WHEN WE arrived at Blackstable, Roy and I, a car, neither ostentatiously
grand nor obviously cheap, was waiting for him and the chauffeur had a
note for me asking me to lunch with Mrs. Driffield next day. I got into
a taxi and went to the Bear and Key. I had learned from Roy that there
was a new Marine Hotel on the front, but I did not propose for the
luxuries of civilization to abandon a resort of my youth. Change met me
at the railway station, which was not in its old place, but up a new
road, and of course it was strange to be driven down the High Street in
a car. But the Bear and Key was unaltered. It received me with its old
churlish indifference: there was no one at the entrance, the driver put
my bag down and drove away; I called, no one answered; I went into the
bar and found a young lady with shingled hair reading a book by Mr.
Compton Mackenzie. I asked her if I could have a room. She gave me a
slightly offended look and said she thought so, but as that seemed to
exhaust her interest in the matter I asked politely whether there was
anyone who could show it to me. She got up and, opening a door, in a
shrill voice called: “Katie.”
“What is it?” I heard.
“There’s a gent wants a room.”
In a little while appeared an ancient and haggard female in a very dirty
print dress, with an untidy mop of gray hair, and showed me, two flights
up, a very small grubby room.
“Can’t you do something better than that for me?” I asked.
“It’s the room commercials generally ’ave,” she answered with a sniff.
“Haven’t you got any others?”
“Not single.”
“Then give me a double room.”
“I’ll go and ask Mrs. Brentford.”
I accompanied her down to the first floor and she knocked at a door. She
was told to come in, and when she opened it I caught sight of a stout
woman with gray hair elaborately marcelled. She was reading a book.
Apparently everyone at the Bear and Key was interested in literature.
She gave me an indifferent look when Katie said I wasn’t satisfied with
number seven.
“Show him number five,” she said.
I began to feel that I had been a trifle rash in declining so haughtily
Mrs. Driffield’s invitation to stay with her and then putting aside in
my sentimental way Roy’s wise suggestion that I should stay at the
Marine Hotel. Katie took me upstairs again and ushered me into a largish
room looking on the High Street. Most of its space was occupied by a
double bed. The windows had certainly not been opened for a month.