The Kingdom of Theophilus

CHAPTER II-1

CHAPTER IIT

HEOPHILUS, in spite of assiduous sociological and statistical reading, could never arrive at a definite conception of Luke Wavering’s activities in the City. He knew that he was interested in many companies, that he was chairman of a great concern—“The British and Overseas Trust Limited”—and that he made a great deal of money. Personally he was not at all displeased that Luke should make a great deal of money, seeing that every now and again the Maker of Money, out of the kindness of his heart, put him in the way of making money too. The process was both simple and agreeable. On receipt of a message from Luke, he had but to instruct the manager of his bank to buy so many shares in such-and-such an undertaking, and, on another message, to instruct the manager to sell out. Sometimes even he would receive communications from The British and Overseas Trust Limited to the effect that they had bought so many shares for such a sum, and sold them for such a greater sum; and begged him to acknowledge the receipt of an enclosed cheque. Thus, within the last two or three years, the modest £2000 of Theophilus’s savings had increased to £15,000 which he invested in War Loan, both through prudence and at the advice of Wavering.

Most of these transactions he hid from Evelina, whose attitude towards her cousin’s methods of money-making was coldly unsympathetic. She had her own little patrimony of two or three hundred a year invested in Municipal and Colonial Stock, which she threw into the joint account that was complemented by her husband’s official salary. On that they lived. He dispensed petty cash, paid all bills, and every half-year, in January and July, when he received his pass-book from the Bank, made the neatest possible balanced statement of accounts in a special leather-covered book which he submitted formally to the inspection of his wife. He was methodical, precise, official. That the joint income must be accounted for, Evelina took as a matter of course. Was she not a member of the Finance Committee of the Greenwich Borough Council? She respected him as the perfect accountant.

That it was wrong and disingenuous on the part of Theophilus to open a secret banking account of his own, and keep on deposit the interest on his gambler’s fortune, no conscientious person can deny. But when a man’s wife will only try to do general good with his money, without any particular benefit to himself, his villainy may be pardoned by those who view human error with a certain indulgence. On the other hand, the secret joy of Theophilus in amassing a miser’s treasure may most reasonably be deplored. Again—such can be the strophe and antistrophe of argument—why should he deny himself the only Puckish delight afforded him by ironical circumstance?

“I’ve done with those two for ever,” said Evelina, as soon as the door had shut behind her cousins. “That child is the most odious product of modern decadent civilization, and I’m perfectly certain that Luke isn’t straight.”

“Daphne no doubt is trying,” Theophilus admitted, “but what’s wrong with Luke?”

“I don’t know,” said Evelina. “You might just as soon ask me what’s wrong with a bad smell.”

“I’m sorry,” said Theophilus, “but I really like Luke.”

She shrugged her thin shoulders beneath the pink woolly wrap. They were standing in the hall.

“I don’t pry into your affairs, my dear, any more than you pry into mine. That was part of our agreement when we married—and I’ve observed it religiously”—Theophilus wondered whether he had been as astutely secretive as he had imagined—“but I warn you. If you put any trust in Luke—and I say it although he’s my own cousin—you’ll be a fool and live to repent it.”

Theophilus held his peace. He had the unemotional man’s wisdom of silence. His natural kindliness, too, forbade touching on raw nerves. He looked down on her with the affection of habit, and saw an exhausted and irresponsible woman. He smiled.

“There’s nothing to worry about as far as I’m concerned; but as far as you’re concerned, I am worried. You go off to bed. I’ll lock up and put out the lights. I’ll read a little before I turn in.”

He put his arm round her, and she laid her head against him. She confessed to the awful weariness consequent on a day’s hard work and to a splitting headache brought on suddenly by the girl’s insolence. They parted with a conventional peck of lips. Theophilus went into his library to think over the interrupted revelation of Luke’s El Dorado.

Impeccable official though he was, he nevertheless stole an hour from Government time the next morning in order to interview Luke in the gorgeous offices of The British and Overseas Trust Limited in Aldwych. Luke, bearing no malice for overnight happenings—of what account were women’s squabbles in the serious affairs of men?—received him cordially. He went out dazed, cheated the Government of another half-hour, which he spent in his bank manager’s parlour. When he got home that evening he said nothing of his petty larceny of Government time to Evelina. Recovered from her fatigue, and perhaps mindful of the odious child’s criticism, she warmed the house against his arrival, set before him an edible roast leg of mutton, and took him off to a cheery performance at Croydon of “Titus Andronicus” given by the New Shakespearean League.

For a month Theophilus lived the life of the exultant gambler. Never before had his following of Luke’s gospel given him such a cumulation of daily thrills. Indeed, he regarded Luke less as an apostle than as a god. Himself, admitted into a tiny band possessed of secret information, he considered as one of the Chosen. For, lo, what Luke had predicted had come true. Shares in a moribund mine were bought for a song. None but the small hierarchy knew of the new rich vein of life that had just been discovered. The shares mounted daily in dizzying leaps. Although Theophilus read his journal of physical offence every morning in the crowded railway carriage, the serried columns swam mistily before his eyes while one little entry danced over them, will-o’-the-wisp fashion, in letters of fire. At last the price quoted reached such astounding heights that he grew fearful. Should he sell? Luke, consulted by telephone, bade him hold on. He had an investment and not a speculation. Theophilus thought of the easily made thousands he could put into safe and solid War Loan, and of the re-invested dividends that would bring in what he vaguely thought of as compound interest. So, one morning, after a sleepless night, scared to insomnia by Fortune, he instructed his friendly bank manager to sell.

And, lo and behold, the very day after his enormous profits were assured, the shares in Consolidated Gonzagas fell several points. Day after day they dropped with the accelerated speed of a hurtling avalanche. Luke telephoned a frantic message. “Sell for God’s sake for what you can get.” He replied, with a pardonable glow of exultation, that he had sold at the top of the market, and, in a mad spirit of generosity, asked Luke to lunch with him at the vast semi-political caravanserai which was his club, and where he lunched modestly every day of his official life. Luke accepted. His genuine affection for Theophilus was due to some kink in a queer character. Daphne, the child of his adoration, encouraged the sentiment. With the impatient cruelty of youth, she called Evelina “The Blight,” and taught her father to look at Theophilus as a sort of withered and unflowering hollyhock.

Theophilus, still regarding Luke as Allah, but promoting himself to the position of His Prophet, departed from his usual procedure of hospitality, which consisted in putting the bill of fare before his guest and asking him what he would like (whereupon the latter would modestly choose roast mutton or minced veal with poached egg), and enjoined upon the steward to serve the most sumptuous meal the club could compass.

“Oysters, sir?”

“Of course. And ortolans?” said Theophilus, with a vague memory of a novel—possibly one of Ouida’s—which he had read in his youth, wherein ortolans as an article of diet had impressed him with an idea of Lucullan luxury.

The steward, who had no notion whether the thing was a fish, fowl or beast, replied gravely:

“I’m sorry, sir, they’re not in season.”

“That’s a pity,” said Theophilus with equal gravity.

“How about a nice sole with white wine sauce, and cutlets réforme and chocolate soufflé?”

“Excellent,” said Theophilus. “I leave it to you.”

Theophilus, deeming the unimaginative author of this dull meal an expert in banquetry, went away perfectly satisfied. Indeed, he had more imagination than the steward, for the white wine sauce (which, in the world’s most famous restaurants, is, at the best, but a sticky mess artfully employed to disguise staleness of fish) appealed to him as something new and exotic that would evoke the enthusiasm of his luxurious guest.

Luke came. When Theophilus suggested that they should go in at once to lunch, he demanded a cocktail. Theophilus led him into the crowded smoking-room. He summoned a waiter.

“A cocktail, please.”

“What kind, sir?”

“Is there more than one kind?”

Luke interrupted. “A dry Martini. Listen. Just be careful and give the order properly. Three-quarters gin and one French vermouth, instead of two-thirds and one-third—three-quarters and one-quarter, see?”

“Yes, sir. Only one?”

“You’ll excuse me,” said Theophilus. “But I’ve only had a cocktail once in my life, and then I didn’t like it.”

“Oh, God, man, do be human,” cried Luke. “Waiter, bring two. If Mr. Bird doesn’t want it, I’ll drink it.” He turned to Theophilus. “Damn it all. I need it. I’ve had a hell of a morning. I thought I knew a thing or two, but I’ve been simply done down by those Gonzaga swine. Without knowing it, you’re one of them.”

“My dear fellow,” Theophilus protested, “I never heard of the things until you told me of them.”

“Of course I know that,” said Luke, “but who gave you the tip to sell? You couldn’t have done it on your own.”

Behind Luke’s round hawk eyes even so ingenuous an observer as Theophilus could perceive the conjectured shadow of some Machiavelli-Mephistophelean enemy.

“I assure you I sold on my own initiative. The price seemed too good to be true.”

“Cold feet?” said Luke.

“If you like to put it that way—yes.”

“Now I remember,” said Luke, draining his cocktail which the waiter had just brought. “You’ve done the same thing—though not on so big a scale—once or twice before. Your infernal feet seem to be like a minimum registering thermometer. I’m not quite sure that they wouldn’t be worth three or four thousand a year to me.”

They went into lunch. Luke swallowed the oysters, picked at the yellow mess of fish, ate half a cutlet, and waved away the chocolate soufflé. He would hear nothing of Theophilus’s suggestion of champagne, and demanded plain water from the tap. He had a Board Meeting of sharks at 2.30, and it behoved him to meet them with the shark’s clear and unalcoholized intelligence. The cocktail he needed for his nerve’s sake. For that he was grateful to Theophilus.

“Thank your stars,” said he, “you can sit in a comfortable Government Office, preventing people—chiefly people like me—from doing things. All you have to do is to put a minute in your most characteristic university handwriting at the foot of a blue foolscap pile which represents the thought and labour of years. ‘Scheme unnecessary and wasteful, T.B.,’ and the thing’s damned for ever. If I could only be a professional damner instead of a creator, I should be a happier man.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Theophilus, who, not encouraged by his guest to stray into unfamiliar vineyards, had sipped his customary ginger-ale.