Chapter VI

It was not till the third week of the run that Percy managed, all unsuspected of a deeper motive, to get a couple of stalls for A Gentleman of Fortune. (He worked it in with a visit to a " shooting-school " where he had arranged for lessons.) He went with Reggie Ballard.

Reggie's affection for Percy was tinged now with a distinct accession of awe. At an early dinner at a restaurant (for which Percy of course paid) he expressed this vaguely. He supposed that Percy would soon obtain a church near Marston.

" My dear chap/' he said, " what a time you will have! And what a lot you can do! Seen Father Hilary lately? " " Saw him this afternoon/' said Percy. " When are you going to be received? " " Don't know."

Reggie proceeded then to pour out his own news — scraps of ecclesiastical matters, tales of the City, and Percy appeared to listen.

Percy seemed a little distraught this evening, thought the other. His eyes were bright and restless and he was a trifle paler than usual. But his dinner-jacket was beautiful; and he had two stripes of braid down the outside of his trousers: he also wore a small pearl in the centre of his shirt-front, and had a real opera-hat in the cloak-room with his long pale coat And there corresponded to these glories an unusual air of detachment.

He was not at all confidential. Certainly he related

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(with just the suspicion of a drawl) the glories of Mars-ton, in answer to his friend's questions; and spoke of the shooting-school where he seemed to have met with great success this afternoon. But the subtle air of intimacy was gone. A great excitement, however, took its place, as, at twenty minutes to eight, he desired a taxi to be called and the bill presented. With awe and envy Reggie watched the paying of this bill, and the change for a sovereign on the salver superbly waved away.

" What sort of a play is it? " he asked, as the cab moved off.

" I beliejre it's first-rate," said Percy. " It's by Franklyn, you know."

Certainly Percy was changed: he was oddly abrupt when he spoke, and fell into silences. Reggie caught him once examining himself in the little slit of mirror on the side of the cab. Just when the lighted entrance of the theatre came in sight he turned to Reggie full of some fierce emotion.

" Look here/' he said. " Don't say one word during the play, will you? I really want to attend. I... I've got a reason."

Reggie wondered vaguely to himself during those inspiriting moments before the curtain goes up — when the music warms the emotions, and strange lights come and go upon the curtain. Something was certainly the matter with his friend. Merely to have become a gentleman of wealth and leisure would not wholly account for the unmistakable change.

He had scarcely seen him more than once or twice since Percy had first left the City. Once they had met for lunch in the old place, and Percy had been voluble. Once they had run into one another on the steps of St. Francis',

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Kensington. But he had never seen the other quite in this mood before, excited yet taciturn, nervous and uncommunicative. There was an air of determination about him too which was new.

Well; it was not his affair at present. That was plain. Perhaps he would be told more afterwards. They were to drive back together to the house in Wilton Crescent where the caretaker was to provide them both with a light supper, and Percy with a bed.

Then the curtain brightened at the bottom. The overture ceased. Then, as a bell tingled the orchestra began again a few soft chords.

At the end of the First Act Percy sat silent and motionless as Reggie proposed a cigarette. He proposed it again. Percy shook his head.

" No. But you go. I want to sit still."

At the end of the Second Act Percy got up without a word and made his way out. Reggie found him smoking furiously in the bar a minute or two later.

"Well?" said Reggie.

"It's all right, isn't it?" said Percy with superb calm. "Have a drink?"

At the end of the Third Act Percy again sat silent and shook his head, so Reggie too sat still, waiting for conversation. But his friend took up the programme and studied it with such earnestness that obviously nothing must be said.

At the end of the Fourth and last Act he sat quite silent once more till a couple of stars came forward to take a recall. One was the Gentleman of Fortune himself; the other was a Miss Farham. Then he clapped earnestly and strenuously, till they disappeared again.

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" Come along/' said Percy. " Let's get out of the crush."

" It's a very remarkable play/' said Percy with high judicially as they sat together speeding westwards. "Don't you think so?"

"Oh, yes," said Reggie; "but don't you think just a little near the edge? That third act, you know."

Percy lifted his eyebrows in careful disdain.

" By the way, I know Miss Farham, you know," he said in a completely steady voice.

" Miss Farham! You mean "

"Yes. I know her rather well. Don't you think she was very good?" (But he did not think fit to mention that Miss Farham was the girl he had met in the train.)

It is exceedingly hard for an amateur not to over-act his part. Percy's serenity was of so monumental a character, that even Reggie perceived it. And since he was not a fool in all respects, he instantly connected Percy's emotionalism this evening with Miss Farham. He saw, too, that he must be very careful and discreet.

"I thought her splendid," said Reggie: "and it must have been a very difficult part."

Percy nodded.

At supper his silence came on him again. There was cold chicken to eat and hock to drink. (These were the provisions that Mrs. Brandreth-Smith had specified to the caretaker.) And Percy ate and drank in the intervals of walking about the big sombre room. Now he came into the ring of candlelight, now he passed again into shadow. Reggie, like a good little boy, ate away perseveringly at the table and made small talk, till he had quite finished. Then he leaned back and lighted one more cigarette.

Digitized by Google u I say, old man," said Percy, suddenly stopping in his walk; "have you quite done? I don't want to be inhospitable, but I'm beastly tired."

" Right," said Reggie.

"How are you going to go? " asked Percy, following him out into the halL

"Walk to Victoria — and then train.... Well, good-night, old man. Thanks awfully."

Reggie walked to the station feeling just a trifle injured. Really, he thought, his friend might have been a little more confidential. And, certainly too, he might have at least mentioned the week-end scheme. But of course he was very grateful for his evening.

Ill

Percy resumed his walk up and down the room; but he walked considerably quicker, and made no effort at self-control.

He was excited as he had never been excited before in all his life; and he was not thinking about Reggie at all.

The process, of course, was a very simple and ordinary one. It had begun, as has been related, in a very bourgeois manner in the train, when the boy had first fallen over the bag; and there had followed experience after experience to emotionalize his impressions. His initiation into religious sentiment, his new ideals, then the sudden rolling open of the Gates of Fortune — all these things, acting upon a nature that was exceedingly susceptible, had charged it all with fire. His long draughts of excitement had done for his sentiments very much what his half bottle of champagne just now had done for his body.... And, it

Digitized by Google must be remembered, Miss Gladys Farham was a magnetically attractive person.

A yet more tense stage had been begun in the little tea-party at the theatre. He had felt her anger then, and perceived (he thought) her real fineness of character. She had behaved with stimulating perfection; it seemed to him that he had gained a knowledge of her depth of character which he could, perhaps, have learned in no other way. Finally, she had implanted in him, at the very moment of his leaving, a little barbed point of jealousy. He had not forgotten the " friend 99 who would see after her when he was gone.

There had followed three weeks of excited brooding. He had written to her once, begging again her forgiveness for his foolish want of tact, and she had answered in a tiny sensible little note that told him nothing. Her personality had seemed with him all the time. He had wandered about the house and park, trying to see her in its frame: he had dreamed of her both by day and night. It was the regular old tale over and over again; he had been melancholy and boisterous, barely civil, and again suddenly affectionate. But he had not said one word to a living soul.... It was this that distinguished this affair from previous ones. Percy was becoming a man.

And now this evening had crowned it all.

Miss Farham was, as has been said, a real emotional actress, in spite of her immature age; and possessed that heaven-given temperament that can " get over the footlights." And this particular play was not only really well suited to her, but bore some kind of parallel too to what Percy knew of her own history. She was a " betrayed 99 woman in the piece: the radiant dominating girl of Act I, became, by the end, a sombre broken-hearted woman. The

Digitized by Google very shot is heard, at the fall of the curtain, by which she kills herself... (or the door bangs which announces her departure into the night I forget which).

The thing was very nearly appalling to Percy, who knew at any rate that she herself had been treated badly in real life. He saw, or thought he saw, a kind of sketch upon the stage of what might, conceivably, be her final history. He had found, at the close of the piece, his pro-gramme crushed into a ball in his left hand....

It is an intoxicating mixture that is composed of Pity and Admiration and ordinary clean human love; and it appeared to rage in Percy's veins like fire. It was not that he had not looked at the arguments against his dream: he understood that he was too young (in the world's opinion); he realized, partly at any rate, how exceedingly contrary to his newly opening social ambitions this particular step would be, and how still more against those of his mother. But those very ambitions, too, helped to intoxicate him further. It appeared to him that three hundred a year of his own was wealth. And, finally, dashed into all this was the emotion of religion — his sense of the great kindly Power he had found. This, at least, should be enough to counteract worldly arguments. He longed to lift her out of her miseries... as might a fairy-prince....

The ex-policeman caretaker came up from the back-stairs to see if the young gentleman was gone to bed yet, and to put out the lights. But the young gentleman was still walking, and apparently wakeful.

"That you, Simmons?"

" Yessir."

" Oh — er — I don't want to keep you up," went on the

Digitized by Google young gentleman, dimly discernible, standing beyond the supper-table. " You can lock up and go to bed. I'll put out these lights."

" Yessir. What time in the morning shall I call you, sir?"

"Ok — er — nine. I'll breakfast at half -past. I want a bath. And I'll have a taxi here at twenty to eleven."

" Very good, sir. Good-night, sir."

"Good-night, Simmons.... Oh — er — Simmona. If... if I leave a letter in the hall to-night, you'll have it posted first thing, won't you?"

"Yes, sir. On the slab, sir."

" That's all right then. Good-night."

" Good-night, sir."

"The young chap seemed restless like," said Simmons to his wife when he got up to the bedroom. "Eh?"

" I said the young chap seemed restless like," repeated Simmons. " There was a letter my lord must have posted."

Mrs. Simmons uttered an inarticulate comment. She had been nearly asleep. "Eh?" said Simmons.

" Oh! don't bother me," said his wife. " I've had enough already with the chicken and the hock and that."

"You'll have more than that, my lady, when her ladyship comes up to town. I never see such a woman for fuss as the old girl."

He began to take off his coat.

" They're too new for me altogether," remarked Mrs. Simmons dreamily. " Give me the old crusted lot as never looks at two sides of a sixpence."

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"Well, it's easy enough so far/' went on her husband, winding up his watch. " But it's the old girl that wears the breeches, and no mistake/'

Such were the comments of the Menials. It is pleasant to reflect that Percy, downstairs, in the midst of his fine frenzy, yet found time to reflect how freely and easily he had talked to the ex-policeman, and with what an offhand air of authority.

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