The Regent - Arnold Bennett (the best e book reader .txt) 📗

he used to say. 'And you stick up for yourself, Blanche,' he used to say. 'I'll stand by you,' he said. He was a straight 'un, my husband was. They left me alone until he died. And then they began--I mean his folks. And when Bobbie was born it got worse. Only I must say even then Mr. Wrissell never turned a hair. Everybody seemed to make out that I ought to be very grateful to them, and I ought to think myself very lucky. Me--a peeress of the realm! They wanted me to change. But how could I change? I was Blanche Wilmot--on the road for ten years--never got a show in London--and Blanche Wilmot I shall ever be--peeress or no peeress! It was no joke being Lord Woldo's wife, I can tell you, and it's still less of a joke being Lord Woldo's mother! You imagine it. It's worse than carrying about a china vase all the time on a slippery floor! Am I any happier now than I was before I married? Well, I _am_! There's more worry in one way, but there's less in another. And of course I've got Bobbie! But it isn't all beer and skittles, and I let 'em know it, too. I can't do what I like! And I'm just a sort of exile, you know. I used to enjoy being on the stage and showing myself off. A hard life, but one does enjoy it. And one gets used to it. One gets to need it. Sometimes I feel I'd give anything to be able to go on the stage again--Oh--oh--!"

She sneezed; then took breath.

"Shall I put some more coal on the fire?" Edward Henry suggested.

"Perhaps I'd better ring," she hesitated.

"No, I'll do it."

He put coal on the fire.

"And if you'd feel easier with that flannel round your head, please do put it on again."

"Well," she said, "I will. My mother used to say there was naught like red flannel for a cold."

With an actress's skill she arranged the flannel, and from its encircling folds her face emerged bewitching--and she knew it. Her complexion had suffered in ten years of the road, but its extreme beauty could not yet be denied. And Edward Henry thought:

"All the _really_ pretty girls come from the Midlands!"

"Here I am rambling on," she said. "I always was a rare rambler. What do you want me to do?"

"Exert your influence," he replied. "Don't you think it's rather hard on Rose Euclid--treating her like this? Of course people say all sorts of things about Rose Euclid--"

"I won't hear a word against Rose Euclid," cried Lady Woldo. "Whenever she was on tour, if she knew any of us were resting in the town where she was she'd send us seats. And many's the time I've cried and cried at her acting. And then she's the life and soul of the Theatrical Ladies' Guild."

"And isn't that your husband's signature?" he demanded, showing the precious option.

"Of course it is."

He did not show her the covering letter.

"And I've no doubt my husband _wanted_ a theatre built there, and he wanted to do Rose Euclid a good turn. And I'm quite positive certain sure that he didn't want any of Mr. Wrissell's rigmaroles on his land. He wasn't that sort, my husband wasn't.... You must go to law about it," she finished.

"Yes," said Edward Henry, protestingly. "And a pretty penny it would cost me! And supposing I lost, after all?... You never know. There's a much easier way than going to law,"

"What is it?"

"As I say--you exert your influence, Lady Woldo. Write and tell them I've seen you and you insist--"

"Eh! Bless you! They'd twist me round their little finger. I'm not a fool, but I'm not very clever--I know that. I shouldn't know whether I was standing on my head or my heels by the time they'd done with me. I've tried to face them out before--about things."

"Who--Mr. Wrissell, or Slossons?"

"Both? Eh, but I should like to put a spoke in Mr. Wrissell's wheel--gentleman as he is. You see he's just one of those men you can't help wanting to tease. When you're on the road you meet lots of 'em."

"I tell you what you can do!"

"What?"

"Write and tell Slossons that you don't wish them to act for you any more, and you'll go to another firm of solicitors. That would bring 'em to their senses."

"Can't! They're in the will. _He_ settled that. That's why they're so cocky."

Edward Henry persisted--and this time with an exceedingly impressive and conspiratorial air:

"I tell you another thing you could do--you really _could_ do--and it depends on nobody but yourself."

"Well," she said with decision. "I'll do it."

"Whatever it is?"

"If it's straight."

"Of course it's straight. And it would be a grand way of teasing Mr. Wrissell and all of 'em! A simply grand way! I should die of laughing."

"Well--"

At this critical point the historic conversation was interrupted by phenomena in the hall which Lady Woldo recognized with feverish excitement. Lord Woldo had safely returned from Hyde Park. Starting up, she invited Edward Henry to wait a little. A few moments later they were bending over the infant together, and Edward Henry was offering his views on the cause and cure of rash.


VII


Early on the same afternoon Edward Henry managed by a somewhat excessive obstreperousness to penetrate once more into the private room of Mr. Slosson, senior, who received him in silence.

He passed a document to Mr. Slosson.

"It's only a copy," he said. "But the original is in my pocket, and to-morrow it will be duly stamped. I'll give you the original in exchange for the stamped lease of my Piccadilly Circus plot of land. You know the money is waiting."

Mr. Slosson perused the document; and it was certainly to his credit that he did so without any superficial symptoms of dismay.

"What will Mr. Wrissell and the Woldo family say about that, do you think?" asked Edward Henry.

"Lady Woldo will never be allowed to carry it out," said Mr. Slosson.

"Who's going to stop her? She must carry it out. She wants to carry it out. She's dying to carry it out. Moreover, I shall communicate it to the papers to-night--unless you and I come to an arrangement. And if by any chance she doesn't carry it out--well, there'll be a fine society action about it, you can bet your boots, Mr. Slosson."

The document was a contract made between Blanche Lady Woldo of the one part and Edward Henry Machin of the other part, whereby Blanche Lady Woldo undertook to appear in musical comedy at any West End Theatre to be named by Edward Henry, at a salary of two hundred pounds a week for a period of six months.

"You've not got a theatre," said Mr. Slosson.

"I can get half a dozen in an hour--with that contract in my hand," said Edward Henry.

And he knew from Mr. Slosson's face that he had won.


VIII


That evening, feeling that he had earned a little recreation, he went to the Empire Theatre--not in Hanbridge, but in Leicester Square, London. The lease, with a prodigious speed hitherto unknown at Slossons', had been drawn up, engrossed and executed. The Piccadilly Circus land was his for sixty-four years.

"And I've got the old Chapel pulled down for nothing," he said to himself.

He was rather happy as he wandered about amid the brilliance of the Empire Promenade. But after half an hour of such exercise and of vain efforts to see or hear what was afoot on the stage, he began to feel rather lonely. Then it was that he caught sight of Mr. Alloyd, the architect, also lonely.

"Well," said Mr. Alloyd, curtly, with a sardonic smile. "They've telephoned me all about it. I've seen Mr. Wrissell. Just my luck! So you're the man! He pointed you out to me this morning. My design for that church would have knocked the West End! Of course Mr. Wrissell will pay me compensation, but that's not the same thing. I wanted the advertisement of the building.... Just my luck! Have a drink, will you?"

Edward Henry ultimately went with the plaintive Mr. Alloyd to his rooms in Adelphi Terrace. He quitted those rooms at something after two o'clock in the morning. He had practically given Mr. Alloyd a definite commission to design the Regent Theatre. Already he was practically the proprietor of a first-class theatre in the West End of London!

"I wonder whether Master Seven Sachs could have bettered my day's work to-day!" he reflected as he got into a taxi-cab. He had dismissed his electric brougham earlier in the evening. "I doubt if even Master Seven Sachs himself wouldn't be proud of my little scheme in Eaton Square!" said he.... "Wilkins's Hotel, please, driver."



PART II

CHAPTER VII


CORNER-STONE

I


On a morning in spring Edward Henry got out of an express at Euston which had come, not from the Five Towns, but from Birmingham. Having on the previous day been called to Birmingham on local and profitable business, he had found it convenient to spend the night there and telegraph home that London had summoned him. It was in this unostentatious, this half-furtive fashion, that his visits to London now usually occurred. Not that he was afraid of his wife! Not that he was afraid even of his mother! Oh, no! He was merely rather afraid of himself--of his own opinion concerning the metropolitan, non-local, speculative and perhaps unprofitable business to which he was committed. The fact was that he could scarcely look his women in the face when he mentioned London. He spoke vaguely of "real estate" enterprise, and left it at that. The women made no inquiries; they too left it at that. Nevertheless ...!

The episode of Wilkins's was buried, but it was imperfectly buried. The Five Towns definitely knew that he had stayed at Wilkins's for a bet, and that Brindley had discharged the bet. And rumours of his valet, his electric brougham, his theatrical supper-parties, had mysteriously hung in the streets of the Five Towns like a strange vapour. Wisps of the strange vapour had conceivably entered the precincts of his home, but nobody ever referred to them; nobody ever sniffed apprehensively nor asked anybody else whether there was not a smell of fire. The discreetness of the silence was disconcerting. Happily his relations with that angel his wife were excellent. She had carried angelicism so far as not to insist on the destruction of Carlo; and she had actually applauded, while sticking to her white apron, the sudden and startling extravagances of his toilette.

On the whole, though little short of thirty-five thousand pounds would ultimately be involved--not to speak of a liability of nearly three thousand a year for sixty-four years for ground-rent--Edward Henry was not entirely gloomy as to his prospects. He was, indubitably thinner in girth; novel problems and anxieties, and the constant annoyance of being in complete technical ignorance of his job, had removed some flesh. (And not a bad thing, either!) But on the other hand his chin exhibited one proof that life was worth living, and that he had discovered new faith in life and a new conviction of youthfulness.

He had shaved off his beard.

"Well, sir!" a voice greeted