Paul Kelver

CHAPTER X.

PAUL FINDS HIS WAY

Slowly, surely, steadily I climbed, putting aside all dreams, paying strict attention to business. Often my other self, little Paul of the sad eyes, would seek to lure me from my work. But for my vehement determination never to rest for a moment till I had purchased back my honesty, my desire – growing day by day, till it became almost a physical hunger – to feel again the pressure of Norah’s strong white hand in mine, he might possibly have succeeded. Heaven only knows what then he might have made of me: politician, minor poet, more or less able editor, hampered by convictions – something most surely of but little service to myself. Now and again, with a week to spare – my humour making holiday, nothing to be done but await patiently its return – I would write stories for my own pleasure. They made no mark; but success in purposeful work is of slower growth. Had I persisted – but there was money to be earned. And by the time my debts were paid, I had established a reputation.

“Madness!” argued practical friends. “You would be throwing away a certain fortune for, at the best, a doubtful competence. The one you know you can do, the other – it would be beginning your career all over again.”

“You would find it almost impossible now,” explained those who spoke, I knew, words of wisdom, of experience. “The world would never listen to you. Once a humourist always a humourist. As well might a comic actor insist upon playing Hamlet. It might be the best Hamlet ever seen upon the stage; the audience would only laugh – or stop away.”

Drawn by our mutual need of sympathy, “Goggles” and I, seeking some quiet corner in the Club, would pour out our souls to each other. He would lay before me, at some length, his conception of Romeo – an excellent conception, I have no doubt, though I confess it failed to interest me. Somehow I could not picture him to myself as Romeo. But I listened with every sign of encouragement. It was the price I paid him for, in turn, listening to me while I unfolded to him my ideas how monumental literature, helpful to mankind, should be imagined and built up.

“Perhaps in a future existence,” laughed Goggles, one evening, rising as the clock struck seven, “I shall be a great tragedian, and you a famous poet. Meanwhile, I suppose, as your friend Brian puts it, we are both sinning our mercies. After all, to live is the most important thing in life.”

I had strolled with him so far as the cloak-room and was helping him to get into his coat.

“Take my advice” – tapping me on the chest, he fixed his funny, fishy eyes upon me. Had I not known his intention to be serious, I should have laughed, his expression was so comical. “Marry some dear little woman” (he was married himself to a placid lady of about twice his own weight); “one never understands life properly till the babies come to explain it to one.”

I returned to my easy-chair before the fire. Wife, children, home! After all, was not that the true work of man – of the live man, not the dreamer? I saw them round me, giving to my life dignity, responsibility. The fair, sweet woman, helper, comrade, comforter, the little faces fashioned in our image, their questioning voices teaching us the answers to life’s riddles. All other hopes, ambitions, dreams, what were they? Phantoms of the morning mist fading in the sunlight.

Hodgson came to me one evening. “I want you to write me a comic opera,” he said. He had an open letter in his hand which he was reading. “The public seem to be getting tired of these eternal translations from the French. I want something English, something new and original.”

“The English is easy enough,” I replied; “but I shouldn’t clamour for anything new and original if I were you.”

“Why not?” he asked, looking up from his letter.

“You might get it,” I answered. “Then you would be disappointed.”

He laughed. “Well, you know what I mean – something we could refer to as ‘new and original’ on the programme. What do you say? It will be a big chance for you, and I’m willing to risk it. I’m sure you can do it. People are beginning to talk about you.”

I had written a few farces, comediettas, and they had been successful. But the chief piece of the evening is a serious responsibility. A young man may be excused for hesitating. It can make, but also it can mar him. A comic opera above all other forms of art – if I may be forgiven for using the sacred word in connection with such a subject – demands experience.

I explained my fears. I did not explain that in my desk lay a four-act drama throbbing with humanity, with life, with which it had been my hope – growing each day fainter – to take the theatrical public by storm, to establish myself as a serious playwright.

“It’s very simple,” urged Hodgson. “Provide Atherton plenty of comic business; you ought to be able to do that all right. Give Gleeson something pretty in waltz time, and Duncan a part in which she can change her frock every quarter of an hour or so, and the thing is done.”

“I’ll tell you what,” continued Hodgson, “I’ll take the whole crowd down to Richmond on Sunday. We’ll have a coach, and leave the theatre at half-past ten. It will be an opportunity for you to study them. You’ll be able to have a talk with them and get to know just what they can do. Atherton has ideas in his head; he’ll explain them to you. Then, next week, we’ll draw up a contract and set to work.”

It was too good an opportunity to let slip, though I knew that if successful I should find myself pinned down firmer than ever to my role of jester. But it is remunerative, the writing of comic opera.

A small crowd had gathered in the Strand to see us start.

“Nothing wrong, is there?” enquired the leading lady, in a tone of some anxiety, alighting a quarter of an hour late from her cab. “It isn’t a fire, is it?”

“Merely assembled to see you,” explained Mr. Hodgson, without raising his eyes from his letters.

“Oh, good gracious!” cried the leading lady, “do let us get away quickly.”

“Box seat, my dear,” returned Mr. Hodgson.

The leading lady, accepting the proffered assistance of myself and three other gentlemen, mounted the ladder with charming hesitation. Some delay in getting off was caused by our low comedian, who twice, making believe to miss his footing, slid down again into the arms of the stolid door-keeper. The crowd, composed for the most part of small boys approving the endeavour to amuse them, laughed and applauded. Our low comedian thus encouraged, made a third attempt upon his hands and knees, and, gaining the roof, sat down upon the tenor, who smiled somewhat mechanically.

The first dozen or so ‘busses we passed our low comedian greeted by rising to his feet and bowing profoundly, afterwards falling back upon either the tenor or myself. Except by the tenor and myself his performance appeared to be much appreciated. Charing Cross passed, and nobody seeming to be interested in our progress, to the relief of the tenor and myself, he settled down.

“People sometimes ask me,” said the low comedian, brushing the dust off his knees, “why I do this sort of thing off the stage. It amuses me.”

“I was coming up to London the other day from Birmingham,” he continued. “At Willesden, when the ticket collector opened the door, I sprang out of the carriage and ran off down the platform. Of course, he ran after me, shouting to all the others to stop me. I dodged them for about a minute. You wouldn’t believe the excitement there was. Quite fifty people left their seats to see what it was all about. I explained to them when they caught me that I had been travelling second with a first-class ticket, which was the fact. People think I do it to attract attention. I do it for my own pleasure.”

“It must be a troublesome way of amusing oneself,” I suggested.

“Exactly what my wife says,” he replied; “she can never understand the desire that comes over us all, I suppose, at times, to play the fool. As a rule, when she is with me I don’t do it.”

“She’s not here today?” I asked, glancing round.

“She suffers so from headaches,” he answered, “she hardly ever goes anywhere.”

“I’m sorry.” I spoke not out of mere politeness; I really did feel sorry.

During the drive to Richmond this irrepressible desire to amuse himself got the better of him more than once or twice. Through Kensington he attracted a certain amount of attention by balancing the horn upon his nose. At Kew he stopped the coach to request of a young ladies’ boarding school change for sixpence. At the foot of Richmond Hill he caused a crowd to assemble while trying to persuade a deaf old gentleman in a Bath-chair to allow his man to race us up the hill for a shilling.

At these antics and such like our party laughed uproariously, with the exception of Hodgson, who had his correspondence to attend to, and an elegant young lady of some social standing who had lately emerged from the Divorce Court with a reputation worth to her in cash a hundred pounds a week.

Arriving at the hotel quarter of an hour or so before lunch time, we strolled into the garden. Our low comedian, observing an elderly gentleman of dignified appearance sipping a glass of Vermouth at a small table, stood for a moment rooted to the earth with astonishment, then, making a bee-line for the stranger, seized and shook him warmly by the hand. We exchanged admiring glances with one another.

“Charlie is in good form to-day,” we told one another, and followed at his heels.

The elderly gentleman had risen; he looked puzzled. “And how’s Aunt Martha?” asked him our low comedian. “Dear old Aunt Martha! Well, I am glad! You do look bonny! How is she?”

“I’m afraid – ” commenced the elderly gentleman. Our low comedian started back. Other visitors had gathered round.

“Don’t tell me anything has happened to her! Not dead? Don’t tell me that!”

He seized the bewildered gentleman by the shoulders and presented to him a face distorted by terror.

“I really have not the faintest notion what you are talking about,” returned the gentleman, who seemed annoyed. “I don’t know you.”

“Not know me? Do you mean to tell me you’ve forgotten – ? Isn’t your name Steggles?”

“No, it isn’t,” returned the stranger, somewhat shortly.

“My mistake,” replied our low comedian. He tossed off at one gulp what remained of the stranger’s Vermouth and walked away rapidly.

The elderly gentleman, not seeing the humour of the joke, one of our party to soothe him explained to him that it was Atherton, the Atherton – Charlie Atherton.

“Oh, is it,” growled the elderly gentleman. “Then will you tell him from me that when I want his damned tomfoolery I’ll come to the theatre and pay for it.”

“What a disagreeable man,” we said, as, following our low comedian, we made our way into the hotel.

During lunch he continued in excellent spirits; kissed the bald back of the waiter’s head, pretending to mistake it for a face, called for hot mustard and water, made believe to steal the silver, and when the finger-bowls arrived, took off his coat and requested the ladies to look the other way.

After lunch he became suddenly serious, and slipping his arm through mine, led me by unfrequented paths.

“Now, about this new opera,” he said; “we don’t want any of the old stale business. Give us something new.”

I suggested that to do so might be difficult.

“Not at all,” he answered. “Now, my idea is this. I am a young fellow, and I’m in love with a girl.”

I promised to make a note of it.

“Her father, apoplectic old idiot – make him comic: ‘Damme, sir! By gad!’ all that sort of thing.”

By persuading him that I understood what he meant, I rose in his estimation.

“He won’t have anything to say to me – thinks I’m an ass. I’m a simple sort of fellow – on the outside. But I’m not such a fool as I look.”

“You don’t think we are getting too much out of the groove?” I enquired.

His opinion was that the more so the better.

“Very well. Then, in the second act I disguise myself. I’ll come on as an organ-grinder, sing a song in broken English, then as a policeman, or a young swell about town. Give me plenty of opportunity, that’s the great thing – opportunity to be really funny, I mean. We don’t want any of the old stale tricks.”

I promised him my support.

“Put a little pathos in it,” he added, “give me a scene where I can show them I’ve something else in me besides merely humour. We don’t want to make them howl, but just to feel a little. Let’s send them out of the theatre saying: ‘Well, Charlie’s often made me laugh, but I’m damned if I knew he could make me cry before!’ See what I mean?”

I told him I thought I did.

The leading lady, meeting us on our return, requested, with pretty tone of authority, everybody else to go away and leave us. There were cries of “Naughty!” The leading lady, laughing girlishly, took me by the hand and ran away with me.

“I want to talk to you,” said the leading lady, as soon as we had reached a secluded seat overlooking the river, “about my part in the new opera. Now, can’t you give me something original? Do.”

Her pleading was so pretty, there was nothing for it but to pledge compliance.

“I am so tired of being the simple village maiden,” said the leading lady; “what I want is a part with some opportunity in it – a coquettish part. I can flirt,” assured me the leading lady, archly. “Try me.”

I satisfied her of my perfect faith.

“You might,” said the leading lady, “see your way to making the plot depend upon me. It always seems to me that the woman’s part is never made enough of in comic opera. I am sure a comic opera built round a woman would be a really great success. Don’t you agree with me, Mr. Kelver,” pouted the leading lady, laying her pretty hand on mine. “We are much more interesting than the men – now, aren’t we?”

Personally, as I told her, I agreed with her.

The tenor, sipping tea with me on the balcony, beckoned me aside.

“About this new opera,” said the tenor; “doesn’t it seem to you the time has come to make more of the story – that the public might prefer a little more human interest and a little less clowning?”

I admitted that a good plot was essential.

“It seems to me,” said the tenor, “that if you could write an opera round an interesting love story, you would score a success. Of course, let there be plenty of humour, but reduce it to its proper place. As a support, it is excellent; when it is made the entire structure, it is apt to be tiresome – at least, that is my view.”

I replied with sincerity that there seemed to me much truth in what he said.

“Of course, so far as I am personally concerned,” went on the tenor, “it is immaterial. I draw the same salary whether I’m on the stage five minutes or an hour. But when you have a man of my position in the cast, and give him next to nothing to do – well, the public are disappointed.”

“Most naturally,” I commented.

“The lover,” whispered the tenor, noticing the careless approach towards us of the low comedian, “that’s the character they are thinking about all the time – men and women both. It’s human nature. Make your lover interesting – that’s the secret.”

Waiting for the horses to be put to, I became aware of the fact that I was standing some distance from the others in company with a tall, thin, somewhat oldish-looking man. He spoke in low, hurried tones, fearful evidently of being overheard and interrupted.

“You’ll forgive me, Mr. Kelver,” he said – “Trevor, Marmaduke Trevor. I play the Duke of Bayswater in the second act.”

I was unable to recall him for the moment; there were quite a number of small parts in the second act. But glancing into his sensitive face, I shrank from wounding him.

“A capital performance,” I lied. “It has always amused me.”

He flushed with pleasure. “I made a great success some years ago,” he said, “in America with a soda-water syphon, and it occurred to me that if you could, Mr. Kelver, in a natural sort of way, drop in a small part leading up to a little business with a soda-water syphon, it might help the piece.”

I wrote him his soda-water scene, I am glad to remember, and insisted upon it, in spite of a good deal of opposition. Some of the critics found fault with the incident, as lacking in originality. But Marmaduke Trevor was quite right, it did help a little.

Our return journey was an exaggerated repetition of our morning drive. Our low comedian produced hideous noises from the horn, and entered into contests of running wit with ‘bus drivers – a decided mistake from his point of view, the score generally remaining with the ‘bus driver. At Hammersmith, seizing the opportunity of a block in the traffic, he assumed the role of Cheap Jack, and, standing up on the back seat, offered all our hats for sale at temptingly low prices.

“Got any ideas out of them?” asked Hodgson, when the time came for us to say good-night.

“I’m thinking, if you don’t mind,” I answered, “of going down into the country and writing the piece quietly, away from everybody.”

“Perhaps you are right,” agreed Hodgson. “Too many cooks – Be sure and have it ready for the autumn.”

I wrote it with some pleasure to myself amid the Yorkshire Wolds, and was able to read it to the whole company assembled before the close of the season. My turning of the last page was followed by a dead silence. The leading lady was the first to speak. She asked if the clock upon the mantelpiece could be relied upon; because, if so, by leaving at once, she could just catch her train. Hodgson, consulting his watch, thought, if anything, it was a little fast. The leading lady said she hoped it was, and went. The only comforting words were spoken by the tenor. He recalled to our mind a successful comic opera produced some years before at the Philharmonic. He distinctly remembered that up to five minutes before the raising of the curtain everybody had regarded it as rubbish. He also had a train to catch. Marmaduke Trevor, with a covert shake of the hand, urged me not to despair. The low comedian, the last to go, told Hodgson he thought he might be able to do something with parts of it, if given a free hand. Hodgson and I left alone, looked at each other.

“It’s no good,” said Hodgson, “from a box-office point of view. Very clever.”

“How do you know it is no good from a box-office point of view?” I ventured to enquire.

“I never made a mistake in my life,” replied Hodgson.

“You have produced one or two failures,” I reminded him.

“And shall again,” he laughed. “The right thing isn’t easy to get.”

“Cheer up,” he added kindly, “this is only your first attempt. We must try and knock it into shape at rehearsal.”

Their notion of “knocking it into shape” was knocking it to pieces.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” would say the low comedian; “we’ll cut that scene out altogether.” Joyously he would draw his pencil through some four or five pages of my manuscript.

“But it is essential to the story,” I would argue.

“Not at all.”

“But it is. It is the scene in which Roderick escapes from prison and falls in love with the gipsy.”

“My dear boy, half-a-dozen words will do all that. I meet Roderick at the ball. ‘Hallo, what are you doing here?’ ‘Oh, I have escaped from prison.’ ‘Good business. And how’s Miriam?’ ‘Well and happy – she is going to be my wife!’ What more do you want?”

“I have been speaking to Mr. Hodgson,” would observe the leading lady, “and he agrees with me, that if instead of falling in love with Peter, I fell in love with John – ”

“But John is in love with Arabella.”

“Oh, we’ve cut out Arabella. I can sing all her songs.”

The tenor would lead me into a corner. “I want you to write in a little scene for myself and Miss Duncan at the beginning of the first act. I’ll talk to her about it. I think it will be rather pretty. I want her – the second time I see her – to have come out of her room on to a balcony, and to be standing there bathed in moonlight.”

“But the first act takes place in the early morning.”

“I’ve thought of that. We must alter it to the evening.”

“But the opera opens with a hunting scene. People don’t go hunting by moonlight.”

“It will be a novelty. That’s what’s wanted for comic opera. The ordinary hunting scene! My dear boy, it has been done to death.”

I stood this sort of thing for a week. “They are people of experience,” I argued to myself; “they must know more about it than I do.” By the end of the week I had arrived at the conclusion that anyhow they didn’t. Added to which I lost my temper. It is a thing I should advise any lady or gentleman thinking of entering the ranks or dramatic authorship to lose as soon as possible. I took both manuscripts with me, and, entering Mr. Hodgson’s private room, closed the door behind me. One parcel was the opera as I had originally written it, a neat, intelligible manuscript, whatever its other merits. The second, scored, interlined, altered, cut, interleaved, rewritten, reversed, turned inside out and topsy-turvy – one long, hopeless confusion from beginning to end – was the opera, as, everybody helping, we had “knocked it into shape.”

“That’s your opera,” I said, pushing across to him the bulkier bundle. “If you can understand it, if you can make head or tail of it, if you care to produce it, it is yours, and you are welcome to it. This is mine!” I laid it on the table beside the other. “It may be good, it may be bad. If it is played at all it is played as it is written. Regard the contract as cancelled, and make up your mind.”

He argued with force, and he argued with eloquence. He appealed to my self-interest, he appealed to my better nature. It occupied him forty minutes by the clock. Then he called me an obstinate young fool, flung the opera as “knocked into shape” into the waste-paper basket – which was the only proper place for it, and, striding into the middle of the company, gave curt directions that the damned opera was to be played as it was written, and be damned to it!