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Read Ebook: Sónnica by Blasco Ib Ez Vicente Douglas Frances Translator
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PART I
EASTERHAM 9
PART II
LILIAN 71
ELIZABETH 199
PART IV
PARIS 281
PART I
EASTERHAM
MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
Considering the bulkiness of the little man, he ran remarkably well. He dodged a light newspaper van that was coming recklessly round Fetter Lane, for there was none of the crowded traffic of daylight to be negotiated, and then, he turned the corner of Chancery Lane--and there you would have seen the last of him. He would have vanished from your life, a stumpy little man, with an umbrella popped under one arm, a bundle of papers grasped in his hand, a hat jammed down on his head, and the ends of a striped muffler floating in the breeze of his own making.
The sight of a man running, even in these days when life itself goes with a rush, is sufficient to awaken comment in the mind of the onlooker. It suggests pursuit, the recklessness of other days; it impels, instinctively, the cry of "Stop, thief," for no man runs unless he is hunted by a powerful motive. Therefore it may be assumed that since I have sent a man bolting hard out of your sight up the lamp-lit avenue of Chancery Lane, you are wondering why the devil he's in such a hurry.
Well, he was hurrying because the last train to Shepherd's Bush goes at 12.35, and, as he had been away from home since ten o'clock that morning, he was rather anxious to get back. He could not afford a cab fare, though only a few hours ago he had been eating oysters, bisque soup, turbot, pheasant, asparagus out of season and p?che Melba at the Savoy Hotel with eighteenpence in his pocket--and the odd pence had gone to the waiter and the cloakroom man. So that by the time he had reached the top of Chancery Lane, dashed across the road and through the door of the station, where a porter would have slammed the grille in another second, and bought his ticket with an explosive, panting "Bush," he had just tenpence left.
The lift-man knew him, nodded affably and said: "Just in time, Mr Pride."
As the lift went down, its high complaining noise falling to a low buzzing sound seemed like the tired murmur of a weary human being glad that rest had come at last. The sound of the approaching train came rolling through the tunnel. They all rushed desperately down the short flight of steps that led to the platform, as the train came in with a rattle of doors opening and slamming, and scrambled for seats, while the uniformed men, who appeared to be the only thoroughly wide-awake people in the neighbourhood, said in the most contradictory fashion: "Stand clear of the gates," "Hurry on, please," and "Passengers off first."
Pride found himself in the smoking carriage, opposite Harlem, with his young friend at his side. It never occurred to him that there was anything exceptional in his dash for the last train. He did it four nights out of the week, as a matter of course. He was fifty years old, though he pretended he was ten years younger, and shaved his face clean to keep up the illusion. He used to explain to his friends that he came of a family famous for baldness in early years.
"Been busy?" asked Harlem, filling his pipe.
"Nothing to speak of," said Pride. "Turned up at the office at eleven, but there was nothing doing until after lunch. Then I had to go and see Sir William Darton--they're going to start the Thames Steamboats again. He wasn't at home, and he wasn't in his office, but I found him at six o'clock in the Constitutional. Got back and found they'd sent home for my dress clothes, and left a nice little envelope with the ticket of the Canadian Dinner.... That's why I'm so late to-night...."
Pride looked at the young man.
"Married?" asked Pride.
"Not me!" replied Cannock, with a slight hiccough.
"Well, you're all right. You can free-lance if you want to."
"Oh, it's no good to me," Cannock said. "It's a dog's life anyhow, and I've only had two months of it. I'm going back to my guv'nor's business."
"Ah," said Pride, "there's no use wasting sympathy on you. Why did you ever leave it? What's his business?"
"That," Cannock laughed gaily and pointed to a poster as the train stopped at Tottenham Court Road Station. It was a great picture of barrels and barrels of beer, piled one above the other, reaching away into the far distance. Thousands of barrels under a vaulted roof. And in the foreground were little figures of men in white aprons with red jersey caps on their heads, rolling in more barrels, with their arms bared to the elbows. Across the picture in large letters Pride could read: "Cannock Brothers, Holloway. Cannock's Entire."
"Why, your people are worth millions!" Pride said. "What on earth are you doing in journalism."
"I know they are. That's what I was thinking of yesterday. I wondered how on earth they got anybody to do the work."
"Well, you won't mind me, I'm sure," Pride said, leaning over to Cannock. "I'm older than you, and I belong to what they call the old school of journalism. This isn't the lovely life some people think it must be, and it's going to get worse each year. We've got to fight for our jobs every day of our life. 'Making good,' they call it. I'm used to it," he said defiantly, looking at Harlem, "I like it.... I couldn't do anything else. I'm not fit for anything else. It has its lazy moments, too, and its moments of excitement and thrills. No, my son, you go back to the brewery, there's more money in it for you and all the glory you want with your name plastered over every bottle and on all the walls. Ask five hundred men in the street if they've ever heard of Tommy Pride. They've been reading things I've written every day, but they don't know who's written them. Ask 'em who's Cannock? Why, they'll turn mechanically into the nearest public-house and call for a bottle of you."
"I used to think it would be jolly to be on a newspaper," Cannock said. "My guv'nor got me the job. He's something to do with the Kelmscotts."
"So it is if you're meant to be on a newspaper. That's the trouble of fellows like you. You come out of nowhere, or from the 'Varsity, and get plunked right down in the heart of a London newspaper office--probably someone's fired to make room for you. You're friends of the editor and you think you're great men, until you find you're expected to take your turn with the rest. Then you grouse, because you're not meant for it. You've got appointments to keep at dinner-time, and you must get your meals regularly. Or you want to write fine stuff and be great star descriptive men at once, or go to Persia and Timbuctoo, and live on flam and signed articles. But, if you were meant to be a reporter, you'd hang round the news editor's room for any job that came along, you'd take any old thing that was given you, and do it without a murmur, and when you've done that for thirty years you might meet success, and stay on until they shoved you out of the office."
He saw that Cannock was smiling, and seemed to read his thoughts.
"Me?" he said. "Oh, you mustn't judge by me. I belong to the old school, you know. I'm the son of my father--he was a Gallery man, and died worth three hundred pounds, and that's more than I am. I'm one of the products of the last generation, and all I want is ?2 a week and a cottage in the country." The little man relit his pipe, and puffed contentedly. "Lord! I should like that!" he said.
"You're always frightened of being fired, Tommy," said Harlem. "You know well enough you're what we call a thoroughly reliable and experienced man, and Ferrol wouldn't have you sacked."
"There's always that bogy," Pride answered with a laugh. "You never know what may happen. The only thing is to join the Newspaper Press Fund and trust in the Lord. None of the youngsters do either of these things to-day."
Cannock and Harlem prepared to leave as the train slowed down before Marble Arch. "It's a rotten game," said Cannock. "I'm glad I'm out of it. Good-bye."
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