Читать книгу Two Black Sheep - Warwick Deeping - Страница 16

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There were so many things that Henry Vane had not seen—the new Wimbledon, the new Regent Street, the Cenotaph, Mr. Lansbury’s Lido, the Motor Show. Regent Street and the Cenotaph were at his service any day of the week, festooned and wreathed with the innumerable red buses. In theory, Vane should have accumulated years of frustrated curiosity, a hunger for sensation, but London was so very full of sensation that it tired his senses. It was like looking at a kaleidoscope, or sharing in a perpetual motion show, and he was alone in it, alone with the traffic and the crowds.

At the rush hour he would see the crowd storming buses and pouring into tubes. The ant-heap swarmed. It was stirred up by the stick of Necessity, or he supposed so, and yet when he considered the crowd’s purpose he was bewildered. Whence, and why and whither? What was the tendency? Was there a tendency? What would the world be like a hundred years hence? And did it matter? Did anything matter? There were occasions when he became conscious of fear. He was an electron, a swarm of particles bombarding the walls of a glass tube. No escape. He would be attacked by a feeling of dreadful futility.

He went to the Motor Show at Olympia, and under a vast glass roof that was like a London sky—rather dirty and obscure, he shared the stuffiness and the carbonic acid with thousands of other people. There were crowds of cars and crowds around the cars. People jostled him. The place seemed to swarm with large and formidable women who were as technical and more critical than the males. He saw large, red-faced men sitting experimentally and successfully in sumptuous saloons.

Certainly, it was a wonderful show, but, like much of the new world, there was too much of it. It bewildered him. If he stopped to look at a particular car a dozen other people seemed to collect round him like flies to share the sugar. Many of the showmen looked tired and bored, and one to whom he spoke smelt aggressively of beer.

Some of the cars struck him as being beautiful in both line and colour, especially the Isottas and a Rolls, and it occurred to him that if he wished it he could possess such a car. But what would he do with it? Tour Europe alone in a seven-seater like a mechanical Wandering Jew?

He began to feel very tired. He wanted to sit down by himself away from all these people. Everybody was talking the same talk, and breathing the same air. Why not sit in one of the cars and pretend that he was a serious purchaser? He found himself standing by a car that attracted him, a Daimler fitted with a Connaught body, a beautiful blue thing suggesting sumptuous, sweeping speed, and he spoke to the showman in charge of the stand.

“How much do you want for this?”

The sum named surprised him.

“Can I try the seats?”

“Certainly, sir.”

The showman unlocked a door. He explained that they had to keep the doors locked, or Tom, Dick and Harry and the girls who corresponded would crowd in, and take the bloom off the upholstery. “Just to see what it feels like, you know.” Vane got in and sat down, and the gentleman in charge was accosted by a commissionaire.

“Excuse me—just a moment, sir.”

He shut the door on Vane, and Vane—surrendering himself to that soft, sofa-like seat, felt that he had escaped into a kind of crystal case padded with silk. Yes, luxurious things were of some account. Protection, a pleasant aloofness, escape from a world and a show that were overcrowded. And suddenly, he was aware of a face at a window, a familiar face, Stuart Blagden’s face. It smiled at him; the lips moved.

“Hallo—Harry! Funny coincidence. Buying a car?”

Vane leant forward and opened the door.

“Well, as a matter of fact I got in here to sit down. I’m supposed to be interested.”

Blagden entered and sat down beside him.

“I say, this really is a rather lovely thing. I’m here looking for a birthday present. My wife wants a little town runabout. No, something about a third the price of this.”

He fingered the upholstery.

“By Jove, one does get tempted. Why don’t you fall, Harry? You can afford it.”

Vane’s eyes were half closed.

“All for myself? You want somebody else—”

Blagden glanced at him.

“Yes, that’s so. One can’t swank solus.”

The showman in charge of this particular exhibit found two gentlemen where he had left one, and he proceeded to demonstrate to both of them the virtues and the beauties of the car. Apparently she was one of those unique creatures who inspire passion while remaining chaste, and though Blagden and Vane agreed with all that the gentleman said, they found that it was easier to get into the car than out of it. The salesman was a pleasant person, boyish and enthusiastic, and Vane began to feel that he was sitting there under false pretences. Blagden was far less sensitive. After all, it was the fellow’s business to show off the car, and you did not commit yourself to anything by sitting in it and listening to an oration.

They escaped, and Vane accepted a trade-card, and said something about looking at other cars before making a decision.

“What about some tea, Harry?”

It was an inspiration.

“I’m not going to look at any more cars until I’ve had some tea and a cigarette. You get flustered into buying the wrong thing.”

They found a refreshment-room, and Blagden—who was fastidious—sat down as though he mistrusted the chair. Even at Olympia the contrasts of life were so flagrant.

“Sitting in an Isotta or a Rolls and then coming down to chipped china!”

Vane looked very tired. He allowed Blagden to pour out the tea.

“Why don’t you buy a car, Harry?”

Vane picked a lump of sugar from the communal bowl.

“Not much use to me. I’m thinking of going abroad.”

He glanced almost apologetically at Blagden.

“I suppose I could go abroad? Travel—I mean. I did not understand about passports. I went to Cook’s, and they gave me a form to fill up. One has to be certified—as a fit and proper person—”

He stirred his tea, and to Blagden he looked strangely forlorn.

“Oh—I dare say it can be managed. I know Horn at the Foreign Office. Would you like me to take it up?”

“Would you?”

“Of course.”