The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure
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Title: The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure
Creator: Arnold Bennett
Release date: July 8, 2012 [eBook #40168]
Language: English
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Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD ADAM: A STORY OF ADVENTURE ***
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[Illustration: Cover]
THE OLD ADAM
_A STORY OF ADVENTURE_
BY
ARNOLD BENNETT
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD WIVES' TALE," "HOW TO LIVE
ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY," ETC.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1913
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER
I. Dog-Bite
II. The Bank-Note
III. Wilkins's
IV. Entry Into The Theatrical World
V. Mr. Sachs Talks
VI. Lord Woldo And Lady Woldo
PART II
VII. Corner-stone
VIII. Dealing with Elsie
IX. The First Night
X. Isabel
THE OLD ADAM
PART I
THE OLD ADAM
CHAPTER I
DOG-BITE
I.
"And yet," Edward Henry Machin reflected as at six minutes to six he
approached his own dwelling at the top of Bleakridge, "and yet--I don't
feel so jolly after all!"
The first two words of this disturbing meditation had reference to the
fact that, by telephoning twice to his stockbrokers at Manchester, he
had just made the sum of three hundred and forty-one pounds in a purely
speculative transaction concerning Rubber shares. (It was in the autumn
of the great gambling year, 1910). He had simply opened his lucky and
wise mouth at the proper moment, and the money, like ripe golden fruit,
had fallen into it, a gift from benign Heaven, surely a cause for
happiness! And yet--he did not feel so jolly! He was surprised, he was
even a little hurt, to discover by introspection that monetary gain was
not necessarily accompanied by felicity. Nevertheless, this very
successful man of the world of the Five Towns, having been born on the
27th of May, 1867, had reached the age of forty-three and a half years.
"I must be getting older," he reflected.
He was right. He was still young, as every man of forty-three will
agree, but he was getting older. A few years ago a windfall of Three
hundred and forty-one pounds would not have been followed by morbid
self-analysis; it would have been followed by unreasoning instinctive
elation, which elation would have endured at least twelve hours.
As he disappeared within the reddish garden wall which sheltered his
abode from the publicity of Trafalgar Road, he half hoped to see Nellie
waiting for him on the famous marble step of the porch, for the woman
had long, long since invented a way of scouting for his advent from the
small window in the bathroom. But there was nobody on the marble step.
His melancholy increased. At the midday meal he had complained of
neuralgia, and hence this was an evening upon which he might fairly have
expected to see sympathy charmingly attired on the porch. It is true
that the neuralgia had completely gone. "Still," he said to himself
with justifiable sardonic gloom, "how does she know my neuralgia's gone?
She doesn't know."
Having opened the front door with the thinnest, neatest latchkey in the
Five Towns, he entered his home and stumbled slightly over a brush that
was lying against the sunk door-mat. He gazed at that brush with
resentment. It was a dilapidated handbrush. The offensive object would
have been out of place, at nightfall, in the lobby of any house. But in
the lobby of his house--the house which he had planned a dozen years
earlier to the special end of minimising domestic labour, and which he
had always kept up to date with the latest devices--in his lobby the
spectacle of a vile outworn hand-brush at tea-time amounted to a
scandal. Less than a fortnight previously he had purchased and
presented to his wife a marvellous electric vacuum-cleaner, surpassing
all former vacuum-cleaners. You simply attached this machine by a cord
to the wall, like a dog, and waved it in mysterious passes over the
floor, like a fan, and the house was clean! He was as proud of this
machine as though he had invented it, instead of having merely bought
it; every day he enquired about its feats, expecting enthusiastic
replies as a sort of reward for his own keenness; and be it said that he
had had enthusiastic replies.
And now this obscene hand-brush!
As he carefully removed his hat and his beautiful new Melton overcoat
(which had the colour and the soft smoothness of a damson), he
animadverted upon the astounding negligence of women. There were
Nellie, his wife; his mother, the nurse, the cook, the maid--five of
them; and in his mind they had all plotted together--a conspiracy of
carelessness--to leave the inexcusable tool in his lobby for him to
stumble over. What was the use of accidentally procuring three hundred
and forty-one pounds?
Still no sign of Nellie, though he purposely made a noisy rattle with
his ebon walking-stick. Then the maid burst out of the kitchen with a
tray and the principal utensils for high tea thereon. She had a guilty
air. The household was evidently late. Two steps at a time he rushed
up-stairs to the bathroom, so as to be waiting in the dining-room at six
precisely, in order, if possible, to shame the household and fill it
with remorse and unpleasantness. Yet, ordinarily, he was not a very
prompt man, nor did he delight in giving pain. On the contrary, he was
apt to be casual, blithe, and agreeable.
The bathroom was his peculiar domain, which he was always modernising,
and where his talent for the ingenious organisation of comfort and his
utter indifference to esthetic beauty had the fullest scope. By
universal consent admitted to be the finest bathroom in the Five Towns,
it typified the whole house. He was disappointed on this occasion to see
no untidy trace in it of the children's ablution; some transgression of
the supreme domestic law that the bathroom must always be free and
immaculate when Father wanted it would have suited his gathering humour.
As he washed his hands and cleansed his well-trimmed nails with a
nail-brush that had cost five shillings and sixpence, he glanced at
himself in the mirror which he was splashing. A stoutish,
broad-shouldered, fair, chubby man with a short bright beard and
plenteous bright hair! His necktie pleased him; the elegance of his
turned-back wristbands pleased him; and he liked the rich down on his
forearms.
He could not believe that he looked forty-three and a half. And yet he
had recently had an idea of shaving off his beard, partly to defy time,
but partly, also (I must admit), because a friend had suggested to him,
wildly perhaps, that if he dispensed with a beard his hair might grow
more sturdily. Yes, there was one weak spot in the middle of the top of
his head where the crop had of late disconcertingly thinned. The
hair-dresser had informed him that the symptom would vanish under
electric massage, and that, if he doubted the bonafides of
hair-dressers, any doctor would testify to the value of electric
massage. But now Edward Henry Machin, strangely discouraged,
inexplicably robbed of the zest of existence, decided that it was not
worth while to shave off his beard. Nothing was worth while. If he was
forty-three and a half, he was forty-three and a half. To become bald
was the common lot. Moreover, beardless, he would need the service of a
barber every day. And he was absolutely persuaded that not a barber
worth the name could be found in the Five Towns. He actually went to
Manchester, thirty-six miles, to get his hair cut. The operation never
cost him less than a sovereign and half a day's time. And he honestly
deemed himself to be a fellow of simple tastes! Such is the effect of
the canker of luxury. Happily he could afford these simple tastes; for,
although not rich in the modern significance of the term, he paid income
tax on some five thousand pounds a year, without quite convincing the
Surveyor of Taxes that he was an honest man.
He brushed the thick hair over the weak spot, he turned down his
wristbands, he brushed the collar of his jacket, and lastly his beard;
and he put on his jacket--with a certain care, for he was very neat.
And then, reflectively twisting his moustache to military points, he
spied through the smaller window to see whether the new high hoarding of
the football-ground really did prevent a serious observer from descrying
wayfarers as they breasted the hill from Hanbridge. It did not. Then
he spied through the larger window upon the yard, to see whether the
wall of the new rooms which he had lately added to his house showed any
further trace of damp, and whether the new chauffeur was washing the new
motor-car with all his heart. The wall showed no further trace of damp,
and the new chauffeur's bent back seemed to symbolise an extreme
conscientiousness.
Then the clock on the landing struck six, and he hurried off to put the
household to open shame.
II.
Nellie came into the dining-room two minutes after her husband. As
Edward Henry had laboriously counted these two minutes almost second by
second on the dining-room clock, he was very tired of waiting. His
secret annoyance was increased by the fact that Nellie took off her
white apron in the doorway and flung it hurriedly on to the table-tray
which, during the progress of meals, was established outside the
dining-room door. He did not actually witness this operation of
undressing, because Nellie was screened by the half-closed door; but he
was entirely aware of it. He disliked it, and he had always disliked
it. When Nellie was at work, either as a mother or as the owner of
certain fine silver ornaments, he rather enjoyed the wonderful white
apron, for it suited her temperament; but as the head of a household
with six thousand pounds a year at its disposal, he objected to any hint
of the thing at meals. And to-night he objected to it altogether. Who
could guess from the homeliness of their family life that he was in a
position to spend a hundred pounds a week and still have enough income
left over to pay the salary of a town clerk or so? Nobody could guess;
and he felt that people ought to be able to guess. When he was young he
would have esteemed an income of six thousand pounds a year as
necessarily implicating feudal state, valets, castles, yachts, family
solicitors, racing-stables, county society, dinner-calls, and a drawling
London accent. Why should his wife wear an apron at all? But the sad
truth was that neither his wife nor his mother ever _looked_ rich, nor
even endeavoured to look rich. His mother would carry an eighty-pound
sealskin as though she had picked it up at a jumble sale, and his wife
put such simplicity into the wearing of a hundred-and-eighty pound
diamond ring that its expensiveness was generally quite wasted.
And yet, while the logical male in him scathingly condemned this
feminine defect of character, his private soul was glad of it, for he
well knew that he would have been considerably irked by the complexities
and grandeurs of high life. But never would he have admitted this.
Nellie's face as she sat down was not limpid. He understood naught of
it. More than twenty years had passed since they had first met--he and
a wistful little creature--at a historic town-hall dance. He could still
see the wistful little creature in those placid and pure features, in
that buxom body; but now there was a formidable, capable, and
experienced woman there too. Impossible to credit that the wistful
little creature was thirty-seven! But she was. Indeed, it was very
doubtful if she would ever see thirty-eight again. Once he had had the
most romantic feelings about her. He could recall the slim flexibility
of her waist, the timorous, melting invitation of her eyes. And
now--such was human existence!
She sat up erect on her chair. She did not apologise for being late.
She made no inquiry as to his neuralgia. On the other hand, she was not
cross. She was just neutral, polite, cheerful, and apparently conscious
of perfection. He strongly desired to inform her of the exact time of
day, but his lips would not articulate the words.
"Maud," she said with divine calm to the maid who bore in the baked York
ham under its silver canopy, "you haven't taken away that brush that's
in the passage." Another illustration of Nellie's inability to live up
to six thousand pounds a year; she would always refer to the hall as the
"passage."
"Please'm, I did, m'm," replied Maud, now as conscious of perfection as
her mistress. "He must have took it back again."
"Who's 'he'?" demanded the master.
"Carlo, sir." Upon which triumph Maud retired.
Edward Henry was dashed. Nevertheless, he quickly recovered his
presence of mind, and sought about for a justification of his previous
verdict upon the negligence of five women.
"It would have been easy enough to put the brush where the dog couldn't
get at it," he said. But he said this strictly to himself. He could
not say it aloud. Nor could he say aloud the words "neuralgia," "three
hundred and forty-one pounds," any more than he could say "late."
That he was in a peculiar mental condition is proved by the fact that he
did not remark the absence of his mother until he was putting her share
of baked ham on to a plate.
He thought, "This is a bit thick, this is!" meaning the extreme lateness
of his mother for the meal. But his only audible remark was a somewhat
impatient banging down of the hot plate in front of his mother's empty
chair.
In answer to this banging, Nellie quietly began:
"Your mother--"
(He knew instantly, then, that Nellie was disturbed about something or
other. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law lived together under one roof
in perfect amity. Nay more, they often formed powerful and unscrupulous
leagues against him. But whenever Nellie was disturbed, by no matter
what, she would say "your mother" instead of merely "Mother." It was an
extraordinary subtle, silly, and effective way of putting him in the
wrong.)
"Your mother is staying up-stairs with Robert."
Robert was the eldest child, aged eight.
"Oh!" breathed Edward Henry. He might have enquired what the nurse was
for; he might have enquired how his mother meant to get her tea; but he
refrained, adding simply, "What's up now?"
And in retort to his wife's "your," he laid a faint emphasis on the word
"now," to imply that those women were always inventing some fresh
imaginary woe for the children.
"Carlo's bitten him--in the calf," said Nellie, tightening her lips.
This, at any rate, was not imaginary.
"The kid was teasing him as usual, I suppose?" he suggested.
"That I don't know," said Nellie. "But I know we must get rid of that
dog."
"Serious?"
"Of course we must," Nellie insisted, with an inadvertent heat which she
immediately cooled.
"I mean the bite."
"Well--it's a bite right enough."
"And you're thinking of hydrophobia, death amid horrible agony, and so
on."
"No, I'm not," she said stoutly, trying to smile.
But he knew she was. And he knew also that the bite was a trifle. If
it had been a good bite, she would have made it enormous; she would have
hinted that the dog had left a chasm in the boy's flesh.
"Yes, you are," he continued to twit her, encouraged by her attempt at a
smile.
However, the smile expired.
"I suppose you won't deny that Carlo's teeth may have been dirty? He's
always nosing in some filth or other," she said challengingly, in a
measured tone of sagacity. "And there may be blood-poisoning."
"Blood-fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Edward Henry.
Such a nonsensical and infantile rejoinder deserved no answer, and it
received none. Shortly afterwards Maud entered and whispered that
Nellie was wanted up-stairs. As soon as his wife had gone, Edward Henry
rang the bell.
"Maud," he said, "bring me the _Signal_ out of my left-hand
overcoat-pocket."
And he defiantly finished his meal at leisure, with the news of the day
propped up against the flower-pot, which he had set before him instead
of the dish of ham.
III.
Later, catching through the open door fragments of a conversation on the
stairs which indicated that his mother was at last coming down for tea,
he sped like a threatened delinquent into the drawing-room. He had no
wish to encounter his mother, though that woman usually said little.
The drawing-room, after the bathroom, was Edward Henry's favourite
district in the home. Since he could not spend the whole of his time in
the bathroom,--and he could not!--he wisely gave a special care to the
drawing-room, and he loved it as one always loves that upon which one
has bestowed benefits. He was proud of the drawing-room, and he had the
right to be. The principal object in it, at night, was the electric
chandelier, which would have been adequate for a lighthouse. Edward
Henry's eyes were not what they used to be; and the minor advertisements
in the _Signal_, which constituted his sole evening perusals, often
lacked legibility. Edward Henry sincerely believed in light and heat; he
was almost the only person in the Five Towns who did. In the Five Towns
people have fires in their grates--not to warm the room, but to make the
room bright. Seemingly they use their pride to keep themselves warm.
At any rate, whenever Edward Henry talked to them of radiators, they
would sternly reply that a radiator did not and could not brighten a
room. Edward Henry had made the great discovery that an efficient
chandelier will brighten a room better even than a fire; and he had
gilded his radiator. The notion of gilding the radiator was not his
own; he had seen a gilded radiator in the newest hotel at Birmingham,
and had rejoiced as some peculiar souls rejoice when they meet a fine
line in a new poem. (In concession to popular prejudice, Edward Henry
had fire-grates in his house, and fires therein during exceptionally
frosty weather; but this did not save him from being regarded in the
Five Towns as in some ways a peculiar soul.) The effulgent source of
dark heat was scientifically situated in front of the window, and on
ordinarily cold evenings Edward Henry and his wife and mother, and an
acquaintance if one happened to come in, would gather round the radiator
and play bridge or dummy whist.
The other phenomena of the drawing-room which particularly interested
Edward Henry were the Turkey carpet, the four vast easy chairs, the
sofa, the imposing cigar-cabinet, and the mechanical piano-player. At
one brief period he had hovered a good deal about the revolving bookcase
containing the encyclopedia, to which his collection of books was
limited; but the frail passion for literature had not survived a
struggle with the seductions of the mechanical piano-player.
The walls of the room never drew his notice. He had chosen, some years
before, a patent washable kind of wall-paper (which could be wiped over
with a damp cloth), and he had also chosen the pattern of the paper, but
it is a fact that he could spend hours in any room without even seeing
the pattern of its paper. In the same way, his wife's cushions and
little draperies and bows were invisible to him, though he had searched
for and duly obtained the perfect quality of swansdown which filled the
cushions.
The one ornament of the walls which attracted him was a large and
splendidly framed oil-painting of a ruined castle in the midst of a
sombre forest through which cows were strolling. In the tower of the
castle was a clock, and this clock was a realistic timepiece whose
fingers moved and told the hour. Two of the oriel windows of the castle
were realistic holes in its masonry; through one of them you could put a
key to wind up the clock, and through the other you could put a key to
wind up a secret musical box which played sixteen different tunes. He
had bought this handsome relic of the Victorian era (not less artistic,
despite your scorn, than many devices for satisfying the higher
instincts of the present day) at an auction sale in the Strand, London.
But it, too, had been supplanted in his esteem by the mechanical
piano-player.
He now selected an example of the most expensive cigar in the
cigar-cabinet, and lighted it as only a connoisseur can light a
cigar--lovingly; he blew out the match lingeringly, with regret, and
dropped it and the cigar's red collar with care into a large copper bowl
on the centre table, instead of flinging it against the Japanese
umbrella in the fireplace. (A grave disadvantage of radiators is that
you cannot throw odds and ends into them.) He chose the most expensive
cigar because he wanted comfort and peace. The ham was not digesting
very well.
Then he sat down and applied himself to the property advertisements in
the _Signal_, a form of sensational serial which usually enthralled
him--but not to-night. He allowed the paper to lapse on to the floor,
and then rose impatiently, rearranged the thick dark blue curtains
behind the radiator, and finally yielded to the silent call of the
mechanical piano-player. He quite knew that to dally with the
piano-player while smoking a high-class cigar was to insult the cigar;
but he did not care. He tilted the cigar upwards from an extreme corner
of his mouth, and through the celestial smoke gazed at the titles of the
new music-rolls which had been delivered that day, and which were ranged
on the top of the piano itself.
And while he did so he was thinking:
"Why in thunder didn't the little thing come and tell me at once about
that kid and his dog-bite? I wonder why she didn't! She seemed only to
mention it by accident. I wonder why she didn't bounce into the
bathroom and tell me at once?"
But it was untrue that he sought vainly for an answer to this riddle.
He was aware of the answer. He even kept saying over the answer to
himself:
"She's made up her mind I've been teasing her a bit too much lately
about those kids and their precious illnesses. And she's doing the
dignified. That's what she's doing! She's doing the dignified!"
Of course, instantly after his tea he ought to have gone up-stairs to
inspect the wounded victim of dogs. The victim was his own child, and
its mother was his wife. He knew that he ought to have gone up-stairs
long since. He knew he ought now to go, and the sooner the better. But
somehow he could not go; he could not bring himself to go. In the minor
and major crises of married life there are not two partners but four;
each partner has a dual personality; each partner is indeed two
different persons, and one of these fights against the other, with the
common result of a fatal inaction.
The wickeder of the opposing persons in Edward Henry, getting the upper
hand of the more virtuous, sniggered. "Dirty teeth, indeed!
Blood-poisoning, indeed! Why not rabies, while she's about it? I
guarantee she's dreaming of coffins and mourning coaches already!"
Scanning nonchalantly the titles of the music-rolls, he suddenly saw:
"Funeral March. Chopin."
"She shall have it," he said, affixing the roll to the mechanism. And
added, "Whatever it is!"
For he was not acquainted with the Funeral March from Chopin's
Pianoforte Sonata. His musical education had in truth begun only a year
earlier, with the advertisement of the "Pianisto" mechanical player. He
was a judge of advertisements, and the "Pianisto" literature pleased him
in a high degree. He justifiably reckoned that he could distinguish
between honest and dishonest advertising. He made a deep study of the
question of mechanical players, and deliberately came to the conclusion
that the "Pianisto" was the best. It was also the most costly; but one
of the conveniences of having six thousand pounds a year is that you
need not deny yourself the best mechanical player because it happens to
be the most costly. He bought a "Pianisto," and incidentally he bought
a superb grand piano, and exiled the old cottage piano to the nursery.
The "Pianisto" was the best, partly because, like the vacuum-cleaner, it
could be operated by electricity, and partly because, by means of
certain curved lines on the unrolling paper, and of certain gun-metal
levers and clutches, it enabled the operator to put his secret ardent
soul into the music. Assuredly it had given Edward Henry a taste for
music. The whole world of musical compositions was his to conquer, and
he conquered it at the rate of about two great masters a month. From
Handel to Richard Strauss, even from Palestrina to Debussy, the
achievements of genius lay at his mercy. He criticised them with a
freedom that was entirely unprejudiced by tradition. Beethoven was no
more to him than Arthur Sullivan; indeed, was rather less. The works of
his choice were the "Tannhaeuser" overture, a potpourri of Verdi's
"Aida," Chopin's Study in Thirds--which ravished him--and a selection
from "The Merry Widow," which also ravished him. So that on the whole
it may be said that he had a very good natural taste.
He at once liked Chopin's Funeral March. He entered profoundly into the
spirit of it. With the gun-metal levers he produced in a marvellous
fashion the long tragic roll of the drums, and by the manipulation of a
clutch he distilled into the chant at the graveside a melancholy
sweetness that rent the heart. The later crescendi were overwhelming.
And as he played there, with the bright blaze of the chandelier on his
fair hair and beard, and the blue cigar-smoke in his nostrils, and the
effluence of the gilded radiator behind him, and the intimacy of the
drawn window curtains and the closed and curtained door folding him in
from the world, and the agony of the music grieving his artistic soul to
the core--as he played there, he grew gradually happier and happier, and
the zest of existence seemed to return. It was not only that he felt
the elemental, unfathomable satisfaction of a male who is sheltered in
solitude from a pack of women that have got on his nerves; there was
also the more piquant assurance that he was behaving in a very sprightly
manner. How long was it since he had accomplished anything worthy of
his ancient reputation as a "card," as "the" card of the Five Towns? He
could not say; but now he knew that he was being a card again. The
whole town would smile and forgive and admire if it learnt that--
Nellie invaded the room. She had resumed the affray.
"Denry!" she reproached him, in an uncontrolled voice. "I'm ashamed of
you! I really am!" She was no longer doing the dignified. The mask
was off, and the unmistakable lineaments of the outraged mother
appeared. That she should address him as "Denry" proved the intensity
of her agitation. Years ago, when he had been made an alderman, his
wife and his mother had decided that "Denry" was no longer a suitable
name for him, and had abandoned it in favour of "Edward Henry."
He ceased playing.
"Why?" he protested, with a ridiculous air of innocence. "I'm only
playing Chopin. Can't I play Chopin?"
He was rather surprised and impressed that she had recognised the piece
for what it was. But of course she did, as a fact, know something about
music, he remembered, though she never touched the "Pianisto."
"I think it's a pity you can't choose some other evening for your
funeral marches!" she exclaimed.
"If that's it," said Edward Henry like lightning, "why did you stick me
out you weren't afraid of hydrophobia?"
"I'll thank you to come up-stairs," she replied with warmth.
"Oh, all right, my dear! All right!" he cooed.
And they went up-stairs in a rather solemn procession.
IV.
Nellie led the way to the chamber known as "Maisie's room," where the
youngest of the Machins was wont to sleep in charge of the nurse, who,
under the supervision of the mother of all three, had dominion over
Robert, Ralph, and their little sister. The first thing that Edward
Henry noticed was the screen which shut off one of the beds. The
unfurling of the four-fold screen was always a sure sign that Nellie was
taking an infantile illness seriously. It was an indication to Edward
Henry of the importance of the dog-bite in Nellie's esteem. When all
the chicks of the brood happened to be simultaneously sound, the screen
reposed, inconspicuous, at an angle against a wall behind the door; but
when pestilence was abroad, the screen travelled from one room to
another in the wake of it, and, spreading wide, took part in the battle
of life and death.
In an angle of the screen, on the side of it away from the bed and near
the fire (in times of stress Nellie would not rely on radiators), sat
old Mrs. Machin, knitting. She was a thin, bony woman of sixty-nine
years, and as hard and imperishable as teak. So far as her son knew,
she had only had two illnesses in her life. The first was an attack of
influenza, and the second was an attack of acute rheumatism, which had
incapacitated her for several weeks. Edward Henry and Nellie had taken
advantage of her helplessness, then, to force her to give up her
barbaric cottage in Brougham Street and share permanently the splendid
comfort of their home. She existed in their home like a philosophic
prisoner of war at the court of conquerors, behaving faultlessly,
behaving magnanimously in the melancholy grandeur of her fall, but never
renouncing her soul's secret independence, nor permitting herself to
forget that she was on foreign ground. When Edward Henry looked at
those yellow and seasoned fingers which, by hard manual labour, had kept
herself and him in the young days of his humble obscurity, and which,
during sixty years had not been idle for more than six weeks in all, he
grew almost apologetic for his wealth. They reminded him of the day
when his total resources were five pounds, won in a wager, and of the
day when he drove proudly about behind a mule collecting other people's
rents, and of the glittering day when he burst in on her from Llandudno
with over a thousand gold sovereigns in a hat-box,--product of his first
great picturesque coup,--imagining himself to be an English Jay Gould.
She had not blenched even then. She had not blenched since. And she
never would blench. In spite of his gorgeous position and his unique
reputation, in spite of her well-concealed but notorious pride in him,
he still went in fear of that ageless woman, whose undaunted eye always
told him that he was still the lad Denry, and her inferior in moral
force. The curve of her thin lips seemed ever to be warning him that
with her pretensions were quite useless, and that she saw through him,
and through him to the innermost grottoes of his poor human depravity.
He caught her eye guiltily.
"Behold the alderman!" she murmured with grimness.
That was all. But the three words took thirty years off his back,
snatched the half-crown cigar out of his hand, and reduced him again to
the raw, hungry boy of Brougham Street. And he knew that he had sinned
gravely in not coming up-stairs very much earlier.
"Is that you, Father?" called the high voice of Robert from the back of
the screen.
He had to admit to his son that it was he.
The infant lay on his back in Maisie's bed, while his mother sat lightly
on the edge of nurse's bed near-by.
"Well, you're a nice chap!" said Edward Henry, avoiding Nellie's glance,
but trying to face his son as one innocent man may face another, and not
perfectly succeeding. He never could feel like a real father somehow.
"My temperature's above normal," announced Robert proudly, and then
added with regret, "but not much!"
There was the clinical thermometer--instrument which Edward Henry
despised and detested as being an inciter of illnesses--in a glass of
water on the table between the two beds.
"Father!" Robert began again.
"Well, Robert?" said Edward Henry cheerfully.
He was glad that the child was in one of his rare loquacious moods,
because the chatter not only proved that the dog had done no serious
damage,--it also eased the silent strain between himself and Nellie.
"Why did you play the Funeral March, Father?" asked Robert; and the
question fell into the tranquillity of the room rather like a bomb that
had not quite decided whether or not to burst.
For the second time that evening Edward Henry was dashed.
"Have you been meddling with my music-rolls?"
"No, Father. I only read the labels."
This child simply read everything.
"How did you know I was playing a funeral march?" Edward Henry demanded.
"Oh, _I_ didn't tell him!" Nellie put in, excusing herself before she
was accused. She smiled benignly, as an angel woman, capable of
forgiving all. But there were moments when Edward Henry hated moral
superiority and Christian meekness in a wife. Moreover, Nellie somewhat
spoiled her own effect by adding with an artificial continuation of the
smile, "You needn't look at _me_!"
Edward Henry considered the remark otiose. Though he had indeed ventured
to look at her, he had not looked at her in the manner which she
implied.
"It made a noise like funerals and things," Robert explained.
"Well, it seems to me, _you_ have been playing a funeral march," said
Edward Henry to the child.
He thought this rather funny, rather worthy of himself, but the child
answered with ruthless gravity and a touch of disdain, for he was a
disdainful child, without bowels:
"I don't know what you mean, Father." The curve of his lips (he had his
grandmother's lips) appeared to say, "I wish you wouldn't try to be
silly, Father." However, youth forgets very quickly, and the next
instant Robert was beginning once more, "Father!"
"Well, Robert?"
By mutual agreement of the parents, the child was never addressed as
"Bob" or "Bobby," or by any other diminutive. In their practical
opinion a child's name was his name, and ought not to be mauled or
dismembered on the pretext of fondness. Similarly, the child had not
been baptised after his father, or after any male member of either the
Machin or the Cotterill family. Why should family names be perpetuated
merely because they were family names? A natural human reaction, this,
against the excessive sentimentalism of the Victorian era!
"What does 'stamped out' mean?" Robert enquired.
Now Robert, among other activities, busied himself in the collection of
postage-stamps, and in consequence his father's mind, under the impulse
of the question, ran immediately to postage-stamps.
"Stamped out?" said Edward Henry, with the air of omniscience that a
father is bound to assume. "Postage-stamps are stamped-out--by a
machine--you see."
Robert's scorn of this explanation was manifest.
"Well," Edward Henry, piqued, made another attempt, "you stamp a fire
out with your feet." And he stamped illustratively on the floor. After
all, the child was only eight.
"I knew all that before," said Robert coldly. "You don't understand."
"What makes you ask, dear? Let us show Father your leg." Nellie's
voice was soothing.
"Yes," Robert murmured, staring reflectively at the ceiling. "That's
it. It says in the encyclopedia that hydrophobia is stamped out in this
country--by Mr. Long's muzzling order. Who is Mr. Long?"
A second bomb had fallen on exactly the same spot as the first, and the
two exploded simultaneously. And the explosion was none the less
terrible because it was silent and invisible. The tidy domestic chamber
was strewn in a moment with an awful mass of wounded susceptibilities.
Beyond the screen the _nick-nick_ of grandmother's steel needles stopped
and started again. It was characteristic of her temperament that she
should recover before the younger generations could recover. Edward
Henry, as befitted his sex, regained his nerve a little earlier than
Nellie.
"I told you never to touch my encyclopedia," said he sternly. Robert
had twice been caught on his stomach on the floor with a vast volume
open under his chin, and his studies had been traced by vile
thumb-marks.
"I know," said Robert.
Whenever anybody gave that child a piece of unsolicited information, he
almost invariably replied, "I know."
"But hydrophobia!" cried Nellie. "How did you know about hydrophobia?"
"We had it in spellings last week," Robert explained.
"The deuce you did!" muttered Edward Henry.
The one bright fact of the many-sided and gloomy crisis was the very
obvious truth that Robert was the most extraordinary child that ever
lived.
"But when on earth did you get at the encyclopedia, Robert?" his mother
exclaimed, completely at a loss.
"It was before you came in from Hillport," the wondrous infant answered.
"After my leg had stopped hurting me a bit."
"But when I came in Nurse said it had only just happened!"
"Shows how much _she_ knew!" said Robert, with contempt.
"Does your leg hurt you now?" Edward Henry enquired.
"A bit. That's why I can't go to sleep, of course."
"Well, let's have a look at it." Edward Henry attempted jollity.
"Mother's wrapped it all up in boracic wool."
The bed-clothes were drawn down and the leg gradually revealed. And the
sight of the little soft leg, so fragile and defenceless, really did
touch Edward Henry. It made him feel more like an authentic father than
he had felt for a long time. And the sight of the red wound hurt him.
Still, it was a beautifully clean wound, and it was not a large wound.
"It's a clean wound," he observed judiciously. In spite of himself, he
could not keep a certain flippant harsh quality out of his tone.
"Well, I've naturally washed it with carbolic," Nellie returned sharply.
He illogically resented this sharpness.
"Of course he was bitten through his stocking?"
"Of course," said Nellie, re-enveloping the wound hastily, as though
Edward Henry was not worthy to regard it.
"Well, then, by the time they got through the stocking, the animal's
teeth couldn't be dirty. Every one knows that."
Nellie shut her lips.
"Were you teasing Carlo?" Edward Henry demanded curtly of his son.
"I don't know."
Whenever anybody asked that child for a piece of information, he almost
invariably replied, "I don't know."
"How, you don't know? You must know whether you were teasing the dog or
not!" Edward Henry was nettled.
The renewed spectacle of his own wound had predisposed Robert to feel a
great and tearful sympathy for himself. His mouth now began to take
strange shapes and to increase magically in area, and beads appeared in
the corners of his large eyes.
"I--I was only measuring his tail by his hind leg," he blubbered, and
then sobbed.
Edward Henry did his best to save his dignity.
"Come, come!" he reasoned, less menacingly. "Boys who can read
enyclopedias mustn't be cry-babies. You'd no business measuring Carlo's
tail by his hind leg. You ought to remember that that dog's older than
you." And this remark, too, he thought rather funny, but apparently he
was alone in his opinion.
Then he felt something against his calf. And it was Carlo's nose.
Carlo was a large, very shaggy and unkempt Northern terrier, but owing
to vagueness of his principal points, due doubtless to a vagueness in
his immediate ancestry, it was impossible to decide whether he had come
from the north or the south side of the Tweed. This aging friend of
Edward Henry's, surmising that something unusual was afoot in his house,
and having entirely forgotten the trifling episode of the bite, had
unobtrusively come to make enquiries.
"Poor old boy!" said Edward Henry, stooping to pat the dog. "Did they
try to measure his tail with his hind leg?"
The gesture was partly instinctive, for he loved Carlo; but it also had
its origin in sheer nervousness, in sheer ignorance of what was the best
thing to do. However, he was at once aware that he had done the worst
thing. Had not Nellie announced that the dog must be got rid of? And
here he was fondly caressing the bloodthirsty dog! With a hysterical
movement of the lower part of her leg, Nellie pushed violently against
the dog,--she did not kick, but she nearly kicked,--and Carlo, faintly
howling a protest, fled.
Edward Henry was hurt. He escaped from between the beds, and from that
close, enervating domestic atmosphere where he was misunderstood by
women and disdained by infants. He wanted fresh air; he wanted bars,
whiskies, billiard-rooms, and the society of masculine men about town.
The whole of his own world was against him.
As he passed by his knitting mother, she ignored him and moved not. She
had a great gift of holding aloof from conjugal complications.
On the landing he decided that he would go out at once into the major
world. Half-way down the stairs he saw his overcoat on the hall-stand,
beckoning to him and offering release.
Then he heard the bedroom door and his wife's footsteps.
"Edward Henry!"
"Well?"
He stopped and looked up inimically at her face, which overhung the
banisters. It was the face of a woman outraged in her most profound
feelings, but amazingly determined to be sweet.
"What do you think of it?"
"What do I think of what? The wound?"
"Yes."
"Why, it's simply nothing. Nothing at all. You know how that kid always
heals up quickly. You won't be able to find the wound in a day or two."
"Don't you think it ought to be cauterised at once?"
He moved downwards.
"No, I don't. I've been bitten three times in my life by dogs, and I
was never cauterised."
"Well, I _do_ think it ought to be cauterised." She raised her voice
slightly as he retreated from her. "And I shall be glad if you'll call
in at Dr. Stirling's and ask him to come round."
He made no reply, but put on his overcoat and his hat, and took his
stick. Glancing up the stairs, he saw Nellie was now standing at the
head of them, under the electric light there, and watching him. He knew
that she thought he was cravenly obeying her command. She could have no
idea that before she spoke to him he had already decided to put on his
overcoat and hat and take his stick and go forth into the major world.
However, that was no affair of his.
He hesitated a second. Then the nurse appeared out of the kitchen with
a squalling Maisie in her arms, and ran up-stairs. Why Maisie was
squalling, and why she should have been in the kitchen at such an hour
instead of in bed, he could not guess; but he could guess that if he
remained one second longer in that exasperating minor world he would
begin to smash furniture, and so he quitted it.
V.
It was raining slightly, but he dared not return to the house for his
umbrella. In the haze and wet of the shivering October night, the clock
of Bleakridge Church glowed like a fiery disk suspended in the sky; and,
mysteriously hanging there, without visible means of support, it seemed
to him somehow to symbolise the enigma of the universe and intensify his
inward gloom. Never before had he had such feelings to such a degree.
It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that never before had the enigma
of the universe occurred to him. The side gates clicked as he stood
hesitant under the shelter of the wall, and a figure emerged from his
domain. It was Bellfield, the new chauffeur, going across to his home
in the little square in front of the church. Bellfield touched his cap
with an eager and willing hand, as new chauffeurs will.
"Want the car, sir? Setting in for a wet night!"
"No, thanks."
It was a lie. He did want the car. He wanted the car so that he might
ride right away into a new and more interesting world, or at any rate
into Hanbridge, centre of the pleasures, the wickedness, and the
commerce of the Five Towns. But he dared not have the car. He dared
not have his own car. He must slip off, noiseless and unassuming. Even
to go to Dr. Stirling's he dared not have the car. Besides, he could
have walked down the hill to Dr. Stirling's in three minutes. Not that
he had the least intention of going to Dr. Stirling's. No! His wife
imagined that he was going; but she was mistaken. Within an hour, when
Dr. Stirling had failed to arrive, she would doubtless telephone, and
get her Dr. Stirling. Not, however, with Edward Henry's assistance!
He reviewed his conduct throughout the evening. In what particular had
it been sinful? In no particular. True, the accident to the boy was a
misfortune, but had he not borne that misfortune lightly, minimised it,
and endeavoured to teach others to bear it lightly? His blithe humour
ought surely to have been an example to Nellie! And as for the episode
of the funeral march on the "Pianisto," really, really, the tiresome
little thing ought to have better appreciated his whimsical drollery!
But Nellie was altered; he was altered; everything was altered. He
remembered the ecstasy of their excursion to Switzerland. He remembered
the rapture with which, on their honeymoon, he had clasped a new opal
bracelet on her exciting arm. He could not possibly have such sensations
now. What was the meaning of life? Was life worth living? The fact
was, he was growing old. Useless to pretend to himself that it was not
so. Both he and she were growing old. Only, she seemed to be placidly
content, and he was not content. And more and more the domestic
atmosphere and the atmosphere of the district fretted and even annoyed
him. To-night's affair was not unique, but it was a culmination. He
gazed pessimistically north and south along the slimy expanse of
Trafalgar Road, which sank northwards in the direction of Dr.
Stirling's, and southwards in the direction of joyous Hanbridge. He
loathed and despised Trafalgar Road. What was the use of making three
hundred and forty-one pounds by a shrewd speculation? None. He could
not employ three hundred and forty-one pounds to increase his happiness.
Money had become futile for him. Astounding thought! He desired no more
of it. He had a considerable income from investments, and also at least
four thousand a year from the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, that
wonderful but unpretentious organisation which now embraced every corner
of the Five Towns; that gorgeous invention for profitably taking care of
the pennies of the working classes; that excellent device, his own, for
selling the working classes every kind of goods at credit prices after
having received part of the money in advance!
"I want a change!" he said to himself, and threw away his cigar.
After all, the bitterest thought in his heart was perhaps that on that
evening he had tried to be a "card," and, for the first time in his
brilliant career as a "card," had failed. He, Henry Machin, who had
been the youngest mayor of Bursley years and years ago; he, the
recognised amuser of the Five Towns; he, one of the greatest
"characters" that the Five Towns had ever produced--he had failed of an
effect!
He slipped out on to the pavement, and saw, under the gas-lamp, on the
new hoarding of the football-ground, a poster intimating that during
that particular week there was a gigantic attraction at the Empire Music
Hall at Hanbridge. According to the posters, there was a gigantic
attraction every week at the Empire, but Edward Henry happened to know
that this week the attraction was indeed somewhat out of the common.
And to-night was Friday, the fashionable night for the bloods and the
modishness of the Five Towns. He looked at the church clock, and then
at his watch. He would be in time for the "second house," which started
at nine o'clock. At the same moment an electric tram-car came
thundering up out of Bursley. He boarded it, and was saluted by the
conductor. Remaining on the platform, he lit a cigarette, and tried to
feel cheerful; but he could not conquer his depression.
"Yes," he thought, "what I want is change--and a lot of it too!"
CHAPTER II
THE BANK-NOTE
I.
Alderman Machin had to stand at the back, and somewhat towards the side,
of that part of the auditorium known as the Grand Circle at the Empire
Music Hall, Hanbridge. The attendants at the entrance and in the lounge,
where the salutation "Welcome" shone in electricity over a large
Cupid-surrounded mirror, had compassionately and yet exultingly told him
that there was not a seat left in the house. He had shared their
exultation. He had said to himself, full of honest pride in the Five
Towns: "This music-hall, admitted by the press to be one of the finest
in the provinces, holds over two thousand five hundred people. And yet
we can fill it to overflowing twice every night! And only a few years
ago there wasn't a decent music-hall in the entire district!"
The word "progress" flitted through his head.
It was not strictly true that the Empire was or could be filled to
overflowing twice every night, but it was true that at that particular
moment not a seat was unsold; and the aspect of a crowded auditorium is
apt to give an optimistic quality to broad generalisations. Alderman
Machin began instinctively to calculate the amount of money in the
house, and to wonder whether there would be a chance for a second
music-hall in the dissipated town of Hanbridge. He also wondered why
the idea of a second music-hall in Hanbridge had never occurred to him
before.
The Grand Circle was so-called because it was grand. Its plush
fauteuils cost a shilling, no mean price for a community where seven
pounds of potatoes can be bought for sixpence, and the view of the stage
therefrom was perfect. But the alderman's view was far from perfect,
since he had to peer as best he could between and above the shoulders of
several men, each apparently, but not really, taller than himself. By
constant slight movements to comply with the movements of the rampart of
shoulders, he could discern fragments of various advertisements of soap,
motor-cars, whisky, shirts, perfume, pills, bricks, and tea, for the
drop-curtain was down. And, curiously, he felt obliged to keep his eyes
on the drop-curtain, and across the long intervening vista of hats and
heads and smoke, to explore its most difficult corners again and again,
lest, when it went up, he might not be in proper practice for seeing
what was behind it.
Nevertheless, despite the marked inconveniences of his situation, he
felt brighter, he felt almost happy in this dense atmosphere of success.
He even found a certain peculiar and perverse satisfaction in the fact
that he had as yet been recognised by nobody. Once or twice the owners
of shoulders had turned and deliberately glared at the worrying fellow
who had the impudence to be all the time peeping over them and between
them; they had not distinguished the fellow from any ordinary fellow.
Could they have known that he was the famous Alderman Edward Henry
Machin, founder and sole proprietor of the Thrift Club, into which their
wives were probably paying so much a week, they would most assuredly
have glared to another tune, and they would have said with pride
afterwards, "That chap Machin o' Bursley was standing behind me at the
Empire to-night." And though Machin is amongst the commonest names in
the Five Towns, all would have known that the great and admired Denry
was meant. It was astonishing that a personage so notorious should not
have been instantly "spotted" in such a resort as the Empire. More
proof that the Five Towns was a vast and seething concentration of
cities, and no longer a mere district where everybody knew everybody.
The curtain rose, and, as it did so, a thunderous, crashing applause of
greeting broke forth--applause that thrilled and impressed and inspired;
applause that made every individual in the place feel right glad that he
was there. For the curtain had risen on the gigantic attraction which
many members of the audience were about to see for the fifth time that
week; in fact, it was rumoured that certain men of fashion, whose habit
was to refuse themselves nothing, had attended every performance of the
gigantic attraction since the second house on Monday.
The scene represented a restaurant of quiet aspect, into which entered a
waiter bearing a pile of plates some two feet high. The waiter being
intoxicated, the tower of plates leaned this way and that as he
staggered about, and the whole house really did hold its breath in the
simultaneous hope and fear of an enormous and resounding smash. Then
entered a second intoxicated waiter, also bearing a pile of plates some
two feet high; and the risk of destruction was thus more than
doubled--it was quadrupled, for each waiter, in addition to the risks of
his own inebriety, was now subject to the dreadful peril of colliding
with the other. However, there was no catastrophe.
Then arrived two customers, one in a dress suit and an eye-glass, and
the other in a large violet hat, a diamond necklace, and a yellow satin
skirt. The which customers, seemingly well used to the sight of drunken
waiters tottering to and fro with towers of plates, sat down at a table
and waited calmly for attention. The popular audience, with that quick
mental grasp for which popular audiences are so renowned, soon perceived
that the table was in close proximity to a lofty sideboard, and that on
either hand of the sideboard were two chairs, upon which the two waiters
were trying to climb in order to deposit their plates on the top-most
shelf of the sideboard. The waiters successfully mounted the chairs,
and successfully lifted their towers of plates to within half an inch of
the desired shelf, and then the chairs began to show signs of
insecurity. By this time the audience was stimulated to an ecstasy of
expectation, whose painfulness was only equalled by its extreme
delectability. The sole unmoved persons in the building were the
customers awaiting attention at the restaurant table.
One tower was safely lodged on the shelf. But was it? It was not!
Yes? No! It curved; it straightened; it curved again. The excitement
was as keen as that of watching a drowning man attempt to reach the
shore. It was simply excruciating. It could not be borne any longer,
and when it could not be borne any longer, the tower sprawled
irrevocably, and seven dozen plates fell in a cascade on the violet hat,
and so, with an inconceivable clatter, to the floor. Almost at the same
moment the being in the dress suit and the eye-glass--becoming aware of
the phenomena--slightly unusual even in a restaurant, dropped his
eye-glass, turned round to the sideboard, and received the other
waiter's seven dozen plates in the face and on the crown of his head.
No such effect had ever been seen in the Five Towns, and the felicity of
the audience exceeded all previous felicities. The audience yelled,
roared, shrieked, gasped, trembled, and punched itself in a furious
passion of pleasure. They make plates in the Five Towns. They live by
making plates. They understand plates. In the Five Towns a man will
carry not seven but twenty-seven dozen plates on a swaying plank for
eight hours a day, up steps and down steps, and in doorways and out of
doorways, and not break one plate in seven years! Judge, therefore, the
simple but terrific satisfaction of a Five Towns' audience in the
hugeness of the calamity. Moreover, every plate smashed means a demand
for a new plate and increased prosperity for the Five Towns. The
grateful crowd in the auditorium of the Empire would have covered the
stage with wreaths if it had known that wreaths were used for other
occasions than funerals; which it did not know.
Fresh complications instantly ensued which cruelly cut short the
agreeable exercise of uncontrolled laughter. It was obvious that one of
the waiters was about to fall. And in the enforced tranquillity of a
new dread, every dyspeptic person in the house was deliciously conscious
of a sudden freedom from indigestion, due to the agreeable exercise of
uncontrolled laughter, and wished fervently that he could laugh like
that after every meal. The waiter fell; he fell through the large violet
hat and disappeared beneath the surface of a sea of crockery. The other
waiter fell too, but the sea was not deep enough to drown a couple of
them. Then the customers, recovering themselves, decided that they must
not be outclassed in this competition of havoc, and they overthrew the
table and everything on it, and all the other tables, and everything on
all the other tables. The audience was now a field of artillery which
nothing could silence. The waiters arose, and, opening the sideboard,
disclosed many hundreds of unsuspected plates of all kinds, ripe for
smashing. Niagaras of plates surged on to the stage. All four
performers revelled and wallowed in smashed plates. New supplies of
plates were constantly being produced from strange concealments, and
finally the tables and chairs were broken to pieces, and each object on
the walls was torn down and flung in bits on to the gorgeous general
debris, to the top of which clambered the violet hat, necklace, and
yellow petticoat, brandishing one single little plate, whose life had
been miraculously spared. Shrieks of joy in that little plate played
over the din like lightning in a thunder-storm. And the curtain fell.
It was rung up fifteen times, and fifteen times the quartette of
artists, breathless, bowed in acknowledgment of the frenzied and
boisterous testimony to their unique talents. No singer, no tragedian,
no comedian, no wit, could have had such a triumph, could have given
such intense pleasure. And yet none of the four had spoken a word.
Such is genius!
At the end of the fifteenth call the stage-manager came before the
curtain and guaranteed that two thousand four hundred plates had been
broken.
The lights went up. Strong men were seen to be wiping tears from their
eyes. Complete strangers were seen addressing each other in the manner
of old friends. Such is art!
"Well, that was worth a bob, that was!" muttered Edward Henry to
himself. And it was. Edward Henry had not escaped the general fate.
Nobody, being present, could have escaped it. He was enchanted. He had
utterly forgotten every care.
"Good evening, Mr. Machin," said a voice at his side. Not only he
turned, but nearly every one in the vicinity turned. The voice was the
voice of the stout and splendid managing director of the Empire, and it
sounded with the ring of authority above the rising tinkle of the bar
behind the Grand Circle.
"Oh! How d'ye do, Mr. Dakins?" Edward Henry held out a cordial hand,
for even the greatest men are pleased to be greeted in a place of
entertainment by the managing director thereof. Further, his identity
was now recognised.
"Haven't you seen those gentlemen in that box beckoning to you?" said
Mr. Dakins, proudly deprecating complimentary remarks on the show.
"Which box?"
Mr. Dakins' hand indicated the stage-box. And Henry, looking, saw three
men, one unknown to him; the second, Robert Brindley, the architect, of
Bursley; and the third, Dr. Stirling.
Instantly his conscience leapt up within him. He thought of rabies.
Yes, sobered in the fraction of a second, he thought of rabies.
Supposing that, after all, in spite of Mr. Long's muzzling order, as
cited by his infant son, an odd case of rabies should have lingered in
the British Isles, and supposing that Carlo had been infected! Not
impossible! Was it providential that Dr. Stirling was in the
auditorium?
"You know two of them?" said Mr. Dakins.
"Yes."
"Well, the third's a Mr. Bryany. He's manager to Mr. Seven Sachs." Mr.
Dakins' tone was respectful.
"And who's Mr. Seven Sachs?" asked Edward Henry absently. It was a
stupid question.
He was impressively informed that Mr. Seven Sachs was the arch-famous
American actor-playwright, now nearing the end of a provincial tour
which had surpassed all records of provincial tours, and that he would
be at the Theatre Royal, Hanbridge, next week. Edward Henry then
remembered that the hoardings had been full of Mr. Seven Sachs for some
time past.
"They keep on making signs to you," said Mr. Dakins, referring to the
occupants of the stage-box.
Edward Henry waved a reply to the box.
"Here! I'll take you there the shortest way," said Mr. Dakins.
II.
"Welcome to Stirling's box, Machin!" Robert Brindley greeted the
alderman with an almost imperceptible wink. Edward Henry had
encountered this wink once or twice before; he could not decide
precisely what it meant; it was apt to make him reflective. He did not
dislike Robert Brindley, his habit was not to dislike people; he
admitted Brindley to be a clever architect, though he objected to the
"modern" style of the fronts of his houses and schools. But he did take
exception to the man's attitude towards the Five Towns, of which, by the
way, Brindley was just as much a native as himself. Brindley seemed to
live in the Five Towns like a highly cultured stranger in a savage land,
and to derive rather too much sardonic amusement from the spectacle of
existence therein. Brindley was a very special crony of Stirling's, and
had influenced Stirling. But Stirling was too clever to submit unduly
to the influence. Besides, Stirling was not a native; he was only a
Scotchman, and Edward Henry considered that what Stirling thought of the
district did not matter. Other details about Brindley which Edward
Henry deprecated were his necktie, which, for Edward Henry's taste, was
too flowing, his scorn of the "Pianisto" (despite the man's tremendous
interest in music), and his incipient madness on the subject of books--a
madness shared by Stirling. Brindley and the doctor were forever
chattering about books, and buying them.
So that, on the whole, Dr. Stirling's box was not a place where Edward
Henry felt entirely at home. Nevertheless, the two men, having presented
Mr. Bryany, did their best, each in his own way, to make him feel at
home.
"Take this chair, Machin," said Stirling, indicating a chair at the
front.
"Oh, I can't take the front chair!" Edward Henry protested.
"Of course you can, my dear Machin," said Brindley sharply. "The front
chair in a stage-box is the one proper seat in the house for you. Do as
your doctor prescribes."
And Edward Henry accordingly sat down at the front, with Mr. Bryany by
his side; and the other two sat behind. But Edward Henry was not quite
comfortable. He faintly resented that speech of Brindley's. And yet he
did feel that what Brindley had said was true, and he was indeed glad to
be in the front chair of a brilliant stage-box on the grand tier,
instead of being packed away in the nethermost twilight of the Grand
Circle. He wondered how Brindley and Stirling had managed to
distinguish his face among the confusion of faces in that distant
obscurity; he, Edward Henry, had failed to notice them, even in the
prominence of their box. But that they had distinguished him showed how
familiar and striking a figure he was. He wondered, too, why they
should have invited him to hobnob with them. He was not of their set.
Indeed, like many very eminent men, he was not to any degree in
anybody's set. Of one thing he was sure,--because he had read it on the
self-conscious faces of all three of them,--namely, that they had been
discussing him. Possibly he had been brought up for Mr. Bryany's
inspection as a major lion and character of the district. Well, he did
not mind that; nay, he enjoyed that. He could feel Mr. Bryany covertly
looking him over. And he thought: "Look, my boy! I make no charge."
He smiled and nodded to one or two people who with pride saluted him
from the stalls. It was meet that he should be visible there on that
Friday night!
"A full house!" he observed, to break the rather awkward silence of the
box, as he glanced round at the magnificent smoke-veiled pageant of the
aristocracy and the democracy of the Five Towns crowded together, tier
above gilded tier, up to the dim roof where ragged lads and maids
giggled and flirted while waiting for the broken plates to be cleared
away and the moving pictures to begin.
"You may say it!" agreed Mr. Bryany, who spoke with a very slight
American accent. "Dakins positively hadn't a seat to offer me. I
happened to have the evening free. It isn't often I do have a free
evening. And so I thought I'd pop in here. But if Dakins hadn't
introduced me to these gentlemen, my seat would have had to be a
standing one."
"So that's how they got to know him, is it?" thought Edward Henry.
And then there was another short silence.
"Hear you've been doing something striking in rubber shares, Machin?"
said Brindley at length.
Astonishing how these things got abroad!
"Oh, very little, very little!" Edward Henry laughed modestly. "Too
late to do much! In another fortnight the bottom will be all out of the
rubber market!"
"Of course I'm an Englishman--" Mr. Bryany began.
"Why 'of course'?" Edward Henry interrupted him.
"Hear! Hear! Alderman. Why 'of course'?" said Brindley approvingly,
and Stirling's rich laugh was heard. "Only it does just happen,"
Brindley added, "that Mr. Bryany did us the honour to be born in the
district."
"Yes. Longshaw," Mr. Bryany admitted, half proud and half apologetic,
"which I left at the age of two."
"Oh, Longshaw!" murmured Edward Henry with a peculiar inflection, which
had a distinct meaning for at least two of his auditors.
Longshaw is at the opposite end of the Five Towns from Bursley, and the
majority of the inhabitants of Bursley have never been to Longshaw in
their lives, have only heard of it, as they hear of Chicago or Bangkok.
Edward Henry had often been to Longshaw, but, like every visitor from
Bursley, he instinctively regarded it as a foolish and unnecessary
place.
"As I was saying," resumed Mr. Bryany, quite unintimidated, "I'm an
Englishman. But I've lived eighteen years in America, and it seems to
me the bottom will soon be knocked out of pretty nearly all the markets
in England. Look at the Five Towns!"
"No, don't, Mr. Bryany!" said Brindley. "Don't go to extremes."
"Personally, I don't mind looking at the Five Towns," said Edward Henry.
"What of it?"
"Well, did you ever see such people for looking twice at a five-pound
note?"
Edward Henry most certainly did not like this aspersion on his native
district. He gazed in silence at Mr. Bryany's brassy and yet simple
face, and did not like the face either.
And Mr. Bryany, beautifully unaware that he had failed in tact,
continued: "The Five Towns is the most English place I've ever seen,
believe me! Of course it has its good points, and England has her good
points; but there's no money stirring. There's no field for speculation
on the spot, and as for outside investment, no Englishman will touch
anything that really is good." He emphasised the last three words.
"What d'ye do yeself, Mr. Bryany?" inquired Dr. Stirling.
"What do I do with my little bit?" cried Mr. Bryany. "Oh, I know what
to do with my little bit. I can get ten per cent. in Seattle, and
twelve to fifteen in Calgary, on my little bit; and security just as
good as English railway stock--_and_ better."
The theatre was darkened, and the cinematograph began its reckless
twinkling.
Mr. Bryany went on offering to Edward Henry, in a suitably lowered
voice, his views on the great questions of investment and speculation;
and Edward Henry made cautious replies.
"And even when there is a good thing going at home," Mr. Bryany said, in
a wounded tone, "what Englishman'd look at it?"
"I would," said Edward Henry with a blandness that was only skin-deep,
for all the time he was cogitating the question whether the presence of
Dr. Stirling in the audience ought or ought not to be regarded as
providential.
"Now, I've got the option on a little affair in London," said Mr.
Bryany, while Edward Henry glanced quickly at him in the darkness, "and
can I get anybody to go into it? I can't."
"What sort of a little affair?"
"Building a theatre in the West End."
Even a less impassive man than Edward Henry would have started at the
coincidence of this remark. And Edward Henry started. Twenty minutes
ago he had been idly dreaming of theatrical speculation, and now he
could almost see theatrical speculation shimmering before him in the
pale shifting rays of the cinematograph that cut through the gloom of
the mysterious auditorium.
"Oh!" And in this new interest he forgot the enigma of the ways of
Providence.
"Of course, you know, I'm in the business," said Mr. Bryany. "I'm Seven
Sachs's manager." It was as if he owned and operated Mr. Seven Sachs.
"So I heard," said Edward Henry, and then remarked with mischievous
cordiality: "And I suppose these chaps told you I was the sort of man
you were after. And you got them to ask me in, eh, Mr. Bryany?"
Mr. Bryany gave an uneasy laugh, but seemed to find naught to say.
"Well, what is your little affair?" Edward Henry encouraged him.
"Oh, I can't tell you now," said Mr. Bryany. "It would take too long.
The thing has to be explained."
"Well, what about to-morrow?"
"I have to leave for London by the first train in the morning."
"Well, some other time?"
"After to-morrow will be too late."
"Well, what about to-night?"
"The fact is, I've half promised to go with Dr. Stirling to some club or
other after the show. Otherwise we might have had a quiet confidential
chat in my rooms over the Turk's Head. I never dreamt--" Mr. Bryany
was now as melancholy as a greedy lad who regards rich fruit at arm's
length through a plate-glass window, and he had ceased to be
patronising.
"I'll soon get rid of Stirling for you," said Edward Henry, turning
instantly towards the doctor. The ways of Providence had been made plain
to Edward Henry. "I say, Doc!" But the Doctor and Brindley were in
conversation with another man at the open door of the box.
"What is it?" said Stirling.
"I've come to fetch you. You're wanted at my place."
"Well, you're a caution!" said Stirling.
"Why am I a caution?" Edward Henry smoothly protested. "I didn't tell
you before because I didn't want to spoil your fun."
Stirling's mien was not happy.
"Did they tell you I was here?" he asked.
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" said Edward Henry in a playful,
enigmatic tone. After all, he decided privately, his wife was right: it
was better that Stirling should see the infant. And there was also this
natural human thought in his mind: he objected to the doctor giving an
entire evening to diversions away from home; he considered that a
doctor, when not on a round of visits, ought to be forever in his
consulting-room, ready for a sudden call of emergency. It was monstrous
that Stirling should have proposed, after an escapade at the music-hall,
to spend further hours with chance acquaintances in vague clubs! Half
the town might fall sick and die while the doctor was vainly amusing
himself. Thus the righteous layman in Edward Henry!
"What's the matter?" asked Stirling.
"My eldest's been rather badly bitten by a dog, and the missis wants it
cauterized."
"Really?"
"Well, you bet she does!"
"Where's the bite?"
"In the calf."
The other man at the door having departed, Robert Brindley abruptly
joined the conversation at this point.
"I suppose you've heard of that case of hydrophobia at Bleakridge?" said
Brindley.
Edward Henry's heart jumped.
"No, I haven't," he said anxiously. "What is it?"
He gazed at the white blur of Brindley's face in the darkened box, and
he could hear the rapid clicking of the cinematograph behind him.
"Didn't you see it in the _Signal_?"
"No."
"Neither did I," said Brindley.
At the same moment the moving pictures came to an end, the theatre was
filled with light, and the band began to play, "God Save the King."
Brindley and Stirling were laughing. And indeed, Brindley had scored,
this time, over the unparalleled card of the Five Towns.
"I make you a present of that," said Edward Henry. "But my wife's most
precious infant has to be cauterized, Doctor," he added firmly.
"Got your car here?" Stirling questioned.
"No. Have you?"
"No."
"Well, there's the tram. I'll follow you later. I've some business
round this way. Persuade my wife not to worry, will you?"
And when a discontented Dr. Stirling had made his excuses and adieux to
Mr. Bryany, and Robert Brindley had decided that he could not leave his
crony to travel by tram-car alone, and the two men had gone, then Edward
Henry turned to Mr. Bryany:
"That's how I get rid of the doctor, you see."
"But _has_ your child been bitten by a dog?" asked Mr. Bryany, acutely
perplexed.
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" Edward Henry replied, carefully
non-committal. "What price going to the Turk's Head now?"
He remembered with satisfaction, and yet with misgiving, a remark made
to him, a judgment passed on him, by a very old woman very many years
before. This discerning hag, the Widow Hullins by name, had said to him
briefly, "Well, you're a queer 'un!"
III.
Within five minutes he was following Mr. Bryany into a small parlour on
the first floor of the Turk's Head, a room with which he had no previous
acquaintance, though, like most industrious men of affairs in
metropolitan Hanbridge, he reckoned to know something about the Turk's
Head. Mr. Bryany turned up the gas (the Turk's Head took pride in being
a "hostelry," and, while it had accustomed itself to incandescent
mantles on the ground floor, it had not yet conquered a natural distaste
for electricity) and Edward Henry saw a smart despatch-box, a dress
suit, a trouser-stretcher, and other necessaries of theatrical business
life at large in the apartment.
"I've never seen this room before," said Edward Henry.
"Take your overcoat off and sit down, will you?" said Mr. Bryany as he
turned to replenish the fire from a bucket. "It's my private
sitting-room. Whenever I am on my travels, I always take a private
sitting-room. It pays, you know. Of course I mean if I'm alone. When
I'm looking after Mr. Sachs, of course we share a sitting-room."
Edward Henry agreed lightly:
"I suppose so."
But the fact was that he was much impressed. He himself had never taken
a private sitting-room in any hotel. He had sometimes felt the desire,
but he had not had the "face," as they say down there, to do it. To
take a private sitting-room in a hotel was generally regarded in the
Five Towns as the very summit of dashing expensiveness and futile
luxury.
"I didn't know they had private sitting-rooms in this shanty," said
Edward Henry.
Mr. Bryany, having finished with the fire, fronted him, shovel in hand,
with a remarkable air of consummate wisdom, and replied:
"You can generally get what you want if you insist on having it, even in
this 'shanty.'"
Edward Henry regretted his use of the word "shanty." Inhabitants of the
Five Towns may allow themselves to twit the historic and excellent
Turk's Head, but they do not extend the privilege to strangers. And in
justice to the Turk's Head, it is to be clearly stated that it did no
more to cow and discourage travellers than any other provincial hotel in
England. It was a sound and serious English provincial hotel; and it
linked century to century.
Said Mr. Bryany:
"'Merica's the place for hotels."
"Yes, I expect it is."
"Been to Chicago?"
"No, I haven't."
Mr. Bryany, as he removed his overcoat, could be seen politely
forbearing to raise his eyebrows.
"Of course you've been to New York?"
Edward Henry would have given all he had in his pockets to be able to
say that he had been to New York, but, by some inexplicable negligence,
he had hitherto omitted to go to New York, and, being a truthful person,
except in the gravest crises, he was obliged to answer miserably:
"No, I haven't."
Mr. Bryany gazed at him with amazement and compassion, apparently
staggered by the discovery that there existed in England a man of the
world who had contrived to struggle on for forty years without
perfecting his education by a visit to New York.
Edward Henry could not tolerate Mr. Bryany's look. It was a look which
he had never been able to tolerate on the features of anybody
whatsoever. He reminded himself that his secret object in accompanying
Mr. Bryany to the Turk's Head was to repay Mr. Bryany--in what coin he
knew not yet--for the aspersions which at the music-hall he had cast
upon England in general and upon the Five Towns in particular, and also
to get revenge for having been tricked into believing, even for a
moment, that there was really a case of hydrophobia at Bleakridge. It
is true that Mr. Bryany was innocent of this deception, which had been
accomplished by Robert Brindley, but that was a detail which did not
trouble Edward Henry, who lumped his grievances together--for
convenience.
He had been reflecting that some sentimental people, unused to the ways
of paternal affection in the Five Towns, might consider him a rather
callous father; he had been reflecting, again, that Nellie's suggestion
of blood-poisoning might not be as entirely foolish as feminine
suggestions in such circumstances too often are. But now he put these
thoughts away, reassuring himself against hydrophobia anyhow, by the
recollection of the definite statement of the Encyclopedia. Moreover,
had he not inspected the wound--as healthy a wound as you could wish
for?
And he said in a new tone, very curtly:
"Now, Mr. Bryany, what about this little affair of yours?"
He saw that Mr. Bryany accepted the implied rebuke with the deference
properly shown by a man who needs something towards the man in
possession of what he needs. And studying the fellow's countenance, he
decided that, despite its brassiness and simple cunning, it was scarcely
the countenance of a rascal.
"Well, it's like this," said Mr. Bryany, sitting down opposite Edward
Henry at the centre table, and reaching with obsequious liveliness for
the despatch-box.
He drew from the despatch-box, which was lettered "W.C.B.," first a
cut-glass flask of whisky, with a patent stopper, and then a spacious
box of cigarettes.
"I always travel with the right sort," he remarked, holding the golden
liquid up to the light. "It's safer, and it saves any trouble with
orders after closing-time. These English hotels, you know--!"
So saying, he dispensed whisky and cigarettes, there being a siphon and
glasses, and three matches in a match-stand, on the table.
"Here's looking!" he said, with raised glass.
And Edward Henry responded, in conformity with the changeless ritual of
the Five Towns:
"I looks!"
And they sipped.
Whereupon Mr. Bryany next drew from the despatch-box a piece of
transparent paper.
"I want you to look at this plan of Piccadilly Circus and environs,"
said he.
Now there is a Piccadilly in Hanbridge; also a Pall Mall, and a Chancery
Lane. The adjective "metropolitan," applied to Hanbridge is just.
"London?" questioned Edward Henry. "I understood London when we were
chatting over there." With his elbow he indicated the music-hall,
somewhere vaguely outside the room.
"London," said Mr. Bryany.
And Edward Henry thought:
"What on earth am I meddling with London for? What use should I be in
London?"
"You see the plot marked in red?" Mr. Bryany proceeded. "Well, that's
the site. There's an old chapel on it now."
"What do all these straight lines mean?" Edward Henry inquired,
examining the plan. Lines radiated from the red plot in various
directions.
"Those are the lines of vision," said Mr. Bryany. "They show just where
an electric sign at the corner of the front of the proposed theatre
could be seen from. You notice the site is not in the Circus itself--a
shade to the north." Mr. Bryany's finger approached Edward Henry's on
the plan and the clouds from their cigarettes fraternally mingled. "Now
you see by those lines that the electric sign of the proposed theatre
would be visible from nearly the whole of Piccadilly Circus, parts of
Lower Regent Street, Coventry Street, and even Shaftesbury Avenue. You
see what a site it is--absolutely unique."
Edward Henry asked coldly:
"Have you bought it?"
"No," Mr. Bryany seemed to apologise, "I haven't exactly bought it; but
I've got an option on it."
The magic word "option" wakened the drowsy speculator in Edward Henry.
And the mere act of looking at the plan endowed the plot of land with
reality. There it was. It existed.
"An option to buy it?"
"You can't buy land in the West End of London," said Mr. Bryany sagely.
"You can only lease it."
"Well, of course," Edward Henry concurred.
"The freehold belongs to Lord Woldo, now aged six months."
"Really!" murmured Edward Henry.
"I've got an option to take up the remainder of the lease, with
sixty-four years to run, on the condition I put up a theatre. And the
option expires in exactly a fortnight's time."
Edward Henry frowned, and then asked:
"What are the figures?"
"That is to say," Mr. Bryany corrected himself, smiling courteously,
"I've got half the option."
"And who's got the other half?"
"Rose Euclid's got the other half."
At the mention of the name of one of the most renowned star actresses in
England, Edward Henry excusably started.
"Not _the_--?" he exclaimed.
Mr. Bryany nodded proudly, blowing out much smoke.
"Tell me," asked Edward Henry, confidentially, leaning forward, "where
do those ladies get their names from?"
"It happens in this case to be her real name," said Mr. Bryany. "Her
father kept a tobacconists' shop in Cheapside. The sign was kept up for
many years, until Rose paid to have it changed."
"Well, well!" breathed Edward Henry, secretly thrilled by these
extraordinary revelations. "And so you and she have got it between
you?"
Mr. Bryany said:
"I bought half of it from her some time ago. She was badly hard up for a
hundred pounds, and I let her have the money." He threw away his
cigarette half-smoked, with a free gesture that seemed to imply that he
was capable of parting with a hundred pounds just as easily.
"How did she _get_ the option?" Edward Henry inquired, putting into the
query all the innuendo of a man accustomed to look at great worldly
affairs from the inside.
"How did she get it? She got it from the late Lord Woldo. She was
always very friendly with the late Lord Woldo, you know." Edward Henry
nodded. "Why, she and the Countess of Chell are as thick as thieves!
You know something about the countess down here, I reckon?"
The Countess of Chell was the wife of the supreme local magnate.
Edward Henry answered calmly, "We do."
He was tempted to relate a unique adventure of his youth, when he had
driven the countess to a public meeting in his mule-carriage; but sheer
pride kept him silent.
"I asked you for the figures," he added in a manner which requested Mr.
Bryany to remember that he was the founder, chairman, and proprietor of
the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, one of the most successful
business organisations in the Midlands.
"Here they are," said Mr. Bryany, passing across the table a sheet of
paper.
And as Edward Henry studied them he could hear Mr. Bryany faintly cooing
into his ear: "Of course Rose got the ground-rent reduced. And when I
tell you that the demand for theatres in the West End far exceeds the
supply, and that theatre rents are always going up; when I tell you that
a theatre costing L25,000 to build can be let for L11,000 a year, and
often L300 a week on a short term--" And he could hear the gas singing
over his head; and also, unhappily, he could hear Dr. Stirling talking
to his wife and saying to her that the bite was far more serious than it
looked, and Nellie hoping very audibly that nothing had "happened" to
him, her still absent husband. And then he could hear Mr. Bryany again:
"When I tell you--"
"When you tell me all this, Mr. Bryany," he interrupted with the
ferocity which in the Five Towns is regarded as mere directness, "I
wonder why the devil you want to sell your half of the option if you
_do_ want to sell it. Do you want to sell it?"
"To tell you the truth," said Mr. Bryany as if up to that moment he had
told naught but lies, "I do."
"Why?"
"Oh, I'm always travelling about, you see. England one day, America the
next." Apparently he had quickly abandoned the strictness of veracity.
"All depends on the governor's movements. I couldn't keep a proper eye
on an affair of that kind."
Edward Henry laughed:
"And could I?"
"Chance for you to go a bit oftener to London," said Mr. Bryany,
laughing too. Then, with extreme and convincing seriousness, "You're
the very man for a thing of that kind. And you know it."
Edward Henry was not displeased by this flattery.
"How much?"
"How much? Well, I told you frankly what I paid. I made no concealment
of that, did I now? Well, I want what I paid. It's worth it!"
"Got a copy of the option, I hope!"
Mr. Bryany produced a copy of the option.
"I am nothing but an infernal ass to mix myself up in a mad scheme like
this," said Edward Henry to his soul, perusing the documents. "It's
right off my line, right bang off it. But what a lark!" But even to
his soul he did not utter the remainder of the truth about himself,
namely, "I should like to cut a dash before this insufferable patroniser
of England and the Five Towns."
Suddenly something snapped within him, and he said to Mr. Bryany:
"I'm on!"
Those words and no more!
"You are?" Mr. Bryany exclaimed, mistrusting his ears.
Edward Henry nodded.
"Well, that's business anyway," said Mr. Bryany, taking a fresh
cigarette and lighting it.
"It's how we do business down here," said Edward Henry, quite
inaccurately; for it was not in the least how they did business down
there.
Mr. Bryany asked, with a rather obvious anxiety:
"But when can you pay?
"Oh, I'll send you a cheque in a day or two." And Edward Henry in his
turn took a fresh cigarette.
"That won't do! That won't do!" cried Mr. Bryany. "I absolutely must
have the money to-morrow morning in London. I can sell the option in
London for eighty pounds, I know that."
"You must have it?"
"Must!"
They exchanged glances. And Edward Henry, rapidly acquiring new
knowledge of human nature on the threshold of a world strange to him,
understood that Mr. Bryany, with his private sitting-room and his
investments in Seattle and Calgary, was at his wits' end for a bag of
English sovereigns, and had trusted to some chance encounter to save him
from a calamity. And his contempt for Mr. Bryany was that of a man to
whom his bankers are positively servile.
"Here," Mr. Bryany almost shouted, "don't light your cigarette with my
option!"
"I beg pardon," Edward Henry apologised, dropping the document which he
had creased into a spill. There were no matches left on the table.
"I'll find you a match."
"It's of no consequence," said Edward Henry, feeling in his pockets.
Having discovered therein a piece of paper, he twisted it and rose to
put it to the gas.
"Could you slip round to your bank and meet me at the station in the
morning with the cash?" suggested Mr. Bryany.
"No, I couldn't," said Edward Henry.
"Well, then, what--?"
"Here, you'd better take this," the Card, reborn, soothed his host, and,
blowing out the spill which he had just ignited at the gas, he offered
it to Mr. Bryany.
"What?"
"This, man!"
Mr. Bryany, observing the peculiarity of the spill, seized it and
unrolled it, not without a certain agitation.
He stammered:
"Do you mean to say it's genuine?"
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" said Edward Henry. He was
growing fond of this reply, and of the enigmatic playful tone that he
had invented for it.
"But--"
"We may, as you say, look twice at a fiver," continued Edward Henry,
"but we're apt to be careless about hundred-pound notes in this
district. I daresay that's why I always carry one."
"But it's burnt!"
"Only just the edge, not enough to harm it. If any bank in England
refuses it, return it to me, and I'll give you a couple more in
exchange. Is that talking?"
"Well, I'm dashed!" Mr. Bryany attempted to rise, and then subsided
back into his chair. "I am simply and totally dashed!" He smiled
weakly, hysterically.
And in that instant Edward Henry felt all the sweetness of a complete
and luscious revenge.
He said commandingly:
"You must sign me a transfer. I'll dictate it."
Then he jumped up.
"You're in a hurry?"
"I am. My wife is expecting me. You promised to find me a match."
Edward Henry waved the unlit cigarette as a reproach to Mr. Bryany's
imperfect hospitality.
IV.
The clock of Bleakridge Church, still imperturbably shining in the
night, showed a quarter to one when he saw it again on his hurried and
guilty way home. The pavements were drying in the fresh night wind, and
he had his overcoat buttoned up to the neck. He was absolutely solitary
in the long, muddy perspective of Trafalgar Road. He walked because the
last tram-car was already housed in its shed at the other end of the
world, and he walked quickly because his conscience drove him onwards.
And yet he dreaded to arrive, lest a wound in the child's leg should
have maliciously decided to fester in order to put him in the wrong. He
was now as apprehensive concerning that wound as Nellie herself had been
at tea-time.
But in his mind, above the dark gulf of anxiety, there floated brighter
thoughts. Despite his fears and his remorse as a father, he laughed
aloud in the deserted street when he remembered Mr. Bryany's visage of
astonishment upon uncreasing the note. Indubitably, he made a terrific
and everlasting impression upon Mr. Bryany. He was sending Mr. Bryany
out of the Five Towns a different man. He had taught Mr. Bryany a thing
or two. To what brilliant use had he turned the purely accidental
possession of a hundred-pound note! One of his finest inspirations--an
inspiration worthy of the great days of his youth! Yes, he had had his
hour that evening, and it had been a glorious one. Also, it had cost him
a hundred pounds, and he did not care; he would retire to bed with a net
gain of two hundred and forty-one pounds instead of three hundred and
forty-one pounds, that was all.
For he did not mean to take up the option. The ecstasy was cooled now,
and he saw clearly that London and theatrical enterprises therein would
not be suited to his genius. In the Five Towns he was on his own
ground; he was a figure; he was sure of himself. In London he would be
a provincial, with the diffidence and the uncertainty of a provincial.
Nevertheless, London seemed to be summoning him from afar off, and he
dreamt agreeably of London as one dreams of the impossible East.
As soon as he opened the gate in the wall of his property, he saw that
the drawing-room was illuminated and all the other front rooms in
darkness. Either his wife or his mother, then, was sitting up in the
drawing-room. He inserted a cautious latch-key into the door, and
entered the silent home like a sinner. The dim light in the hall
gravely reproached him. All his movements were modest and restrained;
no noisy rattling of his stick now.
The drawing-room door was slightly ajar. He hesitated, and then,
nerving himself, pushed against it.
Nellie, with lowered head, was seated at a table, mending, the image of
tranquillity and soft resignation. A pile of children's garments lay by
her side, but the article in her busy hands appeared to be an undershirt
of his own. None but she ever reinforced the buttons on his linen.
Such was her wifely rule, and he considered that there was no sense in
it. She was working by the light of a single lamp on the table, the
splendid chandelier being out of action. Her economy in the use of
electricity was incurable, and he considered that there was no sense in
that either.
She glanced up with a guarded expression that might have meant anything.
He said:
"Aren't you trying your eyes?"
And she replied:
"Oh, no!"
Then, plunging, he came to the point:
"Well, doctor been here?"
She nodded.
"What does he say?"
"It's quite all right. He did nothing but cover up the place with a bit
of cyanide gauze."
Instantly, in his own esteem, he regained perfection as a father. Of
course the bite was nothing! Had he not said so from the first? Had he
not been quite sure throughout that the bite was nothing?
"Then why did you sit up?" he asked, and there was a faint righteous
challenge in his tone.
"I was anxious about you. I was afraid--"
"Didn't Stirling tell you I had some business?"
"I forget--"
"I told him to, anyhow--important business."
"It must have been," said Nellie in an inscrutable voice.
She rose and gathered together her paraphernalia, and he saw that she
was wearing the damnable white apron. The close atmosphere of the home
enveloped and stifled him once more. How different was this
exasperating interior from the large jolly freedom of the Empire Music
Hall, and from the whisky, cigarettes, and masculinity of that private
room at the Turk's Head!
"It was!" he repeated grimly and resentfully. "Very important! And I'll
tell you another thing, I shall probably have to go to London."
He said this just to startle her.
"It will do you all the good in the world," she replied angelically, but
unstartled. "It's just what you need." And she gazed at him as though
his welfare and felicity were her sole preoccupation.
"I meant I might have to stop there quite a while," he insisted.
"If you ask me," she said, "I think it would do us all good."
So saying she retired, having expressed no curiosity whatever as to the
nature of the very important business in London.
For a moment, left alone, he was at a loss. Then, snorting, he went to
the table and extinguished the lamp. He was now in darkness. The light
in the hall showed him the position of the door.
He snorted again. "Oh, very well then!" he muttered. "If that's it!
I'm hanged if I don't go to London! I'm hanged if I don't go to
London!"
CHAPTER III
WILKINS'S
I.
The early adventures of Alderman Machin of Bursley at Wilkins' Hotel,
London, were so singular and to him so refreshing that they must be
recounted in some detail.
He went to London by the morning express from Knype, on the Monday week
after his visit to the music-hall. In the meantime he had had some
correspondence with Mr. Bryany, more poetic than precise, about the
option, and had informed Mr. Bryany that he would arrive in London
several days before the option expired. But he had not given a definite
date. The whole affair, indeed, was amusingly vague; and, despite his
assurances to his wife that the matter was momentous, he did not regard
his trip to London as a business trip at all, but rather as a simple
freakish change of air. The one certain item in the whole situation was
that he had in his pocket a quite considerable sum of actual money,
destined--he hoped but was not sure--to take up the option at the proper
hour.
Nellie, impeccable to the last, accompanied him in the motor to Knype,
the main-line station. The drive, superficially pleasant, was in
reality very disconcerting to him. For nine days the household had
talked in apparent cheerfulness of Father's visit to London, as though
it were an occasion for joy on Father's behalf, tempered by affectionate
sorrow for his absence. The official theory was that all was for the
best in the best of all possible homes, and this theory was admirably
maintained. And yet everybody knew--even to Maisie--that it was not so;
everybody knew that the master and the mistress of the home, calm and
sweet as was their demeanour, were contending in a terrific silent and
mysterious altercation, which in some way was connected with the visit
to London. So far as Edward Henry was concerned, he had been hoping for
some decisive event--a tone, gesture, glance, pressure--during the drive
to Knype, which offered the last chance of a real concord. No such
event occurred. They conversed with the same false cordiality as had
marked their relations since the evening of the dog-bite. On that
evening Nellie had suddenly transformed herself into a distressingly
perfect angel, and not once had she descended from her high estate. At
least daily she had kissed him--what kisses! Kisses that were not
kisses! Tasteless mockeries, like non-alcoholic ale! He could have
killed her, but he could not put a finger on a fault in her marvellous
wifely behaviour; she would have died victorious.
So that his freakish excursion was not starting very auspiciously. And,
waiting with her for the train on the platform at Knype, he felt this
more and more. His old clerk Penkethman was there to receive certain
final instructions on Thrift Club matters, and the sweetness of Nellie's
attitude towards the ancient man, and the ancient's man's naive pleasure
therein, positively maddened Edward Henry. To such an extent that he
began to think: "Is she going to spoil my trip for me?"
Then Brindley came up. Brindley, too, was going to London. And
Nellie's saccharine assurances to Brindley that Edward Henry really
needed a change just about completed Edward Henry's desperation. Not
even the uproarious advent of two jolly wholesale grocers, Messieurs
Garvin and Quorrall, also going to London, could effectually lighten his
pessimism.
When the train steamed in, Edward Henry, in fear, postponed the ultimate
kiss as long as possible. He allowed Brindley to climb before him into
the second-class compartment, and purposely tarried in finding change
for the porter; and then he turned to Nellie, and stooped. She raised
her white veil and raised the angelic face. They kissed,--the same
false kiss,--and she was withdrawing her lips. But suddenly she put them
again to his for one second, with a hysterical clinging pressure. It
was nothing. Nobody could have noticed it. She herself pretended that
she had not done it. Edward Henry had to pretend not to notice it. But
to him it was everything. She had relented. She had surrendered. The
sign had come from her. She wished him to enjoy his visit to London.
He said to himself:
"Dashed if I don't write to her every day!"
He leaned out of the window as the train rolled away, and waved and
smiled to her, not concealing his sentiments now; nor did she conceal
hers as she replied with exquisite pantomime to his signals. But if the
train had not been rapidly and infallibly separating them, the
reconciliation could scarcely have been thus open. If for some reason
the train had backed into the station and ejected its passengers, those
two would have covered up their feelings again in an instant. Such is
human nature in the Five Towns.
When Edward Henry withdrew his head into the compartment, Brindley and
Mr. Garvin, the latter standing at the corridor door, observed that his
spirits had shot up in the most astonishing manner, and in their
blindness they attributed the phenomenon to Edward Henry's delight in a
temporary freedom from domesticity.
Mr. Garvin had come from the neighbouring compartment, which was
first-class, to suggest a game at bridge. Messieurs Garvin and Quorrall
journeyed to London once a week and sometimes oftener, and, being
traders, they had special season-tickets. They travelled first-class
because their special season-tickets were first-class. Brindley said
that he didn't mind a game, but that he had not the slightest intention
of paying excess fare for the privilege. Mr. Garvin told him to come
along and trust in Messieurs Garvin and Quorrall. Edward Henry, not
nowadays an enthusiastic card-player, enthusiastically agreed to join
the hand, and announced that he did not care if he paid forty excess
fares. Whereupon Robert Brindley grumbled enviously that it was "all
very well for millionaires..." They followed Mr. Garvin into the
first-class compartment; and it soon appeared that Messrs. Garvin and
Quorrall did in fact own the train, and that the London and North
Western Railway was no more than their wash-pot.
"Bring us a cushion from somewhere, will ye?" said Mr. Quorrall casually
to a ticket-collector who entered.
And the resplendent official obeyed. The long cushion, rapt from
another compartment, was placed on the knees of the quartette, and the
game began. The ticket-collector examined the tickets of Brindley and
Edward Henry, and somehow failed to notice that they were of the wrong
colour. And at this proof of their influential greatness, Messieurs
Garvin and Quorrall were both secretly proud.
The last rubber finished in the neighbourhood of Willesden, and Edward
Henry, having won eighteen pence halfpenny, was exuberantly content, for
Messrs. Garvin, Quorrall, and Brindley were all renowned card-players.
The cushion was thrown away, and a fitful conversation occupied the few
remaining minutes of the journey.
"Where do you put up?" Brindley asked Edward Henry.
"Majestic," said Edward Henry. "Where do you?"
"Oh! Kingsway, I suppose."
The Majestic and the Kingsway were two of the half-dozen very large and
very mediocre hotels in London which, from causes which nobody, and
especially no American, has ever been able to discover, are particularly
affected by Midland provincials "on the jaunt." Both had an immense
reputation in the Five Towns.
There was nothing new to say about the Majestic and the Kingsway, and
the talk flagged until Mr. Quorrall mentioned Seven Sachs. The mighty
Seven Sachs, in his world-famous play, "Overheard," had taken precedence
of all other topics in the Five Towns during the previous week. He had
crammed the theatre and half emptied the Empire Music Hall for six
nights; a wonderful feat. Incidentally, his fifteen hundredth appearance
in "Overheard" had taken place in the Five Towns, and the Five Towns had
found in this fact a peculiar satisfaction, as though some deep merit
had thereby been acquired or rewarded. Seven Sachs's tour was now
closed, and on the Sunday he had gone to London, en route for America.
"I heard _he_ stops at Wilkins's," said Mr. Garvin.
"Wilkins's your grandmother!" Brindley essayed to crush Mr. Garvin.
"I don't say he _does_ stop at Wilkins's," said Mr. Garvin, an
individual not easy to crush, "I only say I heard as he did."
"They wouldn't have him!" Brindley insisted firmly.
Mr. Quorrall at any rate seemed tacitly to agree with Brindley. The
august name of Wilkins's was in its essence so exclusive that vast
numbers of fairly canny provincials had never heard of it. Ask ten
well-informed provincials which is the first hotel in London, and nine
of them would certainly reply, the Grand Babylon. Not that even wealthy
provincials from the industrial districts are in the habit of staying at
the Grand Babylon! No! Edward Henry, for example, had never stayed at
the Grand Babylon, no more than he had ever bought a first-class ticket
on a railroad. The idea of doing so had scarcely occurred to him.
There are certain ways of extravagant smartness which are not considered
to be good form among solid wealthy provincials. Why travel first-class
(they argue), when second is just as good and no one can tell the
difference once you get out of the train? Why ape the tricks of another
stratum of society? They like to read about the dinner-parties and
supper-parties at the Grand Babylon; but they are not emulous, and they
do not imitate. At their most adventurous they would lunch or dine in
the neutral region of the grill-room at the Grand Babylon. As for
Wilkins's, in Devonshire Square, which is infinitely better known among
princes than in the Five Towns, and whose name is affectionately
pronounced with a "V" by half the monarchs of Europe, few industrial
provincials had ever seen it. The class which is the back-bone of
England left it serenely alone to royalty and the aristocratic parasites
of royalty.
"I don't see why they shouldn't have him," said Edward Henry, as he
lifted a challenging nose in the air.
"Perhaps you don't, Alderman!" said Brindley.
"_I_ wouldn't mind going to Wilkins's," Edward Henry persisted.
"I'd like to see you," said Brindley, with curt scorn.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "I'll bet you a fiver I do." Had he not won
eighteen pence half-penny? And was he not securely at peace with his
wife?
"I don't bet fivers," said the cautious Brindley. "But I'll bet you half
a crown."
"Done!" said Edward Henry.
"When will you go?"
"Either to-day or to-morrow. I must go to the Majestic first, because
I've ordered a room and so on."
"Ha!" hurled Brindley, as if to insinuate that Edward Henry was seeking
to escape from the consequences of his boast.
And yet he ought to have known Edward Henry. He did know Edward Henry.
And he hoped to lose his half-crown. On his face and on the faces of
the other two was the cheerful admission that tales of the doings of
Alderman Machin, the great local card, at Wilkins's--if he succeeded in
getting in--would be cheap at half a crown.
Porters cried out "Euston!"
II.
It was rather late in the afternoon when Edward Henry arrived in front
of the facade of Wilkins's. He came in a taxicab, and though the
distance from the Majestic to Wilkins's is not more than a couple of
miles, and he had had nothing else to preoccupy him after lunch, he had
spent some three hours in the business of transferring himself from the
portals of the one hotel to the portals of the other. Two hours and
three-quarters of this period of time had been passed in finding courage
merely to start. Even so, he had left his luggage behind him. He said
to himself that, first of all, he would go and spy out Wilkins's; in the
perilous work of scouting he rightly wished to be unhampered by
impedimenta; moreover, in case of repulse or accident, he must have a
base of operations upon which he could retreat in good order.
He now looked on Wilkins's for the first time in his life; and he was
even more afraid of it than he had been while thinking about it in the
vestibule of the Majestic. It was not larger than the Majestic; it was
perhaps smaller; it could not show more terra cotta, plate glass, and
sculptured cornice than the Majestic. But it had a demeanour ... and it
was in a square which had a demeanour.... In every window-sill--not only
of the hotel, but of nearly every mighty house in the square--there were
boxes of bright-blooming flowers. These he could plainly distinguish in
the October dusk, and they were a wonderful phenomenon--say what you
will about the mildness of that particular October! A sublime
tranquillity reigned over the scene. A liveried keeper was locking the
gate of the garden in the middle of the square as if potentates had just
quitted it and rendered it forever sacred. And between the sacred
shadowed grove and the inscrutable fronts of the stately houses, there
flitted automobiles of the silent and expensive kind, driven by
chauffeurs in pale grey or dark purple, who reclined as they steered,
and who were supported on their left sides by footmen who reclined as
they contemplated the grandeur of existence.
Edward Henry's taxicab in that square seemed like a homeless cat that
had strayed into a dog-show.
At the exact instant when the taxicab came to rest under the massive
portico of Wilkins's, a chamberlain in white gloves bravely soiled the
gloves by seizing the vile brass handle of its door. He bowed to Edward
Henry, and assisted him to alight on to a crimson carpet. The driver of
the taxi glanced with pert and candid scorn at the chamberlain, but
Edward Henry looked demurely aside, and then in abstraction mounted the
broad carpeted steps.
"What about poor little me?" cried the driver, who was evidently a
ribald socialist, or at best a republican.
The chamberlain, pained, glanced at Edward Henry for support and
direction in this crisis.
"Didn't I tell you I'd keep you?" said Edward Henry, raised now by the
steps above the driver.
"Between you and me, you didn't," said the driver.
The chamberlain, with an ineffable gesture, wafted the taxicab away into
some limbo appointed for waiting vehicles.
A page opened a pair of doors, and another page opened another pair of
doors, each with eighteen-century ceremonies of deference, and Edward
Henry stood at length in the hall of Wilkins's. The sanctuary, then, was
successfully defiled, and up to the present nobody had demanded his
credentials! He took breath.
In its physical aspects Wilkins's appeared to him to resemble other
hotels--such as the Majestic. And so far he was not mistaken. Once
Wilkins's had not resembled other hotels. For many years it had
deliberately refused to recognise that even the Nineteenth Century had
dawned, and its magnificent antique discomfort had been one of its main
attractions to the elect. For the elect desired nothing but their own
privileged society in order to be happy in a hotel. A hip bath on a
blanket in the middle of the bedroom floor richly sufficed them,
provided they could be guaranteed against the calamity of meeting the
unelect in the corridors or at _table d'hote_. But the rising waters of
democracy--the intermixture of classes--had reacted adversely on
Wilkins's. The fall of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico had given
Wilkins's sad food for thought long, long ago, and the obvious general
weakening of the monarchical principle had most considerably shaken it.
Came the day when Wilkins's reluctantly decided that even it could not
fight against the tendency of the whole world, and then, at one superb
stroke, it had rebuilt and brought itself utterly up-to-date.
Thus it resembled other hotels. (Save possibly in the reticence of its
advertisements! The Majestic would advertise bathrooms as a miracle of
modernity, just as though common dwelling-houses had not possessed
bathrooms for the past thirty years. Wilkins's had superlative
bathrooms, but it said nothing about them. Wilkins's would as soon have
advertised two hundred bathrooms as two hundred bolsters; and for the
new Wilkins's a bathroom was not more modern than a bolster.) Also,
other hotels resembled Wilkins's. The Majestic, too, had a chamberlain
at its portico, and an assortment of pages to prove to its clients that
they were incapable of performing the simplest act for themselves.
Nevertheless, the difference between Wilkins's and the Majestic was
enormous; and yet so subtle was it that Edward Henry could not
immediately detect where it resided. Then he understood. The
difference between Wilkins's and the Majestic resided in the theory
which underlay its manner. And the theory was that every person
entering its walls was of royal blood until he had admitted the
contrary.
Within the hotel it was already night.
Edward Henry self-consciously crossed the illuminated hall, which was
dotted with fashionable figures. He knew not whither he was going,
until by chance he saw a golden grille with the word "Reception" shining
over it in letters of gold. Behind this grille, and still further
protected by an impregnable mahogany counter, stood three young dandies
in attitudes of graceful ease. He approached them. The fearful moment
was upon him. He had never in his life been so genuinely frightened.
Abject disgrace might be his portion within the next ten seconds.
Addressing himself to the dandy in the middle, he managed to articulate:
"What have you got in the way of rooms?"
Could the Five Towns have seen him then, as he waited, it would hardly
have recognised its "card," its character, its mirror of aplomb and
inventive audacity, in this figure of provincial and plebeian
diffidence.
The dandy bowed.
"Do you want a suite, sir?"
"Certainly!" said Edward Henry. Rather too quickly, rather too
defiantly; in fact, rather rudely! A habitue would not have so savagely
hurled back in the dandy's teeth the insinuation that he wanted only one
paltry room.
However, the dandy smiled, accepting with meekness Edward Henry's sudden
arrogance, and consulted a sort of pentateuch that was open in front of
him.
No person in the hall saw Edward Henry's hat fly up into the air and
fall back on his head. But in the imagination of Edward Henry, that was
what his hat did.
He was saved. He would have a proud tale for Brindley. The thing was
as simple as the alphabet. You just walked in and they either fell on
your neck or kissed your feet.
Wilkins's indeed!
A very handsome footman, not only in white gloves but in white calves,
was soon supplicating him to deign to enter a lift. And when he emerged
from the lift another dandy--in a frock-coat of Paradise--was awaiting
him with obeisances. Apparently it had not yet occurred to anybody that
he was not the younger son of some aged king.
He was prayed to walk into a gorgeous suite consisting of a corridor, a
noble drawing-room (with portrait of His Majesty of Spain on the walls),
a large bedroom with two satinwood beds, a small bedroom, and a
bathroom, all gleaming with patent devices in porcelain and silver that
fully equalled those at home.
Asked if this suite would do, he said it would, trying as well as he
could to imply that he had seen better. Then the dandy produced a
note-book and a pencil, and impassively waited. The horrid fact that he
was un-elect could no longer be concealed. "E. H. Machin, Bursley," he
said shortly, and added: "Alderman Machin." After all, why should he be
ashamed of being an alderman?
To his astonishment the dandy smiled very cordially, though always with
profound respect.
"Ah, yes!" said the dandy. It was as though he had said: "We have long
wished for the high patronage of this great reputation." Edward Henry
could make naught of it.
His opinion of Wilkins's went down.
He followed the departing dandy up the corridor to the door of the suite
in an entirely vain attempt to enquire the price of the suite per day.
Not a syllable would pass his lips. The dandy bowed and vanished.
Edward Henry stood lost at his own door, and his wandering eye caught
sight of a pile of trunks near to another door in the main corridor.
These trunks gave him a terrible shock. He shut out the rest of the
hotel and retired into his private corridor to reflect. He perceived
only too plainly that his luggage, now at the Majestic, never could come
into Wilkins's. It was not fashionable enough. It lacked elegance.
The lounge suit that he was wearing might serve, but his luggage was
totally impossible. Never before had he imagined that the aspect of
one's luggage could have the least importance in one's scheme of
existence. He was learning, and he frankly admitted that he was in an
incomparable mess.
III.
At the end of an extensive stroll through and round his new vast domain,
he had come to no decision upon a course of action. Certain details of
the strange adventure pleased him--as for instance the dandy's welcoming
recognition of his name; that, though puzzling, was a source of comfort
to him in his difficulties. He also liked the suite; nay more, he was
much impressed by its gorgeousness, and such novel complications as the
forked electric switches, all of which he turned on, and the double
windows, one within the other, appealed to the domestic expert in him;
indeed, he at once had the idea of doubling the window of the best
bedroom at home; to do so would be a fierce blow to the Five Towns
Electric Traction Company, which, as everybody knew, delighted to keep
everybody awake at night and at dawn by means of its late and its early
tram-cars. However, he could not wander up and down the glittering
solitude of his extensive suite for ever. Something must be done. Then
he had the notion of writing to Nellie; he had promised himself to write
to her daily; moreover, it would pass the time and perhaps help him to
some resolution.
He sat down to a delicate Louis XVI desk on which lay a Bible, a
Peerage, a telephone-book, a telephone, a lamp, and much distinguished
stationery. Between the tasselled folds of plushy curtains that pleated
themselves with the grandeur of painted curtains in a theatre, he
glanced out at the lights of Devonshire Square, from which not a sound
came. Then he lit the lamp and unscrewed his fountain pen.
"My dear wife--"
That was how he always began, whether in storm or sunshine. Nellie
always began, "My darling husband"; but he was not a man to fling
darlings about. Few husbands in the Five Towns are. He thought
"darling," but he never wrote it, and he never said it, save quizzingly.
After these three words the composition of the letter came to a pause.
What was he going to tell Nellie? He assuredly was not going to tell
her that he had engaged an unpriced suite at Wilkins's. He was not
going to mention Wilkins's. Then he intelligently perceived that the
note-paper and also the envelope mentioned Wilkins's in no ambiguous
manner. He tore up the sheet and searched for plain paper. Now, on the
desk there was the ordinary hotel stationery, mourning stationery,
cards, letter-cards, and envelopes for every mood; but not a piece that
was not embossed with the historic name in royal blue. The which
appeared to Edward Henry to point to a defect of foresight on the part
of Wilkins's. At the gigantic political club to which he belonged, and
which he had occasionally visited in order to demonstrate to himself and
others that he was a club-man, plain stationery was everywhere provided
for the use of husbands with a taste for reticence. Why not at
Wilkins's also?
On the other hand, why should he not write to his wife on Wilkins's
paper? Was he afraid of his wife? He was not. Would not the news
ultimately reach Bursley that he had stayed at Wilkins's? It would.
Nevertheless, he could not find the courage to write to Nellie on
Wilkins's paper.
He looked around. He was fearfully alone. He wanted the companionship,
were it only momentary, of something human. He decided to have a look
at a flunkey, and he rang a bell.
Immediately, just as though wafted thither on a magic carpet, from the
court of Austria, a gentleman in waiting arrived in the doorway of the
drawing-room, planted himself gracefully on his black silk calves, and
bowed.
"I want some plain note-paper, please."
"Very good, sir." Oh! Perfection of tone and of mien!
Three minutes later the plain note-paper and envelopes were being
presented to Edward Henry on a salver. As he took them, he looked
enquiringly at the gentleman in waiting, who supported his gaze with an
impenetrable, invulnerable servility. Edward Henry, beaten off with
great loss, thought: "There's nothing doing here just now in the human
companionship line," and assumed the mask of a hereditary prince.
The black calves carried away their immaculate living burden, set above
all earthly ties.
He wrote nicely to Nellie about the weather and the journey, and
informed her also that London seemed as full as ever, and that he might
go to the theatre, but he wasn't sure. He dated the letter from the
Majestic.
As he was finishing it, he heard mysterious, disturbing footfalls in his
private corridor, and after trying for some time to ignore them, he was
forced by a vague alarm to investigate their origin. A short
middle-aged, pallid man, with a long nose and long moustaches, wearing a
red and black-striped sleeved waistcoat and a white apron, was in the
corridor. At the Turk's Head such a person would have been the boots.
But Edward Henry remembered a notice under the bell, advising visitors
to ring once for the waiter, twice for the chambermaid, and three times
for the valet. This, then, was the valet. In certain picturesque
details of costume Wilkins's was coquettishly French.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"I came to see if your luggage had arrived, sir. No doubt your servant
is bringing it. Can I be of any assistance to you?"
The man thoughtfully twirled one end of his moustache. It was an
appalling fault in demeanour; but the man was proud of his moustache.
"The first human being I've met here!" thought Edward Henry, attracted
too by a gleam in the eye of this eternal haunter of corridors.
"His servant!" He saw that something must be done, and quickly.
Wilkins's provided valets for emergencies, but obviously it expected
visitors to bring their own valets in addition. Obviously existence
without a private valet was inconceivable to Wilkins's.
"The fact is," said Edward Henry, "I'm in a very awkward situation." He
hesitated, seeking to and fro in his mind for particulars of the
situation.
"Sorry to hear that, sir."
"Yes, a very awkward position." He hesitated again. "I'd booked
passages for myself and my valet on the _Minnetonka_, sailing from
Tilbury at noon to-day, and sent him on in front with my stuff, and at
the very last moment I've been absolutely prevented from sailing! You
see how awkward it is! I haven't a thing here."
"It is indeed, sir! And I suppose _he's_ gone on, sir?"
"Of course he has! He wouldn't find out till after she sailed that I
wasn't on board. You know the crush and confusion there is on those big
liners just before they start." Edward Henry had once assisted, under
very dramatic circumstances, at the departure of a transatlantic liner
from Liverpool.
"Just so, sir!"
"I've neither servant nor clothes!" He considered that so far he was
doing admirably. Indeed, the tale could not have been bettered, he
thought. His hope was that the fellow would not have the idea of
consulting the shipping intelligence in order to confirm the departure
of the _Minnetonka_ from Tilbury that day. Possibly the _Minnetonka_
never had sailed and never would sail from Tilbury. Possibly she had
been sold years ago. He had selected the first ship's name that came
into his head. What did it matter?
"My man," he added to clinch--the proper word "man" had only just
occurred to him--"my man can't be back again under three weeks at the
soonest."
The valet made one half-eager step towards him.
"If you're wanting a temporary valet, sir, my son's out of a place for
the moment--through no fault of his own. He's a very good valet, sir,
and soon learns a gentleman's ways."
"Yes," said Edward Henry judiciously. "But could he come at once?
That's the point." And he looked at his watch, as if to imply that
another hour without a valet would be more than human nature could
stand.
"I could have him round here in less than an hour, sir," said the hotel
valet, comprehending the gesture. "He's at Norwich Mews--Berkeley
Square way, sir."
Edward Henry hesitated.
"Very well, then!" he said commandingly. "Send for him. Let me see
him."
He thought:
"Dash it! I'm at Wilkins's--I'll be _at_ Wilkins's!"
"Certainly, sir! Thank you very much, sir."
The hotel valet was retiring when Edward Henry called him back.
"Stop a moment. I'm just going out. Help me on with my overcoat, will
you?"
The man jumped.
"And you might get me a tooth-brush," Edward Henry airily suggested.
"And I've a letter for the post."
As he walked down Devonshire Square in the dark, he hummed a tune:
certain sign that he was self-conscious, uneasy, and yet not unhappy.
At a small but expensive hosier's in a side street he bought a shirt and
a suit of pajamas, and also permitted himself to be tempted by a special
job line of hair-brushes that the hosier had in his fancy department. On
hearing the powerful word "Wilkins's," the hosier promised with
passionate obsequiousness that the goods should be delivered instantly.
Edward Henry cooled his excitement by an extended stroll, and finally
re-entered the outer hall of the hotel at half-past seven, and sat down
therein to see the world. He knew by instinct that the boldest lounge
suit must not at that hour penetrate further into the public rooms of
Wilkins's.
The world at its haughtiest was driving up to Wilkins's to eat its
dinner in the unrivalled restaurant, and often guests staying at the
hotel came into the outer hall to greet invited friends. And Edward
Henry was so overfaced by visions of woman's brilliance and man's utter
correctness that he scarcely knew where to look--so apologetic was he
for his grey lounge suit and the creases in his boots. In less than a
quarter of an hour he appreciated with painful clearness that his entire
conception of existence had been wrong, and that he must begin again at
the beginning. Nothing in his luggage at the Majestic would do. His
socks would not do, nor his shoes, nor the braid on his trousers, nor
his cuff-links, nor his ready-made white bow, nor the number of studs in
the shirt-front, nor the collar of his coat. Nothing! Nothing!
To-morrow would be a full day.
He ventured apologetically into the lift. In his private corridor a
young man respectfully waited, hat in hand, the paternal red-and-black
waistcoat by his side for purposes of introduction. The young man was
wearing a rather shabby blue suit, but a rich and distinguished overcoat
that fitted him ill. In another five minutes Edward Henry had engaged a
skilled valet, aged twenty-four, name Joseph, with a testimonial of
efficiency from Sir Nicholas Winkworth, Bart., at a salary of a pound a
week and all found.
Joseph seemed to await instructions. And Edward Henry was placed in a
new quandary. He knew not whether the small bedroom in the suite was
for a child, or for his wife's maid, or for his valet. Quite probably
it would be a sacrilegious defiance of precedent to put a valet in the
small bedroom. Quite probably Wilkins's had a floor for private valets
in the roof. Again, quite probably, the small bedroom might be after
all specially destined for valets! He could not decide, and the most
precious thing in the universe to him in that crisis was his reputation
as a man about town in the eyes of Joseph.
But something had to be done.
"You'll sleep in this room," said Edward Henry, indicating the door. "I
may want you in the night."
"Yes, sir," said Joseph.
"I presume you'll dine up here, sir," said Joseph, glancing at the
lounge suit. His father had informed him of his new master's
predicament.
"I shall," said Edward Henry. "You might get the menu."
IV.
He had a very bad night indeed, owing no doubt partly to a general
uneasiness in his unusual surroundings, and partly also to a special
uneasiness caused by the propinquity of a sleeping valet; but the main
origin of it was certainly his dreadful anxiety about the question of a
first-class tailor. In the organisation of his new life a first-class
tailor was essential, and he was not acquainted with a first-class
London tailor. He did not know a great deal concerning clothes, though
quite passably well dressed for a provincial, but he knew enough to be
sure that it was impossible to judge the merits of a tailor by his
sign-board, and therefore that if, wandering in the precincts of Bond
Street, he entered the first establishment that "looked likely," he
would have a good chance of being "done in the eye." So he phrased it
to himself as he lay in bed. He wanted a definite and utterly reliable
address.
He rang the bell. Only, as it happened to be the wrong bell, he
obtained the presence of Joseph in a round-about way, through the agency
of a gentleman in waiting. Such, however, is the human faculty of
adaptation to environment that he was merely amused in the morning by an
error which, on the previous night, would have put him into a sweat.
"Good morning, sir," said Joseph.
Edward Henry nodded, his hands under his head as he lay on his back. He
decided to leave all initiative to Joseph. The man drew up the blinds,
and, closing the double windows at the top, opened them very wide at the
bottom.
"It is a rainy morning, sir," said Joseph, letting in vast quantities of
air from Devonshire Square. Clearly, Sir Nicholas Winkworth had been a
breezy master.
"Oh!" murmured Edward Henry.
He felt a careless contempt for Joseph's flunkeyism. Hitherto he had had
a theory that footmen, valets, and all male personal attendants were an
inexcusable excrescence on the social fabric. The mere sight of them
often angered him, though for some reason he had no objection whatever
to servility in a nice-looking maid--indeed, rather enjoyed it. But
now, in the person of Joseph, he saw that there were human or half-human
beings born to self-abasement, and that, if their destiny was to be
fulfilled, valetry was a necessary institution. He had no pity for
Joseph, no shame in employing him. He scorned Joseph; and yet his
desire, as a man about town, to keep Joseph's esteem was in no way
diminished.
"Shall I prepare your bath, sir?" asked Joseph, stationed in a supple
attitude by the side of the bed.
Edward Henry was visited by an idea.
"Have you had yours?" he demanded like a pistol-shot.
Edward Henry saw that Sir Nicholas had never asked that particular
question.
"No, sir."
"Not had your bath, man! What on earth do you mean by it? Go and have
your bath at once!"
A faint sycophantic smile lightened the amazed features of Joseph. And
Edward Henry thought: "It's astonishing, all the same, the way they can
read their masters. This chap has seen already that I'm a card. And
yet how?"
"Yes, sir," said Joseph.
"Have your bath in the bathroom here. And be sure to leave everything
in order for me."
"Yes, sir."
As soon as Joseph had gone, Edward Henry jumped out of bed and listened.
He heard the discreet Joseph respectfully push the bolt of the bathroom
door. Then he crept with noiseless rapidity to the small bedroom, and
was aware therein of a lack of order and of ventilation. The rich and
distinguished overcoat was hanging on the brass knob at the foot of the
bed. He seized it, and, scrutinizing the loop, read in yellow letters:
_Quayther and Cuthering, 47 Vigo Street, W_. He knew that Quayther and
Cuthering must be the tailors of Sir Nicholas Winkworth, and hence
first-class.
Hoping for the best, and putting his trust in the general decency of
human nature, he did not trouble himself with the problem: was the
overcoat a gift or an appropriation? But he preferred to assume the
generosity of Sir Nicholas rather than the dishonesty of Joseph.
Repassing the bathroom door, he knocked loudly on its glass.
"Don't be all day!" he cried. He was in a hurry now.
An hour later he said to Joseph:
"I'm going down to Quayther and Cuthering's."
"Yes, sir," said Joseph, obviously much reassured.
"Nincompoop!" Edward Henry exclaimed secretly. "The fool thinks better
of me because my tailors are first-class."
But Edward Henry had failed to notice that he himself was thinking
better of himself because he had adopted first-class tailors.
Beneath the main door of his suite, as he went forth, he found a
business card of the West End Electric Brougham Supply Agency. And
downstairs, solely to impress his individuality on the hall-porter, he
showed the card to that vizier with the casual question:
"These people any good?"
"An excellent firm, sir."
"What do they charge?"
"By the week, sir?"
He hesitated. "Yes, by the week?"
"Twenty guineas, sir."
"Well, you might telephone for one. Can you get it at once?"
"Certainly, sir."
The vizier turned towards the telephone in his lair.
"I say--" said Edward Henry.
"Sir?"
"I suppose one will be enough?"
"Well, sir, as a rule, yes," said the vizier calmly. "Sometimes I get a
couple for one family, sir."
Though he had started jocularly, Edward Henry finished by blenching. "I
think one will do.... I may possibly send for my own car."
He drove to Quayther and Cuthering's in his electric brougham, and there
dropped casually the name of Winkworth. He explained humourously his
singular misadventure of the _Minnetonka_, and was very successful
therewith, so successful indeed, that he actually began to believe in
the reality of the adventure himself, and had an irrational impulse to
despatch a wireless message to his bewildered valet on board the
_Minnetonka_.
Subsequently he paid other fruitful visits in the neighbourhood, and at
about half-past eleven the fruit was arriving at Wilkins's in the shape
of many parcels and boxes, comprising diverse items in the equipment of
a man about town, such as tie-clips and Innovation trunks.
Returning late to Wilkins's for lunch, he marched jauntily into the
large brilliant restaurant, and commenced an adequate repast. Of course
he was still wearing his mediocre lounge suit (his sole suit for another
two days), but somehow the consciousness that Quayther and Cutherings
were cutting out wondrous garments for him in Vigo Street stiffened his
shoulders and gave a mysterious style to that lounge suit.
At lunch he made one mistake, and enjoyed one very remarkable piece of
luck.
The mistake was to order an artichoke. He did not know how to eat an
artichoke. He had never tried to eat an artichoke, and his first essay
in this difficult and complex craft was a sad fiasco. It would not have
mattered if, at the table next to his own, there had not been two
obviously experienced women, one ill dressed, with a red hat, the other
well dressed, with a blue hat; one middle-aged, the other much younger;
but both very observant. And even so, it would scarcely have mattered,
had not the younger woman been so slim, pretty, and alluring. While
tolerably careless of the opinion of the red-hatted plain woman of
middle age, he desired the unqualified approval of the delightful young
thing in the blue hat. They certainly interested themselves in his
manoeuvres with the artichoke, and their amusement was imperfectly
concealed. He forgave the blue hat, but considered that the red hat
ought to have known better. They could not be princesses, nor even
titled aristocrats. He supposed them to belong to some baccarat-playing
county family.
The piece of luck consisted in the passage down the restaurant of the
Countess of Chell, who had been lunching there with a party, and whom he
had known locally in more gusty days. The countess bowed stiffly to the
red hat, and the red hat responded with eager fulsomeness. It seemed to
be here as it no longer was in the Five Towns: everybody knew everybody!
The red hat and the blue might be titled, after all, he thought. Then,
by sheer accident, the countess caught sight of him, and stopped dead,
bringing her escort to a standstill behind her. Edward Henry blushed
and rose.
"Is it _you_, Mr. Machin?" murmured the still lovely creature warmly.
They shook hands. Never had social pleasure so thrilled him. The
conversation was short. He did not presume on the past. He knew that
here he was not on his own ash-pit, as they say in the Five Towns. The
countess and her escort went forward. Edward Henry sat down again.
He gave the red and the blue hats one calm glance, which they failed to
withstand. The affair of the artichoke was forever wiped out.
After lunch he went forth again in his electric brougham. The weather
had cleared. The opulent streets were full of pride and sunshine. And
as he penetrated into one shop after another, receiving kowtows,
obeisances, curtsies, homage, surrender, resignation, submission, he
gradually comprehended that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that
those who are called to greatness must accept with dignity the
ceremonials inseparable from greatness. And the world had never seemed
to him so fine, nor any adventure so diverting and uplifting as this
adventure.
When he returned to his suite, his private corridor was piled up with a
numerous and excessively attractive assortment of parcels. Joseph took
his overcoat and hat and a new umbrella, and placed an easy chair
conveniently for him in the drawing-room.
"Get my bill," he said shortly to Joseph as he sank into the gilded
fauteuil.
"Yes, sir."
One advantage of a valet, he discovered, is that you can order him to do
things which to do yourself would more than exhaust your moral courage.
The black-calved gentleman in waiting brought the bill. It lay on a
salver, and was folded, conceivably so as to break the shock of it to
the recipient.
Edward Henry took it.
"Wait a minute," he said.
He read on the bill: "Apartment L8. Dinner L1-2-0. Breakfast 6s. 6d.
Lunch 18s. Half Chablis 6s. 6d. Valet's board 10s. Tooth-brush 2s.
6d.
"That's a bit thick, half a crown for that toothbrush!" he said to
himself. "However--"
The next instant he blenched once more.
"Gosh!" he privately exclaimed as he read: "Paid driver of taxicab
L2-3-6."
He had forgotten the taxi. But he admired the _sang-froid_ of
Wilkins's, which paid such trifles as a matter of course, without
deigning to disturb a guest by an enquiry. Wilkins's rose again in his
esteem.
The total of the bill exceeded thirteen pounds.
"All right," he said to the gentleman in waiting.
"Are you leaving to-day, sir?" the being permitted himself to ask.
"Of course I'm not leaving to-day! Haven't I hired an electric brougham
for a week?" Edward Henry burst out. "But I suppose I'm entitled to
know how much I'm spending!"
The gentleman in waiting humbly bowed, and departed.
Alone in the splendid chamber, Edward Henry drew out a swollen
pocketbook and examined its crisp, crinkly contents, which made a
beauteous and a reassuring sight.
"Pooh!" he muttered.
He reckoned he would be living at the rate of about fifteen pounds a
day, or five thousand five hundred a year. (He did not count the cost
of his purchases, because they were in the nature of a capital
expenditure.)
"Cheap!" he muttered. "For once I'm about living up to my income!"
The sensation was exquisite in its novelty.
He ordered tea, and afterwards, feeling sleepy, he went fast asleep.
He awoke to the ringing of the telephone-bell. It was quite dark. The
telephone-bell continued to ring.
"Joseph!" he called.
The valet entered.
"What time is it?"
"After ten o'clock, sir."
"The deuce it is!"
He had slept over four hours!
"Well, answer that confounded telephone."
Joseph obeyed.
"It's a Mr. Bryany, sir, if I catch the name right," said Joseph.
Bryany! For twenty-four hours he had scarcely thought of Bryany, or the
option either.
"Bring the telephone here," said Edward Henry.
The cord would just reach to his chair.
"Hello! Bryany! Is that you?" cried Edward Henry gaily.
And then he heard the weakened voice of Mr. Bryany in his ear:
"How d'ye do, Mr. Machin. I've been after you for the better part of
two days, and now I find you're staying in the same hotel as Mr. Sachs
and me!"
"Oh!" said Edward Henry.
He understood now why on the previous day the dandy introducing him to
his suite had smiled a welcome at the name of Alderman Machin, and why
Joseph had accepted so naturally the command to take a bath. Bryany had
been talking. Bryany had been recounting his exploits as a card.
The voice of Bryany in his ear continued:
"Look here! I've got Miss Euclid here and some friends of hers. Of
course she wants to see you at once. Can you come down?"
"Er--" He hesitated.
He could not come down. He would have no evening wear till the next day
but one.
Said the voice of Bryany:
"What?"
"I can't," said Edward Henry. "I'm not very well. But listen. All of
you come up to my rooms here and have supper, will you? Suite 48."
"I'll ask the lady," said the voice of Bryany, altered now, and a few
seconds later: "We're coming."
"Joseph," Edward Henry gave orders rapidly as he took off his coat and
removed the pocketbook from it. "I'm ill, you understand. Anyhow, not
well. Take this," handing him the coat, "and bring me the new
dressing-gown out of that green cardboard box from Rollet's--I think it
is. And then get the supper menu. I'm very hungry. I've had no
dinner."
Within sixty seconds he sat in state, wearing a grandiose yellow
dressing-gown. The change was accomplished just in time. Mr. Bryany
entered, and not only Mr. Bryany, but Mr. Seven Sachs, and not only
these, but the lady who had worn a red hat at lunch.
"Miss Rose Euclid," said Mr. Bryany, puffing and bending.
CHAPTER IV
ENTRY INTO THE THEATRICAL WORLD
I.
Once, on a short visit to London, Edward Henry had paid half a crown to
be let into a certain enclosure with a very low ceiling. This enclosure
was already crowded with some three hundred people, sitting and
standing. Edward Henry had stood in the only unoccupied spot he could
find, behind a pillar. When he had made himself as comfortable as
possible by turning up his collar against the sharp winds that
continually entered from the street, he had peered forward, and seen in
front of this enclosure another and larger enclosure also crowded with
people, but more expensive people. After a blank interval of thirty
minutes a band had begun to play at an incredible distance in front of
him, extinguishing the noises of traffic in the street. After another
interval an oblong space, rather further off even than the band,
suddenly grew bright, and Edward Henry, by curving his neck, first to
one side of the pillar and then to the other, had had tantalising
glimpses of the interior of a doll's drawing-room and of male and female
dolls therein.
He could only see, even partially, the interior half of the
drawing-room,--a little higher than the heads of the dolls,--because the
rest was cut off from his vision by the lowness of his own ceiling.
The dolls were talking, but he could not catch clearly what they said,
save at the rare moments when an omnibus or a van did not happen to be
thundering down the street behind him. Then one special doll had come
exquisitely into the drawing-room, and at the sight of her the five
hundred people in front of him, and numbers of other people perched
hidden beyond his ceiling, had clapped fervently and even cried aloud in
their excitement. And he, too, had clapped fervently, and had muttered
"Bravo!" This special doll was a marvel of touching and persuasive
grace, with a voice--when Edward Henry could hear it--that melted the
spine. This special doll had every elegance, and seemed to be in the
highest pride of youth. At the close of the affair, as this special
doll sank into the embrace of a male doll from whom she had been
unjustly separated, and then straightened herself, deliciously and
confidently smiling, to take the tremendous applause of Edward Henry and
the rest, Edward Henry thought that he had never assisted at a triumph
so genuine and so inspiring. Oblivious of the pain in his neck, and of
the choking foul atmosphere of the enclosure, accurately described as
the pit, he had gone forth into the street with a subconscious notion in
his head that the special doll was more than human, was half divine.
And he had said afterwards, with immense satisfaction, at Bursley: "Yes,
I saw Rose Euclid in 'Flower of the Heart.'"
He had never set eyes on her since.
And now, on this day at Wilkins's, he had seen in the restaurant, and he
saw again before him in his private parlour, a faded and stoutish woman,
negligently if expensively dressed, with a fatigued, nervous, watery
glance, an unnatural, pale-violet complexion, a wrinkled skin, and dyed
hair; a woman of whom it might be said that she had escaped
grandmotherhood, if indeed she had escaped it, by mere luck--and he was
pointblank commanded to believe that she and Rose Euclid were the same
person.
It was one of the most shattering shocks of all his career, which,
nevertheless, had not been untumultuous. And within his
dressing-gown--which nobody remarked upon--he was busy picking up and
piecing together, as quickly as he could, the shivered fragments of his
ideas.
He literally did not recognise Rose Euclid. True, fifteen years had
passed since the night in the pit! And he himself was fifteen years
older. But in his mind he had never pictured any change in Rose Euclid.
True, he had been familiar with the enormous renown of Rose Euclid as
far back as he could remember taking any interest in theatrical
advertisements! But he had not permitted her to reach an age of more
than about thirty-one or two. Whereas he now perceived that even the
exquisite doll in paradise that he had gloated over from his pit must
have been quite thirty-five--then....
Well, he scornfully pitied Rose Euclid. He blamed her for not having
accomplished the miracle of eternal youth. He actually considered that
she had cheated him. "Is this all? What a swindle!" he thought, as he
was piecing together the shivered fragments of his ideas into a new
pattern. He had felt much the same as a boy, at Bursley Annual Wakes
once, on entering a booth which promised horrors and did not supply
them. He had been "done" all these years....
Reluctantly he admitted that Rose Euclid could not help her age. But,
at any rate, she ought to have grown older beautifully, with charming
dignity and vivacity--in fact, she ought to have contrived to be old and
young simultaneously. Or, in the alternative, she ought to have
modestly retired into the country and lived on her memories and such
money as she had not squandered. She had no right to be abroad. At
worst, she ought to have _looked_ famous. And, because her name and
fame and photographs, as an emotional actress had been continually in
the newspapers, therefore she ought to have been refined, delicate,
distinguished, and full of witty and gracious small talk. That she had
played the heroine of "Flower of the Heart" four hundred times, and the
heroine of "The Grenadier" four hundred and fifty times, and the heroine
of "The Wife's Ordeal" nearly five hundred times, made it incumbent upon
her, in Edward Henry's subconscious opinion, to possess all the talents
of a woman of the world and all the virgin freshness of a girl. Which
shows how cruelly stupid Edward Henry was in comparison with the
enlightened rest of us.
Why (he protested secretly), she was even tongue-tied!
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Machin," she said awkwardly, in a weak voice,
with a peculiar gesture as she shook hands. Then, a mechanical nervous
giggle--and then silence.
"Happy to make your acquaintance, sir," said Mr. Seven Sachs, and the
arch-famous American actor-author also lapsed into silence. But the
silence of Mr. Seven Sachs was different from Rose Euclid's. He was not
shy. A dark and handsome, tranquil, youngish man, with a redoubtable
square chin, delicately rounded at the corners, he strikingly resembled
his own figure on the stage; and, moreover, he seemed to regard silence
as a natural and proper condition. He simply stood, in a graceful
posture, with his muscles at ease, and waited.
Mr. Bryany, behind, seemed to be reduced in stature, and to have become
apologetic for himself in the presence of greatness.
Still, Mr. Bryany did say something.
Said Mr. Bryany:
"Sorry to hear you've been seedy, Mr. Machin!"
"Oh, yes!" Rose Euclid blurted out, as if shot. "It's very good of you
to ask us up here."
Mr. Seven Sachs concurred, adding that he hoped the illness was not
serious.
Edward Henry said it was not.
"Won't you sit down, all of you?" said Edward Henry.
"Miss--er--Euclid--"
They all sat down except Mr. Bryany.
"Sit down, Bryany," said Edward Henry. "I'm glad to be able to return
your hospitality at the Turk's Head."
This was a blow for Mr. Bryany, who obviously felt it, and grew even
more apologetic as he fumbled with assumed sprightliness at a chair.
"Fancy your being here all the time!" said he, "and me looked for you
everywhere--"
"Mr. Bryany," Seven Sachs interrupted him calmly, "have you got those
letters off?"
"Not yet, sir."
Seven Sachs urbanely smiled. "I think we ought to get them off
to-night."
"Certainly," agreed Mr. Bryany with eagerness, and moved towards the
door.
"Here's the key of my sitting-room," Seven Sachs stopped him, producing
a key.
Mr. Bryany, by a mischance catching Edward Henry's eye as he took the
key, blushed.
In a moment Edward Henry was alone with the two silent celebrities.
"Well," said Edward Henry to himself, "I've let myself in for it this
time--no mistake! What in the name of common sense am I doing here?"
Rose Euclid coughed, and arranged the folds of her dress.
"I suppose, like most Americans, you see all the sights," said Edward
Henry to Seven Sachs, "the Five Towns is much visited by Americans.
What do you think of my dressing-gown?"
"Bully!" said Seven Sachs, with the faintest twinkle. And Rose Euclid
gave the mechanical nervous giggle.
"I can do with this chap," thought Edward Henry.
The gentleman in waiting entered with the supper menu.
"Thank Heaven!" thought Edward Henry.
Rose Euclid, requested to order a supper after her own mind, stared
vaguely at the menu for some moments, and then said that she did not
know what to order.
"Artichokes?" Edward Henry blandly suggested.
Again the giggle, followed this time by a flush! And suddenly Edward
Henry recognised in her the entrancing creature of fifteen years ago!
Her head thrown back, she had put her left hand behind her, and was
groping with her long fingers for an object to touch. Having found at
length the arm of another chair, she drew her fingers feverishly along
its surface. He vividly remembered the gesture in "Flower of the
Heart." She had used it with terrific effect at every grand emotional
crisis of the play. He now recognised even her face!
"Did Mr. Bryany tell you that my two boys are coming up?" said she. "I
left them behind to do some telephoning for me."
"Delighted!" said Edward Henry. "The more the merrier!"
And he hoped that he spoke true.
But her two boys!
"Mr. Marrier--he's a young manager. I don't knew whether you know him;
very, very talented. And Carlo Trent."
"Same name as my dog," Edward Henry indiscreetly murmured; and his fancy
flew back to the home he had quitted, and Wilkins's and everybody in it
grew transiently unreal to him.
"Delighted!" he said again.
He was relieved that her two boys were not her offspring. That at least
was something gained.
"_You_ know--the dramatist," said Rose Euclid, apparently disappointed
by the effect on Edward Henry of the name of Carlo Trent.
"Really!" said Edward Henry. "I hope he won't mind me being in a
dressing-gown."
The gentleman in waiting, obsequiously restive, managed to choose the
supper himself. Leaving, he reached the door just in time to hold it
open for the entrance of Mr. Marrier and Mr. Carlo Trent, who were
talking, with noticeable freedom and emphasis, in an accent which in the
Five Towns is known as the "haw-haw," the "lah-di-dah," or the
"Kensingtonian" accent.
II.
Within ten minutes, within less than ten minutes, Alderman Edward Henry
Machin's supper-party at Wilkins's was so wonderfully changed for the
better that Edward Henry might have been excused for not recognising it
as his own.
The service at Wilkins's, where they profoundly understood human nature,
was very intelligent. Somewhere in a central bureau at Wilkins's sat a
psychologist who knew, for example, that a supper commanded on the spur
of the moment must be produced instantly if it is to be enjoyed. Delay
in these capricious cases impairs the ecstasy, and therefore lessens the
chance of other similar meals being commanded at the same establishment.
Hence, no sooner had the gentleman in waiting disappeared with the
order, than certain esquires appeared with the limbs and body of a table
which they set up in Edward Henry's drawing-room; and they covered the
board with a damask cloth and half covered the damask cloth with
flowers, glasses, and plates, and laid a special private wire from the
skirting-board near the hearth to a spot on the table beneath Edward
Henry's left hand, so that he could summon courtiers on the slightest
provocation with the minimum of exertion. Then immediately brown bread
and butter and lemons and red-pepper came, followed by oysters, followed
by bottles of pale wine, both still and sparkling. Thus, before the
principal dishes had even begun to frizzle in the distant kitchens, the
revellers were under the illusion that the entire supper was waiting
just outside the door.
Yes, they were revellers now! For the advent of her young men had
transformed Rose Euclid, and Rose Euclid had transformed the general
situation. At the table, Edward Henry occupied one side of it, Mr. Seven
Sachs occupied the side opposite, Mr. Marrier, the very, very talented
young manager, occupied the side to Edward Henry's left, and Rose Euclid
and Carlo Trent together occupied the side to his right.
Trent and Marrier were each about thirty years of age. Trent, with a
deep voice, had extremely lustrous eyes, which eyes continually dwelt on
Rose Euclid in admiration. Apparently, all she needed in this valley
was oysters and admiration, and she now had both in unlimited
quantities.
"Oysters are darlings," she said, as she swallowed the first.
Carlo Trent kissed her hand respectfully--for she was old enough to be
his mother.
"And you are the greatest tragic actress in the world, Ra-ose!" said he
in the Kensingtonian bass.
A few moments earlier Rose Euclid had whispered to Edward Henry that
Carlo Trent was the greatest dramatic poet in the world. She flowered
now beneath the sun of those dark lustrous eyes and the soft rain of
that admiration from the greatest dramatic poet in the world. It really
did seem to Edward Henry that she grew younger. Assuredly she grew more
girlish, and her voice improved. And then the bottles began to pop, and
it was as though the action of uncorking wine automatically uncorked
hearts also. Mr. Seven Sachs, sitting square and upright, smiled gaily
at Edward Henry across the gleaming table, and raised a glass. Little
Marrier, who at nearly all times had a most enthusiastic smile, did the
same. In the result, five glasses met over the central bed of
chrysanthemums. Edward Henry was happy. Surrounded by enigmas,--for he
had no conception whatever why Rose Euclid had brought any of the three
men to his table,--he was nevertheless uplifted.
As he looked about him, at the rich table, and at the glittering
chandelier overhead (albeit the lamps thereof were inferior to his own),
and at the expanses of soft carpet, and at the silken-textured walls,
and at the voluptuous curtains, and at the couple of impeccable
gentlemen in waiting, and at Joseph who knew his place behind his
master's chair,--he came to the justifiable conclusion that money was a
marvellous thing, and the workings of commerce mysterious and beautiful.
He had invented the Five Towns Thrift Club; working men and their wives
in the Five Towns were paying their two-pences, and sixpences, and
shillings weekly into his Club, and finding the transaction a real
convenience--and lo! he was entertaining celebrities at Wilkins's.
For, mind you, they were celebrities. He knew Seven Sachs was a
celebrity because he had verily seen him act--and act very well--in his
own play, and because his name in letters a foot high had dominated all
the hoardings of the Five Towns. As for Rose Euclid, could there be a
greater celebrity? Such was the strange power of the popular legend
concerning her, that even now, despite the first fearful shock of
disappointment, Edward Henry could not call her by her name, without
self-consciously stumbling over it, without a curious thrill. And
further, he was revising his judgment of her, as well as lowering her
age slightly. On coming into the room she had doubtless been almost as
startled as himself, and her constrained muteness had been probably due
to a guilty feeling in the matter of passing too open remarks to a
friend about a perfect stranger's manner of eating artichokes. The
which, supposition flattered him. (By the way, he wished she had
brought the young friend who had shared her amusement over his
artichoke.) With regard to the other two men, he was quite ready to
believe that Carlo Trent was the world's greatest poet, and to admit the
exceeding talent of Mr. Marrier as a theatrical manager.... In fact,
unmistakable celebrities, one and all! He himself was a celebrity. A
certain quality in the attitude of each of his guests showed clearly
that they considered him a celebrity, and not only a celebrity, but a
card,--Bryany must have been talking,--and the conviction of this
rendered him happy. His magnificent hunger rendered him still happier.
And the reflection that Brindley owed him half a crown put a top on his
bliss!
"I like your dressing-gown, Mr. Machin," said Carlo Trent suddenly,
after his first spoonful of soup.
"Then I needn't apologise for it!" Edward Henry replied.
"It is the dressing-gown of my dreams," Carlo Trent went on.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "as we're on the subject, I like your
shirt-front."
Carlo Trent was wearing a soft shirt. The other three shirts were all
rigidly starched. Hitherto Edward Henry had imagined that a fashionable
evening shirt should be, before aught else, bullet-proof. He now
appreciated the distinction of a frilled and gently flowing breastplate,
especially when a broad purple eye-glass ribbon wandered across it.
Rose Euclid gazed in modest transport at Carlo's chest.
"The colour," Carlo proceeded, ignoring Edward Henry's compliment, "the
colour is inspiring. So is the texture. I have a woman's delight in
textures. I could certainly produce better hexameters in such a
dressing-gown."
Although Edward Henry, owing to an unfortunate hiatus in his education,
did not know what a hexameter might be, he was artist enough to
comprehend the effect of attire on creative work, for he had noticed
that he himself could make more money in one necktie than in another,
and he would instinctively take particular care in the morning choice of
a cravat on days when he meditated a great coup.
"Why don't you get one?" Marrier suggested.
"Do you really think I could?" asked Carlo Trent, as if the possibility
were shimmering far out of his reach like a rainbow.
"Rather!" smiled Marrier. "I don't mind laying a fiver that Mr.
Machin's dressing-gown came from Drook's in Old Bond Street." But
instead of saying "old" he said "ehoold."
"It did," Edward Henry admitted.
Mr. Marrier beamed with satisfaction.
"Drook's, you say?" murmured Carlo Trent. "Old Bond Street?" and wrote
down the information on his shirt-cuff.
Rose Euclid watched him write.
"Yes, Carlo," said she. "But don't you think we'd better begin to talk
about the theatre? You haven't told me yet if you got hold of Longay on
the 'phone."
"Of course we got hold of him," said Marrier. "He agrees with me that
'The Intellectual' is a better name for it."
Rose Euclid clapped her hands.
"I'm so glad!" she cried. "Now what do you think of it as a name, Mr.
Machin,--'The Intellectual Theatre?' You see it's most important we
should settle on the name, isn't it?"
It is no exaggeration to say that Edward Henry felt a wave of cold in
the small of his back, and also a sinking away of the nevertheless quite
solid chair on which he sat. He had more than the typical Englishman's
sane distrust of that morbid word "Intellectual." His attitude towards
it amounted to active dislike. If ever he used it, he would on no
account use it alone; he would say, "Intellectual, and all that sort of
thing!" with an air of pushing violently away from him everything that
the phrase implied. The notion of baptising a theatre with the fearsome
word horrified him. Still he had to maintain his nerve and his repute.
So he drank some champagne, and smiled nonchalantly as the imperturbable
duellist smiles while the pistols are being examined.
"Well--" he murmured.
"You see," Marrier broke in, with the smile ecstatic, almost dancing on
his chair. "There's no use in compromise. Compromise is and always has
been the curse of this country. The unintellectual drahma is
dead--dead. Naoobody can deny that. All the box-offices in the West are
proclaiming it."
"Should you call your play intellectual, Mr. Sachs?" Edward Henry
inquired across the table.
"I scarcely know," said Mr. Seven Sachs calmly. "I know I've played it
myself fifteen hundred and two times, and that's saying nothing of my
three subsidiary companies on the road."
"What is Mr. Sach's play?" asked Carlo Trent fretfully.
"Don't you know, Carlo?" Rose Euclid patted him. "'Overheard.'"
"Oh! I've never seen it."
"But it was on all the hoardings!"
"I never read the hoardings," said Carlo. "Is it in verse?"
"No, it isn't," Mr. Seven Sachs briefly responded. "But I've made over
six hundred thousand dollars out of it."
"Then of course it's intellectual!" asserted Mr. Marrier positively.
"That proves it. I'm very sorry I've not seen it either; but it must be
intellectual. The day of the unintellectual drama is over. The people
won't have it. We must have faith in the people, and we can't show our
faith better than by calling our theatre by its proper name--'The
Intellectual Theatre!'"
("_His_ theatre!" thought Edward Henry. "What's he got to do with it?")
"I don't know that I'm so much in love with your 'Intellectual,'"
muttered Carlo Trent.
"_Aren't_ you?" protested Rose Euclid, shocked.
"Of course I'm not," said Carlo. "I told you before, and I tell you
now, that there's only one name for the theatre--'The Muses' Theatre!'"
"Perhaps you're right!" Rose agreed, as if a swift revelation had come
to her. "Yes, you're right."
("She'll make a cheerful sort of partner for a fellow," thought Edward
Henry, "if she's in the habit of changing her mind like that every
thirty seconds." His appetite had gone. He could only drink.)
"Naturally, I'm right! Aren't we going to open with my play, and isn't
my play in verse? ... I'm sure you'll agree with me, Mr. Machin, that
there is no real drama except the poetical drama."
Edward Henry was entirely at a loss. Indeed, he was drowning in his
dressing-gown, so favourable to the composition of hexameters.
"Poetry..." he vaguely breathed.
"Yes, sir," said Carlo Trent. "Poetry."
"I've never read any poetry in my life," said Edward Henry, like a
desperate criminal. "Not a line."
Whereupon Carlo Trent rose up from his seat, and his eye-glasses dangled
in front of him.
"Mr. Machin," said he with the utmost benevolence. "This is the most
interesting thing I've ever come across. Do you know, you're precisely
the man I've always been wanting to meet? ... The virgin mind. The
clean slate.... Do you know, you're precisely the man that it's my
ambition to write for?"
"It's very kind of you," said Edward Henry feebly, beaten, and
consciously beaten.
(He thought miserably: "What would Nellie think if she saw me in this
gang?")
Carlo Trent went on, turning to Rose Euclid:
"Rose, will you recite those lines of Nashe?"
Rose Euclid began to blush.
"That bit you taught me the day before yesterday?"
"Only the three lines! No more! They are the very essence of
poetry--poetry at its purest. We'll see the effect of them on Mr.
Machin. We'll just see. It's the ideal opportunity to test my theory.
Now, there's a good girl!"
"Oh! I can't. I'm too nervous," stammered Rose.
"You can, and you must," said Carlo, gazing at her in homage. "Nobody
in the world can say them as well as you can. Now!"
Rose Euclid stood up.
"One moment," Carlo stopped her. "There's too much light. We can't do
with all this light. Mr. Machin--do you mind?"
A wave of the hand, and all the lights were extinguished, save a lamp on
the mantelpiece, and in the disconcertingly darkened room Rose Euclid
turned her face towards the ray from this solitary silk-shaded globe.
Her hand groped out behind her, found the table-cloth and began to
scratch it agitatedly. She lifted her head. She was the actress,
impressive and subjugating, and Edward Henry felt her power. Then she
intoned:
"_Brightness falls from the air;_
_Queens have died young and fair;_
_Dust hath closed Helen's eye._"
And she ceased and sat down. There was a silence.
"_Bravo!_" murmured Carlo Trent.
"_Bravo!_" murmured Mr. Marrier.
Edward Henry in the gloom caught Mr. Seven Sachs's unalterable observant
smile across the table.
"Well, Mr. Machin?" said Carlo Trent.
Edward Henry had felt a tremor at the vibrations of Rose Euclid's voice.
But the words she uttered had set up no clear image in his mind, unless
it might be of some solid body falling from the air, or of a young woman
named Helen walking along Trafalgar Road, Bursley, on a dusty day, and
getting the dust in her eyes. He knew not what to answer.
"Is that all there is of it?" he asked at length.
Carlo Trent said:
"It's from Thomas Nashe's 'Song in Time of Pestilence.' The closing
lines of the verse are:
"_I am sick, I must die--_
_Lord, have mercy on me!_"
"Well," said Edward Henry, recovering, "I rather like the end. I think
the end's very appropriate."
Mr. Seven Sachs choked over his wine, and kept on choking.
III.
Mr. Marrier was the first to recover from this blow to the prestige of
poetry. Or perhaps it would be more honest to say that Mr. Marrier had
suffered no inconvenience from the contretemps. His apparent gleeful
zest in life had not been impaired. He was a born optimist, of an
extreme type unknown beyond the circumferences of theatrical circles.
"I _say_," he emphasised, "I've got an ideah. We ought to be
photographed like that. Do you no end of good." He glanced
encouragingly at Rose Euclid. "Don't you see it in the illustrated
papers? 'A prayvate supper-party at Wilkins's Hotel. Miss Ra-ose Euclid
reciting verse at a discussion of the plans for her new theatre in
Piccadilly Circus. The figures reading from left to right are: Mr. Seven
Sachs, the famous actor-author; Miss Rose Euclid; Mr. Carlo Trent, the
celebrated dramatic poet; Mr. Alderman Machin, the well-known Midlands
capitalist,' and so on!" Mr. Marrier repeated, "and so on."
"It's a notion," said Rose Euclid dreamily.
"But how _can_ we be photographed?" Carlo Trent demanded with
irritation.
"Perfectly easy."
"Now?"
"In ten minutes. I know a photographer in Brook Street."
"Would he come at once?" Carlo Trent frowned at his watch.
"Rather!" Mr. Marrier gaily soothed him, as he went over to the
telephone. And Mr. Marrier's bright boyish face radiated forth the
assurance that nothing in all his existence had more completely filled
him with sincere joy than this enterprise of procuring a photograph of
the party. Even in giving the photographer's number,--he was one of
those prodigies who remember infallibly all telephone numbers,--his
voice seemed to gloat upon his project.
(And while Mr. Marrier, having obtained communication with the
photographer, was saying gloriously into the telephone: "Yes, Wilkins's.
No. Quite private. I've got Miss Rose Euclid here, and Mr. Seven
Sachs--" while Mr. Marrier was thus proceeding with his list of star
attractions, Edward Henry was thinking: "'_Her_ new theatre,'--now! It
was 'his' a few minutes back!...
"The well-known Midland capitalist, eh? Oh! Ah!")
He drank again. He said to himself: "I've had all I can digest of this
beastly balloony stuff." (He meant the champagne.) "If I finish this
glass, I'm bound to have a bad night." And he finished the glass, and
planked it down firmly on the table.
"Well," he remarked aloud cheerfully, "if we're to be photographed, I
suppose we shall want a bit more light on the subject."
Joseph sprang to the switches.
"Please!" Carlo Trent raised a protesting hand.
The switches were not turned. In the beautiful dimness the greatest
tragic actress in the world and the greatest dramatic poet in the world
gazed at each other, seeking and finding solace in mutual esteem.
"I suppose it wouldn't do to call it the Euclid Theater?" Rose
questioned casually, without moving her eyes.
"Splendid!" cried Mr. Marrier from the telephone.
"It all depends whether there are enough mathematical students in London
to fill the theater for a run," said Edward Henry.
"Oh! D'you think so?" murmured Rose, surprised and vaguely puzzled.
At that instant Edward Henry might have rushed from the room and taken
the night mail back to the Five Towns, and never any more have ventured
into the perils of London, if Carlo Trent had not turned his head and
signified by a curt reluctant laugh that he saw the joke. For Edward
Henry could no longer depend on Mr. Seven Sachs. Mr. Seven Sachs had to
take the greatest pains to keep the muscles of his face in strict order.
The slightest laxity with them--and he would have been involved in
another and more serious suffocation.
"No," said Carlo Trent, "'The Muses' Theatre' is the only possible
title. There is money in the poetical drama." He looked hard at Edward
Henry, as though to stare down the memory of the failure of Nashe's
verse. "I don't want money. I hate the thought of money. But money is
the only proof of democratic appreciation, and that is what I need, and
what every artist needs.... Don't you think there's money in the
poetical drama, Mr. Sachs?"
"Not in America," said Mr. Sachs. "London is a queer place."
"Look at the runs of Stephen Phillips's plays!"
"Yes.... I only reckon to know America."
"Look at what Pilgrim's made out of Shakespeare."
"I thought you were talking about poetry," said Edward Henry too
hastily.
"And isn't Shakespeare poetry?" Carlo Trent challenged.
"Well, I suppose if you put it in that way, he _is_!" Edward Henry
cautiously admitted, humbled. He was under the disadvantage of never
having seen or read "Shakespeare." His sure instinct had always warned
him against being drawn into "Shakespeare."
"And has Miss Euclid ever done anything finer than Constance?"
"I don't know," Edward Henry pleaded. "Why--Miss Euclid in 'King
John'--"
"I never saw 'King John,'" said Edward Henry.
"_Do you mean to say,_" expostulated Carlo Trent in italics, "_that you
never saw Rose Euclid as Constance?_"
And Edward Henry, shaking his abashed head, perceived that his life had
been wasted.
Carlo, for a few moments, grew reflective and softer.
"It's one of my earliest and most precious boyish memories," he
murmured, as he examined the ceiling. "It must have been in eighteen--"
Rose Euclid abandoned the ice with which she had just been served, and
by a single gesture drew Carlo's attention away from the ceiling and
towards the fact that it would be clumsy on his part to indulge further
in the chronology of her career. She began to blush again.
Mr. Marrier, now back at the table after a successful expedition, beamed
over his ice:
"It was your 'Constance' that led to your friendship with the Countess
of Chell, wasn't it, Ra-ose? You know," he turned to Edward Henry, "Miss
Euclid and the countess are virry intimate."
"Yes, I know," said Edward Henry.
Rose Euclid continued to blush. Her agitated hand scratched the back of
the chair behind her.
"Even Sir John Pilgrim admits I can act Shakespeare," she said in a
thick, mournful voice, looking at the cloth as she pronounced the august
name of the head of the dramatic profession. "It may surprise you to
know, Mr. Machin, that about a month ago, after he'd quarrelled with
Selina Gregory, Sir John asked me if I'd care to star with him on his
Shakespearean tour round the world next spring, and I said I would if
he'd include Carlo's poetical play, 'The Orient Pearl,' and he wouldn't!
No, he wouldn't! And now he's got little Cora Pryde! She isn't
twenty-two, and she's going to play Juliet! Can you imagine such a
thing? As if a mere girl could play Juliet!"
Carlo observed the mature actress with deep satisfaction, proud of her,
and proud also of himself.
"I wouldn't go with Pilgrim now," exclaimed Rose passionately, "not if
he went down on his knees tome!"
"And nothing on earth would induce me to let him have 'The Orient
Pearl'!" Carlo Trent asseverated with equal passion. "He's lost that
forever," he added grimly. "It won't be he who'll collar the profits
out of that! It'll just be ourselves!"
"Not if he went down on his knees to me!" Rose was repeating to herself
with fervency.
The calm of despair took possession of Edward Henry. He felt that he
must act immediately--he knew his own mood, by long experience.
Exploring the pockets of the dressing-gown which had aroused the longing
of the greatest dramatic poet in the world, he discovered in one of them
precisely the piece of apparatus he required; namely, a slip of paper
suitable for writing. It was a carbon duplicate of the bill for the
dressing-gown, and showed the word "Drook" in massive printed black, and
the figures L4-4-0 in faint blue. He drew a pencil from his waistcoat
and inscribed on the paper:
"Go out, and then come back in a couple of minutes and tell me someone
wants to speak to me urgently in the next room."
With a minimum of ostentation he gave the document to Joseph, who,
evidently well trained under Sir Nicholas, vanished into the next room
before attempting to read it.
"I hope," said Edward Henry to Carlo Trent, "that this money-making play
is reserved for the new theatre."
"Utterly," said Carlo Trent.
"With Miss Euclid in the principal part?"
"Rather!" sang Mr. Marrier. "Rather!"
"I shall never, never appear at any other theatre, Mr. Machin!" said
Rose with tragic emotion, once more feeling with her fingers along the
back of her chair. "So I hope the building will begin at once. In less
than six months we ought to open."
"Easily!" sang the optimist.
Joseph returned to the room, and sought his master's attention in a
whisper.
"What is it?" Edward Henry asked irritably. "Speak up!"
"A gentleman wishes to know if he can speak to you in the next room,
sir."
"Well, he can't."
"He said it was urgent, sir."
Scowling, Edward Henry rose. "Excuse me," he said. "I won't be a
moment. Help yourselves to the liqueurs. You chaps can go, I fancy."
The last remark was addressed to the gentlemen in waiting.
The next room was the vast bedroom with two beds in it. Edward Henry
closed the door carefully, and drew the portiere across it. Then he
listened. No sound penetrated from the scene of the supper.
"There _is_ a telephone in this room, isn't there?" he said to Joseph.
"Oh, yes; there it is! Well, you can go."
"Yes, sir."
Edward Henry sat down on one of the beds by the hook on which hung the
telephone. And he cogitated upon the characteristics of certain members
of the party which he had just left. "I'm a 'virgin mind,' am I?" he
thought. "I'm a 'clean slate'? Well! ... Their notion of business is
to begin by discussing the name of the theatre! And they haven't even
taken up the option! Ye gods! 'Intellectual!' 'Muses!' 'The Orient
Pearl.' And she's fifty--that I swear! Not a word yet of real
business--not one word! He may be a poet. I dare say he is. He's a
conceited ass. Why, even Bryany was better than that lot. Only Sachs
turned Bryany out. I like Sachs. But he won't open his mouth....
'Capitalist!' Well, they spoilt my appetite, and I hate champagne! ...
The poet hates money.... No, he 'hates the thought of money.' And
she's changing her mind the whole blessed time! A month ago she'd have
gone over to Pilgrim, and the poet too, like a house a fire! ...
Photographed indeed! The bally photographer will be here in a minute!
... They take me for a fool! ... Or don't they know any better? ...
Anyhow, I am a fool.... I must teach 'em summat!"
He seized the telephone.
"Hello!" he said into it. "I want you to put me on to the drawing-room
of Suite No. 48, please. Who? Oh, me! I'm in the bedroom of Suite No.
48. Machin, Alderman Machin. Thanks. That's all right."
He waited. Then he heard Marrier's Kensingtonian voice in the
telephone, asking who he was.
"Is that Mr. Machin's room?" he continued, imitating with a broad
farcical effect the acute Kensingtonianism of Mr. Marrier's tones. "Is
Miss Ra-ose Euclid there? Oh! She is? Well, you tell her that Sir
John Pilgrim's private secretary wishes to speak to her. Thanks. All
right. _I'll_ hold the line."
A pause. Then he heard Rose's voice in the telephone, and he resumed:
"Miss Euclid? Yes. Sir John Pilgrim. I beg pardon! Banks? Oh,
_Banks_! No, I'm not Banks. I suppose you mean my predecessor. He's
left. Left last week. No, I don't know why. Sir John instructs me to
ask if you and Mr. Trent could lunch with him to-morrow at wun-thirty?
What? Oh! At his house. Yes. I mean flat. Flat! I said flat. You
think you could?"
Pause. He could hear her calling to Carlo Trent.
"Thanks. No, I don't know exactly," he went on again. "But I know the
arrangement with Miss Pryde is broken off. And Sir John wants a play at
once. He told me that. At once! Yes. 'The Orient Pearl.' That was
the title. At the Royal first, and then the world's tour. Fifteen
months at least, in all, so I gathered. Of course I don't speak
officially. Well, many thanks. Saoo good of you. I'll tell Sir John
it's arranged. One-thirty to-morrow. Good-bye!"
He hung up the telephone. The excited, eager, effusive tones of Rose
Euclid remained in his ears. Aware of a strange phenomenon on his
forehead, he touched it. He was perspiring.
"I'll teach 'em a thing or two," he muttered.
And again:
"Serves her right.... 'Never, never appear at any other theatre, Mr.
Machin!' ... 'Bended knees!' ... 'Utterly!' ... Cheerful partners! Oh,
cheerful partners!"
He returned to his supper-party. Nobody said a word about the
telephoning. But Rose Euclid and Carlo Trent looked even more like
conspirators than they did before; and Mr. Marrier's joy in life seemed
to be just the least bit diminished.
"So sorry!" Edward Henry began hurriedly, and, without consulting the
poet's wishes, subtly turned on all the lights. "Now, don't you think
we'd better discuss the question of taking up the option? You know, it
expires on Friday."
"No," said Rose Euclid girlishly. "It expires to-morrow. That's why
it's so _fortunate_ we got hold of you to-night."
"But Mr. Bryany told me Friday. And the date was clear enough on the
copy of the option he gave me."
"A mistake of copying," beamed Mr. Marrier. "However, it's all right."
"Well," observed Edward Henry with heartiness, "I don't mind telling you
that for sheer calm coolness you take the cake. However, as Mr. Marrier
so ably says, it's all right. Now, I understand if I go into this
affair I can count on you absolutely, and also on Mr. Trent's services."
He tried to talk as if he had been diplomatising with actresses and
poets all his life.
"Absolutely!" said Rose.
And Mr. Carlo Trent nodded.
"You Iscariots!" Edward Henry addressed them, in the silence of the
brain, behind his smile. "You Iscariots!"
The photographer arrived with certain cases, and at once Rose Euclid and
Carlo Trent began instinctively to pose.
"To think," Edward Henry pleasantly reflected, "that they are hugging
themselves because Sir John Pilgrim's secretary happened to telephone
just while I was out of the room!"
CHAPTER V
MR. SACHS TALKS
I.
It was the sudden flash of the photographer's magnesium light, plainly
felt by him through his closed lids, that somehow instantly inspired
Edward Henry to a definite and ruthless line of action. He opened his
eyes and beheld the triumphant group, and the photographer himself,
victorious over even the triumphant, in a superb pose that suggested
that all distinguished mankind in his presence was naught but food for
the conquering camera. The photographer smiled indulgently, and his
smile said: "Having been photographed by me, you have each of you
reached the summit of your career. Be content. Retire! Die! Destiny
is accomplished!"
"Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid, "I do believe your eyes were shut!"
"So do I!" Edward Henry curtly agreed.
"But you'll spoil the group!"
"Not a bit of it!" said Edward Henry. "I always shut my eyes when I'm
being photographed by flash-light. I open my mouth instead. So long as
something's open, what does it matter?"
The truth was that only in the nick of time had he, by a happy miracle
of ingenuity, invented a way of ruining the photograph. The absolute
necessity for its ruin had presented itself to him rather late in the
proceedings, when the photographer had already finished arranging the
hands and shoulders of everybody in an artistic pattern. The photograph
had to be spoilt for the imperative reason that his mother, though she
never read a newspaper, did as a fact look at a picture newspaper, _The
Daily Film_, which from pride she insisted on paying for out of her own
purse, at the rate of one halfpenny a day. Now _The Daily Film_
specialised in theatrical photographs, on which it said it spent large
sums of money; and Edward Henry in a vision had seen the historic group
in a future issue of the _Film_. He had also, in the same vision, seen
his mother conning the said issue, and the sardonic curve of her lips as
she recognised her son therein, and he had even heard her dry, cynical,
contemptuous exclamation: "Bless us!" He could never have looked
squarely in his mother's face again if that group had appeared in her
chosen organ! Her silent and grim scorn would have crushed his
self-conceit to a miserable, hopeless pulp. Hence his resolve to render
the photograph impossible.
"Perhaps I'd better take another one?" the photographer suggested.
"Though I think Mr.--er--Machin was all right." At the supreme crisis
the man had been too busy with his fireworks to keep a watch on every
separate eye and mouth of the assemblage.
"Of course I was all right!" said Edward Henry, almost with brutality.
"Please take that thing away as quickly as you can. We have business to
attend to."
"Yes, sir," agreed the photographer, no longer victorious.
Edward Henry rang the bell, and two gentlemen in waiting arrived.
"Clear this table immediately!"
The tone of the command startled everybody except the gentlemen in
waiting and Mr. Seven Sachs. Rose Euclid gave vent to her nervous
giggle. The poet and Mr. Marrier tried to appear detached and
dignified, and succeeded in appearing guiltily confused--for which they
contemned themselves. Despite their volition, the glances of all three
of them too clearly signified: "This capitalist must be humoured. He
has an unlimited supply of actual cash, and therefore he has the right
to be peculiar. Moreover, we know that he is a card...." And,
curiously, Edward Henry himself was deriving great force of character
from the simple reflection that he had indeed a lot of money, real
available money, his to do utterly as he liked with it, hidden in a
secret place in that very room. "I'll show 'em what's what!" he
privately mused. "Celebrities or not, I'll show 'em! If they think
they can come it over me--!"
It was, I regret to say, the state of mind of a bully. Such is the
noxious influence of excessive coin!
He reproached the greatest actress and the greatest dramatic poet for
deceiving him, and quite ignored the nevertheless fairly obvious fact
that he had first deceived them.
"Now then," he began, with something of the pomposity of a chairman at a
directors' meeting, as soon as the table had been cleared and the room
emptied of gentlemen in waiting and photographer and photographic
apparatus, "let us see exactly where we stand."
He glanced specially at Rose Euclid, who with an air of deep business
acumen returned the glance.
"Yes," she eagerly replied, as one seeking after righteousness, "_do_
let's see."
"The option must be taken up to-morrow. Good! That's clear. It came
rather casual-like, but it's now clear. L4,500 has to be paid down to
buy the existing building on the land and so on.... Eh?"
"Yes. Of course Mr. Bryany told you all that, didn't he?" said Rose
brightly.
"Mr. Bryany did tell me," Edward Henry admitted sternly. "But if Mr.
Bryany can make a mistake in the day of the week he might make a mistake
in a few naughts at the end of a sum of money."
Suddenly Mr. Seven Sachs startled them all by emerging from his silence
with the words:
"The figure is O.K."
Instinctively Edward Henry waited for more; but no more came. Mr. Seven
Sachs was one of those rare and disconcerting persons who do not keep on
talking after they have finished. He resumed his tranquillity, he
re-entered into his silence, with no symptom of self-consciousness,
entirely cheerful and at ease. And Edward Henry was aware of his
observant and steady gaze. Edward Henry said to himself: "This man is
expecting me to behave in a remarkable way. Bryany has been telling him
all about me, and he is waiting to see if I really am as good as my
reputation. I have just got to be as good as my reputation!" He looked
up at the electric chandelier, almost with regret that it was not gas.
One cannot light one's cigarette by twisting a hundred-pound bank-note
and sticking it into an electric chandelier. Moreover, there were some
thousands of matches on the table. Still further, he had done the
cigarette-lighting trick once for all. A first-class card must not
repeat himself.
"This money," Edward Henry proceeded, "has to be paid to Slossons, Lord
Woldo's solicitors, to-morrow, Wednesday, rain or shine?" He finished
the phrase on a note of interrogation, and as nobody offered any reply,
he rapped on the table, and repeated, half menacingly: "Rain or shine!"
"Yes," said Rose Euclid, leaning timidly forward, and taking a cigarette
from a gold case that lay on the table. All her movements indicated an
earnest desire to be thoroughly businesslike.
"So that, Miss Euclid," Edward Henry continued impressively but with a
wilful touch of incredulity, "you are in a position to pay your share of
this money to-morrow?"
"Certainly!" said Miss Euclid. And it was as if she had said,
aggrieved: "Can you doubt my honour?"
"To-morrow morning?"
"Ye-es."
"That is to say, to-morrow morning you will have L2,250 in actual
cash--coin, notes--actually in your possession?"
Miss Euclid's disengaged hand was feeling out behind her again for some
surface upon which to express its emotion and hers.
"Well--" she stopped, flushing.
("These people are astounding," Edward Henry reflected, like a god.
"She's not got the money. I knew it!")
"It's like this, Mr. Machin," Marrier began.
"Excuse me, Mr. Marrier," Edward Henry turned on him, determined if he
could to eliminate the optimism from that beaming face. "Any friend of
Miss Euclid's is welcome here, but you've already talked about this
theatre as 'ours,' and I just want to know where you come in."
"Where I come in?" Marrier smiled, absolutely unperturbed. "Miss Euclid
has appointed me general manajah."
"At what salary, if it isn't a rude question?"
"Oh! We haven't settled details yet. You see the theatre isn't built
yet."
"True!" said Edward Henry. "I was forgetting! I was thinking for the
moment that the theatre was all ready and going to be opened to-morrow
night with 'The Orient Pearl.' Have you had much experience of managing
theatres, Mr. Marrier? I suppose you have."
"Eho, yes!" exclaimed Mr. Marrier. "I began life as a lawyah's clerk,
but--"
"So did I," Edward Henry interjected.
"How interesting!" Rose Euclid murmured with fervency, after puffing
forth a long shaft of smoke.
"However, I threw it up," Marrier went on.
"I didn't," said Edward Henry. "I got thrown out!"
Strange that in that moment he was positively proud of having been
dismissed from his first situation! Strange that all the company, too,
thought the better of him for having been dismissed! Strange that
Marrier regretted that he also had not been dismissed! But so it was.
The possession of much ready money emits a peculiar effluence in both
directions--back to the past, forward into the future.
"I threw it up," said Marrier, "because the stage had an irresistible
attraction for me. I'd been stage-manajah for an amateur company, you
knaoo. I found a shop as stage-manajah of a company touring 'Uncle
Tom's Cabin.' I stuck to that for six years, and then I threw that up
too. Then I've managed one of Miss Euclid's provincial tours. And since
I met our friend Trent, I've had the chance to show what my ideas about
play-producing really are. I fancy my production of Trent's one-act
play won't be forgotten in a hurry.... You know--'The Nymph?' You read
about it, didn't you?"
"I did not," said Edward Henry. "How long did it run?"
"Oh! it didn't run. It wasn't put on for a run. It was part of one of
the Sunday-night shows of the Play-Producing Society, at the Court
Theatre. Most intellectual people in London, you know. No such audience
anywhere else in the wahld!" His rather chubby face glistened and
shimmered with enthusiasm. "You bet!" he added. "But that was only by
the way. My real game is management--general management. And I think I
may say I know what it is."
"Evidently!" Edward Henry concurred. "But shall you have to give up any
other engagement in order to take charge of the Muses' Theatre? Because
if so--"
Mr. Marrier replied:
"No."
Edward Henry observed:
"Oh!"
"But," said Marrier reassuringly, "if necessary I would throw up any
engagement--you understand me, any--in favour of the Intellectual
Theatah as I prefer to call it. You see, as I own part of the option--"
By these last words Edward Henry was confounded, even to muteness.
"I forgot to mention, Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid very quickly. "I've
disposed of a quarter of my half of the option to Mr. Marrier. He fully
agreed with me it was better that he should have a proper interest in
the theatre."
"Why of course!" cried Mr. Marrier, uplifted.
"Let me see," said Edward Henry, after a long breath, "a quarter--that
makes it that you have to find L562 10s, to-morrow, Mr. Marrier."
"Yes."
"To-morrow morning--you'll be all right?"
"Well, I won't swear for the morning, but I shall turn up with the stuff
in the afternoon anyhow. I've two men in tow, and one of them's a
certainty."
"Which?"
"I don't know which," said Mr. Marrier. "Howevah, you may count on yours
sincerely, Mr. Machin."
There was a pause.
"Perhaps I ought to tell you," Rose Euclid smiled, "perhaps I ought to
tell you that Mr. Trent is also one of our partners. He has taken
another quarter of my half."
Edward Henry controlled himself.
"Excellent!" said he with glee. "Mr. Trent's money all ready too?"
"I am providing most of it--temporarily," said Rose Euclid.
"I see. Then I understand you have your three quarters of L2,250 all
ready in hand."
She glanced at Mr. Seven Sachs.
"Have I, Mr. Sachs?"
And Mr. Sachs, after an instant's hesitation, bowed in assent.
"Mr. Sachs is not exactly going into the speculation, but he is lending
us money on the security of our interests. That's the way to put it,
isn't it, Mr. Sachs?"
Mr. Sachs once more bowed.
And Edward Henry exclaimed:
"Now I really do see!"
He gave one glance across the table at Mr. Seven Sachs, as who should
say: "And have you too allowed yourself to be dragged into this affair?
I really thought you were cleverer. Don't you agree with me that we're
both fools of the most arrant description?" And under the brief glance
Mr. Seven Sachs's calm deserted him as it had never deserted him on the
stage, where for over fifteen hundred nights he had withstood the menace
of revolvers, poison, and female treachery through three hours and four
acts without a single moment of agitation.
Apparently Miss Rose Euclid could exercise a siren's charm upon nearly
all sorts of men. But Edward Henry knew one sort of men upon whom she
could not exercise it; namely, the sort of men who are born and bred in
the Five Towns. His instinctive belief in the Five Towns as the sole
cradle of hard practical common sense was never stronger than just now.
You might by wiles get the better of London and America, but not of the
Five Towns. If Rose Euclid were to go around and about the Five Towns
trying to do the siren business, she would pretty soon discover that she
was up against something rather special in the way of human nature!
Why, the probability was that these three--Rose Euclid (only a few hours
since a glorious name and legend to him), Carlo Trent, and Mr.
Marrier--could not at that moment produce even ten pounds between them!
... And Marrier offering to lay fivers! ... He scornfully pitied them.
And he was not altogether without pity for Seven Sachs, who had
doubtless succeeded in life by sheer accident and knew no more than an
infant what to do with his too easily earned money.
II.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "shall I tell you what I've decided?"
"Please do!" Rose Euclid entreated him.
"I've decided to make you a present of my half of the option."
"But aren't you going in with us?" exclaimed Rose, horror-struck.
"No, madam."
"But Mr. Bryany told us positively you were! He said it was all
arranged!"
"Mr. Bryany ought to be more careful," said Edward Henry. "If he
doesn't mind, he'll be telling a downright lie some day."
"But you bought half the option!"
"Well," said Edward Henry, reasoning. "What _is_ an option? What does
it mean? It means you are free to take something or leave it. I'm
leaving it."
"But why?" demanded Mr. Marrier, gloomier.
Carlo Trent played with his eye-glasses and said not a word.
"Why?" Edward Henry replied. "Simply because I feel I'm not fitted for
the job. I don't know enough. I don't understand. I shouldn't go the
right way about the affair. For instance, I should never have guessed
by myself that it was the proper thing to settle the name of the theatre
before you'd got the lease of the land you're going to build it on.
Then I'm old-fashioned. I hate leaving things to the last moment; but
seemingly there's only one proper moment in these theatrical affairs,
and that's the very last. I'm afraid there'd be too much trusting in
Providence for my taste. I believe in trusting in Providence, but I
can't bear to see Providence overworked. And I've never even tried to
be intellectual, and I'm a bit frightened of poetry plays--"
"But you've not read my play!" Carlo Trent mutteringly protested.
"That is so," admitted Edward Henry.
"Will you read it?"
"Mr. Trent," said Edward Henry. "I'm not so young as I was."
"We're ruined!" sighed Rose Euclid with a tragic gesture.
"Ruined?" Edward Henry took her up, smiling. "Nobody is ruined who
knows where he can get a square meal. Do you mean to tell me you don't
know where you're going to lunch to-morrow?" And he looked hard at her.
It was a blow. She blenched under it.
"Oh, yes," she said, with her giggle, "I know that."
("Well you just don't!" he answered her in his heart. "You think you're
going to lunch with John Pilgrim. And you aren't. And it serves you
right!")
"Besides," he continued aloud, "how can you say you're ruined when I'm
making you a present of something that I paid L100 for?"
"But where am I to find the other half of the money--L2,250?" she burst
out. "We were depending absolutely on you for it. If I don't get it,
the option will be lost, and the option's very valuable."
"All the easier to find the money then!"
"What? In less than twenty-four hours? It can't be done. I couldn't
get it in all London."
"Mr. Marrier will get it for you ... one of his certainties!" Edward
Henry smiled in the Five Towns' manner.
"I might, you knaoo!" said Marrier, brightening to full hope in the
fraction of a second.
But Rose Euclid only shook her head.
"Mr. Seven Sachs, then?" Edward Henry suggested.
"I should have been delighted," said Mr. Sachs with the most perfect
gracious tranquillity. "But I cannot find another L2,250 to-morrow."
"I shall just speak to that Mr. Bryany!" said Rose Euclid, in the
accents of homicide.
"I think you ought to," Edward Henry concurred. "But that won't help
things. I feel a little responsible, especially to a lady. You have a
quarter of the whole option left in your hands, Miss Euclid. I'll pay
you at the same rate as Bryany sold to me. I gave L100 for half. Your
quarter is therefore worth L50. Well, I'll pay you L50."
"And then what?"
"Then let the whole affair slide."
"But that won't help me to my theatre!" Rose Euclid said, pouting. She
was now decidedly less unhappy than her face pretended, because Edward
Henry had reminded her of Sir John Pilgrim, and she had dreams of world
triumphs for herself and for Carlo Trent's play. She was almost glad to
be rid of all the worry of the horrid little prospective theatre.
"I have bank-notes," cooed Edward Henry softly.
Her head sank.
Edward Henry rose in the incomparable yellow dressing-gown and walked to
and fro a little, and then from his secret store he produced a bundle of
notes, and counted out five tens and, coming behind Rose, stretched out
his arm and laid the treasure on the table in front of her under the
brilliant chandelier.
"I don't want you to feel you have anything against me," he cooed still
more softly.
Silence reigned. Edward Henry resumed his chair and gazed at Rose
Euclid. She was quite a dozen years older than his wife, and she looked
more than a dozen years older. She had no fixed home, no husband, no
children, no regular situation. She accepted the homage of young men,
who were cleverer than herself save in one important respect. She was
always in and out of restaurants and hotels and express trains. She was
always committing hygienic indiscretions. She could not refrain from a
certain girlishness which, having regard to her years, her waist, and
her complexion, was ridiculous. His wife would have been afraid of her,
and would have despised her, simultaneously. She was coarsened by the
continual gaze of the gaping public. No two women could possibly be more
utterly dissimilar than Rose Euclid and the cloistered Nellie.... And
yet, as Rose Euclid's hesitant fingers closed on the bank-notes with a
gesture of relief, Edward Henry had an agreeable and kindly sensation
that all women were alike, after all, in the need of a shield, a
protection, a strong and generous male hand. He was touched by the
spectacle of Rose Euclid, as naive as any young lass when confronted by
actual bank-notes; and he was touched also by the thought of Nellie and
the children afar off, existing in comfort and peace, but utterly,
wistfully, dependent on himself.
"And what about me?" growled Carlo Trent.
"You?"
The fellow was only
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