The Dawn of Reckoning by James Hilton Read Free Book Online Page A

green-baize trestle-tables on the platform, and Philip was among them,
looking rather pale under the dazzling incandescent roof-lights. Floor and
gallery were packed, and the space at the back of the hall was crowded with
men and women standing three and four deep. Sir Charles was obviously
pleased. “A much bigger audience than I had ever expected,” he whispered with
enthusiasm, leaning across to Philip. Philip smiled wanly.
    Stella was in one of the shilling reserved seats in the front of the hall.
He followed along the rows with his eyes until he saw her, and saw that she
was watching him. She smiled, and he smiled back very faintly, not knowing
quite whether he ought to or not. Curiously, perhaps, he could not take his
eyes off her for long, now that he knew where she was. He kept looking at the
red-robed mayors on the walls, at a certain shabby-looking wild-eyed man who
leaned forward in the gallery with his head resting on his hands, at the
stewards forming a phalanx at the doors, and then, inevitably, his eyes would
be on Stella again, and he would see her smiling…Sir Charles rose. What a
fat, bloated little man he looked when he stood up and you looked at him
sideways! But he was evidently popular. The huge audience cheered for moments
on end, and then only desisted when, with smiling face, he held up his hand
in protest. But when the sound died down, another could be heard, faint yet
sinister, the sound of hissing. Philip looked around trying to locate it. It
seemed to come at once from everywhere and from nowhere, from the shilling
rows in front (this was unlikely), from the crowd at the back of the hall,
from the side-galleries, even (most unlikely of all) from the little group of
dazzlingly rosetted stewards by the doorways. And at last when he looked at
Stella he could almost imagine that she too had set her teeth together to
produce that sibilant, menacing murmur.
    Sir Charles was speaking. He seemed to be holding the audience fairly
well. Sometimes there were cheers, mutterings of approval, isolated “hear
hear’s!” Once the wild-eyed man in the gallery opened his mouth and shouted
shatteringly “Liar.” Philip almost expected the roof to fall. But
no—Sir Charles did not seem to be in the least perturbed. “I wish my
friend in the gallery would not keep shouting out his name,” he said. Roars
of laughter…
    What a stupid little joke, thought Philip. Did people really think it
funny?—What did the man in the gallery think?—What did
Stella—why, Stella was laughing also. Then he looked round and saw that
everybody on the platform was laughing. Perhaps he had better laugh
himself—it would look strange if he were the only one not to laugh. He
laughed—suddenly—but by that time everybody else had stopped
laughing, and now they looked at him. His laugh had sounded ridiculously like
a guffaw…Stella, too, was looking at him, but she was not laughing any
more; she was dreadfully serious.
    The clock at the back of the hall crawled to the half-hour, and a muffled
chime boomed in the belfry somewhere above them. The mayors all stared at
him, one behind the other, like men in picture-posters that follow you with
their eyes wherever you go. One of them close to the platform looked almost
venomous; he had cold, fishy eyes, and must have been a very terrible mayor
indeed. “Sir Samuel Blatherwick, M.P., K.C.V.O., thrice Mayor of
Loamport.”…Thrice, indeed!
    Suddenly Sir Charles sat down, and there was another deafening,
roof-raising burst of applause. And in the midst of it Sir Charles leaned
over and whispered loudly: “Now then, Philip, do your best and take your
time. They’re an easy lot to night…”
    The cheering died away and he felt himself rising from his chair and
leaning his knuckles on the table. He felt a cold spot on his hand; he looked
down curiously: somebody, it seemed, had upset the ink-bottle, and the funny
little black liquid