Part 83 (2/2)

But London is a monster with many hearts; it is capable of various emotions, and even at that feverish time it was at the full tide of a sensation of a different kind entirely. This was a new play and a new player. The play was ”risky”; it was understood to present the fallen woman in her naked reality, and not as a soiled dove or sentimental plaything. The player was the actress who performed this part. She was new to the stage, and little was known of her, but it was whispered that she had something in common with the character she personated. Her success had been instantaneous: her photograph was in the shop windows, it had been reproduced in the ill.u.s.trated papers, she had sat to famous artists, and her portrait in oils was on the line at Burlington House.

The play was the latest work of the Scandinavian dramatist, the actress was Glory Quayle.

At nine o'clock on the morning of Derby Day Glory was waiting in the drawing-room of the Garden House, dressed in a magnificent outdoor costume of pale gray which seemed to wave like a ripe hayfield. She looked paler and more nervous than before, and sometimes she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and sometimes looked away in the distance before her while she drew on her long white gloves and b.u.t.toned them.

Rosa Macquarrie came upstairs hurriedly. She was smartly dressed in black with red roses and looked bright and brisk and happy.

”He has sent Benson with the carriage to ask us to drive down,” said Rosa. ”Must have some engagement surely. Let us be off, dear. No time to lose.”

”Shall I go, I wonder?” said Glory, with a strange gravity.

”Indeed yes, dear. Why not? You've not been in good spirits lately, and it will do you good. Besides, you deserve a holiday after a six months'

season. And then it's such a great day for _him_, too----”

”Very well, I'll go,” said Glory, and at that moment a twitch of her nervous fingers broke a b.u.t.ton off one of the gloves. She drew it off, threw both gloves on to a side table, took up another pair that lay there, and followed Rosa downstairs. An open carriage was waiting for them in the outer court of the inn, and ten minutes afterward they drew up in a narrow street off Whitehall under a wide archway which opened into the large and silent quadrangle leading to the princ.i.p.al public offices. It was the Home Office; the carriage had come for Drake.

Drake had seen changes in his life too. His father was dead and he had succeeded to the baronetcy. He had also inherited a racing establishment which the family had long upheld, and a colt which had been entered for the Derby nearly three years ago was to run in the race that day. Its name was Ellan Vannin, and it was not a favourite. Notwithstanding the change in his fortunes, Drake still held his position of private secretary to the Secretary of State, but it was understood that he was shortly to enter public life under the wing of the Government, and to stand for the first const.i.tuency that became vacant. Ministers predicted a career for him; there was nothing he might not aspire to, and hardly anything he might not do.

Parliament had adjourned in honour of the day on which the ”Isthmian games” were celebrated, and the Home Secretary, as leader of the Lower House, had said that horse-racing was ”a n.o.ble and distinguished sport deserving of a national holiday.” But the Minister himself, and consequently his secretary, had been compelled to put in an appearance at their office for all that. There was urgent business demanding prompt attention.

In the large green room of the Home Office overlooking the empty quadrangle, the Minister, dressed in a paddock coat, received a deputation of six clergymen. It included Archdeacon Wealthy, who served as its spokesman. In a rotund voice, strutting a step and swinging his gla.s.ses, the Archdeacon stated their case. They had come, most reluctantly and with a sense of pain and grief and humiliation, to make representations about a brother clergyman. It was the notorious Mr.

Storm--”Father” Storm, for he was drawing the people into the Roman obedience. The man was bringing religion into ridicule and contempt, and it was the duty of all who loved their mother Church----

”Pardon me, Mr. Archdeacon, we have nothing to do with that,” said the Minister. ”You should go to your Bishop. Surely he is the proper person----”

”We've been, sir,” said the Archdeacon, and then followed an explanation of the Bishop's powerlessness. The Church provided no funds to protect a Bishop from legal proceedings in inhibiting a vicar guilty of this ridiculous kind of conduct. ”But the man comes within the power of the secular authorities, sir. He is constantly inciting people to a.s.semble unlawfully to the danger of the public peace.”

”How? How?”

”Well, he is a fanatic, a lunatic, and has put out monstrous and ridiculous predictions about the destruction of London, causing disorderly crowds to a.s.semble about his church. The thoroughfares are blocked, and people are pushed about and a.s.saulted. Indeed, things have come to such a pa.s.s that now--to-day----”

”Pardon me again, Mr. Archdeacon, but this seems to be a simple matter for the police. Why didn't you go to the Commissioner at Scotland Yard?”

”We did, sir, but he said--you will hardly believe it, but he actually affirmed--that as the man had been guilty of no overt act of sedition----”

”Precisely--that would be my view too.”

”And are we, sir, to wait for a riot, for death, for murder, before the law can be put in motion? Is there no precedent for proceeding before anything serious--I may say alarming----”

”Well, gentlemen,” said the Minister, glancing impatiently at his watch, ”I can only promise you that the matter shall have proper attention. The Commissioner shall be seen, and if a summons----”

”It is too late for that now, sir. The man is a dangerous madman and should be arrested and put under restraint.”

”I confess I don't quite see what he has done; but if----”

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