Читать книгу Sorrell and Son - Warwick Deeping - Страница 11

It took Stephen Sorrell the best part of a week to understand the "atmosphere" of the Angel Inn at Staunton.

It was a little world in itself, a world dominated by that woman of blood and of brass, Florence Palfrey. The other humans were little, furtive figures, scuttling up and down passages and in and out of rooms. There were the two waitresses, the cook, the two chambermaids, and the apathetic young lady who helped in the bar. Poor, besotted John Palfrey, waddling about like a pathetic yet repulsive old dog, a creature of wind and of nothingness, was a voice and nothing more. He was perpetually fuddled. His hands trembled; his swollen waistcoat was never properly buttoned; even his gossipings in the "Cubby Hole" were like the blunderings of a brainless animal. Sometimes Sorrell found him in tears.

"What is it, sir?"

"I've lost–my slippers–. It's that damned pup–again."

He gulped.

"Who cares–? I'm–I'm asking you? Not a blessed–soul–"

Sorrell would find his slippers for him, or his pipe, though he could not dry the poor creature's silly tears. There were times when he himself was on the edge of tears, tears of rage or of exhaustion. He went to bed each night, worn out in mind and in body, so tired that he would lie awake and listen to the cathedral clock, or to the noises of his own body. The work was new to him; he was on the go from morning to night; the luggage pulled him to pieces. Moreover, the food was execrable, and those slovenly meals snatched anyhow and at any time in the slimy kitchen, turned sour in his tired stomach. Very often he was in pain.

But the thing that astonished him was the dirtiness of the place. From the street the Angel suggested cleanliness and comfort; the paint was fresh, the door-step white, but an observant eye might have noticed the dead flowers in the window boxes. Within, a cynical slovenliness prevailed. It was not safe to look under the carpets, or to reflect upon the blankets hidden by the treacherously clean sheets. There were places that smelt. As for the kitchen, and that awful dark and greasy hole where the dishes were washed, they made Sorrell wonder at the innocence of the people who ran their cars into the Angel yard and ate the Angel dinner, and slept in the Angel beds.

The place had a sly filthiness. It was like a wench in silk stockings and lace whose ablutions were of the scantiest. Yet there was money in the "house." Trade was good; Florence Palfrey never gave you the impression that she had to deny herself anything. She was brazen, voracious, insatiable, an animal with bowels full of fire. It was she who made out the bills, and in most of them there was some flagrant item against which the easy English visitor should have protested. In nine cases out of ten they remained mute and paid. Florence Palfrey knew her world. She bluffed. She chanced the protest, knowing that people would pay and go away and grumble and forget. She knew the world's moral cowardice, its inertia.

Sorrell soon realized that the Angel as an hotel did not matter. The coffee-room, the commercial-room, the bedrooms were of no importance; what mattered was the bar.

Men came to booze.

In fact the "Cubby Hole" of the Angel Inn was a pivot, a fly-trap, a cave into which all sorts of male things crowded, and drank, and made silly noises and sillier laughter, and looked with lustful eyes at Florence Palfrey. At night the room would be full of them, and even in the daytime it was rare for the room beside the bar to be empty. This cavity had a secret, conspiratorial air. The men who sneaked into it dreamed of catching old Palfrey's wife in a mood of consent, and of exciting moments among the red cushions.

The "Cubby Hole" filled Sorrell with nausea.

He began to know the names and the faces and the callings of the men who drifted into it. There was Romer–the managing clerk to Spens and Waterlove, a polite person with restless brown eyes and an unpleasant tongue. He had an amazing collection of stories. Biles, who owned the big butcher's shop in High Street, would slip in with his red, greasy and furtive face, and would spill silly compliments from his coarse lips. Sadler the "vet" went away each night stiffly drunk, moving like a figure on wires, his eyes fierce in his thin and debauched face. But there were dozens of them, farmers, tradesmen, commercial travellers, young bloods, all slinking in like dogs, drinking, and lounging and lusting.

"The fools–!"

Sorrell called them fools, and his scorn of them was part of his own pain. He had to mark for some of them in the billiard room, to listen to their dirty stories, to fetch them drinks. It was their amusement, and his torture, for often he was dropping with fatigue and boredom, and yearning for the fools to go to bed. And he would hear the laughter in the "Cubby Hole," and the splurgings of these tradesmen who made love like bullocks.

"Floe–on thou shining river."

That was Medlum's jest, Medlum who kept the book-shop and sold prayer-books and Bibles and pretty-pretty art tourist guides, and who had a wife and seven children. He was a sandy man who looked as though he had been dipped in a bleaching vat, all save his mouth which was thin and red and lascivious.

They spent much money.

They would send poor old Palfrey up to bed, bemused, shuffling in his slippers, grabbing at the handrail. Often Sorrell would have to help John Palfrey up the stairs, listening to his pantings and to his fuddled confidences.

"She don't care–not a damn. I've got water in me–. I'm like a grape, Steve. What did the doctor call it? Ass–i-tis.–Wish I were dead."

He would pause at the top of the stairs, panting, and staring solemnly at Sorrell.

"You mark my words–. A coffin–in six months I'm asking you–. Who cares–?"

He would weep.

"You're a good chap,–Steve. Don't know why. God,–I feel sick."

There were other things that Sorrell began to understand. Women came to the "Cubby Hole"; Miss Hargreaves from across the way, red nosed, excited, ready with thin, hard giggles; the lady who kept the fruit shop and who looked like an over-ripe plum, and who was always protesting that she could not bear to be tickled. "I'll scream."

These earthly souls soon ceased to puzzle him, but the woman of brass remained an enigma. She bullied these people, even when she treated them with brutal good-humour. She knew exactly how to handle each fool-man, and how to repulse some flushed face that was breathing too near to hers. There were times when Sorrell felt that she despised the whole crowd as much as he did.

And since a man must wonder, he went in pursuit of her motives. Did her huge vitality suck something from her herd of swine? Was it money? Did it cause poor Palfrey to disobey his doctor's orders and to shuffle nearer to the inevitable coffin?

She was shrewd, like a strong and cunning animal. She never lost her dignity, or allowed the amorous clowns to take liberties.

"I have seen something like her before," he thought. "Where–?"

One wet night he remembered. The den was full of her Circe troop, and Sorrell, going in with a tray of glasses, saw her sitting on the sofa and looking over the heads of her adorers. Yes, he remembered. He had seen a lioness at the London Zoo, couched, and looking just like that, savagely and superbly indifferent. He could remember the way the tawny beast's eyes had looked over the heads of the humans fidgeting and chattering outside the railings, those tame people, those monkeys. The lioness, couched up above, eyes fixed upon some distance of her own, had ignored them.

But she met Sorrell's eyes, and a sudden glitter came into them.

He was closing and locking the hotel door when he heard her calling him.

"Stephen!"

He went to the door of the den. She was sitting on the sofa, yawning, and with the naturalness of a fine animal.

"What damned fools!"

She looked at him, and picked up a cigarette from the table.

"I want a match."

He produced a box, and striking a match, held it for her to light her cigarette. She blew smoke. Her eyes lifted suddenly, and he saw the big black pupils and the vivid blue of each iris.

"You look fagged."

"It's the end of the day."

"You ought to get off more. You work too hard."

Sorrell's eyes dropped.

"If I could get out for an hour–after tea. There's my boy; I don't see much of him–"

Instantly he was aware of the fact that he had offended her.

"O–your boy! What's he doing?"

"Going to school."

"The Council School?"

"Well, it's that–or–"

"A summons. All right,–clear out for an hour each day. Have you locked up?"

"Yes, madam."

He had a glimpse of her profile as he passed the door on his way to the stairs. She was smoking and looking at and through the wall opposite her. The corner of her mouth was drawn down and she was frowning.