The Slaves of Solitude

by Patrick Hamilton

‘Yes. And I’ll Push you again!’ said Miss Roach. ‘And you needn’t pretend you’re hurt!’

  ‘Well, let’s go into the Lounge, shall we?’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘I think that would be best.’

  Still allowing himself to be supported by Mrs. Payne and Vicki, Mr. Thwaites moved slowly into the Lounge.

  ‘She Pushed me’ Miss Roach heard him saying, in the same awed tones, when he had got inside. ‘She Pushed me.’ And these were actually the last words she ever heard Mr. Thwaites use.

  She stood still for a moment, then rushed up to her room, and before long was weeping passionately on her bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  1

  WELL, it was all over now, it was all over now! . . . Following her failing torch, in the blackness of the street, in the desperation of her unhappiness, there was a gleam of consolation in the thought that it was, at any rate, all over.

  She had no idea where she was going, and it all at once occurred to her that it was Sunday night.

  As soon as she had recovered from her tears, her one ambition had been to get outside. Wiping her eyes at the mirror, she had heard a knock on her door, and Miss Steele had put her face into the room.

  ‘Don’t you worry, my dear,’ Miss Steele had said, with infinite knowingness. ‘It’ll all come out in the Wash.’ And Miss Steele had then instantly disappeared.

  What this had meant exactly it was impossible to say – it was one of those conventional phrases of consolation elusive of precise interpretation – but it meant that she had someone on her side, someone not against her, at any rate.

  It was all over now. Even if Mrs. Payne did not actually expel her, she would have to go.

  She should have kept her temper, of course. Losing that, she had lost her dignity, and they somehow still had scored, put her in the wrong, more or less maintained her in the grotesquely false position into which they had intrigued her.

  This would be all over Thames Lockdon in the morning, she imagined. And what stories would be told, with all of them against her!

  She shouldn’t have pushed Mr. Thwaites, of course. She should not have allowed herself to use physical violence. Besides, the weak-minded old man was not really responsible for what he said or did. He had only been repeating, in his anger, tactlessness, and confusion of mind, what that woman had been putting into his head. It carried her signature. No one else could have thought up that business about the Poulton boy. She remembered, now, the look Vicki had given herself and the Poulton boy as they had left the tea-shop that day. She remembered the glances she had cast across at them when they were in the River Sun. She must have thought it up, and then told it to Mr. Thwaites in one of their long private talks at the Rosamund Tea Rooms. Beyond hinting, she would probably not have tried it out on the Lieutenant. Foolish as he was, he would not have given credence to propaganda of that sort, or even have countenanced its utterance. Though you never knew – you never knew anything about anybody . . .

  Where on earth was she going? She couldn’t go back, but she couldn’t go on walking round. What about a drink at the River Sun? No – not there – with the chance of meeting the Lieutenant – but what about a drink?

  She remembered a bar in a small house by the river where in her early Thames Lockdon days she had once had a drink with Mrs. Poulton. By the light of her torch, which was now giving practically no light at all, she found her way round there, and boldly opened the door.

  She regretted this the moment she had done it, as the bar was stewing with men and smoke and American G.I.s, and she couldn’t see another woman in the whole crowd.

  She saw, however, standing by himself at the far end of the bar, Mr. Prest, and Mr. Prest at once saw her, smiled, waved, and came over to her.

  ‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here? Come over out of the crowd and have a drink.’

  When he had ordered her drink, ‘But what are you doing here?’ she said. ‘You weren’t in to dinner.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m just down for the night to collect the last of my luggage. I’m staying at the Stag.’

  The Stag was Thames Lockdon’s pound-a-day-or-thirty-shillings hotel. In addition to being back at ‘work’, whatever that meant, had Mr. Prest come into money?

  ‘Well,’ said Miss Roach for something to say, ‘you ought to have come in to see us.’

  ‘Oh – I don’t know,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘I’ve got a feeling it’s a good idea to dodge meals round there whenever you can. Haven’t you?’ And he looked at her with a smile.

  This was undoubtedly a new Mr. Prest.

  ‘Why, yes,’ she said, smiling back, and encouraged by his smile. ‘But you missed something tonight.’

  ‘Did I? What?’

  ‘We had a row,’ said Miss Roach. ‘Or at least I did. I’m afraid I lost my temper.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘I thought there was a row coming. I’ve thought that for a long while.’

  ‘Have you?’ said Miss Roach, looking at him, puzzled by his wisdom. ‘Well, it certainly came tonight.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘And how are they all? How’s the venerable Mr. Thwaites?’

  ‘Oh – he’s all right. He’s the chief one I had the row with.’

  ‘That’s better still,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘He’s a funny one, all right.’

  ‘Yes. He’s a funny one.’

  ‘And how are the others? Is the American still about – the Lieutenant – I never knew his name?’

  ‘No, I haven’t seen him for some days,’ said Miss Roach, and then something made her add, ‘He can be a bit of a funny one too.’

  ‘Funny!’ said Mr. Prest. ‘I should just say he can!’

  ‘Why – do you know a lot about him?’

  ‘Oh – only what you see and hear in the town.’

  ‘Why – has he a reputation?’

  ‘Reputation!’ said Mr. Prest.

  ‘What for?’ asked Miss Roach.

  ‘Oh – only drink and girls,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘Girls mostly.’

  ‘Girls?’ said Miss Roach, swallowing . . .

  ‘I should say. Lockdon, Maidenhead, Reading, and all around everywhere,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘But it isn’t the amount of them that matters so much. The trouble is he asks them all to marry him.’

  ‘Really?’ said Miss Roach.

  ‘With the consequence that complications ensue,’ said Mr. Prest. ‘You don’t know what goes on in this town unless you go round the pubs, the way I do.’

  ‘So he asks them all to marry him, does he?’

  ‘Yes. He’s got a kink that way, it seems . . . Well, I suppose he’s entitled to a good time while it lasts.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose he has . . .’ So here, at last, was the explanation of the Lieutenant’s absences! She had to think about this afterwards! Not now! Now she must change the subject.

  ‘So you’re leaving us for good, Mr. Prest?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I don’t expect I’ll be back, so long as I’m in work. Now the young ones are away, the old ’uns are getting back a bit.’

  She looked at him to see if she might be bold enough, and was so.

  ‘What kind of work is it you’re doing, then, Mr. Prest,’ she said, ‘just now?’

  ‘Oh, the old game. Wicked Uncle this time,’ said Mr. Prest and grinned shyly.

  Seeing her slightly bewildered look, Mr. Prest went on.

  ‘Babes in the Woods,’ he said. ‘Down at the Royal, Wimbledon. If you’re coming to London, would you like to come and see us?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘Can you manage Wednesday afternoon?’

  ‘Why, yes, I think so.’

  ‘Well, if you can, that’s fine.’ Mr. Prest fished in his breast pocket. ‘Here’s two seats. I was going to give them to a pal down here but he can’t use ’em. There you are. Is that a date?’

  ‘Why, thank you. That’ll be lovely. Thank you very much,’ said Miss Roach.

  ‘Hav
e another drink?’ said Mr. Prest, a little later.

  ‘No, I don’t think I’d better. I think I’d really better be going,’ said Miss Roach, and Mr. Prest, hailed at that moment by a friend, did not urge her to stay. She was glad of this, because she wanted to get out and think.

  ‘Well, see you Wednesday,’ said Mr. Prest, as she left him amidst the noise, and ‘Yes!’ said Miss Roach, and ‘Come round and see me afterwards!’ said Mr. Prest, and ‘Yes! Thank you! Goodbye!’ said Miss Roach, and she was out again in the blackness.

  So it was really all over now!

  So that was the sort of man the Lieutenant was. So this was the final touch to her ‘romance’. She had known well enough already that it was at an end, but now it appeared that there had never been any ‘romance’ at all. What she had always suspected – the shop-girls – everything – was true. And the shop-girls, no doubt, were offered marriage and taken to the same seat by the river!

  And she had allowed herself to be flattered by his offer, even if she had never seriously thought of accepting it. And she had, if she faced facts, at moments even thought seriously of accepting it, if only as a means of escape from certain spinsterhood and her present mode of existence. And she had, if she faced facts, at moments not altogether disliked his kisses in the dark. And she had even taken a certain pride in the fact that she had ‘her’ American in the town.

  Instead of this she had never had any offer, for if it was offered to all it was no offer, and she had never had ‘her’ American, and she had been simply made a fool of, deprived of any sort of dignity, in a typical set-up of war-time wildness and folly which comprised Vicki Kugelmann and the hostile shop-girls in the town.

  ‘Old Roach.’ ‘Old Cockroach.’ Driven out on to the streets, and walking about in the blackness, as she had done that night, months ago, before all this had begun. ‘Old Cockroach.’ That was her. That was how they had started with her, and that was how it would always be. She might have known this – she might have known better than to have suspected the possibility of any brighter destiny.

  If she hadn’t cried herself out already, she could go back and cry. But she had cried herself out. It was all over now – even tears.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  1

  BUT it was not all over.

  That extraordinary next day began in an extraordinary way.

  Miss Roach, going downstairs to have breakfast, and passing Mr. Thwaites’ door, heard the sound of groaning within.

  At least she was almost certain she heard this: she did not stay to listen.

  As she went on down the stairs it struck her either that Mr. Thwaites, unknown to her previously, practised Yogi breathing exercises in his room, or that he was in pain. But she could not associate pain with so healthy and virile a man.

  Also the absurd idea occurred to her that Mr. Thwaites somehow knew that she was passing his room, and was groaning for her benefit: that he was pretending he had just that moment been pushed over and was groaning with pain, shamming ‘hurt.’

  2

  Only because, late the night before, she had had a little talk with Mrs. Payne, was she now going down to the dining-room for breakfast: she had not originally intended to have another meal in the dining-room of the Rosamund Tea Rooms.

  Late the night before she had had to go downstairs in her dressing-gown for another telephone conversation about her aunt with Mrs. Spender. At the end of this Mrs. Payne had come into the room.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry about tonight, Mrs. Payne. I suppose I’ll have to go away from here as soon as I can.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘I hope not. I hope you won’t be going.’

  ‘Well,’ said Miss Roach, ‘I really think it would be for the best. I’m very sorry for what happened.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘I’m sure you were very much provoked. It’s not you who I want to go. It’s another person I want to go. In fact, I’m going to ask them to leave.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Miss Roach, and wondered whether Mrs. Payne was alluding to Mr. Thwaites or Vicki.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘I didn’t like certain things that took place on Boxing Day. I didn’t like it at all.’

  So Mrs. Payne had also had glimpses through open doors! Miss Roach now felt almost sure that Vicki was the one who was going to be asked to go. In boarding-house and landlady psychology it was always the woman to whom was attached the initiation and guilt of scandals of this sort.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I really don’t feel I can have any more meals in that room.’

  ‘Oh – that’s all right,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘We’ll put you at a separate table. That’ll be all right.’

  And there the matter had been left.

  3

  It was very awkward, going to that separate table.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs. Barrett,’ she said, and smiled at her, and Mrs. Barrett said ‘Good morning’ and smiled back. Vicki, fortunately (and she had reckoned on this when deciding to brazen it out), had her back to her.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Steele,’ she said, and Miss Steele said ‘Good morning’ and smiled back with a wink which suggested again that all things would ultimately come out in the Wash.

  Miss Roach’s separate table was in the window, near to the table of the newcomer, Mrs. Crewe.

  Miss Roach, without speaking, smiled at Mrs. Crewe, who smiled back in what seemed to Miss Roach a rather uneasy way.

  As a complete newcomer, the situation was, of course, very difficult for Mrs. Crewe, who, presumably, took what had happened last night as the normal standard of behaviour at the Rosamund Tea Rooms, and who, no doubt, thought that Miss Roach would at any moment take her up on the matter of international politics, insult her, drive her up the stairs and push her over.

  Miss Roach sat down, and Sheila served her.

  Although she had consented to being put at a separate table last night, Miss Roach now doubted the wisdom of this decision. Did it not look as though she had disgraced herself and been put in a corner? If Mrs. Payne was on her side, ought not Vicki to have been put in the corner? It was all very involved.

  It was a grey day, and a hideous spiritual heaviness lay all over the room. A storm was supposed, in the ordinary way, to clear the air. But so far from this having happened, the atmosphere, in a new way, was more stiflingly oppressive than ever before.

  For the first time it now occurred to Miss Roach that Mr. Thwaites was not in the room. How silly of her! – how could he be in the room if he was groaning or doing Yogi exercises upstairs? But what was the matter? Why was he not down? She had never known him not to be first in his place before.

  Miss Steele voiced her thoughts.

  ‘Where’s Mr. Thwaites this morning?’ she asked. ‘It’s not like him not to be down.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs. Barratt. ‘No – it’s certainly not like him.’

  Then Vicki spoke.

  ‘He is ill, I think,’ said Vicki quietly. ‘Quite badly ill.’

  And something in Vicki’s voice told Miss Roach that this remark had been addressed to her – or uttered so that she in particular might hear.

  What was this? What new trick was the woman up to?

  Were she and Mr. Thwaites going to try and throw Mr. Thwaites’ illness, if he had one, on to her?

  Were they going to try and pull an injured spine, or something of that sort, out of the bag?

  They were capable of anything.

  4

  After breakfast Miss Roach had some shopping to do.

  Going up to her bedroom to dress, and passing Mr. Thwaites’ door, she heard the same sound of groaning.

  Coming downstairs again, five or six minutes later, she heard nothing. Relieved, she went out into the town.

  Returning three-quarters of an hour later, and passing Mr. Thwaites’ door, she again heard Mr. Thwaites groaning, this time more loudly, and, it seemed to her, in genuine physical anguish.

&nbs
p; She went up to her room, walked about it, and then went downstairs to try and find Mrs. Payne.

  But there was no sign of Mrs. Payne. There was no sign of anybody. She seemed to be alone in the house with a groaning Mr. Thwaites . . .

  Well – it was not her business. She was sorry for Mr. Thwaites, if he was ill and in pain, but it was not her business.

  All the same, she was conscious of a silly sort of fear, and felt that she must get out of the house. Get out and stay out.

  She went for a long walk, which calmed, without removing, that funny feeling of fear, and she had lunch at a restaurant in the town.

  Then she went for another walk, and returned to the Rosamund Tea Rooms at about a quarter past three.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  1

  SHE had not set foot in the house before she realised that panic was reigning within its walls – had been so reigning for a considerable time.

  Mrs. Payne, rushing down the stairs, hardly looked at her as she dashed into her room. She heard Mrs. Payne using the telephone.

  She climbed the stairs, and the groaning met her as she rose. ‘Oh! . . . Oh! . . . Oh!. . .’

  Mr. Thwaites’ door was closed, and she listened outside.

  ‘Oh! . . . Oh! . . . Oh! . . .’ she heard, and, beneath this noise, the sound of two strange men talking in quiet and level tones. Only doctors, and frightened doctors at that, would be talking in just that quiet and level way.

  Was Mr. Thwaites going to die? And had she killed him?

  She rushed down to Mrs. Payne’s room. Mrs. Payne had just finished her telephone call.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mrs. Payne?’ she said. ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘Yes. He’s very bad, I’m afraid,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘He’s got to have an operation. They’re sending an ambulance.’

  ‘But what is it?’ asked Miss Roach passionately. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s peritonitis, they think,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘And he’s got to go to Reading at once and have an operation.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Miss Roach. ‘Then it’s not anything else?’