Carolian furniture, a draped ottoman, and an upright Collard piano.
The walls were covered with enlarged photographs of actors and
actresses in gold and walnut frames, the majority of them were
autographed and contained such inscriptions as: “To my dear old
Willy, from yours devotedly, Cora.” “To Uncle Nilly, one of the best,
Jimmy Cotswold (The Blue Girl Company, Aug. 1899),” “To Willy Nilly,
‘my heart’s afire,’ Queenie,” and so on.
“Now, let’s see what you’ve got, old boy.”
Chris sat at the piano, and unwrapped a manuscript score.
“I think this ought to win out, old boy,” he said. “It’s by Bert
Shore. It’s called ‘The Desert Island.’ You see the point is this.
You’re a bit squiffy, old boy. You see, red nose and battered top
hat and your trousers turned up to the knees. You know how when
it’s been raining on a tarred road it looks like water. Well, we
have a set like that. It’s really a street island--in Piccadilly,
or somewhere. You’re on it, and seeing all this shining water,
you think you’re on a desert island and the lamppost’s a palm
tree. You take off your shoes and stockings and there’s some good
business touching the wet road with your bare toes. See, old boy?
There’s a thunderin’ good tune. Listen to this--tum-te-too-te
tum-te-tum, rum-te-too-te-tum-te--works up, you see to a
kind of nautical air--then gets back to the plaintive desert
stuff--rum-tum-tum-rum-te-tum. Then here’s the chorus. Listen to
this, old boy:
“Lost in the jungle,
Oh, what a bungle,
Eaten by spiders and ants.
Where is my happy home?
Why did they let me roam?
Where are my Sunday pants?
“Good, eh? What do you think? Make something of it, old boy? Eh?”
The little man’s eyes glowed with excitement. Oh, yes, this might
assuredly be a winner. It was the kind of song that had made his
reputation. The tune of the chorus was distinctly catchy, and his
mind was already conceiving various business.
“Let’s have a go at it, old boy,” he said.
He leant over the other’s shoulder and began to sing. He threw back
his head and thrust out his fat little stomach, his eyes rolled, and
perspiration streamed down his face. He was really enjoying himself.
He had just got to
Lost in a jungle,
Oh, what a bungle,
Eaten by spiders and ants,
when there was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Lamb thrust her head in
and said: “A telegram for you, Mr. Basingstoke.”
“Eh? Oh! Well--er, never mind. Yes, thank you, my dear, give it to
me.”
He opened the telegram absently, his mind still occupied with the
song. When he had read it, he exclaimed:
“Good God! Poor old Joe! Yes, no, there’s no answer, my dear. I must
go out.”
Mrs. Lamb retired.
“Poor old Joe! Stranded, eh?”
“What is it, old boy?” said Chris.
“Telegram from Joe Bloom. He says: ‘Can you wire me tenner, very
urgent, stranded at Dundee?’ Poor old Joe! He has no luck. He was out
with ‘The Queen of the Sea’ company. They must have failed. Excuse me
Chris, old boy.”
The Funny Man hurried out of the room and ran downstairs. He snatched
up his hat and went out. When he got round the corner, he ran. He ran
as fast as he could to the High Street till he came to the London,
City and Midland Bank. He filled up a cheque for fifteen pounds and
cashed it. Then he ran out of the bank and trotted puffily across the
road to the post office.
“I want to telegraph fifteen pounds, old girl,” he said to the
fair-haired lady behind the wires. Filling up the forms took
an unconscionable time, and there all the while was poor old
Joe stranded in Dundee, perhaps without food! Dundee! Dundee of
all places, a bleak unsympathetic town, hundreds of miles from
civilization. Well, that would help him out, anyway. True, he had
had to do this twice before for Joe, and Joe had not, so far, paid
him back, but Joe was a notoriously unlucky devil, and he, Willy
Nilly, topping the bill at the Railham Empire, couldn’t let a pal in.
When he got back to his own drawing-room, Chris was stretched at full
length on the sofa, smoking a cigarette and drinking whiskey and soda.
“Sorry to have kept you, Chris, old boy.”
“It’s all right. I’ve just helped myself to a tot from the sideboard.”
“That’s right. That’s right. Now let’s see, it’s a quarter to eleven.
I’ll have to wash out this trial, old boy. I shall be late for Albus.
I like that song. I’d like to have another go at it. Have another
tot, Chris, old boy. I’ll join you, then I must be off.”
But he didn’t get to Albus that morning, because on leaving the
house he remembered that he hadn’t called on old Mrs. Labbory. He
_must_ just pop in for a few moments. It was only ten minutes’ walk
away. He purchased a fowl and a bottle of Madeira and hurried to 27,
Radnor Street. He found his old landlady propped up on the pillows,
looking gaunt and distant, as though she were already regarding the
manifestations of social life from a long way off and would never
participate in them again.
“Well, Martha, old girl, how goes it? Merry and bright, eh? Oh,
you’re looking fine. More colour than last week, eh? ... eating
better, old girl?”
A voice came across the years.
“I’m not so well, Jim. God bless you for coming.”
“Of course I come. I come because I’m a selfish old rascal. I come
because I want to, I know where I’m appreciated, eh? Ha, ha, ha, now
don’t you think you’re getting worse. You’re getting on fine. We’ll
soon have you about again, turning out cupboards, hanging wallpapers.
Jemimy! Do you remember hanging that convolvulus wallpaper in my
bedroom in the Gosport Road, eh?” The Funny Man slapped his leg, and
the tears rolled down his cheeks with laughter at the recollection of
the episode.
“Do you remember how I helped you? And all I did was to step into
a pail of size, nearly broke my leg, and spoilt the only pair of
trousers I had! Ha, ha, ha! He, he, he! I had to go to bed for four
hours while you washed them out and aired ’em. O dear!”
Old Mrs. Labbory began to laugh, too, in a feeble, distant manner.
Then she stopped and looked at him wistfully.
“You going to Katie Easebrook’s wedding, Jim?”
“Eh? Oh, yes, I’m going, old girl. I’m going straight on now.”
He hadn’t meant to mention this. There’s something a little crude
in talking about a wedding to a dying woman. He paused and looked
uncomfortably at his feet. The voice from the past reached him again.
“You ought to have married Katie Easebrook.”
“Eh? What’s that? Me? Oh, no, old girl, what are you talking about?
Me marry Katie Easebrook? Why, I wouldn’t have had the face to ask
her. Not when there’s a good fellow like Charlie about.”
Like some discerning oracle came the reply:
“Charlie’s a good feller, a good-looking feller, too--but you would
have made her a better husband, Jim.”
With some curious twist of chivalry and affection the little man
gripped the old woman’s hand and kissed it.
“You’ve always thought too much of me, Martha, old girl.”
“I’ve had good cause to, Jim.... Good-bye.”
He walked a little unsteadily down Radnor Street. A pale October sun
filtered through a light mist, and gave to the meagre front gardens
a certain glamour. Fat spiders hung in glistening webs between the
shrubs and Japanese anemones. Children were playing absorbing games
with chalk and stones upon the pavement. Cats looked down sleepily
from the security of narrow walls. He had to pat a little girl’s head
and arbitrate in a dispute between two girls and a boy regarding the
laws of a game called “Snowball.”
“Life is a lovely thing,” he thought as he hurried on. “Poor old
Martha!... She’s going out.”
He was, of course, late for the service in the church. In some way
he did not regret this. He slipped quietly into a seat at the back,
unobserved. A hymn was being sung, or was it a psalm? He didn’t
know. There was something about a church service he didn’t like. It
disturbed him at some uncomfortable level. Charlie was standing by
the altar, looking self-conscious and impatient. Katie was a ghostly
unrecognizable figure, like a fly bound up in a spool in a spider’s
web. Thirty or forty people were scattered on either side of the
central aisle. He could only see their backs. The parson began to
drone the service, slowly enunciating the prescribed purposes of the
married state. Willy Nilly felt a flush of discomfort. It somehow
didn’t seem right that Katie should have to stand there before all
these people and have things put to her quite so straight.
“Rather detailed, old boy,” he thought. “Perhaps that’s why a bride
wears a veil.”
When it was over, he walked boldly up the aisle and followed a few
intimates into the vestry. He was conscious of people indicating him
with nudges and whispering: “Look! That’s Willy Nilly!”
In the vestry, Katie’s mother was weeping, and Katie appeared to be
weeping with one eye and laughing with the other. A few relatives
were shaking hands, kissing and talking excitedly. Someone said:
“Here’s Willy Nilly.”
Charlie gripped his hand and whispered:
“Come on Willie, old boy, kiss the bride.”
The bride looked up at him with her glorious eyes, and held out her
arms.
“Dear old Willie ... so glad you came, old boy.”
He kissed the bride all right, and held her from him.
“God bless you, dear old girl. God bless you. May you ... may all
your dreams come true, old girl.”
In most weddings there is a streak of pathos, but in theatrical
weddings the note is predominant. It is as though the lookers-on
realize that these people whose life is passed in make-believe are
bound to burn their fingers when they begin to touch reality. Perhaps
their reactions are too violent to be bound within the four walls of
a contract.
Katie’s wedding certainly contained a large element of sadness.
“She looks so sweet and fragile. I hope he’ll be good to her,” women
whispered.
The lunch at the Hautboy Hotel was hilarious to an almost artificial
degree. A great deal of champagne was drunk, and toasts were
prolific. It was here that Willy Nilly came in. The Funny Man
excelled himself. He was among the people who knew him and loved him.
He made goo-goo eyes at the bridesmaids, he told stories, he imitated
all the denizens of a farmyard, he gave a mock conjuring display, and
his speech in proposing the health of the bride’s father and mother
was the hit of the afternoon. (He was not allowed the principal
toast as that had been allocated to Charlie’s father, who was a
stockbroker.) To the waiter who hovered behind chairs with napkined
magnums of champagne, he kept on saying:
“Not too much, old boy. I’ve a rehearsal at three-forty.”
Nevertheless, he drained his glass every time it was filled. The
craving to be funny exceeded every other craving. Willy Nilly had
knocked about the world in every kind of company. It took a lot to
go to his head. It was almost impossible to make him drunk. When at
three o’clock it was time for the bride and bridegroom to depart he
was not by any means drunk, certainly not so drunk as Charlie, but
he was in a slightly detached comatose state of mind. He kissed the
bride once more, and to Charlie he said:
“God bless you, old boy. Be good to her. You’ve got the dearest woman
in the world.”
And Charlie replied:
“I know, old boy. You’ve been a brick to us. You oughtn’t to have
sent the cheque as well as all that silver. Good luck, old boy.”
“O my in-laws, my in-laws, why don’t you leave me be.” It seemed but
a flash from one experience to another, from pressing the girl’s
dainty shoulders in a parting embrace to stamping about on the
draughty stage and calling into the void:
“Now, Mr. Prescott, I want a little more slowing down of this
passage. Do you see what I mean, old boy? It gives me more time for
the business.”
The gag with the trombone player was considerably improved. Must
keep going, doing things--a contract to sign at five-fifteen. He was
feeling tired when the rehearsal was over--mustn’t get tired before
the two shows to-night. Perhaps he could get half an hour’s nap after
seeing the agent before it was time to feed. Someone gave him a cup
of tea in the theatre, and a dresser told him a long story
about a disease which his wife’s father got through sitting on a
churchyard wall, waiting for the village pub. to open at six.
There appeared no interval of time between this and sitting in front
of the suave furtive-looking gentleman named Welsh who “handled” him
on behalf of the United Varieties Agency. He was conscious of not
being at his best with Welsh. He believed that he could have got much
better terms in his new contract, but somehow the matter did not
appear to him to be of great importance. He changed the subject and
told Welsh the story about the sea captain and the Irish stewardess.
Welsh laughed immoderately. After all, quite a good fellow--Welsh. He
was anxious to get away and see some boys at the club. Jimmy would
certainly have a new story ready. He hadn’t seen Jimmy for four days.
Jimmy was certainly there, and not only Jimmy, but old Barrow, and
Sam Lenning, and a host of others. He had a double Scotch whisky and
proceeded to take a hand in the game of swopping improper stories.
At one time something seemed to jog at his consciousness and say: “Do
you really think much of this kind of thing, old boy?” And another
voice replied: “What does it matter?... They’ve just arrived at
Brighton railway station. In another ten minutes they’ll be at ‘The
Ship.’”
“I thought you were going to have a chop at six-thirty, Willy,”
someone remarked to him suddenly.
“So I am, old boy.”
“It’s seven-fifteen now.”
Good gracious! So it was! Well, he didn’t particularly want a chop.
He would have a couple of sandwiches and another double Scotch. He
was quite himself again in his dressing room at the theatre. He loved
the smell of grease paint and spirit gum, the contact of fantastic
whiskers and clothes, the rather shabby mirror under a strong light.
His first song was going to be “Old Fags,” the feckless ruffian who
picks up cigarette ends. The dresser, whose name was Flood and who
always called him Mr. Nilly, was ready with his three changes.
“Number five’s on,” came the message down the corridors. Good! There
was only “Charlemayne,” the equilibrist, between him and “his people.”
Willy Nilly had got to love “his people” as he mentally designated
them. He knew them, and they knew him--the reward of many years’
hard work. He loved stumbling down the corridors, through the iron
doors, and groping his way amidst the dim medley of the wings, where
gorgeous unreal women, and men in bowler hats patted him as he
passed and whispered:
“Hullo, Willy, old boy! Good luck!”
He loved to wait there and hear his number go up; the roar of welcome
which greeted it was music to his soul.
“Number seven!”
The orchestra played the opening bars and then with a queer shuffle
he was before them, a preposterous figure with a bright red nose, a
miniature bowler hat, and a fearful old suit with ferns growing out
of the seams, and a heavy sack slung across his back.
“Old Fags! Old Fags!
See my collection of fine old fags.
If you want to be happy,
If you want to be gay,
Empty your sack
At the fag-end of the day.”
Oh, yes, you ought to see Willy Nilly in “Old Fags.” The habitués at
the Railham Empire will tell you all about him. The doleful wheezy
voice, the quaint antics, and then the screamingly funny business
when he empties the sack of cigarette ends all over the stage and,
of course, at the bottom is a bottle of gin and a complete set
of ladies’ undies (apparently new and trimmed in pink). Then the
business of finding innumerable cigarette ends in his unmanageable
beard.
On that night, Willy Nilly was at his best. A lightning change and
he came on as “The Carpet Salesman” in which he brought on a roll
of carpet, the opportunities concerning which are obvious. Then
followed “The lady who works for the lady next door.” The inevitable
encore--prepared for and expected--followed. A terrible Russian--more
whiskers, red this time--singing:
“O Mary-vitch,
O Ada-vitch
I don’t know which
Ich lieber ditch;
I told your pa
I’d got the itch;
He promptly hit me
On the snitch.”
It was difficult for Willy to escape after this valiant satirical
digression.
He fled perspiring to his dressing-room.
“Give me a drink, old boy,” he gasped to the lugubrious Flood.
He had smothered his face in cocoa-butter, when there was a knock on
the door.
“Mr. Peter Wilberforce, representing the _Railham Mercury_.”
“Ah, yes, come in, old boy.”
Mr. Wilberforce was in no hurry to depart. He had a spot--“just a
couple of fingers, old boy” of whisky. He wanted a column of bright
stuff for the next issue of the weekly. “Is Railham behind the other
suburbs in humour? Interview with the famous Willy Nilly--our local
product.”
“You just give me a lead,” said Mr. Wilberforce, “I’ll fill in the
padding.”
Willy Nilly found turning out the bright stuff immediately after his
performance the most exhausting experience of the day. He was quite
relieved when, at the end of forty minutes, there was a knock at the
door, and a woman with a lanky son was shown in. This was the young
man who wanted to go on the stage. The pressman departed and the
mother started forth on a long harangue about what people said about
her son’s remarkable genius for acting. Before Willy Nilly knew where
he was, he was listening to the boy giving imitations of Beerbohm
Tree and Henry Ainley. It was quite easy to tell which was meant to
be which, and so Willy grasped the young man’s hand and said:
“Very good, old boy! Very good.”
He promised to do what he could, but by the time the mother had gone
all over the same ground three times he found it was too late to pop
round to the club again. It was nearly time to make up for the second
show. He dozed in the chair for a few moments. Suddenly he thought:
“They’ve had dinner. They’re probably taking a stroll on the front
before turning in.”
He poured himself out another tot of whisky and picked up his red
nose.
“O God! How tired I feel!... Not quite the man you were, old boy.”
He found it a terrible effort to go on that second time. “Old Fags”
seemed flat. He began to be subtly aware that the audience knew that
he knew that the song wasn’t really funny at all. At the end the
applause was mild. “The Carpet Salesman” went even worse.
“Pull yourself together, old boy,” he muttered as he staggered off.
It wouldn’t do. A man who tops the bill can’t afford not to bring the
house down with every song. He made a superhuman effort with “The
lady who works for the lady next door.” It certainly went better than
the others, just well enough to take an encore rather quickly. On
this occasion he altered his encore. Instead of “Mary-vitch,” he sang
a hilarious song with the refrain:
“O my! Hold me down!
My wife’s gone away till Monday!”
At the end of the first verse he felt that he had got them. Success
excited him. He went for it for all he was worth. Willy Nilly
was himself again. The house roared at him. He had the greatest
difficulty in escaping without giving a further encore. As he
stumbled up the stone staircase to his dressing-room, he suddenly
thought:
“They’ve gone to bed now.”
The imperturbable Flood followed him, laden with properties.
“I’ll just have one more spot, Flood, old boy.”
How tired he was! He cleaned up languidly and got into his normal
clothes.
“Well, that’s that, old boy,” he said to Flood. “Now I think we’ll
toddle off to our bye-byes.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Nilly, wasn’t you going round to Mr. Bird Craft’s?”
Eh? Oh, yes, for sure; he’d forgotten about poor old Bird. Couldn’t
exactly let an old pal in. Well, he would have a cab and hang the
expense--just stay a few minutes--dear old Bird would understand.
But he stayed an hour at Bird Craft’s. He listened to three new comic
songs and a lot of patter.
“Yes, you’ve got a winner there, old boy,” he remarked at the end of
each song.
It was nearly one o’clock when he groped his way up the dim staircase
of his own house. The bedroom looked bleak and uninteresting. It had
never struck him before in quite that way. He had always liked his
bedroom with its heavy mahogany furniture and red plush curtains, but
somehow to-night the place seemed forlorn ... as though something was
terribly lacking.
“You’re tired, old boy.”
He undressed and threw his clothes carelessly on chairs and tables.
He got into bed and regarded the room, trying with his tired brain,
to think what was wrong. His clothes ought not to have been thrown
about like that, of course. He felt that they and he were out of
place in the large room. A strange feeling of melancholy crept over
him.
“It’s badly ordered ... it’s all badly ordered, old boy.”
He had a great desire to cry, so weak he felt. But no, a man mustn’t
do that; a funny man certainly mustn’t. His mind wandered back to his
old mother. He remembered the days when she had taught him to pray.
He would give anything for the relief of prayer. But he couldn’t do
that either. It didn’t seem exactly playing the game. He had put all
that kind of thing by so long ago. He despised those people who led
unvirtuous lives and then in the end turned religious. He wasn’t
going to pretend. He turned out the light, and closed his eyes. He
would neither weep nor pray, but he must express himself somehow.
Perhaps he compromised between these two human frailties. Certainly
his voice was very near a sob, and his accents vividly alive with
prayer as he cried to the darkness:
“Charlie, old boy, be good to her.... For God’s sake be good to her.”
THE BEAUTIFUL, MERCILESS LADY
There are few men strong enough to withstand success. She is the
beautiful, merciless lady.
At the first tap on the shoulder the victim of her favour rocks and
staggers. She glances into his eyes, and unless he is a creature of
superb control he loses his head. He plunges hither and thither,
clutching at the golden aura in which she seems to float. He feels
himself a thing apart, transcendent, impervious, invincible. The
world of pigmy men around him are merely the drab background to a
brilliant picture. He can do no wrong. The standards of morality and
behaviour which these others have set up are not his standards. He
is the darling of the gods, and he follows his mistress up and up,
leaping from crag to crag on the slope of the sunlit mountain.
Whither?
He never puts this query to himself. He lives in a welter of
exultation. All things are charged with the magic of a thousand
revelations. The younger he is when she first meets him the more
devastating are her allurements. Possibly this is why so many infant
prodigies never emerge from the infant stage. She stifles them with a
surfeit of her riches--the little bores! She likes men best in their
early manhood, when she may flirt with them at her leisure. The old
she seldom troubles about. They know her wiles and are frequently too
cunning or too weary.
Oh, but the young man, still with beauty and health and clean, strong
limbs!
It was such a one that she met in the person of my friend, Johnny
Lydgate. She led him away and destroyed him as completely as the rose
is destroyed by the breath of autumn winds.
There was no reason why he should have been destroyed, no exterior
cause. He had a thousand friends and no enemy, except the one which
she created in himself. Everything tended to produce in Johnny
Lydgate a creature of gentle bearing, of sanity, and equipoise. His
father was a delightful old gentleman, a librarian in a country
town, who kept homing pigeons and compiled anthologies. His mother
and sisters were charming and lovable women. They formed a united,
devoted family.
It was at Stoneleigh College that I first met Lydgate. We were
inseparable companions for nearly four years. My recollections of
him there were those of a pleasant, companionable, almost negative
schoolboy. He excelled at nothing and displayed no ambitions. He was
affectionate, intelligent, and amusing, but at work and at sport he
never rose above mediocrity.
We know a man’s body by the familiar regard of its movements and
expressions. We know the quality of his mind as it is revealed to us
through his opinions and observations, but it is strange how we may
get to know a man’s soul by some instant of revelation. We may think
we are entirely familiar with him. We may have known him intimately
for twenty years or more, but one day we suddenly experience a scrap
of recognition of something deeper. It may be a phrase that he
employs, a gesture, an attitude, some queer telepathic message from
his eyes; but in that instant we realize that we know our man for the
first time. All our values concerning him become readjusted from that
moment.