IV.Two entire interminable days of the voyage elapsed before Edward Henry was clever enough to encounter Isabel Joy--the most famous and the least visible person on the ship. He remembered that she had said: "You won't see anything of me."It was easy to ascertain the number of her stateroom--a double-berth which she shared with nobody. But it was less easy to find out whether she ever left it, and if so, at what time of day. He could not mount guard in the long corridor; and the stewardesses on theLithuaniawere mature, experienced and uncommunicative women, their sole weakness being an occasional tendency to imagine that they, and not the captain, were in supreme charge of the steamer. However, Edward Henry did at last achieve his desire. And on the third morning, at a little before six o'clock, he met a muffled Isabel Joy on the D deck. The D deck was wet, having just been swabbed; and a boat, chosen for that dawn's boat drill, ascended past them on its way from the sea level to the busy boat deck above; on the other side of an iron barrier, large crowds of early-rising third-class passengers were standing and talking, and staring at the oblong slit of sea which was the only prospect offered by the D deck; it was the first time that Edward Henry aboard had ever set eyes on a steerage passenger; with all the conceit natural to the occupant of a costly stateroom, he had unconsciously assumed that he and his like had sole possession of the ship.Isabel responded to his greeting in a very natural way. The sharp freshness of the summer morning at sea had its tonic effect on both of them; and as for Edward Henry, he lunged and plunged at once into the subject which alone preoccupied and exasperated him. She did not seem to resent it."You'd have the satisfaction of helping on a thing that all your friends say ought to be helped," he argued. "Nobody but you can do it. Without you, there'll be a frost. You would make a lot of money, which you could spend in helping on things of your own. And surely it isn't the publicity that you're afraid of!""No," she agreed. "I'm not afraid of publicity." Her pale grey-blue eyes shone as they regarded the secret dream that for her hung always unseen in the air. And she had a strange, wistful, fragile, feminine mien in her mannish costume."Well then--""But can't you see it's humiliating?" cried she, as if interested in the argument."It's not humiliating to do something that you can do well--I know you can do it well--and get a large salary for it, and make the success of a big enterprise by it. If you knew the play--""I do know the play," she said. "We'd lots of us read it in manuscript long ago."Edward Henry was somewhat dashed by this information."Well, what do you think of it?""I think it's just splendid!" said she with enthusiasm."And will it be any worse a play because you act a small part in it?""No," she said shortly."I expect you think it's a play that people ought to go and see, don't you?""I do, Mr. Socrates," she admitted.He wondered what she could mean, but continued:"What does it matter what it is that brings the audience into the theatre, so long as they get there and have to listen?"She sighed."It's no use discussing with you," she murmured. "You're too simple for this world. I daresay you're honest enough--in fact I think you are--but there are so many things that you don't understand. You're evidently incapable of understanding them.""Thanks!" he replied, and paused to recover his self-possession. "But let's get right down to business now. If you'll appear in this play, I'll not merely give you two hundred pounds a week, but I'll explain to you how to get arrested and still arrive in triumph in London before midnight on Sunday."She recoiled a step, and raised her eyes."How?" she demanded, as with a pistol."Ah!" he said. "That's just it. How? Will you promise?""I've thought of everything," she said musingly. "If the last day was any day but Sunday I could get arrested on landing and get bailed out, and still be in London before night. But on Sunday--no! So you needn't talk like that.""Still," he said, "it can be done.""How," she demanded again."Will you sign a contract with me, if I tell you? ... Think of what your reception in London will be if you win after all! Just think!"Those pale eyes gleamed, for Isabel Joy had tasted the noisy flattery of sympathetic and of adverse crowds, and her being hungered for it again; the desire of it had become part of her nature.She walked away, her hands in the pockets of her ulster, and returned."What is your scheme?""You'll sign?""Yes, if it works.""I can trust you?"The little woman of forty or so blazed up. "You can refrain from insulting me by doubting my word," said she."Sorry! Sorry!" he apologised.V.That same evening, in the colossal many-tabled dining-saloon of theLithuaniaEdward Henry sat as usual to the left of the purser's empty chair at the purser's table, where were about a dozen other men. A page brought him a marconigram. He opened it, and read the single word "Nineteen." It was the amount of the previous evening's receipts at the Regent, in pounds. He was now losing something like forty pounds a night--without counting the expenses of the present excursion. The band began to play as the soup was served, and the ship rolled politely, gently, but nevertheless unmistakably, accomplishing one complete roll to about sixteen bars of the music. Then the entire saloon was suddenly excited. Isabel Joy had entered. She was in the gallery, near the orchestra, at a small table alone. Everybody became aware of the fact in an instant, and scores of necks on the lower floor were twisted to glimpse the celebrity on the upper. It was remarked that she wore a magnificent evening dress.One subject of conversation now occupied all the tables. And it was fully occupying the purser's table when the purser, generally a little late, owing to the arduousness of his situation on the ship, entered and sat down. Now the purser was a Northerner, from Durham, a delightful companion in his lighter moods, but dour, and with a high conception of authority and of the intelligence of dogs. He would relate that when he and his wife wanted to keep a secret from their Yorkshire terrier they had to spell the crucial words in talk, for the dog understood their every sentence.The purser's views about the cause represented by Isabel Joy were absolutely clear. None could mistake them, and the few clauses which he curtly added to the discussion rather damped the discussion, and there was a pause."What should you do, Mr. Purser," said Edward Henry, "if she began to play any of her tricks here?""If she began to play any of her tricks on this ship," answered the purser, putting his hands on his stout knees, "we should know what to do.""Of course you can arrest?""Most decidedly. I could tell you things--" The purser stopped, for experience had taught him to be very discreet with passengers until he had voyaged with them at least ten times. He concluded: "The captain is the representative of English law on an English ship."And then, in the silence created by the resting orchestra, all in the saloon could hear a clear, piercing woman's voice, oratorical at first and then quickening:"Ladies and gentlemen: I wish to talk to you to-night on the subject of the injustice of men to women." Isabel Joy was on her feet and leaning over the gallery rail. As she proceeded, a startled hush changed to uproar. And in the uproar could be caught now and then a detached phrase, such as "For example, this man-governed ship."Possibly it was just this phrase that roused the Northerner in the purser. He rose, and looked toward the captain's table. But the captain was not dining in the saloon that evening. Then he strode to the centre of the saloon, beneath the renowned dome which has been so often photographed for the illustrated papers, and sought to destroy Isabel Joy with a single marine glance. Having failed, he called out loudly:"Be quiet, madam. Resume your seat."Isabel Joy stopped for a second, gave him a glance far more homicidal than his own, and resumed her discourse."Steward," cried the purser, "take that woman out of the saloon."The whole complement of first-class passengers was now standing up, and many of them saw a plate descend from on high, and grace the purser's shoulder. With the celerity of a sprinter the man of authority from Durham disappeared from the ground floor and was immediately seen in the gallery. Accounts differed, afterward, as to the exact order of events; but it is certain that the leader of the band lost his fiddle, which was broken by the lusty Isabel on the Purser's head. It was known later that Isabel, though not exactly in irons, was under arrest in her stateroom."She really ought to have thought of that for herself, if she's as smart as she thinks she is," said Edward Henry privately.VI.Though he was on the way to high success, his anxieties and solicitudes seemed to increase every hour. Immediately after Isabel Joy's arrest he became more than ever a crony of the Marconi operator, and began to despatch vivid and urgent telegrams to London, without counting the cost. On the next day he began to receive replies. (It was the most interesting voyage that the Marconi operator had had since the sinking of theCatherine of Siena, in which episode his promptness through the air had certainly saved two hundred lives.) Edward Henry could scarcely sleep, so intense was his longing for Sunday night--his desire to be safe in London with Isabel Joy! Nay, he could not properly eat! And then the doubt entered his mind whether, after all, he would get to London on Sunday night. For theLithuaniawas lagging. She might have been doing it on purpose to ruin him. Every day, in the auction-pool on the ship's run, it was the holder of the low field that pocketed the money of his fellow men. TheLithuaniaactually descended below five hundred and forty knots in the twenty-four hours. And no authoritative explanation of this behaviour was ever given. Upon leaving New York there had been talk of reaching Fishguard on Saturday evening. But now the prophesied moment of arrival had been put forward to noon on Sunday. Edward Henry's sole consolation was that each day on the eastward trip consisted of only twenty-three hours.Further, he was by no means free from apprehension about the personal liberty of Isabel Joy. Isabel had exceeded the programme arranged between them. It had been no part of his scheme that she should cast plates, nor even break violins on the shining crown of an august purser. The purser was angry, and he had the captain, a milder man, behind him. When Isabel Joy threatened a hunger-strike if she was not immediately released, the purser signified that she might proceed with her hunger-strike; he well knew that it would be impossible for her to expire of inanition before the arrival at Fishguard.The case was serious, because Isabel Joy had created a precedent. Policemen and cabinet ministers had for many months been regarded as the lawful prey of militants, but Isabel Joy was the first of the militants to damage property and heads which belonged to persons of neither of these classes. And the authorities of the ship were assuredly inclined to hand Isabel Joy over to the police at Fishguard. What saved the situation for Edward Henry was the factor which saved most situations, namely, public opinion. When the saloon clearly realised that Isabel Joy had done what she had done with the pure and innocent aim of winning a wager, all that was Anglo-Saxon in the saloon ranged itself on the side of true sport, and the matter was lifted above mere politics. A subscription was inaugurated to buy a new fiddle, and to pay for shattered crockery. And the amount collected would have purchased, after settling for the crockery, a couple of dozen new fiddles. The unneeded balance was given to seamen's orphanages. The purser was approached. The captain was implored. Influence was brought to bear. In short--the wheels that are within wheels went duly round. And Miss Isabel Joy, after apologies and promises, was unconditionally released.But she had been arrested.And then, early on Sunday morning, the ship met a storm that had a sad influence on divine service, a storm of the eminence that scares even the brass-buttoned occupants of liners' bridges. The rumour went round the ship that the captain would not call at Fishguard in such weather.Edward Henry was ready to yield up his spirit in this fearful crisis, which endured two hours. The captain did call at Fishguard, in pouring rain, and men came aboard selling Sunday newspapers that were full of Isabel's arrest on the steamer, and of the nearing triumph of her arrival in London before midnight. And newspaper correspondents also came aboard, and all the way on the tender, and in the sheds, and in the train, Edward Henry and Isabel Joy were subjected to the journalistic experiments of hardy interviewers. The train arrived at Paddington at 9 P.M. Isabel had won by three hours. The station was a surging throng of open-mouthed people. Edward Henry would not lose sight of his priceless charge, but he sent Marrier to despatch a telegram to Nellie, whose wifely interest in his movements he had till then either forgotten or ignored.And even now his mind was not free. He saw in front of him still twenty-four hours of anguish.VII.The next night, just before the curtain went up, he stood on the stage of the Regent Theatre, and it is a fact that he was trembling--not with fear but with simple excitement.Through what a day he had passed! There had been the rehearsal in the morning; it had gone off very well, save that Rose Euclid had behaved impossibly, and that the Cunningham girl, the hit of the piece but ousted from her part, had filled the place with just lamentations and recriminations.And then had followed the appalling scene with Rose Euclid. Rose, leaving the theatre for lunch, had beheld the workmen removing her name from the electric sign and substituting that of Isabel Joy. She was a woman and an artist, and it would have been the same had she been a man and an artist. She would not submit to this inconceivable affront. She had resigned her rôle. She had ripped her contract to bits and flung the bits to the breeze. Upon the whole Edward Henry had been glad. He had sent for Miss Cunningham, who was Rose's understudy, had given her instructions, called another rehearsal for the afternoon and effected a saving of nearly half Isabel Joy's fantastic salary. Then he entered into financial negotiations with four evening papers and managed to buy, at a price, their contents-bills for the day. So that all the West End was filled with men and boys wearing like aprons posters which bore the words: "Isabel Joy to appear at the Regent to-night." A great and original stroke!And now he gazed through the peep-hole of the curtain upon a crammed and half-delirious auditorium. The assistant stage manager ordered him off. The curtain went up on the drama in hexameters. He waited in the wings, and spoke soothingly to Isabel Joy who, looking juvenile in the airy costume of the Messenger, stood flutteringly agog for her cue.... He heard the thunderous crashing roar that met her entrance. He did not hear her line.He walked forth to the glazed balcony at the front of the house, where in the entr'actes dandies smoked cigarettes baptised with girlish names. He could see Piccadilly Circus, and he saw Piccadilly Circus thronged with a multitude of loafers, who were happy in the mere spectacle of Isabel Joy's name glowing on an electric sign. He went back at last to the managerial room. Marrier was there, hero-worshipping."Got the figures yet?" he asked.Marrier beamed."Two hundred and sixty pounds. As long as it keeps up it means a profit of getting on for two hundred a naight!""But, dash it, man,--the house only holds two hundred and thirty!""But my good sir," said Marrier, "they're paying ten shillings a-piece to stand up in the dress-circle."Edward Henry dropped into a chair at the desk. A telegram was lying there, addressed to himself."What's this?" he demanded."Just cam."He opened it, and read: "I absolutely forbid this monstrous outrage on a work of art. Trent.""Bit late in the day, isn't he?" said Edward Henry, showing the telegram to Marrier."Besides," Marrier observed, "he'll come round when he knows what his royalties are.""Well," said Edward Henry, "I'm going to bed." And he gave a devastating yawn.VIII.One afternoon Edward Henry sat in the king of all the easy chairs in the drawing-room of his house in Trafalgar Road, Bursley. Although the month was September, and the weather warm even for September, a swansdown quilt lay spread upon his knees. His face was pale, his hands were paler; but his eye was clear and his visage enlightened. His beard had grown to nearly its original dimensions. On a chair by his side were a number of letters to which he had just dictated answers. At a neighbouring table a young clerk was using a typewriter. Stretched at full length on the sofa was Robert Machin, engaged in the perusal of the second edition of that day'sSignal. Of late Robert, having exhausted nearly all available books, had been cultivating during his holidays an interest in journalism, and he would give great accounts, in the nursery, of events happening in each day's instalment of theSignal'ssensational serial. His heels kicked idly one against the other.A powerful voice resounded in the lobby, and Doctor Stirling entered the room with Nellie."Well, Doc!" Edward Henry greeted him."So you're in full blast again!" observed the doctor, using a metaphor invented by the population of a district where the roar of furnaces wakens the night."No!" Edward Henry protested, as an invalid always will. "I'm only just keeping an eye on one or two pressing things.""Of course he's in full blast!" said Nellie with calm conviction."What's this I hear about ye ganging away to the seaside, Saturday?" asked the doctor."Well, can't I?" said Edward Henry."Ye can," said the doctor. "Let's have a look at ye, man.""What was it you said I've had?" Edward Henry questioned."Colonitis.""Yes, that's the word. I thought I couldn't have got it wrong. Well, you should have seen my mother's face when I told her what you called it. She said, 'He may call it that if he's a mind to, but we had another name for it in my time.' You should have heard her sniff! ... Look here, Doc, do you know you've had me down now for pretty near three months?""Nay," said Stirling. "It's yer own obstinacy that's had ye down, man. If ye'd listened to yer London doctor at first, mayhap ye wouldn't have had to travel from Euston in an invalid's carriage. If ye hadn't had the misfortune to be born an obstinate simpleton ye'd ha' been up and about six weeks back. But there's no doing anything with you geniuses. It's all nerves with you and your like.""Nerves!" exclaimed Edward Henry, pretending to scorn. But he was delighted at the diagnosis."Nerves," repeated the doctor firmly. "Ye go gadding off to America. Ye get yeself mixed up in theatres.... How's the theatre? I see yer famous play's coming to end next week.""And what if it is?" said Edward Henry, jealous for reputations, including his own. "It will have run for a hundred and one nights. And right through August, too! No modern poetry play ever did run as long in London, and no other ever will. I've given the intellectual theatre the biggest ad. it ever had. And I've made money on it. I should have made more if I'd ended the run a fortnight ago, but I was determined to pass the hundredth night. And I shall do!""And what are ye for giving next?""I'm not for giving anything next, Doc. I've let the Regent for five years at seven thousand five hundred pounds a year to a musical comedy syndicate, since you're so curious. And when I've paid the ground rent and taxes and repairs and something toward a sinking-fund, and six per cent. on my capital I shall have not far off two thousand pounds a year clear annual profit. You may say what you like, but that's what I call business!"It was a remarkable fact that, while giving undemanded information to Doctor Stirling, Edward Henry was in reality defending himself against the accusations of his wife--accusations which, by the way, she had never uttered, but which he thought he read sometimes in her face. He might of course have told his wife these agreeable details directly, and in private. But he was a husband, and, like many husbands, apt to be indirect.Nellie said not a word."Then you're giving up London?" The doctor rose to depart."I am," said Edward Henry, almost blushing."Why?""Well," the genius answered. "Those theatrical things are altogether too exciting and risky! And they're such queer people--Great Scott! I've come out on the right side, as it happens, but--well, I'm not as young as I was. I've done with London. The Five Towns are good enough for me."Nellie, unable to restrain a note of triumph, indiscreetly remarked with just the air of superior sagacity that in a wife drives husbands to fury and to foolishness:"I should think so, indeed!"Edward Henry leaped from his chair, and the swansdown quilt swathed his slippered feet."Nell," he exploded, clenching his hand. "If you say that once more in that tone--once more, mind!--I'll go and take a flat in London to-morrow!"The doctor crackled with laughter. Nellie smiled. Even Robert, who had completely ignored the doctor's entrance, glanced round with creased brows."Sit down, dearest," Nellie quietly enjoined the invalid.But he would not sit down, and, to show his independence, he helped his wife to escort Stirling into the lobby.Robert, now alone with the ignored young clerk tapping at the table, turned toward him, and in his deliberate, judicial, disdainful, childish voice said to him:"Isn't Father a funny man?"THE ENDTHE NOVELS OF ARNOLD BENNETTTHE OLD WIVES' TALE: A Novel of Life.A New Edition with Special Preface by Arnold Bennett.Price $1.50 NetThe greatest of Arnold Bennett's writings has now crossed the Rubicon of merely transient popularity and bids fair to become a classic. It recounts from early girlhood to old age the lives of two sisters, the exact opposites to one another in temperament. Though its spacious canvas teems with incidents and characters, all the interest concentrates on these two women; the world revolves about them. It is a story of reality; a record extraordinarily faithful of the infinite number of infinitesimal changes which steal away youth with increasing years.The book is of heroic proportions. Here all the emotions of a life-time are met together on one stage. It is real as life, and large as destiny.BURIED ALIVE:A Tale of These DaysPrice $1.20 NetAlso in Popular Edition, $0.50 NetA romantic comedy--a surprise from start to finish, brilliant in its plot, and audaciously carried out--it is the kind of book that restores adventure to life and sends the reader on his way in high spirits.A GREAT MAN:A Comedy of Success.Price $1.20 NetHere is a comparative study of the great and the merely successful--a gentle satire on contemporary popular methods of judging human worth. At the start THE GREAT MAN knows quite well that he is not great. Later, confused by the clamor of applause, he deceives himself.The story develops the rise of a modern writer--the get-famous-quick author who suddenly finds himself a "best-seller."HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND:An Idyllic Diversion.Price $1.20 NetIn the lightest comedy vein, Arnold Bennett treats of a serious economic situation--the invasion of the grim Five Towns by modernity. Helen typifies the splendid revolt of youth against the accepted and conventional. Of all Arnold Bennett's heroines Helen is certainly the daintiest and most fascinating.The final touch of comedy arises from the fact that Helen at length overcomes her uncle, not by anything modern in her temperament, but by the old-fangled race shrewdness which she has inherited. She defeats him by the more skilful handling of his own weapons.LEONORA:The Story of a Middle-Aged Love Affair.Price $1.20 NetThe soul-problems of a woman of forty: another novel of the Five Towns.This is one of the most human of all Arnold Bennett's novels. It grapples with a real problem and works out the solution as in life. There are no heroics; no false elations and no false tragedies. LEONORA is a statement of truth, seasoned with humor.THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNSAnd Other Stories.Price $1.20 NetWritten in Arnold Bennett's most brilliant manner, each story is a complete and perfect study of some family group or separate phase of Five Towns life. Never was he more witty, more penetrating, more sure in his shrewd delineation of homespun domestic characters.ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS:A Young Girl's Love-Story.Price $1.20 NetThis is a love-story with a twist in it, such as Bennett knows so well how to handle. The twist consists in the coming to Anna of unexpected wealth. She is the daughter of a miser and has been brought up under the most rigorous parsimony. She has a simple lover, in every way suited to her narrow circumstances. Then she comes of age and discovers that she is not only well off, but wealthy. What will she do with her money? Will her altered status interfere with her love affair? Will her father's blood tell? In a vein of quiet humor, rich in whimsical character-sketching, Arnold Bennett works these problems out.Anna is another of the inhabitants of the Five Towns. The little group of friends who gather about her make us familiar with another level of Five Towns' society.THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA:The Autobiography of a Woman's Heart.Price $1.20 NetTHE BOOK OF CARLOTTA presents the woman of genius--who belongs neither to the middle-class nor to any other class, but simply to her genius, and to the passions of her own heart.The book is a woman's soul confession written in the first person. In sheer audacity of purpose it outstrips all Arnold Bennett's other novels with the exception of THE OLD WIVES' TALE. In the first place, it is an intimate record of a woman's secret psychology; in the second, the woman is a woman of genius, which necessitates a continual flow of brilliancy on the author's part; in the third, it is a novel written in the French manner by an Englishman.Carlotta is an extraordinary creation--a woman apart. She stands among the rebels of fiction and biography--the people who have dared to be what they are. The motive of her whole life is self-fulfillment as she knows it, even though this means the defiance of laws.Everything contributes to the last great climax entitledVictory.ARNOLD BENNETT: POCKET PHILOSOPHIESHOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY:A Study in Time Expenditure.On the Conservation of Time.Price $0.50 NetIn a series of delightfully personal essays Arnold Bennett discusses the problem of how to attain happiness through living the intenser life.When he deliberately assumes the role of philosopher and friend, his wise and tolerant teachings come to us vivid with his strenuous personality. In the essay medium his strange faculty for combining wisdom with humor works unfettered.MENTAL EFFICIENCY:On the Conservation of the Mind.Price $0.75 NetEverybody desires to be efficient. But nearly everybody mistakenly supposes that this is a natural characteristic. That it is not, Mr. Bennett shows in his "Mental Efficiency." It is the product of concentration which in turn is the product of will-power. But will-power can be developed by concentration and Mr. Bennett shows us how to do it.THE HUMAN MACHINE:On the Conservation of Energy.Price $0.75 NetWith fine inspiring optimism, amid flashes of wit and gusts of laughter, Arnold Bennett declares to everyone how he may make the best of himself.LITERARY TASTE: How to Form It.On the Conservation of Pleasure.Price $0.75 NetIt is Arnold Bennett's conviction that life ought to be for everybody an affair of joy. For him literature has proved the royal road to happiness: he is eager to point the way.GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, PublishersBY ARNOLD BENNETTNOVELSThe Old Wives' TaleHelen with the High HandThe Matador of the Five TownsThe Book of CarlottaBuried AliveA Great ManLeonoraWhom God Hath JoinedA Man from the NorthAnna of the Five TownsThe GlimpsePOCKET PHILOSOPHIESHow to Live on 24 Hours A DayThe Human MachineLiterary TasteMental EfficiencyPLAYSCupid and CommonsenseWhat the Public WantsPolite FarcesMilestonesThe HoneymoonMISCELLANEOUSThe Truth About an AuthorThe Feast of St. FriendGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANYNEW YORK*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE OLD ADAM***
IV.
Two entire interminable days of the voyage elapsed before Edward Henry was clever enough to encounter Isabel Joy--the most famous and the least visible person on the ship. He remembered that she had said: "You won't see anything of me."
It was easy to ascertain the number of her stateroom--a double-berth which she shared with nobody. But it was less easy to find out whether she ever left it, and if so, at what time of day. He could not mount guard in the long corridor; and the stewardesses on theLithuaniawere mature, experienced and uncommunicative women, their sole weakness being an occasional tendency to imagine that they, and not the captain, were in supreme charge of the steamer. However, Edward Henry did at last achieve his desire. And on the third morning, at a little before six o'clock, he met a muffled Isabel Joy on the D deck. The D deck was wet, having just been swabbed; and a boat, chosen for that dawn's boat drill, ascended past them on its way from the sea level to the busy boat deck above; on the other side of an iron barrier, large crowds of early-rising third-class passengers were standing and talking, and staring at the oblong slit of sea which was the only prospect offered by the D deck; it was the first time that Edward Henry aboard had ever set eyes on a steerage passenger; with all the conceit natural to the occupant of a costly stateroom, he had unconsciously assumed that he and his like had sole possession of the ship.
Isabel responded to his greeting in a very natural way. The sharp freshness of the summer morning at sea had its tonic effect on both of them; and as for Edward Henry, he lunged and plunged at once into the subject which alone preoccupied and exasperated him. She did not seem to resent it.
"You'd have the satisfaction of helping on a thing that all your friends say ought to be helped," he argued. "Nobody but you can do it. Without you, there'll be a frost. You would make a lot of money, which you could spend in helping on things of your own. And surely it isn't the publicity that you're afraid of!"
"No," she agreed. "I'm not afraid of publicity." Her pale grey-blue eyes shone as they regarded the secret dream that for her hung always unseen in the air. And she had a strange, wistful, fragile, feminine mien in her mannish costume.
"Well then--"
"But can't you see it's humiliating?" cried she, as if interested in the argument.
"It's not humiliating to do something that you can do well--I know you can do it well--and get a large salary for it, and make the success of a big enterprise by it. If you knew the play--"
"I do know the play," she said. "We'd lots of us read it in manuscript long ago."
Edward Henry was somewhat dashed by this information.
"Well, what do you think of it?"
"I think it's just splendid!" said she with enthusiasm.
"And will it be any worse a play because you act a small part in it?"
"No," she said shortly.
"I expect you think it's a play that people ought to go and see, don't you?"
"I do, Mr. Socrates," she admitted.
He wondered what she could mean, but continued:
"What does it matter what it is that brings the audience into the theatre, so long as they get there and have to listen?"
She sighed.
"It's no use discussing with you," she murmured. "You're too simple for this world. I daresay you're honest enough--in fact I think you are--but there are so many things that you don't understand. You're evidently incapable of understanding them."
"Thanks!" he replied, and paused to recover his self-possession. "But let's get right down to business now. If you'll appear in this play, I'll not merely give you two hundred pounds a week, but I'll explain to you how to get arrested and still arrive in triumph in London before midnight on Sunday."
She recoiled a step, and raised her eyes.
"How?" she demanded, as with a pistol.
"Ah!" he said. "That's just it. How? Will you promise?"
"I've thought of everything," she said musingly. "If the last day was any day but Sunday I could get arrested on landing and get bailed out, and still be in London before night. But on Sunday--no! So you needn't talk like that."
"Still," he said, "it can be done."
"How," she demanded again.
"Will you sign a contract with me, if I tell you? ... Think of what your reception in London will be if you win after all! Just think!"
Those pale eyes gleamed, for Isabel Joy had tasted the noisy flattery of sympathetic and of adverse crowds, and her being hungered for it again; the desire of it had become part of her nature.
She walked away, her hands in the pockets of her ulster, and returned.
"What is your scheme?"
"You'll sign?"
"Yes, if it works."
"I can trust you?"
The little woman of forty or so blazed up. "You can refrain from insulting me by doubting my word," said she.
"Sorry! Sorry!" he apologised.
V.
That same evening, in the colossal many-tabled dining-saloon of theLithuaniaEdward Henry sat as usual to the left of the purser's empty chair at the purser's table, where were about a dozen other men. A page brought him a marconigram. He opened it, and read the single word "Nineteen." It was the amount of the previous evening's receipts at the Regent, in pounds. He was now losing something like forty pounds a night--without counting the expenses of the present excursion. The band began to play as the soup was served, and the ship rolled politely, gently, but nevertheless unmistakably, accomplishing one complete roll to about sixteen bars of the music. Then the entire saloon was suddenly excited. Isabel Joy had entered. She was in the gallery, near the orchestra, at a small table alone. Everybody became aware of the fact in an instant, and scores of necks on the lower floor were twisted to glimpse the celebrity on the upper. It was remarked that she wore a magnificent evening dress.
One subject of conversation now occupied all the tables. And it was fully occupying the purser's table when the purser, generally a little late, owing to the arduousness of his situation on the ship, entered and sat down. Now the purser was a Northerner, from Durham, a delightful companion in his lighter moods, but dour, and with a high conception of authority and of the intelligence of dogs. He would relate that when he and his wife wanted to keep a secret from their Yorkshire terrier they had to spell the crucial words in talk, for the dog understood their every sentence.
The purser's views about the cause represented by Isabel Joy were absolutely clear. None could mistake them, and the few clauses which he curtly added to the discussion rather damped the discussion, and there was a pause.
"What should you do, Mr. Purser," said Edward Henry, "if she began to play any of her tricks here?"
"If she began to play any of her tricks on this ship," answered the purser, putting his hands on his stout knees, "we should know what to do."
"Of course you can arrest?"
"Most decidedly. I could tell you things--" The purser stopped, for experience had taught him to be very discreet with passengers until he had voyaged with them at least ten times. He concluded: "The captain is the representative of English law on an English ship."
And then, in the silence created by the resting orchestra, all in the saloon could hear a clear, piercing woman's voice, oratorical at first and then quickening:
"Ladies and gentlemen: I wish to talk to you to-night on the subject of the injustice of men to women." Isabel Joy was on her feet and leaning over the gallery rail. As she proceeded, a startled hush changed to uproar. And in the uproar could be caught now and then a detached phrase, such as "For example, this man-governed ship."
Possibly it was just this phrase that roused the Northerner in the purser. He rose, and looked toward the captain's table. But the captain was not dining in the saloon that evening. Then he strode to the centre of the saloon, beneath the renowned dome which has been so often photographed for the illustrated papers, and sought to destroy Isabel Joy with a single marine glance. Having failed, he called out loudly:
"Be quiet, madam. Resume your seat."
Isabel Joy stopped for a second, gave him a glance far more homicidal than his own, and resumed her discourse.
"Steward," cried the purser, "take that woman out of the saloon."
The whole complement of first-class passengers was now standing up, and many of them saw a plate descend from on high, and grace the purser's shoulder. With the celerity of a sprinter the man of authority from Durham disappeared from the ground floor and was immediately seen in the gallery. Accounts differed, afterward, as to the exact order of events; but it is certain that the leader of the band lost his fiddle, which was broken by the lusty Isabel on the Purser's head. It was known later that Isabel, though not exactly in irons, was under arrest in her stateroom.
"She really ought to have thought of that for herself, if she's as smart as she thinks she is," said Edward Henry privately.
VI.
Though he was on the way to high success, his anxieties and solicitudes seemed to increase every hour. Immediately after Isabel Joy's arrest he became more than ever a crony of the Marconi operator, and began to despatch vivid and urgent telegrams to London, without counting the cost. On the next day he began to receive replies. (It was the most interesting voyage that the Marconi operator had had since the sinking of theCatherine of Siena, in which episode his promptness through the air had certainly saved two hundred lives.) Edward Henry could scarcely sleep, so intense was his longing for Sunday night--his desire to be safe in London with Isabel Joy! Nay, he could not properly eat! And then the doubt entered his mind whether, after all, he would get to London on Sunday night. For theLithuaniawas lagging. She might have been doing it on purpose to ruin him. Every day, in the auction-pool on the ship's run, it was the holder of the low field that pocketed the money of his fellow men. TheLithuaniaactually descended below five hundred and forty knots in the twenty-four hours. And no authoritative explanation of this behaviour was ever given. Upon leaving New York there had been talk of reaching Fishguard on Saturday evening. But now the prophesied moment of arrival had been put forward to noon on Sunday. Edward Henry's sole consolation was that each day on the eastward trip consisted of only twenty-three hours.
Further, he was by no means free from apprehension about the personal liberty of Isabel Joy. Isabel had exceeded the programme arranged between them. It had been no part of his scheme that she should cast plates, nor even break violins on the shining crown of an august purser. The purser was angry, and he had the captain, a milder man, behind him. When Isabel Joy threatened a hunger-strike if she was not immediately released, the purser signified that she might proceed with her hunger-strike; he well knew that it would be impossible for her to expire of inanition before the arrival at Fishguard.
The case was serious, because Isabel Joy had created a precedent. Policemen and cabinet ministers had for many months been regarded as the lawful prey of militants, but Isabel Joy was the first of the militants to damage property and heads which belonged to persons of neither of these classes. And the authorities of the ship were assuredly inclined to hand Isabel Joy over to the police at Fishguard. What saved the situation for Edward Henry was the factor which saved most situations, namely, public opinion. When the saloon clearly realised that Isabel Joy had done what she had done with the pure and innocent aim of winning a wager, all that was Anglo-Saxon in the saloon ranged itself on the side of true sport, and the matter was lifted above mere politics. A subscription was inaugurated to buy a new fiddle, and to pay for shattered crockery. And the amount collected would have purchased, after settling for the crockery, a couple of dozen new fiddles. The unneeded balance was given to seamen's orphanages. The purser was approached. The captain was implored. Influence was brought to bear. In short--the wheels that are within wheels went duly round. And Miss Isabel Joy, after apologies and promises, was unconditionally released.
But she had been arrested.
And then, early on Sunday morning, the ship met a storm that had a sad influence on divine service, a storm of the eminence that scares even the brass-buttoned occupants of liners' bridges. The rumour went round the ship that the captain would not call at Fishguard in such weather.
Edward Henry was ready to yield up his spirit in this fearful crisis, which endured two hours. The captain did call at Fishguard, in pouring rain, and men came aboard selling Sunday newspapers that were full of Isabel's arrest on the steamer, and of the nearing triumph of her arrival in London before midnight. And newspaper correspondents also came aboard, and all the way on the tender, and in the sheds, and in the train, Edward Henry and Isabel Joy were subjected to the journalistic experiments of hardy interviewers. The train arrived at Paddington at 9 P.M. Isabel had won by three hours. The station was a surging throng of open-mouthed people. Edward Henry would not lose sight of his priceless charge, but he sent Marrier to despatch a telegram to Nellie, whose wifely interest in his movements he had till then either forgotten or ignored.
And even now his mind was not free. He saw in front of him still twenty-four hours of anguish.
VII.
The next night, just before the curtain went up, he stood on the stage of the Regent Theatre, and it is a fact that he was trembling--not with fear but with simple excitement.
Through what a day he had passed! There had been the rehearsal in the morning; it had gone off very well, save that Rose Euclid had behaved impossibly, and that the Cunningham girl, the hit of the piece but ousted from her part, had filled the place with just lamentations and recriminations.
And then had followed the appalling scene with Rose Euclid. Rose, leaving the theatre for lunch, had beheld the workmen removing her name from the electric sign and substituting that of Isabel Joy. She was a woman and an artist, and it would have been the same had she been a man and an artist. She would not submit to this inconceivable affront. She had resigned her rôle. She had ripped her contract to bits and flung the bits to the breeze. Upon the whole Edward Henry had been glad. He had sent for Miss Cunningham, who was Rose's understudy, had given her instructions, called another rehearsal for the afternoon and effected a saving of nearly half Isabel Joy's fantastic salary. Then he entered into financial negotiations with four evening papers and managed to buy, at a price, their contents-bills for the day. So that all the West End was filled with men and boys wearing like aprons posters which bore the words: "Isabel Joy to appear at the Regent to-night." A great and original stroke!
And now he gazed through the peep-hole of the curtain upon a crammed and half-delirious auditorium. The assistant stage manager ordered him off. The curtain went up on the drama in hexameters. He waited in the wings, and spoke soothingly to Isabel Joy who, looking juvenile in the airy costume of the Messenger, stood flutteringly agog for her cue.... He heard the thunderous crashing roar that met her entrance. He did not hear her line.
He walked forth to the glazed balcony at the front of the house, where in the entr'actes dandies smoked cigarettes baptised with girlish names. He could see Piccadilly Circus, and he saw Piccadilly Circus thronged with a multitude of loafers, who were happy in the mere spectacle of Isabel Joy's name glowing on an electric sign. He went back at last to the managerial room. Marrier was there, hero-worshipping.
"Got the figures yet?" he asked.
Marrier beamed.
"Two hundred and sixty pounds. As long as it keeps up it means a profit of getting on for two hundred a naight!"
"But, dash it, man,--the house only holds two hundred and thirty!"
"But my good sir," said Marrier, "they're paying ten shillings a-piece to stand up in the dress-circle."
Edward Henry dropped into a chair at the desk. A telegram was lying there, addressed to himself.
"What's this?" he demanded.
"Just cam."
He opened it, and read: "I absolutely forbid this monstrous outrage on a work of art. Trent."
"Bit late in the day, isn't he?" said Edward Henry, showing the telegram to Marrier.
"Besides," Marrier observed, "he'll come round when he knows what his royalties are."
"Well," said Edward Henry, "I'm going to bed." And he gave a devastating yawn.
VIII.
One afternoon Edward Henry sat in the king of all the easy chairs in the drawing-room of his house in Trafalgar Road, Bursley. Although the month was September, and the weather warm even for September, a swansdown quilt lay spread upon his knees. His face was pale, his hands were paler; but his eye was clear and his visage enlightened. His beard had grown to nearly its original dimensions. On a chair by his side were a number of letters to which he had just dictated answers. At a neighbouring table a young clerk was using a typewriter. Stretched at full length on the sofa was Robert Machin, engaged in the perusal of the second edition of that day'sSignal. Of late Robert, having exhausted nearly all available books, had been cultivating during his holidays an interest in journalism, and he would give great accounts, in the nursery, of events happening in each day's instalment of theSignal'ssensational serial. His heels kicked idly one against the other.
A powerful voice resounded in the lobby, and Doctor Stirling entered the room with Nellie.
"Well, Doc!" Edward Henry greeted him.
"So you're in full blast again!" observed the doctor, using a metaphor invented by the population of a district where the roar of furnaces wakens the night.
"No!" Edward Henry protested, as an invalid always will. "I'm only just keeping an eye on one or two pressing things."
"Of course he's in full blast!" said Nellie with calm conviction.
"What's this I hear about ye ganging away to the seaside, Saturday?" asked the doctor.
"Well, can't I?" said Edward Henry.
"Ye can," said the doctor. "Let's have a look at ye, man."
"What was it you said I've had?" Edward Henry questioned.
"Colonitis."
"Yes, that's the word. I thought I couldn't have got it wrong. Well, you should have seen my mother's face when I told her what you called it. She said, 'He may call it that if he's a mind to, but we had another name for it in my time.' You should have heard her sniff! ... Look here, Doc, do you know you've had me down now for pretty near three months?"
"Nay," said Stirling. "It's yer own obstinacy that's had ye down, man. If ye'd listened to yer London doctor at first, mayhap ye wouldn't have had to travel from Euston in an invalid's carriage. If ye hadn't had the misfortune to be born an obstinate simpleton ye'd ha' been up and about six weeks back. But there's no doing anything with you geniuses. It's all nerves with you and your like."
"Nerves!" exclaimed Edward Henry, pretending to scorn. But he was delighted at the diagnosis.
"Nerves," repeated the doctor firmly. "Ye go gadding off to America. Ye get yeself mixed up in theatres.... How's the theatre? I see yer famous play's coming to end next week."
"And what if it is?" said Edward Henry, jealous for reputations, including his own. "It will have run for a hundred and one nights. And right through August, too! No modern poetry play ever did run as long in London, and no other ever will. I've given the intellectual theatre the biggest ad. it ever had. And I've made money on it. I should have made more if I'd ended the run a fortnight ago, but I was determined to pass the hundredth night. And I shall do!"
"And what are ye for giving next?"
"I'm not for giving anything next, Doc. I've let the Regent for five years at seven thousand five hundred pounds a year to a musical comedy syndicate, since you're so curious. And when I've paid the ground rent and taxes and repairs and something toward a sinking-fund, and six per cent. on my capital I shall have not far off two thousand pounds a year clear annual profit. You may say what you like, but that's what I call business!"
It was a remarkable fact that, while giving undemanded information to Doctor Stirling, Edward Henry was in reality defending himself against the accusations of his wife--accusations which, by the way, she had never uttered, but which he thought he read sometimes in her face. He might of course have told his wife these agreeable details directly, and in private. But he was a husband, and, like many husbands, apt to be indirect.
Nellie said not a word.
"Then you're giving up London?" The doctor rose to depart.
"I am," said Edward Henry, almost blushing.
"Why?"
"Well," the genius answered. "Those theatrical things are altogether too exciting and risky! And they're such queer people--Great Scott! I've come out on the right side, as it happens, but--well, I'm not as young as I was. I've done with London. The Five Towns are good enough for me."
Nellie, unable to restrain a note of triumph, indiscreetly remarked with just the air of superior sagacity that in a wife drives husbands to fury and to foolishness:
"I should think so, indeed!"
Edward Henry leaped from his chair, and the swansdown quilt swathed his slippered feet.
"Nell," he exploded, clenching his hand. "If you say that once more in that tone--once more, mind!--I'll go and take a flat in London to-morrow!"
The doctor crackled with laughter. Nellie smiled. Even Robert, who had completely ignored the doctor's entrance, glanced round with creased brows.
"Sit down, dearest," Nellie quietly enjoined the invalid.
But he would not sit down, and, to show his independence, he helped his wife to escort Stirling into the lobby.
Robert, now alone with the ignored young clerk tapping at the table, turned toward him, and in his deliberate, judicial, disdainful, childish voice said to him:
"Isn't Father a funny man?"
THE END
THE NOVELS OF ARNOLD BENNETT
THE OLD WIVES' TALE: A Novel of Life.
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The greatest of Arnold Bennett's writings has now crossed the Rubicon of merely transient popularity and bids fair to become a classic. It recounts from early girlhood to old age the lives of two sisters, the exact opposites to one another in temperament. Though its spacious canvas teems with incidents and characters, all the interest concentrates on these two women; the world revolves about them. It is a story of reality; a record extraordinarily faithful of the infinite number of infinitesimal changes which steal away youth with increasing years.
The book is of heroic proportions. Here all the emotions of a life-time are met together on one stage. It is real as life, and large as destiny.
BURIED ALIVE:
A Tale of These Days
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Also in Popular Edition, $0.50 Net
A romantic comedy--a surprise from start to finish, brilliant in its plot, and audaciously carried out--it is the kind of book that restores adventure to life and sends the reader on his way in high spirits.
A GREAT MAN:
A Comedy of Success.
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Here is a comparative study of the great and the merely successful--a gentle satire on contemporary popular methods of judging human worth. At the start THE GREAT MAN knows quite well that he is not great. Later, confused by the clamor of applause, he deceives himself.
The story develops the rise of a modern writer--the get-famous-quick author who suddenly finds himself a "best-seller."
HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND:
An Idyllic Diversion.
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In the lightest comedy vein, Arnold Bennett treats of a serious economic situation--the invasion of the grim Five Towns by modernity. Helen typifies the splendid revolt of youth against the accepted and conventional. Of all Arnold Bennett's heroines Helen is certainly the daintiest and most fascinating.
The final touch of comedy arises from the fact that Helen at length overcomes her uncle, not by anything modern in her temperament, but by the old-fangled race shrewdness which she has inherited. She defeats him by the more skilful handling of his own weapons.
LEONORA:
The Story of a Middle-Aged Love Affair.
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The soul-problems of a woman of forty: another novel of the Five Towns.
This is one of the most human of all Arnold Bennett's novels. It grapples with a real problem and works out the solution as in life. There are no heroics; no false elations and no false tragedies. LEONORA is a statement of truth, seasoned with humor.
THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS
And Other Stories.
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Written in Arnold Bennett's most brilliant manner, each story is a complete and perfect study of some family group or separate phase of Five Towns life. Never was he more witty, more penetrating, more sure in his shrewd delineation of homespun domestic characters.
ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS:
A Young Girl's Love-Story.
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This is a love-story with a twist in it, such as Bennett knows so well how to handle. The twist consists in the coming to Anna of unexpected wealth. She is the daughter of a miser and has been brought up under the most rigorous parsimony. She has a simple lover, in every way suited to her narrow circumstances. Then she comes of age and discovers that she is not only well off, but wealthy. What will she do with her money? Will her altered status interfere with her love affair? Will her father's blood tell? In a vein of quiet humor, rich in whimsical character-sketching, Arnold Bennett works these problems out.
Anna is another of the inhabitants of the Five Towns. The little group of friends who gather about her make us familiar with another level of Five Towns' society.
THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA:
The Autobiography of a Woman's Heart.
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THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA presents the woman of genius--who belongs neither to the middle-class nor to any other class, but simply to her genius, and to the passions of her own heart.
The book is a woman's soul confession written in the first person. In sheer audacity of purpose it outstrips all Arnold Bennett's other novels with the exception of THE OLD WIVES' TALE. In the first place, it is an intimate record of a woman's secret psychology; in the second, the woman is a woman of genius, which necessitates a continual flow of brilliancy on the author's part; in the third, it is a novel written in the French manner by an Englishman.
Carlotta is an extraordinary creation--a woman apart. She stands among the rebels of fiction and biography--the people who have dared to be what they are. The motive of her whole life is self-fulfillment as she knows it, even though this means the defiance of laws.
Everything contributes to the last great climax entitledVictory.
ARNOLD BENNETT: POCKET PHILOSOPHIES
HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY:
A Study in Time Expenditure.
On the Conservation of Time.
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In a series of delightfully personal essays Arnold Bennett discusses the problem of how to attain happiness through living the intenser life.
When he deliberately assumes the role of philosopher and friend, his wise and tolerant teachings come to us vivid with his strenuous personality. In the essay medium his strange faculty for combining wisdom with humor works unfettered.
MENTAL EFFICIENCY:
On the Conservation of the Mind.
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Everybody desires to be efficient. But nearly everybody mistakenly supposes that this is a natural characteristic. That it is not, Mr. Bennett shows in his "Mental Efficiency." It is the product of concentration which in turn is the product of will-power. But will-power can be developed by concentration and Mr. Bennett shows us how to do it.
THE HUMAN MACHINE:
On the Conservation of Energy.
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With fine inspiring optimism, amid flashes of wit and gusts of laughter, Arnold Bennett declares to everyone how he may make the best of himself.
LITERARY TASTE: How to Form It.
On the Conservation of Pleasure.
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It is Arnold Bennett's conviction that life ought to be for everybody an affair of joy. For him literature has proved the royal road to happiness: he is eager to point the way.
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, Publishers
BY ARNOLD BENNETT
NOVELS
The Old Wives' TaleHelen with the High HandThe Matador of the Five TownsThe Book of CarlottaBuried AliveA Great ManLeonoraWhom God Hath JoinedA Man from the NorthAnna of the Five TownsThe Glimpse
POCKET PHILOSOPHIES
How to Live on 24 Hours A DayThe Human MachineLiterary TasteMental Efficiency
PLAYS
Cupid and CommonsenseWhat the Public WantsPolite FarcesMilestonesThe Honeymoon
MISCELLANEOUS
The Truth About an AuthorThe Feast of St. Friend
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANYNEW YORK
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE OLD ADAM***