Читать книгу Ploughman of the Moon - Robert William Service - Страница 19

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Physically and morally my sporting year did me a heap of good. It toughened my fibre, built up my confidence. No longer was I a shy, sensitive youth, sending secret verse to the local rags. I now thought myself a man about town, able to swagger into a pub and down a pint of beer with the best. And it was by way of the bar-room and the music-hall I continued my education. One night in the gallery of a variety palace a voice hailed me. It was Tommy Twitchell, my old football captain. I had not met him since he had bawled me out for scoring a touch-down from full-back. He had always been stand-offish with me. Now, however, he seemed glad to see me.

"Hullo, young fellow! what are you doing in this den of iniquity?"

"Sad as it may seem, I like it," I said. "I'm afraid I have a talent for low-living. But what about you?"

"Oh, I'm studying to be a music-hall artist. I want to go on the halls."

I was surprised; but now I remembered he had often entertained us on train trips when we were playing out-of-town matches. As we walked home he stopped me under a lamp-post: "I've got a new song. It's called King of the Kurds. How is this?"

I only remember a snatch of the chorus which went:

It may seem absurd, for I am not a Kurd,

But I'm king of 'em all the same,

Ta-ra-ra ...

He then strutted in a ring, tilting his hat on one side and sticking out his bottom in the classic way. I was deeply impressed.

"Bravo," I said. "You only want a step-dance to top it off."96

"How is this?" he asked, and tapped a little dance. I was still more impressed. Then he gave me imitations of Dan Leno and Little Tich. He could twist his face grotesquely and do things with his voice. I was enthusiastic in my admiration. "You should really be a professional," I told him.

"I'm terribly keen. But the old man would disown me if I did. He's a deacon and a draper. He wants me to go into the shop." For at that time the music-hall had not attained the dignity of vaudeville. It had produced few great artists. Yet once at the tail-end of a show I saw a turn that impressed me. We were leaving our seats to go home, but we stayed to encore and applaud. Yet as I saw the name on the programme in insignificant letters it meant nothing to me. I read: Harry Lauder, Scotch Comedian....

With Tommy I spent my sixpences in music-halls. I loved the unexpectedness of the show, its rich vulgarity. It went with lager beer, pork pies and shag tobacco. We cheered Vesta Tilley and Marie Loftus and joined in their choruses. I fancy I owe something to my early education in vaudeville. It's rum-turn, rumtittytum inspired some of my verses, and when I played at song-composing it was in the tempo of the old-fashioned music-hall.

I kept urging Tommy to take a chance and become a pro. I am sure he would have had a success, for as an amateur he made a big hit. But he never could muster up courage to take the plunge. He had not that touch of the devil which even I, his meek satellite, possessed. He was intensely popular; I was proud of his patronage, but I deplored his lack of daring. So in the end he succumbed to respectability. Last time I saw him he was wielding a yard-stick and on the fairway to successful mediocrity. But O the glorious adventure he missed!...

There was another lad whom I must add to my list of frustrated souls. One night I thought I would give the theatre a break, and from the front of the gallery I was enjoying an operetta called Marjorie. Suddenly I was aware of a boy at my side who was watching the show with an intent and hungry look. He had a puny body,97 and a large head, set askew on his neck. At the end of the act I asked him:

"Don't you live in Ferndale Terrace?"

"Yes. You live in Roselea. I've seen you passing our house. Do you go much to the theatre?"

"No, I'm more of a music-hall man."

"Oh, I go to the music-hall too. I admire Albert Chevalier. I saw him in London recently. If you care to come to our house sometime, I'll play and sing some of his songs."

That was the beginning of a brief but bright friendship. His name was Horace Pewgrass and he lived with his mother. But he had the theatre in his blood, and I never knew a boy so keen to get on the boards. Unlike Tommy, he would have chucked the best job to go on the stage. It was his love, his life. It was his tragedy too, for he had the heart of a romantic lead and the body of a buffoon. At the piano he was a good entertainer of the Grossmith type; but he looked pathetic with his heavy head awry on his twisted neck. He was like a grotesque gnome, and his voice was a penetrating croak.

I spent many happy hours with Horace. He had a keen sense of acting and would point out fine things. We spent magic hours watching Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, Wyndham, Willard and other great actors. Afterward we would talk excitedly: "Did you mark her voice where ..." Or "Did you see his business when ..." And so on, all the way home.

Then we would go to a pub frequented by actors, and drink beer, looking with admiration at the professionals. How proud was I to buy a drink for a slim youth who played a footman in a current comedy. The fact that he subsequently rose to fame justifies my hero-worship.

But even more than London stars we loved our provincial players, because we felt they belonged to us. There were two comedians, fat J. L. Toole and meagre Edward Terry, who gave me unfailing delight. Then Edward Compton, with his old English comedies, was eagerly welcomed. But to my mind best of all was a stalwart Shakespearian actor called Osmond Tearle. He had a rolling voice98 and a way of declaiming blank verse that I do not think was ever equalled. It was like organ music. I loved Tearle. I saw him time after time, and tried to echo his mournful cadence. In doing so I lowered the pitch of my own voice till I was speaking in chesty tones instead of throaty ones.

Then suddenly I became stage-struck. I got out Hamlet and Macbeth and declaimed them as I had done in the grove with Pat so many years ago. I ignored the sense of the lines; the sound was what I was after. I intoned the blank verse sonorously. Poetry seemed now to be only a medium to exploit my voice. And in front of my bedroom mirror I grimaced, spouted and postured.

"I want to do the Bard," I told Horace. "I'll study, and maybe Vezin or Bently might give me a chance. Oh, I'm willing to begin at the bottom. Rosenkrantz or even Guildenstern...." He was sympathetic but not enthusiastic. Shakespeare bored him, and on nights I went to the legit he patronized a modern comedy. He realized that I had neither the height nor the lungs for Shakespeare, and I knew he could never play the dashing parts he aspired to; but we "kidded" each other on. So hoping and dreaming we lived in a magic world of our own.

Ah! these were the great days when we saw ourselves members of the profession. As we emerged from the pub we tried to look like the mummers we had been rubbing shoulders with. We imagined that the passers-by thought we were actors too. We affected Thespian airs and talked in loud tones of the boards and rehearsals. We bought the Era and read it conspicuously in tram-cars. Innocent vanity! Vain pretence! But, oh, what joy it gave us....

I took a class in elocution at the Athenaeum, because it was conducted by an old actor who had once played with Wilson Barrett. But it was too elementary, and after a few lessons I abandoned it. However, I happened to enter the building one evening when the examination was in progress. On the spur of the moment I walked into the room and gave them Browning's Pied Piper. I had just got as far as an imitation of the rage of the burgomaster when the examiners stopped me. "Surely I have made a fool of myself," I said, dis99missing the matter from my mind. Then a few days later I saw my name heading the list. The result of this was to start me on a fell career as an elocutionist. I got up pieces such as Lasca, Fra Giacomo, Shamus O'Brien and The Spanish Mother. I did nothing but dramatic stuff and I loved to let myself go. I became in demand for church-halls and beer-halls, and soon I was launched as an entertainer. I can see now how learning by heart and reciting dramatic pieces had an effect on my future verse. I must confess that I often write with an eye to the reciter.

One day Horace came to me. "I've got an engagement."

"Splendid. Juvenile lead?"

"No, pantomime. They are doing a burlesque of East Lynne. They want me to play Little Willie."

I paid a bob to see him. He was wheeled on in a baby carriage, wearing a blond wig and frilled pantalettes. A sorry affair. I avoided him after that, feeling I could not offer him my congratulations. I think it was the only appearance he ever made; for soon after he caught cold standing in the wings and became a lunger. Poor chap! He died in his early twenties. No one wanted a romantic lead with a twisted neck. Like myself he had his bright dreams, but Fate had stacked the cards against him.

Like Horace I did much hanging round the theatre. Occasionally I got a job as an extra, but the professional supers resented me, and I had to propitiate them with beer and cigarettes. They were a seedy lot, earning a shilling a night. I carried a banner in a revival of Marmion, and I played second watchman in Macbeth. But my first engagement was in a big production of Rob Roy. Then, for the only time in my life, I saw my name on a theatrical bill. It was last in the long cast, and in the smallest of type I read: Robert, son of Rob Roy, then my name. I gazed at the poster, hoping that others would join me in my rapturous contemplation. I wanted to point: "That's me." But the world passed by unheeding, so somewhat sobered, I sought the theatre.

The stage-door man barred my way. "In the cast," I told him loftily, and with a suspicious look he admitted me. Thereupon I100 found my way to the stage where a rehearsal was going on. As no one paid any attention to me I took a seat in the stalls, feeling happy that at last I had attained my beloved world of make-believe. My part was small but effective. I had to run on, panting and panicky, to announce the capture of Rob Roy. My mother, Helen MacGregor, grabbed me and cried: "Where's yuh fathah?"

"A prisoner of the Sassenach," I said brokenly. In an impulse of wrath, she threw me on my back. I twisted round, ducked my head and quivered my shoulders with a simulation of grief. Helen then indulged in a fierce tirade, ending up: "They have not yet subdued Rob Roy." As she finished, with a flourish of her claymore, she saw me prostrate at her feet. Then she grabbed me up again and clutched me to her capacious bosom; after which she proceeded to shed tears down my neck. And strange though it may seem, this scene was most effective; for in those days "ham" acting was taken seriously. So I felt that, though I had no illusion as to its banality, I must not let my mother down. Maybe we might be worthy of a curtain call....

Came the opening night. I had a beautiful Highland costume, a red wig and a Balmoral bonnet. As I gazed into the cracked mirror I scarcely knew myself. Stunning, I thought. Then the actor who played Baillie Nicol Jarvie suggested that what I needed was a good bracer of Scotch, so we sought the bar together.

I was having a "wee one," when Hamish, my brother in the cast, came running to tell me that Helen, my mother, was frantic about me. "The old girl's up in the air. I didn't know she was a rabid teetotaller. She says: 'Where's my boy?' And when I said: 'At the bar,' she shrieked: 'My Robert drinking! Oh, the young rascal! Fetch him to me at once. I'll give him such a spanking.'"

"She wull too," said the Baillie. "She'll lift yer kilt and skelp ye." Then he twisted my sporran round till it protected my rear. "There! that'll tak' aff the brunt o' it."

So we had another drink, and we were putting it back when the call-boy came running: "Your entrance," he yelled. I made a dash for the stage. I arrived just in time for my entry, but as I emerged101 from the wings I heard an anguished howl from the stage manager: "For God's sake stop him! He's got his kilt on backward."

With a shock I realized that my sporran was dangling behind instead of in front; but it was too late. There, in the middle of the stage, I heard a twitter from the front rows, then a rumble of laughter as the house realized my plight. Helen was gazing at me with horror. Then she threw me to the ground with vicious force. As I lay I struggled to adjust my kilt, but in my efforts I felt that something had slipped and the whole thing was coming down. As she yanked me up again I felt my kilt dropping to my ankles, but with a swift movement she happed me round in her voluminous plaid. Then, as she sobbed over me: "My son, my precious boy!" she hissed: "You little devil! I'll flay you for this...." But as the curtain fell to mingled applause and laughter, I ducked under her arm and fled the scene.

So ended my one and only appearance on the professional stage. I was mortified, and my love of the theatre died right there. No, I must not say that. It has never died. To-day the lure of the foot-lights is as strong as ever. In any case, the world has been a stage for me, and I have played the parts my imagination conceived. Rarely have I confronted reality. Now at seventy it seems as if I had never lived at all—just dreamed and played at living....