George's mutton chop congealed on the plate, untouched. The French
fried potatoes cooled off, unnoticed. This was no time for food.
Rightly indeed had he relied upon his luck. It had stood by him
nobly. With this clue, all was over except getting to the nearest
Free Library and consulting Burke's Peerage. He paid his bill and
left the restaurant.
Ten minutes later he was drinking in the pregnant information that
Belpher was the family name of the Earl of Marshmoreton, and that
the present earl had one son, Percy Wilbraham Marsh, educ. Eton and
Christ Church, Oxford, and what the book with its customary
curtness called "one d."--Patricia Maud. The family seat, said
Burke, was Belpher Castle, Belpher, Hants.
Some hours later, seated in a first-class compartment of a train
that moved slowly out of Waterloo Station, George watched London
vanish behind him. In the pocket closest to his throbbing heart
was a single ticket to Belpher.
"Because--" She lowered her voice, though there was no one near.
"Because he is back in London! He's a sort of secretary, you know,
Reggie, to his uncle, and I saw in the paper this morning that the
uncle returned yesterday after a long voyage in his yacht. So--he
must have come back, too. He has to go everywhere his uncle goes."
"And everywhere the uncle went, the chappie was sure to go!"
murmured Reggie. "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt."
"I must see him. I haven't seen him since last summer--nearly a
whole year! And he hasn't written to me, and I haven't dared to
write to him, for fear of the letter going wrong. So, you see, I
must go. Today's my only chance. Aunt Caroline has gone away.
Father will be busy in the garden, and won't notice whether I'm
here or not. And, besides, tomorrow it will be too late, because
Percy will be here. He was more furious about the thing than
anyone."
"Rather the proud aristocrat, Percy," agreed Reggie. "I understand
absolutely. Tell me just what you want me to do."
"I want you to pick me up in the car about half a mile down the
road. You can drop me somewhere in Piccadilly. That will be near
enough to where I want to go. But the most important thing is about
Percy. You must persuade him to stay and dine in town and come back
here after dinner. Then I shall be able to get back by an afternoon
train, and no one will know I've been gone."
"That's simple enough, what? Consider it done. When do you want to
start?"
The sun that had shone so brightly on Belpher Castle at noon, when
Maud and Reggie Byng set out on their journey, shone on the
West-End of London with equal pleasantness at two o'clock. In
Little Gooch Street all the children of all the small shopkeepers
who support life in that backwater by selling each other vegetables
and singing canaries were out and about playing curious games of
their own invention. Cats washed themselves on doorsteps,
preparatory to looking in for lunch at one of the numerous garbage
cans which dotted the sidewalk. Waiters peered austerely from the
windows of the two Italian restaurants which carry on the Lucretia
Borgia tradition by means of one shilling and sixpenny table d'hote
luncheons. The proprietor of the grocery store on the corner was
bidding a silent farewell to a tomato which even he, though a
dauntless optimist, had been compelled to recognize as having
outlived its utility. On all these things the sun shone with a
genial smile. Round the corner, in Shaftesbury Avenue, an east wind
was doing its best to pierce the hardened hides of the citizenry;
but it did not penetrate into Little Gooch Street, which, facing
south and being narrow and sheltered, was enabled practically to
bask.
Mac, the stout guardian of the stage door of the Regal Theatre,
whose gilded front entrance is on the Avenue, emerged from the
little glass case in which the management kept him, and came out to
observe life and its phenomena with an indulgent eye. Mac was
feeling happy this morning. His job was a permanent one, not
influenced by the success or failure of the productions which
followed one another at the theatre throughout the year; but he
felt, nevertheless, a sort of proprietary interest in these
ventures, and was pleased when they secured the approval of the
public. Last night's opening, a musical piece by an American
author and composer, had undoubtedly made a big hit, and Mac was
glad, because he liked what he had seen of the company, and, in the
brief time in which he had known him, had come to entertain a warm
regard for George Bevan, the composer, who had travelled over from
New York to help with the London production.
George Bevan turned the corner now, walking slowly, and, it seemed
to Mac, gloomily towards the stage door. He was a young man of
about twenty-seven, tall and well knit, with an agreeable,
clean-cut face, of which a pair of good and honest eyes were the
most noticeable feature. His sensitive mouth was drawn down a
little at the corners, and he looked tired.
"Yes, sir. Some telegrams. I'll get 'em. Oh, I'll GET 'em," said
Mac, as if reassuring some doubting friend and supporter as to his
ability to carry through a labour of Hercules.
He disappeared into his glass case. George Bevan remained outside
in the street surveying the frisking children with a sombre glance.
They seemed to him very noisy, very dirty and very young.
Disgustingly young. Theirs was joyous, exuberant youth which made a
fellow feel at least sixty. Something was wrong with George today,
for normally he was fond of children. Indeed, normally he was fond
of most things. He was a good-natured and cheerful young man, who
liked life and the great majority of those who lived it
contemporaneously with himself. He had no enemies and many
friends.
But today he had noticed from the moment he had got out of bed that
something was amiss with the world. Either he was in the grip of
some divine discontent due to the highly developed condition of his
soul, or else he had a grouch. One of the two. Or it might have
been the reaction from the emotions of the previous night. On the
morning after an opening your sensitive artist is always apt to
feel as if he had been dried over a barrel.
Besides, last night there had been a supper party after the
performance at the flat which the comedian of the troupe had rented
in Jermyn Street, a forced, rowdy supper party where a number of
tired people with over-strained nerves had seemed to feel it a duty
to be artificially vivacious. It had lasted till four o'clock when
the morning papers with the notices arrived, and George had not got
George put the telegrams in his pocket. A cat, on its way back from
lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette.
George tickled it under the ear abstractedly. He was always
courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements
perfunctorily and without enthusiasm.
"My Missus saw it from the gallery, and all the first-nighters was
speaking very 'ighly of it. There's a regular click, you know, sir,
over here in London, that goes to all the first nights in the
gallery. 'Ighly critical they are always. Specially if it's an
American piece like this one. If they don't like it, they precious
soon let you know. My missus ses they was all speakin' very 'ighly
of it. My missus says she ain't seen a livelier show for a long
time, and she's a great theatregoer. My missus says they was all
specially pleased with the music.