I
The early adventures of Alderman Machin of Bursley at Wilkins's Hotel,London, were so singular, and to him so refreshing, that they must berecounted in some detail.
He went to London by the morning express from Knype, on the Mondayweek after his visit to the music-hall. In the meantime he had hadsome correspondence with Mr. Bryany, more poetic than precise, aboutthe option, and had informed Mr. Bryany that he would arrive inLondon several days before the option expired. But he had not givena definite date. The whole affair, indeed, was amusingly vague; and,despite his assurances to his wife that the matter was momentous,he did not regard his trip to London as a business trip at all, butrather as a simple freakish change of air. The one certain item in thewhole situation was that he had in his pocket a quite considerable sumof actual money, destined--he hoped, but was not sure--to take up theoption at the proper hour.
Nellie, impeccable to the last, accompanied him in the motor to Knype,the main-line station. The drive, superficially pleasant, was inreality very disconcerting to him. For nine days the household hadtalked in apparent cheerfulness of father's visit to London, asthough it were an occasion for joy on father's behalf, tempered byaffectionate sorrow for his absence. The official theory was that allwas for the best in the best of all possible homes, and this theorywas admirably maintained. And yet everybody knew--even to Maisie--thatit was not so; everybody knew that the master and the mistress ofthe home, calm and sweet as was their demeanour, were contending ina terrific silent and mysterious altercation, which in some way wasconnected with the visit to London.
So far as Edward Henry was concerned he had been hoping for somedecisive event--a tone, gesture, glance, pressure--during the drive toKnype, which offered the last chance of a real concord. No such eventoccurred. They conversed with the same false cordiality as had markedtheir relations since the evening of the dog-bite. On that eveningNellie had suddenly transformed herself into a distressingly perfectangel, and not once had she descended from her high estate. At leastdaily she had kissed him--what kisses! Kisses that were not kisses!Tasteless mockeries, like non-alcoholic ale! He could have killedher, but he could not put a finger on a fault in her marvellous wifelybehaviour; she would have died victorious.
So that his freakish excursion was not starting very auspiciously.And, waiting with her for the train on the platform at Knype, he feltthis more and more. His old clerk, Penkethman, was there to receivecertain final instructions on Thrift Club matters, and the sweetnessof Nellie's attitude towards the ancient man, and the ancient man'snaive pleasure therein, positively maddened Edward Henry. To such anextent that he began to think: "Is she going to spoil my trip for me?"
Then Brindley came up. Brindley, too, was going to London. AndNellie's saccharine assurances to Brindley that Edward Henry reallyneeded a change just about completed Edward Henry's desperation. Noteven the uproarious advent of two jolly wholesale grocers, MessieursGarvin & Quorrall, also going to London, could effectually lighten hispessimism.
When the train steamed in, Edward Henry, in fear, postponed theultimate kiss as long as possible. He allowed Brindley to climbbefore him into the second-class compartment, and purposely tarriedin finding change for the porter; and then he turned to Nellie andstooped. She raised her white veil and raised the angelic face. Theykissed--the same false kiss--and she was withdrawing her lips ... Butsuddenly she put them again to his for one second, with a hysterical,clinging pressure. It was nothing. Nobody could have noticed it.She herself pretended that she had not done it. Edward Henry hadto pretend not to notice it. But to him it was everything. She hadrelented. She had surrendered. The sign had come from her. She wishedhim to enjoy his visit to London.
He said to himself:
"Dashed if I don't write to her every day!"
He leaned out of the window as the train rolled away and waved andsmiled to her, not concealing his sentiments now; nor did she concealhers as she replied with exquisite pantomime to his signals. But ifthe train had not been rapidly and infallibly separating them thereconciliation could scarcely have been thus open. If for some reasonthe train had backed into the station and ejected its passengers,those two would have covered up their feelings again in an instant.Such is human nature in the Five Towns.
When Edward Henry withdrew his head into the compartment Brindley andMr. Garvin, the latter standing at the corridor door, observed thathis spirits had shot up in the most astonishing manner, and in theirblindness they attributed the phenomenon to Edward Henry's delight ina temporary freedom from domesticity.
Mr. Garvin had come from the neighbouring compartment, which wasfirst-class, to suggest a game at bridge. Messieurs Garvin & Quorralljourneyed to London once a week and sometimes oftener, and, beingtraders, they had special season-tickets. They travelled first-classbecause their special season-tickets were first-class, Brindleysaid that he didn't mind a game, but that he had not the slightestintention of paying excess fare for the privilege. Mr. Garvin told himto come along and trust in Messieurs Garvin & Quorrall. Edward Henry,not nowadays an enthusiastic card-player, enthusiastically agreed tojoin the hand, and announced that he did not care if he paid fortyexcess fares. Whereupon Robert Brindley grumbled enviously that it was"all very well for millionaires"!... They followed Mr. Garvin intothe first-class compartment, and it soon appeared that Messrs Garvin& Quorrall did, in fact, own the train, and that the London and NorthWestern Railway was no more than their washpot.
"Bring us a cushion from somewhere, will ye?" said Mr. Quorrall,casually, to a ticket-collector who entered.
And the resplendent official obeyed. The long cushion, rapt fromanother compartment, was placed on the knees of the quartette, and thegame began. The ticket-collector examined the tickets of Brindley andEdward Henry, and somehow failed to notice that they were of the wrongcolour. And at this proof of their influential greatness MessieursGarvin & Quorrall were both secretly proud.
The last rubber finished in the neighbourhood of Willesden, and EdwardHenry, having won eighteenpence halfpenny, was exuberantlycontent, for Messrs Garvin, Quorrall and Brindley were all renownedcard-players. The cushion was thrown away and a fitful conversationoccupied the few remaining minutes of the journey.
"Where do you put up?" Brindley asked Edward Henry.
"Majestic," said Edward Henry. "Where do you?"
"Oh! Kingsway, I suppose."
The Majestic and the Kingsway were two of the half-dozen very largeand very mediocre hotels in London which, from causes which nobody,and especially no American, has ever been able to discover, areparticularly affected by Midland provincials "on the jaunt!" Both hadan immense reputation in the Five Towns.
There was nothing new to say about the Majestic and the Kingsway, andthe talk flagged until Mr. Quorrall mentioned Seven Sachs. Themighty Seven Sachs, in his world-famous play, "Overheard," had takenprecedence of all other topics in the Five Towns during the previousweek. He had crammed the theatre and half emptied the Empire MusicHall for six nights; a wonderful feat. Incidentally, his fifteenhundredth appearance in "Overheard" had taken place in the Five Towns,and the Five Towns had found in this fact a peculiar satisfaction, asthough some deep merit had thereby been acquired or rewarded. SevenSachs's tour was now closed, and on the Sunday he had gone to London,_en route_ for America.
"I heard _he_ stops at Wilkins's," said Mr. Garvin.
"Wilkins's your grandmother!" Brindley essayed to crush Mr. Garvin.
"I don't say he _does_ stop at Wilkins's," said Mr. Garvin, anindividual not easy to crush; "I only say I heard as he did."
"They wouldn't have him!" Brindley insisted firmly.
Mr. Quorrall at any rate seemed tacitly to agree with Brindley. Theaugust name of Wilkins's was in its essence so exclusive that vastnumbers of fairly canny provincials had never heard of it. Ask tenwell-informed provincials which is the first hotel in London andnine of them would certainly reply, the Grand Babylon. Not that evenwealthy provincials from the industrial districts are in the habit
ofstaying at the Grand Babylon! No! Edward Henry, for example, hadnever stayed at the Grand Babylon, no more than he had ever bought afirst-class ticket on a railroad. The idea of doing so had scarcelyoccurred to him. There are certain ways of extravagant smartness whichare not considered to be good form among solid wealthy provincials.Why travel first-class (they argue) when second is just as good and noone can tell the difference once you get out of the train? Why apethe tricks of another stratum of society? They like to read about thedinner-parties and supper-parties at the Grand Babylon; but they arenot emulous and they do not imitate. At their most adventurous theywould lunch or dine in the neutral region of the grill-room at theGrand Babylon. As for Wilkins's, in Devonshire Square, which isinfinitely better known among princes than in the Five Towns, andwhose name is affectionately pronounced with a "V" by half themonarchs of Europe, few industrial provincials had ever seen it.The class which is the backbone of England left it serenely alone toroyalty and the aristocratic parasites of royalty.
"I don't see why they shouldn't have him," said Edward Henry, as helifted a challenging nose in the air.
"Perhaps you don't, Alderman!" said Brindley.
"_I_ wouldn't mind going to Wilkins's," Edward Henry persisted.
"I'd like to see you," said Brindley, with curt scorn.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "I'll bet you a fiver I do." Had he notwon eighteenpence halfpenny, and was he not securely at peace with hiswife?
"I don't bet fivers," said the cautious Brindley. "But I'll bet youhalf-a-crown."
"Done!" said Edward Henry.
"When will you go?"
"Either to-day or to-morrow. I must go to the Majestic first, becauseI've ordered a room and so on."
"Ha!" hurtled Brindley, as if to insinuate that Edward Henry wasseeking to escape from the consequences of his boast.
And yet he ought to have known Edward Henry. He did know Edward Henry.And he hoped to lose his half-crown. On his face and on the faces ofthe other two was the cheerful admission that tales of the doings ofAlderman Machin, the great local card, at Wilkins's--if he succeededin getting in--would be cheap at half-a-crown.
Porters cried out "Euston!"
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