The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
him, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not his only nephew, you know. There
are about a hundred others, all trailing him like bloodhounds.'
Mr Sheppherd coughed the small cough of disapproval. He was feeling
more than a little aggrieved.
He had met Owen for the first time at dinner at the house of his uncle
Henry, a man of unquestioned substance, whose habit it was to invite
each of his eleven nephews to dinner once a year. But Mr Sheppherd did
not know this. For all he knew, Owen was in the habit of hobnobbing
with the great man every night. He could not say exactly that it was
sharp practice on Owen's part to accept his invitation to call, and,
having called, to continue calling long enough to make the present
deplorable situation possible; but he felt that it would have been in
better taste for the young man to have effaced himself and behaved more
like a bank-clerk and less like an heir.
'I am exceedingly sorry for this, Mr Bentley,' he said, 'but you will
understand that I cannot--It is, of course, out of the question. It
would be best, in the circumstances, I think, if you did not see my
daughter again--'
'She's waiting in the passage outside,' said Owen, simply.
'--after today. Good-bye.'
Owen left the room. Audrey was hovering in the neighbourhood of the
door. She came quickly up to him, and his spirits rose, as they always
did, at the sight of her.
'Well?' she said.
He shook his head.
'No good,' he said.
Audrey considered the problem for a moment, and was rewarded with an
idea.
'Shall I go in and cry?'
'It wouldn't be of any use.'
'Tell me what happened.'
'He said I mustn't see you again.'
'He didn't mean it.'
'He thinks he did.'
Audrey reflected.
'We shall simply have to keep writing, then. And we can talk on the
telephone. That isn't seeing each other. Has your bank a telephone?'
'Yes. But--'
'That's all right, then. I'll ring you up every day.'
'I wish I could make some money,' said Owen, thoughtfully. 'But I seem
to be one of those chaps who can't. Nothing I try comes off. I've never
drawn anything except a blank in a sweep. I spent about two pounds on
sixpenny postal orders when the Limerick craze was on, and didn't win a
thing. Once when I was on tour I worked myself to a shadow, dramatizing
a novel. Nothing came of that, either.'
'What novel?'
'A thing called _White Roses,_ by a woman named Edith Butler.'
Audrey looked up quickly.
'I suppose you knew her very well? Were you great friends?'
'I didn't know her at all. I'd never met her. I just happened to buy
the thing at a bookstall, and thought it would make a good play. I
expect it was pretty bad rot. Anyhow, she never took the trouble to
send it back or even to acknowledge receipt.'
'Perhaps she never got it?'
'I registered it.'
'She was a cat,' said Audrey, decidedly. 'I'm glad of it, though. If
another woman had helped you make a lot of money, I should have died of
jealousy.'
Routine is death to heroism. For the first few days after his parting
with Mr Sheppherd, Owen was in heroic mood, full of vaguely dashing
schemes, regarding the world as his oyster, and burning to get at it,
sword in hand. But routine, with its ledgers and its copying-ink and
its customers, fell like a grey cloud athwart his horizon, blotting out
rainbow visions of sudden wealth, dramatically won. Day by day the glow
faded and hopelessness grew.
If the glow did not entirely fade it was due to Audrey, who more than
fulfilled her promise of ringing him up on the telephone. She rang him
up at least once, frequently several times, every day, a fact which was
noted and commented upon in a harshly critical spirit by the head of
his department, a man with no soul and a strong objection to doing his
subordinates' work for them.
As a rule, her conversation, though pleasing, was discursive and lacked
central motive, but one morning she had genuine news to impart.
'Owen'--her voice was excited--'have you seen the paper today? Then
listen. I'll read it out. Are you listening? This is what it says: "The
Piccadilly Theatre will reopen shortly with a dramatized version of
Miss Edith Butler's popular novel, _White Roses_, prepared by the
authoress herself. A strong cast is being engaged, including--" And
then a lot of names. What are you going to do about it, Owen?'
'What am I going to do?'
'Don't you see what's happened? That awful woman has stolen your play.
She has waited all these years, hoping you would forget. What are you
laughing at?'
'I wasn't laughing.'
'Yes, you were. It tickled my ear. I'll ring off if you do it again.
You don't believe me. Well, you wait and see if I'm not--'
'Edith Butler's incapable of such a thing.'
There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire.
'I thought you said you didn't know her,' said Audrey, jealously.
'I don't--I don't,' said Owen, hastily. 'But I've read her books.
They're simply chunks of superfatted sentiment. She's a sort of
literary onion. She compels tears. A woman like that couldn't steal a
play if she tried.'
'You can't judge authors from their books. You must go and see the play
when it comes on. Then you'll see I'm right. I'm absolutely certain
that woman is trying to swindle you. Don't laugh in that horrid way.
Very well, I told you I should ring off, and now I'm going to.'
At the beginning of the next month Owen's annual holiday arrived. The
authorities of the London and Suburban Bank were no niggards. They
recognized that a man is not a machine. They gave their employees ten
days in the year in which to tone up their systems for another twelve
months' work.
Owen spent his boyhood in the Shropshire village of which his father
had been rector, and thither he went when his holiday came round, to
the farm of one Dorman. He was glad of the chance to get to Shropshire.
There is something about the country there, with its green fields and
miniature rivers, that soothes the wounded spirit and forms a pleasant
background for sentimental musings.
It was comfortable at the farm. The household consisted of Mr Dorman,
an old acquaintance, his ten-year-old son George, and Mr Dorman's
mother, an aged lady with a considerable local reputation as a wise
woman. Rumour had it that the future held no mysteries for her, and it
was known that she could cure warts, bruised fingers, and even the
botts by means of spells.
Except for these, Owen had fancied that he was alone in the house. It
seemed not, however. There was a primeval piano in his sitting-room,
and on the second morning it suited his mood to sit down at this and
sing 'Asthore', the fruity pathos of which ballad appealed to him
strongly at this time, accompanying himself by an ingenious arrangement
in three chords. He had hardly begun, however, when Mr Dorman appeared,
somewhat agitated.
'If you don't mind, Mr Owen,' he said. 'I forgot to tell you. There's a
lit'ery gent boarding with me in the room above, and he can't bear to
be disturbed.'
A muffled stamping from the ceiling bore out his words.
'Writing a book he is,' continued Mr Dorman. 'He caught young George a
clip over the ear-'ole yesterday for blowing his trumpet on the stairs.
Gave him sixpence afterwards, and said he'd skin him if he ever did it
again. So, if you don't mind--'
'Oh, all right,' said Owen. 'Who is he?'
'Gentleman of the name of Prosser.'
Owen could not recollect having come across any work by anyone of that
name; but he was not a wide reader; and, whether the man above was a
celebrity or not, he was entitled to quiet.
'I never heard of him,' he said, 'but that's no reason why I should
disturb him. Let him rip. I'll cut out the musical effects in future.'
The days passed smoothly by. The literary man remained invisible,
though occasionally audible, tramping the floor in the frenzy of
composition. Nor, until the last day of his visit, did Owen see old Mrs
Dorman.
That she was not unaware of his presence in the house, however, was
indicated on the last morning. He was smoking an after-breakfast pipe
at the open window and waiting for the dog-cart that was to take him to
the station, when George, the son of the house, entered.
George stood in the doorway, grinned, and said:
'Farsezjerligranmatellyerforchbythecards?'
'Eh?' said Owen.
The youth repeated the word.
'Once again.'
On the second repetition light began to creep in. A boyhood spent in
the place, added to this ten days' stay, had made Owen something of a
linguist.
'Father says would I like grandma to do what?'
'Tell yer forch'n by ther cards.'
'Where is she?'
'Backyarnder.'
Owen followed him into the kitchen, where he found Mr Dorman, the
farmer, and, seated at the table, fumbling with a pack of cards, an old
woman, whom he remembered well.
'Mother wants to tell your fortune,' said Mr Dorman, in a hoarse aside.
'She always will tell visitors' fortunes. She told Mr Prosser's, and he
didn't half like it, because she said he'd be engaged in two months and
married inside the year. He said wild horses wouldn't make him do it.'
'She can tell me that if she likes. I shan't object.'
'Mother, here's Mr Owen.'
'I seed him fast enough,' said the old woman, briskly. 'Shuffle, an' cut
three times.'
She then performed mysterious manoeuvres with the cards.
'I see pots o' money,' announced the sibyl.
'If she says it, it's there right enough,' said her son.
'She means my bonus,' said Owen. 'But that's only ten pounds. And I lose
it if I'm late twice more before Christmas.'
'It'll come sure enough.'
'Pots,' said the old woman, and she was still mumbling the encouraging
word when Owen left the kitchen and returned to the sitting-room.
He laughed rather ruefully. At that moment he could have found a use
for pots o' money.
He walked to the window, and looked out. It was a glorious morning. The
heat-mist was dancing over the meadow beyond the brook, and from the
farmyard came the liquid charawks of care-free fowls. It seemed wicked
to leave these haunts of peace for London on such a day.
An acute melancholy seized him. Absently, he sat down at the piano. The
prejudices of literary Mr Prosser had slipped from his mind. Softly at
first, then gathering volume as the spirit of the song gripped him, he
began to sing 'Asthore'. He became absorbed.
He had just, for the sixth time, won through to 'Iyam-ah waiting for-er
theeee-yass-thorre,' and was doing some intricate three-chord work
preparatory to starting over again, when a loaf of bread whizzed past
his ear. It missed him by an inch, and crashed against a plaster
statuette of the Infant Samuel on the top of the piano.
It was a standard loaf, containing eighty per cent of semolina, and it
practically wiped the Infant Samuel out of existence. At the same
moment, at his back, there sounded a loud, wrathful snort.
He spun round. The door was open, and at the other side of the table
was standing a large, black-bearded, shirt-sleeved man, in an attitude
rather reminiscent of Ajax defying the lightning. His hands trembled.
His beard bristled. His eyes gleamed ferociously beneath enormous
eyebrows. As Owen turned, he gave tongue in a voice like the discharge
of a broadside.
'Stop it!'
Owen's mind, wrenched too suddenly from the dreamy future to the vivid
present, was not yet completely under control. He gaped.
'Stop--that--infernal--noise!' roared the man.
He shot through the door, banging it after him, and pounded up the
stairs.
Owen was annoyed. The artistic temperament was all very well, but
there were limits. It was absurd that obscure authors should behave in
this way. Prosser! Who on earth was Prosser? Had anyone ever heard of
him? No! Yet here he was going about the country clipping small boys