The Regent by E. Arnold Bennett

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As he turned away from the moving carriage the evening papers had just
arrived at the bookstalls. He bought the four chief organs--one green,
one yellowish, one white, one pink--and scanned them self-consciously
on the platform. The white organ had a good heading: "Re-birth of the
intellectual drama in London. What a provincial has done. Opinions of
leading men." Two columns altogether! There was, however, little in
the two columns. The leading men had practised a sagacious caution.
They, like the press as a whole, were obviously waiting to see which
way the great elephantine public would jump. When the enormous animal
had jumped they would all exclaim: "What did I tell you?" The other
critiques were colourless. At the end of the green critique occurred
the following sentence: "It is only fair to state, nevertheless,
that the play was favourably received by an apparently enthusiastic
audience."

"Nevertheless!" ... "Apparently!"

Edward Henry turned the page to the theatrical advertisements.

"REGENT THEATRE. (Twenty yards from Piccadilly Circus.) 'The
Orient Pearl,' by Carlo Trent. Miss ROSE EUCLID. Every evening
at 8.30. Matinees every Wednesday and Saturday at 2.30.
Box-office open 10 to 10. Sole Proprietor--E.H. Machin."

Unreal! Fantastic! Was this he, Edward Henry? Could it be his mother's
son?

Still--"Matinees every Wednesday and Saturday." "_Every_ Wednesday and
Saturday." That word implied and necessitated a long run--anyhow a run
extending over months. That word comforted him. Though he knew as well
as you do that Mr. Marrier had composed the advertisement, and that he
himself was paying for it, it comforted him. He was just like a child.

VIII

"I say, Cunningham's made a hit!" Mr. Marrier almost shouted at him as
he entered the managerial room at the Regent.

"Cunningham? Who's Cunningham?"

Then he remembered. She was the girl who played the Messenger. She had
only three words to say, and to say them over and over again; and she
had made a hit!

"Seen the notices?" asked Marrier.

"Yes. What of them?"

"Oh! Well!" Marrier drawled. "What would you expect?"

"That's just what _I_ said!" observed Edward Henry.

"You did, did you?" Mr. Marrier exclaimed, as if extremely interested
by this corroboration of his views.

Carlo Trent strolled in; he remarked that he happened to be just
passing. But discussion of the situation was not carried very far.

That evening the house was nearly full, except the pit and the
gallery, which were nearly empty. Applause was perfunctory.

"How much?" Edward Henry inquired of the box-office manager when
figures were added together.

"Thirty-one pounds, two shillings."

"Hem!"

"Of course," said Mr. Marrier, "in the height of the London season,
with so many counter-attractions--! Besides, they've got to get used
to the idea of it."

Edward Henry did not turn pale. Still, he was aware that it cost him
a trifle over sixty pounds "to ring the curtain up" at every
performance--and this sum took no account of expenses of production
nor of author's fees. The sum would have been higher, but he was
calculating as rent of the theatre only the ground-rent plus six per
cent on the total price of the building.

What disgusted him was the duplicity of the first-night audience, and
he said to himself violently, "I was right all the time, and I knew I
was right! Idiots! Chumps! Of course I was right!"

On the third night the house held twenty-seven pounds and sixpence.

"Naturally," said Mr. Marrier, "in this hot weathah! I never knew such
a hot June! It's the open-air places that are doing us in the eye. In
fact I heard to-day that the White City is packed. They simply can't
bank their money quick enough."

It was on that day that Edward Henry paid salaries. It appeared to him
that he was providing half London with a livelihood: acting-managers,
stage-managers, assistant ditto, property men, stage-hands,
electricians, prompters, call-boys, box-office staff, general
staff, dressers, commissionaires, programme-girls, cleaners, actors,
actresses, understudies, to say nothing of Rose Euclid at a purely
nominal salary of a hundred pounds a week. The tenants of the bars
were grumbling, but happily he was getting money from them.

The following day was Saturday. It rained--a succession of
thunderstorms. The morning and the evening performances produced
together sixty-eight pounds.

"Well," said Mr. Marrier, "in this kind of weathah you can't expect
people to come out, can you? Besides, this cursed week-ending habit--"

Which conclusions did not materially modify the harsh fact that Edward
Henry was losing over thirty pounds a day--or at the rate of over ten
thousand pounds a year.

He spent Sunday between his hotel and his club, chiefly in reiterating
to himself that Monday began a new week and that something would have
to occur on Monday.

Something did occur.

Carlo Trent lounged into the office early. The man was for ever being
drawn to the theatre as by an invisible but powerful elastic cord. The
papers had a worse attack than ever of Isabel Joy, for she had been
convicted of transgression in a Chicago court of law, but a tremendous
lawyer from St. Louis had loomed over Chicago and, having examined the
documents in the case, was hopeful of getting the conviction quashed.
He had discovered that in one and the same document "Isabel" had been
spelt "Isobel" and--worse--Illinois had been deprived by a careless
clerk of one of its "l's." He was sure that by proving these grave
irregularities in American justice he could win an appeal.

Edward Henry glanced up suddenly from the newspaper. He had been
inspired.

"I say, Trent," he remarked, without any warning or preparation,
"you're not looking at all well. I want a change myself. I've a good
mind to take you for a sea-voyage."

"Oh!" grumbled Trent. "I can't afford sea-voyages."

"_I_ can!" said Edward Henry. "And I shouldn't dream of letting it
cost you a penny. I'm not a philanthropist. But I know as well
as anybody that it will pay us theatrical managers to keep you in
health."

"You're not going to take the play off?" Trent demanded suspiciously.

"Certainly not!" said Edward Henry.

"What sort of a sea-voyage?"

"Well--what price the Atlantic? Been to New York?... Neither have I!
Let's go. Just for the trip. It'll do us good."

"You don't mean it?" murmured the greatest dramatic poet, who had
never voyaged further than the Isle of Wight. His eyeglass swung to
and fro.

Edward Henry feigned to resent this remark.

"Of course I mean it. Do you take me for a blooming gas-bag?" He rose.
"Marrier!" Then more loudly: "Marrier!" Mr. Marrier entered. "Do you
know anything about the sailings to New York?"

"Rather!" said Mr. Marrier, beaming. After all, he was a most precious
aid.

"We may be able to arrange for a production in New York," said Edward
Henry to Carlo, mysteriously.

Mr. Marrier gazed at one and then at the other, puzzled.

CHAPTER X

ISABEL

I

Throughout the voyage of the _Lithuania_ from Liverpool to New York,
Edward Henry, in common with some two thousand other people on board,
had the sensation of being hurried. He who in a cab rides late to
an important appointment, arrives with muscles fatigued by mentally
aiding the horse to move the vehicle along. Thus were Edward Henry's
muscles fatigued, and the muscles of many others; but just as much
more so as the _Lithuania_ was bigger than a cab.

For the _Lithuania_, having been seriously delayed in Liverpool by men
who were most ridiculously striking for the fantastic remuneration of
one pound a week, was engaged on the business of making new records.
And every passenger was personally determined that she should therein
succeed. And, despite very bad June weather towards the end, she did
sail past the Battery on a grand Monday morning with a new record to
her credit.

So far Edward Henry's plan was not miscarrying. But he had a very
great deal to do, and very little time in which to do it, and whereas
the muscles of the other passengers were relaxed as the ship drew to
her berth, Edward Henry's muscles were only more tensely tightened.
He had expected to see Mr. Seven Sachs on the quay, for in response to
his telegram from Queenstown the illustrious actor-author had sent him
an agreeable wireless message in full Atlantic; the which had inspired
Edward Henry to obtain news by Marconi both from London and New York,
at much expense; from the east he had had daily information of the
dwindling receipts at the Regent Theatre, and from the west daily
information concerning Isabel Joy. He had not, however, expected Mr.
Seven Sachs to walk into the _Lithuania's_ music-saloon an hour before
the ship touched the quay. Nevertheless, this was what Mr. Seven
Sachs did, by the exercise of those mysterious powers wielded by the
influential in democratic communities.

"And what are you doing here?" Mr. Seven Sachs greeted Edward Henry
with geniality.

Edward Henry lowered his voice.

"I'm throwing good money after bad," said he.

The friendly grip of Mr. Seven Sachs's hand did him good, reassured
him, and gave him courage. He was utterly tired of the voyage, and
also of the poetical society of Carlo Trent, whose passage had cost
him thirty pounds, considerable boredom, and some sick-nursing during
the final days and nights. A dramatic poet with an appetite was a full
dose for Edward Henry; but a dramatic poet who lay on his back and
moaned for naught but soda-water and dry land amounted to more than
Edward Henry could conveniently swallow.

He directed Mr. Sachs's attention to the anguished and debile organism
which had once been Carlo Trent, and Mr. Sachs was so sympathetic
that Carlo Trent began to adore him, and Edward Henry to be somewhat
disturbed in his previous estimate of Mr. Sachs's common sense. But at
a favourable moment Mr. Sachs breathed humorously into Edward Henry's
ear the question:

"What have you brought _him_ out for?"

"I've brought him out to lose him."

As they pushed through the bustle of the enormous ship, and descended
from the dizzy eminence of her boat-deck by lifts and ladders down
to the level of the windy, sun-steeped rock of New York, Edward Henry
said:

"Now, I want you to understand, Mr. Sachs, that I haven't a minute to
spare. I've just looked in for lunch."

"Going on to Chicago?"

"She isn't at Chicago, is she?" demanded Edward Henry, aghast. "I
thought she'd reached New York!"

"Who?"

"Isabel Joy."

"Oh! Isabel's in New York, sure enough. She's right here. They say
she'll have to catch the _Lithuania_ if she's going to get away with
it."

"Get away with what?"

"Well--the goods."

The precious word reminded Edward Henry of an evening at Wilkins's and
raised his spirits even higher. It was a word he loved.

"And I've got to catch the _Lithuania_, too!" said he. "But Trent
doesn't know!... And let me tell you she's going to do the quickest
turn-round that any ship ever did. The purser assured me she'll leave
at noon to-morrow unless the world comes to an end in the meantime.
Now what about a hotel?"

"You'll stay with me--naturally."

"But--" Edward Henry protested.

"Oh, yes, you will. I shall be delighted."

"But I must look after Trent."

"He'll stay with me too--naturally. I live at the Stuyvesant Hotel,
you know, on Fifth. I've a pretty private suite there. I shall arrange
a little supper for to-night. My automobile is here."

"Is it possible that I once saved your life and have forgotten all
about it?" Edward Henry exclaimed. "Or do you treat everybody like
this?"

"We like to look after our friends," said Mr. Sachs, simply.

In the terrific confusion of the quay, where groups of passengers
were mounted like watch-dogs over hillocks of baggage, Mr. Sachs stood
continually between the travellers and the administrative rigour and
official incredulity of a proud republic. And in the minimum of time
the fine trunk of Edward Henry and the modest packages of the poet
were on the roof of Mr. Sachs's vast car. The three men were inside,
and the car was leaping, somewhat in the manner of a motor-boat at
full speed, over the cobbles of a wide mediaeval street.

"Quick!" thought Edward Henry. "I haven't a minute to lose!"

His prayer reached the chauffeur. Conversation was difficult; Carlo
Trent groaned. Presently they rolled less perilously upon asphalt,
though the equipage still lurched. Edward Henry was for ever bending
his head towards the window aperture in order to glimpse the roofs of
the buildings, and never seeing the roofs.

"Now we're on Fifth," said Mr. Sachs, after a fearful lurch, with
pride.

Vistas of flags, high cornices, crowded pavements, marble, jewellery
behind glass--the whole seen through a roaring phantasmagoria of
competing and menacing vehicles!

And Edward Henry thought:

"This is my sort of place!"

The jolting recommenced. Carlo Trent rebounded limply, groaning
between cushions and upholstery. Edward Henry tried to pretend that he
was not frightened. Then there was a shock as of the concussion of
two equally unyielding natures. A pane of glass in Mr. Seven Sachs's
limousine flew to fragments and the car stopped.

"I expect that's a spring gone!" observed Mr. Sachs with tranquillity.
"Will happen, you know, sometimes!"

Everybody got out. Mr. Sachs's presumption was correct. One of the
back wheels had failed to leap over a hole in Fifth Avenue some
eighteen inches deep and two feet long.

"What is that hole?" asked Edward Henry.

"Well," said Mr. Sachs, "it's just a hole. We'd better transfer to a
taxi." He gave calm orders to his chauffeur.

Four empty taxis passed down the sunny magnificence of Fifth Avenue
and ignored Mr. Sachs's urgent waving. The fifth stopped. The baggage
was strapped and tied to it: which process occupied much time. Edward
Henry, fuming against delay, gazed around. A nonchalant policeman on
a superb horse occupied the middle of the road. Tram-cars passed
constantly across the street in front of his caracoling horse,
dividing a route for themselves in the wild ocean of traffic as Moses
cut into the Red Sea. At intervals a knot of persons, intimidated and
yet daring, would essay the voyage from one pavement to the opposite
pavement; there was no half-way refuge for these adventurers, as in
decrepit London; some apparently arrived; others seemed to disappear
for ever in the feverish welter of confused motion and were never
heard of again. The policeman, easily accommodating himself to the
caracolings of his mount, gazed absently at Edward Henry, and Edward
Henry gazed first at the policeman, and then at the high decorated
grandeur of the buildings, and then at the Assyrian taxi into which
Mr. Sachs was now ingeniously inserting Carlo Trent. He thought:

"No mistake--this street is alive. But what cemeteries they must
have!"

He followed Carlo, with minute precautions, into the interior of
the taxi. And then came the supremely delicate operation--that of
introducing a third person into the same vehicle. It was accomplished;
three chins and six knees fraternized in close intimacy; but the door
would not shut. Wheezing, snorting, shaking, complaining, the taxi
drew slowly away from Mr. Sachs's luxurious automobile and left it
forlorn to its chauffeur. Mr. Sachs imperturbably smiled. ("I have two
other automobiles," said Mr. Sachs.) In some sixty seconds the taxi
stopped in front of the tremendous glass awning of the Stuyvesant. The
baggage was unstrapped; the passengers were extracted one by one from
the cell, and Edward Henry saw Mr. Sachs give two separate dollar
bills to the driver.

"By Jove!" he murmured.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Sachs, politely.

"Nothing!" said Edward Henry.

They walked into the hotel, and passed through a long succession of
corridors and vast public rooms surging with well-dressed men and
women.

"What's all this crowd for?" asked Edward Henry.

"What crowd?" asked Mr. Sachs, surprised.

Edward Henry saw that he had blundered.

"I prefer the upper floors," remarked Mr. Sachs as they were being
flung upwards in a gilded elevator, and passing rapidly all numbers
from 1 to 14.

The elevator made an end of Carlo Trent's manhood. He collapsed. Mr.
Sachs regarded him, and then said:

"I think I'll get an extra room for Mr. Trent. He ought to go to bed."

Edward Henry enthusiastically concurred.

"And stay there!" said Edward Henry.

Pale Carlo Trent permitted himself to be put to bed. But, therein, he
proved fractious. He was anxious about his linen. Mr. Sachs telephoned
from the bedside, and a laundry-maid came. He was anxious about his
best lounge-suit. Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a valet came. Then he
wanted a siphon of soda-water, and Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a waiter
came. Then it was a newspaper he required. Mr. Sachs telephoned and
a page came. All these functionaries, together with two reporters,
peopled Mr. Trent's bedroom more or less simultaneously. It was Edward
Henry's bright notion to add to them a doctor--a doctor whom Mr. Sachs
knew, a doctor who would perceive at once that bed was the only proper
place for Carlo Trent.

"Now," said Edward Henry, when he and Mr. Sachs were participating in
a private lunch amid the splendours and the grim, silent service of
the latter's suite at the Stuyvesant, "I have fully grasped the fact
that I am in New York. It is one o'clock and after, and as soon as
ever this meal is over I have just _got_ to find Isabel Joy. You must
understand that on this trip New York for me is merely a town where
Isabel Joy happens to be."

"Well," replied Mr. Sachs, "I reckon I can put you on to that. _She's
going to be photographed at two o'clock by Rentoul Smiles_. I happen
to know because Rent's a particular friend of mine."

"A photographer, you say?"

Mr. Sachs controlled himself. "Do you mean to say you've not heard
of Rentoul Smiles?... Well, he's called 'Man's photographer.' He has
never photographed a woman! Won't! At least, wouldn't! But he's going
to photograph Isabel. So you may guess that he considers Isabel _some_
woman, eh?"

"And how will that help me?" inquired Edward Henry.

"Why! I'll take you up to Rent's," Mr. Sachs comforted him. "It's
close by--corner of Thirty-ninth and Five."

"Tell me," Edward Henry demanded, with immense relief, "she hasn't got
herself arrested yet, has she?"

"No. And she won't!"

"Why not?"

"The police have been put wise," said Mr. Sachs.

"Put wise?"

"Yes. _Put wise_!"

"I see," said Edward Henry.

But he did not see. He only half saw.

"As a matter of fact," said Mr. Sachs, "Isabel can't get away with the
goods unless she fixes the police to lock her up for a few hours. And
she'll not succeed in that. Her hundred days are up in London next
Sunday. So there'll be no time for her to be arrested and bailed out
either at Liverpool or Fishguard. And that's her only chance. I've
seen Isabel, and if you ask me my opinion she's down and out."

"Never mind!" said Edward Henry with glee.

"I guess what you're after her for," said Mr. Seven Sachs, with an air
of deep knowledge.

"The deuce you do!"

"Yes, sir! And let me tell you that dozens of 'em have been after her
already. But she wouldn't! Nothing would tempt her."

"Never mind!" Edward Henry smiled.

II

When Edward Henry stood by the side of Mr. Sachs in a doorway half
shielded by a _portiere_, and gazed unseen into the great studio of
Mr. Rentoul Smiles, he comprehended that he was indeed under powerful
protection in New York. At the entrance on Fifth Avenue he and Sachs
had passed through a small crowd of assorted men, chiefly young, whom
Sachs had greeted in the mass with the smiling words, "Well, boys!"
Other men were within. Still another went up with them in the
elevator, but no further. They were reporters of the entire world's
press, to each of whom Isabel Joy had been specially "assigned." They
were waiting; they would wait.

Mr. Rentoul Smiles having been warned by telephone of the visit of his
beloved friend, Seven Sachs, Mr. Sachs and his English _protege_ had
been received at Smiles's outer door by a clerk who knew exactly what
to do with them, and did it.

"Is she here?" Mr. Sachs had murmured.

"Yep," the clerk had negligently replied.

And now Edward Henry beheld the objective of his pilgrimage, her whose
personality, portrait and adventures had been filling the newspapers
of two hemispheres for three weeks past. She was not realistically
like her portraits. She was a little, thin, pale, obviously nervous
woman, of any age from thirty-five to fifty, with fair untidy hair,
and pale grey-blue eyes that showed the dreamer, the idealist and
the harsh fanatic. She looked as though a moderate breeze would have
overthrown her, but she also looked, to the enlightened observer, as
though she would recoil before no cruelty and no suffering in pursuit
of her vision. The blind dreaming force behind her apparent frailty
would strike terror into the heart of any man intelligent enough to
understand it. Edward Henry had an inward shudder. "Great Scott!" he
reflected. "I shouldn't like to be ill and have Isabel for a nurse!"

And his mind at once flew to Nellie, and then to Elsie April. "And
so she's going to marry Wrissell!" he reflected, and could scarcely
believe it.

Then he violently wrenched his mind back to the immediate
objective. He wondered why Isabel Joy should wear a bowler hat and a
mustard-coloured jacket that resembled a sporting man's overcoat; and
why these garments suited her. With a whip in her hand she could have
sat for a jockey. And yet she was a woman, and very feminine, and
probably old enough to be Elsie April's mother! A disconcerting world,
he thought.

The "man's photographer," as he was described in copper on Fifth
Avenue and in gold on his own doors, was a big, loosely-articulated
male, who loured over the trifle Isabel like a cloud over a sheep in a
great field. Edward Henry could only see his broad bending back as he
posed in athletic attitudes behind the camera.

Suddenly Rentoul Smiles dashed to a switch, and Isabel's wistful face
was transformed into that of a drowned corpse, into a dreadful harmony
of greens and purples.

"Now," said Rentoul Smiles, in a deep voice that was like a rich
unguent, "we'll try again. We'll just play around that spot. Look into
my eyes. Not _at_ my eyes, my dear woman, _into_ them! Just a little
more challenge--a little more! That's it. Don't wink, for the land's
sake! Now."

He seized a bulb at the end of a tube and slowly squeezed--squeezed
it tragically and remorselessly, twisting himself as if suffering in
sympathy with the bulb, and then in a wide, sweeping gesture he flung
the bulb on to the top of the camera and ejaculated:

"Ha!"

Edward Henry thought:

"I would give ten pounds to see Rentoul Smiles photograph Sir John
Pilgrim." But the next instant the forgotten sensation of hurry was
upon him once more. Quick, quick, Rentoul Smiles! Edward Henry's
scorching desire was to get done and leave New York.

"Now, Miss Isabel," Mr. Smiles proceeded, exasperatingly deliberate,
"d'you know, I feel kind of guilty? I have got a little farm out in
Westchester County and I'm making a little English pathway up the
garden with a gate at the end. I woke up this morning and began to
think about the quaint English form of that gate, and just how I would
have it." He raised a finger. "But I ought to have been thinking
about you. I ought to have been saying to myself, 'To-day I have to
photograph Isabel Joy,' and trying to understand in meditation the
secrets of your personality. I'm sorry! Now, don't talk. Keep like
that. Move your head round. Go on! Go on! Move it. Don't be afraid.
This place belongs to you. It's yours. Whatever you do, we've got
people here who'll straighten up after you.... D'you know why I've
made money? I've made money so that I can take _you_ this afternoon,
and tell a two-hundred-dollar client to go to the deuce. That's
why I've made money. Put your back against the chair, like an
Englishwoman. That's it. No, don't _talk_, I tell you. Now look
joyful, hang it! Look joyful.... No, no! Joy isn't a contortion. It's
something right deep down. There, there!"

The lubricant voice rolled on while Rentoul Smiles manipulated the
camera. He clasped the bulb again and again threw it dramatically
away.

"I'm through!" he said. "Don't expect anything very grand,
Miss Isabel. What I've been trying to do this afternoon is my
interpretation of you as I've studied your personality in your
speeches. If I believed wholly in your cause, or if I wholly
disbelieved in it, my work would not have been good. Any value that
it has will be due to the sympathetic impartiality of my spiritual
attitude. Although"--he menaced her with the licensed familiarity of a
philosopher--"although, lady, I must say that I felt you were working
against me all the time.... This way!"

(Edward Henry, recalling the comparative simplicity of the London
photographer at Wilkins's, thought: "How profoundly they understand
photography in America!")

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