Читать книгу Sackcloth into Silk - Warwick Deeping - Страница 14

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In that catastrophic year of 1914 Karl became one of the familiar figures of the Essex Road. A dark, slim lad of sixteen, he took charge of that portion of his mother’s shop which projected upon the pavement, for during the winter Rebecca had suffered from bronchitis, and Karl had insisted upon her remaining inside the shop. Insistence was a new quality in him, and not unpleasing to his mother, and like the note of a strong young wire, vibrant and musical. The boy had a peculiar dignity of his own. As a shop-assistant he was somewhat unusual, dealing capably and quietly with a world that might purloin a pair of pants, but was sensitive to politeness and to humour.

“Young Slopp” was not conventional according to the standards of the Essex Road either in his clothes or in his manners. Instead of an overcoat he wore a white sweater under his jacket, with a bright blue scarf tucked into it. His mother, sitting near the oil-stove inside the shop, with the shop door closed by Karl’s orders, kept two peep-holes open in the windows through which she could watch him. Other women might have referred to Rebecca as the old black spider. Would her devotion devour her beloved?

Karl, even at sixteen, was tall and mature. He carried his head high, had a tinge of brown in his skin, and hair that waved. He looked people straight in the face, but always as though they were some way off. His smile brought them nearer, but a something in his eyes kept them from coming too near.

Rebecca began to know that her Karl was attractive to women. Did it concern her? Yes and no. Her beloved was good to look upon. Could she blame her sisters? She might wish both to boast to her secret self, and to put up a glass partition between her Karl and the wenches. Would he be attracted by women? O, probably, but not like that lout of a George who went about rooting at sex with his snout.

The Smart girl from next door was always on the pavement, a fat, fair thing with popping blue eyes and a giggle. Rebecca had seen her stand in front of a grave and composed Karl, and button up his coat for him.

“You’ll catch cold, dear”—or was it an invitation to promenade?

She was two years older than Karl, but the sex of her did not appear to disturb him. Almost Rebecca could have sworn that her beloved was indifferent to women. He appeared to treat them all alike, the fat and frowsy in slovenly ulsters, the bonneted and wheedling, the bold young matrons who stared him in the eyes, the wenches who were just sex-conscious. He attended to business. A pretty face could not insinuate itself between him and the price of a pair of trousers or a child’s sailor jacket. He was always—“Yes, ma’am” or “No, Miss.” Only on rare occasions would he come into the shop to consult with his mother on some reduction in price.

“Shall I knock off a shilling, mother? Her boots are all to pieces, and she’s got a cough.”

Rebecca would look out of the window.

“The one in the bonnet?”

“Yes.”

“You can knock off a shilling, my dear.”

Not that Karl was untempted. Far from it, but like some sensitive children he was acutely fastidious, and rather squeamish about sex and food. The texture of the thing had to be clean and fine. His senses were more quick and delicate in their reactions than the senses of the vulgar man, and that which roused Brother George to frenzy nauseated Karl. Fat meat, a greasy plate or one that smelt of the dishcloth, a fork with eggstain on it, a soiled towel, such things had offended the child. He was almost absurdly squeamish about other people’s bodies, and his distastes were many and subtle. A handsome, coarse fleshliness—so devastating to most men—especially when they are middle aged, actively repelled him. He disliked certain types and features, sandy women, porcine women, prominent teeth or discoloured teeth, pinched noses, high foreheads, a yellow skin, congested fingers.

His day was a busy one.

At half-past six he ran downstairs to light the gas-stove for early tea.

At seven he was washed and dressed and at his table in the attic window, either reading or writing. He had produced two plays, put each aside for six months, and on re-reading them condemned them as tosh.

At eight he breakfasted with his mother. His brothers had their meal at seven-thirty.

From eight-thirty to nine he walked or ran.

From nine till four he was the salesman. At four o’clock his mother gave him tea, and until five he lived again his other life in his attic.

From five-thirty to seven there was more shop.

At seven they supped.

From eight to nine on three days a week Karl sat at the feet of a certain Mr. Belcher, one of his discoveries in Highbury Fields. Alcohol had made of Mr. Belcher a social failure and a temperamental success. Brilliantly shabby, and the occupant of a bed-sitting room in Camden Street, he had so little respect left for anything that he was able to instil into Karl a dislike of the cheap and the nasty. Mr. Belcher had a red and Roman nose, the mind of an aristocrat and a scholar, and a whimsical and wicked wit. He suggested to Karl a sagacious parrot on a perch, a parrot with a red beak and one round black merciless eye. Mr. Belcher’s varied career as an Oxford don, a master in a public school, a journalist, a sandwich man, a betting tout and shabby sitter on seats, had rendered his experience catholic. Any piece of humbug was like an old lady’s lace cap, to be snatched and torn to pieces. His aphorisms were as varied as his experience.

“If you want to move the public, capture its subconscious.”

That was a new saying both to Karl and to society, but when Mr. Belcher had explained it, Karl understood.

“I may be allowed to be facetious, but you—never, my dear. The dreadful facetiousness of self-conscious youth! Give your subconscious a chance if you want to be big.”

And society, what of society, the oligarch, the democrat?

Said Mr. Belcher—“If you hear a little dog snarling at a street corner you can be pretty sure that he is a socialist, and rabid because the other fellow happens to have a bone.”

“Get a bone, my dear, and stick to it.

“Don’t be fooled into dropping it by people who talk altruistic tosh, and whose mouths are slavering for your bone.”

Mr. Belcher taught Karl some Latin, a little algebra, much history, and the mood of modern science. He indicated to Karl an attitude toward life instead of forming him into a set piece. He was fond of the word Flux. “Things flow, my dear, even down my throat. Don’t take to the tramlines. Get in the air.”

He was contemptuous of all isms and ologies. He warned Karl against labels, cliques, brotherhoods, and literary clubs.

“And be sure, my dear, that if you make a success of anything, you will be loved by most of the women and hated by most of the men.”

From nine to nine-thirty Karl walked hard, generally in the direction of Highbury Station, and he walked with his own youth as his comrade, and not looking into the faces that he passed. He was very sure of himself, yet quite free from arrogance. His brothers accused him of cockiness. He would turn home to spend the rest of the evening alone with his mother, for Augustus belonged to a political club, and George had affairs. Rebecca showed no desire to control her second son’s morals.

Once a week Rebecca and Karl went to a theatre. It was part of her plan that Karl should see every play of the season, and afterwards they would discuss it together, and not only the play, but the setting, the lighting and the music. Shaw was massacring the middle-classes, and for a year or more Karl was a disciple of Shaw. Mr. Belcher’s opinion was that Shaw was too damned clever.—As for realism, it did not satisfy Karl. The thing was too photographic and cold and dreary. Romance pleased him better, but not the romance of the conventionalists. Vaguely as yet he apprehended the romance of the real, the colour, the swagger, the swell of emotion, a subtle simplicity, the splendour of brain, bowels, blood and heart. He read the Greeks, and Shakespeare, and the moderns,—Russian and French and German when he could get them in translations, but though he pulled other grapes, he understood already that the wine must be his own.