The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
over the ear-hole, and flinging loaves of bread at bank-clerks as if he
were Henry James or Marie Corelli. Owen reproached himself bitterly for
his momentary loss of presence of mind. If he had only kept his head,
he could have taken a flying shot at the man with the marmalade-pot. It
had been within easy reach. Instead of which, he had merely stood and
gaped. Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It
might have been.'
His manly regret was interrupted by the entrance of Mr Dorman with the
information that the dog-cart was at the door.
* * * * *
Audrey was out of town when Owen arrived in London, but she returned a
week later. The sound of her voice through the telephone did much to
cure the restlessness from which he had been suffering since the
conclusion of his holiday. But the thought that she was so near yet so
inaccessible produced in him a meditative melancholy which enveloped
him like a cloud that would not lift. His manner became distrait. He
lost weight.
If customers were not vaguely pained by his sad, pale face, it was only
because the fierce rush of modern commercial life leaves your business
man little leisure for observing pallor in bank-clerks. What did pain
them was the gentle dreaminess with which he performed his duties. He
was in the Inward Bills Department, one of the features of which was
the sudden inrush, towards the end of each afternoon, of hatless,
energetic young men with leather bags strapped to their left arms,
clamouring for mysterious crackling documents, much fastened with pins.
Owen had never quite understood what it was that these young men did
want, and now his detached mind refused even more emphatically to
grapple with the problem. He distributed the documents at random with
the air of a preoccupied monarch scattering largess to the mob, and the
subsequent chaos had to be handled by a wrathful head of the department
in person.
Man's power of endurance is limited. At the end of the second week the
overwrought head appealed passionately for relief, and Owen was removed
to the Postage Department, where, when he had leisure from answering
Audrey's telephone calls, he entered the addresses of letters in a
large book and took them to the post. He was supposed also to stamp
them, but a man in love cannot think of everything, and he was apt at
times to overlook this formality.
One morning, receiving from one of the bank messengers the usual
intimation that a lady wished to speak to him on the telephone, he went
to the box and took up the receiver.
'Is that you, Owen? Owen, I went to _White Roses_ last night. Have
you been yet?'
'Not yet.'
'Then you must go tonight. Owen, I'm _certain_ you wrote it. It's
perfectly lovely. I cried my eyes out. If you don't go tonight, I'll
never speak to you again, even on the telephone. Promise.'
'Must I?'
'Yes, you must. Why, suppose it _is_ yours! It may mean a fortune.
The stalls were simply packed. I'm going to ring up the theatre now and
engage a seat for you, and pay for it myself.'
'No--I say--' protested Owen.
'Yes, I shall. I can't trust you to go if I don't. And I'll ring up
early tomorrow to hear all about it. Good-bye.'
Owen left the box somewhat depressed. Life was quite gloomy enough as
it was, without going out of one's way to cry one's eyes out over
sentimental plays.
His depression was increased by the receipt, on his return to his
department, of a message from the manager, stating that he would like
to see Mr Bentley in his private room for a moment. Owen never enjoyed
these little chats with Authority. Out of office hours, in the circle
of his friends, he had no doubt the manager was a delightful and
entertaining companion; but in his private room his conversation was
less enjoyable.
The manager was seated at his table, thoughtfully regarding the
ceiling. His resemblance to a stuffed trout, always striking, was
subtly accentuated, and Owen, an expert in these matters, felt that his
fears had been well founded--there was trouble in the air. Somebody had
been complaining of him, and he was now about, as the phrase went, to
be 'run-in'.
A large man, seated with his back to the door, turned as he entered,
and Owen recognized the well-remembered features of Mr Prosser, the
literary loaf-slinger.
Owen regarded him without resentment. Since returning to London he had
taken the trouble of looking up his name in _Who's Who_ and had
found that he was not so undistinguished as he had supposed. He was, it
appeared, a Regius Professor and the author of some half-dozen works on
sociology--a record, Owen felt, that almost justified loaf-slinging and
ear-hole clipping in moments of irritation.
The manager started to speak, but the man of letters anticipated him.
'Is this the fool?' he roared. 'Young man, I have no wish to be hard on
a congenital idiot who is not responsible for his actions, but I must
insist on an explanation. I understand that you are in charge of the
correspondence in this office. Well, during the last week you have
three times sent unstamped letters to my fiancee, Miss Vera Delane,
Woodlands, Southbourne, Hants. What's the matter with you? Do you think
she likes paying twopence a time, or what is it?'
Owen's mind leaped back at the words. They recalled something to him.
Then he remembered.
He was conscious of a not unpleasant thrill. He had not known that he
was superstitious, but for some reason he had not been able to get
those absurd words of Mr Dorman's mother out of his mind. And here was
another prediction of hers, equally improbable, fulfilled to the
letter.
'Great Scott!' he cried. 'Are you going to be married?'
Mr Prosser and the manager started simultaneously.
'Mrs Dorman said you would be,' said Owen. 'Don't you remember?'
Mr Prosser looked keenly at him.
'Why, I've seen you before,' he said. 'You're the young turnip-headed
scallywag at the farm.'
'That's right,' said Owen.
'I've been wanting to meet you again. I thought the whole thing over,
and it struck me,' said Mr Prosser, handsomely, 'that I may have seemed
a little abrupt at our last meeting.'
'No, no.'
'The fact is, I was in the middle of an infernally difficult passage of
my book that morning, and when you began--'
'It was my fault entirely. I quite understand.'
Mr Prosser produced a card-case.
'We must see more of each other,' he said. 'Come and have a bit of
dinner some night. Come tonight.'
'I'm very sorry. I have to go to the theatre tonight.'
'Then come and have a bit of supper afterwards. Excellent. Meet me at
the Savoy at eleven-fifteen. I'm glad I didn't hit you with that loaf.
Abruptness has been my failing through life. My father was just the
same. Eleven-fifteen at the Savoy, then.'
The manager, who had been listening with some restlessness to the
conversation, now intervened. He was a man with a sense of fitness of
things, and he objected to having his private room made the scene of
what appeared to be a reunion of old college chums. He hinted as much.
'Ha! Prrumph!' he observed, disapprovingly. 'Er--Mr Bentley, that is
all. You may return to your work--ah'mmm! Kindly be more careful
another time in stamping the letters.'
'Yes, by Jove,' said Mr Prosser, suddenly reminded of his wrongs,
'that's right. Exercise a little ordinary care, you ivory-skulled
young son of a gun. Do you think Miss Delane is _made_ of
twopences? Keep an eye on him,' he urged the manager. 'These young
fellows nowadays want someone standing over them with a knout all the
time. Be more careful another time, young man. Eleven-fifteen,
remember. Make a note of it, or you'll go forgetting _that_.'
* * * * *
The seat Audrey had bought for him at the Piccadilly Theatre proved to
be in the centre of the sixth row of stalls--practically a death-trap.
Whatever his sufferings might be, escape was impossible. He was
securely wedged in.
The cheaper parts of the house were sparsely occupied, but the stalls
were full. Owen, disapproving of the whole business, refused to buy a
programme, and settled himself in his seat prepared for the worst. He
had a vivid recollection of _White Roses_, the novel, and he did
not anticipate any keen enjoyment from it in its dramatized form. He
had long ceased to be a member of that large public for which Miss
Edith Butler catered. The sentimental adventures of governesses in
ducal houses--the heroine of _White Roses_ was a governess--no
longer contented his soul.
There is always a curiously dream-like atmosphere about a play founded
on a book. One seems to have seen it all before. During the whole of
the first act Owen attributed to this his feeling of familiarity with
what was going on on the stage. At the beginning of the second act he
found himself anticipating events. But it was not till the third act
that the truth sank in.
The third was the only act in which, in his dramatization, he had taken
any real liberties with the text of the novel. But in this act he had
introduced a character who did not appear in the novel--a creature of
his own imagination. And now, with bulging eyes, he observed this
creature emerge from the wings, and heard him utter lines which he now
clearly remembered having written.
Audrey had been right! Serpent Edith Butler had stolen his play.
His mind, during the remainder of the play, was active. By the time the
final curtain fell and he passed out into the open air he had perceived
some of the difficulties of the case. To prove oneself the author of an
original play is hard, but not impossible. Friends to whom one had
sketched the plot may come forward as witnesses. One may have preserved
rough notes. But a dramatization of a novel is another matter. All
dramatizations of any given novel must necessarily be very much alike.
He started to walk along Piccadilly, and had reached Hyde Park Corner
before he recollected that he had an engagement to take supper with Mr
Prosser at the Savoy Hotel. He hailed a cab.
'You're late,' boomed the author of sociological treatises, as he
appeared. 'You're infernally late. I suppose, in your woollen-headed
way, you forgot all about it. Come along. We'll just have time for an
olive and a glass of something before they turn the lights out.'
Owen was still thinking deeply as he began his supper. Surely there was
some way by which he could prove his claims. What had he done with the
original manuscript? He remembered now. He had burnt it. It had seemed
mere useless litter then. Probably, he felt bitterly, the woman Butler
had counted on this.
Mr Prosser concluded an animated conversation with a waiter on the
subject of the wines of France, leaned forward, and, having helped
himself briskly to anchovies, began to talk. He talked loudly and
rapidly. Owen, his thoughts far away, hardly listened.
Presently the waiter returned with the selected brand. He filled Owen's
glass, and Owen drank, and felt better. Finding his glass magically
full once more, he emptied it again. And then suddenly he found himself
looking across the table at his Host, and feeling a sense of absolute
conviction that this was the one man of all others whom he would have
selected as a confidant. How kindly, though somewhat misty, his face
was! How soothing, if a little indistinct, his voice!
'Prosser,' he said, 'you are a man of the world, and I should like your
advice. What would you do in a case like this? I go to a theatre to see
a play, and what do I find?'
He paused, and eyed his host impressively.
'What's that tune they're playing?' said Mr Prosser. 'You hear it
everywhere. One of these Viennese things, I suppose.'
Owen was annoyed. He began to doubt whether, after all, Mr Prosser's