Part 20 (1/2)

A few days after the public had been informed of the Duke of Paddington's extraordinary and terrible experiences, Mr. Aubrey Flood sat in his private room at the theatre. It was twelve o'clock noon, and he was dictating some letters to his secretary. The room was large and comfortable, and was reached by a short pa.s.sage at the back of the dress circle. The walls were hung with framed photographs, many of them of great size, and signed by names which were famous in the dramatic world.

There was a curious likeness to each other in all these photographs, when one regarded them closely. Men and women of entirely different faces and figures had all, nevertheless, the same curiously _conscious_ look lurking in the eyes and pose. They seemed well aware, in their beauty of face and figure or splendour of costume, that they were there for one purpose--to be looked at.

Here and there the photographs were diversified by valuable old play-bills in gold frames, and close to the door was a page torn out of a ledger, the writing now faded and brown with years. It was a salary list of some forgotten provincial theatre, and the names of famous actors--at the time it was written utterly unknown to fame--were set down there in a thin, old-fas.h.i.+oned script. Heading the list one saw ”Henry Irving, 1 10s. 0d.,” the weekly salary at that date of, perhaps, the greatest actor England has ever known.

A huge writing-table was covered with papers, and there were two telephones, one hanging upon the wall, the other resting on its plated stand upon the table. Upon another table, much higher than the ordinary, and standing at one side of the room was a complete model theatre.

Carefully executed studies of scenery half a yard square lay by the side of the model, and a complete miniature tableau had been built up upon the tiny stage, while the characters of the toy drama were represented by the little oblong cubes of wood, variously coloured.

To complete the picture, it should be stated that, by the side of Mr.

Aubrey Flood, nearer, indeed, to him than the telephone, stood a square bottle of cut-gla.s.s, a tumbler, and a syphon of soda-water.

There was a knock at the door, and the stage door-keeper entered with a card.

”Mr. Lionel C. Westwood, to see you, sir,” he said.

”Ask him to come in at once,” Flood answered.

Mr. Lionel C. Westwood had, more or less, created his own profession, which was that of a very special sort of theatrical journalist. He had been tried for dramatic criticism on more than one paper, but had abandoned this form of writing for what he speedily found to be the more lucrative one of collecting early dramatic intelligence. He wrote, too, the column of Green Room Gossip in more than one important paper, and was, indeed, of extreme use to managers who wished to contradict a rumour or to start one.

He came hurriedly into the room--a short, easy, alert young man, wearing a voluminous frock-coat, and with a mixed aspect of extreme hurry and cordiality.

”Oh, my dear Aubrey,” he said, shaking the manager's hand with effusive geniality, ”so here you are! Directly I saw the paragraph in the _Wire_ I wrote to you, asking for fuller information. Now, you won't mind telling me all there is to know, will you?”

”Sit down, Lionel,” said the actor. ”Will you have a drink?”

”No, thank you,” replied the little man, ”I never take anything in the morning. Now, what is all this? What are you going to do? What are you going to produce? That's what I want to know. All London is wondering!”

He rapped with his fingers upon the table, and his face suddenly a.s.sumed a curiously ferret-like look ”What is it, Aubrey, dear boy?” he concluded.

Flood leant back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

”It is a very big thing indeed, Lionel,” he said, ”and I don't know, dear boy, that I should be justified in letting you into it just yet.

Why, we only read the play to the company this afternoon!”

Mr. Lionel C. Westwood's ears seemed positively to twitch as he elicited this first piece of information.

”Oh!” he said, with a sudden gleam of satisfaction. ”Well, that is something, at any rate. That is an item, Aubrey.”

”I am afraid that is as far as I shall be able to go,” the shrewd manager replied.

This little comedy progressed for some twenty minutes, until at last Mr.

Lionel C. Westwood was worked up into the right state of frantic curiosity and excitement. Then Aubrey Flood explained dimly the purpose and scope of the new play, hinted reluctantly at the achievement of a new star, a young actress of wonderful power and extreme beauty, who had hitherto been quite unknown in the provinces, and finally, with a gush of friends.h.i.+p, ”Well, as it is you, Lionel, dear boy, though I would not do it for anybody else,” promised the journalist that he might come to the theatre again that afternoon and form one of the privileged few, in addition to the company itself, who would be present at the reading of the play by its author, Mr. James Fabian Rose.

Mr. Lionel C. Westwood went away more than contented, and Aubrey Flood resumed his correspondence. The train was laid and the match was applied to it. The _Daily Wire_, of course, was at the disposal of the syndicate, and would further its objects in every way through Mr.

Goodrick. At the same time, the editor was quite shrewd enough to know that his paper was more particularly read by the middle-cla.s.ses, and content to sacrifice items of excessive interest concerning the play in order that it might be widely advertised.

For they were all very greatly in earnest, these people. Even Aubrey Flood himself, while he was business man enough to regard this speculation as an excellent one, and believe that he would make a great deal of money over it, was nevertheless about to produce this epoch-making play from a real and earnest adherence to the doctrines it was to inculcate.

There is a general opinion that your actor-manager and your actor are persons consumed by two inherent thirsts--applause and money. In a sense--perhaps in a very general sense--this is true, but there are still those actors and actresses whose life is not entirely occupied with their own personality and chances of success. In the most egotistical of all occupations there are yet men and women who are animated by the spirit of altruism, and the hope of helping a great movement. Aubrey Flood was one of these men. He was as convinced a Socialist as Fabian Rose himself. He was enlisted under that banner, and he was prepared to go to any length to uphold it in the forefront of the great battle which was imminent. At the same time, Mr. Aubrey Flood saw no reason why propaganda should not pay!