The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories Part 25

I

Arthur Cotterill awoke. It was not exactly with a start that he awoke, but rather with a swift premonition of woe and disaster. The strong, bright glare from the patent incandescent street lamp outside, which the lavish Corporation of Bursley kept burning at the full till long after dawn in winter, illuminated the room (through the green blind) almost as well as it illuminated Trafalgar Road. He clearly distinguished every line of the form of his brother Simeon, fast and double-locked in sleep in the next bed. He saw also the open trunk by the dressing-table in front of the window. Then he looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, the silent witness of the hours. And a pair of pincers seemed to clutch his heart, and an anvil to drop on his stomach and rest heavily there, producing an awful nausea. Why had he not looked at the clock before?

Was it possible that he had been awake even five seconds without looking at the clock--the clock upon which it seemed that his very life, more than his life, depended? The clock showed ten minutes to seven, and the train went at ten minutes past. And it was quite ten minutes' walk to the station, and he had to dress, and b.u.t.ton those new boots, and finish packing--and the porter from the station was late in coming for the trunk! But perhaps the porter had already been; perhaps he had rung and rung, and gone away in despair of making himself heard (for Mrs Hopkins slept at the back of the house).

Something had to be done. Yet what could he do with those hard pincers pinching his soft, yielding heart, and that terrible anvil pressing on his stomach? He might even now, by omitting all but the stern necessities of his toilet, and by abandoning the trunk and his brother, just catch the train, the indispensable train. But somehow he could not move. Yet he was indubitably awake.

"Simeon!" he cried at length, and sat up.

The younger Cotterill did not stir.

"Sim!" he cried again, and, leaning over, shook the bed.

"What's up?" Simeon demanded, broad awake in a second, and, as usual, calm, imperturbable.

"We've missed the train! It's ten--eight--minutes to seven," said Arthur, in a voice which combined reproach and terror. And he sprang out of bed and began with hysteric fury to sort out his garments.

Simeon turned slowly on his side and drew a watch from under his pillow.

Putting it close to his face, Simeon could just read the dial.

"It's all right," he said. "Still, you'd better get up. It's eight minutes to six. We've got an hour and eighteen minutes."

"What do you mean? That clock was right last night."

"Yes. But I altered it."

"When?"

"After you got into bed."

"I never saw you."

"No. But I altered it."

"Why?"

"To be on the safe side."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"If I'd told you, I might just as well have not altered it. The man who puts a clock on and then goes gabbling all over the house about what he has done is an a.s.s; in fact, to call him an a.s.s 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 brus.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sure 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 rea.s.sured 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, a.s.suming his overcoat.

"It's a minute late," said Simeon, a.s.suming _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.