THE BANK-NOTE
I.
Alderman Machin had to stand at the back, and somewhat towards the side,
of that part of the auditorium known as the Grand Circle at the Empire
Music Hall, Hanbridge. The attendants at the entrance and in the lounge,
where the salutation "Welcome" shone in electricity over a large
Cupid-surrounded mirror, had compassionately and yet exultingly told him
that there was not a seat left in the house. He had shared their
exultation. He had said to himself, full of honest pride in the Five
Towns: "This music-hall, admitted by the press to be one of the finest
in the provinces, holds over two thousand five hundred people. And yet
we can fill it to overflowing twice every night! And only a few years
ago there wasn't a decent music-hall in the entire district!"
The word "progress" flitted through his head.
It was not strictly true that the Empire was or could be filled to
overflowing twice every night, but it was true that at that particular
moment not a seat was unsold; and the aspect of a crowded auditorium is
apt to give an optimistic quality to broad generalisations. Alderman
Machin began instinctively to calculate the amount of money in the
house, and to wonder whether there would be a chance for a second
music-hall in the dissipated town of Hanbridge. He also wondered why
the idea of a second music-hall in Hanbridge had never occurred to him
before.
The Grand Circle was so-called because it was grand. Its plush
fauteuils cost a shilling, no mean price for a community where seven
pounds of potatoes can be bought for sixpence, and the view of the stage
therefrom was perfect. But the alderman's view was far from perfect,
since he had to peer as best he could between and above the shoulders of
several men, each apparently, but not really, taller than himself. By
constant slight movements to comply with the movements of the rampart of
shoulders, he could discern fragments of various advertisements of soap,
motor-cars, whisky, shirts, perfume, pills, bricks, and tea, for the
drop-curtain was down. And, curiously, he felt obliged to keep his eyes
on the drop-curtain, and across the long intervening vista of hats and
heads and smoke, to explore its most difficult corners again and again,
lest, when it went up, he might not be in proper practice for seeing
what was behind it.
Nevertheless, despite the marked inconveniences of his situation, he
felt brighter, he felt almost happy in this dense atmosphere of success.
He even found a certain peculiar and perverse satisfaction in the fact
that he had as yet been recognised by nobody. Once or twice the owners
of shoulders had turned and deliberately glared at the worrying fellow
who had the impudence to be all the time peeping over them and between
them; they had not distinguished the fellow from any ordinary fellow.
Could they have known that he was the famous Alderman Edward Henry
Machin, founder and sole proprietor of the Thrift Club, into which their
wives were probably paying so much a week, they would most assuredly
have glared to another tune, and they would have said with pride
afterwards, "That chap Machin o' Bursley was standing behind me at the
Empire to-night." And though Machin is amongst the commonest names in
the Five Towns, all would have known that the great and admired Denry
was meant. It was astonishing that a personage so notorious should not
have been instantly "spotted" in such a resort as the Empire. More
proof that the Five Towns was a vast and seething concentration of
cities, and no longer a mere district where everybody knew everybody.
The curtain rose, and, as it did so, a thunderous, crashing applause of
greeting broke forth--applause that thrilled and impressed and inspired;
applause that made every individual in the place feel right glad that he
was there. For the curtain had risen on the gigantic attraction which
many members of the audience were about to see for the fifth time that
week; in fact, it was rumoured that certain men of fashion, whose habit
was to refuse themselves nothing, had attended every performance of the
gigantic attraction since the second house on Monday.
The scene represented a restaurant of quiet aspect, into which entered a
waiter bearing a pile of plates some two feet high. The waiter being
intoxicated, the tower of plates leaned this way and that as he
staggered about, and the whole house really did hold its breath in the
simultaneous hope and fear of an enormous and resounding smash. Then
entered a second intoxicated waiter, also bearing a pile of plates some
two feet high; and the risk of destruction was thus more than
doubled--it was quadrupled, for each waiter, in addition to the risks of
his own inebriety, was now subject to the dreadful peril of colliding
with the other. However, there was no catastrophe.
Then arrived two customers, one in a dress suit and an eye-glass, and
the other in a large violet hat, a diamond necklace, and a yellow satin
skirt. The which customers, seemingly well used to the sight of drunken
waiters tottering to and fro with towers of plates, sat down at a table
and waited calmly for attention. The popular audience, with that quick
mental grasp for which popular audiences are so renowned, soon perceived
that the table was in close proximity to a lofty sideboard, and that on
either hand of the sideboard were two chairs, upon which the two waiters
were trying to climb in order to deposit their plates on the top-most
shelf of the sideboard. The waiters successfully mounted the chairs,
and successfully lifted their towers of plates to within half an inch of
the desired shelf, and then the chairs began to show signs of
insecurity. By this time the audience was stimulated to an ecstasy of
expectation, whose painfulness was only equalled by its extreme
delectability. The sole unmoved persons in the building were the
customers awaiting attention at the restaurant table.
One tower was safely lodged on the shelf. But was it? It was not!
Yes? No! It curved; it straightened; it curved again. The excitement
was as keen as that of watching a drowning man attempt to reach the
shore. It was simply excruciating. It could not be borne any longer,
and when it could not be borne any longer, the tower sprawled
irrevocably, and seven dozen plates fell in a cascade on the violet hat,
and so, with an inconceivable clatter, to the floor. Almost at the same
moment the being in the dress suit and the eye-glass--becoming aware of
the phenomena--slightly unusual even in a restaurant, dropped his
eye-glass, turned round to the sideboard, and received the other
waiter's seven dozen plates in the face and on the crown of his head.
No such effect had ever been seen in the Five Towns, and the felicity of
the audience exceeded all previous felicities. The audience yelled,
roared, shrieked, gasped, trembled, and punched itself in a furious
passion of pleasure. They make plates in the Five Towns. They live by
making plates. They understand plates. In the Five Towns a man will
carry not seven but twenty-seven dozen plates on a swaying plank for
eight hours a day, up steps and down steps, and in doorways and out of
doorways, and not break one plate in seven years! Judge, therefore, the
simple but terrific satisfaction of a Five Towns' audience in the
hugeness of the calamity. Moreover, every plate smashed means a demand
for a new plate and increased prosperity for the Five Towns. The
grateful crowd in the auditorium of the Empire would have covered the
stage with wreaths if it had known that wreaths were used for other
occasions than funerals; which it did not know.
Fresh complications instantly ensued which cruelly cut short the
agreeable exercise of uncontrolled laughter. It was obvious that one of
the waiters was about to fall. And in the enforced tranquillity of a
new dread, every dyspeptic person in the house was deliciously conscious
of a sudden freedom from indigestion, due to the agreeable exercise of
uncontrolled laughter, and wished fervently that he could laugh like
that after every meal. The waiter fell; he fell through the large violet
hat and disappeared beneath the surface of a sea of crockery. The other
waiter fell too, but the sea was not deep enough to drown a couple of
them. Then the customers, recovering themselves, decided that they must
not be outclassed in this competition of havoc, and they overthrew the
table and everything on it, and all the other tables, and everything on
all the other tables. The audience was now a field of artillery which
nothing could silence. The waiters arose, and, opening the sideboard,
disclosed many hundreds of unsuspected plates of all kinds, ripe for
smashing. Niagaras of plates surged on to the stage. All four
performers revelled and wallowed in smashed plates. New supplies of
plates were constantly being produced from strange concealments, and
finally the tables and chairs were broken to pieces, and each object on
the walls was torn down and flung in bits on to the gorgeous general
debris, to the top of which clambered the violet hat, necklace, and
yellow petticoat, brandishing one single little plate, whose life had
been miraculously spared. Shrieks of joy in that little plate played
over the din like lightning in a thunder-storm. And the curtain fell.
It was rung up fifteen times, and fifteen times the quartette of
artists, breathless, bowed in acknowledgment of the frenzied and
boisterous testimony to their unique talents. No singer, no tragedian,
no comedian, no wit, could have had such a triumph, could have given
such intense pleasure. And yet none of the four had spoken a word.
Such is genius!
At the end of the fifteenth call the stage-manager came before the
curtain and guaranteed that two thousand four hundred plates had been
broken.
The lights went up. Strong men were seen to be wiping tears from their
eyes. Complete strangers were seen addressing each other in the manner
of old friends. Such is art!
"Well, that was worth a bob, that was!" muttered Edward Henry to
himself. And it was. Edward Henry had not escaped the general fate.
Nobody, being present, could have escaped it. He was enchanted. He had
utterly forgotten every care.
"Good evening, Mr. Machin," said a voice at his side. Not only he
turned, but nearly every one in the vicinity turned. The voice was the
voice of the stout and splendid managing director of the Empire, and it
sounded with the ring of authority above the rising tinkle of the bar
behind the Grand Circle.
"Oh! How d'ye do, Mr. Dakins?" Edward Henry held out a cordial hand,
for even the greatest men are pleased to be greeted in a place of
entertainment by the managing director thereof. Further, his identity
was now recognised.
"Haven't you seen those gentlemen in that box beckoning to you?" said
Mr. Dakins, proudly deprecating complimentary remarks on the show.
"Which box?"
Mr. Dakins' hand indicated the stage-box. And Henry, looking, saw three
men, one unknown to him; the second, Robert Brindley, the architect, of
Bursley; and the third, Dr. Stirling.
Instantly his conscience leapt up within him. He thought of rabies.
Yes, sobered in the fraction of a second, he thought of rabies.
Supposing that, after all, in spite of Mr. Long's muzzling order, as
cited by his infant son, an odd case of rabies should have lingered in
the British Isles, and supposing that Carlo had been infected! Not
impossible! Was it providential that Dr. Stirling was in the
auditorium?
"You know two of them?" said Mr. Dakins.
"Yes."
"Well, the third's a Mr. Bryany. He's manager to Mr. Seven Sachs." Mr.
Dakins' tone was respectful.
"And who's Mr. Seven Sachs?" asked Edward Henry absently. It was a
stupid question.
He was impressively informed that Mr. Seven Sachs was the arch-famous
American actor-playwright, now nearing the end of a provincial tour
which had surpassed all records of provincial tours, and that he would
be at the Theatre Royal, Hanbridge, next week. Edward Henry then
remembered that the hoardings had been full of Mr. Seven Sachs for some
time past.
"They keep on making signs to you," said Mr. Dakins, referring to the
occupants of the stage-box.
Edward Henry waved a reply to the box.
"Here! I'll take you there the shortest way," said Mr. Dakins.
II.
"Welcome to Stirling's box, Machin!" Robert Brindley greeted the
alderman with an almost imperceptible wink. Edward Henry had
encountered this wink once or twice before; he could not decide
precisely what it meant; it was apt to make him reflective. He did not
dislike Robert Brindley, his habit was not to dislike people; he
admitted Brindley to be a clever architect, though he objected to the
"modern" style of the fronts of his houses and schools. But he did take
exception to the man's attitude towards the Five Towns, of which, by the
way, Brindley was just as much a native as himself. Brindley seemed to
live in the Five Towns like a highly cultured stranger in a savage land,
and to derive rather too much sardonic amusement from the spectacle of
existence therein. Brindley was a very special crony of Stirling's, and
had influenced Stirling. But Stirling was too clever to submit unduly
to the influence. Besides, Stirling was not a native; he was only a
Scotchman, and Edward Henry considered that what Stirling thought of the
district did not matter. Other details about Brindley which Edward
Henry deprecated were his necktie, which, for Edward Henry's taste, was
too flowing, his scorn of the "Pianisto" (despite the man's tremendous
interest in music), and his incipient madness on the subject of books--a
madness shared by Stirling. Brindley and the doctor were forever
chattering about books, and buying them.
So that, on the whole, Dr. Stirling's box was not a place where Edward
Henry felt entirely at home. Nevertheless, the two men, having presented
Mr. Bryany, did their best, each in his own way, to make him feel at
home.
"Take this chair, Machin," said Stirling, indicating a chair at the
front.
"Oh, I can't take the front chair!" Edward Henry protested.
"Of course you can, my dear Machin," said Brindley sharply. "The front
chair in a stage-box is the one proper seat in the house for you. Do as
your doctor prescribes."
And Edward Henry accordingly sat down at the front, with Mr. Bryany by
his side; and the other two sat behind. But Edward Henry was not quite
comfortable. He faintly resented that speech of Brindley's. And yet he
did feel that what Brindley had said was true, and he was indeed glad to
be in the front chair of a brilliant stage-box on the grand tier,
instead of being packed away in the nethermost twilight of the Grand
Circle. He wondered how Brindley and Stirling had managed to
distinguish his face among the confusion of faces in that distant
obscurity; he, Edward Henry, had failed to notice them, even in the
prominence of their box. But that they had distinguished him showed how
familiar and striking a figure he was. He wondered, too, why they
should have invited him to hobnob with them. He was not of their set.
Indeed, like many very eminent men, he was not to any degree in
anybody's set. Of one thing he was sure,--because he had read it on the
self-conscious faces of all three of them,--namely, that they had been
discussing him. Possibly he had been brought up for Mr. Bryany's
inspection as a major lion and character of the district. Well, he did
not mind that; nay, he enjoyed that. He could feel Mr. Bryany covertly
looking him over. And he thought: "Look, my boy! I make no charge."
He smiled and nodded to one or two people who with pride saluted him
from the stalls. It was meet that he should be visible there on that
Friday night!
"A full house!" he observed, to break the rather awkward silence of the
box, as he glanced round at the magnificent smoke-veiled pageant of the
aristocracy and the democracy of the Five Towns crowded together, tier
above gilded tier, up to the dim roof where ragged lads and maids
giggled and flirted while waiting for the broken plates to be cleared
away and the moving pictures to begin.
"You may say it!" agreed Mr. Bryany, who spoke with a very slight
American accent. "Dakins positively hadn't a seat to offer me. I
happened to have the evening free. It isn't often I do have a free
evening. And so I thought I'd pop in here. But if Dakins hadn't
introduced me to these gentlemen, my seat would have had to be a
standing one."
"So that's how they got to know him, is it?" thought Edward Henry.
And then there was another short silence.
"Hear you've been doing something striking in rubber shares, Machin?"
said Brindley at length.
Astonishing how these things got abroad!
"Oh, very little, very little!" Edward Henry laughed modestly. "Too
late to do much! In another fortnight the bottom will be all out of the
rubber market!"
"Of course I'm an Englishman--" Mr. Bryany began.
"Why 'of course'?" Edward Henry interrupted him.
"Hear! Hear! Alderman. Why 'of course'?" said Brindley approvingly,
and Stirling's rich laugh was heard. "Only it does just happen,"
Brindley added, "that Mr. Bryany did us the honour to be born in the
district."
"Yes. Longshaw," Mr. Bryany admitted, half proud and half apologetic,
"which I left at the age of two."
"Oh, Longshaw!" murmured Edward Henry with a peculiar inflection, which
had a distinct meaning for at least two of his auditors.
Longshaw is at the opposite end of the Five Towns from Bursley, and the
majority of the inhabitants of Bursley have never been to Longshaw in
their lives, have only heard of it, as they hear of Chicago or Bangkok.
Edward Henry had often been to Longshaw, but, like every visitor from
Bursley, he instinctively regarded it as a foolish and unnecessary
place.
"As I was saying," resumed Mr. Bryany, quite unintimidated, "I'm an
Englishman. But I've lived eighteen years in America, and it seems to
me the bottom will soon be knocked out of pretty nearly all the markets
in England. Look at the Five Towns!"
"No, don't, Mr. Bryany!" said Brindley. "Don't go to extremes."
"Personally, I don't mind looking at the Five Towns," said Edward Henry.
"What of it?"
"Well, did you ever see such people for looking twice at a five-pound
note?"
Edward Henry most certainly did not like this aspersion on his native
district. He gazed in silence at Mr. Bryany's brassy and yet simple
face, and did not like the face either.
And Mr. Bryany, beautifully unaware that he had failed in tact,
continued: "The Five Towns is the most English place I've ever seen,
believe me! Of course it has its good points, and England has her good
points; but there's no money stirring. There's no field for speculation
on the spot, and as for outside investment, no Englishman will touch
anything that really is good." He emphasised the last three words.
"What d'ye do yeself, Mr. Bryany?" inquired Dr. Stirling.
"What do I do with my little bit?" cried Mr. Bryany. "Oh, I know what
to do with my little bit. I can get ten per cent. in Seattle, and
twelve to fifteen in Calgary, on my little bit; and security just as
good as English railway stock--_and_ better."
The theatre was darkened, and the cinematograph began its reckless
twinkling.
Mr. Bryany went on offering to Edward Henry, in a suitably lowered
voice, his views on the great questions of investment and speculation;
and Edward Henry made cautious replies.
"And even when there is a good thing going at home," Mr. Bryany said, in
a wounded tone, "what Englishman'd look at it?"
"I would," said Edward Henry with a blandness that was only skin-deep,
for all the time he was cogitating the question whether the presence of
Dr. Stirling in the audience ought or ought not to be regarded as
providential.
"Now, I've got the option on a little affair in London," said Mr.
Bryany, while Edward Henry glanced quickly at him in the darkness, "and
can I get anybody to go into it? I can't."
"What sort of a little affair?"
"Building a theatre in the West End."
Even a less impassive man than Edward Henry would have started at the
coincidence of this remark. And Edward Henry started. Twenty minutes
ago he had been idly dreaming of theatrical speculation, and now he
could almost see theatrical speculation shimmering before him in the
pale shifting rays of the cinematograph that cut through the gloom of
the mysterious auditorium.
"Oh!" And in this new interest he forgot the enigma of the ways of
Providence.
"Of course, you know, I'm in the business," said Mr. Bryany. "I'm Seven
Sachs's manager." It was as if he owned and operated Mr. Seven Sachs.
"So I heard," said Edward Henry, and then remarked with mischievous
cordiality: "And I suppose these chaps told you I was the sort of man
you were after. And you got them to ask me in, eh, Mr. Bryany?"
Mr. Bryany gave an uneasy laugh, but seemed to find naught to say.
"Well, what is your little affair?" Edward Henry encouraged him.
"Oh, I can't tell you now," said Mr. Bryany. "It would take too long.
The thing has to be explained."
"Well, what about to-morrow?"
"I have to leave for London by the first train in the morning."
"Well, some other time?"
"After to-morrow will be too late."
"Well, what about to-night?"
"The fact is, I've half promised to go with Dr. Stirling to some club or
other after the show. Otherwise we might have had a quiet confidential
chat in my rooms over the Turk's Head. I never dreamt--" Mr. Bryany
was now as melancholy as a greedy lad who regards rich fruit at arm's
length through a plate-glass window, and he had ceased to be
patronising.
"I'll soon get rid of Stirling for you," said Edward Henry, turning
instantly towards the doctor. The ways of Providence had been made plain
to Edward Henry. "I say, Doc!" But the Doctor and Brindley were in
conversation with another man at the open door of the box.
"What is it?" said Stirling.
"I've come to fetch you. You're wanted at my place."
"Well, you're a caution!" said Stirling.
"Why am I a caution?" Edward Henry smoothly protested. "I didn't tell
you before because I didn't want to spoil your fun."
Stirling's mien was not happy.
"Did they tell you I was here?" he asked.
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" said Edward Henry in a playful,
enigmatic tone. After all, he decided privately, his wife was right: it
was better that Stirling should see the infant. And there was also this
natural human thought in his mind: he objected to the doctor giving an
entire evening to diversions away from home; he considered that a
doctor, when not on a round of visits, ought to be forever in his
consulting-room, ready for a sudden call of emergency. It was monstrous
that Stirling should have proposed, after an escapade at the music-hall,
to spend further hours with chance acquaintances in vague clubs! Half
the town might fall sick and die while the doctor was vainly amusing
himself. Thus the righteous layman in Edward Henry!
"What's the matter?" asked Stirling.
"My eldest's been rather badly bitten by a dog, and the missis wants it
cauterized."
"Really?"
"Well, you bet she does!"
"Where's the bite?"
"In the calf."
The other man at the door having departed, Robert Brindley abruptly
joined the conversation at this point.
"I suppose you've heard of that case of hydrophobia at Bleakridge?" said
Brindley.
Edward Henry's heart jumped.
"No, I haven't," he said anxiously. "What is it?"
He gazed at the white blur of Brindley's face in the darkened box, and
he could hear the rapid clicking of the cinematograph behind him.
"Didn't you see it in the _Signal_?"
"No."
"Neither did I," said Brindley.
At the same moment the moving pictures came to an end, the theatre was
filled with light, and the band began to play, "God Save the King."
Brindley and Stirling were laughing. And indeed, Brindley had scored,
this time, over the unparalleled card of the Five Towns.
"I make you a present of that," said Edward Henry. "But my wife's most
precious infant has to be cauterized, Doctor," he added firmly.
"Got your car here?" Stirling questioned.
"No. Have you?"
"No."
"Well, there's the tram. I'll follow you later. I've some business
round this way. Persuade my wife not to worry, will you?"
And when a discontented Dr. Stirling had made his excuses and adieux to
Mr. Bryany, and Robert Brindley had decided that he could not leave his
crony to travel by tram-car alone, and the two men had gone, then Edward
Henry turned to Mr. Bryany:
"That's how I get rid of the doctor, you see."
"But _has_ your child been bitten by a dog?" asked Mr. Bryany, acutely
perplexed.
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" Edward Henry replied, carefully
non-committal. "What price going to the Turk's Head now?"
He remembered with satisfaction, and yet with misgiving, a remark made
to him, a judgment passed on him, by a very old woman very many years
before. This discerning hag, the Widow Hullins by name, had said to him
briefly, "Well, you're a queer 'un!"
III.
Within five minutes he was following Mr. Bryany into a small parlour on
the first floor of the Turk's Head, a room with which he had no previous
acquaintance, though, like most industrious men of affairs in
metropolitan Hanbridge, he reckoned to know something about the Turk's
Head. Mr. Bryany turned up the gas (the Turk's Head took pride in being
a "hostelry," and, while it had accustomed itself to incandescent
mantles on the ground floor, it had not yet conquered a natural distaste
for electricity) and Edward Henry saw a smart despatch-box, a dress
suit, a trouser-stretcher, and other necessaries of theatrical business
life at large in the apartment.
"I've never seen this room before," said Edward Henry.
"Take your overcoat off and sit down, will you?" said Mr. Bryany as he
turned to replenish the fire from a bucket. "It's my private
sitting-room. Whenever I am on my travels, I always take a private
sitting-room. It pays, you know. Of course I mean if I'm alone. When
I'm looking after Mr. Sachs, of course we share a sitting-room."
Edward Henry agreed lightly:
"I suppose so."
But the fact was that he was much impressed. He himself had never taken
a private sitting-room in any hotel. He had sometimes felt the desire,
but he had not had the "face," as they say down there, to do it. To
take a private sitting-room in a hotel was generally regarded in the
Five Towns as the very summit of dashing expensiveness and futile
luxury.
"I didn't know they had private sitting-rooms in this shanty," said
Edward Henry.
Mr. Bryany, having finished with the fire, fronted him, shovel in hand,
with a remarkable air of consummate wisdom, and replied:
"You can generally get what you want if you insist on having it, even in
this 'shanty.'"
Edward Henry regretted his use of the word "shanty." Inhabitants of the
Five Towns may allow themselves to twit the historic and excellent
Turk's Head, but they do not extend the privilege to strangers. And in
justice to the Turk's Head, it is to be clearly stated that it did no
more to cow and discourage travellers than any other provincial hotel in
England. It was a sound and serious English provincial hotel; and it
linked century to century.
Said Mr. Bryany:
"'Merica's the place for hotels."
"Yes, I expect it is."
"Been to Chicago?"
"No, I haven't."
Mr. Bryany, as he removed his overcoat, could be seen politely
forbearing to raise his eyebrows.
"Of course you've been to New York?"
Edward Henry would have given all he had in his pockets to be able to
say that he had been to New York, but, by some inexplicable negligence,
he had hitherto omitted to go to New York, and, being a truthful person,
except in the gravest crises, he was obliged to answer miserably:
"No, I haven't."
Mr. Bryany gazed at him with amazement and compassion, apparently
staggered by the discovery that there existed in England a man of the
world who had contrived to struggle on for forty years without
perfecting his education by a visit to New York.
Edward Henry could not tolerate Mr. Bryany's look. It was a look which
he had never been able to tolerate on the features of anybody
whatsoever. He reminded himself that his secret object in accompanying
Mr. Bryany to the Turk's Head was to repay Mr. Bryany--in what coin he
knew not yet--for the aspersions which at the music-hall he had cast
upon England in general and upon the Five Towns in particular, and also
to get revenge for having been tricked into believing, even for a
moment, that there was really a case of hydrophobia at Bleakridge. It
is true that Mr. Bryany was innocent of this deception, which had been
accomplished by Robert Brindley, but that was a detail which did not
trouble Edward Henry, who lumped his grievances together--for
convenience.
He had been reflecting that some sentimental people, unused to the ways
of paternal affection in the Five Towns, might consider him a rather
callous father; he had been reflecting, again, that Nellie's suggestion
of blood-poisoning might not be as entirely foolish as feminine
suggestions in such circumstances too often are. But now he put these
thoughts away, reassuring himself against hydrophobia anyhow, by the
recollection of the definite statement of the Encyclopedia. Moreover,
had he not inspected the wound--as healthy a wound as you could wish
for?
And he said in a new tone, very curtly:
"Now, Mr. Bryany, what about this little affair of yours?"
He saw that Mr. Bryany accepted the implied rebuke with the deference
properly shown by a man who needs something towards the man in
possession of what he needs. And studying the fellow's countenance, he
decided that, despite its brassiness and simple cunning, it was scarcely
the countenance of a rascal.
"Well, it's like this," said Mr. Bryany, sitting down opposite Edward
Henry at the centre table, and reaching with obsequious liveliness for
the despatch-box.
He drew from the despatch-box, which was lettered "W.C.B.," first a
cut-glass flask of whisky, with a patent stopper, and then a spacious
box of cigarettes.
"I always travel with the right sort," he remarked, holding the golden
liquid up to the light. "It's safer, and it saves any trouble with
orders after closing-time. These English hotels, you know--!"
So saying, he dispensed whisky and cigarettes, there being a siphon and
glasses, and three matches in a match-stand, on the table.
"Here's looking!" he said, with raised glass.
And Edward Henry responded, in conformity with the changeless ritual of
the Five Towns:
"I looks!"
And they sipped.
Whereupon Mr. Bryany next drew from the despatch-box a piece of
transparent paper.
"I want you to look at this plan of Piccadilly Circus and environs,"
said he.
Now there is a Piccadilly in Hanbridge; also a Pall Mall, and a Chancery
Lane. The adjective "metropolitan," applied to Hanbridge is just.
"London?" questioned Edward Henry. "I understood London when we were
chatting over there." With his elbow he indicated the music-hall,
somewhere vaguely outside the room.
"London," said Mr. Bryany.
And Edward Henry thought:
"What on earth am I meddling with London for? What use should I be in
London?"
"You see the plot marked in red?" Mr. Bryany proceeded. "Well, that's
the site. There's an old chapel on it now."
"What do all these straight lines mean?" Edward Henry inquired,
examining the plan. Lines radiated from the red plot in various
directions.
"Those are the lines of vision," said Mr. Bryany. "They show just where
an electric sign at the corner of the front of the proposed theatre
could be seen from. You notice the site is not in the Circus itself--a
shade to the north." Mr. Bryany's finger approached Edward Henry's on
the plan and the clouds from their cigarettes fraternally mingled. "Now
you see by those lines that the electric sign of the proposed theatre
would be visible from nearly the whole of Piccadilly Circus, parts of
Lower Regent Street, Coventry Street, and even Shaftesbury Avenue. You
see what a site it is--absolutely unique."
Edward Henry asked coldly:
"Have you bought it?"
"No," Mr. Bryany seemed to apologise, "I haven't exactly bought it; but
I've got an option on it."
The magic word "option" wakened the drowsy speculator in Edward Henry.
And the mere act of looking at the plan endowed the plot of land with
reality. There it was. It existed.
"An option to buy it?"
"You can't buy land in the West End of London," said Mr. Bryany sagely.
"You can only lease it."
"Well, of course," Edward Henry concurred.
"The freehold belongs to Lord Woldo, now aged six months."
"Really!" murmured Edward Henry.
"I've got an option to take up the remainder of the lease, with
sixty-four years to run, on the condition I put up a theatre. And the
option expires in exactly a fortnight's time."
Edward Henry frowned, and then asked:
"What are the figures?"
"That is to say," Mr. Bryany corrected himself, smiling courteously,
"I've got half the option."
"And who's got the other half?"
"Rose Euclid's got the other half."
At the mention of the name of one of the most renowned star actresses in
England, Edward Henry excusably started.
"Not _the_--?" he exclaimed.
Mr. Bryany nodded proudly, blowing out much smoke.
"Tell me," asked Edward Henry, confidentially, leaning forward, "where
do those ladies get their names from?"
"It happens in this case to be her real name," said Mr. Bryany. "Her
father kept a tobacconists' shop in Cheapside. The sign was kept up for
many years, until Rose paid to have it changed."
"Well, well!" breathed Edward Henry, secretly thrilled by these
extraordinary revelations. "And so you and she have got it between
you?"
Mr. Bryany said:
"I bought half of it from her some time ago. She was badly hard up for a
hundred pounds, and I let her have the money." He threw away his
cigarette half-smoked, with a free gesture that seemed to imply that he
was capable of parting with a hundred pounds just as easily.
"How did she _get_ the option?" Edward Henry inquired, putting into the
query all the innuendo of a man accustomed to look at great worldly
affairs from the inside.
"How did she get it? She got it from the late Lord Woldo. She was
always very friendly with the late Lord Woldo, you know." Edward Henry
nodded. "Why, she and the Countess of Chell are as thick as thieves!
You know something about the countess down here, I reckon?"
The Countess of Chell was the wife of the supreme local magnate.
Edward Henry answered calmly, "We do."
He was tempted to relate a unique adventure of his youth, when he had
driven the countess to a public meeting in his mule-carriage; but sheer
pride kept him silent.
"I asked you for the figures," he added in a manner which requested Mr.
Bryany to remember that he was the founder, chairman, and proprietor of
the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, one of the most successful
business organisations in the Midlands.
"Here they are," said Mr. Bryany, passing across the table a sheet of
paper.
And as Edward Henry studied them he could hear Mr. Bryany faintly cooing
into his ear: "Of course Rose got the ground-rent reduced. And when I
tell you that the demand for theatres in the West End far exceeds the
supply, and that theatre rents are always going up; when I tell you that
a theatre costing L25,000 to build can be let for L11,000 a year, and
often L300 a week on a short term--" And he could hear the gas singing
over his head; and also, unhappily, he could hear Dr. Stirling talking
to his wife and saying to her that the bite was far more serious than it
looked, and Nellie hoping very audibly that nothing had "happened" to
him, her still absent husband. And then he could hear Mr. Bryany again:
"When I tell you--"
"When you tell me all this, Mr. Bryany," he interrupted with the
ferocity which in the Five Towns is regarded as mere directness, "I
wonder why the devil you want to sell your half of the option if you
_do_ want to sell it. Do you want to sell it?"
"To tell you the truth," said Mr. Bryany as if up to that moment he had
told naught but lies, "I do."
"Why?"
"Oh, I'm always travelling about, you see. England one day, America the
next." Apparently he had quickly abandoned the strictness of veracity.
"All depends on the governor's movements. I couldn't keep a proper eye
on an affair of that kind."
Edward Henry laughed:
"And could I?"
"Chance for you to go a bit oftener to London," said Mr. Bryany,
laughing too. Then, with extreme and convincing seriousness, "You're
the very man for a thing of that kind. And you know it."
Edward Henry was not displeased by this flattery.
"How much?"
"How much? Well, I told you frankly what I paid. I made no concealment
of that, did I now? Well, I want what I paid. It's worth it!"
"Got a copy of the option, I hope!"
Mr. Bryany produced a copy of the option.
"I am nothing but an infernal ass to mix myself up in a mad scheme like
this," said Edward Henry to his soul, perusing the documents. "It's
right off my line, right bang off it. But what a lark!" But even to
his soul he did not utter the remainder of the truth about himself,
namely, "I should like to cut a dash before this insufferable patroniser
of England and the Five Towns."
Suddenly something snapped within him, and he said to Mr. Bryany:
"I'm on!"
Those words and no more!
"You are?" Mr. Bryany exclaimed, mistrusting his ears.
Edward Henry nodded.
"Well, that's business anyway," said Mr. Bryany, taking a fresh
cigarette and lighting it.
"It's how we do business down here," said Edward Henry, quite
inaccurately; for it was not in the least how they did business down
there.
Mr. Bryany asked, with a rather obvious anxiety:
"But when can you pay?
"Oh, I'll send you a cheque in a day or two." And Edward Henry in his
turn took a fresh cigarette.
"That won't do! That won't do!" cried Mr. Bryany. "I absolutely must
have the money to-morrow morning in London. I can sell the option in
London for eighty pounds, I know that."
"You must have it?"
"Must!"
They exchanged glances. And Edward Henry, rapidly acquiring new
knowledge of human nature on the threshold of a world strange to him,
understood that Mr. Bryany, with his private sitting-room and his
investments in Seattle and Calgary, was at his wits' end for a bag of
English sovereigns, and had trusted to some chance encounter to save him
from a calamity. And his contempt for Mr. Bryany was that of a man to
whom his bankers are positively servile.
"Here," Mr. Bryany almost shouted, "don't light your cigarette with my
option!"
"I beg pardon," Edward Henry apologised, dropping the document which he
had creased into a spill. There were no matches left on the table.
"I'll find you a match."
"It's of no consequence," said Edward Henry, feeling in his pockets.
Having discovered therein a piece of paper, he twisted it and rose to
put it to the gas.
"Could you slip round to your bank and meet me at the station in the
morning with the cash?" suggested Mr. Bryany.
"No, I couldn't," said Edward Henry.
"Well, then, what--?"
"Here, you'd better take this," the Card, reborn, soothed his host, and,
blowing out the spill which he had just ignited at the gas, he offered
it to Mr. Bryany.
"What?"
"This, man!"
Mr. Bryany, observing the peculiarity of the spill, seized it and
unrolled it, not without a certain agitation.
He stammered:
"Do you mean to say it's genuine?"
"You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?" said Edward Henry. He was
growing fond of this reply, and of the enigmatic playful tone that he
had invented for it.
"But--"
"We may, as you say, look twice at a fiver," continued Edward Henry,
"but we're apt to be careless about hundred-pound notes in this
district. I daresay that's why I always carry one."
"But it's burnt!"
"Only just the edge, not enough to harm it. If any bank in England
refuses it, return it to me, and I'll give you a couple more in
exchange. Is that talking?"
"Well, I'm dashed!" Mr. Bryany attempted to rise, and then subsided
back into his chair. "I am simply and totally dashed!" He smiled
weakly, hysterically.
And in that instant Edward Henry felt all the sweetness of a complete
and luscious revenge.
He said commandingly:
"You must sign me a transfer. I'll dictate it."
Then he jumped up.
"You're in a hurry?"
"I am. My wife is expecting me. You promised to find me a match."
Edward Henry waved the unlit cigarette as a reproach to Mr. Bryany's
imperfect hospitality.
IV.
The clock of Bleakridge Church, still imperturbably shining in the
night, showed a quarter to one when he saw it again on his hurried and
guilty way home. The pavements were drying in the fresh night wind, and
he had his overcoat buttoned up to the neck. He was absolutely solitary
in the long, muddy perspective of Trafalgar Road. He walked because the
last tram-car was already housed in its shed at the other end of the
world, and he walked quickly because his conscience drove him onwards.
And yet he dreaded to arrive, lest a wound in the child's leg should
have maliciously decided to fester in order to put him in the wrong. He
was now as apprehensive concerning that wound as Nellie herself had been
at tea-time.
But in his mind, above the dark gulf of anxiety, there floated brighter
thoughts. Despite his fears and his remorse as a father, he laughed
aloud in the deserted street when he remembered Mr. Bryany's visage of
astonishment upon uncreasing the note. Indubitably, he made a terrific
and everlasting impression upon Mr. Bryany. He was sending Mr. Bryany
out of the Five Towns a different man. He had taught Mr. Bryany a thing
or two. To what brilliant use had he turned the purely accidental
possession of a hundred-pound note! One of his finest inspirations--an
inspiration worthy of the great days of his youth! Yes, he had had his
hour that evening, and it had been a glorious one. Also, it had cost him
a hundred pounds, and he did not care; he would retire to bed with a net
gain of two hundred and forty-one pounds instead of three hundred and
forty-one pounds, that was all.
For he did not mean to take up the option. The ecstasy was cooled now,
and he saw clearly that London and theatrical enterprises therein would
not be suited to his genius. In the Five Towns he was on his own
ground; he was a figure; he was sure of himself. In London he would be
a provincial, with the diffidence and the uncertainty of a provincial.
Nevertheless, London seemed to be summoning him from afar off, and he
dreamt agreeably of London as one dreams of the impossible East.
As soon as he opened the gate in the wall of his property, he saw that
the drawing-room was illuminated and all the other front rooms in
darkness. Either his wife or his mother, then, was sitting up in the
drawing-room. He inserted a cautious latch-key into the door, and
entered the silent home like a sinner. The dim light in the hall
gravely reproached him. All his movements were modest and restrained;
no noisy rattling of his stick now.
The drawing-room door was slightly ajar. He hesitated, and then,
nerving himself, pushed against it.
Nellie, with lowered head, was seated at a table, mending, the image of
tranquillity and soft resignation. A pile of children's garments lay by
her side, but the article in her busy hands appeared to be an undershirt
of his own. None but she ever reinforced the buttons on his linen.
Such was her wifely rule, and he considered that there was no sense in
it. She was working by the light of a single lamp on the table, the
splendid chandelier being out of action. Her economy in the use of
electricity was incurable, and he considered that there was no sense in
that either.
She glanced up with a guarded expression that might have meant anything.
He said:
"Aren't you trying your eyes?"
And she replied:
"Oh, no!"
Then, plunging, he came to the point:
"Well, doctor been here?"
She nodded.
"What does he say?"
"It's quite all right. He did nothing but cover up the place with a bit
of cyanide gauze."
Instantly, in his own esteem, he regained perfection as a father. Of
course the bite was nothing! Had he not said so from the first? Had he
not been quite sure throughout that the bite was nothing?
"Then why did you sit up?" he asked, and there was a faint righteous
challenge in his tone.
"I was anxious about you. I was afraid--"
"Didn't Stirling tell you I had some business?"
"I forget--"
"I told him to, anyhow--important business."
"It must have been," said Nellie in an inscrutable voice.
She rose and gathered together her paraphernalia, and he saw that she
was wearing the damnable white apron. The close atmosphere of the home
enveloped and stifled him once more. How different was this
exasperating interior from the large jolly freedom of the Empire Music
Hall, and from the whisky, cigarettes, and masculinity of that private
room at the Turk's Head!
"It was!" he repeated grimly and resentfully. "Very important! And I'll
tell you another thing, I shall probably have to go to London."
He said this just to startle her.
"It will do you all the good in the world," she replied angelically, but
unstartled. "It's just what you need." And she gazed at him as though
his welfare and felicity were her sole preoccupation.
"I meant I might have to stop there quite a while," he insisted.
"If you ask me," she said, "I think it would do us all good."
So saying she retired, having expressed no curiosity whatever as to the
nature of the very important business in London.
For a moment, left alone, he was at a loss. Then, snorting, he went to
the table and extinguished the lamp. He was now in darkness. The light
in the hall showed him the position of the door.
He snorted again. "Oh, very well then!" he muttered. "If that's it!
I'm hanged if I don't go to London! I'm hanged if I don't go to
London!"