The Slaves of Solitude (26 page)

Also he was hungry by now, and showed very little interest in the drink that was brought him.

It was not, in fact, until they were up in the dining-room (into which the reluctant Lieutenant was compelled, by a nagging waiter, at last to escort them) that Mr. Thwaites returned to life.
The food, indeed, seemed to go to his head more than the drink, and as soon as the soup appeared he began Trothing right and left for all the room to hear.

‘A goodly soup, i’troth,’ he said, and he Trothed at the chicken, and Trothed at the waiter, and Trothed at both the waitresses (even the one who was not serving at the table
at which they were sitting), and Trothed at the cheese, and Trothed at the furnishing of the dining-room (which met with his approval), and Trothed and Trothed and Trothed. He very nearly Trothed,
in the most agreeable way, at the other diners in the room, but the Lieutenant managed to talk him down.

A sudden silence descending, Mr. Thwaites then slowly began hiccoughing (this with the intensest seriousness and mental concentration), and the Lieutenant saw that it was time to take him home.
‘Come on, we’re going home now,’ he said, and helped Mr. Thwaites to rise. ‘You were quite right,’ he said aside to Miss Roach. ‘We oughtn’t to have
brought the old guy out.’

(That was the
trouble
with the Lieutenant. He had a sort of
niceness.
It cropped up every now and again and made you almost wholly forgive him.)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

1

A
FEW
minutes later they were out in the black street, and Mr. Thwaites, having swayed up against a wall, did not seem
easy to move.

‘Methinks it behoveth me,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘to taketh me unto my mansion. Doth it not? Peradventure? Perchance?’

‘Yes,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Come along then. Get a move on.’

‘What?’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Peradventure? Perhaps? No? Whereanent? Howbeit?’

‘Yes,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Come along now. Here’s my arm. Got my arm? Got it?’

‘Come along, Mr. Thwaites,’ said Vicki.

‘Ah – the Beauteous Dame,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘The beauteous damsel that keepeth me on Tenterhooks.’

‘Come on then,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Take my arm.’

‘Hooks. Tenter. One,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘See Inventory.’

‘Aw, come
on,
will you?’ said the Lieutenant.

‘Damsel. Beauteous. One,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Hooks. Tenter. Two. Yea. Verily.’

‘Now then,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Take my
arm
.’

‘The Arm of the Law,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Law. Arm. One. One. Two. Three. One, two, three, March!’

But Mr. Thwaites, in spite of saying this, did not himself march.

‘Can I help?’ said a stranger in the darkness, and ‘No – it’s all right, thank you very much,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘I think I can manage
him.’

‘April, too,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Thirty days hath November.’

At this he lurched forward, the Lieutenant caught him, and with Miss Roach taking his arm the other side, they all began the journey homewards.

‘Hooks. Tenter,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘See Inventory. Pitch your tents.’

‘That’s all right,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘We will.’

‘Arabs,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Fold ’em up.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the Lieutenant, soothingly. ‘Arabs.’

Mr. Thwaites now took a new line, saw things in a fresh light.

‘Some people do,’ he said, ‘and some people don’t.’

‘Sure thing,’ said the Lieutenant.

‘Not that they
do
,’ said Mr. Thwaites misanthropically, and, as if in despair of mankind, was silent for nearly a minute.

‘Do you think we’ll get him upstairs?’ said Miss Roach.

‘Yes,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘He’s not so bad on his legs. We’ll manage.’

‘
Touch
é
!
’ cried Mr. Thwaites, out of the blue. ‘I’troth! A Parry!’

‘Make it a bit quieter, Mr. Thwaites,’ said the Lieutenant, for they were approaching the Rosamund Tea Rooms.

‘By the Lord Hal,’ said Mr. Thwaites, more quietly and earnestly. ‘A Veritable Thrust!’

‘Now then, quiet,’ said the Lieutenant as they reached the door of the Rosamund Tea Rooms, and Mr. Thwaites, in some miraculous way, seemed to be able to discern the seriousness of
the situation, and remained quiet as Vicki opened the door with her key and he was led indoors. Indeed, apart from murmuring ‘Distinguished Solicitors’ four or five times on the stairs,
and ‘Distinguished Solicitors and Collaborators’ on reaching his room, he accomplished the journey with dignity and in silence.

2

Vicki had somehow vanished. Miss Roach switched on the light, and the Lieutenant got him on to his bed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Leave him to me,’
and Miss Roach went up to her room.

On arriving here she found that she was clutching Mr. Thwaites’ cap under her arm, and wondered whether she ought to restore this.

She went on to the landing, listened, went into her room again, came out and listened, and at last, after four or five minutes had passed, went downstairs and listened outside Mr.
Thwaites’ door.

Hearing no sound, she knocked gently, and the Lieutenant came to the door. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘He’s better now.’

The Lieutenant had made quick work of Mr. Thwaites, who was already in his pyjamas and sitting on his bed. The Lieutenant had his dressing-gown in his hand, and was persuading him to put it on.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Dressing-gown.’

‘Ah – ha,’ said Mr. Thwaites, who, without being by any means sober, was clearly a good deal more sober than he had been. ‘Dame Roach! Come in, Dame Roach!’

‘Come on,’ said the Lieutenant, forcing one of Mr. Thwaites’ arms into the dressing-gown. ‘Get it on.’

‘Enter Dame Roach!’ said Mr. Thwaites, allowing the Lieutenant to proceed peacefully with his manœuvres. ‘Dame Roach – the English Miss! Miss Prim. Dame Roach –
the Prude . . . The jealous Miss Roach.’

At this moment Vicki entered. Whether or not she had heard what Mr. Thwaites had just said Miss Roach did not know – did not ever know.

‘How is he?’ said Vicki.

‘He’s all right,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Come on. In you get.’ And he threw back the bedclothes, thrust Mr. Thwaites into bed, and covered him again with the
bedclothes.

‘Well, I’m going,’ said Miss Roach.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said the Lieutenant, tucking Mr. Thwaites in. ‘This is just where we go and have a drink. It’s only a quarter past nine.’

‘No. I’m sorry. I really must go.’ Miss Roach was at the door.

‘Aw – quit being plain silly,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘It’s only a quarter past nine, isn’t it?’

Then Vicki did an unexpected thing.

‘Yes. Let her go. If she wants to,’ she said in a flat tone, and, without looking at Miss Roach, she went over to the bed. ‘How are you, dear old Thwaitey?’ she said.
‘Feeling better?’

‘Aw—’ the Lieutenant began, looking at Miss Roach, but Miss Roach cut in on him.

‘No. Please don’t try and persuade me,’ she said, and there was anger in her voice. ‘I want to go to bed. I’m tired. Thanks for the dinner. Good night.’

And she fled upstairs to her room.

A few minutes later, and after she had heard the Lieutenant and Vicki leaving the house together, she came out of her bedroom and went into the bathroom, where she was violently sick.

This woman, she observed, affected her physically as well as mentally.

3

Her leather illuminated clock told her it was a quarter to one.

After her sickness she had slept lightly, but now she was wide awake. Vicki and the Lieutenant had not yet returned. She would have heard that.

It was queer – how her instincts were always right. From the moment she had arrived home that evening, and found the Lieutenant there with his bottle and glasses, she had known that
disaster was to follow. And here it was!

It wasn’t the mere disgusting disgrace of the whole evening – the sordidness of Mr. Thwaites’ excitement and his behaviour towards Vicki – the subsequent exhibition he
had made of himself in the hotel dining-room, and, after that, in the walk home. All that, conceivably, might be conceded to ‘Christmas’. It was the revelation, made at the last moment,
which had made her physically sick.

‘
Dame Roach
–
the English Miss. Miss Prim. The Prude. The jealous Miss Roach
.’

The planes were roaring over again . . . How they roared and filled the sky for miles around . . .

The identical words . . . There was no question of Mr. Thwaites having thought them up himself. Those words were given to him by Vicki – those ideas were put into his head by her. The old
man would almost certainly never have disclosed this unless he had had too much to drink – a thing he would not have ordinarily been likely to do – but now the cat was nicely out of the
bag.

And so that was the way they talked about her when they were alone. So that was the poison that woman had seen fit to spread forth, or rather venomously inject.

To gain the knowledge that she had been talked about at all by two people was shock enough for Miss Roach (such knowledge is always a shock of a kind to any human being, unless it is at once
followed and compensated for by the news that the talk is of a highly favourable nature): but to learn that two people of this sort had been talking about her, and in this way – she believed
it was more than she could stand.

And she betted your life they had talked! If she knew anything about them, they had talked and talked and talked.

Really, she had thought she had gained experience of the lowest depths of this woman: she had thought she knew where she was and could just stand it. But now these depths had collapsed, opening
up shifting, endless depths. She would have to get out of this place: she would have to leave, go somewhere.

But why should
she
be made to go? And where? And at Christmas?

‘The jealous Miss Roach.’ Again, how right her instincts had been. She had foreseen, at the earliest possible date, that this was the evil course the woman was going to take. Lying
awake in the dark, as she was now, she had guessed that Vicki was somehow going to contort the situation into one in which it appeared that she was jealous. She had tried to combat this. She had
first of all refused to go to the telephone when the Lieutenant had called: then she had had the courage to go and have it out with the woman. And all she had got for her pains was ‘Really,
you are rather A dear!’ – and now this poison behind her back with a semi-idiotic old man.

Now it was easy enough to account for all that extra bullying, by Mr. Thwaites of herself, which had seemed strangely to run parallel with his mounting infatuation for Vicki. The old man
obviously could not resist such a temptation. Led on, inspired by the woman, inspired by their private talks, he had really been able to let himself go: it had been a sort of game between the two
of them.

Why should she be
set
on like this? It reminded her of her schooldays – her schooldays both as a pupil and as a schoolmistress – in which there would occur, for no apparent
reason, sinister developments of this sort – gradually and mysteriously emerging plots, spites, malicious alignments against an individual, sendings to Coventry, at last open hatred and
torture. Had she got to go back to school at the age of thirty-nine?

‘No. Let her go if she wants to,’ Vicki had said. And that flat tone in which she had said it – what did this mean? Obviously that she could no longer be bothered. She had
suffered, humoured the jealous English Miss long enough: now she must stew in the juice of her own jealousy.

And if she had talked in that way to Mr. Thwaites, had she not done the same thing to the Lieutenant? No – for she had not as yet had an opportunity. She had that tonight. She would be
telling the Lieutenant some fine stories tonight. And would the Lieutenant believe them? Yes – almost certainly. But somehow she did not mind so much what the foolish Lieutenant was told or
believed about her. He had a niceness. He wasn’t in
league
against her, like Mr. Thwaites. He wasn’t in the private plot – the school plot.

It was time they were back, was it not? Where were they now? Probably on the seat by the river. Vicki triumphant. Vicki with the Laundry in the bag!

The planes were still going over . . .

She heard quiet voices below, and then, she fancied, the key in the lock, and the front door being closed.

Then, amidst the sound of the planes, she heard Vicki come up the stairs to the landing, and closing the door of her room.

This was the conclusion of the proceedings. Within ten yards of her, amidst the purring of the planes, Vicki was undressing . . . Such had been, such was, her jolly, jolly Christmas Eve.

No – by now Christmas Day!

CHAPTER TWENTY

1

M
ISS ROACH
assumed that, elsewhere, somewhere, there was a good deal of cheerfulness and goodness about the Christmas
season, even in war-time: but this did not fall within the range of her experience. To her it had for many years only been associated with a species of dullness and even evil, of stupidity or even
madness, connected with eating and drinking, which weighed insufferably upon her spirits, and from which it was hopeless to try to escape until Boxing Day and the whole holiday was over. Its colour
was dirty grey: its noise was the noise made by shut shops: its odour was the odour of turkey and stuffing experienced after one had eaten turkey and stuffing.

The madness was resumed at half-past eleven in the morning. As she was sitting in front of her gas-fire in her bedroom, trying conscientiously to read an absurd manuscript, the Lieutenant
knocked at her door (knocking at
her
door first, she noticed, although Vicki was in her room) and invited her to come downstairs to the Lounge, where he was opening a bottle of gin and a
bottle of orange (both of which were bulging from his pockets) for the benefit of all. She said she would do this, and the Lieutenant went away and was heard knocking on Vicki’s door.