CHAPTER VGETTING THE BEST
Despite his remark at the conclusion of the foregoing chapter it was not Eliphalet Cardomay’s habit to look for thanks, and on the rare occasions when it was offered he usually murmured something quite incoherent and sought to escape. His real lode-star was to obtain a result, and no amount of personal inconvenience counted in this most vital of all obligations. To obtain the best result from the material at hand was practically his religion. Not as a rule given to boasting, yet he might frequently be heard to say:
“I can always be sure of getting the best from any member of my company, be it in or out of the theatre.”
It was a harmless enough little foible and saved many an inept actor or actress from reproaches. Eliphalet would argue that even though the quality of art with which they served him was indifferent, it represented the high-water mark of which they were capable, and so he forebore to criticise.
Like the martyrs of old, Eliphalet lived his ideals and was ready to uphold them by any sacrifice, as the succeeding episode goes to demonstrate.
No first-class provincial touring company need despise the Pier Pavilion at Brestwater-super-Mare. It boasts a stage of bold proportions, a capacious be-mirrored and luxuriously-upholstered auditorium and a façade that compels instant admiration. The design, a happy mixture of all the exhibition buildings which have ever sprung into existence, combined with a strong vein of Moorish architecture, is a triumph of skill and ingenuity.
Well, indeed, may the happy manager who has been fortunate enough to book a week there swell with pride as he passes the turnstile of the Pier, without the prepayment of twopence, and sees the majestic domes and spires of the Pavilion whitely silhouette themselves against the turquoise Channel waters. In such inspired surroundings, with the chuckle of sea beneath his feet, and the singing of the wind in his ears, who could choose but feel carefree and joyous, and give both-handedly of his artistic best?
But Eliphalet Cardomay, one of the mildest creatures God ever placed upon earth—a man of most even temper and lovable qualities—sensitive to an extreme of the influences of his environments—was in a dark and forbidding mood. The beauty of the day, the music of the water, the rococo architecture, were as nothing to him. With hands clasped behind his back, stickless and hatless, he strode the pier boards like a man possessed.
The importunities of peroxided young ladies who, from the vantage of their little kiosks, besought him to buy chocolates, local views, frozen roses—or to solve the mystery of a certain walking-stick which in adept hands would transform itself into a useless pen—he almost rudely ignored.
“Phtsss!” he exploded aloud. “The man’s a coward—an incompetent.”
He gripped the railings of the Pier and gazed fiercely out to sea, while the wind played cornfields in his long grey hair.
A photographer, ever alert for fresh victims, approached and commenting upon the favourable condition of the elements, suggested that the gentleman might feel disposed to have a “likeness” taken.
“I do not feel disposed,” returned Eliphalet, curtly.
“I have some most amusing backgrounds,” continued the photographer, in no wise rebuffed, and proceeded, to describe how, in his professional opinion, Eliphalet would prove a suitable subject to place his head through a hole in a large canvas upon which was painted an astonishingly-clad individual riding on a rocking-horse. He wound up with the words, “Causes roars of laughter.”
Eliphalet spun round and fixed two pin-points upon his frock-coated persecutor.
“Are you seeking to amuse yourself at my expense?”
“No, sir—I assure you.”
“Then go away.”
But the photographer was not a man to be trifled with. His hand flew to his hip pocket, in the manner of a mining-camp desperado, and withdrew a neat fan of samples of his craft.
“I am sure,” he blandly ventured, “after a glance through these, I should number you among my patrons.”
With a view to scattering the photographer’s examples upon the waves, Eliphalet Cardomay snatched them from the extended hand; but before he had accomplished his intention he abruptly checked himself. The top photograph had caught his eye. It depicted a knock-kneed individual dressed in a close-fitting striped garment, shivering upon the steps of a bathing-machine.
“Ha!” exclaimed Eliphalet, surveying the image at the length of his arm. “Ha!”
“Most amusing, is it not?” volunteered the photographic artist, with an accompanying smile usually employed as a pattern for his more serious sitters.
Eliphalet regarded him with one eyebrow raised high above its fellow.
“Amusing! Appropriate, if you like, but amusing—no—it is contemptible.” And so saying, he slapped the photographs into the astonished artist’s hand and, throwing back his head, stalked off, past the line of melancholy fishers in the direction of his dressing-room.
Upon the stripped stage were assembled the various members of his company; for the most part they had composed themselves in little groups and were talking in animated whispers.
Out of the medley of subdued tongues occasional fragments of speech were audible.
“But these juveniles are not like they were in our day, Kitterson.”
“You could see Mr. Cardomay was in a rage,” said Violet O’Neal.
“He’d have sworn if he hadn’t gone out,” returned Miss Fullar.
“Can’t think what Cartwright’s making such a fuss over.”
“Any fool could jump six feet into a net.”
“Wish they’d give me the part.”
“You can’t get away from it, old man, Cartwright’s no actor.”
With his back against the proscenium and fiddling with an unlighted cigarette, stood an isolated figure, over whom seemed to hover a spirit of tragedy. Ever and anon his eyes sought a wooden structure at the back of the stage. The structure was in the nature of a rostrum, about ten feet in height, beneath which was stretched a substantial net some thirty inches clear of the boards.
This young man was Mr. Aloysius Cartwright, the newjeune premierfor the forthcoming production.
Up and down before him, his bowler hat eclipsing his right eye and the major portion of the right side of his face, walked Mr. Manning, the stage-manager. Presently he halted in his stride and addressed Mr. Cartwright.
“Look here, why don’t you have another packet at it while the Guv’nor’s away? Make up your mind to do it, and it’s as good as done.”
“No, really, Manning, I’ve—I can’t.”
Freddie Manning sniffed noisily.
“It comes to this, o’ man. You’ll put the kibosh on the whole show if you don’t. I can’t see what you’re raising the wind over. You told me you were a swimmer, too.”
“Oh, I can swim a bit, but that has nothing to do with it. What I——” He stopped, for at that moment Eliphalet Cardomay appeared through the swing-doors.
His entrance caused something of a nervous flutter, for everyone had felt the effects of the rehearsal which had ended in his abrupt departure.
The wrath of a naturally quiet-humoured man is always somewhat alarming, for no one can be sure of the direction in which it will vent itself. But apparently the thunder-clouds had passed away, for when Eliphalet came to a halt in the glare of the bunch light, his features were almost seraphic in their calm.
“Come, Manning,” he said. “We will go on, ladies and gentlemen, please. Mr. Cartwright, I apologise for my hasty departure a while ago, but you—well, I was upset. It is a matter of personal pride with me that I have always—and in using the word I speak advisedly—have always been able to get the best out of any actor or actress I have employed. For a moment I feared that you—that I was to sacrifice that reputation; and I am sure, Mr. Cartwright, you would not willingly cause me so much distress.”
“Well, I——” began Aloysius Cartwright—but the senior man held up his hand in a gesture compelling silence.
“Perhaps you have not fully realised the essence of the scene and what I have here may help you to do so.” So saying, he unrolled a large sheet of paper he had been carrying and displayed a very lurid poster of a young man in evening dress leaping from a lock-gate into a canal. It was a striking composition in which black shadows and a much-reflected moon played important parts.
“Now, Mr. Cartwright, with this as your guide I am certain I shall not appeal to you in vain.” And Eliphalet Cardomay, having made theamende honorablefor his previous ill-humour, smiled a kindly smile of encouragement.
But Aloysius Cartwright failed to seize the opportunity of reinstating himself in his manager’s good graces.
“It—it is all very well, sir, but I wish to say that I am neither an acrobat nor a cinema actor—my tastes are for—for legitimate work.”
The lines about Eliphalet’s mouth drew down and hardened. “I think,” he said, “you are confusing the issue. The question appears to me to turn more upon personal valour than upon anything else.” Then, speaking with sudden enthusiasm, “Why, my dear, dear boy—consider a moment. Put yourself in the hero’s position. Imagine your own sweetheart bound hand and foot and struggling in the waters of the canal. Would you hesitate for a second? No. Would you falter before the task of saving her from the clutches of the stream? No, no. Then be the man whom you’re portraying. Play upon the impulsiveness of your nature, the gallantry of your youth, the pluck—the enthusiasm—theélan: lift up—grip us—thrill us, and——” with an abrupt change from the inspired to the finite, “do remember that we’re producing the day after to-morrow.”
“I’ll try,” said Mr. Cartwright.
“Clear the stage,” shouted Manning, clapping his hands to support the order. “Up left, Miss Maybank, please. Come on, Fieldfare—for goodness’ sake, o’ man. Now where’s that rope? Props! PROPS!!” An old man wearing a green baize apron thrust his head through the opening to the scene dock. “Get that rope—quick—and try and remember some of us live by eating, and don’t want to be here all day. There you are! Catch hold, Denton! Where’ll they start, Guv’nor?”
“Miss O’Neal’s entrance. I’ll go into the stalls.”
“Your entrance, my dear. Ready, sir? Right.”
Violet O’Neal theingénue, stepped out from behind an imaginary wing and began to walk between two chalked lines on the stage, indicating the bank of the river on one hand, and the ancient mill on the other. In the excitement of the moment she overstepped the margins of the line.
“Don’t do that,” said Eliphalet, rising from his seat. “It is not the intention you should fall in the water before being thrown there.”
“Back, please,” from Manning. “Once more, please.”
Violet retraced her steps and came on again with the nervous air of an amateur walking the tightrope.
Eliphalet tapped with his stick on the brass rail of the orchestra pit.
“A little more natural grace, please,” he suggested. “And shouldn’t you be singing here?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot.”
“Quite—but please don’t forget.”
Then Mr. Manning, “Once more, please!” And a glance at his watch, for the stage-manager was a person who took lunch seriously.
This time she succeeded better with the manœuvre and produced a humming sound intended to indicate a carefree damsel enjoying the evening air.
Then from the assumed shadow of the mill leapt two figures and barred her way.
“Sir Jasper—you!” cried the girl.
“Yes, me.”
“I,” corrected Eliphalet.
“Yes, I,” amended Fieldfare. “You little counted on the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance so soon—eh?” (Sinister words with a hint of dark deeds behind them.)
“Please let me pass.” This imperiously from the girl.
“Pass! There is but one passing for you, and that lies there.” With a gesture towards where the water would be on the night. “Unless——”
“I am not a child to be frightened by such threats, Sir Jasper. Stand aside, or I shall cry for help.”
“Cry, will you?—and who will answer it? The trees—the hills—the river?”
Mr. Cartwright placed his foot in the lowest rung of the ladder leading to the rostrum.
Miss Maybank: “I command you to let me pass.”
Fieldfare: “You little fool! Don’t you realise that at this moment you are utterly mine?—that I could flick out your life as easily as—er—” he fluffed for his words, “as easily as I could crack a nut in a door?”
“What are you talking about?” interrupted Eliphalet. “Beneath my heel is the line. Persons of quality do not crack nuts in doors.”
Fieldfare: “Crack a nut beneath my heels.”
“HEEL—singular. It is not a cocoanut that requires both feet.”
“Beneath my heel,” pursued Fieldfare with a nervousness which reflected itself in Mr. Aloysius Cartwright’s lick-lipping, collar-in-finger perturbation. “Choose, and choose quickly—life with me, or death, and death alone.”
“God help me!”
“Choose.”
“Then I choose.”
Like lightning she whisked round to make good, but the second man was upon her, and bound her wrists with cruel dexterity.
“Frank—Frank!” she cried.
Fieldfare: “Little fool! by now your Frank is in the arms of the Duchess of Cleeve.”
“It’s a lie!”
“No, the truth. So make up your mind quickly—your lover is false to you—which shall it be—life or death?”
“If life means life with you—then death a hundred times.”
Fieldfare: “Well, die, then—die!” And with a coward’s blow he pushed her over the river-bank.
Prompter: “Splash! Two handfuls of rice, and that’s your cue light, Mr. Cartwright.”
For a moment it seemed that the panic had deserted Aloysius, for he clattered up the steps three at a time, crying:
“Doris! Doris! Where are you? Doris, I say!”
Fieldfare: “H’st! Quickly away!” And he and his companion flitted into the shadows as Cartwright, like a human whirlwind, dashed on to the lock bridge.
Like a man distraught, he gripped the bridge rail and cried:
“Where are you, my love? Where are you?”
From the water below came a faint cry of:
“Fraaank! Fr—a—!” gugle—gugle.
Cartwright: “My God!—in the river—drowning! I—I am coming!”
Eliphalet Cardomay leaned forward tensely in his stall, as with superb abandon the hero whipped off his dress coat and, casting it from him, sprang on to the rail of the bridge. With hands high above his head—posed for a magnificent dive—he stood there for one breathless second—then suddenly his body went all limp, his hands fell to his sides, and he faltered:
“It’s no use—I can’t do it, sir.”
And Eliphalet Cardomay, for the first time on record, swore before his entire company.
“Damnation!” The word rang out like a tocsin. Then, tearing off his hat, he kicked it across the auditorium and high up into the dress-circle.
“Lamentable creature!” he cried. “Wretched poltroon!”
Mr. Cartwright slowly descended from the rostrum.
“It is not part of my professional ambition to leap into a net,” he faltered.
“Leap!” echoed Eliphalet wildly. “Leap! Dare you employ such a word? I have seen a tile fall from a roof with more grace. I have seen a blind man stumble on a banana-skin with greater dignity. But a more pitiable craven-hearted exhibition than yours I—I——” Words failed him. “You have ruined my belief in the younger generation—you have shattered my belief in myself. Manning, Manning! what are we going to do about it?”
“Have a bit of lunch, Guv’nor, and talk it over quietly afterwards.”
So attractive did the proposition sound that without awaiting the sanction of the master, the entire company trooped to the wings and, grabbing their hats and coats, made for the nearest exit.
Never before in the recollection of the oldest member of the company had “the Guv’nor” given way to the slightest exhibition of temper, and the occasion had seriously unnerved them. That he should have lost control of himself to the extent of using violent language, and kicking his defenceless hat, was a revelation which could only be conversationally approached in the fresh air and sunshine.
Some form of belated courage induced Mr. Cartwright to remain, after the others had departed, brushing his Homburg hat upon his sleeve and buttoning and unbuttoning his gloves. He of all others had the greater reason for flight, and to his credit be it entered that he lingered.
But Eliphalet Cardomay was in no mood to spare him on that account. Like a destroyer circling a troop-ship, he revolved round the unhappy Aloysius, ever and anon firing salvoes of reproach and opprobrium.
Even when, unable to endure longer the whips and scorns of the managerial tongue, Mr. Cartwright sought to escape, Eliphalet was close upon his heels, jerking out verbal grenades of the most poignant nature.
Past the lines of melancholy fishers they pursued their way, hunted and hunter; through the turnstile of what might be called the super-pier upon which the Pavilion was situated, they made their way—Mr. Cartwright doing his best to preserve an air of stoic endurance, and Eliphalet Cardomay following with periodical explosions of artistic wrath.
Above the box-office, the lurid poster of the hero leaping into the canal insisted upon recognition.
“Look!” cried Eliphalet, restraining his quarry with the crook of his stick. “Look, and be ashamed! That is what I have led the public to expect, and——” His eye fell upon the photographer’s booth, not five yards distant, beside which sat a young lady, tilting back her chair against the chain bulwarks of the pier. “HA! It is not too late to make amends. I have never yet cheated my public. Come!” And seizing the youth by the arm, he dragged him protestingly towards the temple of photographic art.
The photographer was seated within, indulging his appetite with a cut from the joint and two vegetables imported from a neighbouring café. He rose, politely masticating, as the two came in, and inquired, to the best ability of his well-filled mouth, in what manner he could be of service to them.
“I have brought you a subject,” said Eliphalet. “I wish you to take this gentleman with his head thrust through the hole of that vile canvas of the shivering creature on the bathing-machine steps.”
“I protest,” began Cartwright, but Eliphalet talked him down.
“I shall want it enlarged to the size of the poster yonder, which it is destined to supplant. I shall placard it on every hoarding in the town. I shall——”
But the sentence was never completed, for from immediately outside came a sharp, wild scream. Through the windows of the studio they had a momentary glimpse of a pair of white shoes and stockings pointing towards Heaven for a fraction of time. Followed another shriller scream and a deep, resonant splash.
“Good ’eavens!” cried the photographer, rendered aitch-less by surprise. “That girl’s fallen in.”
By common consent they rushed out, and were confronted with a view of an upturned chair, a swinging chain, and in the water below, the flash of a white skirt and an outstretched hand.
“She’s drowning!” gasped Eliphalet, in genuine horror.
Then spoke Aloysius Cartwright, and his words tumbled over one another like the waters of a cataract:
“Here’s a chance, sir—a chance! You—you’ve slanged and vilified me all the morning for making a muddle of the rescue scene. Here’s the real thing! Here’s a chance to show me how to do it now!”
The walking-stick fell from Eliphalet’s hand and a fine colour flushed his cheek, as he said, articulating each word with biting emphasis:
“I am sixty-two years of age, Mr. Cartwright.”
But Cartwright, his temper roused by much pricking, was beyond the touch of sarcasm.
“I merely said it was a chance,” he replied. “I didn’t expect you would take it.”
The old man’s face went very white, and with trembling fingers he released the buttons of his long coat.
“Did you not?” he said. “I have never asked a man to perform what I lacked the courage to do myself, Mr. Cartwright, so kindly observe me.” And, throwing aside his coat, he sprang head-first into the water.
“Good God!” exclaimed Cartwright, and fell back a pace.
Naturally, by this time a crowd had assembled. With the light of hope in their eyes, and greatly to the confusion of their lines, the melancholy fishermen came hurrying to the spot. The various sweet and novelty shops swiftly gave up their complement of be-pearled, peroxided maidens. A very worldly-wise young man, in a blue suit, which seemed to be entering into a colour competition with the sea, on the not unnatural assumption that a cinema play was in course of production, asked his friend where the camera was situated. From the far side of the pier a boatman, whose duty it was to guard the destinies of bathers, aroused himself from lethargy and plied a busy oar among the pier-piles, beneath the spectators, towards the confusion in the water. An old lady in a bath-chair, who, that very morning, had confided to her fellow-guests at the boarding-house her utter inability to walk unaided, alighted from her conveyance with surprising alacrity and managed to secure a place in the front row, while, in token of the mistake of leaping rapidly to conclusions, from the back of the crowd came a querulous and oft-repeated cry of “Fire!”
“Make a passage there,” shouted a compelling voice, and shouldering his way through the crowd came Mr. Manning.
Seeing Cartwright, he demanded:
“What the hell’s up?”
“The Guv’nor! A girl fell into the sea, and—and he—he went in after her.”
“What! But he can’t swim, man—he’ll drown!” And gripping the pier railings, Mr. Manning leant perilously over the side.
“You don’t mean that,” gasped Cartwright.
“Mean it! Look for yourself, you fool!”
And Cartwright looked.
The young lady on whose behalf Mr. Cardomay had committed himself to the deep had already disappeared. A kindly wave had washed her to within easy grasp of an iron cross-tie, where, gripping tenaciously, she moved in rhythmic sympathy to the motions of the channel tide. But the case of Eliphalet was none so good. Neither was Rome built, nor are divers made, in a day. Eliphalet had landed (to use a contradiction in terms) full-length and flat upon the waters, and as a result suffered the loss of every vestige of wind his lungs contained. Wherefore the process of drowning was but a matter of moments. Already he had made one of his allotted three excursions among the laminaria of the ocean bed, and the second was in active course of preparation.
“Oh, Guv’nor!” wailed Mr. Manning. “You can’t swim, and neither can I.”
And then the unexpected came to pass. Mr. Aloysius Cartwright—one-time coward and craven—of a sudden became a hero and a man. Disregarding the sensibilities of the feminine element in the crowd, he peeled off his coat and vest, kicked his beautiful brogue shoes right and left (incidentally breaking one of the photographer’s windows), and performed a dive so faultless in its athletic perfection as to excite a cry of rapture and amazement from all present.
He “took off” at the precise moment Eliphalet came to the surface for the second time, and it was only by a miracle he failed to torpedo that unhappy man or alight head-first in the prow of the boat which had unexpectedly shot out from beneath the pier.
It is certain and beyond dispute that had he delayed another second he would have broken his own neck, sunk the boat and driven Eliphalet finally to the bottom. But the tragedy was averted, and he cleft the waves with scarce a bubble to mark his entry. Reappearing with a strong side-stroke some twenty feet away, he made for the boat, where his assistance was instrumental in considerably delaying the work of rescue.
It was a sorry-looking and draggle-tailed trio who eventually came to port at the little iron stairway by the pier-head. Between them Cartwright and Mr. Manning conveyed Eliphalet Cardomay to a couch in his dressing-room. The young lady who caused these sensational happenings was carried off by one of the peroxide sisterhood, and departs from our field of vision in a semi-hysterical condition.
It was Mr. Manning who took entire charge of the work of bringing “the Guv’nor” round, and did it with that thoroughness which distinguished all his undertakings.
Eventually Eliphalet opened his eyes and let them drift round the room until they came to rest on Aloysius Cartwright, who was forming an island in an ocean that dripped from his clothes. Eliphalet regarded him with a puzzled expression which suddenly cleared and was supplanted by a rare and almost beautiful smile.
“That was a wonderful dive, Mr. Cartwright,” he murmured. “Just what I wanted.” The smile transformed itself into a look of great contentment. “I have always believed I could bring out the best in any member of my company. I think I am justified in holding that opinion still.”
This is an advertising age, and the success of a commodity depends not so much on its quality as the quality of the advertisement bringing it before the public eye. Nevertheless, and despite the packed houses which patronised his new production, Eliphalet Cardomay was highly incensed when asked by a reporter to confide to the columns of theBrestwater Mercurythe precise sum he had paid in gold to the young lady who fell into the sea.
CHAPTER VIQUICKSANDS OF TRADITION
People who imagine an actor’s life is all honey forget that he has to read plays, and the reading of plays is at once the most onerous and exacting of all tasks.
Not one in a hundred is fit to be read, and scarcely one in a thousand deserves production.
Nearly everyone believes he can write a play, and most of these believers have a shot at it—and good, bad or indifferent, each one of these shots is stuffed into the barrel of a quarto envelope, charged with the address of this or that theatrical manager, and propelled by means of a given number of postage-stamps to its billet upon the managerial desk. Should the desk pertain to one of the more illustrious lights of the stage, the envelope is carried off by some erudite young gentleman, employed for the purpose, who cons the manuscript by the light of midnight oil, and directs its future career forward or backward, as the merit of the work suggests.
In pursuance of this melancholy vocation the optic nerves and digestive organs invariably become impaired. The reader loses interest in life and sense of appreciation. He becomes a confirmed cynic and usually blights his own career by throwing out an obvious winner, and being thrown out himself for so doing.
But those who work upon the Road, who have no swing-door offices in the Haymarket or Shaftesbury Avenue, who travel year in and year out dragging their productions from one town to another, who live in cheap hotels or cheaper lodgings, who have neither house nor home nor any household goods to call their own—naught save a succession of ugly theatrical baskets—for these no such luxury as a reader of plays exists. It is part of the price they must pay for billing their names so wide and large on the provincial hoardings that all odd hours and the pleasant magazine-time of the Sunday train journey should be spent in the consideration of unsought-for dramatic effusions.
No one could compete with Eliphalet Cardomay’s energy in this direction. He had made a strict rule to read two plays on week-days and three on Sundays, and he never departed from it. Yet, despite his diligent inquiry into the realms, or rather, reams, of the unknown, never once, in thirty years of provincial management, did he discover and produce a new play. He just went on doing the old repertory routine of revival and re-revival, and then back again to the beginning. Sometimes he would vary the order by purchasing the touring rights of a successful London melodrama, but these ventures were few and far between. Yet always at the back of his head was the belief that one day he would chance upon and present an entirely original and unexploited work.
It was at a time when he was debating on the advisability of making an offer for the latest Lyceum success that a copy of “A Man’s Way” came to hand.
He started to examine it on a journey between Glasgow and Brighton, and before arriving at his journey’s end he had read it three times, and his stage-manager, Freddie Manning, had read it twice.
“What do you think, Manning?” he queried.
“Not too bad,” replied Manning, who was not given to superlatives.
“A good title, ‘A Man’s Way’—an arresting title.”
“Might be worse.”
“And an ingenious plot.”
“M’m!”
“Something very original about it.”
“Wants a lot of cutting.”
“Oh, yes—too long.”
“Damsite!”
“This Mr. Theodore Leonard—ever heard of him, Manning?”
The stage-manager picked his teeth negatively.
“No, neither have I. A first play, probably. Very fresh and ingenious—modern, too. Yes, yes! The part of the doctor—with a little alteration—I think we could get away with it. H’m! read it again, Manning—read it again.”
The result of Manning’s second excursion through “A Man’s Way” was reassuring. He repeated his former verdict that it “wasn’t too bad.”
That night as he lay in bed Eliphalet Cardomay digested “A Man’s Way” and revolved the possibilities of doing it in his mind. It was so essentially unlike anything he had ever done before that the prospect pleased. The central character of the doctor was his firm, purposeful way—his manner of treating wife and patient with the same unvarying but just dictatorship—it was new, and yet true to life—very human, if only on account of the unemotional quality of the work.
From beginning to end there wasn’t a single set speech—no lofty periods of crescendo to induce those rapturous outbursts of applause by means of which members of provincial audiences seek to convince their immediate neighbours that they are sensible and appreciative to the influences of uplifting thought.
To produce such a work would be a step up. It would present him as an actor in a new light. He would encourage a deeper-thinking public. He would,ipso facto, become a modern. Modern influences were afoot on the stage nowadays, and he, Eliphalet, still floundered in the dead seas of rodomontade. Why should he live in the past, when here was “A Man’s Way” to lead him to the future? Eliphalet sat up in bed and lit the candle. Somewhere in the second act were some lines that struck the key-note of what was and what had been. They arose from where a poor, half-starved penitent came with a piteous tale to tell, and he, the doctor, made answer, “It’ll keep, won’t it? Get some grub and a good sleep. We’ll fix the rest in the morning.”
Eliphalet suddenly remembered a play he had done years and years before, in which a somewhat similar scene occurred, in which he had said, “Not to-night, my brother. Your body needs nourishment, your brain needs rest. Go—take what my poor dwelling has to offer. Eat, sleep, and pray to Him to visit your dreams with peace.”
Probably for the first time in his life it dawned on Eliphalet Cardomay that this kind of talk was bosh—stilted bosh. People didn’t say things like that; wherefore it was sheer dishonesty to proclaim such stuff to an audience.
He would have done with this nonsense—he would rise superior to these absurd stage conventions, and for the future devote himself solely to reproducing the actualities of life and the actualities of speech. And having arrived at this sensational resolve, Eliphalet rose, donned a dressing-gown and seating himself at the little davenport desk by the window, drew pen and paper towards him.
Finally and absolutely he had made up his mind he would “do” “A Man’s Way,” and then and there he wrote to Mr. Theodore Lennard and said that, though his work had made a distinctly favourable impression, he could see no prospects immediate or otherwise of producing the play. Nevertheless it might be to their mutual advantage to meet and discuss the matter.
This done, he paddled across the moonlit street in gown and carpet slippers, and dropped the letter into the pillar-box at the corner, and it was not until he heard it fluttering down against the iron sides of its cage that the first doubt assailed him.
It was a gentle night and warm. Fifty yards away the iron railings of the esplanade traced black lines across the luminous sea.
Eliphalet forgot his unconventional attire, and a few moments later was leaning over the railings, listening to the swish and rustle of the pebbles as the water washed them to and fro.
“The same old sea,” he thought, “just the same as ever—unchangeable—from Christ’s time to mine.” Then aloud, and with startling emphasis, “Get some grub and a good sleep—we can fix the rest in the morning. I don’t know,” said Eliphalet, “really I don’t know. ‘Eat, sleep and pray to Him to visit your dreams with peace.’ ”
Realism and Art—if it were Art.
For thirty years it had passed for Art with him—thirty unchangeable years. Did reality for the stage actually exist, or was it a mere modern fetish? Change—Futurism—Realism! What were they but ugly likenesses of nature—the human frame with all its bones showing?
The moon was a fairy over the sea, and the sea a playground for the moods of light—unchangeable, unreal, as it was in the beginning.
“There is no realism,” mused Eliphalet. “It plays no part in our spiritual lives.”
Then a rubber-soled policeman came down the esplanade, and spoke harsh words regarding folk who walked the night in carpet-slippers and dressing-gowns. He instanced cases where heavy penalties had been awarded for lesser offences, and followed Eliphalet to his lodging with flashing bull’s-eye and threatening mien.
“Yes—yes—yes,” said Eliphalet testily. “Very sorry, and if you are not satisfied, come round and we’ll fix things up in the morning.”
Slightly distressed, he returned to bed. It was surprising he should have used the word “fix.” Curious how one adapts oneself to a change—even of vocabulary. “A Man’s Way” was certainly a fine play—realistic—human!
Mr. Theodore Lennard lived at Worthing and duly received the letter on the following morning. A young man was Mr. Lennard, shy and retiring to a fault but gifted with strong faculties for literary force. He could make his characters express themselves most vigorously—in fact, say things which he himself, under similar stresses of emotion, would never dare to utter. He wrote easily, frankly and honestly, and he loved his characters and envied them their vigour and lovable qualities. It was pitiful to reflect that he, with his knowledge of how a strong man should act, should be as pliable as a reed in the wind.
Beyond question the world should have known the works of Theodore Lennard long before this story was written, and the reason why he was still obscure was because never before had he had the courage to submit any of his writings for approval.
This was his first experiment, and lo, within three days of posting it, came a letter from an established stage personality expressive of admiration.
Mr. Lennard read and re-read Eliphalet Cardomay’s non-committal communication, and his elation knew no bounds. He felt he had been discovered—a stupendous feeling. America must have been conscious of it when Christopher Columbus hove over her horizon.
An hour and a half later, not without misgivings, he presented himself at the stage-door of the Theatre Royal, Brighton. Mr. Cardomay, he was informed, was not within—he was probably lunching at his lodging. A request for the address of the lodging was sternly refused. It is an unwritten law that stage-doors never give addresses, however inconvenient the withholding of them may prove. He would do well, the doorkeeper advised, to call again that evening after the performance.
The prospect of spending several hours on the esplanade somewhat depressed Mr. Lennard, but he was rescued from such an unpleasant necessity by the opportune arrival of Freddie Manning, who thrust a long arm through the little window of the doorkeeper’s box and seized a handful of miscellaneous correspondence.
Realising he was in the presence of a man of importance, Mr. Theodore Lennard coughed discreetly.
“Yes?” said Manning, shuffling the letters from one hand to another.
“I—Good morning—afternoon—my name is—or rather, I was hoping to see Mr. Cardomay.”
“What about?”
Mr. Lennard stuttered, and after a period of incoherence produced Eliphalet’s note and handed it to the stage-manager, who read it through and frowned.
“I see,” he said. “Well, the Guv’nor’s busy at the moment. He’s—er—working on a play we shall probably be producing.” (This was pure fiction, or, as Manning would have said, a business stroke.) “If you come round to 15 St. James’s Place at 4.30, I’ll try to get you a hearing. Morning.” And tilting his hat well over his right eye, Manning hurried off in the direction of his master’s abode. He found Eliphalet at lunch, and started abruptly with:
“What’s this business about Theodore Lennard, Guv’nor? You’re never seriously thinking of doing that play of his—are you?”
Eliphalet consumed a mouthful of Bartlett Pear anointed with Bird’s Custard before replying:
“When I wrote to him last night I firmly intended to do so—but this morning I am a little undecided.”
“The author’s turned up, and he’s coming along here at 4.30.”
“Dear me! Is he indeed?”
“So you’d better prepare a choke-off right away.”
Eliphalet mused.
“Why should I choke him off, Manning? You said yourself it was a good play.”
“I said it wasn’t too bad,” corrected Manning exactly. “Besides, I thought you’d fixed on the Lyceum piece.”
“Which is exactly like every other drama we have ever produced.”
“Well, we’re exactly like all the other characters we’ve ever played. No good changing our play if we can’t change ourselves to match it.”
Eliphalet looked sad.
“But why can’t we change ourselves?”
Freddie Manning quoted briefly the proverb of the leopard and the Ethiopian.
“You’re not very charitable this morning, Manning.”
“This is a business talk.”
“Then if we ourselves are immutable we must change the substance of the play.”
“Or cut it out and do the other.”
“But ‘A Man’s Way’ is so original,” came from Eliphalet, with a plaintive note.
Freddie stuck his hands deep into his pockets.
“Granted,” he began, “but it don’t fit us. It don’t fit us anywhere. Look at the leading part—a smart Harley Street surgeon! Ever seen a Harley Street surgeon, Guv’nor?”
“No, but I could go to Harley Street, and for two guineas——”
“It ’ud cost you more than that before you’d done. Why, Guv’nor, you’d have to turn yourself inside out. You couldn’t wear the clothes—and you couldn’t play the part in the clothes you do wear.”
The old actor’s hand sought his flowing tie with an affectionate touch. “There’s something in what you say, Manning.”
“There’s a lot in it. Bar a parson or a Silver King fixture, you’re not the type for modern parts. Then, again—would you cut your hair short? Not you!”
“No,” said Eliphalet. “Such as I am I have always been. I should certainly decline to transfigure myself.”
“There you are, then! Stick to the old stuff, I say.”
“But I have a yearning for the new.”
Manning shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re the boss,” he said.
“I want to do this play, Manning—very much indeed.” Suddenly he rose dramatically. “Manning!” he exclaimed. “If I am unsuited to the rôle of a Doctor of Medicine, why not alter him to a Doctor of Divinity?”
“Mean changing the whole thing.”
“Well, why not, and what of it?”
“Then how about the ‘Pauline’?” said Manning, opening a fresh field of opposition. “None of our girls ’ud do, and they’re all on long contracts.”
“Miss Morries.”
“Tss! She’singénue—Sweet Nancy—sun-bonnet and long strings. She’d never get away with that cold-storage class of goods.”
Eliphalet drew patterns on the table-cloth with a long sensitive forefinger.
“It should not be difficult,” he hazarded, “to alter her part as well.”
“If the author consents?”
“That is a point we can decide at half-past four. Please don’t throw any more cold water on the scheme. I am really anxious to be associated with modern thought, and this forceful young man has shown me the way—‘A Man’s Way.’ ”
At precisely four-twenty-nine the forceful young man in question was ringing the bell of Number 15, St. James’s Place, and as the skeleton clock on the half-landing proclaimed the half-hour he was ushered into Mr. Cardomay’s august presence.
If Eliphalet expected to see in Mr. Lennard a pattern of masculine virility he was grievously mistaken. Nothing could have been more ineffective or retiring than the young man’s demeanour.
So strange is the working of the human mind that this outward display of weakness at once affected Eliphalet’s appreciation of “A Man’s Way.” He felt that it was impossible that originality and power could flow from such a source. Subconsciously he was offended that that high, narrow forehead and the thin, nervous hands before him could have produced in literature such vigorous characteristics.
And while these thoughts were passing through his brain Mr. Theodore Lennard stuttered out his apologies and excuses for intruding.
“Not at all,” said Eliphalet. “I am very pleased to see you. Sit down, and we will have some tea.”
It was not until tea had come and gone that the subject of the play was broached. Freddie Manning was the one to introduce it, and he did so as though it were of secondary interest to a tooth he was picking with the whisker of a recently-devoured prawn.
“To be sure,” echoed Eliphalet. “The play! Well, Mr. Lennard, we have read it and, with certain reservations, we like it.”
“Think it not too bad,” amended Manning, who had broken the prawn’s whisker at a critical point of leverage and was naturally put out about it.
Mr. Lennard smiled from one to the other to show his willingness to accept praise or censure with equal avidity.
“Granted certain minor alterations,” pursued Eliphalet, “we might even be prepared to put the piece into rehearsal.”
“That’s most awfully good of you. Very, very kind indeed,” bleated Mr. Lennard.
“I imagine this is your first play,” and scarcely waiting for the nod of affirmation, Eliphalet went on, “and that being so, you understand the—er—remuneration would not be large—would, in fact, be—er—small.”
“Sort of honorarium,” put in Manning, “You’d get a royalty or a sum down for all rights.”
“Whichever you prefer,” interposed Mr. Lennard hastily, although not half-an-hour earlier he had resolved under no circumstances to sell out his interests in the play.
“It is of course difficult to get a first play produced at all,” said Eliphalet, “and the thirty or forty pounds expended may well prove money thrown away for the manager.”
“I see that—I quite see that.” (He had fixed his lowest price at one hundred down and 20 per cent. royalty, but such is the elasticity of the artistic mind that these barriers were instantly swept away.)
“Right,” said Manning. “Then, taking for granted you carry out the alterations satisfactorily, you are ready to take £30 to cover all claims?”
The talented author hesitated.
“Mr.—er—Cardomay mentioned forty.”
“Figure of speech, that’s all.”
“No, no, Manning, I think we might say forty. The extra ten payable if the play is a success.”
“That’s not business, Guv’nor.”
“But it’s an agreeable suggestion,” said Mr. Lennard, who was poor as well as honest.
“It would be a more agreeable suggestion if you paid back the thirty if the play’s a failure.”
Manning’s arguments were too much to cope with, so the author subsided.
“So far so good,” said Eliphalet, and produced the manuscript of the play. “Now, what I chiefly want you to do in these alterations is to retain the present spirit of the play as exactly as possible. It is admirably suited to the title, and the title pleases me greatly.”
Mr. Lennard looked grateful and asked what was required of him.
“To begin with, the character of the doctor must be changed to that of a clergyman.”
“A clergyman!”
“Precisely. I don’t play doctors, but I can and do play clergymen. After all, in a healer of the body or a healer of the mind there is no great difference.”
“Well,” said Mr. Lennard nervously, “it’s rather—I mean—a tall order. Aren’t some of the lines and—er-situations slightly unsuited to a cleric?”
“Change ’em, then. Make ’em suitable. That’s an author’s job, ain’t it?” demanded Manning.
“But I made a particular study of a Harley Street surgeon in the character of Dr. Wentall—a most careful study, in detail.”
“Well, go round to the Vicarage and make a fresh study there. You’ve got a fortnight.”
“Then, again, the whole scheme of the play would be affected. There would be insuperable difficulties in getting my characters on and off the stage. As patients visiting a doctor their comings and goings are in perfectly natural sequence.”
“You can fix that all right.” Manning dismissed such a trivial objection with a wave of the hand.
“And now,” said Eliphalet pleasantly, “about the part of the wife, Pauline?”
“You wouldn’t alter her? I—I thought she was rather good.”
“Admitted. But as it happens we have a young lady in our present company who, although charming, is scarcely capable of realising your intentions in this part.”
“But wouldn’t it be better to engage someone who was capable?” suggested Lennard.
“That would be rather shirking a responsibility, when it would be easy for you to modify and simplify the emotions she would be asked to portray.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look here, then,” Manning explained. “Cut out all that highly-strung, neurotic bosh and make her a simple, loving creature.”
“That’s it! With a vein of sunshiny humour.” And Eliphalet leant back and smiled.
“But how am I to adjust the quick, ill-considered actions of Pauline, as I’ve conceived her, to the type of character you suggest?”
“That is for you to decide, Mr. Lennard. We are here simply to reproduce your thoughts—not to inspire them. All I ask is that you should retain the present spirit of the play.”
The poor author looked utterly bewildered, but before he had recovered his powers of speech in came Manning with a bombshell.
“And now,” he detonated, “comes the question of Comic Relief.”
“Ah!” said Eliphalet. “I had quite forgotten the Comic Relief.”
Theodore Lennard essayed an epigram.
“I have seldom found it comic,” he said, “and never a relief.”
Both his hearers frowned.
“We must not consider only ourselves in these matters,” said Eliphalet gravely. “A large percentage of the audience rely for their pleasure exclusively upon this branch of the entertainment.”
“But I can’t see how I’m to get it in with the people as I’ve written them, Mr. Cardomay.”
“Then write some more—we have quite a large company.”
“What sort?”
Eliphalet fixed his eyes on the ceiling.
“A good deal of harmless fun,” he said, “can be extracted from highly-characterised domestic servants of opposite sexes. Their mispronunciation of words, their littleamours, and perhaps some good-natured horseplay among the chairs and tables.”
“Are you serious, sir?”
“I am seriously suggesting a vein of humour. And now, Mr. Lennard, if you will consider these minor alterations, I trust we shall come to an arrangement satisfactory to you and to myself.”
Mr. Lennard rose and fumbled with his hat.
“I—I’ll do what I can,” he said. Then, with unexpected courage, “But how would it be if you produced the play as it is?”
“Look here, that’s hardly playing the game, o’ man,” said Manning. “You waste an hour of the Guv’nor’s time, and then put up a suggestion like that!”
“Yes—yes—I see. I beg your pardon, Mr. Cardomay. I apologise. Good afternoon, and thank you very, very much.”
After ten days the second version of “A Man’s Way” was delivered, and Eliphalet started to read it in great excitement. When he had finished, he was possessed with the curious conviction that he was mad. Accordingly he sent for Manning, and fluttered round while the stage-manager snorted through the manuscript.
“Well, Manning?”
“It’s all wrong. Parsons don’t act like that.”
Eliphalet nodded. “And they don’t talk like that,” he added.
Manning whisked over some pages. “Look at this bit, Guv’nor. ‘Get some grub and a good sleep.’ ” (Odd he should have chosen that line.) “People wouldn’t stick it.”
“Yes, yes—absurd! He should be soothing—inspired!”
“Then, again, this stage direction: ‘Takes Pauline by the shoulders and pushes her through the French window into the night, saying, “As you can’t be mentally cauterised, you’d better be mentally cooled.” ’ ”
“Shocking!”
“They’d throw things.”
“And, curiously enough, in the first version I thought that scene was good. He has made a mistake in keeping that hard note in the character. Besides, now that the Pauline has been sweetened, there is no longer any occasion for such drastic measures. And the Comic Relief, Manning?”
“Horrible, Guv’nor. Out of place.”
“I felt the same. Send Lennard a wire, Manning.”
“Saying it’s all off?”
“No, no—but I want to talk to him.”
On his way to the Post Office, Manning almost ran into Theodore Lennard, who had followed in the wake of his play. The stage-manager buttonholed him at once.
“You’ve fairly done it,” he opened fire. “Your play’s like a bit of bad joinery where the joints don’t fit, and rattle. It’s a hash, old man, a hash!”
“But what I cannot understand,” Eliphalet was saying five minutes later, “is how you could put such words into the mouth of a clergyman.”
“I didn’t,” came the plaintive reply. “I only left them in.”
“But no cleric would say such things.”
“Think for yourself—would he, o’ man? ‘Mentally cauterised,’ and all that kind of stuff! Bad form!”
“But Mr. Cardomay expressly asked me to keep the spirit of the play.”
“You took me too literally, Mr. Lennard. No self-respecting member of the Church would turn his wife out of doors in the middle of the night. He would wrestle with her mentally. There is a fine chance in that scene for inspired rhetoric. Think! Something that starts gently and gradually, crescendoes as the wealth of this theme reveals itself. Why, it comes to my brain as easily as if the trouble were my own.” He began to pace up and down, saying, “God gave you into my keeping, and I shall not let you go. For the sake of that great love that once was ours—love consecrated by holy matrimony, cemented by the hands of little children—put behind you these dark thoughts, my dear, these sinful, useless hopes. Shun this evil phantom that rises like a—a—something—in our path. Bear your part in the great trust—the trust of a wife and a mother.” He paused dramatically.
“That’s the stuff,” chipped in Freddie Manning. “And the girl finishes up by crying in his arms, and the house shouts itself sick.”
“According to my way of thinking,” hazarded Mr. Lennard politely, “no woman would stop in the room if her husband talked like that.”
“Well, there you are,” said Manning. “That’s a jolly good way of getting her off—much better than pitching her through the window.”
“Let us approach the matter rationally,” suggested Eliphalet, although he was not a little distressed at the reception given to his oratory. “Having gone so far, I am not anxious to relinquish the play. Even if only on account of the title, I confess I am drawn towards it. I suggest, Mr. Lennard, that you leave the manuscript with me to work upon. It would save much fruitless discussion. I should bring to bear a fresh eye, cultivated to observe and remedy the existing faults. What do you say?”
“Just as you please,” said the young man hopelessly. “I don’t suppose I should ever get what you want.”
During the fortnight in which Eliphalet laboured at “A Man’s Way” he had constant resource to manuscripts of old plays in his repertory, most particularly to one called “The Vespers,” in which a clergyman and his wife passed through troubled waters. In this work Right throve persistently, mainly through the good offices of much Homeric matter delivered from the centre of the stage and etherealised by the influences of the Spot Lime or Red Glow from Fire.
Eliphalet was not an author, and he began to work tentatively. But after a while he found that to give any real tone value to the scenes and characters it was necessary to carry out very extensive alterations. It is possible to keep gold-fish in an aviary. In certain elements only a certain class of life can exist. Influences in one breath to say “Chuck it and clear out” in the next. Wherefore, for every line Eliphalet altered there arose an immediate obligation to alter a hundred succeeding lines. And this duty, with the aid of his reference library, i.e., the Repertory Plays, he most conscientiously performed.
But, alas! with the change of text came a fresh trouble. Situations had to be re-constructed to fit the new psychology. Nothing daunted, Eliphalet dipped afresh into his old lore, and emerged with stilted and stereotyped scenes which he faithfully paraphrased and transplanted.
And the finished article bore about as much resemblance to “A Man’s Way” as a cow to a nightingale.
Poor Eliphalet Cardomay! The quicksands of tradition would not let him go.
“Yes,” said Freddie Manning, “it’s more like our usual stuff now.” He took out a cigarette, which he licked thoughtfully before lighting “But I was thinking——”
“What?” said Eliphalet.
“Hasn’t it struck you, Guv’nor, that the title ‘A Man’s Way,’ doesn’t fit any longer?”
Eliphalet looked quite scared.
“But I like the title enormously. It’s so original—er—modern.”
“But it don’t belong, Guv’nor. It gives the wrong idea.”
“Ye-es, I see what you mean. With this more ascetic character, eh?”
“Exactly.” He rubbed his nose productively. “ ‘A Man’s Prayer’ would be better,” he hazarded.
Eliphalet thought it over and shook his head.
“No, it ain’t good. How about ‘The Great Trust?’ ”
“Sounds a shade American, Manning.”
“It does.”
Eliphalet struck the table. “I have it,” he said. “ ‘His Prayer.’ ”
“That’s the note!”
“Then let Lennard know we have decided to call it that. And you might take back some of these to the theatre.” He indicated the pile of plays on his table from which his alterations had been quarried.
Freddie Manning carried off these veterans of the Road, and having nothing better to do for an hour he perused the four acts of “The Vespers” and became pregnant of an idea. He said nothing about it at the theatre that night, but the following morning, when, faithful to his usual routine, he paid his eleven o’clock call on his master, he had every intention of doing so.
In the meanwhile Eliphalet had passed a troubled night. Dispassionately and clear-headedly he had been through “His Prayer” (late “A Man’s Way”) and had given it deep thought.
He had chosen this work because he believed it would lift him from the Old School and place him among the moderns, and lo! it was even as all his other plays. He had been deceived. There was not a spark of originality in it. It was set and stereotyped, lifeless and dull.
“Why, why did I ever believe in the thing?” recurred over and over again in his mind.
So before Manning had a chance to speak a word, he was saying:
“I have made a most grievous error in the matter of ‘A Man’s Way.’ It’s no good, Manning—no good at all, and I cannot conceive how I ever thought it was.”
“We are all liable to mistakes, Guv’nor.”
Eliphalet shook his head. “Perhaps I am getting old,” he said, “and losing my sense of good and ill. Why, even with the alterations I have so laboriously contrived, it does not compare with the poorest play in our repertoire.”
Manning slapped his hat on the table.
“Guv’nor,” he said, “that’s what I’m here to say. It all comes of trying to get off our own railway system. Now what’s wrong with doing ‘The Vespers’ instead?”
“ ’Pon my soul,” said Eliphalet, “I believe it would bear reviving.”
“It would—and not a cent to pay, either.”
Eliphalet leant back and rubbed his fingers together.
“ ‘The Vespers?’ ” he spoke the title lovingly. “Why, Manning, it must be twenty years since I played ‘The Vespers.’ Ah, Manning, they knew how to write—those old ’uns. They had poetry, understanding. This ultra-modern business is all wrong, Manning, all wrong.”
“It’s all wrong for us, Guv’nor.” He did not overstress the “us,” but it had a meaning which Eliphalet was not slow to perceive.
“Let the cobbler stick to his last,” he said.
Manning rose abruptly.
“Well, I’ll send Lennard a letter and return the script.”
“No,” said Eliphalet, “I’ll do that.”
Manning eyed him doubtfully.
“You are under no obligation to pay him anything, Guv’nor.”
“No—no—no. Of course not.”
But nevertheless there was a cheque for forty pounds in the letter he posted. Perhaps subconsciously, he was paying for a lesson and not for a play.
It was the Eliphalet touch. He, too, had had his disappointments, and maybe, this was one of them. No man should raise hopes and dash them to the ground.