Erb/Chapter 5

by W. Pett Ridge

 

CHAPTER V

ERB entered upon his duties with appetite. The single office of the new society was a spare room over a coffee tavern in Grange Road, and the first disbursement was for the painting on the window in bold white letters the full title of the society, with the added words, “Herbert Barnes, Secretary.” (Young Louisa went five minutes out of her way, morning and evening, in order to see this proclamation of her brother's name.) To the office came Erb promptly every morning at an hour when the attendants at the coffee-room were on their knees scrubbing, chairs set high on tables, and forms on end against the walls, and the young women were a good deal annoyed by the fact that Erb, in these circumstances, bestowed on them none of the chaff and badinage which were as necessary to their existence as the very air. When he had gone through the post letters—the more there were of these the more contented he was—and had answered them on postcards, he went out, fixing a notice on the door, “Back Shortly. Any messages leave at Bar,” and hurried to some some point where railway carmen were likely to congregate, harrying non-members into becoming members, passing the word round in regard to public meetings, hunting for grievances, and listening always, even when some, with erroneous ideas of his duties, requested advice in regard to some domestic trouble with lodgers, or insubordination on the part of babes. All this meant visits to Paddington, to Willesden, to Dalston, to Poplar, to Nine Elms: it gave to him a fine sensation of ruling London and, in some way, the thought that he was repairing errors made at the creation of the world. He came in contact with the white-haired Labour member of Parliament, and watched his manner closely; the Labour member invited Erb one evening to the House of Commons, and Erb found that the Labour member had for the House a style differing entirely from that which he used in other places, measuring words with care, speaking with deliberation, and avoiding all the colloquialisms and the jagged sentences that made him popular when he addressed outdoor meetings. And as all young men starting the journey through life model themselves on some one who has arrived, Erb determined to acquire this admirable alternative manner.

Thus it was that one Thursday evening he took courage by the hand, and went Camberwell way to call again at the house where on his previous visit he had made undignified departure because of a pair of rather bright eyes. He thought of her with some nervousness as he went down Camberwell New Road, and, putting aside for a moment the serious matters, gave himself the joy of reviewing his female acquaintances. He had just come to the sage decision that different women exacted entirely different tributes, some demanding reverence, others admiration, and others something more fervent, when he found himself at the gate and the uneven path between the monumental statuary that led to the door of Professor Danks's house. The street was one affecting to make a short cut to Queen's Road, Peckham, but it did not really make a short cut; within its crescent form it included new model dwellings of a violent red, elderly houses with verandahs, a Liberal Club, and a chapel. A part of the road had undergone the process of being shopped, which is to say that the long useless front gardens had been utilised, and anxious, empty, unsuccessful young establishments came out to the pavement, expending all their profits on gas, and making determined efforts either by placard or minatory signs to persuade the passers-by that business was enormous, and that it was with difficulty that customers could be checked in their fierce desire to patronise. One had started with the proud boast, “Everything at Sixpence-halfpenny,” and had later altered the six to five, and the five to four; only necessary to allow time, and there seemed some good prospect that the reckless shop would eventually give its contents free. Erb pulled at the bell-handle, and it came out obligingly.

“Now you 'ave gone and done it,” said the small servant who opened the door. “That's clever, that is. I suppose you get medals for doing tricks like that? Well, well,” she continued fractiously, as Erb made no reply, “don't stand there like a great gawk with the knob in your 'and. What d'you want?”

“Might Professor Danks be in?” asked Erb.

“He might and he might not,” explained the small servant. “He's jest sleepin' it off a bit on the sofa.”

“Can I see anyone else?”

“Come in,” said the girl with a burst of friendliness. “Never mind about wipin' your boots; it's getting to the end of the week. You could see her if you didn't mind waiting till she's finished giving a lesson.”

“Shall I wait here in the passage?”

“Don't disturb him,” whispered the girl, “if I let you rest your weary bones in the back room.” She opened the door of the back room quietly. “She's as right as rain,” whispered the girl confidently, “but he——” The girl gave an expressive wave of the hand, signifying that the Professor was not indispensable to the world's happiness. Erb went in. “I'd stay and chat to you,” she said through the doorway, “only there's my ironin'. I've got the 'ole 'ouse to look after, mind you, besides answering the front door.”

“Takes a bit of doing, no doubt.”

“You never said a truer word,” whispered the short servant. “If you want me, 'oller 'Lizer!' over the banisters.”

Professor Danks, asleep on the sofa, had the Era over his face for better detachment from a wakeful world: the paper was slipping gradually, and Erb, watching him over the top of the book, knew that the eclipse would be over and the features fully visible in a few minutes. Meanwhile, he noticed that the Professor was a large, heavy man, with snowy hair at one end, and slippers which had walked along muddy pavements at the other; not a man, apparently, of active habits.

“I fear I shall never make anything of you.” Her decided voice came from the front room. “You don't pay attention. You don't seem to remember what I tell you.”

“Mustn't be too harsh with my husband, miss,” said a voice with the South London whine. “We all have to make a beginning, don't forget that.”

“Now, sir. Once more, please, we'll go through this piece of poetry. And when you say the first lines, 'Give others the flags of foreign states,' show some animation; don't say the words casually, as though you were talking of the weather.”

“You understand, miss,” interposed the pupil's wife, “that he's made up the words out of his own head.”

“I am sure of that,” with a touch of sarcasm.

“But, whilst he's very clever in putting poetry together, he is not so good—I'm speaking, Albert dear, for your own benefit—he is not so good in reciting of them. And we go out into Society a great deal (there's two parties on at New Cross only next month that we're asked to), and what I thought was that it would be so nice any time when an evening began to go a bit slow for me to say casually, ye know, 'Albert, what about that piece you made up yourself?' Then for him to get up and recite it in a gentlemanly way.”

“Come now,” said the instructress, “'Give others the flags of foreign states, I care not for them a jot.'”

“Of course,” interposed the wife again, “his high-pitched voice is against him, but that's his misfortune, not his fault. Also you may think that he's left it rather late to take up with elocution. If we'd ever had any children of our own——”

“I really think,” said the girl, “that we must get on with the lesson. Now, sir, if you please. 'Give others the flags.'”

The Era had slipped from the Professor's red face, and the swollen, poached-egg eyes moved, the heavy eyelids made one or two reluctant efforts to unclose. The room, Erb thought, looked as though it were troubled by opposing forces, one anxious to keep it neat and keep it comfortable, the other with entirely different views, and baulking these efforts with some success. Erb saw the household clearly and felt a desire to range himself on the side of order.

“Good evening,” he said, when the leaden eyelids had decided to open. “Having your little nap, sir?”

The Professor sat up, kneading his eyes and then rubbing his white hair violently.

“I have been,” he said, in a voice that would have sounded important if it had not been hoarse, “making a brief excursion into the land of dreams.” He clicked his tongue. “And a devil of a mouth I've got on me, too.” He rose heavily and went to a bamboo-table where two syphons were standing, tried them, and found they were empty. “A curse,” he said, “on both your houses.”

“I've called about some lessons.”

“Lessons!” repeated the Professor moodily. “That I, Reginald Danks, should be reduced to this! I, who might have been at the Lyceum at the present moment but for fate and Irving. How many lessons,” he asked with a change of manner, “do you require, laddie?”

“I thought about six,” said Erb.

“Make it a dozen. We offer thirteen for the price of twelve.”

“What would that number run me into? I want them more for public speaking than anything else.”

“We shall do the whole bag of tricks for you,” said the Professor, placing an enormous hand on Erb's shoulder, “for a mere trifle.”

“Who is 'we?'”

“Rather should you say, 'To whom is it that you refer?' In this self-appointed task of imparting the principles of voice production and elocution to the—to the masses,” the Professor seemed to restrain himself forcibly from using a contumelious adjective, “I have the advantage of valuable assistance from my daughter. Her system is my system, her methods are my methods, her rules are my rules. If at any time I should be called away on professional business,” here the Professor passed his hand over his lip, “my daughter, Rosalind, takes my place. What is your age?”

Erb gave the information.

“Ah,” the Professor sighed deeply, “in '74 I was with Barry Sullivan doing the principal towns in a repertoire. No, I'm telling you a lie. It was not in '74. It was in the autumn of '73. I played Rosencrantz and the First Gravedigger—an enormous success.”

“Which?”

“I went from Barry Sullivan to join the 'Murderous Moment' Company, and that,” said the Professor, striking his waistcoat, “was perhaps one of the biggest triumphs ever witnessed on the dramatic stage. From that hour, sir, from that hour I never looked back.”

The high-voiced pupil in the front room finished his lesson, and his wife took him off with the congratulatory remark that he promised well to make her relatives at forthcoming parties sit up with astonishment. The Professor's daughter, seeing them both to the front door, remarked that her pupil would be able to find his way alone the next time, whereupon the pupil's wife answered darkly, “Do you really think I should let him go out alone?”

“Shall I settle with you?” asked Erb.

“My daughter Rosalind,” said the Professor regretfully, “insists, as a general rule, on taking charge of the business side, but on this occasion——”

“If that's the rule,” interrupted Erb, “don't let's break it. I don't want any misunderstanding about matters of cash.”

“There have been times in my life, sir, when money has been as nothing to me. Will you believe that there was a time in my professional career when I earnt twenty guineas—twenty of the best—per week?”

“Since you ask me, my answer is 'No.'”

“You are quite right,” said the Professor, and in no way disconcerted. “Let us be exact in our statements or perish. Not twenty guineas, twenty pounds. But that,” he went on rather hurriedly, “that was at a time when real acting, sir, was appreciated. Nowadays they walk in from the streets. Ee-locution is a lost art; acting, real acting, is not to be seen on the London boards. If you have a cigarette about you, I can get a light from the fireplace.”

Erb acted upon this hint, and listened for the girl's voice.

“Her mother,” went on the Professor, puffing at the cigarette, and then looking at it disparagingly, “her mother before she fell ill—mind, I'm not complaining—was perhaps, without exception, the most diversified arteest that ever graced the dramatic stage. Ingénue, old woman, soubrette, nothing came amiss to her. That was the difference between us—she liked work. And when, just before the end, when I'd been out of engagement for some time, she had an offer for the pair of us, two pounds ten the couple, such was her indomitable spirit that she actually wanted to accept it. But I said 'No.' I put my foot down. I admit,” said the Professor genially, “that poverty I could face, dee-privation I could endure, hunger and thirst I could welcome with o-pen arms, but a contemptuous proposition such as this I could not, should not, and would not tolerate. I repeated this,” added the Professor with a fine roll and a sweep of the left hand, “at the inquest.”

“You're a nice one, I don't think,” said Erb critically. “How is it they let you live on?”

“Laddie,” said the Professor, tearfully, “my life is not an enviable one even now. My own daughter—Soft!—she comes.”

It occurred to Erb later that in his anxiety to show himself a careless, self-possessed fellow, he rather overdid it, presenting himself in the light of one slightly demented. He nodded his head on formal introduction by the Professor, hummed a cheerful air, and, taking out a packet of cigarette papers, blew at one, and recollecting, twisted the detached slip into a butterfly shape and puffed it to the ceiling. The girl looked at him, at her father, then again at Erb. She had a pencil resting between the buttons of her pink blouse, and but for a slight contraction of the forehead that is the public sign of private worry, would have been a very happy-looking young person indeed.

“A would-be student,” said her father with a proud wave of the hand towards Erb, as though he had just made him, “a would-be student, my love: one anxious to gain at our hands the principles of voice pro-duction and ee-locution.”

“When do you propose to begin, sir?” she asked, limping slightly as she went to a desk.

“Soon as your father's ready, miss.”

“I have heard you speak in the park.”

“Most people have!” replied Erb, with a fine assumption of indifference.

“I'll just register your name, please.”

“Our sys-tem,” said the Professor oracularly, as Erb bent over her and gave the information (there was a pleasant warm scent from her hair), “is to conduct everything in a perfectly business-like manner. I remember on one occasion Mr. Phelps said to me, 'Danks, my dear young friend, never, never——' My dear Rosalind, give me the word. What was it,” the Professor tapped his large forehead reprovingly, “what was it I was talking about?”

“I don't think it matters, father. You pay in advance, please,” she said to Erb. “Thank you. I'm not sure that I have sufficient change in the house.”

“I will step down the road,” suggested the Professor with a slight excess of eagerness, “and obtain the necessary coins.”

“No, father.”

“Think I've got just enough silver,” said Erb.

“Thank you, Mr. Barnes.”

Good to be called Mister, better still to find it accompanied by a smile of gratitude that somehow also intimated comradeship and a defensive alliance against the ingenious Professor. The Professor, affecting to examine a pimple on his chin at the mirror, looked at his daughter's reflection in an appealing way; but she shook her head quickly. The Professor sighed and, turning back the cuffs of his shirt, put on an elderly velvet jacket.

“I have some work to do downstairs,” she said, with a curt little bow to Erb. “You will excuse me.”

“Only too pleased, miss,” he said blunderingly.

“Father, you will give Mr. Barnes an hour, please, in the front room. I will come up when the time is over.”

“Then I needn't say good-bye,” remarked Erb gallantly.

The Professor in the front room declaimed to the new pupil a passage from the Merchant of Venice, from the centre of the carpet, and then invited him to repeat it, which Erb did, the Professor arresting him at every line, correcting the accent with acerbity and calling attention to the aspirates with something like tears. “Why don't you speak naturally, sir?” demanded the Professor, hitting his own chest with his fist, “as I dew?” At the end of twenty minutes, when the Professor had furnished some really valuable rules in regard to the artifices of voice production, he gave a sudden dramatic start, and begged Erb for pity's sake not to tell him that the day was Thursday and the hour half-past seven. On Erb admitting his inability to give him other information without stepping beyond the confines of truth, the Professor strode up and down the worn carpet in a state of great agitation, declaring that unless he were in the Strand by eight-fifteen, or, at the very latest, eight twenty that evening, he would, in all probability, lose the chance of a lifetime.

“What am I to do?” he asked imploringly. “I appeal to you, laddie? Show me where duty calls?”

On Erb suggesting that perhaps Miss Rosalind would finish the lesson, the Professor shook him warmly by both hands and ordered heaven in a dictatorial way to rain down blessings on the head of his pupil. One difficulty remained. Time pressed, and every moment was (in all probability) golden. Could Mr. Barnes, as an old friend, oblige with half a—no, not half a crown, two shillings. The Professor, in the goodness of his heart, did not mind four sixpences, and hurrying out into the passage, struggled into a long brown overcoat of the old Newmarket shape, took his soft hat, and, having called over the banisters to his daughter to favour him with a moment's conversation, bustled through the passage whispering to Erb, “You can explain better than I,” and going out, closed the door quietly. There were signs of flour on the girl's plump arms as she came up; she rolled down the sleeves of the pink blouse as she entered the front room. Her forehead contracted as she listened.

“How much did he borrow?” she asked, checking a sigh.

“Nothing,” replied Erb boldly.

“Two shillings or a half a crown?”

“But I couldn't possibly think for a moment——” he began protestingly.

“I wish you had,” she said. “Take it, please. I don't want father to run into debt if I can help it.”

“Makes me feel as though I'm robbing you.”

“Do you know,” said Miss Rosalind, with not quite half a smile, “it makes me feel as though I were being robbed. Let us get on with the lesson, please; I have another pupil coming at half-past eight.” Erb, for a hot moment, was consumed with unreasonable jealousy of the next pupil. “She is always punctual,” added Rosalind, and Erb became cooler. “Take this book, please, and read aloud the passage I have marked.”

There were faded photographs on the mantelpiece of ladies with exuberant smiles, calculated to disarm any criticism in regard to their eccentric attire, their signatures sprawled across the lower right hand corner, “Ever yours most affectionate!” A frame that had seen stormy days outside provincial theatres hung on the wall with the address of its last exhibition half rubbed off. Erb as he listened to the girl's serious corrections and warning, guessed that the half-dozen portraits it contained were all of Rosalind's mother; they ranged from one as Robinson Crusoe with a white muff to a more matronly representation of (judging from her hat) a designing Frenchwoman holding a revolver in one hand, and clearly prepared to use this. In another she was fondling a child, whose head and face were almost covered by a stage wig, and the child bore some far-away resemblance to the present instructress. On Rosalind limping across the room to place on the fire an economical lump of coal, Erb framed an expression of sympathy; common-sense most fortunately gagged him.

“You left school when you were very young?” said the girl, looking over her shoulder from the fireplace.

“Pawsed the sixth standard when I was——”

“Oh, please, please! Don't say pawsed.”

“I passed the sixth standard when I was twelve, because I had to. Father was Kentish born, mother wasn't. Both died in the”—Rosalind put her hands apprehensively to her ears—“in the hospital in one week, both in one week, and I had to set to and get shot of the Board School and go out.”

“As?” she asked curiously.

“As chief of the Transport Department to the principal railway companies,” said Erb glibly, “and personal friend, and, I may say, adviser to his royal family.”

“We will proceed,” said Rosalind, haughty on the receipt of sarcasm, “with the lesson, please. There is much to be done in the way of eradicating errors in your speech.”

The reliable lady pupil due at eight-thirty spoilt her record by arriving half an hour late. Thus, when Erb's lesson was finished and the clock on the mantelpiece gave the hour in a hurried asthmatic way, there was still time for polite conversation on a variety of topics; the house, Erb discovered, was not theirs, they only occupied furnished apartments; they had lived in many parts of London, because, said Rosalind cautiously, the Professor liked a change now and again. Erb backed slowly towards the door as each subject was discussed, anxious to stay as long as possible, but more anxious still to make his exit with some clever impressive final remark. He found her book of notices, and insisted politely on reading the neatly pasted slips cut from the Hornsey Express, the South London Journal, the Paddington Magpie, and other newspapers of repute, which said “Miss Rosalind Danks in her recitals made the hit of the evening, and the same may be said of all the other artists on the programme.” That “Miss R. Danks, as our advertisement column shows, is to give An Evening with the Poets and Humorists at our Town Hall on Thursday evening. We wish her a bumper.” That “Miss Rosalind Danks's naïveté of manner and general chic enabled her in an American contribution to score a terrific 'succés d'estime.' She narrowly escaped an enthusiastic encore.” That “Miss Danks lacks some of the charms necessary for a good platform appearance——”

“For a good platform appearance, but she has a remarkably distinct enunciation, and some of her lines could be heard almost distinctly at the back of the hall.” That “Miss Danks comes of a theatrical stock, and her father is none other than the celebrated Mr. Reginald Danks, whose Antonio still remains in the memory of the few privileged to witness it. Mr. Reginald Danks informs us that he has had several offers from West End theatres, but that he has some idea of going in for management himself as soon as a convenient playhouse can be secured. Of this, more anon.”

It was natural when Erb had looked through these notices that he should find in his pocket two or three copies of a small poster advertising a lecture by him on the forthcoming Sunday evening, at a hall in Walworth Road. “Mr. Herbert Barnes,” said the poster loudly, adding in a lower voice, “Organising Secretary Railway Carmen's Union, will speak on 'The Working Man: What Will Become of Him?' No collection. Discussion invited.” Erb gave Miss Rosalind one of these as a present, and then said, “Well now, I must be off,” as though he had been detained greatly against his will.

And here it was that Erb made one of those mistakes of commission which the most reliable of us effect at uncertain intervals. He took up the photograph of a fur-coated young man, clean-shaven face, thin lips, and not quite enough of chin.

“And who,” asked Erb pityingly, “who might this young toff be?”

“He is stage manager,” she said rather proudly, “to a company touring in the provinces. Acts too.”

“Relation?”

“Not yet,” said Rosalind.

As Erb blundered through the passage Rosalind warned him to attend to the home-work she had given him to do, and to come promptly to his next lesson; she held the door open until Erb went out of the gate, a new politeness which he acknowledged by lifting his hat. He had never lifted his hat to a lady before, and had always smiled contemptuously when he had seen gallant youths performing this act of respect. To atone for this retrograde movement he ran against the tardily-arriving lady pupil, and went on without apology; the lady pupil ejaculated, “Clown!” and Erb felt that he had righted himself in his own estimation.

He looked about him as he walked up the crowded pavement towards the Elephant and Castle, because it was always one of his duties to recognise the railway vans. Disappointment clouded his eyes: he blamed himself for so far forgetting the principal duty of his life as to waste time on unremunerative investments. This was why he missed a Brighton goods van standing with its pair of horses near a large shop in Newington Causeway; the van boy reported Erb's negligence to his mate when he returned, and this coming on the top of other annoying circumstances, the Brighton man said to himself, “This shall be chalked up against you, young Erb.”

Erb reached Page's Walk, having tried ineffectually to walk himself into a good humour, and found Louisa with a round spot of colour high up on either cheek, looking out of the window of the model dwellings and hailing him excitedly.

“Put that 'ead of yours in,” he counselled. “You'll go and catch cold.”

“You won't catch much,” retorted Louisa, “if you don't arrange to be on 'and when wanted. 'Urry upstairs, I've got something to tell you that can't be bawled.”

Erb ran up the stone stairs, and Louisa met him at the door of the sitting-room, her eyes bigger than ever with the importance. The room had a slight perfume of violets.

“Who d'you think's been 'ere?”

“Tell us,” said Erb.

“But guess,” begged Louisa, enjoying the power that was hers.

“Can't guess.”

“Lady Frances,” said Louisa, in an impressive whisper.

“Well,” remarked Erb curtly, “what of it?”

“What of it? Why, she wanted you to show her over Bermondsey, and she waited here upwards of a hower, chatting away to me like anything.”

“Any other news?”

“Yes,” said Louisa reluctantly, “but nothing of much importance. Letter from Aunt Emma; she's coming up soon. Oh, and a man called to say there was trouble brewin' at Willer Walk, and would you see about it as soon as possible.”

“Now,” remarked Erb elatedly, “now you're talking.”