Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗

Chapter Ten f

THE APPEAL OF THE MAYOR OF RICH

 

Doncaster, having been suddenly thrown over by Mr. Sheldrake and Lord

Birlesmere, and himself in London with nobody wanting him,

determined to return to his holiday village. As he walked to the

station he found himself considerably irritated by the treatment he had

received. He had been asked by the police to be good enough to attend

this conference, and now he was flung into the street with the other

less important people. No one had explained anything to him. He didn’t

even know who half the people he had seen were. He had heard Lord

Arglay’s name and recognized it; he had a vague recollection of having

once read an extremely outspoken book by Sir Giles on the religious

aspect of the marriage customs of a tribe of cannibals in Polynesia.

But who Palliser was or the girl who had landed Palliser on the floor

he had no idea, nor why she had done it. Why had she rushed round and

flown at Sir Giles’s throat? “I almost wish,” he thought, “she’d flown

at mine. Or Sheldrake’s. I should have liked to help her wring

Sheldrake’s neck. I wonder if she hurt herself much. Anyhow it won’t

matter if she’s got one of the Stones. Why the devil didn’t I take one?

Why does no one tell me what it’s all about? Why did Sir Giles cut the

Stone to bits? And why did that girl want to stop him?” As far as Rich

he entertained himself with such questions.

 

Rich itself, when he arrived there, seemed to be similarly, but rather

more angrily, engaged. There were groups in the streets and at the

doors; there were dialogues and conversations proceeding everywhere.

There were policemen—a number of policemen—moving as unnoticeably as

possible through the slightly uncivil population. In fact it was,

Doncaster thought, as much like the morning after the night before on a

generous scale as need be. It occurred to him that he would go round

and see Mrs. Ferguson’s sister on his way; it would be interesting to

know whether she remained in her recovered health -if he could reach

her, of course, because as he wandered towards her street the groups

seemed, in spite of the continually pacing police, to be larger and

more numerous. The street itself however was passable, though not much

more, and he had just turned into it, when he was startled into a pause

by a high shrill voice some distance off which called over the street,

“Where’s the Stone? Take me to the Stone.”

 

Oliver looked at the people near him. One man shook his head placidly

and said, “Ah there he is again.” But the rest

were listening, he thought, almost sullenly, and one or two muttered

something, and another gave a short laugh. Conversations ceased; a

policeman, wandering by, caught Oliver’s eye, and seemed to meet it

dubiously as if he were not quite certain what to do.

 

“Where’s the Stone?” the voice shrilled again. “I want to see. Won’t

some kind friend take a poor old blind man to the Stone?”

 

“What is it?” Oliver said to his nearest neighbour, the man who had

laughed.

“That’s old Sam Mutton,” the man said in a surly scorn. “Stone-blind

and half-dotty. He’s heard of this Stone and he’s made his grand-daughter take him about the town all day to look for it.” He lifted his

own voice suddenly and called back, -“No use, Sam, the police have got

it. It’s not for you and me to get well with it.”

 

The cry went over the silent street like a threat. But in answer the

old man’s voice came back. “I can’t see. I want to see. Take me to the

Stone.” Each sentence ended in what was

nearly a prolonged shriek, and as Oliver took a pace or two forward he

saw the speaker in front of him. It was a very old man, bald and

wizened, approaching slowly, leaning on the one side on a stick, on the

other on the arm of a girl of about twenty, who, as they moved, seemed

to be trying to persuade him to return. She was whispering hurriedly to

him; her other hand lay on his arm. Even at a little distance Oliver

noticed how pale she was and how the hand trembled. But the old man

shook it off and began again calling out in that dreadful agonized

voice, “I want to se-e-e; take me to the Sto-one.”

 

On the moment the girl gave way. She collapsed on the ground, her arm

slipping from the old man’s grasp so that he nearly fell, and broke

into a violent fit of hysterics. Two or three women ran to her, but

above her rending sobs and laughter her grandfather’s voice went up in

a more intense refrain, “Where’s the Stone? I can’t see. Nancy, I can’t

see, take me to the Stone.” The policeman had come back and was saying

something to Oliver’s neighbour who listened sullenly. “—get him

home,” Oliver heard, and heard the answer, “You get him home—if you

can.” The policeman—he looked young and unhappy enough—went up to the

old man, saying something in a voice that tried to be comfortable and

cheering. But old Sam, if that were his name, turned and clutched at

him, and broke out in a shrill senile wail of passion that appalled

Oliver, “I’m dying, I’m dying. I want to see before I die. I’m dying. I

want to see. O kind, kind friends, will no one bring me to the Stone?”

 

“The police have got the Stone,” Oliver’s neighbour called. “Who cares

if you want to see? The police have got the Stone.” “God blast the

police,” said someone the other side of Oliver,

 

and a young working man, of about his own age, thrust himself violently

forward opposite the constable. “You, damn you, you’ve killed my wife.

My wife’s dead, she died this morning, and the baby’s dead—and they’d

have lived if I’d got the Stone.” He made sudden gestures and the

policeman, letting go of the old man, stepped back. Oliver saw two or

three more helmets moving forward in support, and a voice behind him

said sharply, “Now then, now then, what’s all this?”

 

He looked round. A group of men were pushing past him. One was a short

fierce-looking man, with an aggressive moustache; beside him was an

older and larger man, with a grave set face. Behind these two were a

police-inspector and two or three constables.

 

“What’s all this?” said the little man angrily. “Constable, Why aren’t

you keeping the street clear? Don’t you know your orders? Who’s this

man? Why are you letting him make all this noise? What’s he got to do

with it? Don’t you know we can hear him all over the town? Gross

incapacity. You’ll hear more of this.”

 

The young constable opened his mouth to speak and shut it again. The

tall man laid his hand on his companion’s arm. “One man can’t do

everything, Chief Constable,” he said in a low voice. “And Sam’s a

difficult person to deal with. I think we’d better leave it to the

inspector here to deal with things quietly.”

 

“Quietly?” the Chief Constable snapped. “Quietly! Look here, Mr. Mayor,

you’ve been at me all day to do things quietly, and I’ve given in here

and given in there, and this is the end of it.” He looked over his

shoulder. “Clear the street at once, inspector,” he said. “And tell

that old dodderer that if he makes another sound I’ll have him in

prison for brawling. “

 

The Mayor said firmly, “You can’t arrest him; he’s a well-known

character here, and everyone’s sorry for him and his grand-daughter.

Besides, it’s natural enough that he should be crying out like this.”

 

“I don’t care whether it’s natural or not,” the Chief Constable

answered. “‘He’s not going to do it here. Now, inspector, I’m waiting.”

 

The inspector signed to his men, who began to make separate and gentle

movements forward. But after a step or two the

advance flickered and ceased. The general murmur, “Now then, now then,

you can’t hang about here,” died in and into the silence with which it

was received. The crowd remained sullenly fixed.

 

“Inspector!” the Chief Constable said impatiently.

 

The inspector looked at Oliver who was close to him, recognized his

kind, and said in a low almost plaintive voice, “Now, sir, if you’d

start some of them would get away.”

 

“And why the devil,” Oliver asked very loudly, “should we get away?”

 

There was a stiffening in the crowd near him, a quick murmur, almost

the beginning of a cheer. The Mayor and the Chief Constable both looked

at Oliver.

 

“Say that again, my man,” the latter said, “and I’ll have you in prison

for resisting the police.”

 

“The Lord Chief Justice,” Oliver said, more loudly still, “is entirely

opposed to the action of the Government.” He had hardly meant to say

that, but as soon as it was said he thought hastily that in the

morning’s conference the ChiefJustice hadn’t seemed to be exactly one

with the Government. But he realized in a minute that his sentence,

meaning one thing, had meant to his hearers quite another. A more

definite noise broke out around him. “This,” he thought, “is almost a

roar.”

 

The Chief Constable began to say something, but the Mayor checked him

with a lifted hand. “Do I understand you, sir,” he asked, “to say that

the Chief Justice considers the action of the Government illegal? Do

you speak from your own certain knowledge?”

 

Oliver thought of saying, “Well, I don’t know about illegal,” but the

phrase was so deplorably weak that he abandoned it. Besides, in that

large room at the Foreign Office-Lord Birlesmere, Sir Giles, Chloe’s

bleeding fingers-“The Chief Justice’s secretary,” he said clearly, “was

seriously injured this morning in—protesting against—the action of certain associates of the Government, and the Chief Justice takes

the most serious view of the situation.”

 

This might be a little compressed, he felt; Lord Arglay’s actual words

had seemed a trifle less official. And seriously injured? Still…

 

The inspector stood still, looking worried, and glanced gloomily at the

Chief Constable, who was making half-audible noises. The Mayor

considered Doncaster evenly. Somebody behind shouted, “The Government’s

broken the law,” and Oliver felt a little cold as he heard this final

reduction of his own sentences to a supposed fact. In the following

silence, “I want the Stone,” the old man wailed again.

 

“We all want the Stone,” another voice called, and another, “Who cares

what they say? We want the Stone.” Cheers and shouts answered. A man

stumbled heavily against the inspector who was thrown back upon the

Chief Constable.

 

The incident might have become a m�l�e if the Mayor had not intervened.

He held up both arms, crying in a great voice, “Silence, silence!

Silence for the Mayor,” and went to a horsetrough near by, motioning to

Oliver to follow him; by whose assistance he mounted on the edge of the

trough. Holding to an electric light standard he began to address the

crowd.

 

“Good people,” he said