Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/194



It pleased Thomas Roland to speak of their enterprise as an Elizabethan gentleman adventurer spoke of his ships, lovingly, and with a feeling for the roll of the sea and the names of the ships that sailed it. The Pelican, whose master was Captain Sorrell, the Royal Oak, the White Hart, the Lion. The Royal Oak had been launched at Brockenhurst in the Forest, and Roland was sailing with her for a season to see that all was shipshape. The Lion was to be launched at Salisbury in the spring. The White Hart was still upon the stocks. Meanwhile, Roland had taken a little house at Chelsea, engaged an ex-service man and his wife, proposing to make the Chelsea house his headquarters.

"In memory of 'Cherry,' my dear Steve. The young lady is still earning me a great deal of money."

Whether Cherry existed in the flesh was a question that did not trouble Stephen, though he could imagine her existence, the insouciant, red-lipped love of a man who did not choose to marry. Perhaps Cherry was sharing in the building and staging of the next colour fantasia, The Blue Box, which was to be produced at the "Pelargonium" in the autumn. Certainly, Thomas Roland had his head and his hands well filled—and between bursts of song, was to play the rover in his car, visiting his ships and surveying their cargoes.

Christopher had gone up to Trinity, and was in rooms in Jesus Lane. Sorrell had seen him lodged there, had bought him two immense armchairs, and had had a long talk with Kit's tutor. Christopher's immediate objectives were the Science Tripos, and the first two parts of the M. B. Mr. Porteous, who could have taught a dog with no hind legs to walk, had grounded Kit in physics and chemistry. Also, Kit had elected to box and to row, and could be seen strolling down to the First Trinity boat-house in striped trousers and dark-blue blazer, to be tubbed and lectured by eloquent and serious young men. He weighed twelve stone three, and he received his notice to row in one of the scratch eights at the end of a fortnight's tubbing.

Sorrell, captain in a double sense, and in occupation of Roland's little suite at the Pelican, felt that life had enlarged itself. His salary as manager was £500 a year, with