Portrait of Elmbury (5 page)

“Arise arise and make your mincepies!
A frosty night and a col' morning!”

Then my father would go out to them and give them half a crown accompanied by a short lecture on their bad behaviour
during the past year; and they would sweep off their caps and cry, “God bless you, Mr. Mayor, and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to your good self and the Missus and the little ones; and so help us you'll never see us in the dock again!” But of course at the first Court after the holiday they'd be up before the Bench once more and my father with a twinkle in his eye would admonish them: “Your promises are like piecrust, made to be broken. … Seven days.”

One annual pageant which gave us much pleasure was the slow and ponderous procession of the Town Council as they marched in a body to church on Mayor's Sunday, which I think was the first Sunday after the election of the Mayor. It was traditional that they should attend on that day at whichever place of worship the Mayor belonged to; and you could pick out by their long faces the Nonconformists who were marching towards the Church of England and
vice-versa
; they had the air of men who know that their reluctant steps lead them towards the dangerous slopes of Hell, yet stern duty compels them on.

Whichever church it went to, the procession, which started at the Town Hall, had to pass our window. It was preceded by the Town Band, which came only second to the Fire Brigade as a comic turn to delight the inhabitants of Elmbury. Behind the band shuffled the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors in their appropriate robes; the Town Clerk in his wig: the Town Crier, the Beadle and other officials; and behind them, and out of step (for nobody could march behind the Council and keep step) came the Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Wolfcubs, Brownies, Church Lads' Brigade, and that despised handful of Territorials who were destined so soon for immortal glory.

On these occasions Double Alley, and the other alleys nearby, would disgorge their ragged hordes, and Black Sal and Nobbler Price, the Hooks and all the rest would line the pavement and laugh till they nearly split their sides. Their laughter was not
really unkindly and I think the councillor who wrote to the local paper complaining about “the cheap jibes and shallow mirth which travestied a solemn occasion” was talking through his cocked hat. Far from being shallow, the mirth sprang from one of the most ancient and most profound of all the sources of mirth: Dressing up. Deep down at the origins of kingship, deeper still at the dark roots of religion and magic, lies the notion of Fancy Dress: and the idea that Fancy Dress may be the symbol of an office, marking a man out from his fellows by virtue of his putting it on.

Now there is nothing very funny, if you believe in magic, in the Witch Doctor's mask; or if you believe in religion, in the Cardinal's hat; or if you believe in monarchy, in the King's crown; but all would probably seem very funny if you were in the habit of drinking with the witch-doctor or the cardinal or the king in the local pub. In fact, what makes Fancy Dress funny is its incongruity; and it was certain incongruous aspects of the Town Council's parade that made Double Alley roar with laughter. My uncle, who happened to be a good Mayor, matched his robes very well, and gave them dignity, and got dignity from them; nobody laughed at him when he wore them. But if Councillor X sold you bad fish and ran after the wenches when he was long past the age for such frivolity—if Councillor Y was your slum landlord and so mean that he wouldn't repair your roof—you couldn't be blamed for having a good laugh when you saw him shuffling down the street in his robes with a sanctimonious expression on his face and a cocked hat on his head two sizes too big for him. Double Alley's laughter, in fact, was one of the ancient sanctions of democracy; and it was a good thing and a proper thing that Double Alley's representatives should dress up once a year and submit to be tested in what is, after all, only a very ancient method of testing witch-doctors and kings.

There were a few who failed to pass the test; and these were the occasion for the popular mirth. “‘Ere comes the Town Scoundrels!” Black Sal would cry; and then she would begin her obscene and libellous running commentary. She would announce
urbi et orbi
that Councillor X was desirous of sleeping
with the typist in the Borough Surveyor's Office; that Councillor Y was only on the Council because he was anxious to prevent his slum cottages being condemned as uninhabitable. “Wot's
'e
got 'imself elected for?” was her most devastating question; for say what you will about Double Alley, there wasn't much wrong with its sense of values.

There was only one criterion by which it judged the men who asked for its votes each November: were they disinterested or were they out for themselves? This question cut clean across all party politics, and Radicals would rather vote for a thoroughgoing dyed-in-the-wool Tory if they thought he was an honest man than for their own party's representative whom they suspected of being a careerist. A “gentleman” could always get on the Town Council; not by reason of a preponderant Conservative vote but because the people thought that one possessing independent means was unlikely to seek election for what he could get out of it.

Unfortunately, “gentlemen” rarely stood; the Council was discredited by its few careerists and slum landlords; and when, many years later, a lady actually dared to put up for election, the oldest, the wisest, and perhaps the crookedest of her opponents ingenuously warned her: “I'll tell 'ee 'ow it be, Missus: the Town Council bain't no fit place for a lady.”

So it came about that a section of the Borough's representatives was held in general contempt, or at any rate regarded with cynical amusement; and one of the annual church-going processions—it must have been the last before the Great War— provoked a remarkable gesture from the three warriors whom I have named Pistol, Bardolph and Nym. They had just come out of the pub; and the procession must have been returning from church, for the Town Band did not accompany it. Pistol, Bardolph and Nym, being slightly confused by drink, looked through bleary eyes at the solemn march-past of slow and shuffling feet and decided that a funeral was going by. They respectfully took off their caps. A moment later, however, they caught sight of the top hat and the blue uniform of the Town Crier, who was one of their cronies and with whom they were
accustomed to get drunk. Horrified lest it should appear that they had taken off their caps out of deference to the Town Scoundrels, whom they despised, they hurriedly replaced their headgear and took council among themselves how they could best correct the unfortunate impression they had made upon their fellows. At last they removed themselves to the farther end of the street, where they again encountered the procession as it approached the steps of the Town Hall; and were in time to walk slowly past it, arm-in-arm, caps cocked at a jaunty angle, and singing in some attempt at unison a bawdy song, lest any one should be so foolish as to believe that they held the robed Aldermen and Councillors in any respect or reverence.

The Town Crier, boon-companion of the three warriors, was at that time a very frail-looking old man with a white beard and a thin quavery voice. Presumably he had been capable of shouting once upon a time; but old age had shrivelled him, throat, lungs and all. He was dried-up and perpetually parched; so that between cries he must needs hobble into the nearest pub to wet his desiccated larynx. He cried, in those days, about four times a week, announcing, say, a furniture sale, a bazaar in aid of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a whist drive and dance, or the fact that Mrs. Turner had lost her Persian cat. He was paid according to the number of words, and on the average he got about two shillings a time. But for two shillings he had to cry the event a score of times in different parts of the town; and after each cry he had to buy some beer to cool his burning throat; there was little profit in't. His voice faded to a whisper, but the Council was reluctant to depose him; and at last it was by reason of his failing eyesight, rather than his vanishing voice, that he was compelled to retire. He could no longer see what was written on the slip of paper from which he read his cries; nor was he capable of memorising it. His long career ended in a toothless mumble.

His successor was a great roaring bull of a man with lungs of brass who had been dustman until the Council promoted him. His voice was like a clap of thunder; when he cried at one end of the High Street we could hear him at the other, a rolling crashing sound as of a distant battle. But you could never hear what he said, though he made so much noise about it, for he accompanied his own voice by frantic ringing upon his loud-clappered bell. I have seen people with their hands pressed to their ears, standing a-tiptoe behind him as he cried and peering over his shoulder to read what was written on the sheet of paper.

Through the window, we got to know, not only these dignitaries, but the more prosaic members of Elmbury's little community; the grave-faced doctor going his rounds, the dentist who bore the bloodthirsty name of Mr. Gore, the coal-merchant, the draper, the ironmonger, the butcher, the baker, the landlords of the various pubs, the neighbouring squires and the farmers who came in from the country. We knew an astonishing amount about what went on in the town: who was “walking out” with whom, who drank at which pub, who had quarrelled with whom, and so on. I have a strong impression that in those days people were less ashamed of their emotions than they are now; they wore their hearts upon their sleeves and when they quarrelled they often quarrelled
coram populo
. They were not at all ashamed of making scenes in the street. At any rate there was a farmer who had an obscure and long-standing quarrel with the parson; and whenever by chance they met they always quarrelled in the street.

The farmer, whose name was Mr. Jeffs, looked a bit like the pictures of old Cobbett, with his red face and white hair atop “like snow on a berry.” He was a huge and florid man who always wore a flower in his buttonhole even at midwinter, whose breeches were always spotless and whose turnout was the smartest in the county. As he drove along behind his shining chestnut cob,
he beamed at acquaintances to right and left; but if he saw the Vicar he scowled and shook his whip. It seemed that his grand old headpiece contained like Cobbett's some unreasonable dislikes; and that he shared with Cobbett an abhorrence of parsons because he objected to having to pay tithe.

The vicar, as a matter of fact, was a most generous man, who'd have given back to Mr. Jeffs double the value of the tithe if he had asked for it. Indeed the vicar's generosity amounted to a mania; he gave away everything he possessed, including large sums of money, and then innocently borrowed from moneylenders in order that he might still be able to give things away. But we did not know this at the time; we merely thought that he must be immensely rich; and Mr. Jeffs also thought that he was immensely rich, and that he waxed and grew fat at the expense of agriculture, out of the tithe. So, whenever he met him, Mr. Jeffs would shake his whip angrily and cry out in a loud voice: “Let them as wants Parsons pay for them!” And the vicar, who was also a hot-tempered man, would engage Mr. Jeffs in argument. Soon they would begin shouting at each other, the chestnut cob would prance excitedly, the lash of Mr. Jeffs' whip would flick ever closer to the vicar's nose until at last a crowd began to collect and the two protagonists in sudden embarrassment hurried away.

Sitting in our window seat, we got to know the habits of people; for the inhabitants of a small town, much more than city-dwellers or country-folk, are creatures of habit. Always at exactly one minute past six Mr. Robertson the draper would pass our window on his way to the Swan; but he didn't take long over his drink, for always at twenty minutes past he was on his way back again. You could set your watch by him. Mr. Williams the ironmonger took his wife for a walk, wet or fine, always in the same direction and presumably by the same route at half-past two on early closing day. Mr. Tanner, who kept a green-grocer's
shop, neglected his business only on one day in the year, June 16th, when he let his cherries and strawberries rot and his customers go hang and went fishing; for June 16th was the first day of the season.

In particular was our cousin Fred addicted to invariable and apparently unalterable habits. He was a lawyer, and his office was a few hundred yards from Tudor House, on the opposite side. At nine-thirty, never a moment later, he entered his office; at twelve forty-five, never a moment early, he went home to lunch. Back again at two-fifteen, home for tea at five. He was a mild-mannered, unassuming little man of about thirty-five. In summer he wore a straw boater, in winter he wore a bowler hat; and the change was effected always upon the first of May and the first of October, irrespective of what the weather might be on those days.

We grew so used to the passage of Fred to and fro between his office and his home that when one day he failed to appear it was as if the clock had stopped. Next day he was still missing. “Where was Fred?” we asked. “Was he ill?” No. “What has happened to him?” He had gone away. “Where had he gone?” Tight-lipped silence.

There were whisperings between Old Nanny and the nursemaid. We knew that “something was up.” We watched Fred's office and witnessed unusual goings and comings. The police-inspector entered at ten o'clock and didn't come out till lunch-time. We went into the kitchen and tried to find out the truth from Old Cookie; but she was sober and surly, she'd had no drink to loosen her gossiping tongue, and all we got from her was a dollop of uncooked cake mixture, the scrapings of the basin which was so much nicer than real cake, and the usual admonition: “Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies.”

We never saw Fred again; and it was more than ten years before I heard the strange story—no, fifteen years, because it was told me, when I was old enough to drink beer, in the bar of the Swan Hotel by the old men who sat there after hours. My curiosity had to wait till then; and the story must wait too, until it falls into its proper place in this book. The only clue we
children had was the word “railway train”; Old Nanny, whispering about Fred, had been heard to say “railway train.” This was very strange, for we had learned that the disappearance and disgrace of Clem, the clever one, the one who was “too clever by half” for the solid respectable family, was also connected somehow with trains. Trains, therefore, became associated in my young mind with mystery and adventure. They were magic carpets. They puffed conventionally enough out of Elmbury's little station, but they carried you—whither, ah, whither?