Читать книгу Slade - Warwick Deeping - Страница 11

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Mr. Slade got up and wandered. He was in a wandering mood, like a child let out of school, only much more so, for such vagrant moods had for years been denied him. It might have been said of him by the clever and the critical that he had become simple-minded, which was not quite true. The more urgent greeds of the flesh had departed from him. Indeed, he was returning to the world like a child, and a rather innocent child, as a serene and celibate old man who had regained the wonder of childishness. Strange as it might seem the penal life he had led had not coarsened or debauched him. On the contrary, he had found God.

How pleasant was the greenness of these chestnut trees! Mr. Slade had passed the white portico of the Regent Hotel, and the buxom bow-front of Prospect House, the doctor’s house. Here, in the High Street, the old timber-yard remained, with the evening sunlight shining on its chestnut trees. Mr. Slade looked up into the green canopies that seemed layered with gold. How gentle and good and comforting were trees! The doors of the sawing-shed were shut, the saw silent, the engine asleep. Great boles of timber were stacked in the yard, and piles of newly-ripped planks. A huge heap of sawdust was lit up by the light through the trees. Here were the quick and the dead, sap and mere sawdust, and yet there was beneficence in the labour of men.

Mr. Slade wandered back to the broad space above the pier hill. What a pleasant prospect, the sea, ships, the greenness of the gardens, the white curve of the Crescent, the black holly hedges guarding the broad way leading to the church. The windows of Caroline Terrace caught the oblique sunlight and flashed it back; the little gardens glowed; the sloping green roofs of the balconies were homely and warm. Mr. Slade felt like a child, wondering at the beauty of things as he saw them, and content to see them like that. Life might have its sorrows and its frustrations, but if God stood with you, fear might cease from troubling your soul.

Mr. Slade turned to walk down the hill, and as he did so a small boy ran up to him, a brown-faced, freckled child in a sailor suit.

“Oh, could you tell me the time, please?”

Mr. Slade’s right hand went by instinct to the place where the watch-chain should be. There was no chain there. The habit of long ago had been suddenly resurrected after the long lapse of years.

“Dear, dear, I have left my watch at home. I am sorry, my dear.”

“Do you think it is seven o’clock yet?”

“I think it must be.”

“I promised mother I would be in at seven. I’ve been out with Mr. Clements in his boat. I’m learning to row. Look, I’ve got a blister.”

“So you have.”

“I had better run home.”

“Yes, my dear. One musn’t break promises—or blisters.” The boy smiled up at him and ran on towards Caroline Terrace.

Mr. Slade stood a moment, and then walked on. Funny about that watch and chain! They had been of gold and he had left them behind with Clara, yes and rather secretly so, for he had left poor Clara so little. Then, after all these years, memory had played him a trick, and he had felt for the watch that was—where? Pawned or sold long ago, no doubt. How your old self suddenly was resurrected! But not as it had been, or could be. Clara had been very frank in her judgment upon that point.

“I will give you a chance to rehabilitate yourself.”

Rehabilitate! Rather a pompous phrase—that! Clara always had had a liking for such words. Rehabilitate—but not resurrect. Men such as he had been did not rise again from the dead, to be reclad in the garments of respectability. Respectability! Horrid word! But what a nice, frank, freckled face the boy had shown him. Children, perhaps, were not bothered by the problems of respectability.

Mr. Slade strolled down the hill to the more plebeian part of Southfleet, where respectability was of less account and the language far simpler. Passing the pier entrance he paused, provoked by the wooden turnstile and the apostolic face of the old man who sat at the receipt of customs. It cost you the sum of a penny to pass that turnstile, and Mr. Slade had not a penny upon him. The Law had set him free with two half-crowns in his pocket, but Mrs. Pomeroy—as a precaution—had insisted upon his handing over such petty cash.

Assuredly, the petty cash promised to be a serious problem. Wages had not been mentioned. But, surely, he would be the recipient of some tips, and Mrs. Pomeroy could hardly expect him to pass on the largesse? Or, would he be like a schoolboy to whom the mistress of the house would assign sixpence per week?

The hairy and apostolic head of old Rawlins poked itself through the ticket-office window. Old Rawlins was always ready for a gossip, for his was a sedentary and a monotonous job?

“Thinkin’ of going on, sir?”

“Well, it is rather late, isn’t it?”

“We close at dusk. ’Ardly worth a penny unless you want a peep at the sunset.”

“I can see the sunset from here.”

“That you can, sir. ’Ave to close at dusk, you know, for the sake of respectability.”

Mr. Rawlins chuckled and then sucked his teeth.

“The seats ’ud be full o’ lovers, canoodlin’.”

“Would they?”

“Yus.”

“Well, I don’t see any great objection to that.”

Old Rawlins winked at him.

“Nor me. But this ’ere town is a temple of respectability. Such goin’s on can’t be allowed in public.”

“But young people must fall in love.”

“Not ’ere, sir, in a public place.”

“It seems rather hard on the lovers. Does the public expect them just to walk up and down?”

“Why, yes, sir, but not sit down, much less lie down, ’cept—where you can’t see ’em or tread on ’em.”

“Then—where do they go?”

Again old Rawlins winked.

“Where lots of those there respec’able ladies would like to be, tee-hee, under the bushes on the cliff. Gawd, sir, there’s a lot o’ ruddy ’umbug in this ’ere world. Funny, ain’t it, that it should be respec’able to be a muvver or a farver—but the business of doin’ of it—is shockin’.”

Mr. Slade indulged in a gentle chuckle.

“Yes, it does seem strange, doesn’t it. Well, I think I’ll take a little stroll along by the sea.”

“That won’t cost you nothin’, sir. The respec’able ol’ cats can’t keep the tide from comin’ in.”

Mr. Slade strolled on, a little bothered by the propensity both these old gate-keepers had shown towards addressing him as “sir”. Was it a tribute to his age, and did he look as old as all that, or had he failed to lose the characteristics of his caste? Well, if that was so, Clara might have something to say about it, for Clara had always had a lot to say about everything. He would have to learn to play his part, helped by a green baize apron and shirt sleeves; and any mild aroma of gentility that still clung to him might be excused on the plea that he had been butler to a Bishop. Yes, that was an idea! He might even dare to suggest it to Clara! Moreover, life might be more simple and easy and comforting were he allowed to become an obscure member of the lower orders, and attain to the distinction of being classed as common.

Mr. Slade wandered along the esplanade as far as the Ship Hotel and Vandevord’s Jetty. There were many more people here, though Southfleet’s full season did not flourish until August, but the old town had a hearty human smelliness that could be refreshing. You could buy shrimp-teas, and whelks and cockles, and play on the concertina, and dance in the middle of the road. The old town was the East End’s playground, and when it played it did not say—“Excuse me.” But the pleasure yachts were berthed for the night, and the sixpennorth of sea-sickness over. The pubs were fulfilling their functions and in the yard of the Ship Inn a fight was in progress between a large and clumsy mariner and a little coster from London. Mr. Slade crossed over and joined the crowd, and was glad to see that the little man was getting the best of it, skipping around and fooling the large and truculent fellow, and smashing his fists in his face. Mr. Slade sighed, eased his hat, and passed on. Well, that might prove a happy omen. He himself was up against a very large and truculent problem.

It was growing dark when Mr. Slade returned to Caroline Terrace, and blinds were down and curtains drawn. His mood was for a short sojourn on one of the garden seats, for the day had been a long and exciting one, and James Slade suddenly felt tired. But the garden gate was locked for the night, so he leaned against the railings under the shadow of a holly, and looked across at the terrace. Familiarity had not yet bred acquiescence, and there were many things about this respectable world that struck Mr. Slade as being peculiar. Why pull down blinds and draw curtains on a summer night? Why shut out the air and the stars? Why cultivate a prim stuffiness? Or was this a sign and a symbol of the respectable world in which all the natural nudities of life were covered up and concealed? Propriety was a universal petticoat sweeping the pavement, but hiding such indecent things as legs.

Well, he rather wanted to go to bed. He toddled across the roadway, and spotting the Caroline Hotel lettered upon the glass panel above a door, he groped for the area gate and descended into the gloom. A sudden scuffling sound surprised him. He became aware of two dim figures abruptly disentangling themselves. One figure withdrew to the far end of the area; the other vanished through a doorway.

Mr. Slade cleared his throat, dallied for a second or two and then entered by the self-same door. In the dim light of the passage he found Florrie waiting for him.

“Oh, it’s you!”

“Yes, only me.”

“You won’t tell on me, will you? Just my brother came to see me.”

“Of course I won’t tell, my dear.”

“Coo, you’re an old sport, you are. You see, she’s got such a nasty suspicious mind.”

“Don’t you worry, my dear. You can have twenty brothers to see you, and I shan’t see them.”

Florrie kissed him.

“You must ’ave been young too.”

“Yes, my dear; once—I was.”