The Young Stagers/The Modern Desdemona
XIII.
THE MODERN DESDEMONA.
"If you please, Daddy," said Boodle, with that punctilious politeness which might perhaps cover an error of judgment or forestall the judgment of error, we borrowed your silk hat this afternoon, and it got a little egg on it . . ." and the President wriggled, one bare foot caressing the other.
Daddy rumbled like an earthquake-threatening volcano. "Silk hat! . . . Egg! . . . Disgustin' conjunction!" Was he going to try the Discipline of Consequences and make the President wear the hat she had borrowed—wear it out for the evening walk? She rather hoped so.
But Daddy's faith in the efficacy of the Discipline of Consequences had received a rude shock, as has been told elsewhere.[1]
"And you took my silk hat in defiance of all probabilities of getting permission! You took it in anticipation of sanction! You"
"No, Daddy—in The Surrender of Kruger and in William Tell. He didn't like the apple on his head, but he didn't mind it on the hat. He said it gave him a thporting chance."
"I say you took it in anticipation of sanction," rumbled Daddy horrifically, "and that is a very terrible thing!"
"What is antiseparation of stankshun?" asked the President, climbing on to Daddy's knee. "Can we play it? We really took it in The Surrender of Kruger, Daddy, and not in the other thing. You couldn't have Kruger without a top-hat, now, could you? But what is antiseparation of swanktion?"
Buster entered.
"Hullo, dear old Things," said he. "What's the game?"
"You'd better ask Buster to explain 'in anticipation of sanction,' I think," quoth Daddy, departing to see whether the hat in question would stand one more "function" or had better be presented to the Club as a stage-property, "he does a good many things in anticipation of sanction, I believe. And some in anticipation of prohibition," he added, smiling at the blushing Buster as he closed the door. (Buster was alleged to have kissed a Miss Dolores Perdita Eulalie Francesca D'Costa, at a Sergeants' Dance, and to have had his damask cheek smacked in return.)
"Well, what is it, Buster? Can we play it?" inquired the President, always in search of a new drama for production.
"It's hard to explayn, President-Sahib," replied Buster, in the distinctly Funny-Dog vein, "though the meaning is easily made clear. Strangely enough, I heard of a good example of 'in anticipation of sanction' when I was dining with the Rutlandshires last night. You could act it—but, no, I shouldn't. It borders on the Not Very Nice, I think. No, better not. . . . Anyhow, don't say I'm the Author, if you act it before an audience. . . ."
"Tell us it as though it were a good play to act," demanded the President, adding, "and I'll see if I like it."
"Very well," proceeded Buster. "Scene—the regimental parade-ground of the Rutlandshires. Time—Seven a.m., the day before yesterday.
"Dramatis Personæ—Private William Jones, Corporal Crook, Sergeant Small, Colour-Sergeant Crocker, The Sergeant-Major, and Second Lieutenant Snooks, Captain Crow, Lieutenant-and-Adjutant Long, Colonel Black, with all the rest of the Rutlands in the background as—you know—spectators, chorus, noise without, mob, retainers, family lawyers, and village idiots—regiment on parade in fact. . . . "
"Private William Jones to Corporal Crook—'I feels very bad inside, I do, Corpril. . . . I'm agoin' to be ill, I am. . . .'
"Corporal Crook to Sergeant Small—'Jones feels very bad, 'e do. Wants to be ill, 'e does.'
"Sergeant Small to Colour-Sergeant Crocker—'Jones says can 'e be ill.'
"Colour-Sergeant Crocker to Second Lieutenant Snooks—'Pleasir, Privit Jones wishes ter put in a happlication to be took ill.'
"Second Lieutenant Snooks to Captain Crow—'Fellah named Jones wants to go sick, Sir.'
"Captain Crow to Lieutenant-and-Adjutant Long who rides by on his way to the Colonel—'I say—tell the Colonel there's a bloke in A Company, Privit Jones, wants to fall out. Feels ill.'
"Lieutenant-and-Adjutant Long to Colonel Black—'Private Jones, A Company, wants to be sick, Sir. May he?'
"Colonel—'No, not now. Certainly not'
"Sergeant-Major, approaching and saluting—'Please, Sir, he hev—in hanticipation of senction. . . .
•••••
"I see," said Boodle. "I'll try Fic as Private Jones. . . . Might give him cream for tea. It always. . . ."
"No!" shouted Buster. "I'll not be a party to such realism. Talk of the bloke who blacked himself all over to play Othello! No—if you want to play it, you be Private Jones and eat the cream."
"Yes," agreed the President. "I love cream."
"What's 'Oh-tell-oh!’" she added. Could we play that too?"
"Certainly," replied Buster. "Shakespearian revivals are the fashion, just now. I'll show you the pictures and tell you the story—so far as it is fit for the drawing-room. Then you can boom the Bard. The Vice would make a fine Moor—dressed in Nubian blacking and Ethiopian burnt-cork."
And it came to pass that on the following day, Othello was staged in Karabad, though the Sporting and Dramatic Press made no mention of the fact.
•••••
"Anti-Separation of Swanksion," mused the President aloud.
"On Printhipull," soliloquised the Vice, not to be out-done. For he too had a new expression—and revelled in it, as was his wont.
•••••
It is strange how a new phrase, a new fact, a new word, will haunt one. You may, for example, live for half a century In blameless ignorance that there is such a disease as Cerebro-spinal Sclerosis, discover the fact one day, and in the ensuing week you will meet seven different people who have got it. For the first time in your life you encounter the name Pffunfenphluger, and then you encounter it twice more in the next three days. A man informs you at dinner that when he was young, the boys of the village used to play a game called "knurr and spell". You remark that it is a queer and quaint name. Next morning your paper has an article on "Defunct games," and instances that of "knurr and spell ". . . .
The Vice stood before the judgment seat and thoughtfully stroked his own. He was "for it" again for making the hens play "Settlers and Indians". In the capacity of Indian he had settled one of the Settlers for good. That particular bird would never settle again in this world. . . .
"I shall have to thrash you every Wednesday and Saturday night on principle. Sir—on principle, do you understand," Daddy had finally rumbled as he brandished a hunting-crop with a twelve foot thong. The Vice did not fully understand—but he thought he did.
So that was the correct term was it—the term applied by adults when alluding to that portion of the human frame?
"On principle. He must remember that. It must be a perfectly blameless word, a word of unimpeachable propriety, or Daddy would not use it. Principle.
Encountering Venus he remarked:—
"Wenuth, I am going to give you a thmack on principle—on principle, do you underthtand," and bestowed a resounding slap upon what he believed to be the spot indicated. "You may call it that," he added, as he passed on.
The inevitable coincidences followed.
When the children went into the drawing-room, to kiss Mummy "good-bye," before setting forth for the evening expedition, there were Callers having tea.
"You'll join the hunt, I suppose, Major, for the short time you're here?" one of the ladies was remarking to a big stout man, a new-comer.
"Oh, yes," was the reply. "I always hunt, on principle—support local industries, y'know."
It struck the Vice as a curious remark to make. Naturally he'd hunt on principle—he wouldn't do it on foot, would he? Evidently quite a drawing-room word. Not like the dreadful word with which he had shocked and sullied the young ears of Buster, Snooty, Jerks, and Birdie.
Then it was discovered to be a word publicly used by ladies of irreproachable discretion. Nice kind Miss Drake of the Zenana Mission invited the children to come to the annual tamasha at her school and see the little Indian orphan-girls enjoy their big treat. After the distribution of sweets and prizes by Lady Morton-Maxwell, Miss Drake made a tiny little speech, in the course of which she said there were several things they did there on principle.
The Vice quite understood that it is tiring to stand too long—especially in the heat of the day. He always lay down, himself. . . . He abandoned other valued clichés in favour of this new phrase, and he surprised Mr. Hunter, the new Collector, when that gentleman, seeing him sitting in his rickshaw and contemplating the unbeginning endless sea, remarked, "Do you sit here every evening, little man?" by replying:—
"Yeth thir—on principle."
•••••
"Now this is before we're married," said the President to the Vice, "and you've got to tell me wonderful fairy tales, and stories about what you've done, so as to make me fall in love with you. Venus can sit up here and be the Dog of Venice—or is it the Dodge? Anyhow, we'll call him the Dog as he is one. He is my father, you know, and you are my suitor."
"Do I have to shoot you, then?" inquired the Vice.
"I didn't say ‘shooter!’ was the reply. "I said suitor. . . . If you don't suit me, I say 'Hop it,' and you bung off."
"I'm Oh-tell-oh, aren't I?" asked the Vice. "Is it because I have to tell these tales?"
"’Spec so. You have to tell 'moving tales by flood and field,' I think Buster said. . . . Better begin with one about the Flood. And let it be a good one or you get the push, and the next suitor tries."
The Vice was on his mettle and did his best. Where the genius of Invention failed him he turned to Adaptation's artful aid.
"Oneth upon a time there wath a Flood," he began.
"I know that," said the captious Desdemona.
"But you don't know what I did in it," countered Othello. "You're too clever, Mith Death de Moaner."
"Swam, I 'spec," hazarded Desdemona.
"Wrong again," repeated Othello. "You just listen, or you'll put me out."
"Father will do that," murmured Desdemona, giving the Dog, or Dodge, of Venice a pat on the head.
"It was a norful Flood, and rained like anything for days and days. The children couldn't go out to tea-parties and that made it worse."
"I 'spec they paddled though, and that was top-hole," hazarded Desdemona.
"Yeth—until it got too deep. Well, a Sahib named Noah told all the silly natives they'd be drowned if they didn't buck up and build boats to get into. But they said, 'Abhi nahin'[2] and 'Kal,'[3] and it rained and rained. And Noah Sahib, he went out in the wet and built a Noah's Ark. Norful big, it was, because he was going to thave Noah Memsahib and the chota[4] Noah Sahibs and chota Noah Miss-sahibs, and the butler and second-boy and cook and hamal and chokra and ayah and syces—I don't know about the sweeper—and all the people in his compound, and two of every kind of animal in the world! . . . He took two in case one got lost or drowned or anything—and he'd still have one left of that thort. . . ."
"He had a long way to go for Polar Bears and Kangaroos, didn't he?" interrupted Desdemona, "and I've heard a tale very like this before."
"I fetched the Polar Bears and Kangaroos," replied Othello modestly, "and all the uvver long-way-off beathts, while Noah Sahib got on with the Noah's Ark."
"I'm very sorry, Othello Sahib," said Desdemona firmly, "but I don't believe a word of it.
"Do you, Father?" she added, turning to the Doge, or Dodge, or Dog, of Venice.
Venus certainly shook his head violently—but this may have been due to the fact that a large ant was exploring the interior of his right ear.
"No—I thought you didn't," continued Desdemona, on receiving this sign of paternal incredulity. "I don't believe the little liar ever set eyes on Noah in his life."
Turning to her suitor, Desdemona fixed him with a cold and cruel eye.
"Try another," said she. "Better have a go at a 'field' one, if that's the best you can do about the flood."
"I can't think of a field one just for a minute," replied the saddened Othello, "but I wemember the piece of poetry Buthter made up about Mithter Bell of the Rutlands when he was taken ill on the field-day. Would that do for a 'field' story?"
"No," replied Desdemona, and, woman-like, at once added, "What was it?"
"Mithter Bell told Daddy at dinner, and I heard him over the banisters, and they all laughed and he had to tell it again. I think it was:—
"Gregory Greatorex Bell,
Sat on the trap-door of—well—
I know Satan came
And troubled the wame,
Of Gregory Greatorex Bell."
"Very interesting," said Desdemona. "We'll be married at once."
"Shall we, Papa?" she inquired, turning to the Dodge, or Dog, of Venice.
Venus protruded a pink tongue at surprising length, wagged his tail, and nearly yawned his head off.
"Papa smiled with pleasure at the idea of my having a wedding," interpreted Desdemona, "but he's very bored with you, Othello. . . . It's a pity, as he is going to live with us after we are married. Still it can't be wondered at, can it, because after all, you're only a Hubshi, aren't you, really, and most 'strornrally black."
Othello was. From head to foot, he was as black as ink, charcoal, blacking, burnt-cork and water-colour black paint could make him. That his hair was fair almost to whiteness and his eyes very blue, were unalterable facts which militated against the general Moorishness of his get up.
Although welcoming with ardour the President's fiat that he must be blacked all over for the part, he had flatly and finally refused to wear a turban when his senior had remarked that a puggri would hide his hair and a pair of black glare-glasses his eyes. The puggri idea having to be abandoned, the President had decided that the black glare-glasses were not a success as part of an Othello make-up, as, if anything, they accentuated the unfortunate fairness of the hair. . . .
As he advanced to make some colourable demonstration of a hymeneal nature, Desdemona waved him off.
"Don't you touch me while we get married," she commanded, "nor yet afterwards. You come off against everything. Look at that stool!"
And indeed it was evident that Othello had been sitting on the stool. His only garment must have slipped or something.
"Where's the ring?" asked the bride-elect.
"Othello fumbled in his trunk-hose (recently mere bathing-drawers) and discovered the necessary token. Part of its original cigar adhered to it.
"Now, we're married," said Desdemona, placing the ring upon a finger of her right hand.
"Thanks awfully. Where shall we go for our honeymoon?"
"I don't care," said Othello, and that ended Act I, Scene I.
Scene 2.
"You have to strangle me in this scene," announced Desdemona.
The eye of Othello lit up. This was going to be a better "part" than he had anticipated.
"I don't think I shall like it," added the bride.
"Oh, it'll be all-right," opined the bridegroom.
"You musn't strangle me much, you know," she directed.
"Only till you're dead, of courthe," he agreed.
"Go and wash your hands while I go to bed," requested Desdemona. " You'll make a norful mess of me and the bed-clothes if you don't. . . . I'll put my nighty on over the wedding-dress."
Othello departed to the bath-room since he might not strangle his bride with unwashen hands.
Desdemona put on her nightdress, and removed her shoes. She then climbed on to her bed, lay down, pulled the sheet over her and gleefully awaited what was in store for her.
Othello entered, his hands looking as though their Moorish owner wore white kid gloves.
"Half a sec," ejaculated Desdemona the Realist, "I forgot my prayers."
Kneeling up, she assumed the conventional attitude of prayer, gabbled "Fwot we are about-receive, Lord, makus trulyfankfulamen," flopped down again, and began to snore.
Othello advanced, glaring horribly, with clutching fingers, and what he conceived to be an evil smile.
He licked his lips with the lick of cruel anticipation. The nearest pigment to his mouth was blacking, and he savoured its rich flavour. Changing his course he steered for the mirror and thrust forth his tongue. It was black. . . . Was he going to be poisoned? . . . Anyhow, it made him more Othello-like than ever. Probably Buster's friend, who blacked himself all over, quite forgot to black his tongue.
Desdemona watched out of one eye.
Othello turned and approached the bed, and then behaved as though playing tigers. With a growling roar he sprang at Desdemona and seized her by the throat with both white hands.
"Ee-e-e-e-e-e-e," shrilled Desdemona, as she felt their cold touch, and
"Ka-a-a-a-a-k! Ka-a-a-a-a-k," as the touch became a clutch.
She found that she hated being throttled when it came to the point.
"Stop it, you Sneak!" she gasped at her cruel and relentless husband. "Stop it—I didn't do it!"
"Didn't do what?" inquired Othello, somewhat relaxing his strangle-hold upon the poor lady's throat.
"Why, what you are strangling me for," replied the gasping Desdemona.
"There you are!" countered her remorseless husband. "You done so many things you don't even know which of them this is to pay you out for."
"Well, which is it, then?" squealed the fated bride, as the cruel grip again tightened about her neck, and the incensed Moor protruded a blackened and curling tongue to mark renewed vigour and determination.
"Yah! You don't know yourself," she gurgled, and by way of dying game, used her last breath in vituperative ejaculations of—
"Black Face! . . . Black Sheep! . . . Black Bird! . . . Nasty Nigger! . . . Old Hubshi! . . . Yah! . . ."
Othello desired to be just though not generous, and relaxed his grip.
"Oh, yes, I do," he said, and pondered awhile. "You poked out your tongue behind my back while we were getting married, besides I'm fierce and jealous; it's in the book—Buster said so."
"Why are you fierce and jealous?" squeaked Desdemona, playing for time.
"Because you ate that last ten pounds of chocolate I left lying on my throne this morning, while I had my porridge," replied the Moor.
"Oh, you little liar," shrilled the tearfully indignant Desdemona. "I never, ever."
"What did you call me?" inquired Othello, with deadly politeness.
"A kind of storyteller," snivelled Desdemona. "You know it's a none-truth."
"Then, by my halibut, prepare to die—and less jabber," was the cruel answer.
"Well, I just shan't then," replied the hapless bride, and, moved to righteous indignation, fetched her lord a good useful kick in the stomach.
"‘You're a 'palling little liar,' I said, and so you are."
In the fight that followed, Desdemona won, hands down, and by tacit consent the play, "Othello, the Moor of Venice," was removed from the repertoire of the Junior Curlton Club Dramatic Society.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, ABERDEEN
- ↑ "Dew and Mildew." Longmans, Green & Co.
- ↑ Not now.
- ↑ To-morrow.
- ↑ Little.