The Regent
Page 26
V
As he came within striking distance of 262 Eaton Square he had theadvantage of an unusual and brilliant spectacle.
Lord Woldo was one of the richest human beings in England--andincidentally he was very human. If he had been in a position torealize all his assets and go to America with the ready money, hiswealth was such that even amid the luxurious society of Pittsburg hecould have cut quite a figure for some time. He owned a great deal ofthe land between Oxford Street and Regent Street, and again a numberof the valuable squares north of Oxford Street were his, and as forEdgware Road--just as auctioneers advertise a couple of miles oftrout-stream or salmon-river as a pleasing adjunct to a countryestate, so, had Lord Woldo's estate come under the hammer, a couple ofmiles of Edgware Road might have been advertised as among its charms.Lord Woldo owned four theatres, and to each theatre he had hisprivate entrance and in each theatre his private box, over which themanagement had no sway. The Woldos in their leases had always insistedon this.
He never built in London; his business was to let land for othersto build upon, the condition being that what others built shouldultimately belong to him. Thousands of people in London were onlytoo delighted to build on these terms; he could pick and choosehis builders. (The astute Edward Henry himself, for example, wantedfuriously to build for him, and was angry because obstacles stood inthe path of his desire.) It was constantly happening that under legalagreements some fine erection put up by another hand came into theabsolute possession of Lord Waldo without one halfpenny of expense toLord Woldo. Now and then a whole street would thus tumble all completeinto his hands. The system, most agreeable for Lord Woldo and about adozen other landlords in London, was called the leasehold system; andwhen Lord Woldo became the proprietor of some bricks and mortar thathad cost him nothing, it was said that one of Lord Woldo's leases had"fallen in," and everybody was quite satisfied by this phrase.
In the provinces, besides castles, forests and moors, Lord Woldo ownedmany acres of land under which was coal, and he allowed enterprisingpersons to dig deep for this coal, and often explode themselvesto death in the adventure, on the understanding that they paid himsixpence for every ton of coal brought to the surface, whether theymade any profit on it or not. This arrangement was called "miningrights," another phrase that apparently satisfied everybody.
It might be thought that Lord Woldo was, as they say, on velvet.But the velvet, if it could be so described, was not of so rich andcomfortable a pile after all. For Lord Woldo's situation involved manyand heavy responsibilities and was surrounded by grave dangers. Hewas the representative of an old order going down in the unforeseeablewelter of twentieth-century politics. Numbers of thoughtful studentsof English conditions spent much of their time in wondering what wouldhappen one day to the Lord Woldos of England. And when a really greatstrike came, and a dozen ex-artisans met in a private room of a WestEnd hotel, and decided, without consulting Lord Woldo or the PrimeMinister or anybody, that the commerce of the country should bebrought to a standstill, these thoughtful students perceived that evenLord Woldo's situation was no more secure than other people's; in factthat it was rather less so.
There could be no doubt that the circumstances of Lord Woldo furnishedhim with food for thought--and very indigestible food too.... Why, atleast one hundred sprightly female creatures were being brought up inthe hope of marrying him. And they would all besiege him, and he couldonly marry one of them--at once!
Now as Edward Henry stopped as near to No. 262 as the presence ofa waiting two-horse carriage permitted, he saw a grey-haired andblue-cloaked woman solemnly descending the steps of the portico ofNo. 262. She was followed by another similar woman, and watched by abutler and a footman at the summit of the steps and by a footmanon the pavement and by the coachman on the box of the carriage. Shecarried a thick and lovely white shawl, and in this shawl was LordWoldo and all his many and heavy responsibilities. It was his fancyto take the air thus, in the arms of a woman. He allowed himself to belifted into the open carriage, and the door of the carriage was shut;and off went the two ancient horses, slowly, and the two adult fat menand the two mature spinsters, and the vehicle weighing about a ton;and Lord Woldo's morning promenade had begun.
"Follow that!" said Edward Henry to the chauffeur and nipped into hisbrougham again. Nobody had told him that the being in the shawl wasLord Woldo, but he was sure that it must be so.
In twenty minutes he saw Lord Woldo being carried to and fro amid thegroves of Hyde Park (one of the few bits of London earth that did notbelong to him or to his more or less distant connections) while thecarriage waited. Once Lord Woldo sat on a chair, but the chief nurse'slap was between him and the chair-seat. Both nurses chattered to himin Kensingtonian accents, but he offered no replies.
"Go back to 262," said Edward Henry to his chauffeur.
Arrived again in Eaton Square, he did not give himself time to beimposed upon by the grandiosity of the square in general, nor of No.262 in particular. He just ran up the steps and rang the visitors'bell.
"After all," he said to himself as he waited, "these houses aren'teven semi-detached! They're just houses in a row, and I bet every oneof 'em can hear the piano next door!"
The butler whom he had previously caught sight of opened the greatportal.
"I want to see Lady Woldo."
"Her ladyship--" began the formidable official.
"Now, look here, my man," said Edward Henry, rather in desperation, "Imust see Lady Woldo instantly. It's about the baby--"
"About his lordship?"
"Yes. And look lively, please."
He stepped into the sombre and sumptuous hall.
"Well," he reflected, "I _am_ going it--no mistake!"