Tales of the Five Towns | Page 6

Duncalf was the Town Clerk of Bursley: legal, portly, dry, and a
little shy.
'I won't stop, Curtenty. How d'ye do, Mrs. Curtenty? No, thanks,
really----' But she, smiling, exquisitely gracious, flattered and smoothed
him into a chair.
'Any interesting news, Mr. Duncalf?' she said, and added: 'But we're
glad that anything should have brought you in.'
'Well,' said Duncalf, 'I've just had a letter by the afternoon post from
Lord Chell.'
'Oh, the Earl! Indeed; how very interesting.'
'What's he after?' inquired Josiah cautiously.
'He says he's just been appointed Governor of East
Australia--announcement 'll be in to-morrow's papers--and so he must
regretfully resign the mayoralty. Says he'll pay the fine, but of course
we shall have to remit that by special resolution of the Council.'
'Well, I'm damned!' Josiah exclaimed.
'Topham!' Mrs. Curtenty remonstrated, but with a delightful acquitting
dimple. She never would call him Josiah, much less Jos. Topham came
more easily to her lips, and sometimes Top.

'Your husband,' said Mr. Duncalf impressively to Clara, 'will, of course,
have to step into the Mayor's shoes, and you'll have to fill the place of
the Countess.' He paused, and added: 'And very well you'll do it,
too--very well. Nobody better.'
The Town Clerk frankly admired Clara.
'Mr. Duncalf--Mr. Duncalf!' She raised a finger at him. 'You are the
most shameless flatterer in the town.'
The flatterer was flattered. Having delivered the weighty news, he had
leisure to savour his own importance as the bearer of it. He drank a cup
of tea. Josiah was thoughtful, but Clara brimmed over with a
fascinating loquacity. Then Mr. Duncalf said that he must really be
going, and, having arranged with the Mayor-elect to call a special
meeting of the Council at once, he did go, all the while wishing he had
the enterprise to stay.
Josiah accompanied him to the front-door. The sky had now cleared.
'Thank ye for calling,' said the host.
'Oh, that's all right. Good-night, Curtenty. Got that goose out of the
canal?'
So the story was all abroad!
Josiah returned to the dining-room, imperceptibly smiling. At the door
the sight of his wife halted him. The face of that precious and adorable
woman flamed out lightning and all menace and offence. Her louring
eyes showed what a triumph of dissimulation she must have achieved
in the presence of Mr. Duncalf, but now she could speak her mind.
'Yes, Topham!' she exploded, as though finishing an harangue. 'And on
this day of all days you choose to drive geese in the public road behind
my carriage!'
Jos was stupefied, annihilated.

'Did you see me, then, Clarry?'
He vainly tried to carry it off.
'Did I see you? Of course I saw you!'
She withered him up with the hot wind of scorn.
'Well,' he said foolishly, 'how was I to know that the Earl would resign
just to-day?'
'How were you to----?'
Harry came in for his tea. He glanced from one to the other, discreet,
silent. On the way home he had heard the tale of the geese in seven
different forms. The Deputy-Mayor, so soon to be Mayor, walked out
of the room.
'Pond has just come back, father,' said Harry; 'I drove up the hill with
him.'
And as Josiah hesitated a moment in the hall, he heard Clara exclaim,
'Oh, Harry!'
'Damn!' he murmured.

III
The Signal of the following day contained the announcement which Mr.
Duncalf had forecast; it also stated, on authority, that Mr. Josiah
Curtenty would wear the mayoral chain of Bursley immediately, and
added as its own private opinion that, in default of the Right
Honourable the Earl of Chell and his Countess, no better 'civic heads'
could have been found than Mr. Curtenty and his charming wife. So far
the tone of the Signal was unimpeachable. But underneath all this was a
sub-title, 'Amusing Exploit of the Mayor-elect,' followed by an
amusing description of the procession of the geese, a description which

concluded by referring to Mr. Curtenty as His Worship the
Goosedriver.
Hanbridge, Knype, Longshaw, and Turnhill laughed heartily, and
perhaps a little viciously, at this paragraph, but Bursley was annoyed
by it. In print the affair did not look at all well. Bursley prided itself on
possessing a unique dignity as the 'Mother of the Five Towns,' and to
be presided over by a goosedriver, however humorous and hospitable
he might be, did not consort with that dignity. A certain Mayor of
Longshaw, years before, had driven a sow to market, and derived a
tremendous advertisement therefrom, but Bursley had no wish to rival
Longshaw in any particular. Bursley regarded Longshaw as the Inferno
of the Five Towns. In Bursley you were bidden to go to Longshaw as
you were bidden to go to ... Certain acute people