Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

  “A row in the theatre?” said Lowndes. “What about?”

  “Fees,” said Harry. “You know there are no fees at the Lyceum and the Savoy, and three or four more of the best theatres, so they want to abolish them there also.”

  “Who do?”

  “The public.”

  “But it’s a question for the management entirely. The public have nothing to do with it.”

  “I don’t know about that,” argued Harry. “The public pay, and they think they shouldn’t.”

  “Why?” snapped Lowndes; and it became disagreeably apparent that his lust for combat had revived.

  “Well, they think they pay quite enough for their places without any extras afterwards, such as a fee for programmes. They say you might as well be charged for the bill-of-fare when you dine at a restaurant. But their great point seems to be that if half-a-dozen good theatres can do without fees all good theatres can. They call them an imposition.”

  “Rubbish,” snorted Lowndes, in so offensive a manner that Harry could say no more; he was therefore surprised when, after a little general conversation in which Lowndes had not joined, the latter leant across to him with all the twinkling symptoms of his liveliest moments.

  “I presume,” said he, “that all the row last night was kicked up by the pit and gallery?”

  “So I gathered.”

  “Ah! What they want is a remonstrance from the stalls. There would be some sense in that.”

  There were no more disagreeables at the hotel, and none with either of the cabmen outside the theatre. All at once Lowndes seemed to have grown unnaturally calm and sedate, Harry could not imagine why. But only too soon he knew.

  They had four stalls in the centre of the third row. Harry sat on the extreme left of the party, with Fanny Lowndes on his right, to whom he was talking as he tucked his twelve-shilling “topper” as carefully as possible under the seat, when his companion suddenly looked round and up with a startled expression. Harry followed her example, and there was Gordon Lowndes standing up in his place and laughing in the reddening face of the pretty white-capped attendant. In his hand were four programmes.

  “Certainly not,” he was saying. “The system of fees, in a theatre like this, is an outrage on the audience, and I don’t intend to submit to it.”

  “I can’t help the system, sir.”

  “I know you can’t, my good girl. I don’t blame you. Go about your business.”

  “But I must fetch the manager.”

  “Oh, fetch the police if you like. Not a penny-piece do I pay.”

  And Gordon Lowndes stood erect in his place, fanning himself with the unpaid-for programmes, and beaming upon all the house. Already all eyes were upon him; it was amusing to note with what different glances. The stalls took care to look suitably contumelious, and the dress-circle were in proper sympathy with the stalls. But the front row of the pit were leaning across the barrier, and the gallery was a fringe of horizontal faces and hats.

  “We’re behind you,” said a deep voice in the pit.

  “Good old four-eyes!” piped another from aloft.

  The gods had recognised their champion: he gave them a magnificent wave of the programmes, and stood there with swelling shirt-front, every inch the demagogue.

  “Now, sir, now!”

  The manager was a smart-looking man with a pointed beard, and a crush-hat on the back of his head. He spoke even more sharply than was necessary.

  “Now, sir, to you,” replied Lowndes suavely, and with an admirable inclination of his head.

  “Well, what’s the matter? Why won’t you pay?”

  “I never encourage fees,” replied Lowndes, shaking his twinkling face in the most fatherly fashion. He articulated his words with the utmost deliberation, however, and there was a yell of approval from the gods above. A ripple of amusement was also going round the house; for Mrs. Ringrose was holding up half-a-crown and making treacherous signs to the manager, which, however, he would not see. It seemed he was a fighting man himself, and his eyes were locked in a tussle with Lowndes’s spectacles.

  “You must leave the theatre, that’s all.”

  “Nonsense,” retorted Lowndes, with his indulgent smile.

  “We shall see about that. May I trouble you, ladies and gentlemen, to leave your places for one moment?”

  Lowndes’s incomparable guffaw resounded through the auditorium. It was receiving a hearty echo in pit and gallery, when he held up his programmes, and the gods were still. The ladies and gentlemen had kept their seats.

  “My dear sir, why give yourself away?” said Gordon Lowndes, still chuckling, to the manager. “You daren’t touch me, and you know you daren’t. A pretty figure you’d cut at Bow Street to-morrow morning! Now kindly listen to me—” and he tapped the programmes authoritatively with his forefinger. “You know as well as I do that there was trouble last night in this theatre about this very thing; my dear sir, I can promise you there’ll be trouble every night until you discontinue your present obsolete and short-sighted policy. How I wish you were a sensible man! Then you would think twice before attempting to force a barefaced imposition of this sort down the throats of your audience; an imposition that every theatre of repute has recognised as such and thrown overboard long and long ago. You don’t force it down my throat, I can tell you that. You don’t bluff or bully me. As if we didn’t pay enough for our seats without any such exorbitant extras! Why, they might as well charge us for the bill-of-fare at a first-class restaurant. Besides, what a charge! Sixpence for these — sixpence for this!” And he spun one of his programmes into the pit, and waved another towards the gallery.

  But that cool quick tongue was no sooner silent than the house was in a hubbub. Here and there arose a thin, peevish cry of “Turn him out,” but on the whole the sympathy of the house was with Lowndes. The stalls were no longer visibly ashamed of him; the dress-circle jumped with the stalls; but the pit clapped its ungloved hands and stamped with its out-of-door boots, while every species of whistle, cheer and cat-call came hurtling from the gallery. This went on for some three minutes, which is a long time thus filled. There was no stopping it. The manager retreated unheard and impotent. A minute later the curtain went up, only to give the tumult a new impetus. The hapless actors looked at one another and at the front of the house. The curtain came down, and the popular and talented lessee himself stepped in front of it, dressed in his stage costume. But even him they would not hear. Then arose the unknown, middle-aged gentleman in the stalls, with the splendid temper and the gold eye-glasses — and him they would.

  “Come, come, ladies and gentlemen,” cried he, “haven’t we done enough for one night? We have all paid our money, are we not to see the piece? As for that other matter, I think it may safely be left in the hands of yonder wise man who stands before us.”

  And it was — with a result you may remember. Meantime the curtain was up for good and the play proceeding after a very short interval indeed, during which Gordon Lowndes bore himself with startling modesty, sitting quietly in his place and doing nothing but apologise to Mrs. Ringrose for having caused such a scene on an occasion when she was his guest. He should have thought only of his guests; but his sense of public duty, combined with his bitter and inveterate intolerance of anything in the shape of an imposition, had run away with him, and on Mrs. Ringrose’s account he was humbly sorry for it. That lady forgave him, however. Through a perfect agony of shame and indignation she had come to a new and not unnatural pride in her eccentric friend.

  As for Harry, there was no measure to his enthusiasm: the tears had been in his eyes from sheer excitement.

  “A wonderful man, your father!” he whispered again and again to the pale girl on his right.

  “He is,” she answered, with a smile and a sigh. And the smile was the sadder of the two.

  Between the acts Harry visited the foyer with Lowndes, who was complimented by several strangers on his spirited and public-spirited behaviour.

&nbs
p; “But do you know,” said Harry, when they were alone, “from the way you spoke at dinner I fancied you took quite an opposite view of the whole question of fees?”

  “So I did,” whispered Lowndes, with his tremulous grin, “but I saw my way to some sport, and that was enough for me. I was spoiling for some sport to-night, and a bit of bluff from the stalls was obviously what was wanted. You must excuse my using your arguments, but the fact is I very seldom set foot inside a theatre, and they were the only ones I’d ever heard.”

  “At dinner you said they were nonsense!”

  The other winked as he lowered his voice.

  “So they were, my dear Ringrose. That was exactly where the sport came in.”

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE DAY OF BATTLE.

  It was the following morning that Harry Ringrose received a first return for the many letters he had written in answer to advertisements seen in the Public Library. The advertisement had been for an articled clerk. The clerk was to be articled on really “exceptional terms” (duly specified), and a “public-school boy” was “preferred.” It was, in fact, the likeliest advertisement Harry had seen, and its possibilities were not altogether dissipated by the communication now received: —

  “Dear Sir, — We beg to acknowledge your letter of the 19th instant, and to say that this is an increasing business, and that we require further assistance in it. You would have an opportunity of thoroughly learning the whole business under the supervision of Mr. Shuttleworth himself; would accompany him to the various courts, and eventually other arrangements might be made. You will notice that the premium is only fifty guineas, which will be returned in salary — a very unusual thing.

  “Perhaps you will give me a call at your early convenience, of which we shall be glad to have notice, as we must take someone at once.

  “Yours faithfully,

  “Walter Shuttleworth & Co.”

  Like most of his correspondence, this letter was read by Harry to his mother, who looked up at him as though his fortune were already made. She had been in favour of the Law all along, and she was prepared to break into her capital for the fifty guineas’ premium and for the eighty pounds for stamps. It would decrease their income by a few pounds, but if Harry were getting a good salary they would be the gainers by the difference. In any case he must telegraph to these people without a moment’s loss of time — he must see Mr. Shuttleworth before starting for Guildford that afternoon. His bag should be ready immediately, and, as he also wanted to see Mr. Lowndes, he could leave it in Leadenhall Street and pop in for it afterwards on his way to Waterloo.

  Such was his mother’s advice, and Harry took it to the letter. The bag was his father’s dressing-bag, which Mrs. Ringrose said would make a good appearance at Mr. Innes’s. It was heavy with silver-mounted fittings, but there was just room for Harry’s dress suit, which made it heavier still. Consequently the way from Aldgate to Leadenhall Street had never seemed so long before, and Harry was thankful when he and the bag were at last aloft in Lowndes’s office. Here he instantly forgot his wet forehead and his aching arm. He had dropped in upon the queerest scene.

  Gordon Lowndes was in the inner office. Harry saw him through the open door, and his first impression was that Lowndes had been up all night. He was still in evening dress. The very hat and Inverness, in which Harry had seen the last of him at eleven the night before, completed his attire at eleven this morning. There was one quaint difference: instead of a white bow he wore a blue scarf tied in an ordinary knot, which stultified the whole costume. Harry looked hard. Lowndes was looking even harder at him, with a kind of what-do-you-want glare. But he was palpably sober; he wore every sign of the man who had slept heartily and risen in his vigour, and in an instant his features had relaxed and his hands lay affectionately on Harry’s shoulders.

  “Well, Ringrose, my boy, what brought you along so early? And what have you got there?”

  “It’s my bag,” said Harry. “I’m going down to Guildford for a day or two, but I’ve got to see a man this morning, and I thought I might leave it here in the meantime. May I?”

  “Surely, Ringrose, surely. Come inside; I’ve got my daughter here. My dear, here’s Harry Ringrose, and this is his bag. Gad! but it’s heavy!”

  Miss Lowndes blushed painfully as she shook hands with Harry. Her other arm was held behind her back with incriminating care.

  “Now, my dear,” said Lowndes, briskly, “since we are bowled out let’s be bowled out. Ringrose is bound to know the truth sooner or later, so he may as well know it now.” And with a rough laugh he snatched from behind his daughter’s back the shiny old clothes in which he had called at the flat the previous morning.

  Harry thought that the best thing he could do was to join in the laugh. Next moment his heart smote him, for Miss Lowndes had turned her back and stood looking at the window: not through it: it was opaque with grime.

  “Fact is, Ringrose.” continued Lowndes, “the noble Earl is trying to play me false. He won’t keep it up, mind you; he’s in too deep with me to dare; but he’s trying it on. Yesterday was the day we were to fix things up for good and all. I wasn’t sure of him, Ringrose; he’s shown himself a slippery old cuss too often. However, I had raised a breath of wind since I saw you last, and I had a fiver left, so I thought we’d make sure of our little spree. Blue your last fiver — that’s my rule. Never count the odds in the day of battle, and blue your last fiver for luck! If you don’t blue that fiver you may never have another to blue, and I’m hanged if you deserve one! Well, that was my last fiver we blued last night. Don’t look like that, man — I tell you I blued it for luck. The luck hasn’t come yet, but you may bet your shirt it’s on the way. You’ll see the noble Earl trot back to heel when I threaten to expose him if he doesn’t! Why, I’ve got letters from him that would make him the laughing-stock of the Lords; yet he leaves me one crying off in so many words, and has cleared for the Mediterranean in his yacht. Either he’ll come back within a week, Ringrose, and go through with the Company, or by God he shall pay through the nose for breaking his word and wasting my time! But I see you looking at my toilet. It is a bit of an anachronism, I confess.”

  “I suppose you have been sitting up all night,” said Harry. “I’m not surprised after what you tell me.”

  Lowndes guffawed.

  “You’ll never find me doing that!” he cried. “I leave the sitting up to my creditors! They’ll sit up pretty slick before I’ve done with ‘em — so will the noble Earl. Now let me enlighten you. You remember all those clothes I ordered from your trustful tailors, and how I told you never to neglect a good credit? Well, to give you a practical illustration of the merits of my advice, I’ve been living on those clothes ever since. I have so! Yesterday this time the whole boiling were up the spout. I just got out the dress-suit and this Inverness for one night only, and changed into them up here. Now I’ve got to put them in pop again, and that’s why you find me with them on. Do you follow me, Ringrose? Those good old duds are the only garments I’ve got in the world — thanks to the so-called Right Honourable the Earl of Banff.”

  Harry could not smile. He was thinking of his tailors, and he shuddered to remember that Lowndes had also borrowed five pounds in hard cash from the accommodating firm. Harry had dazzling visions of eventual trouble and responsibility; then his eyes stole over to the forlorn figure by the window; and it was quivering in a way that cut him to the heart.

  “You may like to blue your last fiver,” he turned to Lowndes and cried; “but I wish to heaven you hadn’t blued it on us! As for my mother, when she hears — —”

  “Don’t tell her, Mr. Ringrose!” cried a breaking voice. “I shall die of shame if she ever knows.”

  Fanny Lowndes had turned about with her fine eyes drowned in tears, her strong hands clutched together in an agony of entreaty; and just then Harry felt that he could forgive her father much, but never for the grief and shame which he first heaped upon the girl, and then forced her to dis
play.

  “It’s a queer thing, Ringrose,” observed Lowndes, “that women never can be got to take a sensible view of these matters. Your mother — my daughter — they’re every one of them alike.”

  He swung on his heel with a shrug, and went into the outer office to meet his friend Backhouse, who here returned from the usual errand. A trembling hand fell on Harry’s arm.

  “Do not think the worst of him!” whispered Fanny.

  “It is only on your account,” was his reply.

  “But he is so good to me!”

  “Yet yesterday he let you think that all was well.”

  “He wanted to give me a pleasure while he could.”

  Harry looked in the brave wet eyes, and his heart gave a sudden bound.

  “How staunch you are!” he murmured. “He is a lucky man who has you at his back!”

  Then he followed her father into the outer office, saying he must go, but that he would be back in an hour for his bag.

  He was back in less.

  His interview with Messrs. Walter Shuttleworth (one gentleman) had proved but little more satisfactory than any of his other interviews. Still, here was a man who had need of Harry, and that was something. He was the first. Harry rather took to him. He was a dashing young fellow, a public-school man; and it was a public-school man such as Harry that he wanted in his office. At present he appeared to keep but one juvenile clerk, a size larger than Lowndes’s — and he had no partner. This was the opening which was dimly and dexterously held out to Harry as an ultimate probability. And for one dazzling moment Harry felt that here was his chance in life at last. But when he came to ask questions, the fabric fell to pieces like all the rest, and he knew that he was sitting in Mr. Shuttleworth’s office for the last time as well as for the first. For, though the premium was to be returned “in salary,” it would only be returned during the last twelvemonth of Harry’s articles, and for four weary years he must work for nothing. He shook his head; he was bitterly disappointed. He was then told that the proposed arrangement was an offer in a thousand; but that he knew. He took his hat, simply saying he could never afford it. But he was asked to think it over and to write again, for he was just the sort of fellow for the place; and this he promised to do, because it seemed just the sort of place for him.