Читать книгу Old Wine and New - Warwick Deeping - Страница 4

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The street was as black as a tunnel. An October night, fraught with the fatality of autumn, had covered everything with a flocculent raw darkness. The pavements and roadway were greasy, and a scattering of autumn leaves, blown from the trees of Spellthorn Square, adhered to the wet flagstones. Almost this little street in Chelsea had the smell of a dark cupboard that had not been opened for many weeks.

Scarsdale hesitated.

There were no lights, no people. The place was muffled up in a silence that was beyond being melancholy, for its very muteness suggested the acceptance of things as they are and not as they seem. A moment ago there had been the sound of footsteps in the street; a special constable had passed, yawning and glancing at the windows. Scarsdale, hesitant outside an iron gate, and knowing it to be a gate because the surreptitious shape of a cat had insinuated itself between the bars, had appealed to the “special”.

“I’m looking for Spellthorn Terrace.”

“This is Spellthorn Terrace.”

“Both sides?”

“No, these little houses.”

“You haven’t any idea, I suppose, which is 53?”

“No. Somewhere further along I should imagine.”

“Thanks. Good night.”

Scarsdale still hesitated. It was as though the long thin shape of him had got caught up in the darkness and in this wet spider’s-web of silence. He stood and stared at the row of houses, and their dim windows stared back at him. His hands were sunk deep in the pockets of his greatcoat. He had walked three miles to find Spellthorn Terrace, and now that he had found it he stood still and allowed himself to become submerged in melancholy. He was tired. The whole world was tired.

But he had come to find No. 53, and he opened a gate at a venture, walked up a flagged path between privet hedges, climbed three steps, and confronted a dark and anonymous door. Again he hesitated. Obviously the easiest solution would be for him to knock and inquire, but to Scarsdale life had somehow ceased to be easy and obvious. There had been so much noise, so much horror, so much raw flesh, and for two years he had been shedding illusions, and his illusions had been so much part of himself. He was forty-three, and at that age a man does not shed his leaves without a sense of perplexity and a feeling of nakedness. Everything was so strange, even the London that he knew so well. So many comfortable and familiar humanities had vanished.

But this blank and unhelpful door! He withdrew his right hand from the pocket of his greatcoat, and passed his fingers over the dark surface. He had long and sensitive fingers. It had occurred to him that the door might carry its numerals in brass or painted metal, and that he would be able to trace out the numbers with his finger-tips. He touched a knocker, and felt the hollow of a shallow moulding, but there were no raised numerals to be deciphered.

Well, why not knock and inquire? This idiotic groping! And for a moment he stood still and allowed himself a moment’s mental groping. His temperament was as sensitive as his fingers; it had suffered considerably; it had suffered more than his fingers. For the best part of three years he had been a brown figure in a crowd; he had been dressed, fed, paraded, inspected, ordered about, and all through those years he had felt something slipping from him. It was as though the war had torn away the shreds of his essential self. He had lost his initiative, his individuality. Removed from the crowd he was full of hesitations, vague perplexities, fears.

But what rot! He unbuttoned his greatcoat, and felt for a box of matches. He extracted a match, struck it, and holding box and match in the hollows of his hands and fingers, raised this lantern of the flesh toward the door. The flame lit up his big nose, and the brown eyes that were set rather like the eyes of a hare. He was grizzled at the temples. He was smiling a little whimsical, sad smile, and he did not realize it.

No. 57. He saw it in white upon a brown surface. He retreated. He closed the gate gently. He still continued to do things gently though the war was more than four years old, for he had been created to do things gently, and to love them so, books, china, English landscapes, routine. He had liked a nap after lunch on Sundays, and buttered toast in front of a fire.

Again he stood hesitant, fingering the matchbox. His hands symbolized his lack of grip, his fumbling, tentative fingering of newness. Should he count four doors to the left or to the right? He chose the right, and coming to the fourth gate in the low brick wall, he entered the gate, and climbed the steps. They were just like the other steps, with the same iron hand-rail and the same dark door. Scarsdale lit another match, and with the same conscientious carefulness raised the screened flame to the door.

No. 53. Marwood’s house! He blew out the match, dropped it, and was lost for a moment in other darkness, other memories.