The Pandervils (24 page)

‘Going … going … ' The hammer fell. ‘Gone!' cried the auctioneer. ‘Mr Pummice,' he muttered to the clerk.

‘You buying?' said Egg.

‘A few pieces,' admitted Mr Pummice.

‘They want my brother here,' remarked Egg, after a silence.

‘Do
they now?' Mr Pummice, widening his
eyes, seemed to be fascinated by the suggestion. ‘You got a brother, Mr Pandervil, have you? Now I never knew
that
before.'

‘Yes, I got a brother all right,' said Egg, affecting a humorous grimness. ‘These things
will
'appen, Mr Pummice. All over the country they're 'appening. Brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, there's no end to it … Hullo, they're off again!'

Mr Pummice was mystified but not silenced. ‘Very true, Mr Pandervil. Very true indeed.' He nodded, somewhat furtively, to the auctioneer. ‘And so you got a brother, Mr Pandervil. Well I never did!'

‘He's older'n me though, my brother is,' said Egg.

‘Reelly!'
exclaimed Mr Pummice. That Mr Pandervil should have a brother unbeknownst was joy and astonishment enough, but that Mr Pandervil's brother should be older than Mr Pandervil was almost too good to be true. All this was written, clearly if grotesquely, in Mr Pummice's face. ‘Really!' It was as if he were saying, in Dickensian phrase: ‘Here's richness!'

‘My brother Algy,' supplemented Egg, embarrassed by his companion's excess of politeness. ‘Why I say they want him here is because he's an auctioneer. And a pretty middling goodish one by all accounts. I reckon if he was here he'd make the figures fly. Yes, fly all up in the air … This chap's slow as a week. What's he doing now, frinstance? Ah!'

The resumption of the sale was a relief to Egg, and conceivably it was a relief to Mr Pummice. Both felt that now they could keep silent without suspicion of boorishness or of bearing malice. Egg, defying Carrie and leaving young Mabe to look after the shop for an hour, had had, instead of his dinner, a drink or two—rare indulgence—at the Green Man in company with Farthing and Wimmett: the original band of something better than hope (said Farthing, with a pause for his laugh), needing only that old booby Pummice to make it quite like old times. And here was that old booby Pummice, that master of malice, looking, thought Egg, not nearly so black as the three friends, mournfully conscious of the occasion and glad to keep the conversation running in safe unsentimental channels, had delighted to paint him. Egg, at this moment, felt at once heavy-hearted and hilarious. The Wimmetts' plight had distressed and irritated him; he told himself he mustn't be so soft about other people's troubles; and he was giving generous rein to the reaction. When he recalled that absurd dispute with Pummice in the middle of the High Street, so many years ago, he wanted to laugh aloud and dig his old enemy in the ribs. I should like to pummel Pummice. I should like to pummice Pummel. That audit ale they gave us was strong stuff.

‘I beg pardon,' said Mr Pummice.

‘I didn't speak, Mr Pummice,' said Egg.

‘My mistake, Mr Pandervil.'

The selling up of Wimmett was now proceeding
briskly. It was surprising to see so much furniture in the sale, surprising that so much furniture had ever been paid for. But the Wimmetts had begun in fine style; ten years ago it had been common talk in the village that Wimmett's marriage was making a new man of him, and his own sudden radiance lent colour to the belief. But whatever Wimmett's marriage had done for him, it had not done that, and nothing short of that could have saved him from ultimate ruin. Mr Wimmett was a gull, and it was Mr Wimmett who gulled him. He suffered from an overweening confidence not in himself but in the future, and not in the immediate future, but in a far-off, divine event. Success was certain, but it was always so far away as to be not at the moment worth working for. Instead of working, instead of stocking his shop with numerous small domestic articles that people were constantly and vainly asking him for, he made magnificent plans. Next year, if all went well, he would get the landlord's permission to enlarge the premises, taking in half that bit of garden at the back, and joining the front parlour on to the shop, making, in fact, one large room of it like, by taking the door away or even pulling the wall down. All this was done, in Mr. Wimmett's mind, between breakfast and dinner; and from that time forth he never looked back. The money simply rolled in. And Mrs Wimmett, you may be sure, was as pleased with her wealth, and as proud of her husband, as a woman could well be, and there were no more of those plaintive questions and niggling
unimaginative criticisms which are so tiresome, so unhelpful, to a man engaged in dreaming himself rich. ‘But we don't seem to sell the stock we've got, dear, do we? Why do we want room for more?' Doing it all for her, he was, worrying and planning all day long in the hope of decking out his wife in rich grenadine; and this— one can imagine him thinking—was all the thanks he got. The existence of the Wimmett children provoked Mr Farthing to a ribald affectation of surprise. When the first was announced he remarked: ‘Never! Not Mr Wimmett! He musta dreamt it!' And he had since been called upon to invent six variants on this little joke.

‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! And good day to you all!'

The sale was over, and the room was emptying. ‘You were telling me, Mr Pandervil, as how you have a brother?'

‘Yes.' What a funny fogey the man is, thought Egg. ‘Yes, name of Algernon, but we always call him Algy. Wears check suits and sells sheep faster than any other feller in Mercester. Married too, he is, though I got ahead of him there.' He simulated mirth. ‘And how have you been keeping, Mr Pummice, after all these years?' Ah, that was silly, that was a mistake; he'll think I'm digging up old scores.

‘Pretty so-so,' said Mr Pummice. ‘Yes, Mr Pandervil, I mustn't grumble. Business might be better, but it might,' he added portentously, with
a facial contortion that pointed an allusion to the Wimmetts, ‘it might be a good deal worse.'

‘Ah, yes,' agreed Egg, moving towards the door in the wake of the little crowd. ‘I hear you're. …'

‘Not me,' said Mr Pummice fiercely. ‘It's none of my doing. Mrs Pummice—well, I won't deceive you, she's got a kind heart.
And a
spare room, what's more. F'my part, I don't hold with this coddling. I think he deserves all he's got. Yes, Mr Pandervil, every bit of it. And it's not my way to encourage idleness and sleepiness and sloth. Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags, as the Bard of Avon tells us. And that's a true word.' He linked his arm in Egg's and drew him slowly towards the door. ‘If I was a vulgar man, Mr Pandervil, which I hope and trust I never shall be, I should say that Master Dreamy Daniel Wimmett ought to have … well, you know what … and you know where.'

They were now in the doorway, and the room was empty but for Wimmett and his wife who were wandering aimlessly about, looking at this and that and exchanging a colourless word or two every few moments. Egg called good bye to them in as hearty a voice as he could command. ‘You coming along, Mr Pummice?'

Mr Pummice replied with a terrifying grimace and was understood to whisper that he would linger awhile to have a word with these folks.

Egg nodded. ‘I'll wait for you.' It seemed to him, in his present abnormal mood, only the neighbourly thing to do, and without curiosity he
watched Mr Pummice join the Wimmetts, take an arm of each, and march them into a corner, muttering savagely the while. What on earth was the old buffer doing? But more surprising than the behaviour of the old buffer was that of Mrs Wimmett, who suddenly, for no apparent reason, seized one of Mr Pummice's hands in both her own and gazed intensely into his face. Her lip quivered and her tears fell. Mr Pummice, shaking himself free, waved his hand airily in the direction of the table. ‘That's the one,' he said. ‘And those two chairs.' Seeing that her tears still fell he scowled at the marble clock and said: ‘That's a bad bargain, I'll wager. Has it ever bin known to tell the time, Mrs Wimmett? Not much more use to you than your precious husband, if you ask me.' Catching at last a front view of Mr Pummice's face, Egg observed that the commotion among his features had reached the dimensions of cataclysm, and that water was running freely in and out of their numerous creases.

Deciding to wait no longer for Mr Pummice, although that gentleman was already edging towards the door, he went into the street and walked slowly homeward. But soon, thinking of all there was to be done, remembering Carrie and Mabe and Bobbie, to say nothing of Harold who was now four and quite old enough to help his brother get into mischief—thinking of these numerous responsibilities, from which for an hour or more he had been absent both in spirit and in person, he was seized with that fever of anxiety which
nowadays was almost his normal condition. He quickened his pace, conscience accusing him of grossly neglecting his duties as husband and father. Was not the Wimmetts' example a terrible warning to him! For many years now—since the hour of his wedding, to be precise—conscience had always in his thoughts worn Carrie's face and spoken in Carrie's sharp sarcastic tones; and by means of this device it had acquired a tyrannical power over him, so that nowhere, not even in his secret mind, could he be sure of a moment's peace. The income from the business could not keep pace with the needs of his growing family. There were now two rival grocers in the High Street, which was become an important thoroughfare; and several others held commanding positions on the outskirts of what was now called Old Farringay, or ‘the village', to distinguish it from the large scattered suburb of which it was the centre. These supplied the large new residences and the rows of doubled-fronted villas, and Egg could not successfully compete with them. And so many of his best customers, while resisting the blandishments of these upstart grocers, got into the unpatriotic habit of taking tram to the city once a week—it could be done in fifty minutes with good horses and not too many stops—and doing there the greater part of their shopping. He had cares more personal and less definable than these, but these certainly helped to make him look and feel, at forty, a good deal older than his years.

Immersed in such thoughts, he noticed, without
the interest it might otherwise have aroused in him, that a carriage was drawn up outside Noom's Stores, from the door-way of which, with himself within five yards of it, a stranger emerged, a woman broadbrowed, full bosomed, and evidently in the prime of a radiant maturity. Her eyes wore a pensive look; and her mouth, grave and sweet, seemed to express an habitual kindness. She stepped, not proudly but with a patrician grace of movement, into the waiting carriage. Egg could see at a glance that she was ‘a real lady', and not of Farringay. At his second glance his heart stood still. He stared in wonder and in a kind of terror … and he shuddered with relief, though feeling sick and dazed, when the enchantment that paralyzed him was snapped by the coachman's word to his horse, the gathered reins, the moving wheels. With a sense of escape he turned into the shop, where he found Carrie busy behind the counter.

At his entry Carrie looked up. She eyed him sharply. ‘Lady asking bout you. Didjou see 'er?'

‘Lady? What lady?'

‘Her as jest went out of the shop. Must have run into her almost. In a kerridge she was.'

Egg considered. ‘I
did
see a lady in a carriage,' he admitted judicially. ‘What of it?'

‘Ever seen her before?'

‘Not me,' said Egg.

‘She knows
you
anyhow. Seems she was a friend of yours when you was a lad with your father.'

‘How's that?' Egg busied himself, unnecessarily,
in moving bottles of pickle from one shelf to another. ‘Who might she 'ave bin, I wonder?'

‘Ask me another,' said Carrie. ‘Just passing, she said she was. Just happened to see the name. Such an uncommon name. Oh, very la-di-dah she was,
I
can tell you!' sneered Carrie. ‘Wanted to know was you the Mr Pandervil that useta be farming out at Mershire, when she was a girl staying at the Vicarage.'

‘And what did you say to that?' inquired Egg, with his back towards her. He waited, in an ecstasy of apprehension, for the answer. No answer. ‘What did you say to her, Carrie, when she arst that?' he said, turning round.

‘Thank you,' said Carrie grimly. ‘I never did care about talking to a man's backside. Well if you want to know, I sent her about her business. As good as.' She met his stare defiantly. ‘I said there musta bin some mistake, and was there anything more to-day, ma'am? That's what I said.' After a bitter silence she added explosively: ‘I don't want any of your swell ladies here, so I tell you straight.'

At that moment he hated Carrie. He could have wished her dead, save that, before such a wish could take shape, his despised ‘softness' would have intervened against it. He hated Carrie, and he hated all the drab litter, the humiliating tangle of circumstances, that she symbolized for him. Yes, glad though he was that this visitor from another world would never come to torture him again, he believed that he would never forgive Carrie for
the words she had just uttered. It's all along of that new name, he thought; if we hadn't a changed the name this wouldn't a happened. And he remembered the day—soon after Mrs Noom's expulsion—when Carrie, excited as a young girl, had led him out of the shop to show him the innovation she had secretly, and with immense ingenuity, contrived as a ‘surprise' for him:

E. PANDERVIL
late
NOOM

Formerly the name of Noom had stood alone, and for the good of the business it must never be removed. But now, ‘with Ma gorn', Carrie and Egg Pandervil were verily in possession at last. … Remembering that moment and her naive pleasure in it, he could not—ungenerous and unlovely though she was—hate her with an undivided heart.