Читать книгу Miser Farebrother - B. L. Farjeon - Страница 14

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While this conversation was proceeding there stood at a little distance from the speakers a man who had been walking arm in arm with the actor when the friends met, and who fell apart from Kiss when he clapped Mr. Lethbridge upon the shoulder. He was an anxious-eyed man, nervous, fidgety, with a certain tremulousness of limb and feature, denoting a troubled nature. His age was some thirty-five or thereabouts; his clothes were respectable and shabby; and although he took no part in the conversation, and did not obtrude himself, he did not remove his eyes from Kiss and Mr. Lethbridge. Kiss, turning, beckoned to him, and he joined the friends.

"You heard what we've been talking about," said the actor. "What do you think of it?"

"I wish," said the man, "that I could write such a piece."

"Ah," said Kiss, "it is easy to preach as we've been preaching, but to do the thing is a different pair of shoes. It comes by nature, or it comes not at all."

"But," said the man, "I don't believe it would be a success."

"Wait a moment," said Kiss; "I am forgetting my manners. Mr. Linton—Mr. Lethbridge."

The two shook hands.

"Mr. Linton," said Kiss to Mr. Lethbridge, in explanation, "is a dramatic author, and has written plays."

Mr. Linton sighed, and fidgeted with his fingers.

"Has he?" exclaimed Mr. Lethbridge. "And they have been played, of course?"

Mr. Linton sighed again, and inclined his head.

"I am really delighted," said Mr. Lethbridge. "I have never in my life spoken to a dramatic author, and have never shaken hands with one. Will you allow me?"

They shook hands again, Mr. Lethbridge effusively, Mr. Linton with mingled bashfulness, pride, and awkwardness.

"Successful pieces, I am sure," observed Mr. Lethbridge.

"More or less so," said Kiss. "We must take our rubs, my dear Leth."

"Of course, of course. We've got to take them."

"That's what I'm always telling Linton. We've got to take 'em. Why, you, now," pointing his finger at Mr. Lethbridge, "you're not a public man, and you have your rubs."

"I am not free from them," said Mr. Lethbridge, in a cheerful voice.

"There, now, Linton," said Kiss, with the manner of one who desired to point a moral, "our friend Lethbridge here is not a public man, and he has rubs. So you don't think his piece would be a success? Why, Sempronius?"

"An author must follow the fashion," replied Mr. Linton, "if he wants to live."

"He wants that, naturally." And here Kiss took Mr. Lethbridge aside, with, "Excuse me, Linton, a moment," and whispered, confidentially, "A little dashed. Had a knock-down blow. Last piece a failure. Produced a fort-night ago. Ran a week. I was in it, but could not save it. Consequence, out of an engagement; not serious to me, but to him—very. A man of genius; but not yet hit 'em quite. Will soon, or I'm the worst of actors. Which I am not—nor the best; but 'twill serve. Meanwhile, waiting for the spondulix to pour in, has wife and family to support. A modern Triplet. Has play which will take the town by storm. The play that failed was of a domestic turn. Very pretty; but lacked incident. Too much dialogue, too little action. He feels it—badly. Here," touching his heart, "and here," touching his stomach. They returned to Mr. Linton. "Proceed, Linton."

"The public," said Mr. Linton. "require red fire. Give it them. They want murders. Supply them. They want the penny-dreadful on the stage. Fling it at their heads. Ah! I've not been as wise as some I know."

"In point of ability," whispered Kiss again to Mr. Lethbridge, "he could wipe out the authors he refers to. Excuse him; he is not a bit malicious or envious; but he has been stung, and he's writhing. If you heard me read the play that failed, you would require a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs. He slaved at it for eight months; and dreamt of success with empty platters on his table. I wonder if people know anything of this, or ever give it a thought? But it won't do to encourage him. It does him good to lash out; but we must not agree with him when he's wrong. In his new play there's a part I should like to take. He wrote it with me in his eye. All will come right; till the time arrives, he must grin and bear it. 'Suffering is the badge of all his tribe.' But there are big plums in the pudding, old fellow, and his day to pick 'em will come." Then he said aloud to the moody author: "Don't talk stuff and nonsense. You don't copy, as a rule; you're original, and I make my bow to you; but in what you said you are copying the platitudinarians. What the public want are good plays, such as you can write, and good actors, who are not so scarce as croakers would have us believe. Cheer up, Linton! Where would be the glory of success if we could have it by whistling for it? Why, here we are at your very door, Leth! Now I call that singular."

"Why?" asked Mr. Lethbridge.

"Because we were coming to see you, to ask a favour."

"Anything I can do," said Mr. Lethbridge, knocking at the door, "you may depend upon."

"I told you so, Linton," said Kiss.

The dramatic author brightened up for a moment, but fell again immediately into a state of despondency.

"You're just in time for tea," said Mr. Lethbridge, kissing his wife, who opened the door for them. "Come in, come in. I've brought you some visitors, mother."

"How do you do, Mr. Kiss?" said Mrs. Lethbridge, shaking hands with the always welcome actor.

"Mother," said Mr. Lethbridge, "this is Mr. Linton, the celebrated author."

"I am glad to see you, sir," said Mrs. Lethbridge, inwardly disturbed by the thought that she had not got out her best tea service. "Mr. Kiss, will you take Mr. Linton into the drawing-room? You are at home, you know. Fanny and Bob will be in presently. Phœbe is here, father."

In point of fact, Phœbe, Fanny, and Bob, excited by the sound of the arrival of visitors, were on the first-floor landing, peeping over the balustrade to see who they were.

"It's Mr. Kiss," whispered Fanny.

"And a strange gentleman," whispered Bob.

"Uncle Leth said," whispered Phœbe, "'the celebrated author.' I wonder if he's joking?"

"They are going to stop to tea," whispered Fanny, "and mother has sent them into the drawing-room while she gets out the best tea-things. We must go and help her."

Aunt Leth, from the passage below, coughed aloud, having detected the presence of the young people, and there was an instant scuttling away above, and a sound of smothered laughter. To Aunt Leth's relief, this was not noticed by her visitors, who made their way into the drawing-room. It was called so more from habit than because it was a room set apart for holiday and grand occasions; there was no such room in the house of the Lethbridges, which was a home in the truest sense of the word.

Aunt Leth was deeply impressed by the circumstance of having a celebrated author in her house, and when the drawing-room door was closed, she asked her husband in the passage—speaking in a very low tone—what he had written.

"Why, don't you know, mother?" said Mr. Lethbridge; but the superior air he assumed—as though he was intimately acquainted with everything Mr. Linton had written, and was rather surprised at his wife's question—was spoilt by a shamefacedness which he was not clever enough to conceal.

"No, father," said Mrs. Lethbridge; adding, triumphantly, "and I don't believe you do, either."

"Well, to tell you the truth," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a little laugh, "I don't. But he is very celebrated. Mr. Kiss says so. He writes plays, and his last one was not a success. It has troubled him greatly, poor fellow. Give us a good tea, mother."

Mrs. Lethbridge nodded, and sent him in to his visitors, and went herself down to the kitchen to attend to her domestic arrangements, where she was presently joined by her children and Phœbe.

"We don't want you, Bob," said Mrs. Lethbridge to her son; "go and join the gentlemen."

"I'd sooner stop here, mother," said Robert.

"Go away, there's a good boy," said the mother; "you will only put things back."

Robert, however, showed no inclination to leave the kitchen, but hovered about Phœbe like a butterfly about a flower.

"Do you hear what mother says?" demanded Fanny, imperiously; she was given to lord it occasionally over her brother. "Go at once, and listen to the gentlemen, and have your mind improved."

"Now you're chaffing me," said Robert, "and you know that always puts my back up."

Mrs. Lethbridge looked around with affectionate distraction in her aspect.

"Go, Robert," said Phœbe.

"Not if you call me 'Robert,' said he.

"Well, Bob."

"All right, I'll vanish. Fanny, there's a smut on your nose."

Which caused Fanny to rub that feature smartly with her handkerchief, and then to ask Phœbe in a tone of concern, "Is it off?" This sent Robert from the kitchen laughing, while Fanny called out to him that she would pay him for it. She laughed too, when he was gone, and declared that he was getting a greater tease every day. Presently all was bustle; the best cups and saucers were taken from the cupboard, and Phœbe, with her sleeves tucked up, was dusting them; Fanny was cutting the bread and buttering it; Aunt Leth was busy with eggs and rashers of bacon, and the frying-pan was on the fire; while, attending to the frying-pan and the kettle and the teapot, and working away generally with a will, was the most important person in the kitchen—the goddess, indeed, of that region—whose name, with a strange remissness, has not yet been mentioned: 'Melia Jane!

In these days of fine-lady-servants, the mere mention of so inestimable a treasure is an agreeable thing; for if ever there was a devoted, untiring, unselfish, capable, cheerful slave of the broom and the pan, that being was 'Melia Jane. Up early in the morning, without ever being called; up late at night, without a murmur; no Sundays out, as a law, the violation of which was a graver matter than the separation of church and state; cooking, scrubbing, washing, with a light heart, and as happy as the day is long. Could I write an epic, I would set about it, and call it "'Melia Jane."

Not a beauty; somewhat the reverse, indeed. But "Lor!" as she used to say, scratching her elbow, "beauty's only skin-deep." Nevertheless, she worshipped it in the persons of Fanny and Phœbe, to whom she was devotedly attached. Of the two, she leaned, perhaps, more closely and affectionately to Phœbe, for whom she entertained the profoundest admiration, "Wenus," she declared, "couldn't 'old a candle to 'er." And had she been asked, in the way of disputation, under what circumstances and to what intelligible purpose that goddess could be expected to hold a candle to Phœbe, she would doubtless have been prepared with a reply which would have confounded the interrogator.

She had a history, which can be briefly recorded.

Like all careful housewives with limited incomes, Mrs. Lethbridge had her washing "done" at home, and 'Melia Jane's mother, in times gone by, was Aunt Leth's washer-woman. She died when 'Melia Jane was ten years old, and the child, being friendless and penniless, was admitted into Mrs. Lethbridge's kitchen as a kind of juvenile help. She proved to be so clever and willing, and so "teachable," as Mrs. Lethbridge said, that when the old servant left to get married, 'Melia Jane took her place, and from that day did the entire work of the house. For the present, this brief record is sufficient. More of 'Melia Jane anon.

Robert burst into the kitchen in a state of great excitement.

"Mother, you didn't tell me Mr. Linton was a dramatic author. Just think, Phœbe; he writes plays! Isn't it grand?"

The girls opened their eyes very wide. There was indeed a luminary in the house, a star of the first magnitude. A dramatic author! It was enough to make them tremble.

"But why have you left them, Bob?" asked Mrs. Lethbridge.

"I was told to go," replied Robert. "They did not want me. They're talking business."

"Business!" exclaimed Mrs. Lethbridge. "What business can they have with father?"

"Perhaps," suggested Robert, "he is going to take a theatre, and Mr. Linton is going to write the plays, and Mr. Kiss is going to act in them."

"What nonsense you talk!" said Mrs. Lethbridge.

"Mother," said Robert, solemnly, "my mind's made up."

"A very small parcel," remarked Fanny, thus paying him off for the smut on her nose.

"I'm serious," said Robert; "I'm fixed—yes, fixed as the polar star. That sounds well. I shall go on the stage."

"And off again, very quick," said Fanny.

"What! turn actor, Bob?" exclaimed Mrs. Lethbridge.

"Yes," said Robert, folding his arms; "a second Irving."

"Avaunt, and quit my sight!" cried Phœbe, seizing the rolling-pin and striking an attitude.

They all fell to laughing, and 'Melia Jane stared at the young people, with her eyes almost starting out of their sockets.