The Dawn of Reckoning

by James Hilton

  He had started by a fierce shout of “Ladies and Gentlemen” that had led the audience to expect something dramatic. Yet by the end of his opening sentence his voice had sunk so low as to be scarcely audible. Then somebody had called out to him to speak up, and after that he had pitched his voice at a tone of level monotony from which he did not afterwards vary. It was terrible…Sir Charles fidgeted on the platform, staring uneasily at his hands; two or three people in the gallery walked out noisily; even the babies scattered throughout the hall seemed curiously discomfited and began to cry. Nevertheless, the prevailing mood was one of patience under difficulties; Loamport was going to give the newcomer at least fair play. But after Philip had been speaking for five minutes (quite grammatically and sensibly, but oh, how irritatingly I) Stella’s unspoken prayer was merely that he should stop as soon as he could and on whatever pretext he could find.

  But he did not stop. On the contrary, his voice rose a semitone, like the hum of a motor-engine when speed is accelerated. And at once, with such suddenness and unanimity that it was almost as if a signal had been given for them, interruptions began. Cries came simultaneously from the side-galleries, from the back and body of the hall, even from a few rows not far behind Stella. “Hey, mister, what part of the country do you come from?” a bass voice called out from somewhere. “Y’ mother oughtn’t to let ye stop out so late!” a shrill-voiced girl shouted down from the gallery, amidst the piercing laughter of her companions. “Ye’ll never get in for Loamport,” declared a man quite close to Stella, in a voice that was hardly unkind.

  Philip at first took no notice, except perhaps to raise his voice a shade of a tone higher in the scale. But at last a group in the gallery nearest him gave a deafening and evidently preconcerted shout of “Sit down.” Then, as if unable to ignore this final and most uncompromising provocation, he stopped. He was very pale. He looked fixedly at the interrupters in the gallery. “I d-don’t know if those gentlemen in, the g-gallery are speaking only for themselves, or for a c-considerable section of the audience, but if the l-latter is the case I sh-shall—”

  A curious thrill came over Stella. Oh, for him to stand there proud and defiant—to challenge them, as it were, to shout him down if they could!—“But if the latter is the case I shall just go on talking, whether you like it or not, till I have finished all I have to say. I’m not going to be intimidated by a handful of hooligans. I’ve come here to make a speech and I shall make it…” Would he talk like that!—The words rose fiercely to her lips, and she had hard work to keep herself from speaking them aloud. If only she were on the platform instead of him!

  But the voice went on coldly: “I sh-shall then be obliged to b-bow to the g-general will and b-bring my remarks to an end.”

  A great sinking sensation enveloped her He was giving in: he was surrendering to them ignominiously. A swelling hubbub arose all over the hall; voices shouted to him to sit down, to continue, to take no notice of interruptions, to go home…

  Then all at once she saw him stagger back, deathly pale, and almost fall into the arms of Sir Charles Maddison. He had fainted. They put him in a chair and gave him some water. He seemed to revive. Two of them took him by the arms and guided him slowly off the platform. All this in front of the shouting, gesticulating audience…

  Sir Charles rose and held up his hand. “I am sure,” he began, when the tumult was partially stilled, “I am sure we are all very sorry…”

  She must go to him. She could not stop away any longer. She got up, squirmed her way out of the crowded hall, and went round to the side-door leading to the platform.

  V

  “Oh, Philip,” she cried, rushing forward to him. “Are you better?”

  He was sitting in an arm-chair in the mayoral anteroom, and two men were there with him. One was standing in front of the fire with his hands in his pockets, and the other was mixing and consuming brandies and sodas. Stella’s sudden entrance surprised them both, but not Philip; he said smilingly: “I thought you’d c-come, Stella.”

  He spoke very sadly, and then rallied a little and remembered to introduce her to the two others. “Mr. Henry Crayford…Sir Thomas Hayling…my—s-sister…” (He always introduced her as his sister, to avoid misunderstandings.)

  A muffled roar enveloped them suddenly like the sound of a railway train passing overhead. “Maddison’s finished,” said Crayford, nodding towards the door. “Perhaps we’d better get back.”

  The other smiled approvingly. “Perhaps we may leave Mr. Monsell in your capable hands,” he said, addressing Stella.

  Somehow she disliked both of them instinctively. She nodded curtly, and they bowed to her and went out. Not a word or a sign to Philip. She saw him flush as he realised the significance of the omission.

  As soon as they had gone she flung herself down on the carpet and knelt by the side of him with her cheek against his hand. “Oh, Philip—Philip you mustn’t mind them—they’re nothing, they’re nobodies—they don’t count—you mustn’t let them hurt you—you mustn’t, you mustn’t, Philip!”

  “I d-don’t,” he said, bravely.

  She did not know what to say after that. She was almost crying, and a renewal of the cheering outside in the hall brought the tears swimming into her eyes. If only Philip could have made them cheer like that! If only…She exclaimed, passionately: “Oh, Philip, dear Philip, you mustn’t worry about it—it doesn’t matter—doesn’t matter a tiny scrap—”

  He answered, stroking her hair gently: “Ah, but you know it d-does matter. And I know t-too. Stella, you think I’ve Mailed, don’t you? You’re s-sorry for me, eh? “—He brushed back the hair that was straggling down over his forehead and went on in a changed tone: “B-but I’ll win yet, Stella. I know I will. I won’t be beaten.”

  She flung her arms round his neck and drew his head down to hers. “Oh, Philip, I love you to say that—and I love you when you say it—yes, I do love you, Philip—ever so much—and I mean that!”

  She stopped, seeing that he had turned very pale again. “I have l-loved you for a long t-time, Stella,” he answered calmly, “but I did not g-guess that you l-loved me.”

  “Oh, you poor old Philip—” she said, pressing her face to his so that her tears wet his cheek. It was just like him, to be shy of telling her, and then, when she had told him, to be so calm about it. She added, half-sobbing “Didn’t you ever wonder if I did?”

  He nodded quaintly. “Yes, I s-sometimes wondered. And I—I m-made up my mind I would ask you when I had—when I had s-succeeded.”

  His mouth twisted into a wry smile over that final word.

  * * *

  CHAPTER V

  I

  Chassingford is an old town, less important to-day than formerly; it consists mainly of a single long street, fringed with old-fashioned houses and shops, and a fifteenth-century parish church with a crocketed spire. There is also a famous old coaching inn, slowly winning back some of its former splendour, a village stocks, a market-place with cattle-pens, and a railway station where for some reason or other many important main-line trains make a halt.

  “Hardly an exciting place to live in,” commented Aubrey Ward, when Philip met him one bright spring morning in the High Street.

  “Perhaps not,” Philip admitted with a laugh. “But that makes it all the more remarkable why you should be here. Has London become too hot for you since the last hospital ‘rag’? I saw your exploits photographed in all the picture papers, by the way.”

  Ward shrugged his shoulders and smiled, his bright finely-set teeth gleaming healthfully. If ever a man seemed to radiate energy in the manner illustrated in patent medicine advertisements, that man was Ward, and Philip, tall, stooping, almost cadaverous, was a perfect foil to him.

  Ward’s smile became a laugh. “I’m on a visit,” he replied simply. “In fact I’ve discovered in Chassingford something I didn’t think I possessed in all the world.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A relative…” He s
topped short, as if checked by an innate reticence in dealing with his private affairs. “I have no father or mother, you know,” he said, hastily, “nor—so far as I knew up to last week—any relative. Then I—I got into touch with somebody who told me that I had a great-uncle living in Chassingford.” His voice became bantering again. “Extraordinary how precious a great-uncle can be when he’s the nearest thing you’ve got!”

  The sun had disappeared behind the folds of heavy black clouds, and a few big drops of rain heralded the coming of an April shower. “Haven’t you got a café of some sort in Chassingford?” Ward continued, looking at the sky apprehensively. “It’s going to rain like the dickens in a minute, and I I could talk to you for hours.”

  He said that in a sudden burst of boyish enthusiasm that made him seem for the moment more like a happy, brown-faced youngster than a grown man. As he stood there on the Chassingford pavement he looked virility personified, and kindled by an affection that had just very shyly broken its bounds.

  “We don’t have cafés in Chassingford,” answered Philip, smiling, “except on market-day, and then we call them eating-houses. But we can go in the Greyhound and chat, if you like. And perhaps, if you’re not doing anything for lunch, you can walk with me up to the Hall when the shower’s over. I’m sure my mother would be delighted to see you.”

  “Sorry, Monsell—awfully sorry—but I’m lunching with my great-uncle.”

  He broke into a roar of happy laughter, laughter that by its cleansing, heartening quality seemed almost to push the clouds in the sky a little further off. This notion of possessing a great-uncle amused him immeasurably, and even Philip, without perceiving exactly what the joke was, could not help joining in.

  “But who is your great-uncle?” he asked, as they entered the cool tiled hall of the Greyhound.

  Ward lowered his voice. “He’s one of the most charming old men I’ve ever met—and, as it happens, a doctor himself…Doctor Challis…Probably you know him?”

  Philip took the other affectionately by the arm and led the way into the hotel-lounge. “Now that’s really extraordinary,” he said quietly, “Challis is our family doctor—has been for the past forty years…”

  II

  Over beer and lemonade they discussed further, while the pavements and gutters outside hissed and swirled in the sudden downpour.

  “As a matter of fact,” Ward said, when they had settled themselves in the old-fashioned window-seat, “Challis wants me to be his assistant—sort of under study, you know. He’s getting too old to tackle all the work by himself.”

  “I should think so. He must be well over sixty.”

  “Sixty-five. Of course, it wants thinking about, and I haven’t quite made up my mind yet—that’s why what I’m telling you is in confidence. You see—to put it frankly—I have to decide whether coming here wouldn’t be—in a sort of way—burying myself alive. On the other hand, Challis has a good practice, and a few years’ general experience is a good qualification for a medical man if he wants to turn to specialisation afterwards.”

  “And you want to do that?”

  “Yes…” He flushed slightly, as if conscious that he had said rather more about himself than was his habit. “I’m ambitious, Monsell—very.”

  “So am I.”

  They stared at each other for a moment without speaking, and then at last Philip added: “Though so far I’ve been a rather humorous failure. Do you remember that time you cleared those drunken fellows out of my room?—I couldn’t have done it—but you seemed to know how by instinct. I simply don’t know how to deal with people…Last December, for instance, I made an awful fool of myself at a big political meeting up in Loamport…”

  He told him the whole story, without exaggeration or reticence. There was nobody else in the world (except, perhaps, Stella) with whom such a confession would have been even possible.

  When he had finished Ward made no comment, and for that Philip was grateful. By this time also the shower was over, and the clock in the tower of the parish church began the chiming of noon.

  “So you can’t come to lunch with us to-day?” Philip resumed, as they left the hotel and turned up the High Street.

  The other smiled and shook his head regretfully.

  “Then to-morrow?”

  “Oh rather, yes. I was waiting for you to say that.”

  A moment later the sun shone brightly on them as they shook hands and separated.

  III

  Since the fiasco at Loamport Philip and Stella had been aware of a difference in their relationship, but exactly how far the difference extended neither of them could say. That curious incident in the ante room of the Loamport Town Hall had brought them face to face with the reality of their own affections, but afterwards Philip, from very shyness, had seemed unwilling to define the matter further. When, how ever, Stella hinted at the change in their relationship, he surprised her by saying: “But, Stella—I thought—I thought it was all settled. I love you, and I want to marry you, but I can’t till I’m successful.”

  “Then we must hurry up and make you successful,” she answered, laughing. “And I can help you, can’t I?”

  He nodded.

  She felt she wanted to spring upwards and throw her arms round his neck and kiss him. She had to fight down the desire, because—well, because he was Philip, and different from other men. It was not that he was cold or unfeeling, nor even that he was passionless; it was rather a kind of over-refinement that made him shy of love-making, or of any demonstrative affection. Really the only thing in the world she was afraid of was that look of his, puzzled, doubtful, and with just the merest hint of reproach in it—the look that came into his eyes whenever she did something he did not quite approve.

  She had invented a strange little parlour game (though it was just as pleasant to play it under the verandah in fine weather), designed to help Philip in his public-speaking. Philip delivered his speeches to her, and whenever the opportunity occurred she would interrupt, as awkwardly and as impertinently as possible. By dealing with so many interjections it was intended that Philip should improve and perfect his armour against even the most pertinacious heckler.

  Ward, therefore, arriving at Chassingford Hall at a few minutes to one on the day following his meeting with Philip, and ringing twice at the front door without getting an answer, had not strolled very far in the direction of the garden before the sound of voices came to his ears. He could not help listening, and what he heard was the following duologue:

  Male Voice: “—but I say, on the contrary, that the policy of my opponents has been absolutely detrimental to the best interests of the workers of this country, as well as—”

  Female Voice (shrilly): “What do you know about the workers?”

  Male Voice: “Never mind what I know. I work hard myself, and—”

  Female Voice (more shrilly than ever): “Rubbish! What did Lloyd George say in nineteen-ten?”

  Male Voice (nervously): “I—I—I say, really, Stella, what an absurd question!—Do you think anybody would be silly enough to ask it?”

  Female Voice (now unmistakably Stella’s): “Philip, my dear little innocent, people are silly enough to ask anything at political meetings. And the only thing to do is to reply to a silly question by a silly answer. For instance, in reply to the question ‘What did Lloyd George say in nineteen-ten?’ you might answer, ‘I don’t know, but I know what Christopher Columbus said when he discovered America.’”

  Male Voice: “But I should hate to reply like that. It’s cheap. And besides, supposing the man asked me what Columbus did say—”

  At this point Ward came through the shrubbery and provided a more effective interruption than even Stella could have thought of.

  IV

  Later in the afternoon Stella told Philip she had finally decided that she did not like Ward. “When I first met him at Cambridge, I didn’t know, but I know now. I don’t like him.”

  “But you said then he was like a Hung
arian?”

  “So he is, and I like that part of him, but there’s something else. He—he makes me uncomfortable. I hope—I hope he doesn’t come here often.”

  Philip looked serious. “But Stella, why do you dislike him? I assure you I know him, and he’s a splendid fellow—”

  “Yes, he may be. But—but he makes me uncomfortable. He did the first time I met him, and he did the same again this afternoon. He was laugh ing at us, too—about you making your speeches and me interrupting you.”

  “Oh, you mustn’t worry about that. He laughs at anything—everything When some men at Cambridge got drunk and messed up my rooms he turned them out—that was how I first got to know him, by the way—but the next morning he was laughing about the whole business. ‘Quite a little to-do we had last night, didn’t we?’ he said—that was how he regarded it. I shall never forget his words, because I felt indignant at the time that he should treat the matter so lightly.”

  Stella went on: “Well, anyway, I don’t like him. I—yes, I’m quite certain of it—I fear him. I don’t know why or in what way, but I do.”

  “That’s rather a pity,” answered Philip, “because he’s likely to be in Chassingford a good deal in the future. He told me just before he went that he had finally decided to be Doctor Challis’s assistant. So I’m afraid it’s rather—inevitable—that you should meet him occasionally.”

  “Inevitable, is it?” She stared moodily in front of her, as if reckoning things out. “Ah, well,” she added, smiling again, “when you’re successful we shall marry and move out of Chassingford, shan’t we?”