The Regent

by Arnold Bennett

  I

  The next morning, Joseph, having opened wide the window, informed hismaster that the weather was bright and sunny, and Edward Henry arosewith just that pleasant degree of fatigue which persuades one that oneis if anything rather more highly vitalized than usual. He sent forMr. Bryany, as for a domestic animal, and Mr. Bryany, ceremoniouslyattired, was received by a sort of jolly king who happened to betrimming his beard in the royal bathroom but who was too good-naturedto keep Mr. Bryany waiting. It is remarkable how the habit ofroyalty, having once taken root, will flourish in the minds of quiteunmonarchical persons. Edward Henry first inquired after the healthof Mr. Seven Sachs, and then obtained from Mr. Bryany all remainingpapers and trifles of information concerning the affair of the option.Whereupon Mr. Bryany, apparently much elated by the honour of aninformal reception, effusively retired. And Edward Henry too was soelated, and his faith in life so renewed and invigorated, that he saidto himself:

  "It might be worth while to shave my beard off, after all!"

  As in his electric brougham he drove along muddy and shiningPiccadilly, he admitted that Joseph's account of the weather had beenvery accurate. The weather was magnificent; it presented the bestfeatures of summer combined with the salutary pungency of autumn. Andflags were flying over the establishments of tobacconists, soothsayersand insurance companies in Piccadilly. And the sense of Empire wasin the very air, like an intoxication. And there was no place likeLondon. When, however, having run through Piccadilly into streets lesssuperb, he reached the Majestic, it seemed to him that the Majesticwas not a part of London, but a bit of the provinces surrounded byLondon. He was very disappointed with the Majestic, and took hisletters from the clerk with careless condescension. In a few days theMajestic had sunk from being one of "London's huge caravanserais" tothe level of a swollen Turk's Head. So fragile are reputations!

  From the Majestic Edward Henry drove back into the regions of Empire,between Piccadilly and Regent Street, and deigned to call upon histailors. A morning-suit which he had commanded being miraculouslyfinished, he put it on, and was at once not only spectacularly butmorally regenerated. The old suit, though it had cost five guineasin its time, looked a paltry and a dowdy thing as it lay, flung downanyhow, on one of Messrs Quayther & Cuthering's cane chairs in themirrored cubicle where baronets and even peers showed their braces tothe benign Mr. Cuthering.

  "I want to go to Piccadilly Circus now. Stop at the fountain," saidEdward Henry to his chauffeur. He gave the order somewhat defiantly,because he was a little self-conscious in the new and gleaming suit,and because he had an absurd idea that the chauffeur might guess thathe, a provincial from the Five Towns, was about to venture into WestEnd theatrical enterprise and sneer at him accordingly.

  But the chauffeur merely touched his cap with an indifferent and loftygesture, as if to say:

  "Be at ease. I have driven persons more moon-struck even than you.Human eccentricity has long since ceased to surprise me."

  The fountain in Piccadilly Circus was the gayest thing in London. Itmingled the fresh tinkling of water with the odour and flame of autumnblossoms and the variegated colours of shawled women who passed theirlives on its margin engaged in the commerce of flowers. Edward Henrybought an aster from a fine bold, red-cheeked, blowsy, dirty wenchwith a baby in her arms, and left some change for the baby. He was ina very tolerant and charitable mood, and could excuse the sins and thestupidity of all mankind. He reflected forgivingly that Rose Euclidand her friends had perhaps not displayed an abnormal fatuity indiscussing the name of the theatre before they had got the lease ofthe site for it. Had not he himself bought all the option withouthaving even seen the site? The fact was that he had had no leisure inhis short royal career for such details as seeing the site. He was nowabout to make good the omission.

  It is a fact that as he turned northwards from Piccadilly Circus, tothe right of the County Fire Office, in order to spy out the land uponwhich his theatre was to be built, he hesitated, under the delusionthat all the passers-by were staring at him! He felt just as he mighthave felt had he been engaged upon some scheme nefarious. He even wentback and pretended to examine the windows of the County FireOffice. Then, glancing self-consciously about, he discerned--notunnaturally--the words "Regent Street" on a sign.

  "There you are!" he murmured, with a thrill. "There you are! There'sobviously only one name for that theatre--'The Regent.' It's close toRegent Street. No other theatre is called 'The Regent.' Nobodybefore ever had the idea of 'Regent' as a name for a theatre. 'Muses'indeed!... 'Intellectual'! ... 'The Regent Theatre'! How well it comesoff the tongue! It's a great name! It'll be the finest name of anytheatre in London! And it took yours truly to think of it!"

  Then he smiled privately at his own weakness.... He too, like thedespised Rose, was baptizing the unborn! Still, he continued to dreamof the theatre, and began to picture to himself the ideal theatre.He discovered that he had quite a number of startling ideas abouttheatre-construction, based on his own experience as a playgoer.

  When, with new courage, he directed his feet towards the site, uponwhich he knew there was an old chapel known as Queen's GlasshouseChapel, whose ownership had slipped from the nerveless hand of a dyingsect of dissenters, he could not find the site and he could not seethe chapel. For an instant he was perturbed by a horrid suspicion thathe had been victimized by a gang of swindlers posing as celebratedpersons. Everything was possible in this world and century! Noneof the people who had appeared in the transaction had resembled hisprevious conceptions of such people! And confidence-thieves alwaysoperated in the grandest hotels! He immediately decided that if thesequel should prove him to be a simpleton and gull, he would at anyrate be a silent simpleton and gull. He would stoically bear the lossof two hundred pounds and breathe no word of woe.

  But then he remembered with relief that he had genuinely recognizedboth Rose Euclid and Seven Sachs; and also that Mr. Bryany, amongother documents, had furnished him with a photograph of the Chapel andsurrounding property. The Chapel therefore existed. He had a plan inhis pocket. He now opened this plan and tried to consult it in themiddle of the street, but his agitation was such that he could notmake out on it which was north and which was south. After he had beennearly prostrated by a taxi-cab, a policeman came up to him and said,with all the friendly disdain of a London policeman addressing aprovincial:

  "Safer to look at that on the pavement, sir!"

  Edward Henry glanced up from the plan.

  "I was trying to find the Queen's Glasshouse Chapel, officer," saidhe. "Have you ever heard of it?"

  (In Bursley, members of the Town Council always flattered membersof the Force by addressing them as "officer"; and Edward Henry knewexactly the effective intonation.)

  "It _was there_, sir," said the policeman, less disdainful, pointingto a narrow hoarding behind which could be seen the back-walls of highbuildings in Shaftesbury Avenue. "They've just finished pulling itdown."

  "Thank you," said Edward Henry, quietly, with a superb and successfuleffort to keep as much colour in his face as if the policeman had notdealt him a dizzying blow.

  He then walked towards the hoarding, but could scarcely feel theground under his feet. From a wide aperture in the palisades a cartfull of earth was emerging; it creaked and shook as it was dragged bya labouring horse over loose planks into the roadway; a whip-crackingcarter hovered on its flank. Edward Henry approached the aperture andgazed within. An elegant young man stood solitary inside the hoardingand stared at a razed expanse of land in whose furthest corner somenavvies were digging a hole....

  The site!

  But what did this sinister destructive activity mean? Nobody wasentitled to interfere with property on which he, Alderman Machin, heldan unexpired option! But was it the site? He perused the plan againwith more care. Yes, there could be no doubt that it was the site.His eye roved round and he admitted the justice of the boast that anelectric sign displayed at the southern front corner of the theatrewould be visible from Piccadi
lly Circus, Lower Regent Street,Shaftesbury Avenue, etc., etc. He then observed a large notice-board,raised on posts above the hoardings, and read the following:

  SITE

  OF THE

  FIRST NEW THOUGHT CHURCH

  to be opened next Spring.

  Subscriptions invited.

  Rollo Wrissell: _Senior Trustee_. Ralph Alloyd: _Architect_. Dicks & Pato: _Builders_.

  The name of Rollo Wrissell seemed familiar to him, and after a fewmoments' searching he recalled that Rollo Wrissell was one of thetrustees and executors of the late Lord Woldo, the other being thewidow--and the mother of the new Lord Woldo. In addition to thelettering the notice-board held a graphic representation of the FirstNew Thought Church as it would be when completed.

  "Well," said Edward Henry, not perhaps unjustifiably, "this really isa bit thick! Here I've got an option on a plot of land for building atheatre, and somebody else has taken it to put up a church!"

  He ventured inside the hoarding, and addressing the elegant young manasked:

  "You got anything to do with this, mister?"

  "Well," said the young man, smiling humorously, "I'm the architect.It's true that nobody ever pays any attention to an architect in thesedays."

  "Oh! You're Mr. Alloyd?"

  "I am."

  Mr. Alloyd had black hair, intensely black, changeful eyes, and theexpressive mouth of an actor.

  "I thought they were going to build a theatre here," said EdwardHenry.

  "I wish they had been!" said Mr. Alloyd. "I'd just like to design atheatre! But of course I shall never get the chance."

  "Why not?"

  "I know I shan't," Mr. Alloyd insisted with gloomy disgust. "Onlyobtained this job by sheer accident! ... You got any ideas abouttheatres?"

  "Well, I have," said Edward Henry.

  Mr. Alloyd turned on him with a sardonic and half-benevolent gleam.

  "And what are your ideas about theatres?"

  "Well," said Edward Henry, "I should like to meet an architect who hadthoroughly got it into his head that when people pay for seats to seea play they want to be able to _see_ it, and not just get a look at itnow and then over other people's heads and round corners of boxes andthings. In most theatres that I've been in the architects seemed tothink that iron pillars and wooden heads are transparent. Eitherthat, or the architects were rascals! Same with hearing! The pit costshalf-a-crown, and you don't pay half-a-crown to hear glasses rattledin a bar or motor-omnibuses rushing down the street. I was never yetin a London theatre where the architect had really understood thatwhat the people in the pit wanted to hear was the play and nothing butthe play."

  "You're rather hard on us," said Mr. Alloyd.

  "Not so hard as you are on _us_!" said Edward Henry. "And thendraughts! I suppose you think a draught on the back of the neck isgood for us!... But of course you'll say all this has nothing to dowith architecture!"

  "Oh, no, I shan't! Oh, no, I shan't!" exclaimed Mr. Alloyd. "I quiteagree with you!"

  "You _do_?"

  "Certainly. You seem to be interested in theatres?"

  "I am a bit."

  "You come from the north?"

  "No, I don't," said Edward Henry. Mr. Alloyd had no right to be awarethat he was not a Londoner.

  "I beg your pardon."

  "I come from the Midlands."

  "Oh!... Have you seen the Russian Ballet?"

  Edward Henry had not--nor heard of it. "Why?" he asked.

  "Nothing," said Mr. Alloyd. "Only I saw it the night before last inParis. You never saw such dancing. It's enchanted--enchanted! The mostlovely thing I ever saw in my life. I couldn't sleep for it. Not thatI ever sleep very well!--I merely thought, as you were interestedin theatres--and Midland people are so enterprising!... Have acigarette?"

  Edward Henry, who had begun to feel sympathetic, was somewhat repelledby these odd last remarks. After all the man, though human enough, wasan utter stranger.

  "No thanks," he said. "And so you're going to put up a church here?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I wonder whether you are."

  He walked abruptly away under Alloyd's riddling stare, and he couldalmost hear the man saying, "Well, he's a queer lot, if you like."

  At the corner of the site, below the spot where his electric sign wasto have been, he was stopped by a well-dressed middle-aged lady whobore a bundle of papers.

  "Will you buy a paper for the cause?" she suggested in a pleasant,persuasive tone. "One penny."

  He obeyed, and she handed him a small blue-printed periodical ofwhich the title was "_Azure_, the Organ of the New Thought Church." Heglanced at it, puzzled, and then at the middle-aged lady.

  "Every penny of profit goes to the Church Building Fund," she said, asif in defence of her action.

  Edward Henry burst out laughing; but it was a nervous, half-hystericallaugh that he laughed.