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

was spreading all over the cloth. Stupid of
somebody…The lady next to him moved backward, away from the threatening
tide…“Never mind,” somebody said close to him. “Don’t let it worry
you.”
    “Ladies and Gentlemen…” he shouted, clear ing his throat. He shouted,
because he knew that in a large hall you must shout, even if you seem to be
deafening everybody.
    The river of ink toppled over the edge and dripped on to the floor of the
platform. Somebody in the gallery tittered. He looked up, and saw the
wild-eyed man wilder-eyed than ever, crouching there with his chin sunk on
his hands like an animal meditating a spring. Then he looked at Stella; and
for the first time caught her when she was not look ing at him.
    “Ladies and Gentlemen…It gives me very great pleasure to be here this
evening…visiting Loamport for the first time in my life…”
    A voice, a woman’s shrill voice with its menacing northern accent,
screamed at him from somewhere: “Speak up, young man…”
    Loud laughter.
    The man in the gallery suddenly sat up with eyes blazing…
IV
    As soon as Philip began to speak Stella thought with a sort
of calm horror: Oh, Philip, Philip, this will never do…Somehow,
right from his first words, she knew that he was going to fail. He was
nervous, and after upsetting the ink-bottle his nervousness seemed to
increase to panic. Then, also he simply had no idea how to talk to a Loamport
audience. He was not speaking to them; he was lecturing, coldly, unfeelingly,
as he might have done to a classroom of tired undergraduates. Oh, for some
fire in his voice, something, however untrue or ridiculous, that the audience
could cheer or laugh at!—She moved uneasily in her seat, every second
making her feel more uncomfortable. Others round about her were moving
similarly; she could feel a wave of uneasiness passing over the entire
audience, not due to anything Philip was saying, but to the mere way in which
he was saying it. He was—the metaphor occurred to her
spontaneously—he was stroking them the wrong way. And her inmost being
was crying out protestingly: Oh, Philip, why are you talking like
this?—If only I were talking, I, with all my ignorance, could do
far better! I would make them laugh, and then make them cry (if I could), and
then make them cheer the roof off…But you, you are so cold, so distant, so
austere…
    He had started by a fierce shout of “Ladies and Gentlemen” that had led
the audience to expect something dramatic. Yet by the end of his opening
sentence his voice had sunk so low as to be scarcely audible. Then somebody
had called out to him to speak up, and after that he had pitched his voice at
a tone of level monotony from which he did not afterwards vary. It was
terrible…Sir Charles fidgeted on the platform, staring uneasily at his
hands; two or three people in the gallery walked out noisily; even the babies
scattered throughout the hall seemed curiously discomfited and began to cry.
Nevertheless, the prevailing mood was one of patience under difficulties;
Loamport was going to give the newcomer at least fair play. But after Philip
had been speaking for five minutes (quite grammatically and sensibly, but oh,
how irritatingly I) Stella’s unspoken prayer was merely that he should stop
as soon as he could and on whatever pretext he could find.
    But he did not stop. On the contrary, his voice rose a semitone, like the
hum of a motor-engine when speed is accelerated. And at once, with such
suddenness and unanimity that it was almost as if a signal had been given for
them, interruptions began. Cries came simultaneously from the side-galleries,
from the back and body of the hall, even from a few rows not far behind
Stella. “Hey, mister, what part of the country do you come from?” a bass
voice called out from somewhere. “Y’ mother oughtn’t to let ye stop out so
late!” a shrill-voiced girl shouted down from the gallery,