Erb/Chapter 8

by W. Pett Ridge

 

CHAPTER VIII

AT the Obelisk streets radiate, and the tramcars going to London have to make their choice. The theatre in the road that leads to Blackfriars Bridge is a theatre of middle age, with its own opinion of the many juvenile competitors that have sprung up during recent years in near and in distant suburbs: it endeavours to preserve the semblance of youth and modernity by putting on four white globes of electric light, but its age is betrayed by a dozen women with aprons full of oranges, “Two a punny, a punny for two” (oranges are not eaten in the new theatres), and a tray on high trestles loaded with pigs' trotters, which no one ever buys. Some steps go up to the shilling and the sixpenny seats; early doors, which exact from the over-anxious an additional threepence, are in a dark alley at the side, at the end of which is a door that leads to the box-office by day and the stage entrance by night. On the outside of the house has coloured posters of grisly scenes that make the passer-by chill with fear: a yellow woman hurled down a blue precipice; the same lady bound by cords to a grandfather's clock, which shows the hour as three minutes to twelve, and facing her two crape-masked men with pistols; underneath the horrid words, “At midnight, my lady, you die.” A pleasanter note in the frames of photographs that hang slightly askew. Here, Mr. Lawrence Railton as a wicked Italian (at any rate, his moustache turns upwards), as Gratiano in a third-hand costume of the Louis the Fifteenth period, as Inspector Beagle in Tracking the Criminal, and in as many more characters as the frame will carry; in the centre, Mr. Lawrence Railton as the art of the photographer would have him be in real life, evening dress, insufficient chin, contemptuous smile—the portrait which occupied the position of honour on Rosalind's mantelpiece.

A conspicuous evening for Erb, by reason of the circumstance that he had the honour of conveying Rosalind to the theatre; this because her father, having borrowed individual shillings on individual days from her on the promise of accompanying her had, at the last moment, come into a windfall of two and threepence, and had thereupon remembered an urgent appointment with a dramatist of note at a public-house just off the Strand. “Should the fates be kind,” said Rosalind's father, “I shall endeavour to honour the performance with my presence later on.” Louisa had organised a raffle at her factory for a circle ticket, and a chapel-going girl, who had picked the highest number out of a straw hat accompanied her, with the full anticipation—this being her first visit to the play—that she was about to witness scenes that might well imperil her future existence; unwilling, all the same, to give her prize away or to sell. Erb, confronted with the responsibility of transporting three ladies, had vague ideas of a four-wheeler, but remembered in time that this would excite criticism from members ever anxious to detect and crush any effort he might make to commit the unpardonable sin of “putting on side;” compensation came in being allowed to walk by the side of Rosalind, who, near Camberwell Gate, seemed to be dressed prettily but with restraint, but who, as they approached the “Elephant and Castle,” increased in smartness by contrast with the surroundings of Walworth Road. There were crossings to be managed, and Erb, in the most artful way, assisted her here by insinuating his arm underneath her cape, wondering at his own courage, and rather astonished to find that he was not reproved. Rosalind's manner differed from that of other young women of the district in that she dispensed with the defiant attitude which they assumed, never to be varied from the first introduction to the last farewell.

“And now the question is,” said Louisa's colleague, “ought I to go in or ought I to stay outside?”

“Considering you've got a ticket,” replied little Louisa satirically, “it seems a pity to go in. Why not stay outside and 'ave an orange instead?”

“Oh,” said the chapel-goer recklessly, “now I'm here I may jest as well go on with it. In for a penny in for a pound. If the worst comes to the worst, I can shut me eyes and—— Who's that lifting his cap to you?”

“'Ullo,” remarked Louisa, “you alive still?”

The lad threw away the end of his cigarette, and, advancing, remarked in a bass voice that he had thought it as well to come up on the off chance of meeting Louisa.

“My present young man,” said Louisa, introducing the lad.

“Well,” said the chapel girl resignedly, “this is the beginning of it.”

Erb, again assisting, took Rosalind up the broad stone staircase; swing doors permitted them to go into the warm, talkative theatre. A few shouts of recognition were raised from various quarters as Erb went in, and he nodded his head in return, but he looked sternly at the direction whence a cry came of “Is that the missus, Erb?” and the chaffing question was not repeated. Down near the stage the orchestra made discordant sounds, the cornet blew a few notes of a frivolous air for practice. Erb bought a programme for Rosalind, and asked if anything else was required; Rosalind, from a satin bag which hung from her wrist, produced a pair of early Victorian opera glasses, bearing an inscription addressed to her mother, “From a few Gallery Boys,” and said, “No, thank you,” with a smile that made his head spin round.

“But would you mind,” she flushed as she leaned forward to whisper this, “would you mind telling Mr. Railton that I—I should very much like to see him after the show?”

At the stage door a postman had just called, and Erb, waiting for permission to go in whilst the door-keeper sorted the letters, could not help noticing that a violet envelope, in a feminine handwriting, was placed under the clip marked R; it was addressed to Lawrence Railton, Esquire. The doorkeeper gave permission with a jerk of the head, as though preferring not to compromise himself by speech, and Erb went up through the narrow corridor where the office and the dressing-rooms were situated. Cards were pinned on the door of the latter, and one of them bore, in eccentric type, the name of the gentleman for whom Rosalind had given him the message. A lady's head came out cautiously from one of the other rooms and called in a shrill voice, “Mag-gie!” A middle-aged woman flew from somewhere in reply with a pair of shoes. Below, the orchestra started the overture of an elderly comic opera; a boy, in a cap, came along the corridor shouting, “Beginners, please!”

“She got in everything for the entire week,” said a triumphant voice inside the room, “settled for my washing, cashed up for every blessed thing, and I've never paid the old girl a sou from that day to this. Hullo! what's blown this in?”

Two young men in the small room, and each making-up in front of a looking-glass; before them open tin cases, powder puffs, sticks of grease paint; bits of linen of many colours. On the walls previous occupiers had drawn rough caricatures: here and there someone had stuck an applauding newspaper notice, or a butterfly advertisement. Neither of the young men looked round as Erb came in, but each viewed his reflection in the looking-glass.

“Name of Railton?” said Erb, inquiringly.

“That's me,” replied one of the two, still gazing into his looking-glass.

“My name's Barnes. I'm secretary to the R.C.S.”

“Any connection with the press?” asked Mr. Railton, fixing a white whisker at the side of his floridly made-up face.

“Not at present!”

“Then what the devil do you mean,” demanded the other hotly, “by forcing your way into the room of two professional men?”

“Yes,” said the man at the other glass, taking up a hand-mirror to examine the back of his head, “what the deuce next, I wonder? For two pins I'd take him by the scruff of his neck and pitch him downstairs.” He glanced at Erb, and added rather hastily to Mr. Railton: “If I were you.”

“I shall most certainly complain to the management,” went on Mr. Railton. “It isn't the first time.”

“I don't know,” said his companion, “what they think the profession's made of. Because we allow ourselves to be treated like a flock of sheep they seem to think they can do just what they dashed well please.”

“I've a precious good mind,” said Mr. Railton, vehemently, “to hand in my notice. Would, too, if it wasn't for the sake of the rest of the crowd.”

He ceased for a second, whilst he made lines down either side of his mouth, falling back from the mirror to consider the effect.

“Quite finished?” asked Erb, good humouredly. “If so, I should like to tell you, my fiery-tempered warriors, that I have only called with a message from Miss Danks—Miss Rosalind Danks.”

“That's one of yours, Lorrie!”

“You mean,” said Mr. Railton casually, as he toned down a line with the powder-puff, “a dot-and-carry-one girl?”

“Miss Danks,” said Erb, “is the leastest bit lame.” He repeated precisely the message which Rosalind had given him, and Mr. Railton clicked his tongue to intimate impatience. “I'll call in again later on,” said Erb, “when you've finished your little bit, and then I can take you round to where she's sitting.”

“Now, why in the world,” cried Mr. Railton, throwing a hairbrush on the floor violently, “why in the world can't people mind their own business? There's a class of persons going about on this earth, my dear Chippy——”

“I know what you are going to say,” remarked the other approvingly.

“And if I had my will I'd hang the whole shoot of them. I would, honestly.”

“I quite believe you would,” said Chippy.

“And I'd draw and quarter them afterwards.”

“And then burn 'em,” suggested Chippy.

“And then burn 'em.”

“Would you amiable gentlemen like to have the door closed?” asked Erb.

“Put yourself outside first,” recommended Mr. Railton.

The stage and its eccentricities attracted Erb as they attract everyone, and, a licensed person for the evening, he went about through the feverish atmosphere, meeting people who appeared ridiculous as they stood at the side of the stage waiting to go on, but who, as he knew, would look more life-like than life with the footlights intervening. Pimple-faced men, in tweed caps, hidden from the audience, held up unreliable trees; kept a hand on a ladder, which enabled the leading lady to go up and speak to her lover from the casemented upper window of a cottage; ran against each other at every fair opportunity, complaining in hoarse whispers of clumsiness. A boy came holding clusters of shining pewter cans by the handles, and peace was restored amongst the stage hands, but for the folk in evening dress, with unnatural eyes and amazing faces, who stood about ready to go on, there remained the strain of excitement; some of them soliloquised in a corner, whilst others talked in extravagant terms of dispraise concerning the new leading lady, hinting that no doubt she was a very good girl and kind to her mother, but that she could not act, my dear old boy, for nuts, or for toffee, or for apples, or other rewards of a moderate nature. These seemed to be only their private views, for they were discarded when the leading lady came down the ladder, and they then gathered round her and told her that she was playing for all she was worth, that she had managed to extract more from that one scene than her predecessor had obtained from the entire play, and hinting quite plainly that it was a dear and a precious privilege to be playing in the same company with her. Mr. Lawrence Railton brought for the leading lady a wooden chair; a middle-aged bird (who was her dresser) hopped forward bringing a woollen shawl, that had started by being white and still showed some traces of its original intention, to place around her shoulders.

“I don't know,” said Mr. Railton, stretching his arms, when, having been ousted from attendance by others, he had strolled up towards Erb, “I don't feel much like acting to-night!”

“Do you ever?” asked Erb.

“It's wonderful,” went on the young man, “simply and absolutely wonderful the different moods that one goes through, and the effect they have on one's performance. I go on giving much the same rendering of a part for several nights on end, and, suddenly, I seem to get a flash of inspiration.”

“Better language!” recommended Erb.

“A flash of inspiration,” said the white whiskered young man with perfect confidence, and keeping his eye on the stage. “It all comes in a moment as it were. And then, by Jove! one can fairly electrify an audience. One sees the house absolutely rise.”

“And go out?” asked Erb.

On the stage the leading man (who was an honest gentleman farmer, showing the gentleman by wearing patent boots, and the farmer by carrying a hunting crop), cried aloud demanding of misfortune whether she had finished her fell conspiracy against him, and this, it appeared, was the cue for Lawrence Railton in his white whiskers and frock-coated suit and a brown hand-bag to go on with the announcement that he had come to foreclose a mortgage, information which the house, knowing vaguely that it boded no good to the hero, received with groans and hisses. Erb, watching from the side, prepared for an exhibition of superior acting on the part of Mr. Railton, and was somewhat astonished to find that, instead of playing a part that forwarded the action of the piece, he was a merely sent on in order to be kicked off, treatment served out to him by an honest labourer, faithful to his master and with considerable humour in his disposition. Any expectations that Railton would take a more serious part in the melodrama were set aside, in a later scene of Act I. When the hero and the faithful young labourer had both enlisted in a crack cavalry regiment, he came on with his brown bag to find them and give information of importance, and was at once, to the great joy of the pit and gallery, again kicked off, whilst the regiment, consisting of eight men and a girl officer, marched round the stage several times to a military air, and, after the girl officer had delivered a few sentences of admirable patriotism, went off to the Royal Albert Docks to take ship for South Africa. Indeed, throughout the piece it was Mr. Railton's privilege to follow the leading man and his low comedy friend, and whether he encountered them on the quay at Cape Town, out on the veldt near Modder River, or at the Rhodes Club at Kimberley, he was ever hailed by the entire theatre with joyous cries of “Kick him, kick him!” advice upon which the low comedy man always acted.

“D'you like your job?” asked Erb at the end of Act II., as he prepared to go round to the front and collect the men of his committee.

“Someone must hold the piece together,” said young Railton, wearily making a cigarette. “Take me away, and the entire show falls to pieces. Even you must have noticed that.”

“Upon my word,” said Erb, looking at him wonderingly, “you are a perfect marvel. I never saw anything like you.”

“Thanks, old chap,” replied the other gratefully, and shaking his hand. “Meet me after the show and we'll have a drink together. I was afraid at first you were a bit of a bounder. Don't mind me saying so now, do you?”

“Not at all,” replied Erb. “You gave me much the same impression.”

“That's most extr'ordinary. There's an idea for a curtain-raiser in that. Two men beginning by hating each other, and later on——”

“Any message for your young lady?”

“Which?” asked Mr. Railton.

“You know very well who I mean,” said Erb with some annoyance.

“Oh,” with sudden enlightenment, “you mean the Danks person. Oh, tell her I'm all right.”

Erb did not trust himself to answer, but went down the narrow stone passage, and drew a deep breath when he reached the doorway and the dimly-lighted alley; he had work to do, and this, as always, enabled him to forget his personal grievances. In the saloon bar of a neighbouring public-house he found two members of his committee: because they wore their Sunday clothes they smoked cigars, which they now extinguished carefully, placing the ends in their waistcoat pockets; they came out on Erb's orders to take up position at the stage door. The others were in front of the house, and Erb, going in and standing by the swing door of the circle, discovered them one by one and gave them signal to come out, which they did with great importance, stepping on toes of mere ordinary people in a lordly way.

“Did he send any message?” asked Rosalind anxiously.

“Sent his love.” Worth saying this to see the quick look of relief and happiness that danced across her face. “Said he was looking forward to seeing you.”

Three minutes later, when the leading man had done something noble that in the proclaimed opinion of the heroine (there, oddly enough, as a nurse) foreshadowed the inevitable Victoria Cross, and Mr. Railton had come on in a kilt to be kicked off once more, and there remained only the affairs of England, home, and beauty to be arranged in the last act; the curtain went down, and two minutes later still, the orchestra having disappeared in search of refreshment and the audience occupied in cracking nuts and hailing acquaintances with great trouble at distant points, the curtain went up again on a flapping scene, behind which the tweed-capped men, it appeared, were setting an elaborate last act, doing it with some audible argument and no little open condemnation of each other's want of dexterity. Chairs on the stage stood in a semicircle, and marching on from the left came the dozen members of the committee in their suits of black, twirling bowler hats, and glancing nervously across the footlights in response to the ejaculatory shouting of names. Spanswick, wearing a look of pained resignation, received a special shout, but the loudest cheers were reserved for the secretary, and those in front who did not know him soon took up the cry.

“Erberberberb——”

It became certain at once that Payne was not to give an epoch-making speech. Confused perhaps by the footlights, uncertain of the attitude of this great crowded theatre, Payne's memory ran its head against a brick wall and stayed there: he made three repetitions of one sentence, and then, having reversed the positions of the tumbler and the decanter, started afresh, the audience encouraging him by cries of “Fetch him out, Towser, fetch him out!” as though Mr. Payne were an unwilling dog, but the same brick wall stood in his way, and, concluding weakly with the remark, “Well, you all know what I mean,” he called upon Erb, and sat down glancing nervously across to the pit stalls, where was Mrs. Payne, her head shaking desolately, her lips moving with unspoken words of derision.

“I'm going to take five minutes,” said Erb, in his distinct and deliberate way. He took out his watch and laid it on the table. “Even if I'm in the middle of a sentence when that time is up, I promise I'll go down like a shot. I suppose you know the story of the man who——”

Good temper smiled and laughed from the front row of the pit stalls and up to the very topmost row of the gallery at Erb's anecdote, and, hoping for another story, they sat forward and listened. He knew that he held them now, knew they would cheer anything he liked to say, providing he said it with enough of emphasis. He went on quickly that this advantage might not be lost, pounding the palm of one hand with the fist of the other, so that the dullest might know by this gesture when a point was intended; spoke of the good feeling that was aroused by the presence of a fellow-man's misfortune; mentioned the work of his own society, urged that so long as this feeling of comradeship existed, so long would their condition improve, not perhaps by a leap or a bound, but by steady, cautious, and gradual progression. Up in the circle his young elocution teacher nodded approvingly, flushing with pride at her pupil's careful enunciation, giving a start of pain at a superfluous aspirate that cleaved the air.

“He can talk,” admitted a man behind her.

“If I'd had the gift of the gab,” said the man's neighbour, “I could have made a fortune.”

Erb stepped out near to the footlights and gave his peroration in an impassioned manner that had the useful note of sincerity. Those in the theatre, who were sympathisers, rose and cheered; the rest, not to be left out of a gratifying show of emotion, joined in, and Spanswick, the hero of the evening, as he rose from his chair to say a few words, might have been a leading politician, a general who had rescued his country from difficulties, or an exceptionally popular member of the Royal Family, instead of a railway carman of third-rate excellence with a notable wife.

Spanswick said this was the proudest moment of his life. Spanswick would never forget that night: useless for anybody to ask him to do so. If people should come to Spanswick and invite him to erase that evening from his recollection, he would answer definitely and decidedly, “Never!” So long as memory lasted and held its sway, so long would he guarantee to keep that evening in mind, and carry remembrance with him. Thus Spanswick, in a generous way that suggested he was doing a noble and spontaneous act, and one for which the audience should be everlastingly grateful. Payne, as Chairman, rose, and ignoring a suggestion from the gallery that he should dance a hornpipe, led the group off, the members looking shyly across at the audience, and the audience howling indignantly at one of the men who replaced his hat before getting off.

“Were you nervous, Erb?” asked Louisa excitedly. “I was. Nearly fainted, didn't I?”

“Oh, don't talk,” whispered her lady-companion, enchanted by the commencement of Act IV. “Don't talk, please, when there's such beautiful things going on.”

Mr. Railton had nothing to do in the last act, the dramatist having apparently felt that the thin vein of humour which had been struck in the character was by this time exhausted, and Rosalind looked with anxiety at the curtained doorway of the circle, but Mr. Railton did not appear during the last act, and he was not in the vestibule below when the audience poured out into Blackfriars Road. She was very silent on this, and when Erb saw her into a tram she shook hands without a word. Going back to assist Louisa's young man in the task of escorting the two other ladies, he found himself intercepted by Mr. Lawrence Railton—Railton, in an astrakhan bordered coat, and well wrapped around the throat, giving altogether the impression that here was some rare and valuable product of nature that had to be specially protected.

“I want you!” said the young man.

“You'll have to want,” said Erb brusquely, and going on.

“But it concerns the girl you were speaking of.”

“Where can we go?” asked Erb, stopping.

“Come round to the bar at the back of the circle,” said Railton, “and you can give me a drink,” he added generously.

A few members of the company were near the bar, and Railton, to compensate for the presence of such an ordinary-looking companion, began to talk loudly and condescendingly. Never drank till after the show, he explained, some drank during the performance, but none of the best men did so. One could not give a good reading of the part unless one observed the principles of strict abstemiousness. If Erb would promise not to let the matter go any further, he would show him, in the strictest confidence, a letter from a West End manager, that would prove how near one could be to conspicuous success.

“Not that one,” he said, opening a violet envelope. “That's from a dear thing at Skipton. Worships the very ground I walk on.”

The letter in question fell on the floor. Erb picked it up and, in doing so, could not help noticing that it began: “Sir, unless you forward two and eight by return, the parcel of laundry will be sold without any further notice!”

“Here it is,” cried Railton. “'Mr. So-and-so thanks Mr. Lawrence Railton for his note, and regrets that the arrangements for the forthcoming production are complete.'” “Regrets, you see—mark that! A post earlier, and evidently he would have—don't drown it, my dear chap!”

“In regard,” said Erb, putting down the water-bottle, “to Miss Rosalind Danks.”

“I hadn't finished what I was saying.”

“Didn't mean you should. Let's drop your personal grievances for a bit. Why didn't you come round and see her before she left?”

“Now that,” said Railton, leaning an elbow on the counter, “goes straight to the very crux of the question. That's just where I wanted to carry you. I hate a man who wastes time on preliminaries. My idea always is that if you've got a thing to say, say it!”

“Say on!”

“My position,” said Railton, importantly, “is this. I have, as I think I said, the artistic temperament. I am all emotion, all sentiment, all heart! It may be a virtue, it may be a defect; I won't go into that. The point is that little Rosie is the exact opposite. I confess that I thought at one time that we might be well suited to each other, but I see now that I made a mistake. Doesn't often happen, but I did make a mistake there, and the unfortunate part of the business is that I—in a kind of way, don't you know—promised to marry her.”

“So I understood. When does the affair come off?”

“My dear old chap,” said Railton, with effusive confidence, “the affair is off. But you know what women are, and I find it rather difficult—for, mind you, I am above all things a man of honour—I find it rather difficult to write to her and tell her so. Some men wouldn't hesitate for a moment. Some men have no delicacy. But what I thought was this: Do you want to earn a couple of pounds?”

“Go on!” said Erb, quietly.

“Assuming that you do want to earn a couple of pounds, this is where you come in. You, I gain, have a certain admiration for her. Now, if you can take her off my hands so that I can get out of the engagement with dignity, I am prepared to give you, in writing mind, a promise to pay——”

Mr. Railton went down swiftly on the floor. The other people hurried up.

“You dare strike me!” he cried as he rose, his handkerchief to his face. “Do it again, that's all.”

He went down again with the same unexpectedness as before. Three men stood round Erb, who looked quietly at his own clenched fist; the knuckles had a slight abrasion.

“Want any more?” he asked.

Mr. Railton made one or two efforts from his crumpled position to speak; the three men suggested police, but he waved his hand negatively.

“Do you want any more, you scoundrel, you?” repeated Erb.

“No,” answered Mr. Lawrence Railton, weakly, from the linoleum, “I don't want any more. I always know my limit.”