Sorrell and Son (Alfred A. Knopf, printing 9)/Chapter 6
THOMAS ROLAND was a man of observation, and yet he was more than a mere observer, and he saw much more than he seemed to see. He registered atmospheres. That was the musical part of him. The practical part of him would sit comfortably in a chair behind a book, and watch without appearing to watch, and his tranquil solidity was so deceptive that his neighbours saw nothing but a man and a book.
His interest in life might be catholic, but it was also fastidious and very quick to seize upon an arrestive figure or an intriguing situation. He had intended staying two days in Staunton, but his two days enlarged themselves into a week.
He was interested in Stephen Sorrell, both as a practical man and as a psychologist, and he became interested in Sorrell's entanglement. When he sat in a corner of the lounge and watched, he could not help being struck by the porter's fanatical activity, his thoroughness, his air of contending with the Augean slovenliness of the Angel Inn. Sorrell was never still. His thin and slightly stooping figure went to and fro, with its dark head, pale face, and intent and rather sorrowful eyes. He appeared to be always looking for things to do; he was for ever clearing out the ash trays on the tables or dusting the tops of the tables, or collecting the scattered papers and magazines and putting them in order. Nor was it mere fussing, or a parade after effect. The man was driven by some urgent spirit within him; also he was reacting against some painful pressure. That was how Thomas Roland understood it.
Then there was the brass-headed woman, the lioness, the creature couched in that den. Roland was puzzled by her attitude towards Sorrell. She was for ever harrying the man, finding some petty excuse for hounding him off on an errand. She spoke to him with a queer, intimate brutality. She was like a woman with a whip who found an elemental pleasure in flicking the man with it, tormenting him, as though just to see how much of it he would stand.
"Stephen, run around to Pavits. The fools have forgotten the fish. You'd better bring it back."
"Get down on your knees, man, and scrub that hall. It's a disgrace."
"Hallo.—Stephen. No. 7 has been complaining that one of the mudguards on his car has been buckled. What! You don't know anything about it? What do you think you are here for?"
She showed a sly unfairness in her persecution. She appeared to watch Sorrell's activities, and would then descend upon him and heckle him for not doing the very thing that he was always doing. She would sweep out of her den and discover a match and a cigarette end in one of the ash-trays.
"Stephen!"
"Yes, madam."
There would be something very like fear in the man's eyes.
"Why don't you empty these ash-trays? I've told you a dozen times."
"I emptied them ten minutes ago, madam."
"O, don't tell me! Look at that."
Roland wondered why Sorrell stood it. Also, it seemed to him that the woman's attitude was illogical. If she pretended to such a passion for detail why did she find fault with the one member of her staff who did this job thoroughly? Was it because he was a man, and a man obviously out of his station? Why didn't she go upstairs and stimulate the casual energies of the young wenches who swept the dust under the beds and crammed rubbish behind the grates? Or why didn't she supervise the cleaning of the table silver, and discover that one fork out of three had the remains of some previous meal between its prongs?
For five days Thomas Roland watched this piece of interplay without appearing to watch it. A tacit sympathy had sprung up between him and the Angel porter; the one man gave service and gave it with open hands; the other accepted that service and accepted it as it was given.
Some time after tea on the sixth day when the lounge happened to be empty, and the lioness had deserted her den, Roland sat and watched Sorrell over the top of a book. Sorrell was on one of his usual rounds, going from table to table, and Roland's eyes studied his long-fingered and intelligent hands. They were very quick and deft, but a little hurried.
He came to Mr. Roland's table, and Roland, putting down his book, looked up at Sorrell.
"What are you doing here?"
"Tidying up, sir."
"No,—I don't mean that."
There was no resentment in Sorrell's questioning stare. He emptied Mr. Roland's ash-tray into the old metal flower-pot he used as a receptacle.
"I have got a boy. You saw him."
"The father for the son instead of the son for the father! I needn't ask you whether you loathe this job."
"It isn't the job, sir. The job's necessary."
"But the place. And yet you stick it. There's a reason."
"Necessity."
Roland moved easily in his chair.
"Look here, Stephen. What's your other name?"
"Sorrell, sir."
"Rank?"
"Does that matter?"
"I'm a deliberate person. Well, as one man to another"
"Captain."
"War service,—only?"
"Yes."
"Any decorations?"
"M.C."
"I got nothing but a mention in dispatches. Are you going out to-night?"
"I expect so, sir."
"Well,—let's meet at that elm tree and have a talk. If you could leave your boy at home—for once."
Sorrell stood there looking at the ash-tray that he had emptied. His face was intensely serious. His right hand gripped the lapel of his coat.
"This talk of yours, sir, is it personal?"
"As personal as you please."
"What I mean is—anything—is so—infernally serious to me When one is just hanging on, and out of breath. Like bad weather.—You are afraid to expect—any sunlight."
The expression of Tom Roland's eyes altered.
"I might depend on what would seem to you to be sunlight. Relatively. Suppose you had to do the same sort of job, but in different surroundings? Would that be sunlight?"
"Absolutely."
"All right. We meet about half-past eight. This place is impossible."
The astonishing thing was that Mr. Roland kept an hotel—or rather that he was about to keep an hotel. He sat under the great elm and explained.
"What did you think I did, man?"
"I hadn't the faintest idea," said Sorrell.
"Nothing—perhaps! I am rather music-mad, and after the war I could not settle,—just drifted about. But I have a practical part to my soul, and it began to cry out."
He rested his head against the trunk of the tree. He looked amused; he was smiling at himself, and to Sorrell, who had been living in a world that could not smile happily at itself, this smile was like Tom Roland's music. It took you into the big, wise heart of the man.
"Knocking about, a dilettante, scribbling songs, with some sort of idea that I could write an opera. And so I can. But, my dear chap, the queer way things happen. The way we react. One day I met a man I most cordially detest, a fellow who is a financial light—or something. 'Hallo, Roland, still scribbling music?' Well, it set me off. 'Damn these commercial people,' I thought, 'I'd like to prove their game is easier than mine.' But—you know—there was a rightness in what that fellow said. He had knocked a chip off me. You can get many a good hint from a man who dislikes you if you are not too pot-bound to soak it up. I had been getting a little—Londonish—shall we call it. I took my car out—and went touring, and then the idea was thrown at me. I had it in my soup; I found it in my bedroom. These hotel places! I went about wondering if there were half a dozen men in England who could run a country inn as it might be run. Well, there seemed to be precious few. And so the idea hit me. 'Why not run an hotel, just to show yourself that you can do it? An Étude Pratique instead of too much Chopin.' Well, that's what I'm doing."
Again, that pleasant, roguish smile, and a match held meditatively to the bowl of a pipe. A man of few words as a rule, when the rhythm or verve of a movement took him Roland would break away into a series of short, sharp sentences, pithy and vigorous. He described to Sorrell how, when the idea of managing a country hotel had come to him, he had set about visualizing the scheme with—complete thoroughness.
"That is where we people with any imagination ought to score over the commercialists. If we have any vision—surely it should be broader and more far seeing than the wall-eyed stare of a mere money-maker?"
He told Sorrell how he had spent a whole day studying maps and distances, for he had realized that the motorist was the man to be caught and catered for.
"It seemed to me that I ought to fix upon a place on one of the main roads going south-west, half-way between London and Exeter. I drew a circle round a certain area, and dottea in the most likely centre for my spider's web. Then I got in my car and went exploring."
Another match was needed for his pipe, and as he threw it down he smiled at Sorrell.
"I'm not boring you!"
"Is it likely?"
Roland went on to describe how he had gone in search of the ideally situated inn, and how he had found it, an old coaching-house called the Pelican on the main road on the outskirts of Winstonbury.
"The name took me at once. Pelican! Unusual. And it was sited just as I wished. A big old red and white place, part Queen Anne, part Georgian. It stood by itself. It had an atmosphere. Plenty of room for expansion. Other advantages too, a good garden and old trees. Our pub-keepers rarely visualize the atmosphere of a garden. Stuffy people. Also—the Pelican catches the eye; three or four hundred yards of straight road on either side of it. Also—it is within two miles of Hadley school,—parents—you know. Also, Bargrave House—where all the Americans go to do homage to the memory of one of their great men,—two miles off. Then take the road-web for the ordinary tourist. London some hundred miles; Salisbury thirty or so, Bath about thirty-two; Cheltenham, the Cotswolds not so very far away, and Amesbury and Stonehenge. Exeter right down the road south-west. Gloucester too—and the Wye valley. Well,—there you are. The Pelican had a reputation of sorts, clean and rather old-fashioned. I offered to buy."
He paused as though passing to another line of thought, and his face grew more serious.
"I am putting nearly all my capital into the show. It is sink or swim. But—after all—one ought to be ready to back one's theories. There has to be courage in commerce. It's an adventure. I am taking the place over in a month. The end of the season you'll say. Queer time! Well—no. There are alterations to make, a lot of building. Meanwhile I'm going to carry on and get things organized and ready. Then—there is the question of the staff."
Roland had realized the importance of a good "staff." In fact it was as important as the setting in which it was to function.
"Difficult these days. But I am being extraordinarily careful in picking my people. I want character, conscience, and above all—smiles. I want people who'll take a pride in their work—and stay with me. I am going to pay good wages, and house and feed my people well. Besides—if the thing goes—and we tap the stream on the road—it is going to be a comfortable and paying proposition for the staff. Perhaps—sixty bedrooms—the place full each night, a constant flux, and tips—mind you—from people who are always coming and going, people who have been well fed and well looked after. I have got my housekeeper and cook. Also—the head waitress,—a rattling fine woman. There are the maids, one of the chief problems. I want two porters, and I have got one—a head porter. He can't join me till February."
Again, Roland paused, and his pause was explanatory.
"My one piece of sentiment, this Buck. My first porter. An ex-sergeant-major. He saved my life out there. I owe him—his chance. He'll get it. The rest depends on—himself."
His mouth and eyes hardened.
"I'm not a fool, Sorrell. You know what the war was, managing men. It is no use being soft. I am not sure of Buck, but he shall have his chance. Now, what about it? I've watched you. I don't know anything about you,—but I do know something of men. If you think my job is better than the one—there."
Sorrell sat very still, with his clasped hands between his knees.
"Wait. I'll tell you my history. I have nothing much to be ashamed of."
He told it.
"That's that. My job—is my job for the boy. It's my centre-board—my sheet-anchor. If you offer me this chance I'll do my best to see that you don't regret it."
"Second porter?"
"I realize that. I have learnt a lot—there."
Roland smiled.
"At least you have learnt how—not—to do it. But—remember—it's an adventure. I may go under. I want people"
Sorrell nodded a grave head.
"I understand. You want helpers—not merely employees. Ishall be a helper. You have given me—a chance—a chance to get out of hell. I'm grateful."
They gripped hands.
"Gratitude! They say that gratitude is a slave virtue."
"Call it good will, Mr. Roland."
"Ah, that's it,—every time."
Sorrell was crossing the Market Square, and he paused by the market cross to look back at the cathedral and its trees. He felt happy, most extraordinarily happy. It was not only the sudden, pleasant human relationship that had opened before him that had cheered him, but the feeling of self-congratulation. The fact that Roland should have offered him work had given a flick to his self-respect. What did the nature of the work matter? He was a hotel porter and he was a success as a hotel porter. He had put a plain and human back into the job, stuck to it in spite of pain and weariness and persecution, and someone had come and said—"You are the man."
He glanced at old Verity's shop and walked on. He was going to tell the boy, and to say to him—"I have been offered a better job," and he was immensely and absurdly proud of it. The afterglow—all yellow above the deep shadows of the old streets—was the colour of his mood of exultation. Second porter at the Pelican at Winstonbury! The Palfrey menage done with. To work for a man for whom he felt respect and liking, and more than that!
Fletcher's Lane was all shadow, with the pale primrose and blue of the sky above. He saw a small figure on the footwalk under the overhang of an old Tudor house, an attentive and expectant figure. The boy had been waiting for him as though he knew, or had divined a change in their fortunes.
"Hallo, son!"
Christopher looked at his father, and it seemed to him that his father's shoulders were straighter, and the flesh of his face more firm and clear.
"I have got a better job, Kit. Mr. Roland is opening a new hotel. We are going there."
The boy's face lit up.
"He asked you to go, pater?"
"Yes."
Christopher snuggled up beside his father.
"He—knows," he said.
And Sorrell smiled.
"Another step nearer—the plan."