Sorrell and Son (Alfred A. Knopf, printing 9)/Chapter 9
SORRELL realized that he had changed his animal, that was all. At Staunton he had had to contend with a lioness; at Winstonbury his enemy was a bull.
The lioness had been hated, but the bull was popular. He was a playful and genial beast. He took the-head of the table in the staff's room; he teased the women and made eyes at them; he was always in evidence when being in evidence was worth while.
He went about with the air of carrying the whole establishment on his shoulders. He was excessively polite to all visitors, especially to the women. He delighted in the sound of his own voice.
By the female members of the staff he was spoken of always as "Mr. Buck." No doubt he was a very fine figure of a man, and it astonished Sorrell to find how popular he was. The average wench asks for so much and so little.
Yet Buck seemed to fill his position, and to be a convincing figure in the picture. He looked well in his uniform; he had a presence; he could be impressive. He met people coming in from their cars as though they were royal persons and he a Lord Mayor.
"Allow me, madam. Rooms, yes. Will you speak to the lady in the office. I'll have the luggage brought in. Saul,—luggage."
Buck would wait for the number of the room to be announced.
"Number seven, madam. First floor. Turn to the right at the top of the stairs. The luggage shall be sent up at once."
His voice would change.
"Saul,—luggage number seven. At once."
That was just it. He was efficient and polite and im—pressive, but he used Sorrell's narrower shoulders and frailer back. If he got hold of anything it was a woman's handbag, or her camera, or an armful of rugs and umbrellas. He left the heavy luggage to Sorrell, and with complete complacency, as though it was the under-porter's business to act as baggage animal. Which, no doubt, it was, but not to the extent of breaking the poor devil's heart and back. Sorrell struggled and said nothing. Vaguely at first, but more definitely later, he realized that this was part of the struggle. Buck was playing a sergeant-major's game well known to all Tommies, he was putting upon a man though with every appearance of proper authority; either the man would break and become humble, or fly out and betray himself. In the latter case—"Sorry to have to report, sir," an orderly-room manner, and the Skipper persuaded it was necessary to enforce discipline.
"Damn him," thought Sorrell; "I'll play his game—and make it mine."
He changed none of his ways. He was as indefatigable as ever, or as much as Buck would allow him to be.
"Don't go fussing about so much, man. People don't always want you stepping over their feet."
And Mr. Roland? Sorrell wondered whether Thomas Roland had noticed anything, whether he was ever dimly aware of this obscure scuffle between two unimportant porters. Why should he notice anything? Most men, so full of their own affairs, are apt to regard with impatience the silly disharmonies that seem no more than unnecessary grit in the machine.
Sorrell was seeing less of Thomas Roland. Buck had managed to insinuate himself into Mr. Roland's sitting-room, for he was the responsible man. And his extrusion of Sorrell was done with a bluff and genial neatness. For such a big thing he was remarkably smooth and agile.
Moreover there was the matter of largesse. Most of the departures took place after breakfast and while Sorrell was labouring on the stairs with the luggage, Buck, like the senior partner in the firm, would be attending to the social amenities, helping ladies into their cars, arranging hand baggage, spreading rugs. Sorrell would arrive with the heavy luggage for a particular car, but Buck would not allow him to remain there.
"Number thirteen—Saul. Look sharp. I'll see to this."
So, Sorrell would be sent for more luggage, while Buck gracefully loaded that which had arrived, and took the tip or tips.
"What about the chap who carried the luggage down?"
If that question were asked Buck would have his answer ready.
"You can give it to me, sir. We pool our tips."
Needless to say Sorrell never saw that shilling or florin, and since Buck so contrived it that Sorrell was always fetching and carrying while he remained at the receipt of custom, Sorrell's pocket suffered very considerably. He had been making a pound or so a week in tips even in the slack season, and the drop in his revenue was serious. =
He took the matter up with Buck.
"We ought to have some arrangement."
"What d'you mean?"
"Well,—I seem to miss most of the tips."
"That's not my fault, my lad. If people don't pass it over to you—there must be a reason."
"I expect there is," said Sorrell grimly.
"I'll tell it you. A sulky face doesn't fetch out the silver"
"They pool their tips in the dining-room, and upstairs."
Buck trampled with loud dignity upon such a suggestion.
"Think—I—pool—with the chap under me? Not likely. I've worked for my position. I don't share out,—with the boot-boy."
And Sorrell left it at that, though he felt bitter.
For he had arrived at one of those periods of loneliness when he felt that the other humans about him had ceased to regard him as a distinct personality, though the impression was due to the fall in the level of his self-respect. He was eclipsed, and by the sort of man whom he hated and despised. His sense of failure returned. He was repressing himself, going about with a frown, and an air of melancholy self-absorption. There were no smiles in life—or at least it seemed to him that there was no smile, for he did not smile at other people, and a smile is a flash of vitality. He thought that he was being ignored, when it was he who hid himself behind a gloomy reserve.
Mr. Roland still played Chopin. He went about as usual, deliberate, fresh faced, ready with a pleasant word, observing without appearing to observe.
One morning he spoke to Sorrell.
"Feeling all right, Stephen?"
"Quite, sir."
"I thought you looked tired."
"No,—I'm quite all right, sir."
Roland did not push his inquiries further.
"Take an extra hour off. Get out with your boy."
"Thank you, sir."
Sorrell was shocked by the sudden rush of mean thoughts. This was part of Buck's slyness; he had been hinting to Mr. Roland that Sorrell was not up to his work, and not capable of handling the heavy luggage. And Roland believed him. He was unaware of what was going on under his very eyes.
Sorrell tried to rid himself of this meanness, but he was human, and when the opportunity fell to him, he seized it, for when a man has an enemy he is justified in making reconnaissances. He happened to see Buck going into Mr. Roland's room, and he found something to polish outside the door of that room.
He could hear what was said.
"What about Sorrell? It struck me this morning that he looked ill."
"I don't know about that, sir. But the fact is—well, I don't like to have"
"I prefer frankness, Buck."
"I don't think he's fit for the work, sir. Clerking is his job."
"Not strong enough?"
"That's it. Of course—I take my share"
"I'm sure you do,—Buck. I have told Sorrell to take an extra hour off"
Sorrell slipped away, raging against the liar, and almost despising Roland for accepting his lies. His great Mr. Roland was not so shrewd and world-wise as he had imagined!
But he caught himself up.
"Don't be a cad. Stick it. The fellow will have you beaten unless you stick it. Think of the boy." Christopher was his refuge, his secret inspiration. Sorrell was off duty from eight till nine, and he had the half of each alternate Sunday. Kit would come along the road to meet his father, and as the evenings lengthened they would wander a short way into the fields, or climb the Castle Hill and sit and talk for twenty minutes. Christopher was rather silent about the school, and when his father's voice grew intimate the boy would leap two or three years and carry their gossip into the future.
"I think I'd like to be an engineer, pater."
"What sort of engineer?"
"Oh,—design things. I went over the electric light works the other day. Bert Lumley took me. His father runs the dynamos."
"Wonderful thing—electricity."
"It seems alive. It's there—and yet you can't see it. Like the blood going round in your body, pater."
"You'd like to work on live things?"
"Yes,—I think so."
But one evening Christopher did not appear upon the road, and when Sorrell arrived at the cottage in Vine Court he came upon a little scene that shocked him. Kit and Mrs. Garland were in the scullery, and Kit's head was over the sink, and there was a redness, and Mrs. Garland was using a sponge.
"Hallo! What's happened?"
Kit gurgled something, but it was Mrs. Garland who explained the affair. She was angry.
"That young beast of a Blycroft. Always tormenting something. He'd got hold of a cat, and of course our Kit. Well,—young Blycroft's two years older, and a strong young savage."
"I got one in," said Kit, eluding the sponge for a moment.
And then he burst into tears. He did not explain his tears, but Sorrell understood them, and his angry heart yearned over the boy. It was the shame of being licked by a boy whom he despised, sensitiveness writhing under the bulk of the savage. Did he not understand it? Had he not had to bear it? For he knew that had their quarrel come to a vulgar scuffle Buck would overwhelm him as the Vine Court bully had smothered Kit.
"We must do something about this," he said,—stroking his moustache.
And all the way home he was thinking over the problem, the age-old problem of how the brain can outwit the brute.
Easter came, with six days of sunshine, and a brisk life upon the road. The buds of the chestnuts were bursting, and in the garden daffodils swung yellow in the wind amid a spreading glimmer of greenness. Bowden's pugnacious and swarthy head began to go to and fro behind his lawn-mower.
There were hyacinths, rose, white and blue in the border close to the window where Sorrell used to sit and read, and the scent of them drifted in, but Sorrell and his books saw little of each other. For the city people were pushing the noses of their cars westwards in search of the spring, and the glittering Pelican saw them swirl and hesitate and pause.
Life became strenuous, and for Sorrell in particular more than strenuous. He laboured, groaning inwardly, jaw set, his eyes taking on a tired and blank stare. He cursed the people who travelled with solid trunks; heavy suit cases and kit-bags were not so bad, but a trunk was an uncompromising brute of a thing.
One evening he had paused on the second landing to get his breath when he heard a voice behind him.
"Why do you do all the work?"
He turned and looked into the pale face of the housekeeper, Mary Marks. She was a plain little woman, reserved, thin lipped, but with clear dark eyes. They were very intelligent eyes, and they had suffered, for somewhere a Percy Marks led a brisk and lascivious life. As a rule she was not a woman who offered sympathy, for she would have resented sympathy.
Sorrell, surprised, stood there panting.
"Pride," he said.
"Oh,—that's very well. But it's a shame. A great beast like that letting you."
He was astonished at her bitterness. He had thought that all the women were on Buck's side, and he felt cheered.
"Then—you have noticed it?"
"Of course. Why do you do it?"
"Do you think I would ask him? He thinks I'll break. I shan't."
With an effort he picked up the trunk, and getting it on his shoulder, went swaying along the corridor. Mary Marks stood and watched him, and had Sorrell been able to read her mind its fierce goodwill would have surprised him. She knew something of men; she was full of scorn for the fine, breezy fellows, the gentlemen with the "Hallo, my dear" eyes.
"He won't stand it," she thought. "Mr. Roland ought to have the sense to see. That boy of his keeps him going."
Nor was Mrs. Marks the only woman in the place whose sympathies were with Sorrell. It happened one wet Sunday afternoon that Sorrell had spent his half-day at the Vine Court, and Fanny Garland—also free—was one of the party. They had tea together, Sorrell and Kit, Fanny and her mother. Sorrell ate very little; they noticed it; he looked in pain.
Sorrell and Fanny Garland walked back together to the Pelican. It was raining, and Fanny had an umbrella; she offered half to Sorrell, frankly, as a comrade; her cheerfulness was a Straightforward virtue, and though Sorrell refused the umbrella she was not offended. Most men would have shared it so readily, thinking it to be an invitation towards other intimacies. Buck, for instance.
One of them, probably it was Sorrell, happened to mention the ex-sergeant-major.
"Him! You put up with too much. I know the sort he is."
And then she added—"I know the length of his rope. You wait."
Her meaning was an enigma to Sorrell.
"I don't quite take you."
"No? That fellow will hang himself. You wait. If he gets caught—I don't think Mr. Roland's the sort of man to mince matters"
Sorrell went to bed wondering how Gecrge Buck could be expected to hang himself. Also, it was in his mind that Christopher should have boxing lessons. A man needed a weapon, and it was a good thing to be able to use one's fists.
For—he—Sorrell had no weapon, nothing but his dogged patience. It seemed to him that he would have to let life pull pieces of flesh from him until life got tired of it. All that he could do was to out-live life.