Arnold Bennett

“ A magnificently-arrayed woman in the row in front, somewhat to the right, leaned back and towards him, and behind her fan said:
"You're the only manager here, Mr. Machin! How alive and alert you are!" Her voice seemed to be charged with a hidden meaning.
"D'you think so?" said Edward Henry. He had no idea who she might be. He had probably shaken hands with her at his stone-laying, but if so he had forgotten her face. He was fast becoming one of the oligarchical few who are recognized by far more people than they recognize. ”

“ The muffled and coated figure approached, hesitated, and then joined the other two in the cage.
"Let me introduce Mr. Alloyd, the architect—Sir John Pilgrim," said Edward Henry.
"Ah!" said Sir John, bending towards Alloyd. "Are you the genius who draws those amusing little lines and scrawls on transparent paper, Mr. Alloyd? Tell me, are they really necessary for a building, or do you only do them for your own fun? Quite between ourselves, you know! I've often wondered."
Said Mr. Alloyd, with a pale smile:
"Of course everyone looks on the architect as a joke!" ”

“ Close by stood the prompter, an untidy youth with imperfections of teeth, clutching hard at the red-scored manuscript of "The Orient Pearl." Sundry players, of varying stellar degrees, were posed around in the opulent costumes designed by Saracen Givington, A.R.A. Miss Lindop was in the background, ecstatically happy, her cheeks a race-course of tears. Afar off, in the centre of the stage, alone, stood Rose Euclid, gorgeous in green and silver, bowing and bowing and bowing—bowing before the storm of approval and acclamation that swept from the auditorium across the footlights. ”

“ The cage came to a standstill exactly at the peak of the other crane. London lay beneath the trio. The curves of Regent Street and of Shaftesbury Avenue, the right lines of Piccadilly, Lower Regent Street and Coventry Street, were displayed at their feet as on an illuminated map, over which crawled mannikins and toy-autobuses. At their feet a long procession of automobiles were sliding off, one after another, with the guests of the evening. ”

“ He was enchanted not at intervals, by a chance gesture, but all the time—when she was serious, when she smiled, when she fingered her tea-cup, when she pushed her furs back over her shoulders, when she spoke of the weather, when she spoke of the social crisis, and when she made fun, with a certain brief absence of restraint—rather in her artichoke manner of making fun.
He thought and believed:
"This is the finest woman I ever saw!" He clearly perceived the inferiority of other women, whom, nevertheless, he admired and liked, such as the Countess of Chell and Lady Woldo. ”

“ Stop at the fountain," said Edward Henry to his chauffeur. He gave the order somewhat defiantly, because he was a little self-conscious in the new and gleaming suit, and because he had an absurd idea that the chauffeur might guess that he, a provincial from the Five Towns, was about to venture into West End theatrical enterprise and sneer at him accordingly.
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But the chauffeur merely touched his cap with an indifferent and lofty gesture, as if to say:
"Be at ease. I have driven persons more moon-struck even than you. Human eccentricity has long since ceased to surprise me." ”

“ All London had indeed been present. Half the aristocracy of England, and far more than half the aristocracy of the London stage! The entire preciosity of the Metropolis! Journalists with influence enough to plunge the whole of Europe into war! In one short hour Edward Henry's right hand (peeping out from that superb fur coat which he had had the wit to buy) had made the acquaintance of scores upon scores of the most celebrated right hands in Britain. ”

“ Carlo Trent mutteringly protested.
"That is so," admitted Edward Henry.
"Will you read it?"
"Mr. Trent," said Edward Henry, "I'm not so young as I was."
"We're ruined!" sighed Rose Euclid, with a tragic gesture.
"Ruined?" Edward Henry took her up smiling. "Nobody is ruined who knows where he can get a square meal. Do you mean to tell me you don't know where you're going to lunch to-morrow?" And he looked hard at her. ”

“ And he, Edward Henry, by a single act of volition, was the author of it! He slipped from the taxi, penetrated within the wall of hoardings, and gazed, just gazed! A wondrous thing—human enterprise! And also a terrifying thing!... That building might be the tomb of his reputation. On the other hand, it might be the seed of a new renown compared to which the first would be as naught! ”

“ The world at its haughtiest was driving up to Wilkins's to eat its dinner in the unrivalled restaurant, and often guests staying at the hotel came into the outer hall to greet invited friends. And Edward Henry was so overfaced by visions of woman's brilliance and man's utter correctness that he scarcely knew where to look—so apologetic was he for his grey lounge-suit and the creases in his boots. ”

“ The retirement of Archibald Florance from the stage a couple of years earlier had caused crimson gleams of sunset splendour to shoot across the Atlantic and irradiate even the Garrick Club, London, so that the members thereof had to shade their offended eyes. Edward Henry had never seen Archibald Florance, but it was not necessary to have seen him in order to appreciate the majesty of his glory. No male in the history of the world was ever more photographed, and few have been the subject of more anecdotes. ”

“ No one in London can do it!... You have the happiness of knowing what your mission is, and of knowing, too, that you are equal to it. What good fortune! I wish I could say as much for myself. I want to do something! I try! But what can I do? Nothing—really! You've no idea of the awful loneliness that comes from a feeling of inability."
"Loneliness," he repeated. "But surely—" he stopped.
"Loneliness," she insisted. Her little chin was now in her little hand, and her dim face upturned.
And suddenly a sensation of absolute and marvellous terror seized Edward Henry. ”

“ Perhaps for the first time in his life Edward Henry intimately understood what idiosyncratic elegance was. He could almost feel the emanating personality of Sir John Pilgrim, and he was intimidated by it; he was intimidated by its hardness, its harshness, its terrific egotism, its utterly brazen quality. Sir John's glance was the most purely arrogant that Edward Henry had ever encountered. It knew no reticence. And Edward Henry thought: "When this chap dies he'll want to die in public, with the reporters round his bed and a private secretary taking down messages." ”

“ Rose agreed, as if a swift revelation had come to her. "Yes, you're right."
("She'll make a cheerful sort of partner for a fellow," thought Edward Henry, "if she's in the habit of changing her mind like that every thirty seconds." His appetite had gone. He could only drink.)
"Naturally, I'm right! Aren't we going to open with my play, and isn't my play in verse?... I'm sure you'll agree with me, Mr. Machin, that there is no real drama except the poetical drama."
Edward Henry was entirely at a loss. Indeed, he was drowning in his dressing-gown, so favourable to the composition of hexameters. ”

“ For a manager twenty pounds a week seemed to be a usual figure. But in the Five Towns three pounds a week is regarded as very goodish pay for any sub-ordinate, and Edward Henry could not rid himself all at once of native standards. He had therefore, with diffidence, offered three pounds a week to the aristocratic Marrier. And Mr. Marrier had not refused it, nor ceased to smile. On three pounds a week he haunted the best restaurants, taxi-cabs, and other resorts, and his garb seemed always to be smarter than Edward Henry's—especially in such details as waistcoat slips. ”

“ Edward Henry continued his way up the right-hand gallery staircase, and reached the auditorium, where to his astonishment a good deal of electricity, at one penny three farthings a unit, was blazing. Every seat in the narrow and high-pitched gallery, where at the sides the knees of one spectator would be on a level with the picture-hat of the spectator in the row beneath, had a perfect and entire view of the proscenium opening. ”

“ A liveried keeper was locking the gate of the garden in the middle of the Square as if potentates had just quitted it and rendered it for ever sacred. And between the sacred shadowed grove and the inscrutable fronts of the stately houses there flitted automobiles of the silent and expensive kind, driven by chauffeurs in pale grey or dark purple, who reclined as they steered, and who were supported on their left [67] sides by footmen who reclined as they contemplated the grandeur of existence.
Edward Henry's taxi-cab in that Square seemed like a homeless cat that had strayed into a dog-show. ”

“ Marrier, positively. "That proves it. I'm very sorry I've not seen it either; but it must be intellectual. The day of the unintellectual drahma is over. The people won't have it. We must have faith in the people, and we can't show our faith better than by calling our theatre by its proper name—'The Intellectual Theatre'!"
("His theatre!" thought Edward Henry. "What's he got to do with it?")
"I don't know that I'm so much in love with your 'Intellectual,'" muttered Carlo Trent.
"Aren't you?" protested Rose Euclid, shocked. ”

“ In another five minutes Edward Henry had engaged a skilled valet, aged twenty-four, name Joseph, with a testimonial of efficiency from Sir Nicholas Winkworth, Bart., at a salary of a pound a week and all found.
Joseph seemed to await instructions. And Edward Henry was placed in a new quandary. He knew not whether the small bedroom in the suite was for a child, or for his wife's maid, or for his valet. Quite probably it would be a sacrilegious defiance of precedent to put a valet in the small bedroom. Quite probably Wilkins's had a floor for private valets in the roof. ”

“ How famous, after all, she must be, if such an audience would pay her such a meed! She was pale, and dressed glitteringly in white. She seemed younger, more graceful, much more handsome, more in accordance with her renown. She was at home and at ease up there in the brightness of publicity. The imposing legend of her long career had survived the eclipse in the United States. Who could have guessed that some ten days before she had landed heart-broken and ruined at Tilbury from the Minnetonka? ”

“ Rose Euclid entreated him.
"I've decided to make you a present of my half of the option."
"But aren't you going in with us?" exclaimed Rose, horror-struck.
"No, madam."
"But Mr. Bryany told us positively you were! He said it was all arranged!"
"Mr. Bryany ought to be more careful," said Edward Henry. "If he doesn't mind he'll be telling a downright lie some day."
"But you bought half the option!"
"Well," said Edward Henry, reasoning. "What is an option? What does it mean? It means you are free to take something or leave it. I'm leaving it."
"But why?" demanded Mr. Marrier, gloomier. ”

“ Miss Euclid's disengaged hand was feeling out behind her again for some surface upon which to express its emotion and hers.
"Well—" she stopped, flushing.
("These people are astounding," Edward Henry reflected, like a god. "She's not got the money. I knew it!")
"It's like this, Mr. Machin," Marrier began.
"Excuse me, Mr. Marrier," Edward Henry turned on him, determined if he could to eliminate the optimism from that beaming face. "Any friend of Miss Euclid's is welcome here, but you've already talked about this theatre as 'ours,' and I just want to know where you come in." ”

“ Could the Five Towns have seen him then, as he waited, it would hardly have recognized its "card," its character, its mirror of aplomb and inventive audacity, in this figure of provincial and plebeian diffidence.
The dandy bowed.
"Do you want a suite, sir?"
"Certainly!" said Edward Henry. Rather too quickly, rather too defiantly; in fact, rather rudely! A habitué would not have so savagely hurled back in the dandy's teeth the insinuation that he wanted only one paltry room. ”