Sorrell and Son (Alfred A. Knopf, printing 9)/Chapter 16

by George Warwick Deeping

XVI

1

EACH morning a neat little bulletin in Thomas Roland's writing was pinned on a board outside the hotel, and the eighth of these bulletins declared Mrs. Duncan Scott to be out of danger.

The surly Bowden sent her up armfuls of flowers. She had asked to see Thomas Roland, and with Duncan sitting at the head of her bed she gave the owner of the Pelican Inn that world-wide smile of hers.

"What a horrible nuisance I have made of myself. You have been so good——"

"Not a bit of it."

"Duncan has been telling me—. You must let us make a fair return—. Mustn't he, dear?"

Roland held one of her hands.

"My dear little lady—I am getting my return. Don't you realize that you have made the Pelican the most talked of hotel in the British Isles. See what it is to be Ethel Frobisher."

At the end of three weeks they were able to carry her out into the garden, where she lay in a long chair padded with cushions under the shade of one of the old trees. And it was she who insisted upon Roland opening the doors of the Pelican to the public.

"I shan't be able to prevent people coming into the garden to stare at you," he said.

She laughed. Life seemed so good that she was ready to be tolerant.

"I don't think I shall mind. After all——"

"It is not unpleasant to be——?"

"Oh,—within reason. One's human, you know. I really did create a sensation?"

"An enormous sensation. At one time I thought that we should have to barricade the place and put up a machinegun.

He stood looking down at her, whimsical and fatherly.

"Curiosity. That's a good sign."

"How?"

"I do believe that you are just a little bit curious as to whether people will come and stare."

"Perhaps I am."

"Yes,—one must have an audience. If we can't pose before other people, we have to pose before ourselves."

"That's rather horrid of you."

"Not in the least. I'm one of those persons who poses to himself. I find it most important that I should look well in my own mirror. While—you——"

"But do I pose? I've always tried——"

"My dear little lady, I did not say you posed. You are one of those fortunate persons who cannot help doing the natural thing. That's the secret."

"Of what?"

"Of your fame. You get half the world tumbling over itself to see a little woman whose naturalness is not a pose. Most of us are swathed up like mummies. But you must have your audience. Why not?"

So the embargo was removed, and on the second day the Pelican's nest was full, and some thirty people had to be turned away. It would appear that the little lady had slipped a magic nest-egg into the circle of Thomas Roland's enterprise and that the fortune that was to be hatched from it was to be neither transient nor illusive.

And yet, as Roland said to Sorrell, afterwards—"It wasn't our thoroughness or our hard work, Stephen, that saved us, but luck, and the noise made by a section of a sensation-mongering press."

Sorrell thought it over, and was moved to disagree with him.

"No,—I think it was the human touch. It is always the human touch that matters."

"Yes,—my dear chap,—but that was our luck. That it should have happened here to Ethel. Thousands of people might have been smashed up—and have died here—and the great public would not have cared a damn."

"But why should they?"

"That's one of my points. We don't care. Like the war. Life's got too crowded and confused. You have to make such a great noise in order to be heard,—and I loathe noise. Short of blowing Vesuvius into the middle of Naples! Well,—Ethel blew up the Sensational Press for us, made it ex lode."

"She has done something more than that," said Sorrell, "she has blown up my boy."

"Oh? How? He wants to be a film star?"

"No, he wants to be a doctor."

"And achieve dramatic cures?"

"I think there is more in it than that."

Christopher had taken unto himself an autograph book, which meant that he had taken to hero worship, yet at the back of his mind Kit's most convincing hero was his father. Convincing because his heroism was not too obvious; it had that quality of steadfastness; it was like the seaman's heroism, the practical and un-self-conscious heroism of the man doing his job in foul weather and in fair. Kit had his admirable enthusiasms. That Dicker the Hampshire fast bowler, and Blackett the "heavy-weight" who travelled with a circus, had put their fists to Kit's book, was the ripe joy of the moment. Sorrell had never had his photo in the papers. He did not appear in a roped space wearing a purple and orange dressing-gown, and yet, as Christopher matured his father became to him—not quite a great man—but something more human, a very lovable one. His own life was permeated by his father's patient and indomitable purpose.

But for the moment Kit desired a particular autograph, and when Sorrell was told, he offered his services.

"I dare say I could get it for you."

"But, if you don't mind, pater, I would rather try and get it myself."

"You'll have to be introduced, my son."

"Shall I?"

"I'll ask Mrs. Scott."

Sorrell was one of those men who became a "person," and in after years habitués who pulled up at the Pelican would greet him as "Stephen." It was a familiarity that assured liking and respect. Stephen was a character, a person of importance, a man who never forgot anything and who did not react to the size of a tip. The Little Lady was one of the first to discover and to recognize the "Stephen" in Sorrell. He carried out her chair cushions; Roland had told her his history; to her Stephen was very much a person.

"I wonder if you would grant me a favour, madam?"

She liked the dignity with which he managed to invest his job.

"What is it, Stephen?"

"My boy wants your autograph."

"Well,—if you will bring his book."

"The fact is—he wants to collect it in person."

"Tell him to come. Tea time. I invite him to tea with us."

"It is very good of you, madam."

So, Christopher came to tea with Ethel and Duncan, and sat on a green garden chair under one of the chestnuts, and was fed on raspberry jam and iced cakes, and gazed upon the Little Lady with the eyes of a boy's adoration. He was shy without being awkward. It was plain that he thought her to be the most wonderful creature in all the world, just as wonderful as she was in the "Pictures." He fell in love with her; she was of more significance than the cakes.

The Little Lady soon had him talking in his wise and rather deliberate way, for Christopher never chattered. He was a silent and watchful child.

"I hear you are going to be a doctor."

"Yes,—I've decided——"

"And what made you want——?"

Christopher coloured and looked at her with the full candour of his serious eyes.

"You."

"Me? But—how——?"

"Well,—you see, everybody wanted you to get well, and Sir Magnus Ord was the only man who could get you well. He can do things. It must be great to be able to do things like that—when everybody else is feeling—just—helpless."

"So you want to be a second Sir Magnus Ord?"

"Well,—I don't suppose I shall be such a great surgeon,—but I should like to mend people."

"People like me?" she asked, with a gleam of the eyes.

"Sometimes,"—and he added quietly, "that would make up for the others."

"That's a rather remarkable kid," she said to Roland later.

"The son of a rather remarkable father. An hotel porter! But what a porter!" he answered.

2

When the Scotts left the Pelican Inn at the end of June it was like the departure of the fairy Prince and Princess. Every member of the staff received a five-pound note,—and the whole staff collected outside the hotel to say good-bye to the Little Lady and her man. They shook hands with everybody. Bowden arrived with a great bunch of roses, and wearing a clean collar. Kit had persuaded Mr. Porteous to allow him to take leave of his equations and the Gallic campaigns of Cxsar. He stood, devotedly gazing.

The new car carried them off, and the cook—who was a sentimentalist—laid her emotion upon Mr. Bowden's bachelorhood.

"She's as good as she's pretty."

And Kit,—with his youth throbbing to the sad but sacred moment, thought the cook a very wise woman.

Afterwards, the Pelican settled down to solid business, and Christopher went back to Mr. Porteous with an even stronger inclination towards the sign of the Rod and the Serpent. The hotel had been full for the last three weeks, and it continued in that happy state all through the summer and autumn, and even in November its average was 45. Sorrell had opened an account with the branch of the Midland Bank at Winstonbury. Mr. Roland was composing an operetta and building stables with a dozen loose boxes and quarters for grooms. For he had adopted Sorrell's suggestion, obtained an interview with the local M.F.H. and come to an understanding with him. The Master had business instincts, and the Hunt needed funds. An up-to-date hotel in the district ready to cater for those people from among who could be persuaded to hunt with the Winstonbury pack would be an advantage to both parties. Roland agreed to advertise the Pelican as a hunting-hotel, and the Master promised to give it his official recommendation.

"But don't sink too much capital, Mr. Roland. In these Bolshie days—we wasters who have the courage to try and break our necks——"

"But your coats are the right colour, sir. And I shan't make it a bricklayers' job. Timber and asbestos sheeting. If possible—I should like you to give the Pelican two meets a season."

"I think we can manage that."

So Mr. Roland's brown and white stables went up with quite moderate dispatch, and in November the hounds met at the Pelican. Kit dragged Mr. Porteous away from the austere schoolroom where a paraffin oil stove made a stuffy heat and threw a pattern on the ceiling. They watched the waving tails of the hounds and the red coats of the whips move off to draw Bar Holt wood. Kit went with the foot-followers, and after scrambling over gates and plodding across muddy fields was lucky enough to see a fox with the pack in full cry. He returned some time in the dusk to find Mr. Porteous and to tell him about it, for Mr. Porteous' fat little legs had not carried him very far.

In December the Pelican was singled out again by Fortune, for Royalty came west for a gallop with the Winstonbury pack, and Royalty stabled two horses in the Pelican stables and slept in a Pelican bed. In fact it was the very bed which the Little Lady had made historic. And again, there were pictures of the Pelican in the daily papers, showing a coyly smiling young Prince in the act of raising his top-hat to the spectators.

Half of Stephen Sorrel's head and body appeared on one of these pictures, but his good fortune occupied the middle of the plate.

The Pelican's December average was 43. The winter proved an open one. A dozen or more hunting men and women came down regularly. Parents who arrived to visit their sons at Hadfield School began to develop the Pelican habit. Mr. Roland was planning a Christmas season, and Sorrell's tips were pouring regularly into the Winstonbury branch of the Midland Bank. The cashier was becoming conversational across the counter.

In January Sorrell had an interview with the manager. He was admitted into the manager's private room. The manager expressed himself as only toc ready to arrange the purchase of War Loan for him.

"A hundred pounds of 4½, 1925–45, Mr. Sorrell. The order shall go up at once to our brokers."

In February Albert Hulks married his waitress, and Mr. Roland's operetta was performed by the Winstonbury Musical and Dramatic Society. Mr. Porteous took the part of "Fra Domenico"; he wore a black beard and had a voice like Big Ben. Christopher and his father sat in the fiveshilling seats, and Christopher's only disappointment was the Little Lady who was not playing the part of "Francesca." The lady who took the part of Francesca smiled all the time, but her smile was not the smile of Ethel Frobisher.

3

Christopher had been with Mr. Porteous for a year and a half when Sorrell decided to send him for two years to one of the best of the private schools. Christopher was fourteen. In eighteen months Mr. Porteous had given him so solid a grounding that he could have held his own with any boy of sixteen.

Sorrell had taken a long time to make up his mind, and Kit's mind had been included in the process. It was not merely a question of the wisdom of the step, but of how the boy felt about it. Feelings matter. There were the advantages and the disadvantages to be considered, and Mr. Porteous was co-opted to serve on the Sorrell Committee.

Nor was it a mere question of education, but a problem of class prejudices and of social "atmosphere."

As Sorrell put it to Porteous—"Envy—not love—is becoming more and more the driving force. That's how I view it. One has to weigh up hatreds and prejudices."

Porteous was not wholly in favour of the school.

"What's it going to give him?"

"Experience—of a sort. Confidence. He will mix with boys of the class that is going to be his,—and yet I don't want him to belong to any particular class."

"Can you help it?"

"I know what you mean. Our voices, our faces, our very way of wearing our clothes put us in a certain category. Because I have set out to give my boy advantages—I shall expose him to hatred and envy."

"My dear chap!"

"Isn't it true? The world has entered on a period of envy and bitterness. Industrialism and education—of a sort—have bred it."

"So you think of sending him to school——"

"Where he will not be exposed to class hatred. My idea is to keep him there two years. Then he can come back to you for another year or so, before he tackles the real adventure."

"Doctoring?"

"That seems to hold."

"A University first?"

"I don't know—yet."

"That will expose him to the sneers of the new young working-class intellectuals—'A college man.'"

"I think that he will be exposed to that—in any event. As I see it—the social war is going to grow more and more bitter. You will be damned by the crowd class—even for having a certain sort of voice and face."

"Rather a gloomy view——!"

"No,—not gloomy,—but a little grim. Life is bound to sort people out, and the envious fools will always end up as the under-dogs. I don't mean my boy to be an under-dog."

Yet, the incident that finally decided both father and son in the choice of the path that Christopher was to follow, was a trivial one, and yet to Sorrell convincingly significant.

The incident occurred at a boys' football match in which Mr. Porteous's boys' club was playing the Winstonbury council school. Kit was playing for the boys' club, and Sorrell was watching the game. He had a knot of noisy youngsters near him who began to jeer at one particular player.

They called him "Collars and Cuffs." They mocked him every time he came near them or when he had the ball.

"Now then—Nosy."

"Haw—Mr. Fellah."

What was more Sorrell saw that the boys of the council school team had Christopher marked. They made a dead set at him; he was something alien; he did not belong to their class pack. He was different.

Sorrell saw his son "fouled," on more than one occasion, and the boys near him gloated and laughed, but when Kit showed legitimate spirit in a charge or a tackle they snarled at him.

"Foul——!"

"Dirty!"

"Play the game—'Collars.'"

"His father's only a por-tah."

Sorrell walked back with his son after the game, and a few pregnant confidences passed between them.

"Do you like playing with those boys, Kit?"

"No—I don't, pater."

"All right. We'll alter that."

For Sorrell had seen that these sons of working men hated the son of the ex-officer. They hated his face, his voice, his pride, his very good temper. They hated him for his differences, his innocent superiorities.

Hatred, a cheaply educated hatred was loose in the world.

The obvious thing was to educate the boy above it,—and if possible to make him triumphant over it. Sorrell and Kit arrived at their decision.

4

Mr. Launcelot Lowndes, M.A., the "head" of St. Bene dict's at Westbourne received a letter from a Captain Sorrell who appeared to be staying at the Pelican Hotel—Winstonbury. The letter had been written on the hotel notepaper, and by the hand of an educated man.

Mr. Lowndes promptly replied to it. He sent Captain Sorrell a booklet on St. Benedict's, with photos of the school playing-field, the gymnasium, the chapel, the type of dormitory that was used, and the infirmary. He gave Captain Sorrell all the necessary information as to fees, and they were heavy. The extras connected with the school games amounted to a considerable figure. St. Benedict's engaged the services of a games master who was an old Oxford "blue."

Mr. Lowndes informed Captain Sorrell that there would be a few vacancies at the beginning of the summer term.

Sorrell and his son talked it over.

"There is no reason why anyone should know, Kit, that I am an hotel porter."

Christopher was troubled. He was neither ashamed of his father, nor did he wish to conceal his father or to apologize for him. If St. Benedict's demanded the concealment of the elder Sorrell's means of earning a livelihood,—well,—he would rather not go there.

Sorrell argued it out with him.

"A school like this has certain advantages; I want you to enjoy them. My job here must not stand in the way. You can tell the other boys that your father is a retired officer who lives at hotels. There is no reason why we should put all our cards on the table."

"But, supposing, pater——?"

"They found out? Why should they? You see, if you go up to Cambridge later,—it won't hurt you to have been at this school. When you leave I want you to coach with Mr. Porteous for a scholarship."

There was a part of Christopher that was keen to go to St. Benedict's. He would be able to play games there without being singled out for mean little persecutions; he would be able to make friends; he would not have to perform on the footer field with a lot of young louts who were more keen to kick him than they were to kick the ball. The atmosphere would be different, the clothes, the cleanliness, the traditions. Certain things would be bad form. Sorrell had explained all this. He said that it was quite good that certain things should be considered to be bad form. "Like not cleaning your teeth or not using a handkerchief, you know."

The end of it was that Kit decided that he would like to go to St. Benedict's, and to St. Benedict's he went, rigged out with a school-kit, and wearing the orthodox bowler and black socks. He had his cap and blazer with the purple and green colours of the school. He had his "sports-box," and a pound in pocket-money.

Sorrell had spent two days in town with him, and he saw him off at Victoria for the Sussex sea-coast town.

"Good-bye,—old chap."

Kit's lips quivered a little. He kissed his father.

"I shan't forget you are Captain Sorrell, M.C. I'll work hard."

"And play hard,—the big game, you know. Our game, my son."