CHAPTER VIIGAS WORKS
The effects of international politics are far-reaching. But for them Eliphalet Cardomay would certainly have produced “The Vespers.” The declaration of peace in South Africa was the direct cause of his abandoning the project. A wave of patriotism seized him, and on its impulse he purchased the touring rights of a great military melodrama, entitled “The Flag,” which had been accorded considerable success in a London theatre.
In this play he figured as a dashing, if rather improbable Colonel, whose courage was to be relied upon in any extremity. The extremities were many and dire, but never failed to find our hero alert, sententious, resourceful and with an inexhaustible supply of cigarettes.
Truth to tell, the part was not eminently suited, either to his personality or method. Colonels do not, as a rule, wear much hair upon the temples or nape of the neck, nor do they engage unduly in gesture or vocalisation. Eliphalet, on the other hand, did all these things—declining to sacrifice his established traditions on the shrine of convention. His “Colonel,” therefore, was an indifferent impersonation less like unto a soldier than unto Van Biene in “The Broken Melody.”
In the last scene of the play there was a great “to do”; nothing less, in short, than a bombardment and assault upon the Consulate which the Colonel and his brave followers were defending. With heavy odds against them, these gallant few contrived to hold out until the opportune arrival of a rescue-party headed by the Colonel’s young and lovely daughter, and heralded by a fife-and-drum band.
While the bombardment was in progress the Colonel and a faithful orderly had the stage to themselves. The courageous soldier spent his time between an open cigarette-box and an open window, from which latter vantage he was able to control the movements of his troops, and supply the audience with details of the attack.
Eliphalet Cardomay had been at great pains to make the sounds of the battle convincing. He had bought large drums and employed extra hands to beat the stage with canes. As a finaltour de forcehalf a dozen squibs were let off, a single maroon was exploded in an iron bucket, and red fire was burnt with liberality in an adjacent frying-pan.
It was a stirring entertainment. Eliphalet felt he was upholding the best traditions of the race and drama.
During the second week of the tour his satisfaction received a shock.
He was staying at an hotel, the rooms in that particular town being indifferent and unclean, and had returned thither after the performance to sip a cup of cocoa and smoke a small cigar before retiring to rest. He had found a secluded palm-sheltered recess in the lounge, and, at the time the shock occurred, was reflecting that he had, perhaps, allowed himself too free an expression of criticism when discussing with the theatre manager the matter of exits from the auditorium.
His own production was a heavy one, and to give it stage room the manager had moved a quantity of stock scenery and stored it in the two emergency corridors which, in case of necessity, would empty the theatre into a narrow thoroughfare at the back. Eliphalet did not approve of this measure and had quoted the Lord Chamberlain’s rules in support. Mr. Gimball, the manager, had replied, with singular lack of courtesy, that he was quite capable of running the front of the house without interference. To this Eliphalet answered, “Your first duty to your patrons is to provide them with a speedy means of leaving the auditorium.”
And Mr. Gimball returned:
“I can get them out all right if you can get them in.”
An uncalled-for observation, the memory of which rankled. Eliphalet did not aspire to be a master of repartee, and had not engaged in the discussion with a view to sharpening his wits. It seemed obvious every precaution should be taken, especially in the case of a theatre situated next-door to a small-arms and cartridge-making factory and abutting the local gas-works.
Thus it is not unnatural that, in the shade of the hotel palms, he should have sought for more quieting influences. He was sipping the cocoa, when he chanced to overhear the following conversation:
“I shan’t forgive you for this, Bryan, when we might have spent a pleasant evening at a music-hall.”
“Sorry,” said an older voice, “but after all it wasn’t such a bad show. Certainly the battle scene was a bit indifferent—still, one can’t expect everything.”
“A bit indifferent! It was deplorable. But, apart from that, the way that old actor, what’s his name, played the part of the Colonel was enough to drive a man to drink. Going about, smiling, cracking jests, and lighting cigarettes! I’ve been through a decent few shows—Dundee, Barterton, and some others that were pretty warm, too—and I can tell you, people don’t behave like that under shell-fire—they’ve too much to think about to play the mountebank. Carry on with the work and show decent pluck—yes. But behave like that old idiot—no, no!”
“You’re blasé with too much of the real thing, my dear Raeburn. Let’s have a drink and talk about something else.”
But the South African warrior was not to be denied. He had things to say, and meant to say them.
“Half the time,” he continued, ignoring the interruption, “these actor-Johnnies don’t know what they’re doing. A slack, idle crowd, lolling over a bar by day and messing up their faces with grease-paint by night. They’ve no experience of life, or death, or danger, and wouldn’t know how to cope with it if they had. They’re gas-works, that’s all. Lord, it makes me sick to see a man attitudinising and throwing the heroic pose, when if it came to a pinch he’d take to his heels at the sight of a runaway horse half-a-mile away.”
“That statement,” said Eliphalet Cardomay, rising and approaching the two gentlemen, “is offensive and unjust.”
The man who had been speaking, a broad-shouldered, well-built fellow of middle age, spun round in his chair, and eyed the newcomer with disfavour.
“I’m not aware we invited you to join our conversation,” he said.
Eliphalet Cardomay acknowledged the thrust with a fencer’s gesture.
“True; but I feel justified in upholding the honour of my profession, as doubtless you would feel for any person or ideal you may happen to cherish.”
Captain Raeburn cocked his head at a somewhat insolent angle.
“Come on, then, draw up a chair and let’s have it out. It would simplify matters to exchange names. Mine is Raeburn—Captain Raeburn—and this is Mr. Bryan.”
The old actor bowed ceremoniously to each in turn.
“And mine,” he said, “is Eliphalet Cardomay.”
By the expression of surprise on their faces it was clear, until this moment, they had failed to recognise in him the gallant Colonel of an hour before.
“Is it, begad?” said Raeburn. “Then our conversation must have been devilish unpleasant overhearing.” He offered no apology, however.
Eliphalet shrugged his shoulders and, dividing the tails of his long, old-fashioned frock-coat, sat down at the small table.
Mr. Bryan was of more sensitive metal than his companion, and felt the need to smooth some of the creases from the situation.
“Raeburn,” he said, with a conciliatory laugh, “says a good deal he doesn’t mean. You know what it is! Personally, I am sorry you should have overheard his criticisms—very sorry indeed.”
“I am glad I did,” was the response, “for it gives me the chance of refuting them. It is not very agreeable for us to have people saying in public that we lack the essential elements of courage.”
“Well, well, well!” said Raeburn with brusque heartiness, “a word spoken is a bullet fired. No use pretending you didn’t touch the trigger, eh?”
“But is it not unwise to tamper with firearms when you are not acquainted with their mechanism?”
Raeburn coloured a trifle and remarked, “That’s hardly applicable to me, Mr. Cardomay.”
“I was merely enlarging a metaphor you introduced.”
“Ah—I see. Yes. But how about a drink before we start? You won’t refuse a whisky, eh?”
“You may find it hard to believe, but I shall refuse; for oddly enough, and at the risk of destroying one of your illusions, I do not drink alcohol.”
“Ha! Well, that’s a score to you.”
“I wish I could shatter other beliefs as easily. You said we of the stage have no real experience of life, death and danger, and could not cope with it if we had.”
“I did.”
“I, on the other hand, maintain that we have a greater experience than almost any other class. We must know what to do for every occasion, for otherwise we would need at once to seek a fresh means of livelihood—or starve. We live amidst a turmoil of ever-changing emotions——”
“Acted emotions!”
“But very real to us. What we depict is merely what we have known or seen or felt. All our lives we are moving in different scenes and different places—we are rubbing shoulders week by week with different men, different women, and human events, both great and small, which even you, with your battle-field experiences, would find it hard to outrival.”
Raeburn made no reply, but the angle of his nostrils was distinctly sceptical.
“Yes, all the time we are drawing our experiences—learning our lesson from the book of life. A child pricks its finger—and we can study from the child’s mother the measure of sympathy she offers for so small a sorrow, yes, and deduce therefrom how great her sympathy and concern would be if the pricked finger were, instead, a mortal malady. There is no happening too small to be of use to us, to help us with our lesson; and every hour of the day or night we are piecing together the minute mosaic which goes to fashion the broad patterns of our art.”
“H’m! That’s all very nice and very interesting, but forgive me if I don’t exactly see what it’s leading up to.”
“Merely this: that from the lesson we have learnt, we, of all people, are to be relied upon to do the right thing in any emergency.”
Captain Raeburn found the loophole he had been seeking, and fired his shaft unceremoniously.
“Then why, my dear sir, play that last scene in ‘The Flag’ in the manner you do? Surely you don’t imagine a Colonel would really behave like that under similar conditions?”
“Although I have never been in a battle, I can see no reason against his doing so.”
“You can take it from me that he wouldn’t.”
“At the risk of appearing disputatious, I contend, if it were his wish to allay a spirit of panic, that is precisely the way he would set about it.”
“Why, the men would laugh at him.”
“In which case he would have achieved his object.”
“Well, well, well! You could talk from now to dooms-day and not convince me.”
“I am very sorry,” said Eliphalet, rising. “It was good of you to hear me so patiently. Good night.” He hesitated. “I was wondering—you fought in South Africa?”
“Yes, all through the campaign.”
“And have heard and seen many stiff engagements?” Raeburn nodded. “You were commenting unfavourably upon the effects of the battle that I introduce in the play.”
Captain Raeburn produced a cigar and lit it. “ ’Fraid I was,” he agreed.
“Would it be asking too much from you to—to explain in what direction our effects differ from the reality?”
“That’s an awkward question to answer.”
“Meaning we are entirely at fault?”
“Something of the kind.”
Eliphalet sat down again and looked worried. “That’s a pity,” he said. “A great pity. I should like to have it right. Perhaps, if you—er——”
Raeburn spread out his legs. It was evident he rather enjoyed this tribute to his professional skill.
“Certainly, I will. Now, let’s see. These rebels are at the gate, aren’t they? A few shots are fired—answered by rifle-fire from the defenders. That ’ud want organising to a certain extent. There’d be time in it—they’re trained troops—see? Probably a machine-gun would open up somewhere.”
Eliphalet had begun to take notes on the back of an envelope.
“A machine-gun—very good,” he said. “Now, how would that sound?”
Raeburn tapped his forefinger in a metrical beat upon the table.
“I see, I see. Please continue.”
“Isn’t there some talk about the rebels bringing up artillery?”
“Yes; they open fire on the consulate.”
“Ah, that was where you were all over the place. First, you want a low, distant report, then a whistle—SShhreeee—e—u—u—cr—umpp. Something like that they go.”
“Very effective! This is most valuable.”
Under the subtle influence of appreciation the warrior developed his theme and gave many graphic illustrations of the din of battle, each of which the stage mind of Eliphalet Cardomay rapidly translated to the possible resources of the property-room.
“Finally, when the rebels blow up the gate you want a noise—a real noise. That twopenny maroon you explode wouldn’t lift a wicket off a nursery door.”
“And I thought that effect was fairly good,” said Eliphalet plaintively.
“I can only tell you it made me laugh.”
“We must change it, then—it must be changed at once. I pride myself on presenting nothing but the best to my audience. Many thanks, Captain Raeburn; you have rendered me a great service. I shall rehearse the battle-scene very thoroughly and utilise all your valuable suggestions. If you and your friend would honour me by accepting a box for Friday night’s performance, I think I can promise you a reflection of the real thing.”
Probably Mr. Bryan realised that Raeburn would drop a brick, so without giving him time to refuse he gracefully accepted the invitation on behalf of both. And when Eliphalet had wished them “Good night” and departed, he said:
“We’d insulted him quite enough, my dear fellow; we should have been inexcusably rude to have said ‘No.’ ”
“A silly old gas-bag,” smiled Raeburn. “We’ll go, then. Anything for a laugh.”
Next day, and the one following, Eliphalet Cardomay and his stage-manager, Freddie Manning, worked at the battle-scene like grim death. The artillery practice achieved with drums of different notes and a develine whistle was a triumph of realism. A stern suggestion of machine gunnery was contrived by the use of an archaic police rattle, opportunely unearthed from a neighbouring junk shop. For the mining of the gate a large cistern was salvaged from a rubbish-heap and two maroons were placed inside and fired simultaneously.
“Manning,” exclaimed Eliphalet gleefully, “it is tremendous! Now, just once more, and we’ll leave it at that.”
On his way back to the hotel he chanced to meet Captain Raeburn, who was swinging a cane in Broaden Street.
“We shall surprise you to-night,” he said, by way of greeting, and passed on, chuckling.
The Grand Theatre, Wadley, was situated at the top end of a short blind road, standing back from Broaden Street. The stage-door and emergency exits, which, it will be remembered, were blocked with scenery, opened on a narrow thoroughfare at the back.
Approaching the box-office, one passed Messrs. Felder & Syme’s Small Arms and Cartridge factory. Behind them, and separated only by a ten-foot wall, one of the many urban gasometers rose and fell in response to the city’s consumption.
Friday night in Wadley was always the best for business. It was then the “good people” patronised the drama, and Mr. Gimball, the manager, was wont to make special efforts for their better comfort. On Friday there were extra members in the orchestra. On Friday there was red cloth on the front steps. On Friday all the electric light points burnt gaily in the big lustre chandelier above the auditorium, and woe betide the programme-girl that failed to appear in her whitest and newest apron upon that night of nights.
When the returns were brought to Eliphalet Cardomay at the close of the second act, he was agreeably pleased.
“We’ve a fine audience for our new battle,” he observed, “and the play is going well.”
Captain Raeburn sat back in his box, the picture of misery.
“Look here,” he remonstrated, “that fellow Cardomay is awful. How about slipping quietly away?”
But Mr. Bryan would not hear of it.
In the Small Arms factory next door the night-watchman was making himself comfortable against his vigil. By means of a pile of straw-filled cases he constructed an easy-chair. The light of the small caged gas-jet being insufficient to illuminate his Late Football Extra, he produced from his pocket a stump of candle and waxed it to the top of one of the cases. This done, he ensconced himself luxuriously, spread out the paper, and settled down for a “nice read.”
Meanwhile the third act of “The Flag” proceeded. Eddies of rebellion were already lapping against the walls of the consulate. The Colonel’s daughter, disguised as a gipsy, had dropped from the walls and was away in search of aid—and the audience had begun to realise that in the next act there would be trouble, with a capital “T.” They were right.
The print of the halfpenny Football Edition, held in the hands of the night-watchman, began to blur. Delicious little thrills of fatigue pulsed through his limbs. He reflected how foolish he had been never before to have disposed himself so comfortably. Also he reflected how good that pint of dinner ale had been, partaken before coming on duty. Odd thing he had never drunk of dinner ale before! In the future he would remedy that omission—a rounder, mellower and more palatable beverage would be hard to conceive. He closed his eyes and allowed his imagination to picture the big glass tankard and the burnt Sienna distillation it had contained. He tried to open them again but they revolted against the impulse.
“Aft’ all,” he muttered, “aft’ all—wha’s it marrer?”
The paper slipped from his fingers and dropped to the top of the case beside the candle. His hand made a lumbering, futile gesture to regain it, then fell to his knee and skidded off inertly. His head rolled a trifle, lurched forward and his body went limp. Then came the heavy regular purr of a man breathing.
A capricious draught slanted the flame of the candle until it gently touched the corner of the newspaper. Being damp, the paper burnt slowly and only in one direction. Finally it went out, but not before setting light to an enthusiastic wisp of straw. The straw realised at once what was required, and passed the dancing yellow flame along the ridge of the line of overflowing cases. The lids of the cases were screwed down and the heat generated from the burning wisps of protruding straw was insufficient to ignite them. This was very disappointing, for very soon the straw had burnt out and, but for one insignificant circumstance, a very enjoyable fire would have been lost to the neighbourhood. The circumstance in question was provided by a stump of pencil which hung on a string from a notice-board. A final spurt of flame from the last tuft of straw ignited the little piece of cedar-wood, which—nothing if not communicative—promptly conveyed its sorrow to the string supporting it. The string burnt through and the flaming pencil dropped to the floor upon a little heap of paper and rubbish. In these sympathetic surroundings it received every encouragement, and in very little time the whole pile was blazing merrily. A chance puff of wind from an open doorway scattered fragments in three directions, in each of which a cheerful fire resulted.
The packing-room, a few feet down the passage, where stacks of empty cartridge-boxes were stored, was, perhaps, the most successful; although, considering the non-inflammable nature of much of its contents, the small recess beneath the wooden staircase competed very creditably. The third fire was insignificant, confining itself to the cremation of a row of overalls hanging on a line of hooks.
When the night-watchman woke, he found himself confronted with a task beyond the reaches of his capacity. His rush to the fire rack resulted in oversetting two buckets of water, and the flames, laughing at his failure, tore down the ceiling of the packing-room and mounted gleefully to the storey above.
The curtain had just risen on the last act when Mr. Gimball burst through the iron door and almost fell upon Eliphalet Cardomay, waiting in the wings.
“The cartridge factory next door is ablaze,” he gasped, “and the sparks are pouring down by the box-office. Drop the iron curtain and we’ll get the audience out.”
“At once!” assented Cardomay. “But wait a moment—if the stuff is falling outside, will they be able to pass?”
“God! I don’t know—I doubt it.”
“There are five minutes before my entrance. Take me somewhere where I can see—quickly.”
Mr. Gimball hurried him through the iron door and up some private stairs. At the end of a corridor they found a window, and looked down at the street below. Flames were pouring from the factory and the walls bulged dangerously.
“Useless,” said Eliphalet. “We must empty the house through the emergency exits.”
Then he remembered, and looked at Mr. Gimball with condemning eyes.
“I shall lose my licence for this,” muttered the manager hoarsely. “There’s only one way for it—we must pass them through the iron door and out across the stage.”
“You fool!” (It was most unusual for Eliphalet to say a thing like that.) “You fool! Pass three hundred people through a two-foot doorway? There’d be a panic—a horrible panic. We must clear those blocked exits, that’s all.”
“It’ll take an hour.”
“We’ll do it in a quarter.”
“But in the meantime?”
“In the meantime we will play the play.”
“But, my God, don’t you realise that place is full of explosives? Even if we’re not blown up, the row——”
“And don’t you realise it is a battle scene we shall be playing?”
Then, as fast as his years would carry him, he hurried back to the stage.
“What orders, Guv’nor?” said Manning, who, through the open door of the scene entrance, could see the progress of the fire.
“Get all your men, Manning, everyone who is not actually playing, and clear the stuff from the emergency exits. The front of the house is impassable. Make a job of it, Manning, while I hold the audience.”
“Right!” said Manning. “Now, boys, every one of you.” He was stripping off his coat as Eliphalet heard his cue and walked on to the stage.
Even through the make-up, fear was written large on the face of old Kitterson, who played the orderly.
“We’re in for a rough time,” said Eliphalet, speaking from the text.
There came a sharp, insistent crackle—almost merged into a single report. A shelf of twelve-bore cartridges had gone up next door.
Eliphalet took a cigarette from his case and lit it steadily.
“Why, man,” he said lightly, between the puffs, “you are not afraid—are you?” He stretched out his hand and gripped old Kitterson’s arm with a warning pressure.
“We’ve been through too much together to show the white feather now.”
Half his words were lost in the roar and crackle from outside.
Captain Raeburn touched his friend’s arm.
“Altering the lines, aren’t they?” he queried.
“Damn good effect of something burning. You can almost smell the smoke.”
Eliphalet had smelt the smoke too. It made him cough, so he impromptued quickly.
“The devils have fired the outbuildings. Phew! how the infernal fumes choke one.”
He strode over to the window, through which, and beyond the edge of the back cloth, the open scene door gave a view of the factory fire.
Great geysers of flame were spouting from the back windows and reaching loving hands toward the gasometer, not sixty feet distant.
Old Kitterson had followed and he, too, saw and realised the waiting danger.
“God!” he exclaimed. “If that catches!” And there was a note of terror in his voice.
“Yes,” said Eliphalet thoughtfully, “if they fire the magazine it would not be pleasant.”
Kitterson was plucking his sleeve and beckoning him to come away, but Eliphalet threw the old fellow from him with a fine flash of anger in his voice and eyes.
“If we are to die,” he cried, “we will die like soldiers and gentlemen—at our posts.”
There was a hoarse, solid detonation, followed by a splutter of little reports and the sharp stink of gunpowder filled the auditorium.
Some ladies in the stalls moved restively, and complained it was too realistic. In the gallery a girl shrieked, and some boys mocked her with their laughter.
Eliphalet Cardomay was sitting on the window-sill, lighting a fresh cigarette.
“Well done, lads,” he cried to his imaginary forces below. “A few more like that, and we——”
Crash!
A great piece of the factory wall fell noisily into the yard, and the released flames poured out toward the gasometer. Eliphalet could feel the sweat breaking out upon his forehead. He almost prayed for that devastating flash which would end the charade. But a gentle wind took the matter in hand and fanned the tongues of flame away.
De—dinga—longa—longalong. De—dong—along—along.
The engines were coming. He had forgotten the possibility of that sound and the message of terror it might convey to the audience. If the truth leaked out there would be a panic. They would find the front of the theatre impassable, and battle with each other in the blocked exits.
So he burst into a great shout of laughter.
“Some idiot is ringing the fire bell!” he shouted. “Ha! the fool. Come, Weldon; don’t you see the joke? Laugh, man; laugh!”
“I can’t make this out,” Raeburn was saying. “Wait here a minute. I am going to see.”
He slipped from the box and ran down a deserted corridor. On his left he heard the sound of men’s voices and the moving of heavy objects. He pushed open a door labelled “Extra Exit” and found Manning with a crowd of furiously working actors and stage hands humping large scene flats into the street at the back. They worked as though their very lives depended upon it.
“What’s up?” demanded Raeburn.
Freddie Manning scarcely looked in his direction, but he jerked out:
“Get away and keep your mouth shut.”
Raeburn took the hint, and made his way to the box-office. The road outside was blocked with fallen débris and mantled in a smother of smoke. It cleared for a second, long enough to show him half a dozen engines farther down, with brass-helmeted firemen busy paying out the hose.
Clinging to one of the theatre pillars was the night-watchman—a shivering wreck of what so short a time before had been a fine connoisseur of dinner ale.
“There’s thousands o’ rounds up there,” he dithered, pointing at the still-to-catch top storey. “And if they don’t set off the gas-works, may I never touch another pint.”
Then Captain Raeburn understood many things, and he returned to his box to watch the man he had belittled deal with emergency.
Eliphalet Cardomay had got his second wind and was holding the audience with a light but firm rein. He was jesting with death at his elbow—tickling the feet of Fate, and strewing the stage with half-smoked cigarettes. Old Kitterson, fired by example, had braced his shoulders for the ordeal and was doing his best to help the Guv’nor in his hour of need.
They had reverted to the original text when Raeburn re-entered the box, and Kitterson was saying:
“They are piling explosives beneath the main gate, sir.”
“We shall go to our Maker with a better speed, then.”
“Is there nothing we can do?”
“Nothing, if the relief is not in time. We have still our prayers and a generous supply of these excellent cigarettes.”
Kitterson (at the window): “Ah! they are lighting the fuse. They move away from it. It burns slowly—Guv’nor—sir!”
Almost with a single impulse the entire audience clapped hands over his ears, and, by a caprice of fortune, some thousands of rounds of best smokeless cartridges detonated with a hollow, paralysing roar.
The whole building shook. The long line of the back-cloth snapped, and it swung down from a single tether. Several women went into hysterics, and a quantity of plaster mouldings fell from the roof and splattered among the audience.
Then there was silence—no sound but the soothing hiss of water on red-hot beams.
Eliphalet Cardomay, with arms folded, stood in the middle of the stage, a queer smile playing about his lips; Kitterson had dropped his head in his hands and was crouching beside a table; and then the door burst open, and little Violet O’Neal, “the Colonel’s daughter,” followed by two men in officers’ uniforms, burst upon the stage.
“It’s all right,” she gasped. “The danger—the worst is over.”
Suddenly her part came back to her.
“The rebels are flying,” she cried. “You’re safe—safe!”
Eliphalet, Colonel and father, caught her to his breast, smothering something she was saying about the gasometer.
“God has rescued us, my child—God is very good.”
And Manning, who had dashed up from the street a second before, was just in time to ring down.
“Exits all clear, Guv’nor,” he cried.
“Take up the curtain, then,” said Eliphalet; and when it rose he stepped forward to the footlights and, holding up his hand for silence, said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, will you kindly leave the theatre by the right and left emergency exits. There has been a fire in the street by the box-office, so this way will be more convenient.”
He bowed—turned with a pardonable instinct towards the box in which Raeburn and his friend were standing, and favoured them with a very slight smile.
The curtain fell and the audience, in some perplexity, but without panic, filed out of the theatre to the narrow alley at the back.
“Mr. Cardomay,” said Gimball, “I reckon you’ve saved my licence.”
“It had not occurred to me I had so important a task to fulfil,” returned Eliphalet.
“I can tell you I’m grateful.”
“Well, you will at least admit I kept them in the theatre and got them out.”
In thefoyerof the hotel Captain Raeburn was waiting, a broad hand outstretched to greet him.
“You flirted with death better than anyone I’ve struck yet,” he said. “I estimate you have saved a hundred lives to-night, Mr. Cardomay. Are you big enough to accept an apology?”
A flush of pride spread over Eliphalet’s rugose features.
“I am small enough to be deeply flattered by it,” he replied, as he took the proffered hand. “Yet, after all, it was a simple enough matter. I had but to follow my training—to give them a few whiffs from the gas-works.”
“I deserve it, Colonel,” Raeburn acknowledged, “and a good kicking besides. But look here, after all this, surely you’ll have a drink to-night.”
Eliphalet smiled whimsically.
“Why, yes,” he said, “I should enjoy a cup of cocoa very much.”
“Have it your own way,” laughed Raeburn, and gave the order.
Eliphalet divided the tails of his coat and sat himself comfortably on a cane chair.
“Despite our earnest preparations, you never heard the new battle effects, after all.”
“What I heard was pretty convincing, though!”
“Ye—es! But still, it’s disappointing. Now, if you and your friend would accept a box for to-morrow night——”
And Raeburn had the good grace to answer:
“There is nothing I should enjoy more.”
PART II. AND A ROUGH COMPOUND
CHAPTER VIIIMORNICE JUNE
Eliphalet Cardomay stretched himself luxuriously on a green-painted arm-chair by the Achilles Statue in Hyde Park.
He was wearing a new broad-brimmed grey felt hat, and the seasonableness of his attire spread to a pair of dark felt spats, below which the bright spring sunshine reflected itself on the surface of his well-blacked boots.
It was pleasing to lounge under the new-foliaged plane trees and watch fashionable London sedately disporting itself on the gravel paths—to see the riders cantering in the Row, and to hear the “clot-clot” and pleasant jingle of harness as the smart people drove by. Something in the pageantry of it all appealed to his dramatic sense. Piccadilly—the Strand—Oxford Street—awoke no sympathetic chords in his being—he was more at ease and happier in any of the great thoroughfares of Manchester, Leeds or Glasgow, but this great meeting-place of England’s noblest-born stirred him strangely.
The tide of well-dressed men and beautifully-gowned women set his mind upon a sad train of thought. They were not for him, these select; his poster on a hoarding they would pass by without a second glance. They belonged to the great ones of the London stage—that mighty little clique whose doors were barred to such as he. That very morning he had seen a few of the upper theatrical ten walking in the Park, and, even as the thought crossed his mind, Sir Charles Cleeve, an actor knight, and his fashionable wife, drove past in a high phaeton drawn by a pair of piebalds. A real live duchess turned in her carriage to smile a greeting to them. (Eliphalet knew she was a duchess, for he had often seen her portrait in the illustrated weeklies, hanging on Smith’s book-stalls in the Midland stations.) A clever woman Sir Charles’s wife. All the world knew that the high ground he now held unchallenged had in part been won for him by her tireless energy, tact and charm.
It was a great thing for an actor to possess such a wife. He fell to wondering whether, had his choice been as happy, he, too, might not have been a member of the Garrick Club, a driver of phaetons, a recipient of smiles from duchesses. He could hardly refrain from smiling at the thought of the figure his wife would have cut in polite society. Yet she had been an able enough actress in her day. Poor Blanche—poor, empty-headed, self-centred, easy-virtued Blanche. It required an effort to reconstruct her picture in his mind. Twenty-seven years is a long time, and even pleasant pictures had faded in less. Once he had loved her, like a very Romeo, and set her on a pinnacle higher than any balcony. He shivered, as with horrible clarity he saw the night when, returning late from the theatre (there had been a rehearsal after the show), he had found her in their wretched little parlour, drinking a wretched brand of champagne with Harrington May, the leading-man. The same Harrington May who had fled from the field of honour—to return later, as a fly returns to a pot of jam.
Everyone has supper with everyone else on the provincial stage. It is one of the best and friendliest traditions of the Road, and Eliphalet, born and bred of the Boards, would have thought no ill to find her entertaining one or a dozen men at any hour of the night. But this was different. It was not the friendly little repast with its scrambled eggs and rattle of theatrical shop; it was frankly a carouse. There were empty tinselled bottles on the table, and those down whose throats the liquid had passed were drunk—Harrington May dully, and his wife stupidly. She had her head on the man’s shoulder, and was laughing in a loose, trumpery way.
It was useless to talk to them, for May was not in a state to distinguish between flattery and abuse, while she was in a mood to say things no man would desire a third person to hear. Accordingly, he postponed his observations until next morning, and when that came it appeared she had the more to say. With bitter emphasis she stated that, as a husband, Eliphalet fell far short of her ideals. Apart from the miserable salary he earned, which, in itself, was an insult to a woman who was earning a larger one (for Blanche was playing the villainess and he the juvenile, and in those days virtue was cheaper than crime), she abhorred his studious nature, his ridiculous name, and his attitude towards life in general. She was of a lively temperament—a temperament calling for plenty of sparkle and sunshine (he had thought of those empty bottles downstairs), and accordingly had decided to leave him for good.
Eliphalet offered little or no opposition. He had known for a long while that sooner or later their ill-assorted union would come to an end.
“Very well,” he had said; “I won’t stand in the way of your happiness. You shall have a divorce as soon as it can be arranged.”
Instead of regarding this as a token of goodwill, Blanche had reviled him. It was obvious, she cried, he had no love for her, and merely made her his wife for the sake of the better salary she earned; and—now he seized the chance of a divorce in the hope of wringing heavy damages from Harrington.
“I want no damages,” he replied. “Maybe I shall find my reward without.”
Eliphalet did not have a speaking part in the scene that followed. His first line was “Thank God,” and that was after the door had slammed.
So Harrington May assumed responsibilities for Eliphalet Cardomay’s matrimonial obligations, and when the decreenisiwas made absolute, he took “Miss Blanche Cannon” to be his lawful wedded wife.
How the union had turned out Eliphalet never knew, since from the hour she left his house he had met neither the one nor the other. Indirectly he heard that as fruit of their love a daughter had been born—and that was the only thing for which he envied Harrington May. He might have saved himself the trouble, for poor Harrington, possibly from ecstasy at the sight of this miniature edition of her faultless mother, shortly afterwards gave up the ghost. Blanche, whose appreciation for a change of diet had not waned with his decease, took unto herself a lover, and fades from view in a mist of misguided emotions.
“Dear me! Surely I am not mistaken—it is Mr. Cardomay?”
At the sound of his own name Eliphalet’s mind came back to the present with a jolt.
Standing before him, leaning on an ebony cane, stood a middle-aged gentleman, faultlessly dressed and of aristocratic bearing.
Eliphalet rose. “I am,” he said, “but for the moment——”
“No—no—no,” hastily interposed the other, “you could hardly be expected to remember me. Both you and I, Mr. Cardomay, in our separate spheres, are engaged in catering for these.” He made a slight gesture toward the passers-by. “We met but once, and that on the occasion of your very admirable performance of Cellini.”
Eliphalet blushed at the words, although no undercurrent of satire was conveyed. That same “very admirable performance of Cellini” stood for him as a door that barred him from London theatres for all time.
“Yes, yes,” he said, to hide his confusion, “I do remember you. Mr. Bridge Deansgate, who owns the Mall Theatre, is it not?”
Mr. Deansgate smiled affably.
“But please don’t stand,” he begged. “And, if I may, I will sit beside you. That’s better. Yes, yes, yes; I often wonder why we see so little of you in town, Mr. Cardomay—but perhaps your presence here betokens——”
“No,” came the hasty assurance. “I am spending a few weeks’ holiday before my next tour.”
“Indeed. I understand your recent production was a great success—great. You are stopping in Mayfair—near the Park—yes?”
“I have some rooms in Camden Town.”
“Ah. I have often heard it spoken of as a most healthy district. For the moment I forget the nature of the soil—gravel, I believe. And so you are taking a few weeks’ immunity from work? Umhum! Yes—yes. Now I wonder—but still, if you are resting, perhaps not.”
“You were about to suggest?”
“Nothing, nothing. A fleeting idea, that is all, prompted by this happy encounter. As doubtless you have heard, we are producing ‘Hamlet’ for four weeks, and it occurred to me—but perhaps I should offend you. We have an admirable cast, and in many ways it would be a pleasant engagement. You see, nowadays it is so hard to find actors who still understand the grand old method.”
He inclined his head gracefully to Eliphalet, who bowed in response.
“I am disposed to be interested,” he said.
“For the Ghost, now, where is a manager to turn? That very thought was possessing my brain when I chanced to look up and see you. If you are not otherwise engaged, how would it be to stroll to the Corner and pick up a hansom? They have achefat the Garrick with a true appreciation of how a Châteaubriand should be cooked.”
The upshot of this conversation and an excellent lunch was to find Eliphalet Cardomay, at three o’clock the same afternoon, discussing terms with the business manager of the Mall.
“I never talk about money,” Mr. Deansgate had said. “Tell Dawson to give you what you want.”
Winslow Dawson was an agreeable little man, who had the habit of paying less than you intended to accept, at the same time conveying the impression that you had bested him all along the line. He carried his hands permanently in his trousers pockets, from whence they never appeared to emerge, even when a door had to be opened or shut or a contract signed. He performed these functions, so it seemed, by some balancing feat of prestidigitation. He had a habit of balancing on his heels and contemplating his patent-leather toes. He would remain thus during a long discussion, then look up with the sunniest of smiles and say, “Then that’s settled, isn’t it?”
When Eliphalet left the theatre it was in a very happy mood. After all, he would appear in London again, and—what was better still—in a part regarding the rendering of which he could scarcely be at fault.
Mr. Deansgate had said, “Do just as you like with it, my dear Cardomay; we have every confidence in you.”
In honour of the occasion he stood himself tea at Fuller’s and ate quite a large piece of walnut cake.
“A delightful management,” he reflected. “This is better than a holiday, old boy.”
Perhaps he felt a shade awkward at the rehearsal next morning to find the stage thronged with so many unfamiliar faces, but for the most part they were a friendly company, and very soon he was quite at ease with the men.
The ladies he found difficult, being so totally dissimilar to the homely, good-natured souls who played with him on his hundred tours.
There was a Miss Helen Winter, who played the Queen and whose personality caused him alarm. She seemed far more like a duchess than the real example he had seen in the Park. Her clothes were severe to a fault, and she used lorgnettes with awful precision. Somehow the sense of these instruments pervaded her even in the Castle of Elsinore.
When they were introduced she said:
“How do you do,dearMr. Cardomay. I have heard so much about you.” Then departed quickly, as though fearing he might be tempted to tell her more.
For Ophelia one of London’s younger emotional actresses had been secured. Her emotions were more acutely demonstrated off the stage than on, for it appeared, despite a healthy exterior, she was racked with torments arising from an ailment described as “my neuralgia.” She spoke of her neuralgia as others might say “My Mother.” It was indeed her most cherished possession, and only through the good offices of smelling-salts and aspirin was she able to encompass the calls made upon her artistry.
Eliphalet, having made the acquaintance of the young lady and her neuralgia, and being attracted by neither, sought for someone to talk with during his long waits. In so doing he espied Miss Mornice June.
Mornice was absurdly pretty. She had big black-lashed eyes and a mass of whitey-gold fluffy hair. She played the part of the Player Queen, and held sway over the hearts of the small-part young gentlemen and those engaged as “extras.”
They gathered about her in the wings and sought the favour of her smile. Neither did they seek in vain, for Mornice had a quality of responsiveness that caused all who came in contact with her to believe themselves vital to her well-being. Did they come with jests, her laughter was light-hearted and unstinted; did they come in sorrow, she was quick to sympathise, and real tears would moisten her lashes. An extremely sensitive person was Mornice, who answered every vibration about her—be it grave or gay. Not in mood alone but in outline, her entire being seemed to impregnate itself with the spirit of the moment. She would break off suddenly in the merriest laugh to respond to a bar of music wailing pathetically from a hidden violin.
“Just listen! Isn’t it wonderful!” she would say, transformed into a picture of rapt adoration. Then in a second she was back again to her faun-like merriment, exchanging jokes that a properly brought up young lady would have failed to understand.
“Who is the little lady yonder?” Eliphalet asked.
Miss Helen Winter threw a flickering glance in the direction of his gaze.
“Ireallycouldn’t tell you,dearMr. Cardomay, for I don’t know. A nice little thing, no doubt, but hardly a lady. She gives me the impression of being on the stage for the purpose of earning a living.”
This was too subtle for Eliphalet, and he asked for an explanation.
“I mean she has no people—no money. She acts for a livelihood. Of course that is purely a surmise, but I am sure I am right. The stage is full of young girls who are trying to earn their living. It is very sad, when one comes to think of it.”
Being herself a dweller in Park Street, with no real occasion to act, Miss Winter was one of the rapidly increasing class who make it impossible for the really needy to find employment.
Eliphalet was blissfully ignorant of the methods London managers had begun to use. He did not know that it had become quitede rigueurto engage society ladies to play leading parts, irrespective of talent and merely for the sake of the smart friends they attracted. It is the Box Office that counts, first, last and always. Remember that, some of you clever young ladies, before you abandon the typewriter or the comfortable certainty of the Insurance Office.
“To me,” he said, “that stands to her credit. She strikes me as a most charming little girl.”
“Oh, quite—quite,dearMr. Cardomay, but provincial—very, very provincial.” And having delivered this two-edged thrust, she sailed away to pastures new.
So Eliphalet asked the same question of Polonius.
“Mornice June, her name is. Something in her, I fancy. Forget who told me she’s been earning her living since she was fourteen. Her people were a bad lot—deserted her—so they say.”
Eliphalet did not need to introduce himself, for the very next day Mornice marched up and gave him a cheery smile.
“Do you mind if I talk?” she said. “You look so homish to me. I can’t get on with these London people a bit.”
He made room for her on the roll of carpet, and she sat beside him.
“Yet, my dear,” he answered, “you seem to be very popular.”
“With those silly boys, yes! But even they are different. I say, I’m sure you know all about playing in Shakespeare. I do wish you’d be an absolute dear, and hear me my lines. I’m certain I shall get a fearful ‘bird’ from his Nibs.” (His Nibs was her name for the eminent producer.) “It’s the blank verse that does me. I’ve never tackled verse before, except ‘I am Lily, called the Flowers’ Queen, the goodest, sweetest fairy ever seen.’ You know—you flip up through a star trap and get it off your chest, where the white limes meet.”
She delivered the cheap couplet with perfect mimicry of pantomime style, then clapped her hands and laughed gaily. Eliphalet caught the infection of her spirit, and laughed too.
“But you will be a dear, and help me, won’t you?” she appealed, picking a speck of fluff from the knee of his trousers. “I say, you didn’t brush yourself very carefully this morning, did you?”
“I stand corrected,” said Eliphalet; “but my dresser is away on his holiday.”
“Aren’t you married, then?”
“No—not now.”
Mornice’s face became serious at once.
“You poor dear, I am so sorry. Is she——?”
But Eliphalet took the book from her hand.
“Come,” he said, “let us hear those lines. We will go down this corridor, where we shall be undisturbed.”
As a rule, when you hold the book for someone who is almost a stranger they are anxious and awkward, but it was not so with Mornice.
“It’s just here where she enters with the Player King. There! Got it? Right-o.”
In a second she flung herself into the spirit of the scene. Gesture, voice and feature were alike unchained to the emergency of the situation. At the right moment she dropped to her knees and with outstretched arms poured forth the protestations of undying fidelity with ringing vibrations of emotion. When she had finished, she sprang to her feet and exclaimed:
“There! that’s the best I can do!”
Eliphalet was amazed. Never before had he seen anyone more liberally endowed with natural ability. And yet he knew this ability was misguided—that Mornice June suffered from a fatal facility.
Spontaneous ease of obtaining effects is perhaps the most dangerous asset an artist may possess. You will find it in legions of draughtsmen, who will dash off what is seemingly the cleverest sketch and actually a mere tangle of inaccuracy—wrong in every line and detail. They are born with a box of tricks—any one of which may be drawn from its docket at a second’s notice.
Reach-me-down art—and as unlike the real thing as a city tailor’s ready-for-wear garments to the creations of a Savile Row expert.
It was beyond Eliphalet Cardomay’s skill to point out the fundamental fault in the girl’s acting, and it was beyond his skill to indicate the fortune to which her facile skill directed her. Had one of those wise and energetic gentlemen been present, those gentlemen who project their three-reel productions upon a white screen and who speak of “Close-ups,” “Eyes that register well,” “Panoraming the Camera,” and so forth, he would have recognised at once the great future awaiting Miss Mornice June in the broad estates of Filmland.
“I have nothing but admiration,” said Eliphalet. “You must have studied hard to do so well.”
“Studied! I just swotted up the lines, that’s all. How does one study?”
“By considering the relative values of what one is saying and inflecting the lines accordingly.”
“Oh, I should never be able to do that. I just get a thing, or I don’t get it. But d’you really think it’ll do?”
“I imagine it will do more than well.”
“Oh, you are a dear! I was sure you’d give me the ‘bird.’ ”
“Tell me: you have been on the stage for some long while?”
“Um. Donkeys’ years; but I’m thinking of chucking it.”
“Giving it up?”
“Yes; for the ‘movies.’ ”
Eliphalet was aghast. To him the Cinema was a very degrading profession.
“I think, my dear,” he said, “you would find that a very poor alternative to our beautiful art.”
“But I love the ‘movies,’ and I’m sure I should be able to blink myself to fame. I can cry like old Billy-oh when I want to—and the wet-lash stunt is half the battle, y’know.”
Just then one of her many admirers came down the corridor. He was a smooth-haired, self-satisfied looking fellow, who played the Second Player.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said. “We shall have to go on in a minute.”
Eliphalet moved away and left them together.
“You are a rotter, Morny, to talk to that old blighter and leave me in the lurch.”
“He’s a duck,” said Mornice, “and I love him.”
“I think you love everyone except me.”
“Darling,” she exclaimed with outstretched arms, “I love you to distraction. Without you the world would be a desert track, or tract, whichever it is.”
“Then for God’s sake give me a kiss!”
Mornice considered the proposition in pouting perplexity. Then she laughed and said:
“Don’t be such a stupid little fool, Ken.”
“You always say that when I come to the point.”
“Avoid the point then, darling, and you won’t get your pretty little puds pricked.”
“Look here, will you come out to lunch with me?”
“Will I—will I? No. I won’t, but I’ll come to tea instead, and pay my own share.”
“Won’t you let me kiss you? I’m in deadly earnest, Morny.”
“If you’re in deadly earnest you shall kiss me. Oh, but not now. You shall kiss me on the back of the ear when it comes to the cue for the kiss in our scene.” And so saying, she ducked her head and bolted down the corridor as fast as she could run.
During the fortnight of rehearsals Eliphalet saw a great deal of Mornice, and they became inseparable friends. She told him her name was really Alice May, but she couldn’t endure Alice, so had achieved Mornice from the deeps of her imagination. She had elected the riper month of June instead of May because it sounded jollier after Mornice. Of her people she scarcely ever spoke. Once, in the course of conversation, she chanced to remark:
“Oh yes, he did a vamoose—like mother.”
“What is a ‘vamoose’?” he asked.
“When you skip off and leave everything to look after itself.”
“And that is what happened with you?”
“Umps! I’ve been on my own since I wore pigtails.”
Eliphalet was silent, thinking of the risks to which this child must have been exposed in her struggle for a living. Intuitively she read his thoughts, and said:
“I can look after myself, though. Don’t you worry!”
“I am quite confident of that,” he replied. Then, after a slight hesitancy, “But aren’t you a shade unwise to encourage the admiration of all these young men? That Mr. Kenneth Luke, for instance?”
“Oh, Ken’s all right. He went to Oxford College, so he ought to know how to behave.”
Eliphalet smiled and shook his head dubiously. It seemed to him that her reasoning was not quite conclusive.
To tell the truth, Master Kenneth had been a little too importunate of late, and Mornice had been considering the advisability of “choking him off.” However, since her one scene had to be played with him, she had thought it better to keep on friendly terms.
Eliphalet Cardomay was more than pleased with the notices the press gave him after the first night. “A rendering full of the best traditions of Shakespeare,” said one. “Mr. Cardomay’s beautiful voice was heard to advantage,” said another.
It was gratifying to hear his “beautiful voice” spoken of as though the whole world knew of its existence. He began to regain some of the confidence lost after his last London appearance. He fell to wondering what they would have said had he appeared as Hamlet instead of the Ghost, and concluded, erroneously, the papers would have been equally flattering.
He had never played Hamlet, and the idea of doing so on some future tour possessed him. Little Mornice June should be given the part of Ophelia, and would certainly outshine the neuralgic young lady in her rendering. All she needed was guidance.
Eliphalet had quite made up his mind to engage Mornice on a long contract, not only for her talent, but because he could not endure the thought of losing sight of her. Somehow she filled an empty space in his heart that long had craved for a tenant. It is good for a man to have some interests in life outside his work, and he had none.
There was something in Mornice that awoke a queer familiarity with another episode of his life, but when he tried to place the impression it would not develop. Was it perhaps with scatter-brained little Eunice Terry, whom he had disillusioned about the stage? No! For beyond the “Nice” at the ends of their Christian names there was little enough semblance. Mornice had her head screwed on the right way, whereas Eunice had nearly had hers screwed off.
One morning a rehearsal had been called for some minor alterations, and Eliphalet was sitting with his back against a scene-flat, when he heard Mornice’s voice on the other side.
“Poor Ken,” she was saying. “Oh, dear, what a sad and gloomy face!”
“You know how to cure it,” came the answer.
“I? I only seem to make it worse.”
“That’s true. You’re playing with me, Morny, and I’ve had enough of it.”
“Well, if you’re too old to play, go and sit in the corner with a book.”
“For God’s sake chuck fooling. After all, you can’t afford to turn me down like this, and I’m not the chap to put up with it for ever.”
It was a graceless speech, and Eliphalet was astonished at the girl’s answer.
“You old silly, I don’t want to turn you down. I’d like you to be happy as the rest are.”
“Well, make me happy, then.”
“ ’Course I will—if I can.”
“If you can! Look here, Morny; come and have supper with me after the show to-night.” She did not reply, and he went on: “Why, hang it, you must have been out to supper scores of times.”
“Yes, I have—scores and scores.”
“Will you come, then?” There was more than eagerness in his tone.
“I may as well, I suppose. Very well, then—yes.”
“At last! And that’s a bargain, isn’t it? There’s no going back now? Where would you like to go? Cecil?—Savoy? Just say, and I’ll ring up for a room at once.”
“A room! What for?”
“We shan’t want to be disturbed.”
“Shan’t we? Now look here, Ken; if I come to supper with you we sup in the main restaurant, or not at all.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about that. You can safely leave the arrangements to me.”
“Right; I will. And I’ll leave you the supper, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve taken a very intense dislike to you. I think you are an absolute low little rotter.”
Eliphalet, on the other side of the piece of scenery, murmured a prayer of thanksgiving.
“You do?” said Kenneth. “Well, if that’s so, you won’t be disappointed. I may not be great shakes in the company, but I can promise to make it none too pleasant a place for you—unless you say you are sorry.”
It was all very ill-conditioned and childish.
“The only thing I’m sorry about,” said Mornice, “is that I didn’t smack your face days ago.” She marched off, the picture of outraged dignity.
And Eliphalet, as a student of nature, reflected that the young man had received a more valuable lesson than all his ’Varsity training had provided, and, when the rancour had abated, would profit very greatly therefrom.
It is always disappointing when one’s opinions prove to be at fault. Possibly this in some measure added to Eliphalet’s cold fury at what took place that evening.
He had gone down earlier than usual and was standing in the wings, watching the Play Scene. Mornice and Kenneth Luke as the Player King and Queen, with arms interlaced, came on to the stage within the stage and began to speak their lines, and there followed the most paltry piece of meanness Eliphalet had ever beheld. A deliberate effort to “queer” a fellow-player.
Seemingly Kenneth Luke had profited nothing by his lesson of the morning and was determined to take it out of his mentor by the unkindest method.
He ended his first speech with so inconclusive an inflection that it was well-nigh impossible for her to speak her lines. Not satisfied with this, he introduced long pauses in the wrong places and when she, believing he had forgotten his part, began to speak, he spoke also, with the result that the words jumbled together unintelligibly.