Old Adam — Chapter 4

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.