IV.
On the next night a male figure in evening dress and a pale overcoatmight have been seen standing at the corner of Piccadilly Circus andLower Regent Street, staring at an electric sign in the shape of ashield which said in its glittering, throbbing speech of incandescence:
THE REGENT ROSE EUCLID IN THE ORIENT PEARL
The figure crossed the Circus, and stared at the sign from a new pointof view. Then it passed along Coventry Street, and stared at the signfrom yet another point of view. Then it reached Shaftesbury Avenue, andstared again. Then it returned to its original station. It was thefigure of Edward Henry Machin, savouring the glorious electric sign ofwhich he had dreamed. He lit a cigarette, and thought of Seven Sachsgazing at the name of Seven Sachs in fire on the facade of a Broadwaytheatre in New York. Was not this London phenomenon at least as fine?He considered it was. The Regent Theatre existed--there it stood!(What a name for a theatre!) Its windows were all illuminated. Itsentrance-lamps bathed the pavement in light, and in this radiance stoodthe commissionaires in their military pride and their new uniforms. Aline of waiting automobiles began a couple of yards to the north of themain doors and continued round all sorts of dark corners and up allmanner of back streets toward Golden Square itself. Marrier had had theautomobiles counted and had told him the number--, but such was EdwardHenry's condition that he had forgotten. A row of boards reared on thepavement against the walls of the facade said: "Stalls Full," "PrivateBoxes Full," "Dress Circle Full," "Upper Circle Full," "Pit Full,""Gallery Full." And attached to the ironwork of the glazed entrancecanopy was a long board which gave the same information in terser form:"House Full." The Regent had indeed been obliged to refuse quite a lotof money on its opening night.
After all, the inauguration of a new theatre was something, even inLondon! Important personages had actually begged the privilege ofbuying seats at normal prices, and had been refused. Unimportantpersonages, such as those who boast in the universe that they had nevermissed a first night in the West End for twenty, thirty, or even fiftyyears, had tried to buy seats at abnormal prices, and had failed; whichwas in itself a tragedy. Edward Henry at the final moment had yieldedhis wife's stall to the instances of a Minister of the Crown, and atLady Woldo's urgent request had put her into Lady Woldo's privatelandowner's box, where also was Miss Elsie April who "had already hadthe pleasure of meeting Mrs. Machin." Edward Henry's first night was anevent of magnitude. And he alone was responsible for it. His volitionalone had brought into being that grand edifice whose light yellow wallsnow gleamed in nocturnal mystery under the shimmer of countless electricbulbs.
"There goes pretty nigh forty thousand pounds of my money!" hereflected, excitedly.
And he reflected:
"After all, I'm somebody."
Then he glanced down Lower Regent Street and saw Sir John Pilgrim's muchlarger theatre, now sublet to a tenant who also was lavish with displaysof radiance. And he reflected that on first nights Sir John Pilgrim, inaddition to doing all that he himself had done, would hold the greatrole on the stage throughout the evening. And he admired theastounding, dazzling energy of such a being, and admitted ungrudgingly:
"He's somebody too! I wonder what part of the world he's illuminatingjust now!"
Edward Henry did not deny to his soul that he was extremely nervous. Hewould not and could not face even the bare possibility that the firstplay presented at the new theatre might be a failure. He had meant towitness the production incognito among the crowd in the pit or in thegallery. But, after visiting the pit a few moments before the curtainwent up, he had been appalled by the hard-hearted levity of the pit'sremarks on things in general. The pit did not seem to be in any waychastened or softened by the fact that a fortune, that reputations, thatcareers were at stake. He had fled from the packed pit. (As for thegallery, he decided that he had already had enough of the gallery.)
He had wandered about corridors and to and fro in his own room and inthe wings, and even in the basement, as nervous as a lost cat or anauthor, and as self-conscious as a criminal who knows himself to be onthe edge of discovery. It was a fact that he could not look people inthe eyes. The reception of the first act had been fairly amiable, andhe had suffered horribly as he listened for the applause. Catchingsight of Carlo Trent in the distance of a passage, he had positively runaway from Carlo Trent. The first entr'acte had seemed to last for aboutthree months. Its nightmarish length had driven him almost to lunacy.The "feel" of the second act, so far as it mystically communicateditself to him in his place of concealment, had been better. At the endof the second fall of the curtain the applause had been enthusiastic.Yes, enthusiastic!
Curiously, it was the revulsion caused by this new birth of hope that,while the third act was being played, had driven him out of the theatre.His wild hope needed ozone. His breast had to expand in the boundlessprairie of Piccadilly Circus. His legs had to walk. His arms had toswing.
Now he crossed the Circus again to his own pavement and gazed like astranger at his own posters. On several of them, encircled in a scarletring, was the sole name of Rose Euclid--impressive! (And smaller, butabove it, the legend "E. H. Machin. Sole proprietor.") He asked himselfimpartially, as his eyes uneasily left the poster and slipped round theCircus, deserted save by a few sinister and idle figures at that hour,"Should I have sent that interview to the papers, or shouldn't I? ... Iwonder. I expect some folks would say on the whole I've been rather hardon Rose since I first met her! ... Anyhow, she's speaking up all rightto-night!" He laughed shortly.
A newsboy floated up from the Circus bearing a poster with the name ofIsabel Joy on it in large letters.
He thought:
"Be blowed to Isabel Joy!"
He did not care a fig for Isabel Joy's competition now.
And then a small door opened in the wall close by, and an elegant,cloaked woman came out on to the pavement. The door was the privatedoor leading to the private box of Lord Woldo, owner of the ground uponwhich the Regent Theatre was built. The woman he recognised withconfusion as Elsie April, whom he had not seen alone since the AzureSociety's night.
"What are you doing out here, Mr. Machin?" she greeted him with pleasantcomposure.
"I'm thinking," said he.
"It's going splendidly," she remarked. "Really! I'm just running roundto the stage door to meet dear Rose as she comes off. What a delightfulwoman your wife is! So pretty, and so sensible!"
She disappeared round the corner before he could compose a suitablehusband's reply to this laudation of a wife.
Then the commissionaires at the entrance seemed to start into life. Andthen suddenly several preoccupied men strode rapidly out of the theatre,buttoning their coats, and vanished, phantom-like. Critics, on their wayto destruction!
The performance must be finishing. Hastily he followed in the directiontaken by Elsie April.
He was in the wings, on the prompt side. Close by stood the prompter,an untidy youth with imperfections of teeth, clutching hard at thered-scored manuscript of "The Orient Pearl." Sundry players, of varyingstellar degrees, were posed around in the opulent costumes designed bySaracen Givington, A.R.A. Miss Lindop was in the background,ecstatically happy, her cheeks a race-course of tears. Afar off, in thecentre of the stage, alone, stood Rose Euclid, gorgeous in green andsilver, bowing and bowing and bowing--bowing before the storm ofapproval and acclamation that swept from the auditorium across thefootlights.
With a sound like that of tearing silk, or of a gigantic contraltomosquito, the curtain swished down, and swished up, and swished downagain. Bouquets flew on to the stage from the auditorium (a customnewly imported from the United States by Miss Euclid, and encouraged byher, though contrary to the lofty canons of London taste). The actressalready held one huge trophy, shaped as a crown, to her breast. Shehesitated, and then r
an to the wings, and caught Edward Henry by thewrist impulsively, madly. They shook hands in an ecstasy. It was asthough they recognised in one another a fundamental and glorious worth;it was as though no words could ever express the depth of appreciation,affection and admiration which each intensely felt for the other; it wasas though this moment were the final consecration of twin lives whoselong, loyal comradeship had never been clouded by the faintest breath ofmutual suspicion. Rose Euclid was still the unparalleled star, theimage of grace and beauty and dominance upon the stage. And yet quiteclearly Edward Henry saw close to his the wrinkled, damaged, daubed faceand thin neck of an old woman; and it made no difference.
"Rose!" cried a strained voice, and Rose Euclid wrenched herself fromhim and tumbled with half a sob into the clasping arms of Elsie April.
"You've saved the intellectual theatah for London, my boy! That's whatyou've done!" Marrier was now gripping his hand. And Edward Henry wasconvinced that he had.
The strident vigour of the applause showed no diminution. And throughthe thick heavy rain of it could be heard the monotonous insistentdetonations of one syllable:
"'Thor! 'Thor! 'Thor! Thor! Thor!"
And then another syllable was added:
"Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!"
Mechanically Edward Henry lit a cigarette. He had no consciousness ofdoing so.
"Where is Trent?" people were asking.
Carlo Trent appeared up a staircase at the back of the stage.
"You've got to go on," said Marrier. "Now, pull yourself togethah. TheGreat Beast is calling for you. Say a few wahds."
Carlo Trent in his turn seized the hand of Edward Henry, and it was forall the world as though he were seizing the hand of an intellectual andpoetic equal, and wrung it.
"Come now!" Mr. Marrier, beaming, admonished him, and then pushed.
"What must I say?" stammered Carlo.
"Whatever comes into your head."
"All right! I'll say something."
A man in a dirty white apron, drew back the heavy mass of the curtainabout eighteen inches, and, Carlo Trent stepping forward, the glare ofthe footlights suddenly lit his white face. The applause, nowmultiplied fivefold and become deafening, seemed to beat him backagainst the curtain. His lips worked. He did not bow.
"Cam back, you fool!" whispered Marrier.
And Carlo Trent stepped back into safe shelter.
"Why didn't you say something?"
"I c-couldn't," murmured the greatest dramatic poet in the world; andbegan to cry.
"Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!"
"Here!" said Edward Henry gruffly. "Get out of my way! I'll settle'em. Get out of my way!" And he riddled Carlo Trent with a fusilladeof savagely scornful glances.
The man in the apron obediently drew back the curtain again, and thenext second Edward Henry was facing an auditorium crowded with hispatrons. Everybody was standing up, chiefly in the aisles and crowded atthe entrances, and quite half the people were waving, and quite aquarter of them were shouting. He bowed several times. An age elapsed.His ears were stunned. But it seemed to him that his brain was workingwith marvellous perfection. He perceived that he had been utterly wrongabout "The Orient Pearl." And that all his advisers had been splendidlyright. He had failed to catch its charm and to feel its power. Butthis audience--this magnificent representative audience drawn fromLondon in the brilliant height of the season--had not failed.
It occurred to him to raise his hand. And as he raised his hand itoccurred to him that his hand held a lighted cigarette. A magic hushfell upon the magnificent audience, which owned all that endless line ofautomobiles outside. Edward Henry, in the hush, took a pull at hiscigarette.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, pitching his voice well, for municipalpolitics had made him a practised public speaker, "I congratulate you.This evening you--have succeeded!"
There was a roar, confused, mirthful, humorously protesting. Hedistinctly heard a man in the front row of the stalls say: "Well, forsheer nerve--!" And then go off into a peal of laughter.
He smiled and retired.
Marrier took charge of him.
"You merit the entire confectioner's shop!" exclaimed Marrier, aghast,admiring, triumphant.
Now Edward Henry had had no intention of meriting cake. He had merelyfollowed in speech the secret train of his thought. But he saw that hehad treated a West End audience as a West End audience had never beforebeen treated, and that his audacity had conquered. Hence he determinednot to refuse the cake.
"Didn't I tell you I'd settle 'em?" said he.
The band played "God Save the King."
The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure Page 48
