Читать книгу Slade - Warwick Deeping - Страница 17

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Mr. Slade endured.

He became an expert polisher of boots and silver, and ceased to fumble with the plates. He kept the little garden tidy, and was becoming a familiar figure to the various dwellers in the terrace, and in turn was recognized as a familiar figure by them. Mr. Golightly, in frock coat and top-hat would go striding lightly to business at eight fifty-five each morning; he was the town’s chief mercer, haberdasher and provider of millinery. Mr. Grigson passed at nine-thirty, like a dignified and animated lamp-post wearing a hard felt hat. Dr. Richmond’s dog-cart called for him punctually at nine. The Rev. Mr. Chatterway would wander out at any sort of hour, very much at his leisure, and ready to gossip with all and sundry, and to take life with a pinch of snuff. He might pause and cock an eye at Mr. Slade bent double and snipping at the grass verges with a pair of shears.

“Slow business, that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seen you in church, haven’t I?”

“Yes, sir, on Sunday evenings.”

Little Charlie Richmond would come scudding along the railings, to linger by the hotel doorway, his sailor hat like a yellow halo, his legs the colour of a good brown egg. His loitering here was an affair of sentiment. He might use Mr. Slade as a conversation piece while hoping that Rose might come down to play in Caroline Gardens.

Rose was James Slade’s most painful problem.

How was he to deal with the child when she came and hung over the railings and smiled at him? Just smile back? Yes, with Clara up above there, ready to pounce. Mr. Slade was driven to strange prevarications. He could pretend to be deaf, and he did so pretend, tapping an ear with a bent forefinger.

“I’m afraid I’m very deaf, my dear. I can’t hear what you say.”

But how hateful to have to lie to a child!

Moreover, he could hear very well in the dining-room when someone asked for more bread, or Mrs. Pomeroy gave him an order, and the deception was so poor and thin a garment, and more afflicting than any hair shirt. It was not reasonable of Clara to demand an abstinence that was both inhuman and impracticable. He would appeal to Clara. He would promise that if she allowed him to speak to the child he would never attempt to cultivate even an old man’s friendliness.

Also, had he not given himself away to Charlie Richmond? They had discussed ships and flowers and toy soldiers, and Dr. Richmond’s new dog-cart over the railings. How was he to know that the two children were to argue about his deafness, and were to stage an ambuscade that would prove his undoing?

Mr. Truslove was on his balcony, and down below Mr. Slade was snipping off dead geranium blossoms. Mrs. Pomeroy, too, happened to be at her window. Mr. Truslove saw two small figures come crouching along under the shelter of the clipped euonymus hedge which grew inside the railings. Suddenly Charlie Richmond’s sailor hat bobbed up above the hedgetop.

“Hullo, Mr. Slade.”

James Slade was taken unawares. He turned and smiled upon the boy.

“Hullo, Master Charles.”

“What are you doing?”

“Cutting off dead flowers, my dear.”

Holding to the spikes of the railings Charles bobbed up and down.

“You’re not deaf. I said you weren’t. I’ve won my penny, Rose.”

To Mr. Slade’s consternation Rose’s straw hat and solemn face appeared beside the boy’s.

“No you haven’t yet. You shouted. You are deaf, aren’t you, Mr. Slade?”

James Slade frowned, and put a hand to his ear.

“What did you say, my dear?”

“You are deaf, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course. I mean, sometimes I——”

“He isn’t deaf,” said Charles. “He’s just pretending.”

“What did you say, Master Charles?”

“You heard me when I asked you what you were doing.”

Mr. Slade shook his head as though puzzled.

“No, I saw you——”

“Liar,” said the boy’s eyes, but he was too nice a child to blurt out the accusation.

“You owe me a penny, Charlie.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

Mr. Truslove had been feeling in a trousers pocket. He found two pennies and tossed them down.

“Now, now, never contradict a lady, young man. There’s a penny for each of you.”

Mr. Slade so far forgot himself as to glance up at the balcony and give Mr. Truslove a grateful smile, and Mr. Truslove nodded at him. Queer old fish—this! Why the devil was he pretending to be deaf when he was no more deaf than Adam?

Mr. Truslove had travelled, and in so doing had shed much of the dreadful complacency of the English, especially of the English working-man. Ignorant, awkward brutes many of them, too stubborn and stupid to learn, but ready to grumble and grudge ability its special favour. Now, according to Mr. Truslove’s experience, old Slade was not plain English. He was too sensitive, too suggestive, too much the gentleman, and Mr. Truslove remained upon the balcony, meditating upon this peculiar incident. He was still there when Mrs. Pomeroy rang her bell, and sent Florrie, who answered it, for James Slade. Maybe, Mrs. Pomeroy forgot, in a state of irritation, her open window, and Mr. Truslove did hear certain strange things that were infinitely revealing.

“I could not help it, Clara——”

“Don’t call me that, you fool.”

“No, madam. But I do suggest that you are demanding something—that isn’t—human.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t go on pretending like this. I must speak to the child, if I only speak to her as your servant.”

There was silence for a second or two, and then Mrs. Pomeroy’s voice took up the argument.

“Very well, Slade, you may speak to her—if she speaks to you. As my servant. But, remember——”

“I shall not forget.”

“You had better not forget. You understand my reasons, I presume?”

“Yes, madam, I understand them.”

Then there was silence, and Mr. Truslove withdrew from the balcony. Funny business, this! But he was not going to blurt it abroad. Life had taught Mr. Truslove to keep his mouth shut. Moreover, a human problem could be more interesting if you reserved the studying and the deciphering of it for yourself.

Mr. Slade, while engaged upon some of his outdoor activities such as tending the gardens, cleaning windows or polishing knockers, letter-plates and door-handles, had observed the passing of a particular person, nor would it have been possible for him not to look at Dr. Richmond’s wife as devotedly and closely as he dared. That in him, which in his narrow world had begun to look through the bars at beauty and to give thanks for it, could gaze with gladness upon Charlie’s mother. Mr. Slade might say to himself, “There goes a lovely face and a lovely nature,” knowing while he said it that there are beauties of the spirit and of the flesh. Mrs. Richmond, the beloved wife of the beloved physician, walking into the town to do her shopping, was to James Slade something for which man could be thankful.

Polishing his silver until he could see a vague and distorted likeness of himself in a spoon he could confront that other finality. Because of the child how utterly and completely Clara had him in her power. There was a cunning in Clara that emphasized his own helplessness. He was one of those honourable fools, and she knew it. Even his failure and his disaster had been due to too sensitive an urge to stave off a crisis. How strange that a woman should be so vindictive, and determined upon her pound of flesh! Well, he would never be able to tell the child. And Clara, when she had kept silence about it, must have known how utterly she had him under her thumb. Poor lonely old fool! Well, when you were feeling so much alone it was good to do things and to do them to the limit of your power. Even God might be with you while you consoled your soul by cleaning the silver.

“Good morning,” said the voice.

Heavy rain in the night had dashed some of the flowers, and James Slade was rescuing them with bits of stick and loops of bass. He had bought these things himself. Startled, he came erect, and found himself looking into that serene and lovely face.

“Oh, good morning, madam.”

“I am afraid that rain was rather cruel.”

“Yes, madam, it was.”

“My poor petunias have their faces in the dirt. And lobelia doesn’t like rain.”

“No, madam. If one gives it a brush with one’s hand it cheers up.”

“You must be very fond of flowers.”

“Yes, I am, madam. You see, they can’t hurt one.”

She was looking at him with a peculiar and sympathetic steadfastness that James Slade found disconcerting. He ought not to have blurted out a pitiful thing like that.

“And they can be so gay.”

She smiled at him.

“And they don’t chatter, say silly things.”

Mr. Slade smiled back at her, his fingers twisting at a piece of bass.

“I could not fancy them saying silly things to you, madam.”

He stood gazing after her as she passed upon her way. If only Clara had been——! And then he remembered those eternal and watching windows, and how she seemed to love to catch him out, especially so before her guests. “Slade, that fork is dirty. Egg. Quite disgusting.” So, he bent again to his work, and was busy with his bass and his little sticks when Mrs. Pomeroy and the child appeared together in the doorway.

“Slade.”

“Yes, madam.”

“Find some real work. I won’t have you wasting your time like that.”

“Yes, madam.”

How mean of her to make him feel so poor and inferior under the eyes of the child! Her passion for humiliating him was super-human. He gathered together his bits of stick and bass and turned towards the gate, avoiding the eyes of the child. He heard Rose say, “Why are you cross with him, mother?” Mrs. Pomeroy’s bustle waggled contemptuously as she walked. “I am not cross with him. One should never be cross with one’s inferiors.”