He was just in time to swallow a hurried meal and set off to the
theatre with the Creams. Mrs. Cream, recovered from the devastating
effects of a tragical temperament, was very vivacious as they sat in
the brougham; and she rallied him on his authorship. She told him that
when he was a celebrated writer, she would be able to say that she had
discovered him....
"As a matter of fact, Dolly," said her husband, "it was me that thought
of the idea!"
She ignored her husband. She pretended that John would become too proud
to know the poor little Creams!...
"I'm not too proud to know anyone," he interrupted.
She burbled at him, and pressed closer to him. "You're quite
complimentary," she said.
Cream had given John a note to the manager of the theatre which induced
that gentleman to admit him, free of charge, to the stalls. He would
travel home by himself, for the Creams had to play at other music-halls,
and would not be able to take him back to Brixton in their brougham.
"We finish up at Walham Green," said Cream, as John left the carriage.
He waited impatiently for the performance of _The Girl Gets Left_,
and he had an extraordinary sense of pleasure when he saw Cream's
wistful face peering through a window immediately after the curtain
went up. The little man was remarkably funny. His look, his voice, his
gestures, all compelled laughter from the audience without the audience
understanding quite why it was amused. He had the pathetic appearance
that all great comedians have, the look of appeal that one saw in the
face of Dan Leno, in the face of James Welch, and it seemed that he
might as easily cry as laugh. The words he had to say were poor, vapid
things, but when he said them, he put some of his own life into them
and gave them a greater value than they deserved. The turn of his head
was comic; a queer little helpless movement of his hands was comic; the
way in which he seemed to stop short and gulp as if he were bracing
himself up was comic; the swift downward and then upward glance of his
eyes, followed by an assumption of complete humility and resignation,
these were comic. And when he appeared on the stage, the audience,
knowing something of his quality, collectively lifted itself into an
attitude of attention.
A dismal young woman, singing a dreary lecherous song and showing an
immense quantity of frilled underclothing, had occupied five or six
minutes in boring the audience before _The Girl Gets Left_ began;
and an air of lassitude had enveloped the men who were sitting in
relaxed attitudes in the theatre. Their eyes seemed to become dull, and
they paid more attention to their pipes and their cigarettes than they
paid to the young woman's underclothing.... But when _The Girl Gets
Left_ began, and the whimsical face of Cream was seen peering
through the window of the scene, the lassitude was lifted and the men's
eyes began to brighten again. The first words, the first gesture of
comic helplessness, from Cream sent a ripple of laughter round the
theatre, and immediately the place was full of that queer,
uncontrollable thing, personality.
John laughed heartily at the acting of his new friend, and he decided
that he would certainly try to write a play for him. How good Mrs.
Cream must be if she were better than her husband, as he so proudly
declared she was. It would be a privilege to write a play for people so
clever.... Then Mrs. Cream, magnificently dressed, appeared, and as she
did so, some of the atmosphere that enveloped the stage and the
auditorium and made them one and very intimate, was dispelled. John
watched her as she moved about the stage, and wondered why it was that
the audience had suddenly become a little fidgetty. His eyes were full
of astonishment. He gazed at Mrs. Cream as if he were trying to
understand some ineluctable mystery.... He remembered how enthralled he
had been by the acting of the girl who had played Juliet. He had been
caught up and transported from the theatre to the very streets of
Verona. He had felt that he was one of the crowd that followed the
Montagues or the Capulets, and had been ready to bite his thumb with
the best.... But here was something that left him uneasy and alien. He
felt as if he were prying into private affairs, that at any moment
someone, a policeman, perhaps, might come along and seize him for
trespassing. He did not then know that bad acting always leaves an
audience with a sensation of having intruded upon privacies ... that an
actor who is incompetent leaves the people who see him acting badly
with the feeling that they have vulgarly peeped into his dressing-room
and seen him taking off his wig and wiping the paint from his face.
Mrs. Cream acted with great vigour; her voice roared over the
footlights; and she seemed to hurl herself about the scene as if she
were determined either to smash the furniture or to smash herself. She
made much noise. Her gestures were lavish. Her dresses were very costly
and full of glitter. She worked hard....
"But she can't act," said John to himself, sighing with relief when at
last she left the stage to her husband.
The little man's small, fragile voice, with its comic hesitation and
its puzzled note, sounded very restful after the torrential noises made
by his wife, and in a few moments he had the minds of the audience
fused again into one mind and made completely attentive. When the play
was ended, there was very hearty applause, but none of it so hearty as
the applause from John. The last few moments of the piece had been
given to Mr. Cream, and he had left the audience with the pleased
impression of himself and forgetful of the jar it had received from his
wife....
"That wee man can act all right," said John, clapping his hands until
they were sore.