The Power of the Dead (8 page)

“Who is Miss Calmady?”

“A new cook we have engaged. Just a moment, Fiennes has something to say.”

Fiennes said, “While you’re about it, you might get another case of beer. And a bottle of sherry. Pa likes Australian sherry, ask for ‘Bushranger’ brand.”

“I see.”

“Also some cigarettes. Empire will do. Rhodesian. Here’s Tim back.”

“I’ve an idea, Phil. You can’t possibly bring all those things on your Norton, so I’ll come in with the Trudge. Then I can find out if the transformer of the wireless set has come.”

“Have you decided anything about giving the men notice?”

“Well, we haven’t had time to consider the matter deeply, as a matter of fact. Hold on, Fiennes wants to say something.”

“I’ll come with Tim,” said Fiennes. “I want to get my hair cut.”

“Do you want any cash for it?”

“No, I can get it out of the till. We’ll be with you inside half an hour.”

Phillip telephoned Lucy. “Are the Iron Horses coming back, d’you know? Well, please telephone Johnson, and tell him the cheque is in the post. Try to get him to return his tackle this evening.”

He waited in the town until the Trojan ground its way up the hill. Fiennes got out and went to the hairdresser’s.

“Do you write down what you take privately from the till, Tim?”

“Well, not altogether, Phil.”

“Then how d’you know whether or not anyone takes money from it?”

“Well, we don’t think anyone would—except ourselves, of course.”

“Why isn’t there any record of money put in and taken out?”

“We’re supposed to write it down, but Fiennes said the books got behind-hand, so there seemed no point in bothering about the till.”

“Who signs cheques?”

“Oh, any one of us.”

“No weekly balance struck?”

“The fact is, I attempted it, when Fiennes wouldn’t, but having to work all the time on the bench, I got behind with it. I have tried, I assure you, to keep things in order, but somehow they have got beyond me lately. I’ve got all the data you want, here in my bag—what we owe, and what is owing to us.”

“Good. We must put the accounts in order together, Tim.”

“You can absolutely count on me for anything whatsoever, Phil! By the way, the others categorically agree that you can be Managing Director.”

“Here’s sixpence. Go into that coffee shop over there and balance up your accounts. You know, Creditor on one side, Debtor on the other.”

“Who are we, in this context, Phil? Debtor or Creditor?”

“It doesn’t matter. On one side add up a list of
What
we
are
owed,
if anything, and in another column,
What
we
owe.
That means wages, bills, everything you have to pay out.”

“Well, we can’t pay out anything at the moment, Phil, I’m afraid——”

“Your
debts,
Tim,” said Phillip, tersely but quietly. “Your liabilities. Such as the writ on the way to you for that eight-cwt. cast-iron louvre for the Gasworks down there, that nobody wants. Sixty pounds, plus twenty pounds costs. Put eighty pounds in the column
What
we
owe.
”

“Good lord, I’d forgotten that cursed louvre.”

“Eighty pounds,
What
we
owe.
Now do this while I see the bank manager. Can you occupy yourself in the coffee house meanwhile? Wait a moment. Perhaps you’d better introduce me to the bank manager, and tell him that I now have the necessary authority. He’ll want it in writing, I expect.”

The bank manager was a short man with a greying beard. He received them kindly in his office. Tim left after the introduction, when Phillip asked the manager to speak frankly. The manager said he was sorry for the brothers, but the position was that they were overdrawn in the neighbourhood of one hundred pounds, on no security. Their receipts did not balance their expenditure. It wasn’t his affair to offer advice without it being requested, Mr. Maddison would understand; but he must say that he was glad someone was taking the matter in hand. He suggested that no more cheques be signed, as they would, he regretted, have to be marked
Estopped,
Refer
to
Drawer.

“They’ll bounce, in other words?”

The bank manager went on to say that he would require the partners to sign a paper relegating their powers of signature to him, giving him power of attorney. The manager, after a moment’s reflection, then asked Phillip if it were his intention to assume personal financial responsibility?

“Yes.”

“You will, I am sure, forgive my asking, but are you prepared to lodge securities with us, should you intend to issue further cheques?”

Phillip said he had no securities. The manager then suggested that a balance sheet be drawn up, to find out if the Firm was solvent. Phillip replied that this was being done; Mr. Timothy Copleston was working on them in the coffee shop.

“Ah, reminiscent of the eighteenth-century merchant
venturers
,” smiled the manager, showing him out.

He joined Tim at a scrubbed wooden table. Figures were
pencilled
all round the borders of a newspaper, most of them crossed out. Phillip took over and started again. The lists were short.

“Is this all?”

“So far as I can see, it is.”

They returned together to the bank with the figures. The manager suggested that the phrase
‘Cannot
pay’
be avoided.

“If you say to a creditor, ‘I cannot pay,’ that constitutes an Act of Bankruptcy, which would further complicate what at present appears to be a not very involved situation.”

“I take it that you won’t allow an overdraft?”

“On these figures, I’m afraid not.”

They thanked him and went out. While Tim went to the
wine-merchant
—he had removed the last coins from the till—Phillip called at the bookshop to ask about the
Encyclopædia.
He found Mr. Roper in a small office at the back of the shop. Phillip had had several talks there in the past, and been shown Mr. Roper’s collection of first editions.

The bookseller was a man with a twin passion for music and literature. He did his best to recommend good books in a district which was largely composed of farmers, with a sprinkling of retired soldiers, sailors, Indian officials and their wives and daughters; and had long ago found out that the literary-minded among them were very few indeed.

“I’ve called about the
Encyclopædia
for Mr. Copleston, Mr. Roper. Has it come?”

To his surprise the other’s face hardened.

“It’s a somewhat expensive item, I suppose you know, Mr. Maddison? We booksellers cannot afford to give long credit, and by long I mean anything up to three or four years.”

“I understand that. I’d like to pay for it myself. How much is it?
Twenty-eight
pounds?
I suppose you wouldn’t allow me a little time to pay? I could give you a post-dated cheque——”

“But why should you have to spend your hard-earned money on——”

“I know what you mean, but I assure you that the Coplestons are solvent. They are an extremely kind and unworldly family, really.”

Mr. Roper offered him a chair. “Part of my life of drudgery is made worth while when I can talk to a genuine literary person like yourself,” he said. “Will you give me permission to speak frankly?”

“Certainly. Truth never killed anyone yet.”

“Not your kind of truth, I agree. But I see such things from another angle, from the wrong side of the counter, perhaps, but that is my side as a tradesman, I suppose. Only this morning I had the manager of the Empire Stores in here, sitting where you are sitting now. He is a genuine poetic character, and like all such, suffers at times from association with average insensitive humanity. Do you know, he has been owed a bill for groceries delivered to the Coplestons during more than two years! Where is he, if he cannot get his account paid? Either he risks being dismissed as an incompetent manager by his regional inspector, or else he has to make up the bad debt himself. Thirty-nine pounds for two years’ groceries. And yet they can afford,
apparently
, to order expensive encyclopædias for cross-word puzzles—those refuges of idle intellects—and also to go otter-hunting.”

Mr. Roper began to look almost angry. “Why, my dear sir, I find an incompatability in the two view-points, and would give another name for what you call ‘unworldly’.”

His words shocked Phillip. The bookseller saw this, and
continued
in his normal soft voice, “This is entirely between ourselves, of course. Only I felt I must tell you what I thought, since you have done me the honour of confiding in me. Now I have lived here all my life, and have a vivid memory of myself as a small boy, being sent by my father, who founded this bookshop, with a book to the ‘big house’, as we called Colonel Chychester’s place, in Tarrant Park, in those days. It must have been thirty years ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday. I felt extremely proud to be taking a book to the Colonel, who was a hero to us boys, for he had fought in the Crimea, and had been badly wounded. Well, I walked up the drive of Tarrant Park, terrified by the great size of the place growing and growing before me and timidly rang the bell at the immense oak door. My heart beat in my ears as I heard it being opened, and then a footman looked down at me and said, ‘What are you doing here? Get
round to the back door with you!’ in a brusque voice. Almost in tears, I hastened away, gave the parcel to someone, and ran home. And when I see this attitude of, well—I can only call it indifference—towards the feelings of small shopkeepers today among a certain class of so-called ladies and gentlemen, our betters, I remember the small boy’s reception thirty years ago and my blood boils. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it.”

“But I am sure neither the Boys’ grandmother, Mrs. Chychester, nor the Colonel, would have treated a small boy like that, Mr. Roper, had they seen him.”

“Well, Mr. Maddison, I know it must seem trivial and even crass prejudice on my part, but there is something wrong with a system by which such things—slight as they are, they indicate the world as it really is today—are maintained.”

“Lack of imagination.”

“I call it selfishness.”

“Lack of imagination is the same thing, surely?”

“How do you mean?”

“Bernard Shaw has a piercing line at the end of
Saint
Joan
—‘Must a Christ perish in torment in every generation, because people have no imagination?’ That is the cry of the poets of the ages.”

“And what is the answer?”

“Education must be aimed at creating a wider imagination in the child, not at suppressing. The child’s mind must be set free.”

“But according to your theory, these people have known every freedom—with the result that they have grown up to please themselves.”

“Well, I think there is also a duty, an idea of service, still remaining, you know. This case is perhaps not typical. A recluse—his sons growing up without proper direction—their mother dead—the old-boy broken-hearted. Inept, if you like: but not knowingly selfish.”

“Inept is the word. Do you know that the youngest boy, Tim, played truant for a year and more from the local grammar school? What did his father do about it?”

“I don’t think he knew.”

“Not even when the bill for the term’s fees failed to come in?”

“I think the Head Master thought he’d left. And the old boy was shattered after his wife’s death. He’d retired from life. It was a tragedy, I assure you. Since then the Boys have worked
really very hard—often all night on the lathes. I’ve seen them—and all without proper business direction. Their actual work has been good, too—nothing scamped or shoddy. In fact, it’s
too
good. Well, I must away. I’ll see the manager of the grocery stores is paid very soon. And I’ll collect the
Encyclopædia
shortly—and pay cash for it—I’ve very nearly got an offer of fifty pounds for a book from my agent——”

“Why should you waste your talent and your money on others?”

“Why do you waste your spirit and your sympathy on others—the grocer, for example?”

“Ah well, Mr. Maddison, I see your point. You’ll consider me hard and unsympathetic, no doubt, but even grocers have to live, you know. This one’s a great man for poetry—Shelley especially.”

At the Empire Stores Phillip spotted him at once—a thin-faced man with a wide gentle mouth and a high forehead. Tim had told Phillip that he had a habit of introducing the poet Shelley into conversation with his customers on all occasions. This had caused him to be considered locally as slightly gone in the upper storey, according to Tim. Phillip knew, of course, that Tim’s ideas were in part formed by the fiction of popular magazines: in the pages of which anyone who ‘spouted’ poetry was usually portrayed as a long-haired eccentric character, sometimes with a butterfly net; comic stock-characters of the Conglomerated Press, London, E.C.

This Shelley of the cheese cloves and weys, of butter firkins and tubs, of bacon flitch and bolls of oatmeal, looked at Phillip expectantly with an essentially innocent, child-like expression.

“‘O wild west wind, thou breath of autumn’s being’,” said Phillip. “How do you do. May I see you privately for a moment?”

“May I have your name, sir?”

“I am one whose name at the moment is writ in water.”

“Do I not recognise the author of the Donkin trilogy? I do, sir? Ah, may I congratulate you on a very fine performance.”

“Thank you. I hope you are well?”

“Hitherto, ‘a heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d, One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud’, but with your coming, sir, I am with the Cloud. Pray step into my office.”

Phillip entered a cube of glass hung with clipped bills. Without preamble he said, “I know I can trust you, since we have Shelley as our friend. I want to tell you that the Coplestons are rather unpractical, living in a dream world. They have now entrusted their optimism and inexperience to me. They are, in a way, like
Shelley, but without his mental penetration into reality. Have you read Shelley’s political pamphlets?”