escaped from the neighbourhood where suspicion has been planted and
come to the beginning of Lambeth Walk. I get out and walk along among
the crowds.
People are shopping. How lovely the cockneys are! How romantic the
figures, how sad, how fascinating! Their lovely eyes. How patient they
are! Nothing conscious about them. No affectation, just themselves,
their beautifully gay selves, serene in their limitations, perfect in
their type.
I am the wrong note in this picture that nature has concentrated here.
My clothes are a bit conspicuous in this setting, no matter how
unobtrusive my thoughts and actions. Dressed as I am, one never
strolls along Lambeth Walk.
I feel the attention I am attracting. I put my handkerchief to my
face. People are looking at me, at first slyly, then insistently. Who
am I? For a moment I am caught unawares.
A girl comes up--thin, narrow-chested, but with an eagerness in her
eyes that lifts her above any physical defects.
"Charlie, don't you know me?"
Of course I know her. She is all excited, out of breath. I can almost
feel her heart thumping with emotion as her narrow chest heaves with
her hurried breathing. Her face is ghastly white, a girl about
twenty-eight. She has a little girl with her.
This girl was a little servant girl who used to wait on us at the
cheap lodging-house where I lived. I remembered that she had left in
disgrace. There was tragedy in it. But I could detect a certain savage
gloriousness in her. She was carrying on with all odds against her.
Hers is the supreme battle of our age. May she and all others of her
kind meet a kindly fate.
With pent-up feelings we talk about the most commonplace things.
"Well, how are you, Charlie?"
"Fine." I point to the little girl. "Is she your little girl?"
She says, "Yes."
That's all, but there doesn't seem to be much need of conversation. We
just look and smile at each other and we both weave the other's story
hurriedly through our own minds by way of the heart. Perhaps in our
weaving we miss a detail or two, but substantially we are right. There
is warmth in the renewed acquaintance. I feel that in this moment I
know her better than I ever did in the many months I used to see her
in the old days. And right now I feel that she is worth knowing.
There's a crowd gathering. It's come. I am discovered, with no chance
for escape. I give the girl some money to buy something for the child,
and hurry on my way. She understands and smiles. Crowds are following.
I am discovered in Lambeth Walk.
But they are so charming about it. I walk along and they keep behind
at an almost standard distance. I can feel rather than hear their
shuffling footsteps as they follow along, getting no closer, losing no
ground. It reminds me of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
All these people just about five yards away, all timid, thrilled,
excited at hearing my name, but not having the courage to shout it
under this spell.
"There he is." "That's 'im." All in whispers hoarse with excitement
and carrying for great distance, but at the same time repressed by
the effort of whispering. What manners these cockneys have! The crowds
accumulate. I am getting very much concerned. Sooner or later they are
going to come up, and I am alone, defenceless. What folly this going
out alone, and along Lambeth Walk!
Eventually I see a bobby, a sergeant--or, rather, I think him one, he
looks so immaculate in his uniform. I go to him for protection.
"Do you mind?" I say. "I find I have been discovered. I am Charlie
Chaplin. Would you mind seeing me to a taxi?"
"That's all right, Charlie. These people won't hurt you. They are the
best people in the world. I have been with them for fifteen years." He
speaks with a conviction that makes me feel silly and deservedly
rebuked.
I say, "I know it; they are perfectly charming."
"That's just it," he answers. "They are charming and nice."
They had hesitated to break in upon my solitude, but now, sensing that
I have protection, they speak out.
"Hello, Charlie!" "God bless you, Charlie!" "Good luck to you, lad!"
As each flings his or her greetings they smile and self-consciously
back away into the group, bringing others to the fore for their
greeting. All of them have a word--old women, men, children. I am
almost overcome with the sincerity of their welcome.
We are moving along and come to a street corner and into Kennington
Road again. The crowds continue following as though I were their
leader, with nobody daring to approach within a certain radius.
The little cockney children circle around me to get a view from all
sides.
I see myself among them. I, too, had followed celebrities in my time
in Kennington. I, too, had pushed, edged, and fought my way to the
front rank of crowds, led by curiosity. They are in rags, the same
rags, only more ragged.
They are looking into my face and smiling, showing their blackened
teeth. Good God! English children's teeth are terrible! Something can
and should be done about it. But their eyes!
Soulful eyes with such a wonderful expression. I see a young girl
glance slyly at her beau. What a beautiful look she gives him! I find
myself wondering if he is worthy, if he realises the treasure that is
his. What a lovely people!
We are waiting. The policeman is busy hailing a taxi. I just stand
there self-conscious. Nobody asks any questions. They are content to
look. Their steadfast watching is so impressing. I feel small--like a
cheat. Their worship does not belong to me. God, if I could only do
something for all of them!
But there are too many--too many. Good impulses so often die before
this "too many."
I am in the taxi.
"Good-bye, Charlie! God bless you!" I am on my way.
The taxi is going up Kennington Road along Kennington Park. Kennington
Park. How depressing Kennington Park is! How depressing to me are all
parks! The loneliness of them. One never goes to a park unless one is
lonesome. And lonesomeness is sad. The symbol of sadness, that's a
park.
But I am fascinated now with it. I am lonesome and want to be. I want
to commune with myself and the years that are gone. The years that
were passed in the shadow of this same Kennington Park. I want to sit
on its benches again in spite of their treacherous bleakness, in spite
of the drabness.
But I am in a taxi. And taxis move fast. The park is out of sight. Its
alluring spell is dismissed with its passing. I did not sit on the
bench. We are driving toward Kennington Gate.
Kennington Gate. That has its memories. Sad, sweet, rapidly recurring
memories.
'Twas here, my first appointment with Hetty (Sonny's sister). How I
was dolled up in my little, tight-fitting frock coat, hat, and cane! I
was quite the dude as I watched every street car until four o'clock
waiting for Hetty to step off, smiling as she saw me waiting.
I get out and stand there for a few moments at Kennington Gate. My
taxi driver thinks I am mad. But I am forgetting taxi drivers. I am
seeing a lad of nineteen, dressed to the pink, with fluttering heart,
waiting, waiting for the moment of the day when he and happiness
walked along the road. The road is so alluring now. It beckons for
another walk, and as I hear a street car approaching I turn eagerly,
for the moment almost expecting to see the same trim Hetty step off,
smiling.
The car stops. A couple of men get off. An old woman. Some children.
But no Hetty.
Hetty is gone. So is the lad with the frock coat and cane.
Back into the cab, we drive up Brixton Road. We pass Glenshore
Mansions--a more prosperous neighbourhood. Glenshore Mansions, which
meant a step upward to me, where I had my Turkish carpets and my red
lights in the beginning of my prosperity.
We pull up at The Horns for a drink. The same Horns. Used to adjoin
the saloon bar. It has changed. Its arrangement is different. I do not
recognise the keeper. I feel very much the foreigner now; do not know
what to order. I am out of place. There's a barmaid.
How strange, this lady with the coiffured hair and neat little
shirtwaist!
"What can I do for you, sir?"
I am swept off my feet. Impressed. I want to feel very much the
foreigner. I find myself acting.
"What have you got?"
She looks surprised.
"Ah, give me ginger beer." I find myself becoming a little bit
affected. I refuse to understand the money--the shillings and the
pence. It is thoroughly explained to me as each piece is counted
before me. I go over each one separately and then leave it all on the
table.
There are two women seated at a near-by table. One is whispering to
the other. I am recognised.
"That's 'im; I tell you 'tis."
"Ah, get out! And wot would 'e be a-doin' 'ere?"
I pretend not to hear, not to notice. But it is too ominous. Suddenly
a white funk comes over me and I rush out and into the taxi again.
It's closing time for a part of the afternoon. Something different. I
am surprised. It makes me think it is Sunday. Then I learn that it is
a new rule in effect since the war.
I am driving down Kennington Road again. Passing Kennington Cross.
Kennington Cross.
It was here that I first discovered music, or where I first learned
its rare beauty, a beauty that has gladdened and haunted me from that
moment. It all happened one night while I was there, about midnight. I
recall the whole thing so distinctly.
I was just a boy, and its beauty was like some sweet mystery. I did
not understand. I only knew I loved it and I became reverent as the
sounds carried themselves through my brain _via_ my heart.
I suddenly became aware of a harmonica and a clarinet playing a weird,
harmonious message. I learned later that it was "The Honeysuckle and
the Bee." It was played with such feeling that I became conscious for
the first time of what melody really was. My first awakening to music.
I remembered how thrilled I was as the sweet sounds pealed into the
night. I learned the words the next day. How I would love to hear it
now, that same tune, that same way!
Conscious of it, yet defiant, I find myself singing the refrain softly
to myself:
You are the honey, honeysuckle. I am the bee;
I'd like to sip the honey, dear, from those red lips. You see
I love you dearie, dearie, and I want you to love me--
You are my honey, honeysuckle. I am your bee.
Kennington Cross, where music first entered my soul. Trivial, perhaps,
but it was the first time.
There are a few stragglers left as I pass on my way along Manchester
Bridge at the Prince Road. They are still watching me. I feel that
Kennington Road is alive to the fact that I am in it. I am hoping that
they are feeling that I have come back, not that I am a stranger in
the public eye.
I am on my way back. Crossing Westminster Bridge. I enter a new land.
I go back to the Haymarket, back to the Ritz to dress for dinner.
VII.
A JOKE AND STILL ON THE GO
In the evening I dined at the Ritz with Ed. Knoblock, Miss Forrest,
and several other friends. The party was a very congenial one and the
dinner excellent. It did much to lift me from the depression into
which the afternoon in Kennington had put me.
Following dinner we said "Good night" to Miss Forrest, and the rest of
us went around to Ed. Knoblock's apartment in the Albany. The Albany
is the most interesting building I have yet visited in London.
In a sort of dignified grandeur it stands swathed in an atmosphere of
tradition. It breathes the past, and such a past! It has housed men
like Shelley and Edmund Burke and others whose fame is linked closely
with the march of English civilisation.
Naturally, the building is very old. Ed.'s apartment commands a
wonderful view of London. It is beautifully and artistically
furnished, its high ceilings, its tapestries, and its old Victorian
windows giving it a quaintness rather startling in this modern age.
We had a bit of supper, and about eleven-thirty it began to rain, and
later there was a considerable thunderstorm.
Conversation, languishing on general topics, turns to me, the what and
wherefore of my coming and going, my impressions, plans, etc. I tell
them as best I can.
Knoblock is anxious to get my views on England, on the impression that
London has made. We discuss the matter and make comparisons. I feel
that England has acquired a sadness, something that is tragic and at
the same time beautiful.
We discuss my arrival. How wonderful it was. The crowds, the
reception. Knoblock thinks that it is the apex of my career. I am
inclined to agree with him.
Whereupon Tom Geraghty comes forward with a startling thought. Tom
suggests that I die immediately. He insists that this is the only
fitting thing to do, that to live after such a reception and ovation
would be an anti-climax. The artistic thing to do would be to finish
off my career with a spectacular death. Everyone is shocked at his
suggestion. But I agree with Tom that it would be a great climax. We
are all becoming very sentimental; we insist to one another that we
must not think such thoughts, and the like.
The lightning is flashing fitfully outside. Knoblock, with an
inspiration, gathers all of us, except Tom Geraghty, into a corner and
suggests that on the next flash of lightning, just for a joke, I
pretend to be struck dead, to see what effect it would have on Tom.
We make elaborate plans rapidly. Each is assigned to his part in the
impromptu tragedy. We give Tom another drink and start to talking
about death and kindred things. Then we all comment how the wind is
shaking this old building, how its windows rattle and the weird effect
that lightning has on its old tapestries and lonely candlesticks.
Surreptitiously, some one has turned out all but one light, but old
Tom does not suspect.
The atmosphere is perfect for our hoax and several of us who are "in
the know" feel sort of creepy as we wait for the next flash. I prime
myself for the bit of acting.
The flash comes, and with it I let forth a horrible shriek, then stand
up, stiffen, and fall flat on my face. I think I did it rather well,
and I am not sure but that others beside Tom were frightened.
Tom drops his whisky glass and exclaims: "My God! It's happened!" and
his voice is sober. But no one pays any attention to him.
They all rush to me and I am carried feet first into the bedroom, and
the door closed on poor old Tom, who is trying to follow me in. Tom
just paces the floor, waiting for some one to come from the bedroom
and tell him what has happened. He knocks on the door several times,
but no one will let him in.
[Illustration: My "property grin."]
Finally, Carl Robinson comes out of the room, looking seriously
intent, and Tom rushes to him.
"For God's sake, Carl, what's wrong?"
Carl brushes him aside and makes for the telephone.
"Is he--dead?" Tom puts the question huskily and fearfully.
Carl pays no attention except: "Please don't bother me now, Tom. This
is too serious." Then he calls on the telephone for the coroner. This
has such an effect on Geraghty that Knoblock comes forth from the
bedroom to pacify him.
"I am sure it will be all right," Knoblock says to Tom, at the same
time looking as though he were trying to keep something secret.
Everything is staged perfectly and poor old Tom just stands and looks
bewildered, and every few moments tries to break into the bedroom, but
is told to stay out, that he is in no condition to be mixing up in
anything so serious.
The chief of police is called, doctors are urged to rush there in all
haste with motors, and with each call Tom's suffering increases. We
keep up the joke until it has reached the point of artistry, and then
I enter from the bedroom in a flowing sheet for a gown and a pillow
slip on each arm to represent wings, and I proceed to be an angel for
a moment.
But the effect has been too great on Tom, and even the travesty at the
finish does not get a laugh from him.
We laughed and talked about the stunt for a while and Tom was asked
what he would have done if it had been true and I had been hit by the
lightning.
Tom made me feel very cheap and sorry that I had played the trick on
him when he said that he would have jumped out of the window himself,
as he would have no desire to live if I were dead.
But we soon got away from serious things and ended the party merrily
and went home about five in the morning. Which meant that we would
sleep very late that day.
Three o'clock in the afternoon found me awakened by the news that
there was a delegation of reporters waiting to see me. They were all
ushered in and the whole thirty-five of them started firing questions
at me in a bunch. And I answered them all, for by this time I was
quite proficient with reporters, and as they all asked the same
questions that I had answered before it was not hard.
In fact, we all had luncheon or tea together, though for me it was
breakfast, and I enjoyed them immensely. They are real, sincere, and
intelligent and not hero worshippers.
Along about five o'clock Ed. Knoblock came in with the suggestion that
we go out for a ride together and call around to see Bernard Shaw.
This did sound like a real treat. Knoblock knows Shaw very well and he
felt sure that Shaw and I would like each other.
First, though, I propose that we take a ride about London, and Ed.
leads the way to some very interesting spots, the spots that the
tourist rarely sees as he races his way through the buildings listed
in guide books.
He takes me to the back of the Strand Theatre, where there are
beautiful gardens and courts suggesting palaces and armour and the
days when knights were bold. These houses were the homes of private
people during the reign of King Charles and even farther back. They
abound in secret passages and tunnels leading up to the royal palace.
There is an air about them that is aped and copied, but it is not hard
to distinguish the real from the imitation. History is written on
every stone; not the history of the battlefield that is laid bare for
the historians, but that more intimate history, that of the
drawing-room, where, after all, the real ashes of empires are sifted.
Now we are in Adelphi Terrace, where Bernard Shaw and Sir James Barrie
live. What a lovely place the terrace is! And its arches underneath
leading to the river. And at this hour, six-thirty, there comes the
first fall of evening and London with its soft light is at its best.
I can quite understand why Whistler was so crazy about it. Its
lighting is perfect--so beautiful and soft. Perhaps there are those
who complain that it is poorly lighted and who would install many
modern torches of electricity to remedy the defect, but give me London
as it is. Do not paint the lily.
We make for Shaw's house, which overlooks the Thames Embankment. As we
approach I feel that this is a momentous occasion. I am to meet Shaw.
We reach the house. I notice on the door a little brass name plate
with the inscription, "Bernard Shaw." I wonder if there is anything
significant about Shaw's name being engraved in brass. The thought
pleases me. But we are here, and Knoblock is about to lift the
knocker.
And then I seem to remember reading somewhere about dozens of movie
actors going abroad, and how they invariably visited Shaw. Good Lord!
the man must be weary of them. And why should he be singled out and
imposed upon? And I do not desire to ape others. And I want to be
individual and different. And I want Bernard Shaw to like me. And I
don't want to force myself upon him.
And all this is occurring very rapidly, and I am getting fussed, and
we are almost before him, and I say to Knoblock, "No, I don't want to
meet him."
Ed. is annoyed and surprised and thinks I am crazy and everything. He
asks why, and I suddenly become embarrassed and shy. "Some other
time," I beg. "We won't call to-day." I don't know why, but suddenly I
feel self-conscious and silly--
Would I care to see Barrie? He lives just across the road.
"No, I don't want to see any of them to-day." I am too tired. I find
that it would be too much effort.
So I go home, after drinking in all the beauties of the evening, the
twilight, and the loveliness of Adelphi Terrace. This requires no
effort. I can just drift along on my own, let thoughts come and go as
they will, and never have to think about being polite and wondering if
I am holding my own in intelligent discussion that is sure to arise
when one meets great minds. I wasted the evening just then. Some other
time, I know, I am going to want Shaw and Barrie.
I drift along with the sight and am carried back a hundred years, two
hundred, a thousand. I seem to see the ghosts of King Charles and
others of Old England with the tombstones epitaphed in Old English and
dating back even to the eleventh century.
It is all fragrant and too fleeting. We must get back to the hotel to
dress for dinner.
Then Knoblock, Sonny, Geraghty, and a few others dine with me at the
Embassy Club, but Knoblock, who is tired, leaves after dinner. Along
about ten o'clock Sonny, Geraghty, Donald Crist, Carl Robinson, and
myself decide to take a ride. We make toward Lambeth. I want to show
them Lambeth. I feel as if it is mine--a choice discovery and
possession that I wish to display.
I recall an old photographer's shop in the Westminster Bridge Road
just before you come to the bridge. I want to see it again. We get out
there. I remember having seen a picture framed in that window when I
was a boy--a picture of Dan Leno, who was an idol of mine in those
days.
The picture was still there, so is the photographer--the name "Sharp"
is still on the shop. I tell my friends that I had my picture taken
here about fifteen years ago, and we went inside to see if we could
get one of the photos.
"My name is Chaplin," I told the person behind the counter. "You
photographed me fifteen years ago. I want to buy some copies."
"Oh, we destroyed the negative long ago," the person behind the
counter thus dismisses me.
"Have you destroyed Mr. Leno's negative?" I ask him.
"No," was the reply, "but Mr. Leno is a famous comedian."
Such is fame. Here I had been patting myself on the back, thinking I
was some pumpkins as a comedian, and my negative destroyed. However,
there is balm in Gilead. I tell him I am Charlie Chaplin and he wants
to turn the place upside down to get some new pictures of me; but we
haven't the time, and, besides, I want to get out, because I am
hearing suppressed snickers from my friends, before whom I was going
to show off.
VIII.
A MEMORABLE NIGHT IN LONDON
So we wandered along through South London by Kennington Cross and
Kennington Gate, Newington Butts, Lambeth Walk, and the Clapham Road,
and all through the neighbourhood. Almost every step brought back
memories, most of them of a tender sort. I was right here in the midst
of my youth, but somehow I seemed apart from it. I felt as though I
was viewing it under a glass. It could be seen all too plainly, but
when I reached to touch it it was not there--only the glass could be
felt, this glass that had been glazed by the years since I left.
If I could only get through the glass and touch the real live thing
that had called me back to London. But I couldn't.
A man cannot go back. He thinks he can, but other things have happened
to his life. He has new ideas, new friends, new attachments. He
doesn't belong to his past, except that the past has, perhaps, made
marks on him.
My friends and I continue our stroll--a stroll so pregnant with
interest to me at times that I forget that I have company and wander
along alone.
Who is that old derelict there against the cart? Another landmark. I
look at him closely. He is the same--only more so. Well do I remember
him, the old tomato man. I was about twelve when I first saw him, and
he is still here in the same old spot, plying the same old trade,
while I--
I can picture him as he first appeared to me standing beside his round
cart heaped with tomatoes, his greasy clothes shiny in their
unkemptness, the rather glassy single eye that had looked from one
side of his face staring at nothing in particular, but giving you the
feeling that it was seeing all, the bottled nose with the network of
veins spelling dissipation.
I remember how I used to stand around and wait for him to shout his
wares. His method never varied. There was a sudden twitching
convulsion, and he leaned to one side, trying to straighten out the
other as he did so, and then, taking into his one good lung all the
air it would stand, he would let forth a clattering, gargling,
asthmatic, high-pitched wheeze, a series of sounds which defied
interpretation.
Somewhere in the explosion there could be detected "ripe tomatoes."
Any other part of his message was lost.