Part 6
At three-forty-five was a rehearsal with the Railham Empire orchestra. He must get that gag right where he bluffs the trombone player in his song: “Oh, my in-laws, my in-laws, why don’t you leave me be.” Perhaps a cup of tea somewhere, and then an appointment at five-fifteen with Welsh, to arrange terms about the renewal of contract. Knotty and difficult problems--contracts. Everyone trying to do you down--must have a clear head at five-fifteen. If there’s time, perhaps pop into the club for half an hour, exchange stories with Jimmy Landish, or old Blakeney. A chop at six-thirty--giving him an hour before making-up for the first house. On at eight-twenty. Three songs and an encore--mustn’t forget to speak to Hignet about that spotlight, the operator must have been drunk last night. Between shows interview a local pressman, and a young man who “wants to go on the stage, but has had no experience.” Dash round for a sandwich and a refresher. On again at ten-twenty-five. Same three songs, same encore, same bluff on the trombone player. Ten-fifty, all clear. Clean up and escape from the theatre if possible.
A last nightcap at the club, perhaps? Oh, but Bird Craft wanted him to toddle along to his rooms and hear a new song he had just acquired, “a real winner,” Bird had said it was, about “The girl and the empty pram.” Must stand by an old pal. Sometime during the day he must send two suits to be cleaned, and order some new underlinen. A beastly boring business, ordering vests and pants. He knew nothing about the qualities of materials--hosiers surely did him over that. Really a woman’s business, women knew about these things. Mrs. Lamb! No, not exactly Mrs. Lamb. He couldn’t ask Mrs. Lamb to go and buy him vests and pants. A woman’s business, a woman----
Heigho! Nearly ten o’clock already. Chris Read might arrive any minute. The Funny Man dashed downstairs and ran into the house next door. Tibby had already gone off to school, but Nibby had escaped, because at the moment of departure his attack of hiccoughs had reached its apotheosis. Now he was in trouble because it had left off, and his mother now declared he had been pretending. It took the Funny Man fifteen minutes to calm this family trouble. Nibby, putting it on! Nibby, playing the wag! Oh, come! Fie and for shame! Besides, did Nibby’s mother think that he, Dr. Willy Nilly, the eminent specialist of Harley Street, was a quack? Were his remedies spurious remedies?
“Did you think of emerald green parrots in a dark wood, Nibby?”
“Yes.”
“And monkeys hanging by their tails?”
“Yes.”
“There, you see, Mrs. Munro! It was a genuine case, and a genuine cure.”
“If he really had it, Mr. Basingstoke, I don’t believe it was thinking about monkeys what cured him; it was them little white tabloids, and we thank you kindly.”
“Mrs. Munro, here are two tickets for the Railham Empire for the first house to-morrow night. Come, and bring your husband, and then you will see that there are more people cured by thinking of monkeys hanging by their tails than there are by swallowing tabloids. That is my business. I am a monkey hanging by its tail, and now I must be off. Good-bye, Nibby old boy. Why, if this isn’t a sixpence under the mat. Well, well, this is an age of miracles. No, you keep it, old boy. Good-bye, Mrs. Munro. Come round and see me after the show to-morrow. Toot-a-loo, my dear.”
Chris was waiting on the doorstep, a fresh-complexioned young man inclined to corpulence. His face glowed with a kind of vacant geniality.
“Well, old boy, how goes it?”
“I’ve got a peach this morning, Willy old boy; I think you’ll like it.”
“Good boy, come on in.”
The Funny Man’s drawing-room was comfortably furnished with imitation Carolian furniture, a draped ottoman, and an upright Collard piano. The walls were covered with enlarged photographs of actors and actresses in gold and walnut frames, the majority of them were autographed and contained such inscriptions as: “To my dear old Willy, from yours devotedly, Cora.” “To Uncle Nilly, one of the best, Jimmy Cotswold (The Blue Girl Company, Aug. 1899),” “To Willy Nilly, ‘my heart’s afire,’ Queenie,” and so on.
“Now, let’s see what you’ve got, old boy.”
Chris sat at the piano, and unwrapped a manuscript score.
“I think this ought to win out, old boy,” he said. “It’s by Bert Shore. It’s called ‘The Desert Island.’ You see the point is this. You’re a bit squiffy, old boy. You see, red nose and battered top hat and your trousers turned up to the knees. You know how when it’s been raining on a tarred road it looks like water. Well, we have a set like that. It’s really a street island--in Piccadilly, or somewhere. You’re on it, and seeing all this shining water, you think you’re on a desert island and the lamppost’s a palm tree. You take off your shoes and stockings and there’s some good business touching the wet road with your bare toes. See, old boy? There’s a thunderin’ good tune. Listen to this--tum-te-too-te tum-te-tum, rum-te-too-te-tum-te--works up, you see to a kind of nautical air--then gets back to the plaintive desert stuff--rum-tum-tum-rum-te-tum. Then here’s the chorus. Listen to this, old boy:
“Lost in the jungle, Oh, what a bungle, Eaten by spiders and ants. Where is my happy home? Why did they let me roam? Where are my Sunday pants?
“Good, eh? What do you think? Make something of it, old boy? Eh?”
The little man’s eyes glowed with excitement. Oh, yes, this might assuredly be a winner. It was the kind of song that had made his reputation. The tune of the chorus was distinctly catchy, and his mind was already conceiving various business.
“Let’s have a go at it, old boy,” he said.
He leant over the other’s shoulder and began to sing. He threw back his head and thrust out his fat little stomach, his eyes rolled, and perspiration streamed down his face. He was really enjoying himself. He had just got to
Lost in a jungle, Oh, what a bungle, Eaten by spiders and ants,
when there was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Lamb thrust her head in and said: “A telegram for you, Mr. Basingstoke.”
“Eh? Oh! Well--er, never mind. Yes, thank you, my dear, give it to me.”
He opened the telegram absently, his mind still occupied with the song. When he had read it, he exclaimed:
“Good God! Poor old Joe! Yes, no, there’s no answer, my dear. I must go out.”
Mrs. Lamb retired.
“Poor old Joe! Stranded, eh?”
“What is it, old boy?” said Chris.
“Telegram from Joe Bloom. He says: ‘Can you wire me tenner, very urgent, stranded at Dundee?’ Poor old Joe! He has no luck. He was out with ‘The Queen of the Sea’ company. They must have failed. Excuse me Chris, old boy.”
The Funny Man hurried out of the room and ran downstairs. He snatched up his hat and went out. When he got round the corner, he ran. He ran as fast as he could to the High Street till he came to the London, City and Midland Bank. He filled up a cheque for fifteen pounds and cashed it. Then he ran out of the bank and trotted puffily across the road to the post office.
“I want to telegraph fifteen pounds, old girl,” he said to the fair-haired lady behind the wires. Filling up the forms took an unconscionable time, and there all the while was poor old Joe stranded in Dundee, perhaps without food! Dundee! Dundee of all places, a bleak unsympathetic town, hundreds of miles from civilization. Well, that would help him out, anyway. True, he had had to do this twice before for Joe, and Joe had not, so far, paid him back, but Joe was a notoriously unlucky devil, and he, Willy Nilly, topping the bill at the Railham Empire, couldn’t let a pal in.
When he got back to his own drawing-room, Chris was stretched at full length on the sofa, smoking a cigarette and drinking whiskey and soda.
“Sorry to have kept you, Chris, old boy.”
“It’s all right. I’ve just helped myself to a tot from the sideboard.”
“That’s right. That’s right. Now let’s see, it’s a quarter to eleven. I’ll have to wash out this trial, old boy. I shall be late for Albus. I like that song. I’d like to have another go at it. Have another tot, Chris, old boy. I’ll join you, then I must be off.”
But he didn’t get to Albus that morning, because on leaving the house he remembered that he hadn’t called on old Mrs. Labbory. He _must_ just pop in for a few moments. It was only ten minutes’ walk away. He purchased a fowl and a bottle of Madeira and hurried to 27, Radnor Street. He found his old landlady propped up on the pillows, looking gaunt and distant, as though she were already regarding the manifestations of social life from a long way off and would never participate in them again.
“Well, Martha, old girl, how goes it? Merry and bright, eh? Oh, you’re looking fine. More colour than last week, eh? ... eating better, old girl?”
A voice came across the years.
“I’m not so well, Jim. God bless you for coming.”
“Of course I come. I come because I’m a selfish old rascal. I come because I want to, I know where I’m appreciated, eh? Ha, ha, ha, now don’t you think you’re getting worse. You’re getting on fine. We’ll soon have you about again, turning out cupboards, hanging wallpapers. Jemimy! Do you remember hanging that convolvulus wallpaper in my bedroom in the Gosport Road, eh?” The Funny Man slapped his leg, and the tears rolled down his cheeks with laughter at the recollection of the episode.
“Do you remember how I helped you? And all I did was to step into a pail of size, nearly broke my leg, and spoilt the only pair of trousers I had! Ha, ha, ha! He, he, he! I had to go to bed for four hours while you washed them out and aired ’em. O dear!”
Old Mrs. Labbory began to laugh, too, in a feeble, distant manner. Then she stopped and looked at him wistfully.
“You going to Katie Easebrook’s wedding, Jim?”
“Eh? Oh, yes, I’m going, old girl. I’m going straight on now.”
He hadn’t meant to mention this. There’s something a little crude in talking about a wedding to a dying woman. He paused and looked uncomfortably at his feet. The voice from the past reached him again.
“You ought to have married Katie Easebrook.”
“Eh? What’s that? Me? Oh, no, old girl, what are you talking about? Me marry Katie Easebrook? Why, I wouldn’t have had the face to ask her. Not when there’s a good fellow like Charlie about.”
Like some discerning oracle came the reply:
“Charlie’s a good feller, a good-looking feller, too--but you would have made her a better husband, Jim.”
With some curious twist of chivalry and affection the little man gripped the old woman’s hand and kissed it.
“You’ve always thought too much of me, Martha, old girl.”
“I’ve had good cause to, Jim.... Good-bye.”
He walked a little unsteadily down Radnor Street. A pale October sun filtered through a light mist, and gave to the meagre front gardens a certain glamour. Fat spiders hung in glistening webs between the shrubs and Japanese anemones. Children were playing absorbing games with chalk and stones upon the pavement. Cats looked down sleepily from the security of narrow walls. He had to pat a little girl’s head and arbitrate in a dispute between two girls and a boy regarding the laws of a game called “Snowball.”
“Life is a lovely thing,” he thought as he hurried on. “Poor old Martha!... She’s going out.”
He was, of course, late for the service in the church. In some way he did not regret this. He slipped quietly into a seat at the back, unobserved. A hymn was being sung, or was it a psalm? He didn’t know. There was something about a church service he didn’t like. It disturbed him at some uncomfortable level. Charlie was standing by the altar, looking self-conscious and impatient. Katie was a ghostly unrecognizable figure, like a fly bound up in a spool in a spider’s web. Thirty or forty people were scattered on either side of the central aisle. He could only see their backs. The parson began to drone the service, slowly enunciating the prescribed purposes of the married state. Willy Nilly felt a flush of discomfort. It somehow didn’t seem right that Katie should have to stand there before all these people and have things put to her quite so straight.
“Rather detailed, old boy,” he thought. “Perhaps that’s why a bride wears a veil.”
When it was over, he walked boldly up the aisle and followed a few intimates into the vestry. He was conscious of people indicating him with nudges and whispering: “Look! That’s Willy Nilly!”
In the vestry, Katie’s mother was weeping, and Katie appeared to be weeping with one eye and laughing with the other. A few relatives were shaking hands, kissing and talking excitedly. Someone said: “Here’s Willy Nilly.”
Charlie gripped his hand and whispered:
“Come on Willie, old boy, kiss the bride.”
The bride looked up at him with her glorious eyes, and held out her arms.
“Dear old Willie ... so glad you came, old boy.”
He kissed the bride all right, and held her from him.
“God bless you, dear old girl. God bless you. May you ... may all your dreams come true, old girl.”
In most weddings there is a streak of pathos, but in theatrical weddings the note is predominant. It is as though the lookers-on realize that these people whose life is passed in make-believe are bound to burn their fingers when they begin to touch reality. Perhaps their reactions are too violent to be bound within the four walls of a contract.
Katie’s wedding certainly contained a large element of sadness.
“She looks so sweet and fragile. I hope he’ll be good to her,” women whispered.
The lunch at the Hautboy Hotel was hilarious to an almost artificial degree. A great deal of champagne was drunk, and toasts were prolific. It was here that Willy Nilly came in. The Funny Man excelled himself. He was among the people who knew him and loved him. He made goo-goo eyes at the bridesmaids, he told stories, he imitated all the denizens of a farmyard, he gave a mock conjuring display, and his speech in proposing the health of the bride’s father and mother was the hit of the afternoon. (He was not allowed the principal toast as that had been allocated to Charlie’s father, who was a stockbroker.) To the waiter who hovered behind chairs with napkined magnums of champagne, he kept on saying:
“Not too much, old boy. I’ve a rehearsal at three-forty.”
Nevertheless, he drained his glass every time it was filled. The craving to be funny exceeded every other craving. Willy Nilly had knocked about the world in every kind of company. It took a lot to go to his head. It was almost impossible to make him drunk. When at three o’clock it was time for the bride and bridegroom to depart he was not by any means drunk, certainly not so drunk as Charlie, but he was in a slightly detached comatose state of mind. He kissed the bride once more, and to Charlie he said:
“God bless you, old boy. Be good to her. You’ve got the dearest woman in the world.”
And Charlie replied:
“I know, old boy. You’ve been a brick to us. You oughtn’t to have sent the cheque as well as all that silver. Good luck, old boy.”
“O my in-laws, my in-laws, why don’t you leave me be.” It seemed but a flash from one experience to another, from pressing the girl’s dainty shoulders in a parting embrace to stamping about on the draughty stage and calling into the void:
“Now, Mr. Prescott, I want a little more slowing down of this passage. Do you see what I mean, old boy? It gives me more time for the business.”
The gag with the trombone player was considerably improved. Must keep going, doing things--a contract to sign at five-fifteen. He was feeling tired when the rehearsal was over--mustn’t get tired before the two shows to-night. Perhaps he could get half an hour’s nap after seeing the agent before it was time to feed. Someone gave him a cup of tea in the theatre, and a dresser told him a long story about a disease which his wife’s father got through sitting on a churchyard wall, waiting for the village pub. to open at six.
There appeared no interval of time between this and sitting in front of the suave furtive-looking gentleman named Welsh who “handled” him on behalf of the United Varieties Agency. He was conscious of not being at his best with Welsh. He believed that he could have got much better terms in his new contract, but somehow the matter did not appear to him to be of great importance. He changed the subject and told Welsh the story about the sea captain and the Irish stewardess. Welsh laughed immoderately. After all, quite a good fellow--Welsh. He was anxious to get away and see some boys at the club. Jimmy would certainly have a new story ready. He hadn’t seen Jimmy for four days.
Jimmy was certainly there, and not only Jimmy, but old Barrow, and Sam Lenning, and a host of others. He had a double Scotch whisky and proceeded to take a hand in the game of swopping improper stories. At one time something seemed to jog at his consciousness and say: “Do you really think much of this kind of thing, old boy?” And another voice replied: “What does it matter?... They’ve just arrived at Brighton railway station. In another ten minutes they’ll be at ‘The Ship.’”
“I thought you were going to have a chop at six-thirty, Willy,” someone remarked to him suddenly.
“So I am, old boy.”
“It’s seven-fifteen now.”
Good gracious! So it was! Well, he didn’t particularly want a chop. He would have a couple of sandwiches and another double Scotch. He was quite himself again in his dressing room at the theatre. He loved the smell of grease paint and spirit gum, the contact of fantastic whiskers and clothes, the rather shabby mirror under a strong light. His first song was going to be “Old Fags,” the feckless ruffian who picks up cigarette ends. The dresser, whose name was Flood and who always called him Mr. Nilly, was ready with his three changes.
“Number five’s on,” came the message down the corridors. Good! There was only “Charlemayne,” the equilibrist, between him and “his people.”
Willy Nilly had got to love “his people” as he mentally designated them. He knew them, and they knew him--the reward of many years’ hard work. He loved stumbling down the corridors, through the iron doors, and groping his way amidst the dim medley of the wings, where gorgeous unreal women, and men in bowler hats patted him as he passed and whispered:
“Hullo, Willy, old boy! Good luck!”
He loved to wait there and hear his number go up; the roar of welcome which greeted it was music to his soul.
“Number seven!”
The orchestra played the opening bars and then with a queer shuffle he was before them, a preposterous figure with a bright red nose, a miniature bowler hat, and a fearful old suit with ferns growing out of the seams, and a heavy sack slung across his back.
“Old Fags! Old Fags! See my collection of fine old fags. If you want to be happy, If you want to be gay, Empty your sack At the fag-end of the day.”
Oh, yes, you ought to see Willy Nilly in “Old Fags.” The habitués at the Railham Empire will tell you all about him. The doleful wheezy voice, the quaint antics, and then the screamingly funny business when he empties the sack of cigarette ends all over the stage and, of course, at the bottom is a bottle of gin and a complete set of ladies’ undies (apparently new and trimmed in pink). Then the business of finding innumerable cigarette ends in his unmanageable beard.
On that night, Willy Nilly was at his best. A lightning change and he came on as “The Carpet Salesman” in which he brought on a roll of carpet, the opportunities concerning which are obvious. Then followed “The lady who works for the lady next door.” The inevitable encore--prepared for and expected--followed. A terrible Russian--more whiskers, red this time--singing:
“O Mary-vitch, O Ada-vitch I don’t know which Ich lieber ditch; I told your pa I’d got the itch; He promptly hit me On the snitch.”
It was difficult for Willy to escape after this valiant satirical digression.
He fled perspiring to his dressing-room.
“Give me a drink, old boy,” he gasped to the lugubrious Flood.
He had smothered his face in cocoa-butter, when there was a knock on the door.
“Mr. Peter Wilberforce, representing the _Railham Mercury_.”
“Ah, yes, come in, old boy.”
Mr. Wilberforce was in no hurry to depart. He had a spot--“just a couple of fingers, old boy” of whisky. He wanted a column of bright stuff for the next issue of the weekly. “Is Railham behind the other suburbs in humour? Interview with the famous Willy Nilly--our local product.”
“You just give me a lead,” said Mr. Wilberforce, “I’ll fill in the padding.”
Willy Nilly found turning out the bright stuff immediately after his performance the most exhausting experience of the day. He was quite relieved when, at the end of forty minutes, there was a knock at the door, and a woman with a lanky son was shown in. This was the young man who wanted to go on the stage. The pressman departed and the mother started forth on a long harangue about what people said about her son’s remarkable genius for acting. Before Willy Nilly knew where he was, he was listening to the boy giving imitations of Beerbohm Tree and Henry Ainley. It was quite easy to tell which was meant to be which, and so Willy grasped the young man’s hand and said:
“Very good, old boy! Very good.”
He promised to do what he could, but by the time the mother had gone all over the same ground three times he found it was too late to pop round to the club again. It was nearly time to make up for the second show. He dozed in the chair for a few moments. Suddenly he thought:
“They’ve had dinner. They’re probably taking a stroll on the front before turning in.”
He poured himself out another tot of whisky and picked up his red nose.
“O God! How tired I feel!... Not quite the man you were, old boy.”
He found it a terrible effort to go on that second time. “Old Fags” seemed flat. He began to be subtly aware that the audience knew that he knew that the song wasn’t really funny at all. At the end the applause was mild. “The Carpet Salesman” went even worse.
“Pull yourself together, old boy,” he muttered as he staggered off. It wouldn’t do. A man who tops the bill can’t afford not to bring the house down with every song. He made a superhuman effort with “The lady who works for the lady next door.” It certainly went better than the others, just well enough to take an encore rather quickly. On this occasion he altered his encore. Instead of “Mary-vitch,” he sang a hilarious song with the refrain:
“O my! Hold me down! My wife’s gone away till Monday!”
At the end of the first verse he felt that he had got them. Success excited him. He went for it for all he was worth. Willy Nilly was himself again. The house roared at him. He had the greatest difficulty in escaping without giving a further encore. As he stumbled up the stone staircase to his dressing-room, he suddenly thought:
“They’ve gone to bed now.”
The imperturbable Flood followed him, laden with properties.
“I’ll just have one more spot, Flood, old boy.”
How tired he was! He cleaned up languidly and got into his normal clothes.
“Well, that’s that, old boy,” he said to Flood. “Now I think we’ll toddle off to our bye-byes.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Nilly, wasn’t you going round to Mr. Bird Craft’s?”
Eh? Oh, yes, for sure; he’d forgotten about poor old Bird. Couldn’t exactly let an old pal in. Well, he would have a cab and hang the expense--just stay a few minutes--dear old Bird would understand. But he stayed an hour at Bird Craft’s. He listened to three new comic songs and a lot of patter.
“Yes, you’ve got a winner there, old boy,” he remarked at the end of each song.