The Regent

by Arnold Bennett

  VI

  Though he was on the way to high success his anxieties and solicitudesseemed to increase every hour. Immediately after Isabel Joy's arresthe became more than ever a crony of the Marconi operator, and beganto dispatch vivid and urgent telegrams to London, without counting thecost. On the next day he began to receive replies. (It was the mostinteresting voyage that the Marconi operator had had since the sinkingof the _Catherine of Siena_, in which episode his promptness throughthe air had certainly saved two hundred lives.) Edward Henry couldscarcely sleep, so intense was his longing for Sunday night--hisdesire to be safe in London with Isabel Joy! Nay, he could notproperly eat! And then the doubt entered his mind whether after all hewould get to London on Sunday night. For the _Lithuania_ was lagging.She might have been doing it on purpose to ruin him. Every day, in theauction-pool on the ship's run, it was the holder of the lower fieldthat pocketed the money of his fellow-men. The _Lithuania_ actuallydescended below five hundred and forty knots in the twenty-four hours.And no authoritative explanation of this behaviour was ever given.Upon leaving New York there had been talk of reaching Fishguard onSaturday evening. But now the prophesied moment of arrival had beenput forward to noon on Sunday. Edward Henry's sole consolation wasthat each day on the eastward trip consisted of only twenty-threehours.

  Further, he was by no means free from apprehension about the personalliberty of Isabel Joy. Isabel had exceeded the programme arrangedbetween them. It had been no part of his scheme that she should castplates, nor even break violins on the shining crown of an augustpurser. The purser was angry, and he had the captain, a milder man,behind him. When Isabel Joy threatened a hunger-strike if she was notimmediately released, the purser signified that she might proceed withher hunger-strike; he well knew that it would be impossible for her toexpire of inanition before the arrival at Fishguard.

  The case was serious, because Isabel Joy had created a precedent.Policemen and Cabinet Ministers had for many months been regardedas the lawful prey of militants, but Isabel Joy was the first of themilitants to damage property and heads which belonged to personsof neither of those classes. And the authorities of the ship wereassuredly inclined to hand Isabel Joy over to the police at Fishguard.What saved the situation for Edward Henry was the factor which savesmost situations--namely, public opinion. When the saloon clearlyrealized that Isabel Joy had done what she had done with the pureand innocent aim of winning a wager, all that was Anglo-Saxon in thesaloon ranged itself on the side of true sport, and the matter waslifted above mere politics. A subscription was inaugurated to buya new fiddle, and to pay for shattered crockery. And the amountcollected would have purchased, after settling for the crockery,a couple of dozen new fiddles. The unneeded balance was given toSeamen's Orphanages. The purser was approached. The captain wasimplored. Influence was brought to bear. In short, the wheels that arewithin wheels went duly round. And Miss Isabel Joy, after apologiesand promises, was unconditionally released.

  But she had been arrested.

  And then early on Sunday morning the ship met a storm that had a sadinfluence on divine service; a storm of the eminence that scares eventhe brass-buttoned occupants of liners' bridges. The rumour went roundthe ship that the captain would not call at Fishguard in such weather.Edward Henry was ready to yield up his spirit in this fearful crisis,which endured two hours. The captain did call at Fishguard, in pouringrain, and men came aboard selling Sunday newspapers that were fullof Isabel's arrest on the steamer, and of the nearing triumph of herarrival in London before midnight. And newspaper correspondents alsocame aboard, and all the way on the tender, and in the sheds, andin the train, Edward Henry and Isabel Joy were subjected to thejournalistic experiments of hardy interviewers. The train arrived atPaddington at 9 P.M. Isabel had won by three hours. The station wasa surging throng of open-mouthed curiosities. Edward Henry would notlose sight of his priceless charge, but he sent Harrier to despatch atelegram to Nellie, whose wifely interest in his movements he had tillthen either forgotten or ignored.

  And even now his mind was not free. He saw in front of him stilltwenty-four hours of anguish.