has always wanted to be a doctor, but there wasn’t enough money to send him to college. So he took a business course instead and now he’s keeping the books at W. and M. Appleby’s. Oh, he’ll get on in the world. But Father disapproves. He says I must make an important match.”

“He has your best interests at heart, Catherine. Your father is a fine man.”

The girl frowned and laughed at the same time. “He’s more than a fine man, Aunt Tilly. He’s a remarkable man. Oh, how I’ve suffered over that sign! All my friends tease me about it. But when I speak to Father he frowns majestically and says, ‘I am a remarkable man, child, and I believe in letting the world know.’ He says it’s a real trade getter.” She sighed. “I suppose it is. But that doesn’t make it any easier for me.”

“Your father knows best, Catherine.”

“About some things. But not about what I want to do with my life. You see, I’ve a mind of my own. Just as my remarkable father has.... Oh, there’s someone coming to the front door. I guess it will be Clyde. May I let him in?”

“Of course, child.”

Catherine fairly ran through the sitting room and from there into the cold front hall. They could hear her say, after opening the door, “Well, you are a prompt young man, Mr. Clyde Carson.”

The young man’s face, when he came into the sitting room, was red with the cold. He was pleasant-looking, with yellowish hair which could not be controlled by the most systematic use of brush and comb and bay rum, and his eyes were so full of Catherine that he stumbled at the place where the hall carpet joined the straw matting.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I always was clumsy on my feet. Good evening, Mr. Christian. I hear you’ve a new member of your family.”

William’s face registered surprise. “Now how did you find out?”

Young Mr. Carson spread his hands in front of the stove door. “Barney Grim lives down in our part of the town,” he explained. “It’s not a tony part, you know. If Mr. McGregor was here I wouldn’t need to say that. He would say it for me.”

“Clyde, please!”

“You know he would, Cathy. I was only stating the truth.” The boy had broad shoulders, and there was ample room on them for chips. “Well, Barney came into my father’s store—it’s a very small store, Mr. Christian, nothing remarkable about it—to get a plug of tobacco, and he said he had driven you and the boy home.”

Uncle Alfred thought it time to inject himself into the conversation, having been silent for fully five minutes. “It amazes me how news spreads,” he said, shaking his head. He raised the Bible and sighed deeply. “But the messages here are neglected. I often ask myself, ‘What is the world coming to?’ There’s no reason for me to ask, because I know the answer. The world is coming to destruction. To brimstone and fire. To the End, in a great blast of smoke and flame.”

The young man squared around and faced the speaker. “I know what the world isn’t coming to, Mr. Hull. To a sense of justice, to a realization of the need for all people to have equal rights and chances. This perfect world!” His face became even redder. “How can men think of it as perfect? It’s a world of cruelty and unfairness and hypocrisy——”

“Now, Clyde!” interjected the girl hastily. “People will begin to think you’re a socialist if you talk that way.”

“Perhaps I’m not so far off from being a socialist, if the truth were known. I don’t think this world perfect. Although”—his voice rose to a much higher pitch—“it would be a lot closer to perfection if I could put a stick of gunpowder under a certain sign——”

“Uncle Billy,” said the girl, “could Clyde and I have the crokinole board and take it out to the kitchen? I won’t promise that we’ll play. We—we always have so much to talk about, Clyde and I.”

William produced the crokinole board from a clothes closet and held it out proudly for their inspection. “This is a very special one. I made it myself. The wood’s curly maple and the leather bands on the pegs are a lot thicker. I thought we might put some out like this; at a higher price, of course. But Mr. Alloway”—the owner of the planing mill where he worked—“figured the cost would be prohibitive.” He sighed. “It was too bad. I’d hoped to collect a small royalty. Mr. Alloway never likes to change his way of doing things.”

The young couple took the board and disappeared into the kitchen. Immediately the click of the disks could be heard over a steady undertone of eager conversation. Anyone who understood the game would have known the shots to be random ones.

Uncle Alfred glanced suspiciously toward the door leading into the kitchen and then motioned to William and his niece to draw closer.

“I’m going to tell you something which must never be repeated,” he said in a voice just above a whisper. “This afternoon—I was summoned. I was summoned to appear at the home of a certain wealthy man who happens to be the silent owner of the Balfour Realty Company and so is my employer. There was a social gathering at his home of the best people of the town—in their own eyes, may I say, and not in the eyes of the Lord, who someday will cut them down in their pride like corn before the blade of the reaper. Was I brought in among them like an honored guest? I was not. I was escorted from the front door by a butler who seemed to look at me with the end of his nose, and I was led to a mean little room with one desk and one chair. Pretty soon in came this certain wealthy man and seated himself in the one chair. He was in his carks and moods, which was not surprising because, as far as my experience of the man goes, he always is in them. He began to give me orders. I must talk to people with property adjoining the furniture works and get evidence that there would be concerted opposition to any extension across the streets. Then at twelve o’clock I must go to Mr. Langley Craven and inform him that the board of directors have decided to take over the Homestead and use it for an extension, and that the matter of his vacating the property has been put in the hands of the Balfour Realty Company.” Uncle Alfred rolled his eyes from one to the other. “ ‘The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.’ That’s what the Word says. Langley Craven has been the borrower, and now he will become the servant.”

William showed the indignation he felt. “It’s all a move to get Langley Craven out,” he said. “And mark my words, it’s the doing of that woman.”

“It is not!” cried Tilly, whose views were always narrow and always violent. “I won’t hear a word against Mrs. Tanner Craven. She’s a good Christian woman. I know because I’ve worked with her in the church and I’ve helped her with the poor baskets at Christmas and the tea meetings.”

Calamity Hull shook his head in dissent. “The woman is a hypocrite,” he declared. “All who are high up in the churches are hypocrites, and this woman the worst of all. Right here in the Word it’s said that a hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor. That’s Mrs. Craven for you. She won’t rest until she’s destroyed the other family. As for Tanner Craven”—his eyes flashed with indignation—“that man is a whited sepulcher, a Midas, a Judas, a Jacob stealing the blessing from Esau!”

Tilly fell into a reminiscent mood. “When I came to Balfour to learn the millinery”—this had been an unfruitful interlude because she had shown no knack for the making of hats—“I stayed with my cousin Hetty German on Grace Street, just opposite the Terrys’. Many’s the beaux that Pauline Terry had! I used to sit in the front window, behind the lace curtains, and watch. I used to see Langley Craven arriving, so grand with his team of horses and his whip with a ribbon on it, and wearing a high collar and carrying flowers for Pauline and boxes of candy. But when Tanner Craven came to see her he came on foot, and I couldn’t see that he ever brought any presents. He was close even then. It was easy to see who would win. When Langley arrived Pauline would come out, her skirts sweeping along the brick walk—she always wore the longest skirts!—and she would begin to laugh and talk.” Tilly sighed, half in envy, half in nostalgic pleasure. “She always looked wonderful, that Pauline. I saw her in old clothes in the mornings and before she had done anything to herself, and she looked just as lovely then as she did in the evenings after she had been primping. I saw her at that too.”

“Do you remember,” asked Uncle Alfred, allowing his voice to rise, “when the Langley Cravens were married? It was in the winter and there was a snowstorm. Tanner went to T’ronto on business that day so he wouldn’t have to be there. He came home that night, and Barney Grim drove him from the station. Barney says he was as drunk as a lord and that he began to sniffle when they passed St. Paul’s Church.”

“But a lucky man he was in the end to get as fine a woman as his own wife,” asserted Tilly.

It suddenly occurred to Uncle Alfred that the company in the kitchen might be listening to this frank talk. He raised a finger in warning. It was clear at once, however, that they had not been overheard. The young couple were too concerned with their own problems to be interested in those of others. Catherine’s highly excited and very happy voice could be heard above the deeper rumble of the young man’s talk.

The footsteps of two people in the street came clearly to the occupants of the room. William said, “Must be getting colder when you can hear like this.” The footsteps turned in, and a loud and demanding knock was heard on the front door. The humble home of William Christian was proving the most visited house in all Balfour on this cold New Year’s night.

Catherine came to the door of the sitting room on tiptoe. “That’s Father,” she whispered.

William got to his feet and walked in the direction of the front hall, but the girl gestured to him to wait. She went over and whispered in his ear: “He mustn’t find us here or he’ll be very angry. I think, Uncle Billy, that Clyde and I had better go out through the summer kitchen. We’ll wait until you’ve let Father in, and then we’ll climb the fence and get away.” She was drawing on her coat as she talked, a red flannel one which reached to her ankles. With excited hands she knotted a handkerchief over the small bonnet she was wearing. “Come on, Clyde. Isn’t this fun?”

Clyde did not follow at once. He stayed in the doorway, his hands in the pockets of his coat, his forehead drawn into a frown. “I don’t like running away like this, Mr. Christian,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it except that the remarkable man would be angry with you if he found us here. I don’t want to get you involved in this hole-and-corner kind of business, but—but a fellow gets kind of desperate at times.” A second knock sounded on the door, a peremptory one this time. “Well, that settles it. The wrath of the Lord is rising. Good evening.”