Clayhanger Part 9

Edwin shrugged his shoulders superiorly, indicating by instinct, in spite of himself, that possibly Big James was trespa.s.sing over the social line that divided them. And yet Big James's father would have condescended to Edwin's grandfather. Only, Edwin now belonged to the employing cla.s.s, whilst Big James belonged to the employed. Already Edwin, whose father had been thrashed by workmen whom a compositor would hesitate to call skilled--already Edwin had the mien natural to a ruler, and Big James, with dignified deference, would submit unresentingly to his att.i.tude. It was the subtlest thing. It was not that Edwin obscurely objected to the suggestion of his being present at the free-and-easy; it was that he objected (but nicely, and with good nature) to any a.s.sumption of Big James's right to influence him towards an act that his father would not approve. Instead of saying, "Why not?"

Big James ought to have said: "n.o.body but you can decide that, as your father's away." James ought to have been strictly impartial.

FOUR.

"Well," said Big James, when they arrived at the playground, which lay north of the covered Meat Market or Shambles, "it looks as if they hadn't been able to make a start yet at the Blood Tub." His tone was marked by a calm, grand disdain, as of one entertainer talking about another.

The Blood Tub, otherwise known as Snaggs's, was the centre of nocturnal pleasure in Bursley. It stood almost on the very spot where the jawbone of a whale had once lain, as a supreme natural curiosity. It represented the softened manners which had developed out of the old medievalism of the century. It had supplanted the bear-pit and the c.o.c.k-pit. It corresponded somewhat with the ideals symbolised by the new Town Hall. In the tiny odorous beer-houses of all the undulating, twisting, reddish streets that surrounded the contiguous open s.p.a.ces of Duck Bank, the playground, the market-place, and Saint Luke's Square, the folk no longer discussed eagerly what chance on Sunday morning the munic.i.p.al bear would have against five dogs. They had progressed as far as a free library, boxing-gloves, rabbit-coursing, and the Blood Tub.

This last was a theatre with wooden sides and a canvas roof, and it would hold quite a crowd of people. In front of it was a platform, and an orchestra, lighted by oil flares that, as Big James and Edwin approached, were gaining strength in the twilight. Leaning against the platform was a blackboard on which was chalked the announcement of two plays: "The Forty Thieves" (author unstated) and Cruikshank's "The Bottle." The orchestra, after terrific concussions, fell silent, and then a troupe of players in costume, cramped on the narrow trestle boards, performed a sample scene from "The Forty Thieves," just to give the crowd in front an idea of the wonders of this powerful work. And four thieves pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed behind the screen hiding the doors, and reappeared nine times as four fresh thieves until the tale of forty was complete. And then old Hammerad, the beloved clown who played the drum (and whose wife kept a barber's shop in Buck Row and shaved for a penny), left his drum and did two minutes' stiff clowning, and then the orchestra burst forth again, and the brazen voice of old Snaggs (in his moleskin waistcoat) easily rode the storm, adjuring the folk to walk up and walk up: which some of the folk did do. And lastly the band played "G.o.d Save the Queen," and the players, followed by old Snaggs, processionally entered the booth.

"I lay they come out again," said Big James, with grim blandness.

"Why?" asked Edwin. He was absolutely new to the scene.

"I lay they haven't got twenty couple inside," said Big James.

And in less than a minute the troupe did indeed emerge, and old Snaggs expostulated with a dilatory public, respectfully but firmly. It had been a queer year for Mr Snaggs. Rain had ruined the Wakes; rain had ruined everything; rain had nearly ruined him. July was obviously not a month in which a self-respecting theatre ought to be open, but Mr Snaggs had got to the point of catching at straws. He stated that in order to prove his absolute bona fides the troupe would now give a scene from that world-renowned and unique drama, "The Bottle," after which the performance really would commence, since he could not as a gentleman keep his kind patrons within waiting any longer. His habit, which emphasised itself as he grew older, was to treat the staring crowd in front of his booth like a family of nephews and nieces. The device was quite useless, for the public's stolidity was impregnable. It touched the heroic. No more granitic and cra.s.s stolidity could have been discovered in England. The crowd stood; it exercised no other function of existence. It just stood, and there it would stand until convinced that the gratis part of the spectacle was positively at an end.

FIVE.

With a ceremonious gesture signifying that he a.s.sumed the young sir's consent, Big James turned away. He had displayed to Edwin the poverty and the futility of the Blood Tub. Edwin would perhaps have liked to stay. The scenes enacted on the outer platform were certainly tinged with the ridiculous, but they were the first histrionics that he had ever witnessed; and he could not help thinking, hoping, in spite of his common sense, that within the booth all was different, miraculously transformed into the grand and the impressive. Left to himself, he would surely have preferred an evening at the Blood Tub to a business interview with Mr Enoch Peake at the Dragon. But naturally he had to scorn the Blood Tub with a scorn equal to the ma.s.sive and silent scorn of Big James. And on the whole he considered that he was behaving as a man with another man rather well. He sought by depreciatory remarks to keep the conversation at its proper adult level.

Big James led him through the market-place, where a few vegetable, tripe, and gingerbread stalls--relics of the day's market--were still attracting customers in the twilight. These slatternly and picturesque groups, beneath their flickering yellow flares, were encamped at the gigantic foot of the Town Hall porch as at the foot of a precipice. The monstrous black walls of the Town Hall rose and were merged in gloom; and the spire of the Town Hall, on whose summit stood a gold angel holding a gold crown, rose right into the heavens and was there lost.

It was marvellous that this town, by adding stone to stone, had upreared this monument which, in expressing the secret n.o.bility of its ideals, dwarfed the town. On every side of it the beer-houses, full of a dulled, savage ecstasy of life, gleamed brighter than the shops. Big James led Edwin down through the mysteries of the c.o.c.k Yard and up along Bugg's Gutter, and so back to the Dragon.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TEN.

FREE AND EASY.

When Edwin, shyly, followed Big James into the a.s.sembly room of the Dragon, it already held a fair sprinkling of men, and newcomers continued to drop in. They were soberly and respectably clothed, though a few had knotted handkerchiefs round their necks instead of collars and ties. The occasion was a jollity of the Bursley Mutual Burial Club.

This Club, a singular example of that dogged private co-operative enterprise which so sharply distinguishes English corporate life from the corporate life of other European countries, had l.u.s.tily survived from a period when men were far less sure of a decent burial than they were then, in the very prosperous early seventies. It had helped to maintain the barbaric fashion of ostentatiously expensive funerals, out of which undertakers and beer-sellers made vast sums; but it had also provided a basis of common endeavour and of fellowship. And its respectability was intense, and at the same time broad-minded. To be an established subscriber to the Burial Club was evidence of good character and of social spirit. The periodic jollities of this company of men whose professed aim was to bury each other, had a high reputation for excellence. Up till a year previously they had always been held at the Duck, in Duck Square, opposite; but Mr Enoch Peake, Chairman of the Club, had by persistent and relentless chicane, triumphing over immense influences, changed their venue to the Dragon, whose landlady, Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, he was then courting. (It must be stated that Mrs Louisa's name contained no slur of cantankerousness; it is merely the local word for a harmless plant, the knapweed.) He had now won Mrs Loggerheads, after being a widower thrice, and with her the second best 'house' in the town.

There were long benches down the room, with forms on either side of them. Big James, not without pomp, escorted a blushing Edwin to the end of one of these tables, near a small raised platform that occupied the extremity of the room. Over this platform was printed a legend: "As a bird is known by its note--"; and over the legend was a full-rigged ship in a gla.s.s case, and a pair of antlers. The walls of the room were dark brown, the ceiling grey with soot of various sorts, and the floor tiled red-and-black and sanded. Smoke rose in spirals from about a score of churchwarden pipes and as many cutties, which were charged from tin pouches, and lighted by spills of newspaper from the three double gas-jets that hung down over the benches. Two middle-aged women, one in black and the other checked, served beer, porter, and stout in mugs, and gin in gla.s.ses, pa.s.sing in and out through a side door. The company talked little, and it had not yet begun seriously to drink; but, sprawled about in att.i.tudes of restful abeyance, it was smoking religiously, and the flat noise of solemn expectorations punctuated the minutes. Edwin was easily the youngest person present--the average age appeared to be about fifty--but n.o.body's curiosity seemed to be much stirred by his odd arrival, and he ceased gradually to blush. When, however, one of the women paused before him in silent question, and he had to explain that he required no drink because he had only called for a moment about a matter of business, he blushed again vigorously.

TWO.

Then Mr Enoch Peake appeared. He was a short, stout old man, with fat hands, a red, minutely wrinkled face, and very small eyes. Greeted with the respect due to the owner of c.o.c.knage Gardens, a sporting resort where all the best foot-racing and rabbit-coursing took place, he accepted it in somnolent indifference, and immediately took off his coat and sat down in cotton shirt-sleeves. Then he pulled out a red handkerchief and his tobacco-box, and set them on the table. Big James motioned to Edwin.

"Evening, Mr Peake," said Big James, crossing the floor, "and here's a young gent wishful for two words with you."

Mr Peake stared vacantly.

"Young Mr Clayhanger," explained Big James.

"It's about this card," Edwin began, in a whisper, drawing the wedding-card sheepishly from his pocket. "Father had to go to Manchester," he added, when he had finished.

Mr Enoch Peake seized the card in both hands, and examined it; and Edwin could hear his heavy breathing.

Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, a comfortable, smiling administrative woman of fifty, showed herself at the service-door, and nodded with dignity to a few of the habitues.

"Missis is at door," said Big James to Mr Peake.

"Is her?" muttered Mr Peake, not interrupting his examination of the card.

One of the serving-women, having removed Mr Peake's coat, brought a new church warden, filled it, and carefully directed the tip towards his tight little mouth: the lips closed on it. Then she lighted a spill and applied it to the distant bowl, and the mouth puffed; and then the woman deposited the bowl cautiously on the bench. Lastly, she came with a small gla.s.s of sloe gin. Mr Peake did not move.

At length Mr Peake withdrew the pipe from his mouth, and after an interval said--

"Aye!"

He continued to stare at the card, now held in one hand.

"And is it to be printed in silver?" Edwin asked.

Mr Peake took a few more puffs.

"Aye!"

When he had stared further for a long time at the card, his hand moved slowly with it towards Edwin, and Edwin resumed possession of it.

Mrs Louisa Loggerheads had now vanished.

"Missis has gone," said Big James.

"Has her?" muttered Mr Peake.

Edwin rose to leave, though unwillingly; but Big James asked him in polite reproach whether he should not stay for the first song. He nodded, encouraged; and sat down. He did not know that the uppermost idea in Big James's mind for an hour past had been that Edwin would hear him sing.

Mr Peake lifted his gla.s.s, held it from him, approached his lips towards it, and emptied it at a draught. He then glanced round and said thickly--

"Gentlemen all, Mester Smallrice, Mester Harracles, Mester Rampick, and Mester Yarlett will now oblige with one o' th' ould favourites."

There was some applause, a few coats were removed, and Mr Peake fixed himself in a contemplative att.i.tude.

THREE.

Messrs. Arthur Smallrice, Abraham Harracles, Jos Rawnpike, and James Yarlett rose, stepped heavily on to the little platform, and stood in a line with their hands in their pockets. "As a bird is known by its note--" was hidden by the rampart of their shoulders. They had no music. They knew the music; they had sung it a thousand times. They knew precisely the effects which they wished to produce, and the means of production. They worked together like an inspired machine. Mr Arthur Smallrice gave a rapid glance into a corner, and from that corner a concertina spoke--one short note. Then began, with no hesitating shuffling preliminaries nor mute consultations, the singing of that cla.s.sic quartet, justly celebrated from Hull to Wigan and from Northallerton to Lichfield, "Loud Ocean's Roar." The thing was performed with absolute a.s.surance and perfection. Mr Arthur Smallrice did the yapping of the short waves on the foam-veiled rocks, and Big James in fullest grandeur did the long and mighty rolling of the deep.

It was majestic, terrific, and overwhelming. Many bars before the close Edwin was thrilled, as by an exquisite and vast revelation. He tingled from head to foot. He had never heard any singing like it, or any singing in any way comparable to it. He had never guessed that song held such possibilities of emotion. The pure and fine essential qualities of the voices, the dizzying harmonies, the fugal calls and responses, the strange relief of the unisons, and above all the free, natural mien of the singers, proudly aware that they were producing something beautiful that could not be produced more beautifully, conscious of unchallenged supremacy,--all this enfevered him to an unprecedented and self-astonished enthusiasm.