The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

Americans, the bigger of the two, could just be
heard murmuring that he reckoned he agreed with the lady, there was a whole lot to be said both ways . . .
    ‘What?’ said Mr. Thwaites, who had not heard what was said. But the big American would not repeat himself.
    ‘The Whale of a Problem,’ said Mr. Thwaites, considerately assuming what he assumed to be the idiom of those to whom he was addressing himself. ‘What?’
    But the American still would not speak, and at this point things were made easier by Sheila beginning to remove the empty plates of spam and mashed potatoes, and replacing them with plates of
steamed pudding and custard.
    He will certainly, in a moment, say ‘Say, Bo’ or ‘Waal, Bo’, thought Miss Roach, for he hardly ever failed to do this when imitating American speech, or talking about
Americans. But this time he did not do exactly what she feared. Instead, he paused a long while, and then came out with something which even she could not have foreseen.
    ‘
The Almighty Dollar
,’ said Mr. Thwaites, weightily, out of the blue, and in a measured tone . . . That, and nothing else.
    It was not easy to see exactly what Mr. Thwaites intended to establish by this – not easy, that is to say, for one who was not acquainted with the workings of his wild and circuitous
mentality. To one so acquainted, however, his meaning was fairly clear. He meant Americans in general. He had been put into the presence of Americans: it therefore seemed to him his business, as
master and spokesman of the boarding-house, to sum up and characterise America, and in this way he summed it up and characterised it.
    And here it seemed that he was conscious of having found perfect expression for the perfect thought, for he said no more.
    And because Mr. Thwaites said no more, the atmosphere in which pins could be heard dropping returned to the room, and no one else dared to say any more. Ruminatively, dully, around the heavy
thoughts set in motion by Mr. Thwaites, the heavy steamed pudding was eaten.
    Miss Steele was the first to rise and leave, stealing from the room with her
Life of Katherine Parr
under her arm.
    Coffee was served in the Lounge upstairs. The others followed Miss Steele one by one, their chairs squeaking on the parquet oilcloth as they rose, and squeaking again as they were
self-consciously replaced under the tables.
    6
    She couldn’t stand it, she decided on the stairs. Tonight she simply couldn’t and wouldn’t stand it any more. All the same she would go into the Lounge
for coffee. Why should she be done out of her coffee? She wondered whether the Americans, whom she had left behind in the dining-room, would be coming up into the Lounge. She could talk about
America. She knew quite a lot about America, from what she had read, and from what her brother had told her. Perhaps, if she talked to them, she could eradicate or compensate for the stupidity and
rudeness of Mr. Thwaites. Perhaps they were lonely in a foreign country, as lonely as she was in her own.
    The Lounge was the same shape and size as the dining-room, but here Mrs. Payne, abandoning pink, had struck out whole-heartedly into brown, and made something of a hit. The wall-paper was of
mottled brown, with a frieze of autumn leaves above the picture-rail: the carpet was brown: the lamps were shaded with mottled parchment of a brown tinge: and the large settee and two large
armchairs were upholstered in brown leather. Cunningly slung over the arms of the armchairs were ash-trays attached to brown leather straps fringed at the ends. The room was heated by a big,
bright, hot gas-fire.
    Here, for two hours or more every evening, the guests of the Rosamund Tea Rooms sat in each other’s company until they were giddy – giddy with the heat, the stillness, the desultory
conversation, the silent noises – the rattling of re-read newspapers, the page-turning of the book-reader, the clicking of the knitter, the puffing of the pipe-smoker, the