Sorrell and Son (Alfred A. Knopf, printing 9)/Chapter 7
THE Sorrells marched out of Staunton with drums beating and colours flying, and the little old port manteau newly bestrapped trundling to the station in a handbarrow.
The Angel had cast them out, for Sorrell had walked into the lion's cage, and given notice.
"I have obtained another situation, madam."
She had stared at him fixedly.
"O, have you! Very well."
"I shall be able to carry on for you until"
"There is a gap, is there? No,—I don't do things that way. Out you go,—to-night."
She had called him a fool, and he had left her without asking for his money, a piece of fastidiousness which he did not regret. He had packed his belongings, and gone out by the back way, and so to Fletcher's Lane where Mrs. Barter had given him some supper, and he had slept in Kit's bed. In the morning Mr. Roland appeared at the door of No. 13 Fletcher's Lane.
"You left rather suddenly"
"Well,—I thought it only fair, sir, to tell Mrs. Palfrey. She turned me out."
"What are you going to?"
"I thought of going to Winstonbury, sir,—and of putting up there till you take over."
"Can you manage?"
"Veg."
Roland did not offer help, and Sorrell did not hint at the fact that he needed it. Yet both men were satisfied, for neither of them desired to cadge or to be cadged from. The relationship between them began on a plane that was above the baser level of employer and employed. The relationship had elements of sensitiveness, delicacy.
Roland produced a card.
"You'll want a bedroom. There is a very decent old soul whom I happen to know. Garland's the name. No. 6 Vine Court, off Baileygate. Wait; I'll write it down. And by the way, go to Bloxom's the tailor in Lombard Street and get measured, and tell him to fit you with the Pelican uniform. He knows about it. I'd better write him a note. Sure you can manage?"
"Quite sure, sir."
"Good. I am going on to-day to Bath. I expect to be in Winstonbury in a week or so."
Sorrell had exactly three pounds, two shillings and fourpence in his pocket, for only three days ago he had bought Christopher a new suit and himself a pair of boots and two new shirts. But his motto for the moment was "I'll manage." He was not going to spoil this new friendship by cadging, for he regarded the relationship as a friendship; he might be at the bottom of the ladder, but the first few rungs of it were made of human stuff. He cherished the human sympathy.
Roland went away satisfied. He was a generous man, and like most generous men he appreciated an independence that did not attempt to exploit his generosity. The world was so full of cadgers, of people who levied blackmail upon those more capable few whom the blackmailers described as "Them as 'ave 'ad all the luck." Roland's interest in Sorrell felt itself justified. Being of a cheerful nature he hated snivellers.
So Christopher and his father got aboard a train, and after two changes, made Winstonbury, that city of new strivings and adventure. They saw the square, grey Norman tower of the Abbey, the clump of beeches on Castle Hill, the soaring spire of St. Faith's Church. The old portmanteau was deposited in the cloak-room, and the Sorrells went in search of Vine Court.
Mrs. Garland opened a green door to them in the narrow face of a queer, beetle-browed red cottage. Sorrell showed her Roland's card. She had to fetch her spectacles to read it. They were round like her face, which was of a high-cheeked rotundity, and with a spry little nose cocked in the ae of it. Her head was as neat as the head of a Dutch doll.
"Step inside."
Yes, she could lodge and feed them, and Mr. Roland's recommendation was good enough. Sorrell sent Kit outside, while he spoke frankly and honestly to Mrs. Garland.
"The fact is I don't take up my new job for three weeks or so, and I have about two pounds in hand. It is only fair to tell you this, but I promise you you will be paid. I will hand over the two pounds to you and just keep the odd shillings."
Mrs. Garland looked at him round-eyed. She had not seen a great deal of the world, but it seemed to her that Sorrell was an unusual sort of hotel-porter. He spoke like a gentleman, a real gentleman; the distinction was important.
"I dare say I could manage your food on that. The room will be five shillings a week, and two shillings for attendance. So, at the end of three weeks"
"I should owe you twenty-one shillings."
"That's so."
"And by the way,—I shall have to board my boy out. He has no mother; he's not a noisy youngster, or selfish. Do you think you might be able to manage him? I shall be able to pay you well when I get settled at the Pelican."
"I might," said the old lady, "there is only me and my daughter in the house. She's a waitress at the Pelican, but she sleeps at home. Mr. Roland has engaged her. She's to be head waitress."
"I have heard about her," said Sorrell.
"Have you now?"
"Mr. Roland seems to think a good deal of her."
"Fanny's a good girl. Well, would you like to look at the room?"
"I should. I'm sure we shan't give you much trouble."
They called Kit in and went up a narrow pair of stairs into a little, low, pleasant room, the casement window of which opened on a garden. The floor undulated, and a beam divided the ceiling into two equal parts. The furniture was genuine cottage furniture, rarely seen outside a curio shop; it was all old, save the bed, which was a plain, black iron concern. The window had white curtains, and the white quilt on the bed was the colour of swansdown.
The little room had an atmosphere of its own, a quaint and simple spirituality that was so different from the casual "take it or leave it" air of the rooms of the Angel Hotel that Sorrell felt touched, though why a cottage bedroom should have touched him he was not able to say. Christopher had gone at once to the window and was looking down into the garden.
"There's an apple tree, pater."
"So there is."
Mrs. Garland gave a tweak to one of the white curtains. The apple tree was a Blenheim, and full of pale gold fruit, each with a blush of redness on the side towards the sun.
"My man planted that tree. It's a Blenheim Orange. Well,—young gentleman, you didn't take long to find it."
Christopher turned and looked at her. Mrs. Garland's tone had accused him of a desire to get up that tree, whereas Kit had been struck by the beauty of it, and had been guiltless of elemental greed.
"They are quite safe with me, Mrs. Garland."
"Oh,—are they,—my dear! Well,—I don't mind one or two, so long as you don't break the branches."
"But I mean what I say, Mrs. Garland."
"Bless us,—I believe you do."
Sorrell agreed to rent the room. He said that he was pleased with it, and taking out his wallet he handed Mrs. Garland his two pound notes. She made as though to give them back to him, but Sorrell asked her to keep them.
"Well,—just as you please. You can take your meals in my kitchen, if that will suit you. It will save me trouble."
"Thank you very much," said Sorrell.
Thereupon he and Christopher went back to the station to fetch the portmanteau, which Sorrell prepared to hoist upon his shoulder. Their possessions did not weigh much, and as Sorrell put it to his son—"I'm getting used to luggage." Christopher, however, was himself as a partner in the adventure, and insisted on helping his father with the portmaneau, and they returned to Vine Court carrying it between them.
Mrs. Garland gave them eggs and bacon for tea; in fact the three of them sat down together, amalgamating very happily in the kitchen, the window of which showed the apple tree lit up by the afternoon sunlight. After tea came the event towards which all the other events of the day had been tending, an exploration of their new world, of this Darien with the Pacific of the unknown beyond it, and floating upon the edge of the unknown Mr. Roland's "Treasure Island"—the Pelican Inn.
It was Christopher who thought of it as "Treasure Island," and the symbolized nature of the conception was very evident to his father. In the train from Staunton they had had a carriage to themselves, and Sorrell, as though inspired by the hum of the wheels, had talked much of the future. He had been very frank with the boy. He had told him that he regarded the future as Christopher's, and that the Pelican was a place in which he meant to dig for treasure, and to gather money for Kit's education.
"You must have your weapon, Kit. It is no use being able to do nothing but sit on a stool and scribble figures. The thing is to have some sort of knowledge, and a craft which other people can't get on without. Then you are a master. The world has to come and ask you to do something for it. You must be a necessity, not a mere fellow who opens and shuts doors."
Christopher understood much of this but vaguely, but he did understand the nature of his father's sacrifice.
"I am carrying other people's luggage up and down stairs, Kit, in order that your job may be a better one. That's my ambition,—my goal."
And Kit, in the quiet sturdiness of his young and growing consciousness, had begun to realize what manner of man his father was.
The Pelican first showed itself to the Sorrells some three hundred yards beyond the red brick Unitarian church at the end of Lombard Street as something that glittered beside a great mound of trees. The something that glittered proved to be an immense, old-fashioned sign suspended across the road on an overhead beam that was supported by two huge oak posts. Here was the Pelican—that Bird of piety—glittering for all the world that passed along the road to see, men who went west, and men who went east. Yes, assuredly, Mr. Roland was no fool. The very road itself here had a spaciousness, and the inn—all red and white—with a group of magnificent trees behind it,—looked south over meadowland to the hills beyond. Winstonbury had not splurged in that direction; there were no prawn-coloured villas or post-war bungalows to spoil the English landscape. Moreover, Tom Roland had bought the land on the other side of the road.
Sorrell and his son stood under an immense chestnut tree and absorbed the scene. The leaves of the chestnut were crisped with gold. A clipped holly hedge met the red angle of the building, giving place later to white posts and chains. The building itself was in the shape of an L, and the space between the links of the letter formed a species of court or space, partly flagged and partly gravelled. A white cornice topped the rise of the red walls, and there were dormers in the roof above it, also a copper cupola with a bell. A part of the building draped itself with wistaria and clematis. The main entry had a hooded porch with tall, white pillars. A clipped yew, surrounded by a bright border of flowers and a small, well-mown lawn, broke the open space between the road and the building.
Sorrell saw the beauty of it, for the old inn had a presence, tranquillity. It was like a stately and gracious old lady who could smile on the new age and understand it, and impose upon the new age's restlessness a measure of her own tranquillity. Several cars stood on the broad space behind the posts and chains. Voices came from beyond the holly hedge, but they were not unpleasant voices. Green and white curtains fluttered at the windows, and the crisping leaves of the chestnut dappled the road.
"Mr. Roland's no fool," said Sorrell.
Strolling on, he saw the further possibilities of the place, and he pointed them out to Christopher. The Pelican had immense old stables, solidly built, and easily to be absorbed into the inn. They were being used as a garage, but Sorrell imagined that Mr. Roland would lay a jealous hand on all that Georgian brickwork. There was plenty of room for the erection of an up-to-date garage beyond the stables where the noise of the cars would be less troublesome. Sorrell and Christopher strolled into the yard, and beyond it they had a glimpse of a kitchen garden and an orchard, and of a couple of old walnut trees growing in the centre of a little paddock.
Christopher—the boy—had no doubts as to the future of the Pelican. The place had romance. You could imagine yourself leaning out of one of those little dormer windows, and watching people coming and going. The broad road suggested adventure. There were fields and woods, and the hills in the distance. And wild life, rabbits, birds,—perhaps a river where you could fish!
He glowed.
"It's a lovely place, pater."
"I think it is. The old Pelican will cast a persuasive eye on people. And Roland? Some people seem to change one's luck."
Returning they had a view of Winstonbury against the sunset, the beeches and the castle mound looking like a huge plumed sable helmet. The spire of the church had a trailing crimson oriflamme attached to it, and all about the town the country lay a bluish green.
"I like this place," said Kit, "and I like Mrs. Garland and our bedroom. Weren't the bacon and eggs good, pater?"
"Very, my son," but Sorrell was thinking of other things.
During the next seven days Sorrell and Christopher began to know Winstonbury very thoroughly. They had a feeling that it belonged to them, that it was theirs, with the wise old Pelican keeping watch upon it. They explored every corner of the town. It was a place of pleasant sounding old names, richly English, and romantic. It smelt of history, and of the old lite before commercialism invented galvanized iron and gas-works. The names of the streets fascinated Christopher: Green End; Lombard Street; Baileygate; Golden Hill; the Tything; Market Row; Vine Court; Barbican; Angel Alley.
On the second day Sorrell walked into Mr. Bloxom's shop in Lombard Street, and was measured for his Pelican uniform, a neat dark blue jacket with light blue lapels and brass buttons, and dark blue trousers. Mr. Bloxom was polite to Sorrell. A porter at a prosperous hotel was a person to be considered.
"Your Mr. Roland is going to make the Pelican hum, I hear?"
Sorrell did not know the exact noise that a pelican made, but he did not think that it was a humming bird.
"Mr. Roland's a man of ideas."
"Ha!" said Mr. Bloxom, "we are rather conservative down this way. How will that feel under the arms? Don't want it too tight, do you, for handling luggage and things."
"I think this coat of mine is about right."
He found Mr. Bloxom examining the tailor's mark inside the collar of his blue serge coat. That suit had been a post-war extravagance.
"Ponds. H'm, good people. I suppose"
Mr. Bloxom did not complete the sentence—but Sorrell read what was in his mind. He supposed that Sorrell had been a valet or porter at some flats, and that the suit had been passed on to him by some member of the—aristocracy, moneyed or otherwise.
The castle mound became a favourite haunt of the Sorrells. There were seats under the beech trees, but Kit and his father preferred the turf. Winstonbury lay below them in crowded picturesqueness, and Kit played a game of his own with the town, treating it as a sort of jig-saw puzzle. He began to know all the more prominent buildings, and he could tell exactly where Vine Gee lay beyond the little grey bell-turret of the Grammar School.
Castle Hill was more than a view point. It formed a height from which the two Sorrells looked out and down upon the immediate future, Kit's future. There was the problem of his schooling. Was it to be the old Grammar School of Henry the Eight's founding, planted in an old house of the Carmelites, or the town school, visible from Castle Hill, and lying near the gas-works, an ugly barrack of a place built of yellow brick, surrounded by an asphalted playground and iron railings?
"No humbug, Kit," said his father; "there is going to be no humbug between us. Firstly, it's a question of money. I dare say I shall be able to afford the fees later on. At the Grammar School you would find yourself with the sons of local tradesmen, clerks and farmers. You would learn a little Latin, some mathematics, less history, and perhaps a smattering of science. Not much real use in life. You would get games. Now, at the town school,—a lot of cheap rubbish. It's a bit of a problem."
Christopher betrayed a preference for the Grammar School. It was a question of æsthetics, of boyish fastidiousness, for at the Grammar School you had a beautiful old building, the boys looked clean and wore a neat apple-green school cap. Kit did not want to go to school near the rors, and play hobbledehoy games in an asphalted ard.
"I'd get cricket, pater, and footer."
"You would. But there is one thing that we must face. You would be the son of a porter at the Pelican. They might refuse to take you. That's my fault, not yours."
Kit was silent.
"And boys can be terrible snobs. I shouldn't like to think"
"It seems rather silly, pater, that a chap should be obliged to go to school."
"Compulsory stuffing."
"Most chaps don't want to be stuffed. A fellow is ready enough for his grub,—but when it comes to lessons. Seems to me there is something wrong, pater."
"How?"
"Well,—if the stuff they taught you at school was like your dinner. So that you wanted to swallow it—Hungry for it. There are all sorts of things to interest a fellow,—but you don't get them at school. It's such tosh, pater."
"I suppose it is. I was six years at a public school, and I don't think I learnt anything that was of much use to me afterwards. They call it 'forming your mind'—character building."
"But couldn't one's mind grow, pater, of itself? Scrambling about among interesting things?"
"What interests you, Kit?"
"O,—birds, and the country, and cricket, and all that."
"Not books? Be honest."
"Not school books, pater."
Sorrell felt challenged. He knew that he had loathed school books just as Kit loathed them, but then the conventions of civilization demanded that a boy should be stuffed with facts that bored him.
"Well, if you are not keen, what is the use?—still, you have got to learn to hold your own with other chaps. And some day, my son, you will have to make up your mind what you want to be. And most things that are worth doing mean education—of a kind."
"I shall work, pater."
"But why?"
"Because—you will be paying."
Sorrell clasped him across the shoulders.
"A sense of duty? Is that it?"
"No,—something more, pater. Because I know you are keen for me to learn. O, you know why."
"I think I do, my son."
They had many more talks on the same subject, and Sorrell confessed that his own particular ambition was to send Kit to a good preparatory school, and after that to a public one. At least—that was his plan for the moment. He might change it. All academic education had its disadvantages. He explained them to Kit.
Also, there would have to be an element of concealment. It could not be known that Sorrell was the son of an hotel porter.
"You would have to apologize for your father, Kit. Or—if it were found out they might ask me to remove you. Well, we'll see. I'll ask Mr. Roland about it."
But the decision was taken by Christopher himself. He announced it after three days of solemn heart searchings.
"I'll go to the town school, pater."
"Why?"
"Must I tell you?"
"Not if you don't want to."
"I'm not going to a place—where."
He flushed and grew suddenly inarticulate, and Sorrell understood. It was not that Kit was ashamed of his father,—but he was not going to apologize for him to other boys, or to join in a concealment. That would be humbug.
"I shouldn't have to stay there—very long. I'm nearly twelve, pater. And then—after that—I should be free to learn what I wanted to learn."
"I'm not sure that you haven't got it," said his father. Mr. Roland turned up one day without any warning. The Sorrells, returning frome one of their councils of state upon Castle Hill, found the red car standing outside the entrance to Vine Court. Roland himself was sitting in Mrs. Garland's parlour, and Mrs. Garland was telling him about the Sorrells and how she had agreed to board the boy.
"Oh, he has arranged that, has he?"
"Yes, sir."
Roland felt relieved. He had made up his mind to show no favouritism, and he had half expected Sorrell to ask him to allow Christopher to live with him at the Pelican. Sorrell's decision had saved him the effort of a refusal, for Roland knew that his own particular weakness was a too sensitive good-nature.
"Well, my lad, getting ready to go to school?"
He held Kit by the arm.
"I am going to the council school, sir."
"You are? And I hear you have been up Mrs. Garland's apple tree."
"Only once, sir. And she knew about it."
Kit's three elders laughed, and he wondered why.
Mr. Roland was staying at the Pelican, and he took Sorrell back with him to show him over the hotel, and in the hotel garden as they were passing through an archway in one of the yew hedges Roland paused with a question.
"That boy of yours? What's your idea?"
"In what way, sir?"
"About the school?"
"The town school. He decided it himself. I had thought of trying the Grammar School,—but I think the boy realized."
"Did he?"
"We agreed on our motto: no humbug. He won't have to apologize for me—at the town school."
"I don't look at it in that way, but the boy's right. I rather envy you, Sorrell."
"He is the only thing I have got, sir."
They walked on, and Roland stopped to look at an old mulberry tree the trunk of which had had to be trussed up with a chain.
"Don't push him too much."
"I know what you mean."
"Education; damned rot—most of it. The healthy young idlers often do best in the end. They don't get all their individuality compressed into a mould. If I had a boy"
He smiled at Sorrell.
"We bachelors and spinsters! Well, we do see something of the game. I'd let my boy play hard; I'd have him taught to box; I wouldn't have him crammed. Natural growth. Later I should give him the best tutor who was to be had."
"And what about his career?"
"Leave it to his natural appetite. In a clean, straight boy who has been treated healthily the appetite is bound to develop. Surely? And then let him go ahead. Tell him to go ahead like blazes."
So, the autumn came and Christopher went to school, and Sorrell, in his blue coat with the brass buttons, began to carry luggage up and down the stairs of the Pelican. He carried it more easily than he had carried it up the stairs of the Angel Inn at Staunton, for his heart was lighter. The new world was a beneficent world because of the man who ruled it. And Sorrell, piling logs and coal upon the fire in the hall, felt the glow and the cheerfulness of it. In the garden the old trees were magnificently coloured, and the vivid grass was flaked with gold.
One of Sorreli's most pleasant memories was of walking in the garden just as the sun was setting at the end of a still October day. Robins were singing, and from the window of a sitting-room came the sound of music. Roland was playing Chopin's First Prelude. The slanting sun poured through the trees. The robins sang.