think so?â she said. âI think itâs going to be an absolutely marvellous day. Iâm perfectly, perfectly happy.â
Squiff
He had always been a drifter. He moved from place to place as the fancy took him, working mostly as a kitchen porter or cellerman or handyman in hotels, along the coast in summertime and then back inland for winter.
He was a trustworthy, stocky little man, not exactly stunted but perhaps what some people would have called a runt: rather simple-looking in a taciturn sort of way but with what were normally good, capable, steady hands. He hardly ever drank and was one of the few of his kind who did no gambling: probably because he had never learned to read or write, so that he could never be quite sure what the names of the horses were.
Somehow or other he had picked up his odd nick-name: Squiff. Nothing could have suited him less. Instead it seemed to mock him. It seemed really to belong to someone else, to a jocular sprightly man with a beery squint in his eye who took life gaily and made easy friends. He on the other hand never made many friends, nor enemies for that matter, and he was hardly ever jocular.
When he was a little over forty he got himself a job as handyman at a country hotel called
The Montague Arms
. It was a big fake-baronial style house heavily panelled in oakand decorated with gleaming battle-axes, suits of armour, coats-of-arms and portraits in oils of obscure Tudor gentlemen. The large chilly rooms lacked intimacy. Most of the guests found themselves talking in half-whispers and when anyone raised a voice the effect seemed aggressive, even coarse. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because the food itself was merely indifferent, not a lot of people came to eat there. As a consequence the staff were bored and restless and, like Squiff, always drifting on.
Soon after he got there, on a warm Saturday night in July, it happened that the hotel wine-waiter was careless enough to slip on the stone flagstones of a passage while carrying a tray of glasses. In falling he put out an arm, jabbed it flat on a broken glass and severed an artery.
Probably because the night was so exceptionally warm and fine there were an unusual number of guests in the dining-room. One of the waitresses was sick at the sight of blood and sat outside for the rest of the evening, trembling in a chair, and there was no one to serve wine at the tables until suddenly someone remembered Squiff. The suit of tails they put on him was a little on the large side and the wing collar, over-large too, merely heightened his look of simplicity. He looked altogether clumsy, lost and undignified.
As soon as he went into the dining-room a rending shout of âWaiter!â hit him like a growl from a raging boar. When he answered it he found himself facing a broad, heavy-faced man named Lubbock who was dining at a corner table with a blonde-haired girl of remarkably cool and distinguishedappearance, in a low-cut dress of silver blue, who seemed altogether out of place in the company of a second-hand car dealer notorious for loudness of mouth, brutish habits and too much money.
âWhereâs the bloody
Liebfraumilch
I ordered twenty minutes ago?â Lubbock shouted. His lips, coarse as the crêpe soles of a shoe, champed out the words viciously enough to make Squiff recoil. âAnd anyway whereâs the wine-waiter? Youâre not the bloody wine-waiter, are you?â
âYessir. I am now.â
âWhat do you mean you am now?â
Squiff, who always talked with a good deal of hesitation, started to explain about the accident but Lubbock, furiously stubbing out one cigarette and in another second lighting another, shouted that he didnât want to hear a lot of crap like that. He wanted the wine â and bloody fast too.
All this time the girl was watching Squiff. Her thick fair hair fell over her bare shoulders like a mane. Her very light blue eyes were as cool and fresh as
Squiff
He had always been a drifter. He moved from place to place as the fancy took him, working mostly as a kitchen porter or cellerman or handyman in hotels, along the coast in summertime and then back inland for winter.
He was a trustworthy, stocky little man, not exactly stunted but perhaps what some people would have called a runt: rather simple-looking in a taciturn sort of way but with what were normally good, capable, steady hands. He hardly ever drank and was one of the few of his kind who did no gambling: probably because he had never learned to read or write, so that he could never be quite sure what the names of the horses were.
Somehow or other he had picked up his odd nick-name: Squiff. Nothing could have suited him less. Instead it seemed to mock him. It seemed really to belong to someone else, to a jocular sprightly man with a beery squint in his eye who took life gaily and made easy friends. He on the other hand never made many friends, nor enemies for that matter, and he was hardly ever jocular.
When he was a little over forty he got himself a job as handyman at a country hotel called
The Montague Arms
. It was a big fake-baronial style house heavily panelled in oakand decorated with gleaming battle-axes, suits of armour, coats-of-arms and portraits in oils of obscure Tudor gentlemen. The large chilly rooms lacked intimacy. Most of the guests found themselves talking in half-whispers and when anyone raised a voice the effect seemed aggressive, even coarse. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because the food itself was merely indifferent, not a lot of people came to eat there. As a consequence the staff were bored and restless and, like Squiff, always drifting on.
Soon after he got there, on a warm Saturday night in July, it happened that the hotel wine-waiter was careless enough to slip on the stone flagstones of a passage while carrying a tray of glasses. In falling he put out an arm, jabbed it flat on a broken glass and severed an artery.
Probably because the night was so exceptionally warm and fine there were an unusual number of guests in the dining-room. One of the waitresses was sick at the sight of blood and sat outside for the rest of the evening, trembling in a chair, and there was no one to serve wine at the tables until suddenly someone remembered Squiff. The suit of tails they put on him was a little on the large side and the wing collar, over-large too, merely heightened his look of simplicity. He looked altogether clumsy, lost and undignified.
As soon as he went into the dining-room a rending shout of âWaiter!â hit him like a growl from a raging boar. When he answered it he found himself facing a broad, heavy-faced man named Lubbock who was dining at a corner table with a blonde-haired girl of remarkably cool and distinguishedappearance, in a low-cut dress of silver blue, who seemed altogether out of place in the company of a second-hand car dealer notorious for loudness of mouth, brutish habits and too much money.
âWhereâs the bloody
Liebfraumilch
I ordered twenty minutes ago?â Lubbock shouted. His lips, coarse as the crêpe soles of a shoe, champed out the words viciously enough to make Squiff recoil. âAnd anyway whereâs the wine-waiter? Youâre not the bloody wine-waiter, are you?â
âYessir. I am now.â
âWhat do you mean you am now?â
Squiff, who always talked with a good deal of hesitation, started to explain about the accident but Lubbock, furiously stubbing out one cigarette and in another second lighting another, shouted that he didnât want to hear a lot of crap like that. He wanted the wine â and bloody fast too.
All this time the girl was watching Squiff. Her thick fair hair fell over her bare shoulders like a mane. Her very light blue eyes were as cool and fresh as
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