Buried Alive: a Tale of These Days - Arnold Bennett (books to read for self improvement txt) 📗

but I do draw the line at dregs. What's the band playing? What have you been doing to-day? Is this lettuce? No, no! No bread. Didn't you hear me tell you?

Man: I've been busy with the Priam Farll affair.

Woman: Priam Farll?

Man: Yes. Painter. You know.

Woman: Oh yes. Him! I saw it on the posters. He's dead, it seems. Anything mysterious?

Man: You bet! Very odd! Frightfully rich, you know! Yet he died in a wretched hovel of a place down off the Fulham Road. And his valet's disappeared. We had the first news of the death, through our arrangement with all the registrars' clerks in London. By the bye, don't give that away--it's our speciality. Nasing sent me off at once to write up the story.

Woman: Story?

Man: The particulars. We always call it a story in Fleet Street.

Woman: What a good name! Well, did you find out anything interesting?

Man: Not very much. I saw his cousin, Duncan Farll, a money-lending lawyer in Clement's Lane--he only heard of it because we telephoned to him. But the fellow would scarcely tell me anything at all.

Woman: Really! I do hope there's something terrible.

Man: Why?

Woman: So that I can go to the inquest or the police court or whatever it is. That's why I always keep friendly with magistrates. It's so frightfully thrilling, sitting on the bench with them.

Man: There won't be any inquest. But there's something queer in it. You see, Priam Farll was never in England. Always abroad; at those foreign hotels, wandering up and down.

Woman (after a pause): I know.

Man: What do you know?

Woman: Will you promise not to chatter?

Man: Yes.

Woman: I met him once at an hotel at Ostend. He--well, he wanted most tremendously to paint my portrait. But I wouldn't let him.

Man: Why not?

Woman: If you knew what sort of man he was you wouldn't ask.

Man: Oh! But look here, I say! You must let me use that in my story. Tell me all about it.

Woman: Not for worlds.

Man: He--he made up to you?

Woman: Rather!

Priam Farll (to himself): What a barefaced lie! Never was at Ostend in my life.

Man: Can't I use it if I don't print your name--just say a distinguished actress.

Woman: Oh yes, you can do that. You might say, of the musical comedy stage.

Man: I will. I'll run something together. Trust me. Thanks awfully.

At this point a young and emaciated priest passed up the room.

Woman: Oh! Father Luke, is that you? Do come and sit here and be nice. This is Father Luke Widgery--Mr. Docksey, of the Record.

Man: Delighted.

Priest: Delighted.

Woman: Now, Father Luke, I've just got to come to your sermon to-morrow. What's it about?

Priest: Modern vice.

Woman: How charming! I read the last one--it was lovely.

Priest: Unless you have a ticket you'll never be able to get in.

Woman: But I must get in. I'll come to the vestry door, if there is a vestry door at St. Bede's.

Priest: It's impossible. You've no idea of the crush. And I've no favourites.

Woman: Oh yes, you have! You have me.

Priest: In my church, fashionable women must take their chance with the rest.

Woman: How horrid you are.

Priest: Perhaps. I may tell you, Miss Cohenson, that I've seen two duchesses standing at the back of the aisle of St. Bede's, and glad to be.

Woman: But I shan't flatter you by standing at the back of your aisle, and you needn't think it. Haven't I given you a box before now?

Priest: I only accepted the box as a matter of duty; it is part of my duty to go everywhere.

Man: Come with me, Miss Cohenson. I've got two tickets for the Record.

Woman: Oh, so you do send seats to the press?

Priest: The press is different. Waiter, bring me half a bottle of Heidsieck.

Waiter: Half a bottle of Heidsieck? Yes, sir.

Woman: Heidsieck. Well, I like that. We're dieting.

Priest: I don't like Heidsieck. But I'm dieting too. It's my doctor's orders. Every night before retiring. It appears that my system needs it. Maria Lady Rowndell insists on giving me a hundred a year to pay for it. It is her own beautiful way of helping the good cause. Ice, please, waiter. I've just been seeing her to-night. She's staying here for the season. Saves her a lot of trouble. She's very much cut up about the death of Priam Farll, poor thing! So artistic, you know! The late Lord Rowndell had what is supposed to be the finest lot of Farlls in England.

Man: Did you ever meet Priam Farll, Father Luke?

Priest: Never. I understand he was most eccentric. I hate eccentricity. I once wrote to him to ask him if he would paint a Holy Family for St. Bede's.

Man: And what did he reply?

Priest: He didn't reply. Considering that he wasn't even an R.A., I don't think that it was quite nice of him. However, Maria Lady Rowndell insists that he must be buried in Westminster Abbey. She asked me what I could do.

Woman: Buried in Westminster Abbey! I'd no idea he was so big as all that! Gracious!

Priest: I have the greatest confidence in Maria Lady Rowndell's taste, and certainly I bear no grudge. I may be able to arrange something. My uncle the Dean----

Man: Pardon me. I always understood that since you left the Church----

Priest: Since I joined the Church, you mean. There is but one.

Man: Church of England, I meant.

Priest: Ah!

Man: Since you left the Church of England, there had been a breach between the Dean and yourself.

Priest: Merely religious. Besides my sister is the Dean's favourite niece. And I am her favourite brother. My sister takes much interest in art. She has just painted a really exquisite tea-cosy for me. Of course the Dean ultimately settles these questions of national funerals, Hence...

At this point the invisible orchestra began to play "God save the King."

Woman: Oh! What a bore!

Then nearly all the lights were extinguished.

Waiter: Please, gentlemen! Gentlemen, please!

Priest: You quite understand, Mr. Docksey, that I merely gave these family details in order to substantiate my statement that I may be able to arrange something. By the way, if you would care to have a typescript of my sermon to-morrow for the Record, you can have one by applying at the vestry.

Waiter: Please, gentlemen!

Man: So good of you. As regards the burial in Westminster Abbey, I think that the Record will support the project. I say I think.

Priest: Maria Lady Rowndell will be grateful.

Five-sixths of the remaining lights went out, and the entire company followed them. In the foyer there was a prodigious crush of opera cloaks, silk hats, and cigars, all jostling together. News arrived from the Strand that the weather had turned to rain, and all the intellect of the Grand Babylon was centred upon the British climate, exactly as if the British climate had been the latest discovery of science. As the doors swung to and fro, the stridency of whistles, the throbbing of motor-cars, and the hoarse cries of inhabitants of box seats mingled strangely with the delicate babble of the interior. Then, lo! as by magic, the foyer was empty save for the denizens of the hotel who could produce evidence of identity. It had been proved to demonstration, for the sixth time that week, that in the metropolis of the greatest of Empires there is not one law for the rich and another for the poor.

Deeply affected by what he had overheard, Priam Farll rose in a lift and sought his bed. He perceived clearly that he had been among the governing classes of the realm.

* * * * *


CHAPTER IV


A Scoop

Within less than twelve hours after that conversation between members of the governing classes at the Grand Babylon Hotel, Priam Farll heard the first deep-throated echoes of the voice of England on the question of his funeral. The voice of England issued on this occasion through the mouth of the Sunday News, a newspaper which belonged to Lord Nasing, the proprietor of the Daily Record. There was a column in the Sunday News, partly concerning the meeting of Priam Farll and a celebrated star of the musical comedy stage at Ostend. There was also a leading article, in which it was made perfectly clear that England would stand ashamed among the nations, if she did not inter her greatest painter in Westminster Abbey. Only the article, instead of saying Westminster Abbey, said National Valhalla. It seemed to make a point of not mentioning Westminster Abbey by name, as though Westminster Abbey had been something not quite mentionable, such as a pair of trousers. The article ended with the word 'basilica,' and by the time you had reached this majestic substantive, you felt indeed, with the Sunday News, that a National Valhalla without the remains of a Priam Farll inside it, would be shocking, if not inconceivable.

Priam Farll was extremely disturbed.

On Monday morning the Daily Record came nobly to the support of the Sunday News. It had evidently spent its Sunday in collecting the opinions of a number of famous men--including three M.P.'s, a banker, a Colonial premier, a K.C., a cricketer, and the President of the Royal Academy--as to whether the National Valhalla was or was not a suitable place for the repose of the remains of Priam Farll; and the unanimous reply was in the affirmative. Other newspapers expressed the same view. But there were opponents of the scheme. Some organs coldly inquired what Priam Farll had done for England, and particularly for the higher life of England. He had not been a moral painter like Hogarth or Sir Noel Paton, nor a worshipper of classic legend and beauty like the unique Leighton. He had openly scorned England. He had never lived in England. He had avoided the Royal Academy, honouring every country save his own. And was he such a great painter, after all? Was he anything but a clever dauber whose work had been forced into general admiration by the efforts of a small clique of eccentric admirers? Far be it from them, the organs, to decry a dead man, but the National Valhalla was the National Valhalla.... And so on.

The penny evening papers were pro-Farll, one of them furiously so. You gathered that if Priam Farll was not buried in Westminster Abbey the penny evening papers would, from mere disgust, wipe their boots on Dover cliffs and quit England eternally for some land where art was understood. You gathered, by nightfall, that Fleet Street must be a scene of carnage, full of enthusiasts cutting each other's throats for the sake of the honour of art. However, no abnormal phenomenon was superficially observable in Fleet Street; nor was martial law proclaimed at the Arts Club in Dover Street. London was impassioned by the question of Farll's funeral; a few hours would decide if England was to be shamed among the nations: and yet the town seemed to pursue its jog-trot