Читать книгу Slade - Warwick Deeping - Страница 22

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Life may be more simple or more subtle than it seems, its complexity taking its texture from the emotional fabric of the play; but when the actors are simple souls and happily or unhappily unconscious of the sinister motives the psychologists might ascribe to them, the simplest happenings may possess purpose and significance.

Mrs. Pomeroy had presented separate tables to the elect.

The first floor was promoted to them.

The second floor might be allowed them, provided that the occupants were pleasing to the lady.

The third floor still fed at a communal table placed in the most busy and draughty part of the room, and parallel to the sideboard.

Mr. Truslove had his table in a corner by the third window, away from all draughts, and with an oblique view of the gardens and the sea. Miss Popham mealed in the opposite corner as far from Mr. Truslove as was possible. Mr. Slade had staged this setting with politeness and tact.

“I have reserved this nice table in the corner, Miss, for you.”

Miss Popham, simple soul, was flattered.

“Oh, thank you, Slade. How very nice.”

Mr. Truslove had winked at James, and expressed his appreciation of such diplomacy.

“Thanks, Jimmy. Peace, perfect peace. A woman’s tongue can give you indigestion.”

Mr. Truslove was not the man he had been, and a medicine bottle decorated his table, though there were occasions when he had to be reminded of the presence of that bottle.

“Have you taken your medicine, sir?”

“Damn it, James, what a man you are! Must I?”

“Doctor’s orders, sir.”

Moreover, Mr. Truslove’s appetite had suffered. He had to be coaxed and considered.

“What is there this morning, James?”

“I would recommend for you, sir, a lightly boiled egg.”

“Damn your eggs! Aren’t there sausages?”

“Yes, sir, but——”

“All right, egg, James. You’re a regular tyrant.”

“Oh, no, sir. I want you to have what’s best for you.”

Strange that these separate tables should have emphasized James Slade as a person, but it was so. Each table was individual, and in treating it as such Mr. Slade became more and more the individual, not only to the occupant, but to himself. This was personal service, especially so to a person like Mr. Truslove, who, once a month, would slip a sovereign into Mr. Slade’s palm.

“Very good of you, sir. It isn’t really necessary.”

“Fudge, James. I like it.”

“If I may say so, sir, it is a pleasure to serve you.”

“Thank you, James. And sometimes it is a pleasure to be served.”

To James Slade himself the change may have been scarcely perceptible. His peculiar sense of humility continued. He was one of the world’s failures, and with gentle sincerity he could chant in church, “O Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners.” Doubtless had anybody spoken of him in his hearing as “That good old man”, he would not have taken the judgment as personal. James Slade was finding his little world a kind and helpful place, just because he was what he was, and discovered his own reflection in it without recognizing the portrait. To Mr. Truslove he was Jimmy, to the kitchen Dad, or, on more formal occasions Mr. Slade. To Mrs. Pomeroy the other members of the staff referred to him always as Mr. Slade. This formalism may have amazed her without her recognizing its esoteric significance. Clara was James Slade’s cross, and he accepted her as such. He saw her as a much wronged woman, hard and inexorable, but justified in placing this penance upon him. There may be all the difference in the world between respect and respectability. James Slade was wearing for himself a garment of respect, Mrs. Pomeroy investing herself in the robes of respectability.

There remained the child, that human problem, that surprising heritage from the past.

Sometimes James Slade would sit upon his bed and wonder. What would Rose’s future be? Had Clara any plans for the blossom time of the rose? Would Rose grow up to be a little genteel snob, a thing of corsetted unreality, for, in meditating upon Rose James Slade was more than Simple Simon. Some of the cunning of the serpent was his. Here was this incipient Eve who promised to possess the fatal gift of beauty, growing up in the ice-house of her mother’s jealous and possessive power. Rose was going to school now, attending daily at Miss Hotham’s establishment for young gentlewomen. Her skirts were lengthening, her pose was more sedate; she practised upon the piano. She had ceased from scampering downstairs into the kitchen. Eliza might have said, “Our young lady’s growing airs and graces.” Mr. Slade cleaned Miss Rose’s boots, high boots with buttons, and did it lovingly. Sometimes he counted the buttons like a nun telling her rosary.

“May you have a happy year for every one, my sweet.”

The kitchen asked his advice and treated him as a Father Confessor, but not in the kitchen.

Eliza had money in the Post Office Savings Bank. Should she leave it there, or place it elsewhere? Mr. Slade, with painful memories upon him, advised her to let good money sleep where it was.

Florence was bothered about Joe. He had been a little remiss in his wooing, and had missed two of her evenings off.

“What d’you think I ought to do about it, Dad? Eliza—she says—I shouldn’t cheapen myself, and that I might even walk out with another chap. Tom, the baker’s man, has been at me.”

“Has Joe given any reasons?”

“No, ’e’s just funny.”

“There may be other reasons for Joe’s funniness, my dear.”

“But why should he go and——?”

“Next time Joe calls for you go out and be sweet to him—just as usual.”

“Coo, but shouldn’t I look cheap?”

“Not if Joe is worth while.”

Joe was worth while. Florrie, having gone out with him, came back with a radiant face, and kissed Mr. Slade.

“You were right, Dad. Poor Joe, ’e was afraid of losing ’is job and was shy of tellin’ me. You see, we were to be married soon.”

“And what did you say to Joe, my dear?”

“Oh, that I’d stick by ’im, and ’e wasn’t to keep ’is troubles to ’isself. I’d share ’em.”

“Good girl. Joe’s a lucky man.”

“And you’re an old dear, Dad.”

May had a mother sick in the old town, and was wanting to go and do bits of things for her, but Mrs. P. was not helpful.

“I feel like walkin’ out of the ’ouse I do. I says to ’er I want to be away more than an hour, and she says to me, she says, ‘I don’t pay girls to go trapesing about. Are you sure your mother’s ill?’ ‘Call me a liar, ma’am’ says I. ‘You can go and see for yourself,’ I says, but I didn’t get no change out of ’er.”

“Well, I’d go, May; and say nothing about it.”

“Oo-er, but what if she——?”

“You’re a good girl at your work, May, and I don’t suppose she wants to lose you. I dare say we can give Eliza a little help if she wants it. I’d go and see your mother if I were you.”

May went, and nothing disastrous happened, for Mr. Slade spoke to Mr. Truslove about it, and Mr. Truslove brought up the subject in public conversation. What a lucky thing it was that the girl was so near her mother, and how considerate it was of Mrs. Pomeroy to let her off for an hour or two. He complimented Mrs. P. upon her kindness, and though Mrs. Pomeroy may have been a little puzzled, she did not descend upon the daughter. There are various ways of putting awkward and contumacious people in the wrong.