CHAPTER VI
LORD WOLDO AND LADY WOLDO
II.
The next morning Joseph, having opened wide the window, informed hismaster that the weather was bright and sunny, and Edward Henry arosewith just that pleasant degree of fatigue which persuades one that oneis, if anything, rather more highly vitalised than usual. He sent forMr. Bryany, as for a domestic animal, and Mr. Bryany, ceremoniouslyattired, was received by a sort of jolly king who happened to betrimming his beard in the royal bathroom, but who was too good-naturedto keep Mr. Bryany waiting. It is remarkable how the habit of royalty,having once taken root, will flourish in the minds of quiteunmonarchical persons. Edward Henry first enquired after the health ofMr. Seven Sachs, and then obtained from Mr. Bryany all remaining papersand trifles of information concerning the affair of the option.Whereupon Mr. Bryany, apparently much elated by the honour of aninformal reception, effusively retired. And Edward Henry too was soelated, and his faith in life so renewed and invigorated that he said tohimself:
"It might be worth while to shave my beard off after all!"
As in his electric brougham he drove along muddy and shining Piccadilly,he admitted that Joseph's account of the weather had been very accurate.The weather was magnificent; it presented the best features of summercombined with the salutary pungency of autumn. And flags were flyingover the establishments of tobacconists, soothsayers, and insurancecompanies in Piccadilly. And the sense of empire was in the very air,like an intoxication. And there was no place like London. When,however, having run through Piccadilly into streets less superb, hereached the Majestic, it seemed to him that the Majestic was not a partof London, but a bit of the provinces surrounded by London. He was verydisappointed with the Majestic, and took his letters from the clerk withcareless condescension. In a few days the Majestic had sunk from beingone of "London's huge caravanserais" to the level of a swollen Turk'sHead. So fragile are reputations!
From the Majestic, Edward Henry drove back into the regions of Empire,between Piccadilly and Regent Street, and deigned to call upon histailors. A morning suit which he had commanded being miraculouslyfinished, he put it on, and was at once not only spectacularly butmorally regenerated. The old suit, though it had cost five guineas inits time, looked a paltry and a dowdy thing as it lay, flung downanyhow, on one of Messrs. Quayther and Cuthering's cane chairs in themirrored cubicle where baronets and even peers showed their braces tothe benign Mr. Cuthering.
"I want to go to Piccadilly Circus now. Stop at the fountain," saidEdward Henry to his chauffeur. He gave the order somewhat defiantly,because he was a little self-conscious in the new and gleaming suit, andbecause he had an absurd idea that the chauffeur might guess that he, aprovincial from the Five Towns, was about to venture into West Endtheatrical enterprise, and sneer at him accordingly.
But the chauffeur merely touched his cap with an indifferent loftygesture, as if to say:
"Be at ease. I have driven more persons more moonstruck even than you.Human eccentricity has long since ceased to surprise me."
The fountain in Piccadilly Circus was the gayest thing in London. Itmingled the fresh tingling of water with the odour and flame of autumnblossoms and the variegated colours of shawled women who passed theirlives on its margin engaged in the commerce of flowers. Edward Henrybought an aster from a fine, bold, red-cheeked, blowsy, dirty wench witha baby in her arms, and left some change for the baby. He was in a verytolerant and charitable mood, and could excuse the sins and thestupidity of all mankind. He reflected forgivingly that Rose Euclid andher friends had perhaps not displayed an abnormal fatuity in discussingthe name of the theatre before they had got the lease of the site forit. Had not he himself bought all the option without having even seenthe site? The fact was that he had had no leisure in his short royalcareer for such details as seeing the site. He was now about to makegood the omission.
It is a fact that as he turned northward from Piccadilly Circus, to theright of the County Fire Office, in order to spy out the land upon whichhis theatre was to be built, he hesitated, under the delusion that allthe passers-by were staring at him! He felt just as he might have felthad he been engaged upon some scheme nefarious. He even went back andpretended to examine the windows of the County Fire Office. Then,glancing self-consciously about, he discerned--not unnaturally--thewords "Regent Street" on a sign.
"There you are!" he murmured with a thrill. "There you are! There'sobviously only one name for that theatre--'The Regent.' It's close toRegent Street. No other theatre is called 'The Regent.' Nobody beforeever had the idea of 'Regent' as a name for a theatre. 'Muses' indeed!... 'Intellectual!' ... 'The Regent Theatre!' How well it comes off thetongue! It's a great name! It'll be the finest name of any theatre inLondon! And it took yours truly to think of it!"
Then he smiled privately at his own weakness.... He too, like thedespised Rose, was baptising the unborn! Still, he continued to dreamof the theatre, and began to picture to himself the ideal theatre. Hediscovered that he had quite a number of startling ideas abouttheatre-construction, based on his own experience as a playgoer.
When, with new courage, he directed his feet towards the site, uponwhich he knew there was an old chapel known as Queen's GlasshouseChapel, whose ownership had slipped from the nerveless hand of a dyingsect of dissenters, he could not find the site, and he could not see thechapel. For an instant he was perturbed by a horrid suspicion that hehad been victimised by a gang of swindlers posing as celebrated persons.Everything was possible in this world and century. None of the peoplewho had appeared in the transaction had resembled his previousconceptions of such people! And confidence-thieves always operated inthe grandest hotels! He immediately decided that if the sequel shouldprove him to be a simpleton and gull he would at any rate be a silentsimpleton and gull. He would stoically bear the loss of two hundredpounds, and breathe no word of woe.
But then he remembered with relief that he had genuinely recognised bothRose Euclid and Seven Sachs; and also that Mr. Bryany, among otherdocuments, had furnished him with a photograph of the chapel andsurrounding property. The chapel therefore existed. He had a plan inhis pocket. He now opened this plan and tried to consult it in themiddle of the street, but his agitation was such that he could not makeout on it which was north and which was south. After he had been nearlyprostrated by a taxicab, a policeman came up to him and said with allthe friendly disdain of a London policeman addressing a provincial:
"Safer to look at that on the pavement, sir!"
Edward Henry glanced up from the plan.
"I was trying to find the Queen's Glasshouse Chapel, Officer," said he."Have you ever heard of it?" (In Bursley, members of the town councilalways flattered members of the force by addressing them as "Officer";and Edward Henry knew exactly the effective intonation.)
"It _was there_, sir," said the policeman, less disdainful, pointing toa narrow hoarding behind which could be seen the back walls of highbuildings in Shaftesbury Avenue. "They've just finished pulling itdown."
"Thank you," said Edward Henry quietly, with a superb and successfuleffort to keep as much colour in his face as if the policeman had notdealt him a dizzying blow.
He then walked towards the hoarding, but could scarcely feel the groundunder his feet. From a wide aperture in the palisades a cartful ofearth was emerging; it creaked and shook as it was dragged by alabouring horse over loose planks into the roadway; a whip-crackingcarter hovered on its flank. Edward Henry approached the aperture andgazed within. An elegant young man stood solitary inside the hoardingand stared at a razed expanse of land in whose furthest corner somenavvies were digging a hole....
The site!
But what did this sinister destructive activity mean? Nobody wasentitled to interfere with property on which he, Alderman Machin, heldan unexpired option! But was it the site? He perused the plan againwith more care. Yes, there could
be no doubt that it was the site. Hiseye roved round, and he admitted the justice of the boast that anelectric sign displayed at the southern front corner of the theatrewould be visible from Piccadilly Circus, lower Regent Street,Shaftesbury Avenue, etc. He then observed a large noticeboard, raisedon posts above the hoardings, and read the following:
_Site of the First New Thought Church to be opened next Spring. Subscriptions invited. Rollo Wrissell, Senior Trustee. Ralph Alloyd, Architect. Dicks and Pato, Builders._
The name of Rollo Wrissell seemed familiar to him, and after a fewmoments' searching he recalled that Rollo Wrissell was one of thetrustees and executors of the late Lord Woldo, the other being thewidow, and the mother of the new Lord Woldo. In addition to thelettering, the notice-board held a graphic representation of the FirstNew Thought Church as it would be when completed.
"Well," said Edward Henry, not perhaps unjustifiably, "this really is abit thick! Here I've got an option on a plot of land for building atheatre, and somebody else has taken it to put up a church!"
He ventured inside the hoarding, and, addressing the elegant young man,asked:
"You got anything to do with this, Mister?"
"Well," said the young man, smiling humorously, "I'm the architect.It's true that nobody ever pays any attention to an architect in thesedays."
"Oh! You're Mr. Alloyd?"
"I am."
Mr. Alloyd had black hair, intensely black, changeful eyes, and theexpressive mouth of an actor.
"I thought they were going to build a theatre here," said Edward Henry.
"I wish they had been!" said Mr. Alloyd. "I'd just like to design atheatre! But of course I shall never get the chance."
"Why not?"
"I know I sha'n't," Mr. Alloyd insisted with gloomy disgust. "Onlyobtained this job by sheer accident! ... You got any ideas abouttheatres?"
"Well, I have," said Edward Henry.
Mr. Alloyd turned on him with a sardonic and half-benevolent gleam.
"And what are your ideas about theatres?"
"Well," said Edward Henry, "I should like to meet an architect who hadthoroughly got it into his head that when people pay for seats to see aplay they want to be able to _see_ it, and not just get a look at it nowand then over other people's heads and round corners of boxes andthings. In most theatres that I've been in, the architects seemed tothink that iron pillars and wooden heads are transparent. Either that,or the architects were rascals. Same with hearing. The pit costs half acrown, and you don't pay half a crown to hear glasses rattled in a bar,or motor-omnibuses rushing down the street. I was never yet in a Londontheatre where the architect had really understood that what the peoplein the pit wanted to hear was the play, and nothing but the play."
"You're rather hard on us," said Mr. Alloyd.
"Not so hard as you are on _us_!" said Edward Henry. "And thendraughts! I suppose you think a draught on the back of the neck is goodfor us! ... But of course you'll say all this has nothing to do witharchitecture!"
"Oh, no, I sha'n't! Oh, no, I sha'n't!" exclaimed Mr. Alloyd. "I quiteagree with you!"
"You _do_?"
"Certainly. You seem to be interested in theatres?"
"I am a bit."
"You come from the North?"
"No, I don't," said Edward Henry. Mr. Alloyd had no right to be awarethat he was not a Londoner.
"I beg your pardon."
"I come from the Midlands."
"Oh! ... Have you seen the Russian ballet?"
Edward Henry had not, nor heard of it. "Why?" he asked.
"Nothing," said Mr. Alloyd. "Only I saw it the night before last inParis. You never saw such dancing. It's enchanted--enchanted! Themost lovely thing I ever saw in my life. I couldn't sleep for it. Notthat I ever sleep very well! I merely thought, as you were interestedin theatres--and Midland people are so enterprising! ... Have acigarette?"
Edward Henry, who had begun to feel sympathetic, was somewhat repelledby these odd last remarks. After all the man, though human enough, wasan utter stranger.
"No, thanks," he said. "And so you're going to put up a church here?"
"Yes."
"Well, I wonder whether you are."
He walked abruptly away under Alloyd's riddling stare, and he couldalmost hear the man saying, "Well, he's a queer lot, if you like."
At the corner of the site, below the spot where his electric sign was tohave been, he was stopped by a well-dressed middle aged lady who bore abundle of papers.
"Will you buy a paper for the cause?" she suggested in a pleasant,persuasive tone. "One penny."
He obeyed, and she handed him a small blue-printed periodical of whichthe title was, _Azure_, "the Organ of the New Thought Church." Heglanced at it, puzzled, and then at the middle-aged lady.
"Every penny of profit goes to the Church-Building Fund," she said, asif in defence of her action.
Edward Henry burst out laughing; but it was a nervous, half-hystericallaugh that he laughed.