Читать книгу Sackcloth into Silk - Warwick Deeping - Страница 11

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Neither Rebecca nor her son could be expected to foresee the future, or to hail as the master of Karl’s destiny a little old man in a bowler hat.

It was a monstrous hat, hard and high, and covering its owner’s head like a felt morion. It arrived on one drenching day under Rebecca’s awning, and proceeded to empty its brim over a pair of second-hand trousers. Rebecca was in the shop, serving customers, and Karl, posted on his stool, observed the stranger.

The little man was shaking his hat.

“Cats and dogs. Damn it,—why cats and dogs?—Shakespeare would have said haddocks and bloaters.”

He discovered Karl and nodded at him.

“Hallo, young fellah! Want to sell me a pup?”

Karl stood up. He liked Mr. Bowler Hat, though he could not say just why. The stranger’s nose stuck out like a sparrow’s beak; he had a little grey moustache and side whiskers, and between them showed a polished chin. In fact, he was not unlike a cock-sparrow—and a London one at that.

“We don’t sell dogs,” said Karl.

Mr. Bowler Hat twinkled at him.

“Ha, don’t you!—And why are you looking at my chin?”

“Because—it’s—naked,” said Karl, “and you’ve got hair——”

Mr. Bowler Hat stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.

“Observation,—what!—Now, what do I want? Got any idea?”

Karl looked him over.

“An umbrella.”

“Did you ever see Macbeth with an umbrella?—Try again, my lad.”

“A mackintosh.”

“Ex-actly. Something nice and shiny.”

Rebecca’s customers emerging at this moment, Karl’s mother came to the doorway, and saw Karl reaching with a pole for a black mackintosh that hung on a hook below the fascia board. Mr. Bowler Hat raised his monstrous headgear to her. The drama had taught him manners.

“Evening, ma’m. Good day for mackintoshes.”

Rebecca smiled at him. She had a jocund and luscious smile when things pleased her, and she was smiling more as a widow than as a wife.

“You shouldn’t have come out without one.”

“Ha, ma’m,—I tore my old ’un on a nail in the castle of Elsinore. Sounds funny,—that.—Yes, I want a mackintosh. Right, my lad, I’ll try it on.”

Obviously, the thing pleased him, as did Rebecca and her son. He buttoned it up under his chin, stuck his hands in the pockets, and looked down at his boots.

“How much?”

“It’s nearly new,” said Rebecca.

“Yes, m’am, but how much?”

“Twenty-three and sixpence.”

“Knock off the tanner and I’ll take it.”

“It’s yours,” said Karl’s mother.

And would he like it wrapped up? He winked.—“It’s going to wrap me up as far as the old ‘Globe.’ Know what the ‘Globe’ is, my son?”

“A pub,” said Karl promptly.

“Wrong this time, Romeo. Ever been to a theatre?”

“No, sir.”

“Sir,—that’s—manners. What price Sir Henry, or Sir Beerbohm? You come along to the back door of the Globe one day and ask for Tom Vidler, no—not Tom Tidler, and I’ll show you a box of tricks.”

Such was the beginning of a friendship between Mr. Vidler, Rebecca and her youngest son. Mr. Vidler combined the functions of chief scene-shifter and carpenter at the Globe theatre in Islington, and though the “House” was classed as suburban, it boasted a tradition. Kean, Phelps and Irving had acted here, and Mr. Vidler took himself and his position very seriously, though he was a man of quips and phrases. Behind the proscenium arch he had become something of an autocrat, an oddity whom even bullying stage-managers did not flout. One hot and rather alcoholic gentleman had on a sultry July day shouted—during a rehearsal—at Mr. Vidler.—“What—the hell—have you been doing with those bloody slides, you damned old idiot?”—Mr. Vidler had addressed his mates. “Run ’em off, boys. The gentleman does not like them. And there won’t be any scenery to-night.” The blusterer had discovered that Mr. Vidler was not to be shouted at, or called an idiot, and especially not an old one. “No manners, no scenery, sir. We’re not the Walls of Jericho.”

Mr. Vidler had long been a widower, but looking upon Rebecca he found her comely, comfortable and comely. He would have married her had Rebecca been willing, but Rebecca was not, and Mr. Vidler, being a man with a philosophy, was not huffed by her refusal. In fact, he wanted company, especially on Sundays, and since he was allowed to take the boy out, and to sit and smoke his pipe by Rebecca’s fireside, he accepted friendship without responsibility. As he confessed to himself in intimate moments—he was a bit old for the job, and Rebecca wasn’t exactly a grandmother.

Moreover, there were Augustus and George, and Mr. Vidler had no liking for either of them. Augustus was slimy, and George an arrogant lout, and Mr. Vidler with his tight and almost ascetic little mouth, was tart with insolent youngsters.

But he revealed to Karl the mysterious and spider-like world behind the footlights. To begin with, the interior seemed a dark confusion of canvas and ropes and timber, of queer dark passages and strange little rooms. It could be draughty and dark and silent, but when it came to life it was a world which the boy found fascinating. He became accepted there almost as a stage mouse, a creature with dark eyes and quick movements who was never in the way. Sometimes the door-keeper would allow him in during a performance, and Karl would watch Mr. Vidler and his henchmen at their work.

Mr. Vidler always wore that bowler hat, like some crown of authority, also a white apron, and no coat. He functioned in his shirt sleeves. And from him Karl learnt all about back-drops, and the flies, and the gridiron, and slides, and the footlights, and border-lights. It was in those days a world of painted canvas, a world that flapped, and shivered if someone slammed a property door. Karl, secreted in some crevice in the wings while the curtain was down, would watch some new back-drop unfurled. It might be a forest, or a cathedral, or a castle, or a village green, an artifice, a sham, and yet to Karl that life behind the scenes was vivid and real. He watched men whisking furniture on to the stage after they had whisked other objects off it, and the thing was done with a kind of fierce, noiseless stealth. He watched the actors, heard them joking in the wings before going on to become somebody else. He thought them very great men. As for the ladies—they were all wonderful, and sometimes awful.

Then there was the prompter, Mr. Bones, a skeletal creature with pince-nez perched half-way down his nose. Stage-managers Karl avoided; they sometimes looked at him like irritable gentlemen who had found a stray dog to kick. Karl made friends with one of the call-boys, an impudent young fellow who not only summoned people from their dressing-rooms, but rushed to the Bunch of Grapes for pots of beer.

Strangely enough Karl saw all the inner functionings of the drama before he sat on the house side of the proscenium and watched the curtain go up. At Christmas the Globe ran a pantomime, and on that particular Christmas Rebecca and her son had stalls for Cinderella. They were paper stalls, a present from Mr. Vidler. Karl wore a new suit and collar and tie, and his mother was in black satin.

Karl had seen Cinderella off the stage, drinking beer out of a tankard and talking good cockney. When he saw her on it, the illusion somehow triumphed. She had lovely legs and could dance, and a pair of dark eyes that were both amorous and roguish. Karl felt with the Prince. He fell in love with the lady, and lay awake half the night playing Prince to his own child’s dream. He was completely romantic, assigning to himself the part of hero. He rescued the lady from robbers and wild beasts; he knelt on one knee at her very pretty feet and breathed those eternal words—“I love you.”

His mother received no confession. Mr. Vidler, taking a few pulls at a pipe in the carpenter’s shop on a foggy afternoon, found Karl in the doorway.

“Hallo, my dear, and how did you like Cinderella?”

The child’s face was all shimmering.

“Isn’t she beautiful, Mr. Vidler.”

Mr. Vidler was not so sure.

“She’s got a nice pair of legs and plenty of cheek.”

Karl’s eyes protested mutely, and Mr. Vidler, recognizing the symptoms, was magnanimous.

“Like to be introduced, my lad?”

Karl nodded, and Mr. Vidler nodded back at him, and Karl was told to slip in half an hour before the evening performance. The keeper of the stage-door happened to be in a whimsical mood, and Karl was caught by the collar. Where did he think he was going? Karl explained with eagerness that on this wonderful night he was to be presented to Cinderella.

“Please, Mr. Piper——”

“Going to be introduced to Miss Godbold, are you?”

“No,” said Karl—“Cinderella, Miss Ivy St. George.”

“The same, my dear. Lottie Godbold in Peckham, Ivy St. George on the posters.—Well, since you’re under fourteen,—I’ll pass you through, but I’m a cracker on knuts. She’s caused me more trouble than a wagon-load of monkeys.”

Karl did not quite understand, but he said “Yes, Mr. Piper,” and Mr. Piper grinned and let him through. Karl was no connoisseur of legs; he was just a dream-struck kid in short pants, a jolly little beggar. The boy found Mr. Vidler supervising the setting of the first scene, his bowler hat on the back of his head, and his tie bulging under his shiny chin. Mr. Vidler looked at the child and nodded.—“You keep out of sight, my dear. God’s got indigestion.”

Presently, Mr. Vidler took Karl up the stairs and knocked at the door of a dressing-room. There were voices within, and loud laughter.—“Hallo,—what’s what?” Mr. Vidler opened the door a crack and spoke.—“Gentleman to see you, Miss St. George.”—“Is it—bald?” asked a voice. “No, Miss, it doesn’t shave yet.” Miss St. George laughed, and Mr. Vidler pushed Karl in. He saw two ladies sitting on hard chairs in front of tables and mirrors. One of the ladies, a sumptuous blonde and the Principal Boy, was amusing herself by smacking her splendid and princely thighs.

“Yours, Lottie.”

Miss St. George was making up. She saw the reflection of the child in her mirror. She had been approached by Mr. Vidler on this small admirer’s behalf. She turned in her chair and gave him a wonderful smile.

“Are you—Karl?”

Karl’s eyes and mouth were round. Obviously, he was beauty struck, and Miss St. George was a little bored with The Boys, elderly and otherwise.

“Come and give me a kiss, my dear.”

Her voice was less refined than the voice of the destined princess. She was in tights and an old dressing-jacket. Karl went solemnly to be kissed. His Cinderella’s face was all strange and sticky, eyelids blackened, her mouth like strawberry jam. Karl’s lips touched the grease paint, and a childish illusion died in him. Life was different on the other side of the drop scene.