The Regent
Page 59
VII
The next night, just before the curtain went up, he stood on the stageof the Regent Theatre, and it is a fact that he was trembling--notwith fear but with simple excitement.
Through what a day he had passed! There had been the rehearsal in themorning; it had gone off very well, save that Rose Euclid had behavedimpossibly, and that the Cunningham girl, the hit of the piece butousted from her part, had filled the place with just lamentations andrecriminations.
And then had followed the appalling scene with Rose Euclid. Rose,leaving the theatre for lunch, had beheld workmen removing her namefrom the electric sign and substituting that of Isabel Joy! She wasa woman and an artist, and it would have been the same had she been aman and an artist. She would not submit to this inconceivable affront.She had resigned her _role_. She had ripped her contract to bits andflung the bits to the breeze. Upon the whole Edward Henry had beenglad. He had sent for Miss Cunningham, who was Rose's understudy,had given her her instructions, called another rehearsal for theafternoon, and effected a saving of nearly half Isabel Joy's fantasticsalary. Then he had entered into financial negotiations with fourevening papers and managed to buy, at a price, their contents-billsfor the day. So that all the West End was filled with men and boyswearing like aprons posters which bore the words: "Isabel Joy toappear at the Regent to-night." A great and an original stroke!
And now he gazed through the peep-hole of the curtain upon a crammedand half-delirious auditorium. The assistant stage-manager ordered himoff. The curtain went up on the drama in hexameters. He waited in thewings, and spoke soothingly to Isabel Joy, who, looking juvenile inthe airy costume of the Messenger, stood flutteringly agog for hercue.... He heard the thunderous crashing roar that met her entrance.He did not hear her line. He walked forth to the glazed balcony atthe front of the house, where in the _entr'actes_ dandies smokedcigarettes baptized with girlish names. He could see PiccadillyCircus, and he saw Piccadilly Circus thronged with a multitude ofloafers who were happy in the mere spectacle of Isabel Joy's nameglowing on an electric sign. He went back at last to the managerialroom. Marrier was there, hero-worshipping.
"Got the figures yet?" he asked.
Marrier beamed.
"Two hundred and sixty pounds. As long as it keeps up it means aprofit of getting on for two hundred a naight!"
"But, dash it, man, the house only holds two hundred and thirty."
"But my good sir," said Marrier, "they're paying ten shillings a pieceto stand up in the dress-circle."
Edward Henry dropped into a chair at the desk. A telegram was lyingthere, addressed to himself.
"What's this?" he demanded.
"Just cam."
He opened it and read:
* * * * *
"I absolutely forbid this monstrous outrage on a work of art.--TRENT."
* * * * *
"Bit late in the day, isn't he?" said Edward Henry, showing thetelegram to Marrier.
"Besides," Marrier observed, "he'll come round when he knows what hisroyalties are."
"Well," said Edward Henry, "I'm going to bed." And he gave adevastating yawn.
VIII
One afternoon Edward Henry sat in the king of all the easy-chairs inthe drawing-room of his house in Trafalgar Road, Bursley. Althoughthe month was September, and the weather warm even for September,a swansdown quilt lay spread upon his knees. His face was pale--hishands were paler; but his eye was clear and his visage enlightened.His beard had grown to nearly its original dimensions. On a chairby his side were a number of letters to which he had just dictatedanswers. At a neighbouring table a young clerk was using a typewriter.Stretched at full length on the sofa was Robert Machin, engaged in theperusal of the second edition of that day's _Signal_. Of late Robert,having exhausted nearly all available books, had been cultivatingduring his holidays an interest in journalism, and he would give greataccounts, in the nursery, of events happening in each day's instalmentof the _Signal's_ sensational serial. His heels kicked idly oneagainst the other.
A powerful voice resounded in the lobby, and Dr Stirling entered theroom with Nellie.
"Well, doc.!" Edward Henry greeted him.
"So you're in full blast again!" observed the doctor, using a metaphorinvented by the population of a district where the roar of furnaceswakens the night.
"No!" Edward Henry protested, as an invalid always will. "I'm onlyjust keeping an eye on one or two pressing things."
"Of course he's in full blast!" said Nellie with calm conviction.
"What's this I hear about ye ganging away to the seaside, Saturday?"asked the doctor.
"Well, can't I?" said Edward Henry.
"Ye can," said the doctor. "Let's have a look at ye, man."
"What was it you said I've had?" Edward Henry questioned.
"Colitis."
"Yes, that's the word. I thought I couldn't have got it wrong. Well,you should have seen my mother's face when I told her what you calledit. She said, 'He may call it that if he's a mind to, but we hadanother name for it in my time.' You should have heard her sniff!...Look here, doc., do you know you've had me down now for pretty nearthree months?"
"Nay," said Stirling, "it's yer own obstinacy that's had ye down, man.If ye'd listened to yer London doctor at first, mayhap ye wouldn'thave had to travel from Euston in an invalid's carriage. If ye hadn'thad the misfortune to be born an obstinate simpleton ye'd ha' beenup and about six weeks back. But there's no doing anything with yougeniuses. It's all nerves with you and your like."
"Nerves!" exclaimed Edward Henry, pretending to scorn. But he wasdelighted at the diagnosis.
"Nerves," repeated the doctor, firmly. "Ye go gadding off to America.Ye get yeself mixed up in theatres.... How's the theatre? I see yerfamous play's coming to an end next week."
"And what if it is?" said Edward Henry, jealous for reputations,including his own. "It will have run for a hundred and one nights. Andright through August too! No modern poetry play ever did run as longin London, and no other ever will. I've given the intellectual theatrethe biggest ad. it ever had. And I've made money on it. I should havemade more if I'd ended the run a fortnight ago, but I was determinedto pass the hundredth night. And I shall do!"
"And what are ye for giving next?"
"I'm not for giving anything next, doc. I've let the Regent for fiveyears at seven thousand five hundred pounds a year to a musical comedysyndicate, since you're so curious. And when I've paid the ground rentand taxes and repairs, and something towards a sinking-fund, and sixper cent on my capital, I shall have not far off two thousand pounds ayear clear annual profit. You may say what you like, but that's what Icall business!"
It was a remarkable fact that, while giving undemanded information toDr. Stirling, Edward Henry was in reality defending himself againstthe accusations of his wife--accusations which, by the way, she hadnever uttered, but which he thought he read sometimes in her face. Hemight of course have told his wife these agreeable details directly,and in private. But he was a husband, and, like many husbands, apt tobe indirect.
Nellie said not a word.
"Then you're giving up London?" The doctor rose to depart.
"I am," said Edward Henry, almost blushing.
"Why?"
"Well," the genius answered. "Those theatrical things are altogethertoo exciting and risky! And they're such queer people--Great Scott!I've come out on the right side, as it happens, but--well, I'm not asyoung as I was. I've done with London. The Five Towns are good enoughfor me."
Nellie, unable to restrain a note of triumph, indiscreetly remarked,with just the air of superior sagacity that in a wife drives husbandsto fury and to foolishness:
"I should think so indeed!"
Edward Henry leaped from his chair, and the swansdown quilt swathedhis slippered feet.
"Nell," he exploded, clenching his hand. "If you say that once morein that tone--once more, mind!--I'll go and take a flat in Londonto-morrow
!"
The doctor crackled with laughter. Nellie smiled. Even Robert, who hadcompletely ignored the doctor's entrance, glanced round with creasedbrows.
"Sit down, dearest," Nellie quietly enjoined the invalid.
But he would not sit down, and, to show his independence, he helpedhis wife to escort Stirling into the lobby.
Robert, now alone with the ignored young clerk tapping at the table,turned towards him, and in his deliberate, judicial, disdainful,childish voice said to him:
"Isn't father a funny man?"