Читать книгу Mr. Gurney and Mr. Slade - Warwick Deeping - Страница 3

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James Slade was tired, and legitimately so, for London was sweating in the embrace of a heat wave, and Mr. Slade had been doing business with his wholesalers, so, at Fenchurch Street Station he entered a first-class compartment and, placing his hat in the rack, snuggled down into a corner seat and waited for some official person to arrive, to whom he could tender the additional tribute. Mr. Slade was—for the moment—alone in the carriage, and both windows were down, but this London station seemed airless. Mr. Slade sat and thought of a chair in the garden, and sea-breezes, and a glass of Eliza’s home-made lemonade. Moreover, as one of Southfleet’s most singular and successful citizens, he could claim, even with humility, the prestige of first-class travel. And in August the Southfleet trains became packed like cattle-trucks, with London’s East End pouring forth for its yearly sousing in the sea.

Mr. Slade might be feeling the heat and wishing that he could shed his coat and sit in his shirt-sleeves, but his interest in humanity was unfailing. He sat and watched the crowd teeming along the platform. Third-and second-classes were filling up, and three passengers had stepped over Mr. Slade’s feet into the compartment. Perspiring mothers with families to insert fussed up and down. The cockney voice was clamant. Mr. Slade felt like putting his head out of the window to utter soothing words to these agitated parents. “Keep cool, ladies—It makes me feel hotter—seeing you in such a state of heat. The train won’t leave without you.”

Maybe Mr. Slade remembered that summer day, so many years ago, when he had travelled to Southfleet with a small and shabby bag and a past that was equally shabby. That had been a third-class occasion. Oh, very much so, with poor Clara in charge of the situation. What a meek, shabby old sheep she must have thought him. A fourth traveller, moist and stout, in frock-coat and top-hat, stepped over Mr. Slade’s feet, and banged the door with solid finality. Let none of the unprivileged attempt to enter here. The gentleman sat down with an emphatic grunt, removed his hat and mopped his forehead. Mr. Slade looked at him, and the gentleman looked back at Mr. Slade. His glance was a glare. Even a stare was tactless on so sweltering a day.

Faces peered in and passed. A worried guard with flag and whistle was fussing up and down, trying to find accommodation for superabundant children. The over-heated gentleman glared at any face that showed itself. “Don’t you try to crowd in here!” Doubtless his simmering soul had strong views upon the limitation of proletarian families. Mr. Slade disliked him, and dislike made him feel puckish. For twopence-halfpenny he would lean out and invite some bothered mother to enter with her brood. At a pinch the compartment could accommodate three more occupants.

It was then that Mr. Slade became interested in a particular and singular figure. It was that of a little man with a large head, the body of a boy, and frail legs which trotted him up and down with a kind of ambling innocence. The little man was lugging a shabby black Gladstone bag; it bumped against his legs, and was obviously too heavy for his strength. He was dressed in clerical clothes, and his soft hat had seen much wear. Three times did the little clergyman pass Mr. Slade’s window, searching for some compartment in which he could take refuge. He was hot and a little bothered but he smiled, and to James Slade that smile was singular and evidential. So was that battered bag, which looked as though it had experienced many stresses and struggles. Mr. Slade was moved by a memory. His bag had been like that bag, only smaller. Mr. Slade got up and leaned out of the window. The guard had his whistle in his mouth, and the last doors were closing. The little man was drifting down again towards Mr. Slade, smiling in a whimsical sort of way at the packed compartments, and Mr. Slade waved to him.

“A seat here, sir.”

Mr. Slade’s eyes met those of the parson. They were large and luminous eyes, very blue, and with an Irish blueness.

“Room in here, sir.”

The man and the bag came to rest opposite Mr. Slade’s window.

“Thank you. But—first-class, I’m afraid.”

“Well, never mind. Get in, sir, there goes the whistle.”

Mr. Slade opened the door, and the little clergyman, after a moment’s hesitation, performed the dishonest act of entering a first-class compartment with a third-class ticket.

The over-heated gentleman glared at him. He had unbuttoned his waistcoat, and put his feet up on the seat that the little third-class curate was proposing to occupy. And, as for the white-headed old fusspot who had instigated the invasion, he too looked like a “third”, and probably was so.

“Excuse me,” said the clergyman.

There was some delay in the removal of the big, black, highly-polished boots, and Mr. Slade, who knew all about boots and their owners, became combative.

“Do you possess a handkerchief, sir?”

“I beg your pardon!”

“I suggest that you might dust the cushion.”

Someone in a corner chuckled, and the over-heated gentleman glared.

“I suggest you mind your own business.”

Mr. Slade smiled at him sweetly. “I do—It is quite a good business.”

Meanwhile, the little clergyman was struggling to get his bag into the luggage-rack. It appeared to be rather too heavy for him, and Mr. Slade jumped up, and assisted in the struggle. Then, they sat down and smiled at each other as the train rolled out of the station. The clergyman took off his hat and nursed it. The over-heated gentleman sat and simmered.

There was silence, a satisfied and relaxed silence. The truculent person might exude moisture and a suggestion of over-heated dignity, but he was in a minority. That chuckle had been significant. Mr. Slade sat and gazed at the clergyman’s black bag. A label was pendent from it, and Mr. Slade was trying to decipher the name. For, Mr. Slade had been challenged by a coincidence and its inspiration. Surely this little man might be the new curate whom the Rev. Egbert Jones had engaged for duty at St. Jude’s Church. Mr. Egbert Jones had succeeded to the living after the retirement of Mr. Thomas Chatterway, a change that Mr. Slade had had cause to regret. Mr. Challis, the departing curate, had been presented with a country living, and was escaping with relief from the jejune autocracy of his vicar. Mr. Jones was so supremely Egbert, and so was Mrs. Jones, his very earnest and energetic wife.

Mr. Slade had his window down, and suddenly the fat gentleman demanded that it should be raised.

“I’d like that window up.”

Mr. Slade said sweetly that he preferred it down.

“I’m not going to sit in a draught.”

Mr. Truculence leaned over, pulled the strap and raised the window. Mr. Slade, with smiling deliberation, unhitched the strap and let the window down again.

“Excuse me, my right, I think.”

Mr. Slade was giving the gentleman stare for stare when the voice intervened. It said: “Please change places with me, sir. I don’t mind the window.” The little cleric was smiling into that turgid and angry countenance, and when he smiled in that way his face became the face of beauty, an inward beauty that lit up eyes and lips, brow and skin. Mr. Slade was conscious of sudden wonder, the wonder of a wise old child. Was he being sentimental, or had they a saint in this first-class compartment? Veritably, the little parson was turning the other cheek. And how would Mr. Truculence react to the occasion? Mr. Truculence’s angry eyes which had been standing out on stalks, seemed to go back into his head. His wrathful belly became deflated. Almost he found a smile as the light of that other smile played upon him.

“Thanks. That’s all right. I’ll stay here—Don’t want you to——”

Mr. Slade became again the Christian gentleman. He spoke politely to his neighbour:

“How would you like the window, sir? Half-way up?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind. I had to hurry, and I’m hot.”

Mr. Slade raised the window. “How’s that, sir?”

“Just right, thanks.”

“Draughts can be dangerous—when you are——”

“Yes, I have to be careful about my chest.”

Good manners had returned to the carriage, and there was peace, a peace—so Mr. Slade reflected—that had been the product of a human and forgiving smile.

Mr. Slade was continuing in his attempt to read the label on the bag. The little parson had drawn a small, leather-bound book from his breast pocket and was reading it. The book looked like a testament, but it was not. The clergyman was deep in The Vicar of Wakefield. Mr. Slade squinted at the label. What was the new man’s name? He had heard it, without giving it its proper value. Didn’t it begin with a G?—Yes, Gurney. The name up above looked like Gurney.

The journey to Southfleet occupied some sixty minutes, a Southfleet that was splurging into new bricks and mortar, and losing—in Mr. Slade’s estimation—its naïveté and its innocence. Southfleet was ceasing to be pleasantly Victorian, and its flavour was that of the New Age. There were more first-class carriages on the Southfleet trains, but less first-class people in them. Mr. Truculence was representative of the new Southfleet aristocracy, and business was business. Mr. Slade might allow that beastliness was not inherent in business, unless the greedy beast that is in every man remains unchastened, for, in his meditations upon humanity, Mr. Slade had come to know that man is no angel. Progress, progress, progress! Mock-saints shouting slogans! Envy and greed posing on platforms, and pretending to be what they were not. Might not progress take place in the wrong direction, and that poor ass—humanity—pursue its tail instead of its head? Mr. Slade sat and reflected, and was moved to consider and to contrast the little curate and the business man. If they had a Christ in the carriage, and that Christ was to smile his smile in Southfleet, what would humanity make of it? Here, indeed, was some problem!

The journey continued and ended in first-class silence and proper attention to the Press. When the train came to its destination, the little curate remained seated until these prosperous gentlemen had made their exit. Mr. Slade also remained seated. They smiled at each other.

“Excuse the impertinence, sir, but may I ask if your name is Gurney?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Then—you are——”

“The new curate at St. Jude’s.”

“Splendid,” said Mr. Slade. “I’m a sidesman there. My name is Slade.”

They still sat and smiled at each other.

“Well, sir, supposing we get out!”

Mr. Gurney rose to lift his bag from the rack.

“After you, sir.”

Mr. Slade got out and stood to help Mr. Gurney out with his bag.

“Anywhere to go to?”

“No. 7, Cashiobury Terrace. Is it far, sir?”

“I’m taking a cab. I’ll drop you there.”

“Very kind of you, Mr. Slade.”

“No, sir, a pleasure.”

Mr. Gurney was looking up and down the platform and feeling in a pocket.

“A porter, Mr. Gurney?”

“No. I must pay the extra on my ticket.”

“I don’t think I should worry.”

“But—really—I must. I should be robbing the railway company.”

Mr. Slade’s eyes were crinkled up with humour.

“Well, I’m a sinner—also. Only second-class. Let me stand treat, Mr. Gurney, as a kind of welcome to Southfleet?”

“Too kind of you, sir.”

“Nonsense. I’ll settle with the ticket-collector. Can you manage that bag?”

“Oh, easily.”

Mr. Slade had not proposed to take a cab. The decision had been an inspiration imposed upon him by the Rev. Mr. Gurney and his bag. The ticket-collector was a friend of Mr. Slade’s, for there were few people in the old Southfleet who were not friends of his. Mr. Slade handed out the cash for both parties and made a joke of it.

“Now, Mr. Giggins, don’t say you haven’t met two honest men to-day.”

“I’d pass you any day and every day, Mr. Slade.”

Mr. Slade gave Mr. Gurney a playful look. “Well, I’m not a Barabbas, sir, you see, according to Mr. Giggins.”

There was one cab left for hire and Mr. Slade chartered it, and again the driver was one of his familiars.

“Stop at No. 7, Cashiobury Terrace, Potts.”

“No. 7 it is, Mr. Slade. Hope you’re feeling well, sir?”

“Very well. Almost saintly.”

So, Mr. Slade and Mr. Gurney drove together down Southfleet High Street, and along Victoria Road towards Cliff Parade and the sea. Cashiobury Terrace’s No. 7 was occupied by the Misses Plimsoll, Euphemia and Caroline, who let lodgings to the elect. The Misses Plimsoll had done for a long line of curates, and, like their famous namesake, it could be said of them that they knew where to draw the line. The cab stopped outside No. 7, and Mr. Gurney and his bag got out. He stretched out a delicate and sensitive hand to Mr. Slade and thanked him.

“Thank you, sir, for all your kindness.”

“Don’t mention it, Mr. Gurney. I rather think you and I are going to be friends.”