The Summons (novel)/III

Late in the autumn of the following year a new play, written by Martin Hillyard and named "The Dark Tower," was produced at the Rubicon Theatre in Panton Street, London. It was Hillyard's second play. His first, produced in April of the same year, had just managed to limp into July; and that small world which concerns itself with the individualities of playwrights was speculating with its usual divergencies upon Hillyard's future development.

"The Dark Tower" was a play of modern days, built upon the ancient passions. The first act was played to a hushed house, and while the applause which greeted the fall of the curtain was still rattling about the walls of the theatre, Sir Charles Hardiman hoisted himself heavily out of his stall and made his way to a box on the first tier, which he entered without knocking.

There was but one person in the box, a young man hidden behind a side curtain. Hardiman let himself collapse into a chair by the side of the young man.

"Seems all right," he said. "You have a story to tell. It's clear in every word, too, that you know where you are going. That makes people comfortable and inclined to go along with you."

Hillyard turned with a smile.

"We haven't come to the water jump yet," he said.

Hardiman remained in the box during the second act. He watched the stage for a while, took note of the laughter which welcomed this or that line, and of the silence which suddenly enclosed this or that scene from the rest of the play; and finally, with a certain surprise, and a certain amusement he fixed his attention upon the play's author. The act ended in laughter and Hillyard leaned back, and himself laughed, without pose or affectation, as heartily as any one in the theatre.

"You beat me altogether, my young friend," said Hardiman. "You ought to be walking up and down the pavement outside in the classical state of agitation. But you appear to be enjoying the play, as if you never had seen it before."

"And I haven't," Hillyard returned. "This isn't quite the play which we have been learning and rehearsing during the last month. Here's the audience at work, adding a point there, discovering an interpretation—yes, actually an interpretation—there, bringing into importance one scene, slipping over the next which we thought more important—altering it, in fact. Of course," and he returned to his earlier metaphor, "I know the big fences over which we may come a cropper. I can see them ahead before we come up to them and know the danger. We are over two of them, by the way. But on the whole I am more interested than nervous. It's the first time I have ever been to a first night, you see."

"Well, upon my word," cried Hardiman, "you are the coolest hand at it I ever saw." But he could have taken back his words the next moment.

In spite of Hillyard's aloof and disinterested air, the night had brought its excitement and in a strength of which he himself was unaware. It lifted now the veils behind which a man will hide his secret thoughts! He turned swiftly to Hardiman with a boyish light upon his face.

"Oh, I am not in doubt of what to-night means to me! Not for a moment. If it's failure, it means that I begin again to-morrow on something else; and again after that, and again after that, until success does come. Playwriting is my profession, and failures are a necessary part of it—just as much a part as the successes. But even if the great success were to come now, it wouldn't mean quite so much to me perhaps as it might to other people." He paused, and a smile broke upon his face. "I live expecting a messenger. There! That's my secret delivered over to you under the excitement of a first night."

And as he spoke the colour mounted into his face. He turned away in confusion. His play was nearer at his heart than he had thought; the enthusiasm which seemed to be greeting it had stirred him unwisely.

"Tell me," he said hurriedly, "who all these people in the stalls are."

He peeped down between the edge of the curtain and the side wall of the box whilst Hardiman stood up behind him.

"Yes, I will be your man from Cook's," said Hardiman genially.

His heart warmed to the young man both on account of his outburst and of the shame which had followed upon the heels of it. Few beliefs had survived in Hardiman after forty years of wandering up and down the flowery places of the earth; but one—he had lectured Harry Luttrell upon it on a night at Stockholm—continually gained strength in him. Youth must beget visions and man must preserve them if great work were to be done; and so easily the visions lost their splendour and their inspiration. Of all the ways of tarnishing the vision, perhaps talk was the most murderous. Hillyard possessed them. Hillyard was ashamed that he had spoken of them. Therefore he had some chance of retaining them.

"Yes, I will show you the celebrities." He pointed out the leading critics and the blue stockings of the day. His eyes roamed over the stalls. "Do you see the man with the broad face and the short whiskers in the fourth row? The man who looks just a little too like a country gentleman to be one? That is Sir Chichester Splay. He made a fortune in a murky town of Lancashire, and, thirsting for colour, came up to London determined to back a musical comedy. That is the way the craving for colour takes them in the North. His wish was gratified. He backed 'The Patchouli Girl,' and in that shining garden he got stung. He is now what they call an amateur. No first night is complete without him. He is the half-guinea Mecaenas of our days."

Hillyard looked down at Sir Chichester Splay and smiled at his companion's description.

"You will meet him to-night at supper, and if your play is a success—not otherwise—you will stay with him in Sussex."

"No!" cried Hillyard; but Sir Charles was relentless in his insistence.

"You will. His wife will see to that. Who the pretty girl beside him is I do not know. But the more or less young man on the other side of her, talking to her with an air of intimacy a little excessive in a public place, is Mario Escobar. He is a Spaniard, and has the skin-deep politeness of his race. He is engaged in some sort of business, frequents some sort of society into which he is invited by the women, and he is not very popular amongst men. He belongs, however, to some sort of club. That is all I know about him. One would think he had guessed we were speaking of him," Hardiman added.

For at that moment Mario Escobar raised his dark, sleek head, and his big, soft eyes—the eyes of a beautiful woman—looked upwards to the box. It seemed to Hillyard for a moment that they actually exchanged a glance, though he himself was out of sight behind the curtain, so direct was Escobar's gaze. It was, however, merely the emptiness of the box which had drawn the Spaniard's attention. He was neatly groomed, of a slight figure, tall, and with his eyes, his thin olive face, his small black moustache and clean-cut jaw he made without doubt an effective and arresting figure.

"Now turn your head," said Hardiman, "the other way, and notice the big, fair man in the back row of the stalls. He is a rival manager, and he is explaining in a voice loud enough to be heard by the first rows of the pit, the precise age of your leading lady. Now look down! There is a young girl flitting about the stalls. She is an actress, not very successful. But to-night she is as busy as a bee. She is crabbing your play. Yesterday her opinion on the subject was of no value, and it will be again of no value to-morrow. But as one of the limited audience on a first night, she can do just a tiny bit of harm. But don't hold it against her, Hillyard! She has no feeling against you. This is her little moment of importance."

Sir Charles rattled on through the interval—all good nature with just a slice of lemon—and it had happened that he had pointed out one who was to be the instrument of great trouble for Hillyard and a few others, with whom this story is concerned.

Hillyard interrupted Hardiman.

"Who is the girl at the end of the sixth row, who seems to have stepped down from a china group on a mantelpiece?"

"That one?" said Hardiman, and all the raillery faded from his face. "That is Mrs. Croyle. You will meet her to-night at my supper party." He hesitated as to what further he should say. "You might do worse than be a friend to her. She is not, I am afraid, very happy."

Hillyard was surprised at the sudden gentleness of his companion's voice, and looked quickly towards him. Hardiman answered the look as he got heavily up from his chair.

"I sometimes fear that I have some responsibility for her unhappiness. But there are things one cannot help."

The light in the auditorium went down while Hardiman was leaving the box, and the curtain rose on the third act of "The Dark Tower." Of that play, however, you may read in the files of the various newspapers, if you will. This story is concerned with Martin Hillyard, not his work. It is sufficient to echo the words of Sir Chichester Splay when Hillyard was introduced to him an hour and a half later in the private supper-room at the Semiramis Hotel.

"A good play, Mr. Hillyard. Not a great play, of course, but quite a good play," said Sir Chichester with just the necessary patronage to tickle Hillyard to an appreciation of Hardiman's phrases—a ten and six-penny Mecaenas.

"I am grateful that it has earned your good opinion," he replied.

"Oh, not at all!" cried Sir Chichester, and catching a lady who passed by the arm. "Stella, Mr. Hillyard should know you. This is Mrs. Croyle. I hope you will meet him some day at Rackham Park."

Sir Chichester trotted away to greet the manager of the Daily Harpoon, who was at that moment shaking hands with Hardiman.

"I congratulate you," said Stella Croyle, as she gave him her hand.

"Thank you. So you know Sir Chichester well?"

"His wife has been a friend of mine for a long time." Her eyes twinkled. "I wonder you have not been seen at his house."

"Oh, I am only just hatched out," said Hillyard. They both laughed. "I hardly know a soul here except my leading lady and our host."

They were summoned to the supper table. Hillyard found himself with the leading lady on one side of him and Stella Croyle opposite, and Mario Escobar a couple of seats away. Supper was half through when Escobar leaned suddenly forward.

"Mr. Hillyard, I have seen you before, somewhere and not in England."

"That is possible."

"In Spain?"

"Yes," answered Hillyard.

A certain curiosity in Escobar's voice, a certain reticence in Hillyard's, arrested the attention of those about.

"Let me see!" continued Escobar. "It was in the Opera House at Barcelona on the first performance of Manon Lescaut."

"No," replied Hillyard.

"Then—I know—it was under the palm-trees in front of the sea at Alicante one night."

Hillyard nodded.

"That may well have been. I was up and down the south coast of Spain for three years. Eighteen months of it were spent at Alicante."

He turned to his neighbour, but Escobar persisted.

"It was for your health?"

Hillyard did not answer directly.

"My lungs have always been my trouble," he said.

Hardiman bent towards Stella Croyle.

"I think our new friend has had a curious life, Stella. He should interest you."

Stella Croyle replied with a shrewd look towards the Spaniard.

"At present he is interesting Escobar. One would say Escobar was suspicious lest Mr. Hillyard should know too much of him."

Sir Charles laughed.

"The Mario Escobars are always suspicious. Let us see!" he said in a low voice, and leaning across the table, he shot a question sharply at the Spaniard.

"And what were you doing under the palm trees, in front of the sea at Alicante, Señor Escobar?"

Mario Escobar sat back. The challenge had startled him. He reflected, and as the recollection came he turned slowly very white.

"I?" he asked.

"Yes," said Hardiman, leaning forward. But it was not at Hardiman that Escobar was looking. His eyes were fixed warily on Hillyard. He answered the question warily too, fragment by fragment, ready to stop, ready to take the words back, if a sign of recollection kindled in Hillyard's face.

"It is what we should call here the esplanade—the sea and harbour on one side, the houses on the other. The band plays under the palms in front of the Casino on summer nights. I——" and he took the last words at a rush—"I was sitting in a lounge chair in front of the club, when I saw Mr. Hillyard pass. An Englishman is noticeable in Alicante. There are so few of them."

"Yes," Hillyard agreed. No recollection was stirred in him by Escobar's description. Escobar turned away, but he could not quite conceal the relief he felt.

"Yes, my friend," said Hardiman to himself, "you have taken your water-jump too. And you're uncommonly glad that you haven't come a cropper."

After that noticeable moment of tension, the talk swept on into sprightlier channels.