Mr. Campion's Lucky Day & Other Stories (2 page)

Her new make-up looked very well, he thought. She was youthful yet sophisticated and arresting without being actually vulgar. A dear girl.

Of himself he was not so sure. Photographs were notoriously unkind. Yet it was certainly like him and he peered affectionately at the gallant and romantic figure which the London public knew so well. He re-read the paragraph slowly:

“The surprise of the little season has been the engagement of Lady Chloe Staratt, beautiful daughter of the Earl of Scaresfield, to Sir Geoffrey Tadema the bachelor actor knight. Lady Chloe, besides being an acknowledged leader of her set, is thought by many people to be the smartest woman in town. Sir Geoffrey is the great lover of the stage, but until now he has proved himself impervious to Cupid’s darts. Their many friends have been surprised and delighted by this romantic love match.”

Tadema threw down the paper and smiled. The Press had been magnificent. The dailies had been generous with space and there had been several long interviews in the cheaper Sundays. But the old
Telltale
had come up to scratch. They had done the thing with the right delicacy. Some of the dailies had mentioned the discrepancy in age, he had been sorry to see.

At fifty-one Tadema looked, from the stage at least, sixteen or seventeen years younger. His figure was as good, or nearly as good, as ever it had been, and he had changed hardly at all in the past ten years.

His astonishing success was all the more extraordinary in view of his limitations, histrionically speaking. In addition to his face, which had a propensity for expressing passionate emotion decently repressed, he had a natural charm of manner and two endearing mannerisms.

His nervous shake of the head when addressing the beloved kept his feminine gallery in ecstasy, and his sudden smile, so disarming in its warmth, moved the same body to audible quavers of delight.

Obviously it was not these alone which had kept the name of Tadema in foot-high letters on the board outside the Gresham for nearly fourteen years. He had other assets.

An excellent business man, he had a gift for finding the right sort of play and, of course, he had his instinct.

In what circumstances an instinct becomes genius and when genius is transmuted into art it is difficult to say, but with Tadema publicity was all these three. His public, who very properly believed what it inferred, read, or saw with its own eyes, knew that Sir Geoffrey Tadema was romance made carnate.

It also knew that his conquests were myriad and that his life was the constant pursuit of the one woman of the perfect heart, a vaguely defined lady, but easily identifiable by every woman in his audience.

Since in private life Sir Geoffrey was a normal bachelor of somewhat fixed habits this public facade of his was no mean achievement. Publicity was his hobby and he worked at it with diligence and delicacy.

Jealous colleagues spoke bitterly of vast sums spent in bribes, betraying that they knew nothing of the art and of newspapers less. Wishart, of the
Telegram,
once looked down from his eminence of forty years of journalism to observe that old Tadema got away with it by being so damned topical, but even he had only a germ of the truth.

Sir Geoffrey himself honestly believed that he represented the secret soul-mate of all unloved women in London, but he overestimated himself, as he began to find out when TV became popular.

It was this discovery that was ultimately responsible for Chloe. On the “box” Tadema’s years were irritatingly apparent and his famous personality curiously artificial. On the stage he was still a force, but his last play had run only fourteen months instead of the customary eighteen and he felt himself slipping. It was not a landslide yet by any means but the sands were stirring beneath his feet.

He had been considering a happy and romantic marriage for some time as a new medium for the Personality when he first met Chloe, then on the crest of her first wave of public interest. She was the most photographed young woman of the season and he admired the way she worked at it.

The thought of marrying her did not then occur to him, but now, when he realised she was not out for money and titled obscurity but was preparing for a career as a public person, the beautiful idea had come to him. The hour was propitious. Chloe’s adventure with masked bandits, who had chivalrously restored her possessions because of her charming face and endearing manner alone, had just come out.

Chloe had been too much of a sport to prefer a charge against the criminals and had only confessed the story to a newspaper man after pressure. This risky business had come off very well considering, although Tadema had felt it dangerously crude at the time. He felt instinctively that an engagement would be a sound move for both of them.

Chloe saw it, of course. Tadema warmed to her with real affection when he saw her grave eyes when he proposed. He was a little in love even. It was typical of him that he should have done the thing so thoroughly once the ulterior motive had been faced and shelved in the back of his mind.

He was hurt when she used the twenty-four hours which she demanded before giving him an answer to allow a pet paragraphist to get into print with the rumour, but he was mollified by the Press reception.

“Our great lover.” “The man who understands women.” “Real romance at last.”

The epithets were most gratifying.

“The old hound!” said Wishart, grunting through his ragged moustache when he saw the middle page headlines. “He’s done it again—right on the dot. It’s second nature with him.”

At the moment Tadema was very pleased.

He was so happy, even, that when a total stranger walked in upon him—an unheard-of thing at any time and almost sacrilegious before a matinee—his smile did not fade.

The newcomer paused in the doorway and stared at him disconcertingly. No expression at all passed over his youthful and vaguely familiar face. After a moment or two of this stern scrutiny Tadema’s good humour wavered. He rose to his feet and was about to make the obvious inquiry when he suddenly recognised this thick-featured boy. Quite apart from any little professional feeling which an old public favourite may experience when faced with a new, Tadema conceived an instant dislike of Gyp Rains, the young flier with the cold blue eyes who stood in his dressing room doorway and regarded him so uncompromisingly.

The aviator’s first remark did not help to dispel his animosity.

“I’ve come to see you, sir, because I felt it was my duty,” he said.

The stereotyped but unexpected words were not aided by the curiously expressionless tone in which they were uttered and Tadema’s irritation increased. He loathed young men who had the impudence to address him as “sir” anyway. He fell back upon the particular brand of sarcasm of which he was master.

“How very nice of you,” he said. “Perhaps you would sit down and be as decent and as dutiful as you can in the few moments which I have at my disposal.”

Had he said nothing at all he could hardly have made less impression upon Mr. Rains’s stolid and bony countenance. The young man advanced into the room, placed himself within a foot of its owner, and recited, still in the same monotone: “Chloe did not want me to tell you, sir, but I realised that even a man of your age has his feelings and I thought it was the only right thing to do, so I’ve come to warn you. I always do what I think right,” he added with unexpected naivete, and Tadema, who had the uncomfortable impression that he was back on the stage with the stock company of his early youth, caught a glimpse of something glazed in the blue eyes and realised that he was dealing with a man labouring under intense excitement.

But he had no time for any feelings Gyp Rains might have been imperfectly concealing. He had heard the name “Chloe” and a great fear had descended upon him. He was about to subside stiffly into his chair, but subconsciously recognised it as the movement of an ageing man, and checked it hastily.

“Perhaps you’d better explain a little more fully,” he said easily. “What’s all this about?”

“It’s a secret. Chloe and I are to be married. We’ve fallen in love and we’re going to elope. I start on my big flight tomorrow night and she’s coming with me. They’ll find her in Athens, of course, and I don’t suppose they’ll let her go on but we’re getting married late tomorrow.”

“Are you talking about Chloe Staratt?”

“Of course.” Mr. Gyp Rains seemed to regard the question as surprisingly unnecessary.

“I see,” said Tadema with awful solemnity. “I see. And what do you intend me to do about it?”

For the first time during the interview Gyp Rains’s face changed. His eyebrows rose. His eyes became round and foolish.

“What
can
you do?” he said. “I only came to tell you.”

It has been said that the chance answer of a half-wit can confound a brilliant counsel by its very simplicity and it was so in this case. Tadema’s mouth opened but no sound came. Mr. Rains continued: “I’ve only told you,” he said gently, “because I did not think it was the decent thing not to. You can’t do anything. You see that, don’t you?”

The final question was put gently.

“Look here, my boy—” Tadema was clutching wildly at straws, “—I don’t want to appear offensive, but you don’t think that something Lady Chloe may have said may have given you a wrong impression? I mean—”

“Oh no.” The shining countenance was blank as ever. I brought this along. She couldn’t keep it very well, could she? She saw that as soon as I put it to her.”

And, advancing towards the dressing table, he set down amongst the grease paint the very large and expensive diamond-and-platinum ring which Sir Geoffrey had chosen only a few weeks before and had paid for but a few days previously.

There was a long and difficult pause. Gyp Rains braced himself for the final effort.

“Both Chloe and I rely upon your decency, sir. We know you won’t give us away. Chloe’s afraid of trouble with her father, you see, and so far you are the only person in the know. You won’t let us down, will you? I know that.”

And, having dropped his bombshell, Mr. Rains, latest darling of an air-minded British public, smiled kindly at Sir Geoffrey Tadema and walked stolidly out of the dressing room, a ridiculous, humourless and unconquerable figure.

Tadema acted the big scene silently by himself for perhaps two minutes. He paced the floor, he looked at the ring, he peered at himself in the mirror, he threw the ring away, picked it up again, put it in his pocket, shrugged his shoulders, wiped his eyes, and went through every pantomime which the most exacting producer could have desired.

And then, having reacted in this perfectly normal way, he pulled himself up abruptly and began to think. There were many words which fitly described Chloe, but he was not the man to fall to cursing. Behind his fury there was a quiet part of his mind which could almost admire her. As a piece of publicity it was superb—the discovery in Athens, the secret marriage and that stolid, love-besotted boy to back her up.
There
was a story to delight the most blasé of journalists!

It was while he was visualising this flux of newsprint that he suddenly saw his own name. A wave of hot blood rose up in his throat and passed over his head, so that his hairs tingled. He saw himself deflated, saw his carefully built up personality blown away in idle sheets down a dusty road. This would be the end of him. This would be disaster. The beautiful romantic figure drowned in tears of pity, if not derision.

He bounded to his feet again. Something had got to be done. Yes, by God, something had got to be done and how much time had he? When had the lunatic said he was flying? How much time?

The callboy knocked at his door.

“Five minutes, Sir Geoffrey. Curtain’s up.”

There are times when the mind panics, moments when the imagination takes the bit between its teeth and carries a man headlong through vast avenues of nightmare much more vivid than actual experience can ever hope to be.

In the intervals of the worst performance of his life Tadema lived through the whole gamut of human humiliation. He heard himself pitied and derided, heard his age discussed and fixed at an erroneous sixty-five, saw his perennial youth withered and his beautiful facade torn down to reveal a travesty of himself, ten times more false than any illusion of the past.

Even in his saner moments, when he regarded the situation coldly, the prospect of being publicly jilted by Chloe for a younger, wider-known man was not inviting, to say the least of it.

To do him justice, he had very little thought of retaliation as such. His mind was completely taken up with self-protective projects.

Even so, his immediate plan of campaign was most difficult to decide, and there was the vital question of time. When had the insufferable young lout said they intended to elope? Tomorrow night? Tadema paused in the middle of the repudiation scene in the second act and stared glassily at Miss Miller, who played the girl. She gave him his cue and an apprehensive glance under her lashes. It was not like the old man to lunch unwisely. She hoped devoutly that he was not going to have a stroke.

By the middle of the third act Tadema had it all worked out. If Chloe was going to elope the following day she would be discovered in Athens the next morning and would make the evening papers of the same day. That gave him only until tomorrow to set up a counter-blast, only until tomorrow to get into print himself with a sensation which would make her effort an anticlimax.

His mind revolved feverishly. Today was Tuesday. Therefore it could be done. It was just possible if he acted promptly.

There was only one vital question to be settled: what on earth could he do? It is one thing to have an instinct, or even a genius, for getting oneself into the news in the right context but quite another to evolve a safe, yet sensational, stunt and carry it out in less than twelve hours. Tadema was desperate.

He dismissed his dresser and stood staring through the minute window of his dressing room at the roofs and spires of London, deep blue in the evening light.

At length he turned slowly away and switched on the light. A flood of hard white radiance disclosed a stocky, yet by no means graceless, figure. The adjective now was, perhaps, purposeful rather than romantic, but an attractive personality all the same: a gallant, middle-aged gentleman preparing to defend himself.