THE PRESIDENT
Prince's Theatre, when it was full, held three hundred and forty pounds'
worth of solid interest in the British drama. Of _The Plague-Spot_ six
evening and two morning performances were given every week for nearly a
year, and Henry's tenth averaged more than two hundred pounds a week.
His receipts from Lionel Belmont's various theatres averaged rather
more. The book had a circulation of a hundred and twenty thousand in
England, and two hundred thousand in America, and on every copy Henry
got one shilling and sixpence. The magnificent and disconcerting total
of his income from _The Plague-Spot_ within the first year, excluding
the eight thousand pounds which he had received in advance from
Macalistairs, was thirty-eight thousand pounds. I say disconcerting
because it emphatically did disconcert Henry. He could not cope with
it. He was like a child who has turned on a tap and can't turn it off
again, and finds the water covering the floor and rising, rising, over
its little shoe-tops. Not even with the help of Sir George could he
quite successfully cope with this deluge of money which threatened to
drown him each week. Sir George, accustomed to keep his nerve in such
crises, bored one hole in the floor and called it India Three per
Cents., bored a second and called it Freehold Mortgages, bored a third
and called it Great Northern Preference, and so on; but, still, Henry
was never free from danger. And the worst of it was that, long before
_The Plague-Spot_ had exhausted its geyser-like activity of throwing up
money, Henry had finished another book and another play. Fortunately,
Geraldine was ever by his side to play the wife's part.
From this point his artistic history becomes monotonous. It is the
history of his investments alone which might perchance interest the
public.
Of course, it was absolutely necessary to abandon the flat in Ashley
Gardens. A man burdened with an income of forty thousand a year, and
never secure against a sudden rise of it to fifty, sixty, or even
seventy thousand, cannot possibly live in a flat in Ashley Gardens.
Henry exists in a superb mansion in Cumberland Place. He also possesses
a vast country-house at Hindhead, Surrey. He employs a secretary, though
he prefers to dictate his work into a phonograph. His wife employs a
secretary, whose chief duty is, apparently, to see to the flowers. The
twins have each a nurse, and each a perambulator; but when they are good
they are permitted to crowd themselves into one perambulator, as a
special treat. In the newspapers they are invariably referred to as Mr.
Shakspere Knight's 'pretty children' or Mrs. Shakspere Knight's
'charming twins.' Geraldine, who has abandoned the pen, is undisputed
ruler of the material side of Henry's life. The dinners and the
receptions at Cumberland Place are her dinners and receptions. Henry has
no trouble; he does what he is told, and does it neatly. Only once did
he indicate to her, in his mild, calm way, that he could draw a line
when he chose. He chose to draw the line when Geraldine spoke of
engaging a butler, and perhaps footmen.
'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry.
'But, dearest, a great house like this----'
'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry.
'As you wish, dearest, of course.'
He would not have minded the butler, perhaps, had not his mother and
Aunt Annie been in the habit of coming up to Cumberland Place for tea.
Upon the whole the newspapers and periodicals were very kind to Henry,
and even the rudest organs were deeply interested in him. Each morning
his secretary opened an enormous packet of press-cuttings. In a good
average year he was referred to in print as a genius about a thousand
times, and as a charlatan about twenty times. He was not thin-skinned;
and he certainly was good-tempered and forgiving; and he could make
allowances for jealousy and envy. Nevertheless, now and then, some
casual mention of him, or some omission of his name from a list of
names, would sting him into momentary bitterness.
He endeavoured to enforce his old rule against interviews. But he could
not. The power of public opinion was too strong, especially the power of
American public opinion. As for photographs, they increased. He was
photographed alone, with Geraldine, with the twins, and with Geraldine
and the twins. It had to be. For permission to reproduce the most
pleasing groups, Messrs. Antonio, the eminent firm in Regent Street,
charged weekly papers a fee of two guineas.
'And this is fame!' he sometimes said to himself. And he decided that,
though fame was pleasant in many ways, it did not exactly coincide with
his early vision of it. He felt himself to be so singularly
unchangeable! It was always the same he! And he could only wear one suit
of clothes at a time, after all; and in the matter of eating, he ate
less, much less, than in the era of Dawes Road. He persisted in his
scheme of two meals a day, for it had fulfilled the doctor's prediction.
He was no longer dyspeptic. That fact alone contributed much to his
happiness.
Yes, he was happy, because he had a good digestion and a kind heart. The
sole shadow on his career was a spasmodic tendency to be bored. 'I miss
the daily journey on the Underground,' he once said to his wife. 'I
always feel that I ought to be going to the office in the morning.' 'You
dear thing!' Geraldine caressed him with her voice. 'Fancy anyone with
a gift like yours going to an office!'
Ah, that gift! That gift utterly puzzled him. 'I just sit down and
write,' he thought. 'And there it is! They go mad over it!'
At Dawes Road they worshipped him, but they worshipped the twins more.
Occasionally the twins, in state, visited Dawes Road, where Henry's
mother was a little stouter and Aunt Annie a little thinner and a little
primmer, but where nothing else was changed. Henry would have allowed
his mother fifty pounds a week or so without an instant's hesitation,
but she would not accept a penny over three pounds; she said she did not
want to be bothered.
One day Henry read in the _Times_ that the French Government had made
Tom a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and that Tom had been elected
President of the newly-formed Cosmopolitan Art Society, which was to
hold exhibitions both in London and Paris. And the _Times_ seemed to
assume that in these transactions the honour was the French Government's
and the Cosmopolitan Art Society's.
Frankly, Henry could not understand it. Tom did not even pay his
creditors.
'Well, of course,' said Geraldine, 'everybody knows that Tom _is_ a
genius.'
This speech slightly disturbed Henry. And the thought floated again
vaguely through his mind that there was something about Geraldine which
baffled him. 'But, then,' he argued, 'I expect all women are like that.'
A few days later his secretary brought him a letter.
'I say, Geraldine,' he cried, genuinely moved, on reading it. 'What do
you think? The Anti-Breakfast League want me to be the President of the
League.'
'And shall you accept?' she asked.
'Oh, certainly!' said Henry. 'And I shall suggest that it's called the
National Anti-Breakfast League in future.'
'That will be much better, dearest,' Geraldine smiled.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD