Free The Dawn of Reckoning by James Hilton Page B

put it, “since old
Dumbleby used to get a four-figure majority with out opening his mouth.”
Unfortunately, it was by no means certain that Philip had done himself any
good by opening his mouth. It was not exactly that he had said or done
tactless things; it was just that his whole platform manner gave somehow the
appearance of being cold and remote. “You’re too dignified,” Kemp said. “You
ought to let your self go and put a bit of pep into it.” By way of contrast,
Grainger was an excellent speaker, with a pleasant if somewhat meretricious
personal charm.
    From eight o’clock on the morning of the polling-day until twelve hours
later, Stella was working indefatigably, driving Philip from village to
village and from committee-room to committee-room, and finding time for no
more than hastily-consumed meals of sandwiches and cups of cocoa. Rather to
her surprise, Ward did not put in an appearance, but she remembered that the
day before he had mentioned a bad case of pneumonia that he was attending in
one of the smaller villages.
    At eight in the evening, when the polling-booths closed, she went back
with Philip to the Hall and had a good meal. By half-past nine or
thereabouts, the ballot-boxes would be brought in from the neighbouring
villages, and the count would begin. She was limp and tired after the
exertions of the day; Philip was exactly as he had been outside the
Senate-House at Cambridge years before—nervous and full of
hardly-suppressed excitement. They ate their meal alone, and, for the most
part, in silence. Towards the end, however, Philip said: “If I win, Stella, I
shall t-tell mother about our engagement.”
    Stella’s answer, characteristic of her, was: “And if you lose I shall tell her.”
    He looked at her queerly, almost frightenedly, and then suddenly reached
forward across the table and squeezed her outstretched arm. “I am very f-fond
of you, Stella,” he said softly.
    Almost at that moment the sound came of an exceedingly noisy motor-cycle
tearing along the main highway towards the town.
    “That’s Ward,” she said vaguely. “I can tell the sound of his machine.”
Then fierceness came into her voice as she went on: “Oh, Philip,
Philip—I’m so glad you’re fond of me. Because I’m fonder of you than of
anybody else on earth…You’re a darling, and won’t it be splendid if you get
in!—We shall know in a couple of hours from now, shan’t we?”
    He smiled and nodded.
V
    Midnight in the small, excessively-ornate council-chamber of
the Chassingford Town Hall. In the High Street outside it was raining fast,
and a large part of the crowd had already gone home. The rain had, indeed,
begun almost as soon as the polling stopped, and a heavy storm had delayed
the trans port of some of the ballot-boxes. The postponement was dreadfully
unsettling to Philip. He stood by the window, looking out into the street
through the slits in the Venetian blinds, and hardly daring to watch the
actual counting of the votes and the stack ing of them into hundreds. Kemp
stood by the tables, observing everything with keen, ferret-like eyes. Now
and again he made some objection, consulted with the opposing agent, and lit
cigarette after cigarette as the night wore on. Stella, in her official
capacity as scrutineer, moved about in the crowded, smoke-hazy room, always
with one eye on Philip and the other on the trestle-tables with their growing
pile of voting-papers.
    The parish clock struck the hour of midnight, and a few seconds later the
clock in the Town Hall belfry followed suit. A few cheers came upwards from
the crowd waiting outside, eager, anxious cheers, for none but the eager and
the anxious were waiting on such a night…Mr. James Grainger, smart and
spruce, was obviously one of those people whom excitement makes even smarter
and sprucer. “Allow me to express the hope that the best man may win,” he
said, touching Philip on the elbow and