The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories by Arnold Bennett (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

goes gabbling all over the house about what he has done is an ass; in fact, to call him an ass is to flatter him."

Arthur tried to be angry.

"That's all very well--" he began to grumble.

But he could not be angry. The pincers and the anvil had suddenly ceased their torment. He was free. He was not a disgraced man. He would catch the train easily. All would be well. All would be as the practical Simeon had arranged that it should be. And in advancing the clock Simeon had acted for the best. Of course, it _was_ safer to be on the safe side! In an affair such as that in which he was engaged, he felt, and he honestly admitted to himself, that he would have been nowhere without Simeon.

"Light the stove first, man," Simeon enjoined him. "There's been a change in the weather, I bet. It's as cold as the very deuce."

Yes, it was very cold. Arthur now noticed the cold. Strange--or rather not strange--that he had not noticed it before! He lit the gas stove, which exploded with its usual disconcerting _plop_, and a marvellously agreeable warmth began to charm his senses. He continued his dressing as near as possible to the source of this exquisite warmth. Then Simeon, in his leisurely manner, arose out of bed without a word, put his feet into slippers and lit the gas.

"I never thought of that," said Arthur, laughing nervously.

"Shows what a state you're in," said Simeon.

Simeon went to the window and peeped out into the silence of Trafalgar Road.

"Slight mist," he observed.

Arthur felt a faint return of the pincers and anvil.

"But it will clear off," Simeon added.

Then Simeon put on a dressing-gown and padded out of the room, and Arthur heard him knock at another door and call:

"Mrs Hopkins, Mrs Hopkins!" And then the sound of a door opening.

"She was dressed and just going downstairs," said Simeon when he returned to their bedroom. "Breakfast ready in ten minutes. She set the table last night. I told her to."

"Good!" Arthur murmured.

At sixteen minutes past six they were both dressed, and Simeon was showing Arthur that Simeon alone knew how to pack a trunk. At twenty minutes past six the trunk was packed, locked and strapped.

"What about getting the confounded thing downstairs?" Arthur asked.

"When the porter comes," said Simeon, "he and I will do that. It's too heavy for you to handle."

At six twenty-one they were having breakfast in the little dining-room, by the heat of another gas-stove. And Arthur felt that all was well, and that in postponing their departure till that morning in order not to upset the immemorial Christmas dinner of their Aunt Sarah, they had done rightly. At half-past six they had, between them, drunk five cups of tea and eaten four eggs, four slices of bacon, and about a pound and a half of bread. Simeon, with what was surely an exaggeration of imperturbability, charged his pipe, and began to smoke. They had forty minutes in which to catch the Loop-Line train, even if it was prompt. There would then be forty minutes to wait at Knype for the London express, which arrived at Euston considerably before noon. After which there would be a clear ninety minutes before the business itself--and less than a quarter of a mile to walk! Yes, there was a rich and generous margin for all conceivable delays and accidents.

"The porter ought to be coming," said Simeon. It was twenty minutes to seven, and he was brushing his hat.

Now such a remark from that personification of calm, that living denial of worry, Simeon, was decidedly unsettling to Arthur. By chance, Mrs Hopkins came into the room just then to assure herself that the young men whose house she kept desired nothing.

"Mrs Hopkins," Simeon asked, "you didn't forget to call at the station last night?"

"Oh no, Mr Simeon," said she; "I saw the second porter, Merrith. He knows me. At least, I know his mother--known her forty year--and he promised me he wouldn't forget. Besides, he never has forgot, has he? I told him particular to bring his barrow."

It was true the porter never had forgotten! And many times had he transported Simeon's luggage to Bleakridge Station. Simeon did a good deal of commercial travelling for the firm of A. & S. Cotterill, teapot makers, Bursley. In many commercial hotels he was familiarly known as Teapot Cotterill.

The brothers were reassured by Mrs Hopkins. There was half an hour to the time of the train--and the station only ten minutes off. Then the chiming clock in the hall struck the third quarter.

"That clock right?" Arthur nervously inquired, assuming his overcoat.

"It's a minute late," said Simeon, assuming _his_ overcoat.

And at that word "late," the pincers and the anvil revisited Arthur. Even the confidence of Mrs Hopkins in the porter was shaken. Arthur looked at Simeon, depending on him. It was imperative that they should catch the train, and it was imperative that the trunk should catch the train. Everything depended on a porter. Arthur felt that all his future career, his happiness, his honour, his life depended on a porter. And, after all, even porters at a pound a week are human. Therefore, Arthur looked at Simeon.

Simeon walked through the kitchen into the backyard. In a shed there an old barrow was lying. He drew out the barrow, and ticklishly wheeled it into the house, as far as the foot of the stairs.

"Mrs Hopkins," he called. "And you too!" he glanced at Arthur.

"What are you going to do?" Arthur demanded.

"Wheel the trunk to the station myself, of course," Simeon replied. "If we meet the porter on the way, so much the better for us ... and so much the worse for him!" he added.


II


It was just as dark as though it had been midnight--dark and excessively cold; not a ray of hope in the sky; not a sign of life in the street. All Bursley, and, indeed, all the Five Towns, were sleeping off the various consequences of Christmas on the human frame. Trafalgar Road, with its double row of lamps, each exactly like that one in front of the house of the Cotterills, stretched downwards into the dead heart of Bursley, and upwards over the brow of the hill into space. And although Arthur Cotterill knew Trafalgar Road as well as Mrs Hopkins knew the hundred and twenty-first Psalm, the effect of the scene on him was most uncanny. He watched Simeon persuade the loaded barrow down the step into the tiny front garden, not daring to help him, because Simeon did not like to be helped by clumsy people in delicate operations. Mrs Hopkins was rapidly pouring all the goodness of her soul into his ear, when Simeon and the barrow reached the pavement, and Simeon staggered and recovered himself.

"Look out, Arthur," Simeon cried. "The road's like glass. It's rained in the night, and now it's freezing. Come along."

Arthur bade adieu to Mrs Hopkins.

"Eh, Mr Arthur," said she. "Things'll be different when ye come back, this time a month."

He said nothing. The pincers and the anvil were at him again. He thought of falls, torn garments, broken legs.

Simeon lifted the arms of the barrow, and then dropped them.

"Have you got it?" he demanded of Arthur.

"Got what?"

"_It_."

"Yes," said Arthur, comprehending.

"Are you sure? Show it me. Better give it me. It will be safer with me."

Arthur unbuttoned his overcoat, took off his left glove, and drew from one of his pockets a small, bright object, which shone under the street lamp. Simeon took it silently. Then he definitely seized the arms of the barrow, and the procession started up the street.

No time had been lost, for Simeon had an extraordinary gift of celerity. It was eleven minutes to seven. Nevertheless, Arthur felt the pincers, and the feel of the pincers made him look at his watch.

"See here," said Simeon, briefly. "You needn't worry. _We shall catch that train_. We've got twenty minutes, and we shall get to the station in nine." The exertion of wheeling the barrow over what was practically a sheet of rough ice made him speak in short gasps.

Impossible for the pincers and the anvil to remain in face of that assured, almost god-like tone!

"Good!" murmured Arthur. "By Jove, but it's cold though!"

"I've never been hotter in my life," said Simeon, puffing. "Except in my hands."

"Can't I take it for a bit?"

"No, you can't," said Simeon. At the robust finality of the refusal Arthur laughed. Then Simeon laughed. The party became gay. The pincers and the anvil were gone for ever. Simeon turned gingerly into Pollard Street-half-way to the station. They had but to descend Pollard Street and climb the path across the cinder-heaps beyond, and they would be, as it were, in harbour. In Pollard Street Simeon had the happy idea of taking to the roadway. It was rougher, and, therefore, less dangerous, than the pavement. At intervals he shoved the wheel of the barrow by main force over a stone.

"Put my hat straight, will you?" he asked of Arthur, and Arthur obeyed. It was becoming a task under the winter stars.

Then Arthur happened to notice the wheel of the barrow--its sole wheel.

"I say," he said, "what's up with that wheel?"

"It's rocky, that's what that wheel is," replied Simeon. "I hope it will hold out."

Instead of pushing the barrow he was now holding it back, down the slant of Pollard Street. The mist had cleared. And Arthur could see the red gleam of a signal in the neighbourhood of the station. But now the pincers and the anvil were at him again, for Simeon's tone was alarming. It indicated that the wobbling wheel of the barrow might not hold out.

The catastrophe happened when they were climbing the cinder-slope and within two hundred yards of the little station. Simeon was propelling with all his might, and he propelled the wheel against half a brick. The wheel collapsed. There was a splintering even of the main timbers of the vehicle as the immense weight of the trunk crashed to the solid earth.

Simeon fell, and rose with difficulty, standing on one leg, and terribly grimacing.

He said nothing, but consulted his watch by the aid of a fusee.

"We must carry it," Arthur suggested wildly.

"We can't carry it up here. It's much too heavy."

Arthur remembered the tremendous weight of even his share of it as they had slid it down the stairs.

No. It could not be carried.

"Besides," said Simeon, "I've sprained my ankle, I fear." And he sat down on the trunk.

"What are we to do?" Arthur asked tragically.

"Do? Why, it's perfectly simple! You must go without me. Anyhow, run to the station, and try to get the porter down here with another barrow."

Man of infinite calm, of infinite resource. Though the pincers and the anvil were horribly torturing him at that moment, Arthur could not but admire his younger brother's astounding _sangfroid_.

And he set off.

"Here!" Simeon called him peremptorily. "Take this--in case you don't come back."

And he handed him the small bright object.

"But I must come back. I can't possibly go without the trunk. All my things are