So again he walked down to Lumley to post his letters. And he looked at Lumley. And he found it a damn god-forsaken hell of a hole. It was a long straggle of a dusty road down in the valley, with a pale-grey dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys bellying forth black smoke right by the road. Then there was a short cross-way, up which one saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty place. A little further on was the railway junction, and beyond that, more houses stretching to Hathersedge, where the stocking factories were busy. Compared with Lumley, Woodhouse, whose church could be seen sticking up proudly and vulgarly on an eminence, above trees and meadow-slopes, was an idyllic heaven.
Mr. May turned in to the Derby Hotel to have a small whiskey. And of course he entered into conversation.
“You seem somewhat quiet at Lumley,” he said, in his odd, refined-showman’s voice. “Have you nothing at all in the way of amusement?”
“They all go up to Woodhouse, else to Hathersedge.”
“But couldn’t you support some place of your own — some rival to Wright’s Variety?”
“Ay — ’appen — if somebody started it.”
And so it was that James was inoculated with the idea of starting a cinema on the virgin soil of Lumley. To the women he said not a word. But on the very first morning that Mr. May broached the subject, he became a new man. He fluttered like a boy, he fluttered as if he had just grown wings.
“Let us go down,” said Mr. May, “and look at a site. You pledge yourself to nothing — you don’t compromise yourself. You merely have a site in your mind.”
And so it came to pass that, next morning, this oddly assorted couple went down to Lumley together. James was very shabby, in his black coat and dark grey trousers, and his cheap grey cap. He bent forward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly, as if pursued by fate. His face was thin and still handsome. Odd that his cheap cap, by incongruity, made him look more a gentleman. But it did. As he walked he glanced alertly hither and thither, and saluted everybody.
By his side, somewhat tight and tubby, with his chest out and his head back, went the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of a consequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago-grey suit fitted exactly — save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade as the cloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey suede uppers: but a little down at heel. His dark-grey hat was jaunty. Altogether he looked very spruce, though a little behind the fashions: very pink faced, though his blue eyes were bilious beneath: very much on the spot, although the spot was the wrong one.
They discoursed amiably as they went, James bending forward, Mr. May bending back. Mr. May took the refined man-of-the-world tone.
“Of course,” he said — he used the two words very often, and pronounced the second, rather mincingly, to rhyme with sauce: “Of course,” said Mr. May, “it’s a disgusting place — disgusting! I never was in a worse, in all the cauce of my travels. But then — that isn’t the point — ”
He spread his plump hands from his immaculate shirt-cuffs.
“No, it isn’t. Decidedly it isn’t. That’s beside the point altogether. What we want — ” began James.
“Is an audience — of cauce — ! And we have it — ! Virgin soil — !”
“Yes, decidedly. Untouched! An unspoiled market.”
“An unspoiled market!” reiterated Mr. May, in full confirmation, though with a faint flicker of a smile. “How very fortunate for us.”
“Properly handled,” said James. “Properly handled.”
“Why yes — of cauce! Why _shouldn’t_ we handle it properly!”
“Oh, we shall manage that, we shall manage that,” came the quick, slightly husky voice of James.
“Of cauce we shall! Why bless my life, if we can’t manage an audience in Lumley, what can we do.”
“We have a guide in the matter of their taste,” said James. “We can see what Wright’s are doing — and Jordan’s — and we can go to Hathersedge and Knarborough and Alfreton — beforehand, that is — ”
“Why certainly — if you think it’s necessary. I’ll do all that for you. And I’ll interview the managers and the performers themselves — as if I were a journalist, don’t you see. I’ve done a fair amount of journalism, and nothing easier than to get cards from various newspapers.”
“Yes, that’s a good suggestion,” said James. “As if you were going to write an account in the newspapers — excellent.”
“And so simple! You pick up just all the information you require.”
“Decidedly — decidedly!” said James.
And so behold our two heroes sniffing round the sordid backs and wasted meadows and marshy places of Lumley. They found one barren patch where two caravans were standing. A woman was peeling potatoes, sitting on the bottom step of her caravan. A half-caste girl came up with a large pale-blue enamelled jug of water. In the background were two booths covered up with coloured canvas. Hammering was heard inside.
“Good-morning!” said Mr. May, stopping before the woman. “‘Tisn’t fair time, is it?”
“No, it’s no fair,” said the woman.
“I see. You’re just on your own. Getting on all right?”
“Fair,” said the woman.
“Only fair! Sorry. Good-morning.”
Mr. May’s quick eye, roving round, had seen a negro stoop from under the canvas that covered one booth. The negro was thin, and looked young but rather frail, and limped. His face was very like that of the young negro in Watteau’s drawing — pathetic, wistful, north-bitten. In an instant Mr. May had taken all in: the man was the woman’s husband — they were acclimatized in these regions: the booth where he had been hammering was a Hoop-La. The other would be a cocoanut-shy. Feeling the instant American dislike for the presence of a negro, Mr. May moved off with James.
They found out that the woman was a Lumley woman, that she had two children, that the negro was a most quiet and respectable chap, but that the family kept to itself, and didn’t mix up with Lumley.
“I should think so,” said Mr. May, a little disgusted even at the suggestion.
Then he proceeded to find out how long they had stood on this ground — three months — how long they would remain — only another week, then they were moving off to Alfreton fair — who was the owner of the pitch — Mr. Bows, the butcher. Ah! And what was the ground used for? Oh, it was building land. But the foundation wasn’t very good.
“The very thing! Aren’t we fortunate!” cried Mr. May, perking up the moment they were in the street. But this cheerfulness and brisk perkiness was a great strain on him. He missed his eleven o’clock whiskey terribly — terribly — his pick-me-up! And he daren’t confess it to James, who, he knew, was T-T. So he dragged his weary and hollow way up to Woodhouse, and sank with a long “Oh!” of nervous exhaustion in the private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his short nose. The smell of the place was distasteful to him. The disgusting beer that the colliers drank. Oh! — he was so tired. He sank back with his whiskey and stared blankly, dismally in front of him. Beneath his eyes he looked more bilious still. He felt thoroughly out of luck, and petulant.
None the less he sallied out with all his old bright perkiness, the next time he had to meet James. He hadn’t yet broached the question of costs. When would he be able to get an advance from James? He must hurry the matter forward. He brushed his crisp, curly brown hair carefully before the mirror. How grey he was at the temples! No wonder, dear me, with such a life! He was in his shirt-sleeves. His waistcoat, with its grey satin back, fitted him tightly. He had filled out — but he hadn’t developed a corporation. Not at all. He looked at himself sideways, and feared dismally he was thinner. He was one of those men who carry themselves in a birdie fashion, so that their tail sticks out a little behind, jauntily. How wonderfully the satin of his waistcoat had worn! He looked at his shirt-cuffs. They were going
. Luckily, when he had had the shirts made he had secured enough material for the renewing of cuffs and neck-bands. He put on his coat, from which he had flicked the faintest suspicion of dust, and again settled himself to go out and meet James on the question of an advance. He simply must have an advance.
He didn’t get it that day, none the less. The next morning he was ringing for his tea at six o’clock. And before ten he had already flitted to Lumley and back, he had already had a word with Mr. Bows, about that pitch, and, overcoming all his repugnance, a word with the quiet, frail, sad negro, about Alfreton fair, and the chance of buying some sort of collapsible building, for his cinematograph.
With all this news he met James — not at the shabby club, but in the deserted reading-room of the so-called Artizans Hall — where never an artizan entered, but only men of James’s class. Here they took the chess-board and pretended to start a game. But their conversation was rapid and secretive.
Mr. May disclosed all his discoveries. And then he said, tentatively:
“Hadn’t we better think about the financial part now? If we’re going to look round for an erection — ” curious that he always called it an erection — ”we shall have to know what we are going to spend.”
“Yes — yes. Well — ” said James vaguely, nervously, giving a glance at Mr. May. Whilst Mr. May abstractedly fingered his black knight.
“You see at the moment,” said Mr. May, “I have no funds that I can represent in cash. I have no doubt a little later — if we need it — I can find a few hundreds. Many things are due — numbers of things. But it is so difficult to collect one’s dues, particularly from America.” He lifted his blue eyes to James Houghton. “Of course we can delay for some time, until I get my supplies. Or I can act just as your manager — you can employ me — ”
He watched James’s face. James looked down at the chess-board. He was fluttering with excitement. He did not want a partner. He wanted to be in this all by himself. He hated partners.
“You will agree to be manager, at a fixed salary?” said James hurriedly and huskily, his fine fingers slowly rubbing each other, along the sides.
“Why yes, willingly, if you’ll give me the option of becoming your partner upon terms of mutual agreement, later on.”
James did not quite like this.
“What terms are you thinking of?” he asked.
“Well, it doesn’t matter for the moment. Suppose for the moment I enter an engagement as your manager, at a salary, let us say, of — of what, do you think?”
“So much a week?” said James pointedly.
“Hadn’t we better make it monthly?”
The two men looked at one another.
“With a month’s notice on either hand?” continued Mr. May. “How much?” said James, avaricious.
Mr. May studied his own nicely kept hands.
“Well, I don’t see how I can do it under twenty pounds a month. Of course it’s ridiculously low. In America I never accepted less than three hundred dollars a month, and that was my poorest and lowest. But of cauce, England’s not America — more’s the pity.”
But James was shaking his head in a vibrating movement. “Impossible!” he replied shrewdly. “Impossible! Twenty pounds a month? Impossible. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of it.”
“Then name a figure. Say what you can think of,” retorted Mr. May, rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a doddering provincial, and by his own sudden collapse into mean subordination.
“I can’t make it more than ten pounds a month,” said James sharply.
“What!” screamed Mr. May. “What am I to live on? What is my wife to live on?”
“I’ve got to make it pay,” said James. “If I’ve got to make it pay, I must keep down expenses at the beginning.”
“No, — on the contrary. You must be prepared to spend something at the beginning. If you go in a pinch-and-scrape fashion in the beginning, you will get nowhere at all. Ten pounds a month! Why it’s impossible! Ten pounds a month! But how am I to live?”
James’s head still vibrated in a negative fashion. And the two men came to no agreement that morning. Mr. May went home more sick and weary than ever, and took his whiskey more biliously. But James was lit with the light of battle.
Poor Mr. May had to gather together his wits and his sprightliness for his next meeting. He had decided he must make a percentage in other ways. He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten pounds — but really, did ever you hear of anything so ridiculous in your life, ten pounds! — dirty old screw, dirty, screwing old woman! He would accept the ten pounds; but he would get his own back.
He flitted down once more to the negro, to ask him of a certain wooden show-house, with section sides and roof, an old travelling theatre which stood closed on Selverhay Common, and might probably be sold. He pressed across once more to Mr. Bows. He wrote various letters and drew up certain notes. And the next morning, by eight o’clock, he was on his way to Selverhay: walking, poor man, the long and uninteresting seven miles on his small and rather tight-shod feet, through country that had been once beautiful but was now scrubbled all over with mining villages, on and on up heavy hills and down others, asking his way from uncouth clowns, till at last he came to the Common, which wasn’t a Common at all, but a sort of village more depressing than usual: naked, high, exposed to heaven and to full barren view.
There he saw the theatre-booth. It was old and sordid-looking, painted dark-red and dishevelled with narrow, tattered announcements. The grass was growing high up the wooden sides. If only it wasn’t rotten? He crouched and probed and pierced with his penknife, till a country-policeman in a high helmet like a jug saw him, got off his bicycle and came stealthily across the grass wheeling the same bicycle, and startled poor Mr. May almost into apoplexy by demanding behind him, in a loud voice:
“What’re you after?”
Mr. May rose up with flushed face and swollen neck-veins, holding his pen-knife in his hand.
“Oh,” he said, “good-morning.” He settled his waistcoat and glanced over the tall, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. “I was taking a look at this old erection, with a view to buying it. I’m afraid it’s going rotten from the bottom.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” said the policeman suspiciously, watching Mr. May shut the pocket knife.
“I’m afraid that makes it useless for my purpose,” said Mr. May. The policeman did not deign to answer.
“Could you tell me where I can find out about it, anyway?” Mr. May used his most affable, man of the world manner. But the policeman continued to stare him up and down, as if he were some marvellous specimen unknown on the normal, honest earth.
“What, find out?” said the constable.
“About being able to buy it,” said Mr. May, a little testily. It was with great difficulty he preserved his man-to-man openness and brightness. “They aren’t here,” said the constable.
“Oh indeed! Where are they? And who are they?”
The policeman eyed him more suspiciously than ever.
“Cowlard’s their name. An’ they live in Offerton when they aren’t travelling.”
“Cowlard — thank you.” Mr. May took out his pocket-book. “C-o-w-l-a-r-d — is that right? And the address, please?”
“I dunno th’ street. But you can find out from the Three Bells. That’s Missis’ sister.”
“The Three Bells — thank you. Offerton did you say?”
“Yes.”
“Offerton! — where’s that?”
“About eight mile.”
“Really — and how do you get there?”
“You can walk — or go by train.”
“Oh, there is a station?”
“Station!” The policeman looked at him as if he were either a criminal or a fool.
“Yes. There is a station there?”
“Ay — biggest next to Chesterfield — ”
Suddenly it dawned on Mr. May.
“Oh-h!
” he said. “You mean Alfreton — ”
“Alfreton, yes.” The policeman was now convinced the man was a wrong-’un. But fortunately he was not a pushing constable, he did not want to rise in the police-scale: thought himself safest at the bottom.
“And which is the way to the station here?” asked Mr. May. “Do yer want Pinxon or Bull’ill?”
“Pinxon or Bull’ill?”
“There’s two,” said the policeman.
“For Selverhay?” asked Mr. May.
“Yes, them’s the two.”
“And which is the best?”
“Depends what trains is runnin’. Sometimes yer have to wait an hour or two — ”
“You don’t know the trains, do you — ?”
“There’s one in th’ afternoon — but I don’t know if it’d be gone by the time you get down.”
“To where?”
“Bull’ill.”
“Oh Bull’ill! Well, perhaps I’ll try. Could you tell me the way?”
When, after an hour’s painful walk, Mr. May came to Bullwell Station and found there was no train till six in the evening, he felt he was earning every penny he would ever get from Mr. Houghton.
The first intelligence which Miss Pinnegar and Alvina gathered of the coming adventure was given them when James announced that he had let the shop to Marsden, the grocer next door. Marsden had agreed to take over James’s premises at the same rent as that of the premises he already occupied, and moreover to do all alterations and put in all fixtures himself. This was a grand scoop for James: not a penny was it going to cost him, and the rent was clear profit.
“But when?” cried Miss Pinnegar.
“He takes possession on the first of October.”
“Well — it’s a good idea. The shop isn’t worth while,” said Miss Pinnegar.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 236