I
Inigo noticed, without surprise, that the Gatford Hippodrome was elongating itself, swelling, soaring, conjuring out vast darkening sweeps of galleries. This made it all the more difficult to find Susie. It was like playing hide-and-seek in the Albert Hall. After he had walked about quarter of a mile round the back of one enormous empty gallery, he suddenly discovered Mr.¬ÝMilbrau of Messrs. Felder and Hunterman standing by his side. ‚Äú‚Ää‚ÄôScuse me,‚Äù Mr.¬ÝMilbrau was saying, ‚Äúbut the Tarvins are here.‚Äù Somehow this frightened Inigo. He hurried away, ran down a colossal flight of steps, and entered a lower gallery. He must find Susie at once, and he knew that she was in one of these galleries. Halfway round he came upon Mr.¬ÝMilbrau again. ‚ÄúHere he is,‚Äù Mr.¬ÝMilbrau shouted; and immediately a number of lights were turned on. The next moment, Mr.¬ÝTarvin appeared, looking much smaller and fatter than he had ever done before. ‚ÄúAh, there you are, Jollifant,‚Äù he said. ‚ÄúWe‚Äôre looking‚ÅÝ‚Äîchumha!‚ÅÝ‚Äîfor you.‚Äù And there, hurrying up behind him, was Mrs.¬ÝTarvin, a terrifying figure. Her head was so big. As big as a coal-scuttle and with eyes like flashing lamps! Horrible! He turned and ran, and then all the lights but one dim glow, high up on the roof, went out. He raced frantically through deep menacing shadows. Gallery after gallery, innumerable curved flights of steps were passed in this wild descent, but at last he arrived at the floor of the theatre. And it was packed with people. They were even standing in all the gangways. Now the place was brilliantly lit, and it was obvious that the performance was about to begin. He noticed for the first time that he was already in his stage costume. He would have to push his way through all these people. He pushed and pushed and finally reached the stage, where Jimmy was waiting for him. There was something faintly sinister about Jimmy. ‚ÄúCome on, Inigo,‚Äù he croaked. ‚ÄúYou‚Äôre late. We‚Äôve got a new stunt. Duets at the piano, that‚Äôs the idea. Got a new pianist.‚Äù And he hustled Inigo over to the piano. And there, waiting for him, was this horrible huge-headed Mrs.¬ÝTarvin, nodding and grinning. ‚ÄúI won‚Äôt,‚Äù Inigo shrieked. But Jimmy‚Äôs grip on his arm had tightened. ‚Äú‚Ää‚ÄôS all ri‚Äô, quite all ri‚Äô,‚Äù said Mr.¬ÝMilbrau, who appeared to be holding him now on the other side. Inigo struggled but he could not free himself.
‚ÄúHoy, justa minute, ju‚Äëust a mi‚Äëin‚Äëute!‚Äù This voice did not belong to either Jimmy or Mr.¬ÝMilbrau. It was a new voice. It had no part in the proceedings. It seemed to stop everything.
Inigo stared at the man opposite, stared at his big blue-veined nose, heavy cheeks, and gingerish moustache. These features, he remembered now, belonged to the man who had entered the carriage with him at Gatford station. Yes, he was in a railway carriage. That was all right‚ÅÝ‚Äîhe ought to be in a railway carriage. But why? Then, as he shook himself, yawned and rubbed his eyes, it all came back. It was Saturday morning and he was on his way to see Mr.¬ÝPitsner of Felder and Hunterman. He had wired Mr.¬ÝPitsner yesterday, Friday morning, and that gentleman, who must have received Mr.¬ÝMilbrau‚Äôs letter, had replied: ‚ÄúYes come along can hear songs eleven and twelve tomorrow.‚Äù And then he had had to work it all out with a timetable. How to get to London and back between the end of Friday night‚Äôs show and the beginning of Susie‚Äôs birthday tea-party this very afternoon?‚ÅÝ‚Äîthat had been the problem. It had meant catching a fiendishly early train from Gatford to Birmingham and then getting the express. And this was that early train. The mere snatch of sleep, the shivering wash and shave in the darkness, the scalding gulp of tea, the dash to the station through the queer dim streets. And here he was. And nobody knew anything about it, he reflected, hugging himself. Not a word about Mr.¬ÝMilbrau and Felder and Hunterman and this flying visit to London had escaped him. Ah!‚ÅÝ‚Äîthat was deep. He meant to spring it on them as a surprise when he returned, that is, of course, if anything happened worth springing. If nothing happened, then nobody would be any the wiser. He was not going to let her think him feebler than ever.
He sat up and rubbed his hands. He felt cold and stiff and unpleasantly empty. It was too early in the day to be riding in trains, absolutely. The windows still showed a flash of angry red sky, and a chilly vapour hung about the flying fields. His eyes were hot and heavy, and somehow he had to stare hard at things to see them properly. Even then they did not seem very real. His dream hung about the fringes of his consciousness like the mist on the fields outside. This world of the cold railway carriage and the dawn breaking over an unknown landscape appeared to have little more solid reality than that other world of the long dark galleries, the ever-appearing Milbrau, and the monstrously-headed Mrs.¬ÝTarvin. But this world, though it might have its minor discomforts, was infinitely the more pleasant. And warming, quickening, at the heart of it was his sense of adventure. These two feelings never really left him all that day. In the last little room, the inmost place, of his mind was a tiny Inigo hugging himself and crooning over the adventure. And because the day started, like a dream, in the darkness and hurried him at once into the unfamiliar, it never quite lost its unreality; it might be large and highly-coloured and crowded with moving shapes, but it always remained brittle, ready to be smashed into smithereens by a mere cry of ‚ÄúNo, you don‚Äôt!‚Äù
“ ’Aving a bit of a tussle, wasn’t you?” the man opposite grunted amiably. “Bootin’ ’em a bit, eh? Gave my ankle a good old rap, I can tell yer.”
“Sorry!” said Inigo, and admitted he had been dreaming. The only other person in the compartment, one of those little old women who seem to be forever travelling on unimaginable errands, whatever the hour or route, was dozing in her corner.
‚ÄúSaw yer drop off just after we starts,‚Äù the man went on. ‚ÄúI‚Äôve caught this bleeder three times this last fortnight‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äôad to. My missus says we‚Äôd better go and live in Brum an‚Äô ‚Äôave done with it. Doesn‚Äôt like getting up an‚Äô making me my bit o‚Äô breakfast, an‚Äô yer can‚Äôt blame ‚Äôer.‚Äù He brought out a small tin, selected a cigarette-end, which he contrived to light after it had been tucked away under his large moustache. ‚ÄúI‚Äôve offered to make my own breakfus‚Äô but that don‚Äôt do for ‚Äôer,‚Äù he continued, complacently blowing out smoke. ‚ÄúMuss ‚Äôave a proper breakfas‚Äô, she says, me goin‚Äô out like this, an‚Äô so she sees I ‚Äôas one.‚Äù
Inigo tried to imagine a deliriously domestic Susie insisting upon his having a proper breakfast on a morning like this, but he did not succeed in creating a convincing image of her in the part. Would she ever even share a breakfast with him? He had never thought of her having breakfast, but now that meal, hitherto regarded as a very prosaic business, a mere gobbling of eggs and bacon, became touched with wonder and romance. He heard her voice‚ÅÝ‚Äîhe could always hear her voice though he could never call up her face‚ÅÝ‚Äîasking him to pass the marmalade. He saw himself as a delightful attentive breakfast companion, without stopping to reflect that never in his life so far had he given any signs of being any such thing.
The London express offered him breakfast as soon as it left Birmingham, and he accepted its offer with alacrity. It was full of people who appeared to be old friends. Even the ticket-collectors and dining-car attendants seemed to know everybody. Men leaned across Inigo to ask one another where old Smith was. He had hardly begun his porridge before the man sitting next to him suddenly turned and shouted: “Hello! Wondered where you were. I say, is there any truth in that story about Bradbury and Torrence?” Inigo, startled, was about to stammer that he had not the least idea, when he discovered that his neighbour was not addressing him at all but a man busy chipping an egg at the other side of the aisle. And though the ticket-collector examined his ticket and the attendants brought him food, they did it impersonally, without any of those remarks about the weather and the number of people on the train that seemed to be offered to everybody else. At first he felt as if he had blundered into a party given by a complete stranger, perhaps the Lord Mayor of Birmingham. After a time, however, he merely felt that he was not really there at all. The train and its passengers did not believe in him.
A chance remark might break the spell. He tried the experiment at the end of breakfast, when the man next to him was lighting a pipe.
‚ÄúI say‚ÅÝ‚Äîer‚ÅÝ‚Äîwhat time do we get in?‚Äù said Inigo.
“Yes, rather,” the man replied, poking at his pipe. And then he looked across the table at the man opposite, and, raising his voice, said: “I told Mason the other day that the Chamber of Commerce people were making a big mistake.”
“Mistake!” roared the man across the table. “They’re making the biggest bloomer I ever heard of.”
Inigo’s neighbour nodded vigorously, gave another poke or two at his pipe, then turned sharply. “What d’you think?” he inquired.
Inigo was quite ready to damn the Chamber of Commerce heartily, but once more it was the man at the other side of the aisle, the egg-chipper, the man who knew about Bradbury and Torrence, who was being addressed. And this fellow crossed over, put an arm at the back of Inigo‚Äôs seat, leaned forward, so far forward indeed that Inigo could easily have set fire to his beard and thought once of doing it, and then replied: ‚ÄúI‚Äôm not so sure about that, my boy. Remember what happened after the Stavely Commission? Well, it might easily happen again‚ÅÝ‚Äîin my opinion.‚Äù
It was very odd. Inigo did not seem to be there. They did not appear to believe he was a real person. But as he knew very well that he was there and that he was a real person, this only meant that that dreamlike sensation persisted, robbing even a London express of its substantiality and turning roaring tons of businessmen into flitting shadows. Even when they finally chuff-chuffed into the terminus, the sensation still remained. There was nothing about that gloomy phantasmagoria to suggest that reality was breaking through. The place looked as if it had been designed by the same mad architect who had built the colossal Gatford Hippodrome of dreamland. Inigo hurried out of it.