Читать книгу The Education of Eric Lane - Stephen McKenna - Страница 13

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The latest, costliest and most ingenious mechanical device in Eric's bedroom was an electric dial and switchboard communicating with the kitchen and so constructed that, by moving a clock-hand, the corresponding dial abandoned the non-committal elusiveness of "Please call me at——" for "Please call me at 8.00 (or 9.00 or 9.30)." There was something calculatedly dissolute about the invention (which cost £17.10 and had struck work four times in three weeks). After a long night of work or frolic, the sybarite moved the hand on for twelve hours—his last conscious act before collapsing into bed; if, again, he had retired early or were so much debauched that he could not sleep, he wearily set the hand for "Please call me now."

Eric looked with smarting eyes first at the luminous clock, then at the dial. Half-past five, coupled with "Please call me at eight." He undressed ruminatively, reheated his hot-water can at the gas-ring, methodically folded his clothes, smoothed his trousers away in their press, selected a suit for the following day, washed face and hands, brushed teeth and hoisted himself into bed. The dial must stand as he had left it. Lady Barbara Neave had come—and gone; she was not going to disturb his work.

His sleep seemed to be interrupted almost instantly by the arrival of a maid with tea, rusks, letters and The Times. His head was hot, but he was singularly untired; that would come later.

His letters varied little from day to day; two appeals for free sittings with Bond Street photographers; four receipts; one bill; a dignified protest from a country clergyman who had been shocked by the line: "Oh, you're not sending me down with that woman, Rhoda? She's God's first and most perfect bore." There was an ill-written request for leave to translate his play into French, three news-cuttings to herald his new play, a conventional letter from his mother, two petitions for free stalls from impecunious friends and nine invitations to luncheon or dinner. He had hardly finished reading them, when a pencilled note, sent by hand from Mrs. Shelley, made the tenth.

Eric piled his correspondence under the butter-dish to await his secretary's arrival and turned methodically to The Times. Half-an-hour later he rang for his housekeeper and subjected her book to scrutiny. A leather-bound journal with a snap-lock lay on his table, and he next wrote his diary for the previous day. "So to dinner—rather late—with Lady Poynter to meet her nephew, Capt. Gaymer (R. F. C). Mrs. O'Rane (as beautiful as ever, but too voluble for my taste), Mrs. Shelley and Lady Barbara Neave. Meredithian debate on wine with Lord P., which I would give anything to put into a play. Bridge; but I cut out." He hesitated and drummed with his fingers on the thick creamy pages. "Took Lady B. home rather late and circuitously."

Then his secretary knocked and settled herself on the edge of an arm-chair.

"Good-morning," Eric began. "Will you write first of all to the manager of the bank——"

The telephone rang with a dull drone at the foot of his bed, and the girl made tentative movements of discreet departure.

"No, you deal with this!" Eric cried. "Out of London. You're not sure when I shall be back. Can you take a message?"

The girl picked up the instrument, while Eric glanced again through his letters.

"Hullo! Yes. Yes. He's—away, I'm afraid. … But, you see, he's away. … " She looked despairingly at Eric. "He's awa-ay!" Then breathlessly she clapped the receiver back.

"It was Lady Barbara Somebody; I couldn't hear the surname. She said you weren't away and she must speak to you. I thought it was best——"

Eric had to collect himself before answering. In the sane cold light of early morning the overnight escapade was a draggled, unromantic bit of folly. If he met Barbara again, he would make things as easy as possible: there would be no allusions, no sly smiles; the whole thing was to be forgotten. And yet she was already digging it from under the lightly sprinkled earth. If she were throwing herself on his mercy, it was unnecessary; he had said "Good-bye … " very distinctly. And she must surely know that she need not beg him not to talk. …

"You were quite right," he told his secretary. "Where were we? Oh, the manager——"

The bell rang again. Eric frowned and picked up the receiver, while the girl, after a moment's hesitation, tip-toed out of the room. Barbara had already disturbed his time-table for thirty seconds. …

"Hullo? Mr. Lane is away at present," he said. There was a pause. "I told you yesterday, Lady Barbara. Just as when you say 'Not at home.' … I'm exceedingly busy and I must have a few days to myself. Good-bye."

The constant factor in her overnight autobiography was that every one had always done what Barbara wanted; but, if she fancied that she was going to break into a working-day with any of her nonsense, she would be disappointed.

At the other end of the line a gentle, rather tired voice said:

"Don't cut me off. If you know the trouble I've had to get hold of you! Eric, why aren't you in the book? Another device for escaping your adorers? I've been pursuing you round London for a good half-hour; then your people at the theatre——"

"Is it anything important?" he interrupted curtly.

"It's very important that you should listen most politely and carefully and patiently and attentively when I'm talking to you. So far you haven't asked how I am, you haven't told me how you are——"

"I've suggested that I'm very busy," he interrupted her again.

"But I don't allow that sort of thing to stand in the way."

"And I don't allow any one to break into my time. Good-bye——"

"Eric, don't you dare ring me off! I want to know whether you'll lunch here to-day. I've collected rather an amusing party."

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Where are you lunching? At home? Then you can certainly come. … I don't care who's lunching with you. … If you don't—Well, you'll see. In the meantime, has Marion Shelley invited you to dine to-night and are you going?"

"Yes, to the first; no, to the second," Eric answered. "Lady Barbara——"

"It must be 'yes' to the second, too, dear Eric. I rang her up at cock-crow to say that you wanted her to invite us together. You do, you know; you want to see whether last night's impression was true; that's why I asked you to lunch. … Now I want to know if you've a rehearsal to-day, because, if so——"

"Lady Barbara, I am going to cut you off," said Eric distinctly.

He hung up the receiver and was about to ring for his secretary, when his memory was arrested by the picture of Barbara springing to her feet, reviling him, collapsing on the sofa and bursting into tears. "Bully her, and she cries," he murmured impatiently. "Don't bully her, and she bullies you. I'm not cut out for the part of tame cat. Another forty-eight hours, and she'll expect me to drive round London and look at dresses with her. … " But if his petulance had made her cry again … Eric hunted for a pen and, without involving himself in delicacies of address, wrote—"I am not discourteous by preference, but you drive me to it. La comedia è finita." He left the note unsigned and asked his secretary to have it sent by hand to Berkeley Square. When it had left him past recall, he felt that he could have done better; and he knew that he would have done best of all by not writing. … But he was irritated by her too insistent unconventionality; irritated and yet rawly elated by his ascendancy over her.

His secretary returned, and he dictated to her until half-past nine struck. It was his signal to get up so that he could be dressed by ten, so that he could work from ten till one, so that he could walk out and lunch at one-thirty, observing his time-table punctually.

The telephone rang again, and Mrs. Shelley enquired tonelessly whether he had received her invitation.

"Oh, Eric! I did hope you could come!" she exclaimed. "Can't you reconsider? Poor Babs seems so anxious to see you again."

Mrs. Shelley, then, had the wit to guess where the initiative lay.

"I'm afraid that the privilege of gratifying Lady Barbara's whims——"

He forgot how he had meant to finish the sentence, and there was a pause.

"Don't you like her, Eric?" asked Mrs. Shelley. "Most people fall a victim the first time they meet her."

"I've outgrown the susceptible age," he laughed. "And, anyway, I'm working. It's awfully kind of you to invite me, Mrs. Shelley——"

"Eric, I wish you'd reconsider," she interrupted before he could repeat his refusal. "I feel you'll be doing her a kindness by coming; you amused her and turned her thoughts. … I was dreadfully distressed last night; she looked as if she were going into a decline. … "

In contrast to Mrs. Shelley's toneless voice Eric heard again Barbara's abrupt, startling cry, "You're hopeless, hopeless!"—just before she collapsed limply on the sofa and cried about something which she would not explain. …

"You make it impossible for me to refuse," he said with an uneasy laugh.

"I'm so grateful! I knew you'd come, Eric."

He threw back the bed-clothes and rang for his bath.

"I suppose Lady Barbara will think she knew I was coming, too," he said to himself. "I don't mind being made a fool of once. … "

At noon he tidied his papers and lighted a cigarette while he waited for a call from his agent. The "Divorce" was being produced in America; and for an arid, perplexing half-hour Mr. Grierson, with eyes half-closed in the grey smoke of his cigar, pushed cables, letters, copies and a draft agreement across the table.

"Stay and have some lunch," Eric suggested, as half-past twelve struck. "Manders is due any time now. He wants me to make certain alterations in the 'Bomb-Shell,' and you can keep me in countenance. I'm getting rather tired of being told: 'Of course, with great respect, Lane, you're a new-comer to the theatre. … ' New-comer I may be, but it doesn't lie in Manders' mouth to say so, if he'll trouble to calculate how many thousands I've put in his pocket. … Isn't this the sort of time when one has a cocktail?"

Grierson's eyes lighted up at the suggestion, and Eric rang for ice. He was in the middle of his preparations when Harry Manders entered in a suit of light tweeds, clutching a flat-brimmed bowler hat in one hand and a leather-topped cane in the other.

"'Mornin', Eric. Hullo, Phil! Sinister combination for a poor devil of an actor-manager—author and agent. What's this you're givin' me? Well, only up to the top—On my honour, boy, only up to the top!" He nodded over the brimming glass with a knowing "Well, chin-chin!" and subsided diagonally into a chair with his legs across one arm.

"I thought Grierson's age and experience might save my play from further amateur surgery," Eric explained.

"Tootaloo," chirped Manders resiliently and dragged a crumpled script from his pocket. Eric's obstinate assurance would have exasperated any other manager, but, as Manders wearily said, "I've been too long at the game to lose my temper."

With that they settled to work and argued their way through the marked passages of Manders' copy heatedly and without reaching conviction or agreement. Once Grierson rose and shook a second cocktail; twice a maid announced that luncheon was on the table. Something, which he attributed to his broken night, made Eric unreasonable to a point where he knew that he was being unreasonable. He was too tired for anything except sustained obstinacy, and his companions grated on him.

"Oh, let's have something to eat!" he exclaimed at length. "The second act's got to stand as I wrote it. We shan't do any good by talking. … "

"Now don't you be in a hurry, boy," began Manders. "Turn back to the beginning. … "

Eric looked at his watch.

"Don't forget we've a rehearsal," he said. "I don't know what there is for lunch, but it will be tepid."

"Then let's wait for it to get cold. Now, in the first act you said—Damn!"

He flapped the script impatiently on his knee as the now familiar knock of Eric's parlour-maid was heard yet again.

"Lady Barbara Neave to see you, sir," she whispered a little breathlessly.

"Will you please say that I can't possibly see any one?" Eric answered curtly. "Tell her that two gentlemen have come to see me on business. Ask her to leave a message."

He turned to find Manders smiling, as though to say, "Why didn't you tell us? We should have understood. We're men of the world."

"The first act," Eric repeated earnestly. "As you will, but do go ahead with it. I want some lunch."

For five seconds the three men turned the limp, dog's-eared pages until they had found the place. Manders cleared his throat unreservedly and then looked up with an expression of ebbing patience, as the door opened again. This time there was no knock, and Lady Barbara walked in after hesitating for a moment on the threshold to identify Eric. She was wearing a black dress with a transparent film of grey hanging from the shoulders, a black hat shaped like a butterfly's wings with her hair visible through the spider's web crown. One hand swung a sable stole, the other carried to and from her mouth a half-eaten apple.

"Eric, please invite me to lunch with you!" she begged. "You've such delicious food. I was shewn into your dining-room and I could hardly resist it. There's a dressed crab—I behaved perfectly, I didn't touch it—and, if all three of you had the weeniest little bit less, there'd be enough for us all. Hullo, there's Mr. Manders!"

She shook hands and waited for Eric to introduce Grierson.

"You're interrupting an important discussion, Lady Barbara."

"Is it about your new play? Oh, then I can help! But, if you knew how hungry I was——"

"They're expecting you to lunch at home," Eric interrupted. "You told me you had a party."

"But I've just telephoned to say that I've been invited to lunch here! I've burnt your boats. Father was perfectly furious, because mother's lunching with Connie Maitland, and he counted on me to see him through."

As she smiled at Eric with her head on one side, he realized that work was over for the morning.

"I daresay there will be enough for four," he answered.

"Then for goodness' sake let's begin before any one else turns up unexpectedly!" she cried, catching him by the sleeves and drawing him to the door.

Grierson and Manders smiled and followed them, carefully brushing cigar-ash from their clothes and smoothing the back of their hair.