II
Within ten minutes, within less than ten minutes, Alderman EdwardHenry Machin's supper-party at Wilkins's was so wonderfully changedfor the better that Edward Henry might have been excused for notrecognizing it as his own.
The service at Wilkins's, where they profoundly understood humannature, was very intelligent. Somewhere in a central bureau atWilkins's sat a psychologist, who knew, for example, that a suppercommanded on the spur of the moment must be produced instantly if itis to be enjoyed. Delay in these capricious cases impairs theecstasy and therefore lessens the chance of other similar mealsbeing commanded at the same establishment. Hence, no sooner had thegentleman-in-waiting disappeared with the order than certain esquiresappeared with the limbs and body of a table which they set up inEdward Henry's drawing-room, and they covered the board with a damaskcloth and half covered the damask cloth with flowers, glasses andplates, and laid a special private wire from the skirting-board nearthe hearth to a spot on the table beneath Edward Henry's left hand, sothat he could summon courtiers on the slightest provocation withthe minimum of exertion. Then immediately brown bread-and-butter andlemons and red-pepper came, followed by oysters, followed by bottlesof pale wine, both still and sparkling. Thus, before the principaldishes had even begun to frizzle in the distant kitchens, therevellers were under the illusion that the entire supper was waitingjust outside the door....
Yes, they were revellers now! For the advent of her young men hadtransformed Rose Euclid, and Rose Euclid had transformed the generalsituation. At the table, Edward Henry occupied one side of it, Mr.Seven Sachs occupied the side opposite, Mr. Marrier, the very, verytalented young manager, occupied the side to Edward Henry's left, andRose Euclid and Carlo Trent together occupied the side to his right.
Trent and Marrier were each about thirty years of age. Trent, with adeep voice, had extremely lustrous eyes, which eyes continually dwelton Rose Euclid in admiration. Apparently, all she needed in thisvalley was oysters and admiration, and she now had both in unlimitedquantities.
"Oysters are darlings," she said, as she swallowed the first.
Carlo Trent kissed her hand, respectfully--for she was old enough tobe his mother.
"And you are the greatest tragic actress in the world, Ra-ose!" saidhe in the Kensingtonian bass.
A few moments earlier Rose Euclid had whispered to Edward Henry thatCarlo Trent was the greatest dramatic poet in the world. She flowerednow beneath the sun of those dark lustrous eyes and the soft rainof that admiration from the greatest dramatic poet in the world. Itreally did seem to Edward Henry that she grew younger. Assuredly shegrew more girlish and her voice improved. And then the bottlesbegan to pop, and it was as though the action of uncorking wineautomatically uncorked hearts also. Mr. Seven Sachs, sitting squareand upright, smiled gaily at Edward Henry across the gleaming tableand raised a glass. Little Marrier, who at nearly all times had a mostenthusiastic smile, did the same. In the result five glasses met overthe central bed of chrysanthemums. Edward Henry was happy. Surroundedby enigmas--for he had no conception whatever why Rose Euclid hadbrought any of the three men to his table--he was neverthelessuplifted.
As he looked about him, at the rich table, and at the glitteringchandelier overhead (albeit the lamps thereof were inferior to hisown), and at the expanses of soft carpet, and at the silken-texturedwalls, and at the voluptuous curtains, and at the couple of impeccablegentlemen in-waiting, and at Joseph, who knew his place behind hismaster's chair--he came to the justifiable conclusion that money wasa marvellous thing, and the workings of commerce mysterious andbeautiful. He had invented the Five Towns Thrift Club; working menand their wives in the Five Towns were paying their twopencesand sixpences and shillings weekly into his club, and findingthe transaction a real convenience--and lo! he was entertainingcelebrities at Wilkins's.
For, mind you, they were celebrities. He knew Seven Sachs was acelebrity because he had verily seen him act--and act very well--inhis own play, and because his name in letters a foot high haddominated all the hoardings of the Five Towns. As for Rose Euclid,could there be a greater celebrity? Such was the strange power of thepopular legend concerning her that even now, despite the first fearfulshock of disappointment, Edward Henry could not call her by her namewithout self-consciously stumbling over it, without a curious thrill.And further, he was revising his judgment of her, as well as loweringher age slightly. On coming into the room she had doubtless beenalmost as startled as himself, and her constrained muteness had beenprobably due to a guilty feeling in the matter of passing too openremarks to a friend about a perfect stranger's manner of eatingartichokes. The which supposition flattered him. (By the way, hewished she had brought the young friend who had shared her amusementover his artichokes.) With regard to the other two men, he was quiteready to believe that Carlo Trent was the world's greatest dramaticpoet, and to admit the exceeding talent of Mr. Marrier as a theatricalmanager.... In fact, unmistakable celebrities, one and all! He himselfwas a celebrity. A certain quality in the attitude of each of hisguests showed clearly that they considered him a celebrity, and notonly a celebrity but a card--Bryany must have been talking--and theconviction of this rendered him happy. His magnificent hungerrendered him still happier. And the reflection that Brindley owed himhalf-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 apologize 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 yourshirt-front."
Carlo Trent was wearing a soft shirt. The other three shirts wereall rigidly starched. Hitherto Edward Henry had imagined that afashionable evening shirt should be, before aught else, bullet-proof.He now appreciated the distinction of a frilled and gently flowingbreast-plate, especially when a broad purple eyeglass ribbon wanderedacross 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 delightin textures. I could certainly produce better hexameters in such adressing-gown."
Although Edward Henry, owing to an unfortunate hiatus in hiseducation, did not know what a hexameter might be, he was artistenough to comprehend the effect of attire on creative work, for he hadnoticed that he himself could make more money in one necktie thanin another, and he would instinctively take particular care in themorning 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 thepossibility were shimmering far out of his reach like a rainbow.
"Rather!" smiled Harrier. "I don't mind laying a fiver that Mr.Machin's dressing-gown came from Drook's in Old Bond Street." Butinstead 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 wrotedown 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 talkabout the theatre? You haven't told me yet if you got hold of Longayon 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 weshould settle on the name, isn't it?"
It is no exaggeration to say that Edward Henry felt a wave of coldin the small of his back, and also a sinking away of the neverthelessquite solid chair on which he sat. He had more than the typicalEnglishman's sane distrust of that morbid word 'Intellectual.' Hisattitude towards it amounted to active dislike. If ever he used it, hewould on no acc
ount use it alone; he would say, "Intellectual and allthat sort of thing!" with an air of pushing violently away from himeverything that the phrase implied. The notion of baptizing a theatrewith the fearsome word horrified him. Still, he had to maintainhis nerve and his repute. So he drank some champagne, and smilednonchalantly as the imperturbable duellist smiles while the pistolsare being examined.
"Well--" he murmured.
"You see," Marrier broke in, with the smile ecstatic, almost dancingon his chair. "There's no use in compromise. Compromise is and alwayshas been the curse of this country. The unintellectual drahma isdead--dead. Naoobody can deny that. All the box-offices in the Westare proclaiming it--"
"Should you call your play intellectual, Mr. Sachs?" Edward Henryinquired across the table.
"I scarcely know," said Mr. Seven Sachs, calmly. "I know I've playedit myself fifteen hundred and two times, and that's saying nothing ofmy three subsidiary companies on the road."
"What _is_ Mr. Sachs'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 oversix 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 mustbe intellectual. The day of the unintellectual drahma is over. Thepeople won't have it. We must have faith in the people, and we can'tshow our faith better than by calling our theatre by its propername--'The Intellectual Theatre'!"
("_His_ theatre!" thought Edward Henry. "What's he got to do withit?")
"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 tellyou 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 cometo her. "Yes, you're right."
("She'll make a cheerful sort of partner for a fellow," thought EdwardHenry, "if she's in the habit of changing her mind like that everythirty seconds." His appetite had gone. He could only drink.)
"Naturally, I'm right! Aren't we going to open with my play, and isn'tmy play in verse?... I'm sure you'll agree with me, Mr. Machin, thatthere is no real drama except the poetical drama."
Edward Henry was entirely at a loss. Indeed, he was drowning in hisdressing-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 adesperate criminal. "Not a line."
Whereupon Carlo Trent rose up from his seat, and his eyeglassesdangled in front of him.
"Mr. Machin," said he with the utmost benevolence. "This is the mostinteresting thing I've ever come across. Do you know, you're preciselythe man I've always been wanting to meet?... The virgin mind. Theclean slate.... Do you know, you're precisely the man that it's myambition to write for?"
"It's very kind of you," said Edward Henry, feebly; beaten, andconsciously 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 ofpoetry--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. "Nobodyin 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 dowith all this light. Mr. Machin--do you mind?"
A wave of the hand and all the lights were extinguished, save a lampon the mantelpiece, and in the disconcertingly darkened room RoseEuclid turned her face towards the ray from this solitary silk-shadedglobe.
Her hand groped out behind her, found the table-cloth and began toscratch it agitatedly. She lifted her head. She was the actress,impressive and subjugating, and Edward Henry felt her power. Then sheintoned:
"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.
"_Bra_ vo!" murmured Carlo Trent.
"Bra_vo_!" murmured Mr. Marrier.
Edward Henry in the gloom caught Mr. Seven Sachs's unalterableobservant smile across the table.
"Well, Mr. Machin?" said Carlo Trent.
Edward Henry had felt a tremor at the vibrations of Rose Euclid'svoice. But the words she uttered had set up no clear image in hismind, unless it might be of some solid body falling from the air, orof 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 toanswer.
"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 closinglines 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 thinkthe end's very appropriate."
Mr. Seven Sachs choked over his wine, and kept on choking.
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