The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure

by Arnold Bennett

  CHAPTER III

  WILKINS'S

  I.

  The early adventures of Alderman Machin of Bursley at Wilkins' Hotel,London, were so singular and to him so refreshing that they must berecounted in some detail.

  He went to London by the morning express from Knype, on the Monday weekafter his visit to the music-hall. In the meantime he had had somecorrespondence with Mr. Bryany, more poetic than precise, about theoption, and had informed Mr. Bryany that he would arrive in Londonseveral days before the option expired. But he had not given a definitedate. The whole affair, indeed, was amusingly vague; and, despite hisassurances to his wife that the matter was momentous, he did not regardhis trip to London as a business trip at all, but rather as a simplefreakish change of air. The one certain item in the whole situation wasthat he had in his pocket a quite considerable sum of actual money,destined--he hoped but was not sure--to take up the option at the properhour.

  Nellie, impeccable to the last, accompanied him in the motor to Knype,the main-line station. The drive, superficially pleasant, was inreality very disconcerting to him. For nine days the household hadtalked in apparent cheerfulness of Father's visit to London, as thoughit were an occasion for joy on Father's behalf, tempered by affectionatesorrow for his absence. The official theory was that all was for thebest in the best of all possible homes, and this theory was admirablymaintained. And yet everybody knew--even to Maisie--that it was not so;everybody knew that the master and the mistress of the home, calm andsweet as was their demeanour, were contending in a terrific silent andmysterious altercation, which in some way was connected with the visitto London. So far as Edward Henry was concerned, he had been hoping forsome decisive event--a tone, gesture, glance, pressure--during the driveto Knype, which offered the last chance of a real concord. No suchevent occurred. They conversed with the same false cordiality as hadmarked their relations since the evening of the dog-bite. On thatevening Nellie had suddenly transformed herself into a distressinglyperfect angel, and not once had she descended from her high estate. Atleast daily she had kissed him--what kisses! Kisses that were notkisses! Tasteless mockeries, like non-alcoholic ale! He could havekilled her, but he could not put a finger on a fault in her marvellouswifely behaviour; she would have died victorious.

  So that his freakish excursion was not starting very auspiciously. And,waiting with her for the train on the platform at Knype, he felt thismore and more. His old clerk Penkethman was there to receive certainfinal instructions on Thrift Club matters, and the sweetness of Nellie'sattitude towards the ancient man, and the ancient's man's naive pleasuretherein, positively maddened Edward Henry. To such an extent that hebegan to think: "Is she going to spoil my trip for me?"

  Then Brindley came up. Brindley, too, was going to London. AndNellie's saccharine assurances to Brindley that Edward Henry reallyneeded a change just about completed Edward Henry's desperation. Noteven the uproarious advent of two jolly wholesale grocers, MessieursGarvin and Quorrall, also going to London, could effectually lighten hispessimism.

  When the train steamed in, Edward Henry, in fear, postponed the ultimatekiss as long as possible. He allowed Brindley to climb before him intothe second-class compartment, and purposely tarried in finding changefor the porter; and then he turned to Nellie, and stooped. She raisedher white veil and raised the angelic face. They kissed,--the samefalse kiss,--and she was withdrawing her lips. But suddenly she put themagain to his for one second, with a hysterical clinging pressure. Itwas nothing. Nobody could have noticed it. She herself pretended thatshe had not done it. Edward Henry had to pretend not to notice it. Butto him it was everything. She had relented. She had surrendered. Thesign had come from her. She wished him to enjoy his visit to London.

  He said to himself:

  "Dashed if I don't write to her every day!"

  He leaned out of the window as the train rolled away, and waved andsmiled to her, not concealing his sentiments now; nor did she concealhers as she replied with exquisite pantomime to his signals. But if thetrain had not been rapidly and infallibly separating them, thereconciliation could scarcely have been thus open. If for some reasonthe train had backed into the station and ejected its passengers, thosetwo would have covered up their feelings again in an instant. Such ishuman nature in the Five Towns.

  When Edward Henry withdrew his head into the compartment, Brindley andMr. Garvin, the latter standing at the corridor door, observed that hisspirits had shot up in the most astonishing manner, and in theirblindness they attributed the phenomenon to Edward Henry's delight in atemporary freedom from domesticity.

  Mr. Garvin had come from the neighbouring compartment, which wasfirst-class, to suggest a game at bridge. Messieurs Garvin and Quorralljourneyed to London once a week and sometimes oftener, and, beingtraders, they had special season-tickets. They travelled first-classbecause their special season-tickets were first-class. Brindley saidthat he didn't mind a game, but that he had not the slightest intentionof paying excess fare for the privilege. Mr. Garvin told him to comealong and trust in Messieurs Garvin and Quorrall. Edward Henry, notnowadays an enthusiastic card-player, enthusiastically agreed to jointhe hand, and announced that he did not care if he paid forty excessfares. Whereupon Robert Brindley grumbled enviously that it was "allvery well for millionaires..." They followed Mr. Garvin into thefirst-class compartment; and it soon appeared that Messrs. Garvin andQuorrall did in fact own the train, and that the London and NorthWestern Railway was no more than their wash-pot.

  "Bring us a cushion from somewhere, will ye?" said Mr. Quorrall casuallyto a ticket-collector who entered.

  And the resplendent official obeyed. The long cushion, rapt fromanother compartment, was placed on the knees of the quartette, and thegame began. The ticket-collector examined the tickets of Brindley andEdward Henry, and somehow failed to notice that they were of the wrongcolour. And at this proof of their influential greatness, MessieursGarvin and Quorrall were both secretly proud.

  The last rubber finished in the neighbourhood of Willesden, and EdwardHenry, having won eighteen pence halfpenny, was exuberantly content, forMessrs. Garvin, Quorrall, and Brindley were all renowned card-players.The cushion was thrown away, and a fitful conversation occupied the fewremaining minutes of the journey.

  "Where do you put up?" Brindley asked Edward Henry.

  "Majestic," said Edward Henry. "Where do you?"

  "Oh! Kingsway, I suppose."

  The Majestic and the Kingsway were two of the half-dozen very large andvery mediocre hotels in London which, from causes which nobody, andespecially no American, has ever been able to discover, are particularlyaffected by Midland provincials "on the jaunt." Both had an immensereputation in the Five Towns.

  There was nothing new to say about the Majestic and the Kingsway, andthe talk flagged until Mr. Quorrall mentioned Seven Sachs. The mightySeven Sachs, in his world-famous play, "Overheard," had taken precedenceof all other topics in the Five Towns during the previous week. He hadcrammed the theatre and half emptied the Empire Music Hall for sixnights; a wonderful feat. Incidentally, his fifteen hundredth appearancein "Overheard" had taken place in the Five Towns, and the Five Towns hadfound in this fact a peculiar satisfaction, as though some deep merithad thereby been acquired or rewarded. Seven Sachs's tour was nowclosed, and on the Sunday he had gone to London, en route for America.

  "I heard _he_ stops at Wilkins's," said Mr. Garvin.

  "Wilkins's your grandmother!" Brindley essayed to crush Mr. Garvin.

  "I don't say he _does_ stop at Wilkins's," said Mr. Garvin, anindividual not easy to crush, "I only say I heard as he did."

  "They wouldn't have him!" Brindley insisted firmly.

  Mr. Quorrall at any rate seemed tacitly to agree with Brindley. Theaugust name of Wilkins's was in its essence so exclusive that vastnumbers of fairly canny provincials had never heard of it. Ask t
enwell-informed provincials which is the first hotel in London, and nineof them would certainly reply, the Grand Babylon. Not that even wealthyprovincials from the industrial districts are in the habit of staying atthe Grand Babylon! No! Edward Henry, for example, had never stayed atthe Grand Babylon, no more than he had ever bought a first-class ticketon a railroad. The idea of doing so had scarcely occurred to him.There are certain ways of extravagant smartness which are not consideredto be good form among solid wealthy provincials. Why travel first-class(they argue), when second is just as good and no one can tell thedifference once you get out of the train? Why ape the tricks of anotherstratum of society? They like to read about the dinner-parties andsupper-parties at the Grand Babylon; but they are not emulous, and theydo not imitate. At their most adventurous they would lunch or dine inthe neutral region of the grill-room at the Grand Babylon. As forWilkins's, in Devonshire Square, which is infinitely better known amongprinces than in the Five Towns, and whose name is affectionatelypronounced with a "V" by half the monarchs of Europe, few industrialprovincials had ever seen it. The class which is the back-bone ofEngland left it serenely alone to royalty and the aristocratic parasitesof royalty.

  "I don't see why they shouldn't have him," said Edward Henry, as helifted a challenging nose in the air.

  "Perhaps you don't, Alderman!" said Brindley.

  "_I_ wouldn't mind going to Wilkins's," Edward Henry persisted.

  "I'd like to see you," said Brindley, with curt scorn.

  "Well," said Edward Henry, "I'll bet you a fiver I do." Had he not woneighteen pence half-penny? And was he not securely at peace with hiswife?

  "I don't bet fivers," said the cautious Brindley. "But I'll bet you halfa crown."

  "Done!" said Edward Henry.

  "When will you go?"

  "Either to-day or to-morrow. I must go to the Majestic first, becauseI've ordered a room and so on."

  "Ha!" hurled Brindley, as if to insinuate that Edward Henry was seekingto escape from the consequences of his boast.

  And yet he ought to have known Edward Henry. He did know Edward Henry.And he hoped to lose his half-crown. On his face and on the faces ofthe other two was the cheerful admission that tales of the doings ofAlderman Machin, the great local card, at Wilkins's--if he succeeded ingetting in--would be cheap at half a crown.

  Porters cried out "Euston!"