Despite his remark at the conclusion of the foregoing chapter it was not Eliphalet Cardomay’s habit to look for thanks, and on the rare occasions when it was offered he usually murmured something quite incoherent and sought to escape. His real lode-star was to obtain a result, and no amount of personal inconvenience counted in this most vital of all obligations. To obtain the best result from the material at hand was practically his religion. Not as a rule given to boasting, yet he might frequently be heard to say:
“I can always be sure of getting the best from any member of my company, be it in or out of the theatre.”
It was a harmless enough little foible and saved many an inept actor or actress from reproaches. Eliphalet would argue that even though the quality of art with which they served him was indifferent, it represented the high-water mark of which they were capable, and so he forebore to criticise.
Like the martyrs of old, Eliphalet lived his ideals and was ready to uphold them by any sacrifice, as the succeeding episode goes to demonstrate.
No first-class provincial touring company need despise the Pier Pavilion at Brestwater-super-Mare. It boasts a stage of bold proportions, a capacious be-mirrored and luxuriously-upholstered auditorium and a façade that compels instant admiration. The design, a happy mixture of all the exhibition buildings which have ever sprung into existence, combined with a strong vein of Moorish architecture, is a triumph of skill and ingenuity.
Well, indeed, may the happy manager who has been fortunate enough to book a week there swell with pride as he passes the turnstile of the Pier, without the prepayment of twopence, and sees the majestic domes and spires of the Pavilion whitely silhouette themselves against the turquoise Channel waters. In such inspired surroundings, with the chuckle of sea beneath his feet, and the singing of the wind in his ears, who could choose but feel carefree and joyous, and give both-handedly of his artistic best?
But Eliphalet Cardomay, one of the mildest creatures God ever placed upon earth—a man of most even temper and lovable qualities—sensitive to an extreme of the influences of his environments—was in a dark and forbidding mood. The beauty of the day, the music of the water, the rococo architecture, were as nothing to him. With hands clasped behind his back, stickless and hatless, he strode the pier boards like a man possessed.
The importunities of peroxided young ladies who, from the vantage of their little kiosks, besought him to buy chocolates, local views, frozen roses—or to solve the mystery of a certain walking-stick which in adept hands would transform itself into a useless pen—he almost rudely ignored.
“Phtsss!” he exploded aloud. “The man’s a coward—an incompetent.”
He gripped the railings of the Pier and gazed fiercely out to sea, while the wind played cornfields in his long grey hair.
A photographer, ever alert for fresh victims, approached and commenting upon the favourable condition of the elements, suggested that the gentleman might feel disposed to have a “likeness” taken.
“I do not feel disposed,” returned Eliphalet, curtly.
“I have some most amusing backgrounds,” continued the photographer, in no wise rebuffed, and proceeded, to describe how, in his professional opinion, Eliphalet would prove a suitable subject to place his head through a hole in a large canvas upon which was painted an astonishingly-clad individual riding on a rocking-horse. He wound up with the words, “Causes roars of laughter.”
Eliphalet spun round and fixed two pin-points upon his frock-coated persecutor.
“Are you seeking to amuse yourself at my expense?”
“No, sir—I assure you.”
“Then go away.”
But the photographer was not a man to be trifled with. His hand flew to his hip pocket, in the manner of a mining-camp desperado, and withdrew a neat fan of samples of his craft.
“I am sure,” he blandly ventured, “after a glance through these, I should number you among my patrons.”
With a view to scattering the photographer’s examples upon the waves, Eliphalet Cardomay snatched them from the extended hand; but before he had accomplished his intention he abruptly checked himself. The top photograph had caught his eye. It depicted a knock-kneed individual dressed in a close-fitting striped garment, shivering upon the steps of a bathing-machine.
“Ha!” exclaimed Eliphalet, surveying the image at the length of his arm. “Ha!”
“Most amusing, is it not?” volunteered the photographic artist, with an accompanying smile usually employed as a pattern for his more serious sitters.
Eliphalet regarded him with one eyebrow raised high above its fellow.
“Amusing! Appropriate, if you like, but amusing—no—it is contemptible.” And so saying, he slapped the photographs into the astonished artist’s hand and, throwing back his head, stalked off, past the line of melancholy fishers in the direction of his dressing-room.
Upon the stripped stage were assembled the various members of his company; for the most part they had composed themselves in little groups and were talking in animated whispers.
Out of the medley of subdued tongues occasional fragments of speech were audible.
“But these juveniles are not like they were in our day, Kitterson.”
“You could see Mr. Cardomay was in a rage,” said Violet O’Neal.
“He’d have sworn if he hadn’t gone out,” returned Miss Fullar.
“Can’t think what Cartwright’s making such a fuss over.”
“Any fool could jump six feet into a net.”
“Wish they’d give me the part.”
“You can’t get away from it, old man, Cartwright’s no actor.”
With his back against the proscenium and fiddling with an unlighted cigarette, stood an isolated figure, over whom seemed to hover a spirit of tragedy. Ever and anon his eyes sought a wooden structure at the back of the stage. The structure was in the nature of a rostrum, about ten feet in height, beneath which was stretched a substantial net some thirty inches clear of the boards.
This young man was Mr. Aloysius Cartwright, the new jeune premier for the forthcoming production.
Up and down before him, his bowler hat eclipsing his right eye and the major portion of the right side of his face, walked Mr. Manning, the stage-manager. Presently he halted in his stride and addressed Mr. Cartwright.
“Look here, why don’t you have another packet at it while the Guv’nor’s away? Make up your mind to do it, and it’s as good as done.”
“No, really, Manning, I’ve—I can’t.”
Freddie Manning sniffed noisily.
“It comes to this, o’ man. You’ll put the kibosh on the whole show if you don’t. I can’t see what you’re raising the wind over. You told me you were a swimmer, too.”
“Oh, I can swim a bit, but that has nothing to do with it. What I——” He stopped, for at that moment Eliphalet Cardomay appeared through the swing-doors.
His entrance caused something of a nervous flutter, for everyone had felt the effects of the rehearsal which had ended in his abrupt departure.
The wrath of a naturally quiet-humoured man is always somewhat alarming, for no one can be sure of the direction in which it will vent itself. But apparently the thunder-clouds had passed away, for when Eliphalet came to a halt in the glare of the bunch light, his features were almost seraphic in their calm.
“Come, Manning,” he said. “We will go on, ladies and gentlemen, please. Mr. Cartwright, I apologise for my hasty departure a while ago, but you—well, I was upset. It is a matter of personal pride with me that I have always—and in using the word I speak advisedly—have always been able to get the best out of any actor or actress I have employed. For a moment I feared that you—that I was to sacrifice that reputation; and I am sure, Mr. Cartwright, you would not willingly cause me so much distress.”
“Well, I——” began Aloysius Cartwright—but the senior man held up his hand in a gesture compelling silence.
“Perhaps you have not fully realised the essence of the scene and what I have here may help you to do so.” So saying, he unrolled a large sheet of paper he had been carrying and displayed a very lurid poster of a young man in evening dress leaping from a lock-gate into a canal. It was a striking composition in which black shadows and a much-reflected moon played important parts.
“Now, Mr. Cartwright, with this as your guide I am certain I shall not appeal to you in vain.” And Eliphalet Cardomay, having made the amende honorable for his previous ill-humour, smiled a kindly smile of encouragement.
But Aloysius Cartwright failed to seize the opportunity of reinstating himself in his manager’s good graces.
“It—it is all very well, sir, but I wish to say that I am neither an acrobat nor a cinema actor—my tastes are for—for legitimate work.”
The lines about Eliphalet’s mouth drew down and hardened. “I think,” he said, “you are confusing the issue. The question appears to me to turn more upon personal valour than upon anything else.” Then, speaking with sudden enthusiasm, “Why, my dear, dear boy—consider a moment. Put yourself in the hero’s position. Imagine your own sweetheart bound hand and foot and struggling in the waters of the canal. Would you hesitate for a second? No. Would you falter before the task of saving her from the clutches of the stream? No, no. Then be the man whom you’re portraying. Play upon the impulsiveness of your nature, the gallantry of your youth, the pluck—the enthusiasm—the élan: lift up—grip us—thrill us, and——” with an abrupt change from the inspired to the finite, “do remember that we’re producing the day after to-morrow.”
“I’ll try,” said Mr. Cartwright.
“Clear the stage,” shouted Manning, clapping his hands to support the order. “Up left, Miss Maybank, please. Come on, Fieldfare—for goodness’ sake, o’ man. Now where’s that rope? Props! PROPS!!” An old man wearing a green baize apron thrust his head through the opening to the scene dock. “Get that rope—quick—and try and remember some of us live by eating, and don’t want to be here all day. There you are! Catch hold, Denton! Where’ll they start, Guv’nor?”
“Miss O’Neal’s entrance. I’ll go into the stalls.”
“Your entrance, my dear. Ready, sir? Right.”
Violet O’Neal the ingénue, stepped out from behind an imaginary wing and began to walk between two chalked lines on the stage, indicating the bank of the river on one hand, and the ancient mill on the other. In the excitement of the moment she overstepped the margins of the line.
“Don’t do that,” said Eliphalet, rising from his seat. “It is not the intention you should fall in the water before being thrown there.”
“Back, please,” from Manning. “Once more, please.”
Violet retraced her steps and came on again with the nervous air of an amateur walking the tightrope.
Eliphalet tapped with his stick on the brass rail of the orchestra pit.
“A little more natural grace, please,” he suggested. “And shouldn’t you be singing here?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot.”
“Quite—but please don’t forget.”
Then Mr. Manning, “Once more, please!” And a glance at his watch, for the stage-manager was a person who took lunch seriously.
This time she succeeded better with the manœuvre and produced a humming sound intended to indicate a carefree damsel enjoying the evening air.
Then from the assumed shadow of the mill leapt two figures and barred her way.
“Sir Jasper—you!” cried the girl.
“Yes, me.”
“I,” corrected Eliphalet.
“Yes, I,” amended Fieldfare. “You little counted on the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance so soon—eh?” (Sinister words with a hint of dark deeds behind them.)
“Please let me pass.” This imperiously from the girl.
“Pass! There is but one passing for you, and that lies there.” With a gesture towards where the water would be on the night. “Unless——”
“I am not a child to be frightened by such threats, Sir Jasper. Stand aside, or I shall cry for help.”
“Cry, will you?—and who will answer it? The trees—the hills—the river?”
Mr. Cartwright placed his foot in the lowest rung of the ladder leading to the rostrum.
Miss Maybank: “I command you to let me pass.”
Fieldfare: “You little fool! Don’t you realise that at this moment you are utterly mine?—that I could flick out your life as easily as—er—” he fluffed for his words, “as easily as I could crack a nut in a door?”
“What are you talking about?” interrupted Eliphalet. “Beneath my heel is the line. Persons of quality do not crack nuts in doors.”
Fieldfare: “Crack a nut beneath my heels.”
“HEEL—singular. It is not a cocoanut that requires both feet.”
“Beneath my heel,” pursued Fieldfare with a nervousness which reflected itself in Mr. Aloysius Cartwright’s lick-lipping, collar-in-finger perturbation. “Choose, and choose quickly—life with me, or death, and death alone.”
“God help me!”
“Choose.”
“Then I choose.”
Like lightning she whisked round to make good, but the second man was upon her, and bound her wrists with cruel dexterity.
“Frank—Frank!” she cried.
Fieldfare: “Little fool! by now your Frank is in the arms of the Duchess of Cleeve.”
“It’s a lie!”
“No, the truth. So make up your mind quickly—your lover is false to you—which shall it be—life or death?”
“If life means life with you—then death a hundred times.”
Fieldfare: “Well, die, then—die!” And with a coward’s blow he pushed her over the river-bank.
Prompter: “Splash! Two handfuls of rice, and that’s your cue light, Mr. Cartwright.”
For a moment it seemed that the panic had deserted Aloysius, for he clattered up the steps three at a time, crying:
“Doris! Doris! Where are you? Doris, I say!”
Fieldfare: “H’st! Quickly away!” And he and his companion flitted into the shadows as Cartwright, like a human whirlwind, dashed on to the lock bridge.
Like a man distraught, he gripped the bridge rail and cried:
“Where are you, my love? Where are you?”
From the water below came a faint cry of:
“Fraaank! Fr—a—!” gugle—gugle.
Cartwright: “My God!—in the river—drowning! I—I am coming!”
Eliphalet Cardomay leaned forward tensely in his stall, as with superb abandon the hero whipped off his dress coat and, casting it from him, sprang on to the rail of the bridge. With hands high above his head—posed for a magnificent dive—he stood there for one breathless second—then suddenly his body went all limp, his hands fell to his sides, and he faltered:
“It’s no use—I can’t do it, sir.”
And Eliphalet Cardomay, for the first time on record, swore before his entire company.
“Damnation!” The word rang out like a tocsin. Then, tearing off his hat, he kicked it across the auditorium and high up into the dress-circle.
“Lamentable creature!” he cried. “Wretched poltroon!”
Mr. Cartwright slowly descended from the rostrum.
“It is not part of my professional ambition to leap into a net,” he faltered.
“Leap!” echoed Eliphalet wildly. “Leap! Dare you employ such a word? I have seen a tile fall from a roof with more grace. I have seen a blind man stumble on a banana-skin with greater dignity. But a more pitiable craven-hearted exhibition than yours I—I——” Words failed him. “You have ruined my belief in the younger generation—you have shattered my belief in myself. Manning, Manning! what are we going to do about it?”
“Have a bit of lunch, Guv’nor, and talk it over quietly afterwards.”
So attractive did the proposition sound that without awaiting the sanction of the master, the entire company trooped to the wings and, grabbing their hats and coats, made for the nearest exit.
Never before in the recollection of the oldest member of the company had “the Guv’nor” given way to the slightest exhibition of temper, and the occasion had seriously unnerved them. That he should have lost control of himself to the extent of using violent language, and kicking his defenceless hat, was a revelation which could only be conversationally approached in the fresh air and sunshine.
Some form of belated courage induced Mr. Cartwright to remain, after the others had departed, brushing his Homburg hat upon his sleeve and buttoning and unbuttoning his gloves. He of all others had the greater reason for flight, and to his credit be it entered that he lingered.
But Eliphalet Cardomay was in no mood to spare him on that account. Like a destroyer circling a troop-ship, he revolved round the unhappy Aloysius, ever and anon firing salvoes of reproach and opprobrium.
Even when, unable to endure longer the whips and scorns of the managerial tongue, Mr. Cartwright sought to escape, Eliphalet was close upon his heels, jerking out verbal grenades of the most poignant nature.
Past the lines of melancholy fishers they pursued their way, hunted and hunter; through the turnstile of what might be called the super-pier upon which the Pavilion was situated, they made their way—Mr. Cartwright doing his best to preserve an air of stoic endurance, and Eliphalet Cardomay following with periodical explosions of artistic wrath.
Above the box-office, the lurid poster of the hero leaping into the canal insisted upon recognition.
“Look!” cried Eliphalet, restraining his quarry with the crook of his stick. “Look, and be ashamed! That is what I have led the public to expect, and——” His eye fell upon the photographer’s booth, not five yards distant, beside which sat a young lady, tilting back her chair against the chain bulwarks of the pier. “HA! It is not too late to make amends. I have never yet cheated my public. Come!” And seizing the youth by the arm, he dragged him protestingly towards the temple of photographic art.
The photographer was seated within, indulging his appetite with a cut from the joint and two vegetables imported from a neighbouring café. He rose, politely masticating, as the two came in, and inquired, to the best ability of his well-filled mouth, in what manner he could be of service to them.
“I have brought you a subject,” said Eliphalet. “I wish you to take this gentleman with his head thrust through the hole of that vile canvas of the shivering creature on the bathing-machine steps.”
“I protest,” began Cartwright, but Eliphalet talked him down.
“I shall want it enlarged to the size of the poster yonder, which it is destined to supplant. I shall placard it on every hoarding in the town. I shall——”
But the sentence was never completed, for from immediately outside came a sharp, wild scream. Through the windows of the studio they had a momentary glimpse of a pair of white shoes and stockings pointing towards Heaven for a fraction of time. Followed another shriller scream and a deep, resonant splash.
“Good ’eavens!” cried the photographer, rendered aitch-less by surprise. “That girl’s fallen in.”
By common consent they rushed out, and were confronted with a view of an upturned chair, a swinging chain, and in the water below, the flash of a white skirt and an outstretched hand.
“She’s drowning!” gasped Eliphalet, in genuine horror.
Then spoke Aloysius Cartwright, and his words tumbled over one another like the waters of a cataract:
“Here’s a chance, sir—a chance! You—you’ve slanged and vilified me all the morning for making a muddle of the rescue scene. Here’s the real thing! Here’s a chance to show me how to do it now!”
The walking-stick fell from Eliphalet’s hand and a fine colour flushed his cheek, as he said, articulating each word with biting emphasis:
“I am sixty-two years of age, Mr. Cartwright.”
But Cartwright, his temper roused by much pricking, was beyond the touch of sarcasm.
“I merely said it was a chance,” he replied. “I didn’t expect you would take it.”
The old man’s face went very white, and with trembling fingers he released the buttons of his long coat.
“Did you not?” he said. “I have never asked a man to perform what I lacked the courage to do myself, Mr. Cartwright, so kindly observe me.” And, throwing aside his coat, he sprang head-first into the water.
“Good God!” exclaimed Cartwright, and fell back a pace.
Naturally, by this time a crowd had assembled. With the light of hope in their eyes, and greatly to the confusion of their lines, the melancholy fishermen came hurrying to the spot. The various sweet and novelty shops swiftly gave up their complement of be-pearled, peroxided maidens. A very worldly-wise young man, in a blue suit, which seemed to be entering into a colour competition with the sea, on the not unnatural assumption that a cinema play was in course of production, asked his friend where the camera was situated. From the far side of the pier a boatman, whose duty it was to guard the destinies of bathers, aroused himself from lethargy and plied a busy oar among the pier-piles, beneath the spectators, towards the confusion in the water. An old lady in a bath-chair, who, that very morning, had confided to her fellow-guests at the boarding-house her utter inability to walk unaided, alighted from her conveyance with surprising alacrity and managed to secure a place in the front row, while, in token of the mistake of leaping rapidly to conclusions, from the back of the crowd came a querulous and oft-repeated cry of “Fire!”
“Make a passage there,” shouted a compelling voice, and shouldering his way through the crowd came Mr. Manning.
Seeing Cartwright, he demanded:
“What the hell’s up?”
“The Guv’nor! A girl fell into the sea, and—and he—he went in after her.”
“What! But he can’t swim, man—he’ll drown!” And gripping the pier railings, Mr. Manning leant perilously over the side.
“You don’t mean that,” gasped Cartwright.
“Mean it! Look for yourself, you fool!”
And Cartwright looked.
The young lady on whose behalf Mr. Cardomay had committed himself to the deep had already disappeared. A kindly wave had washed her to within easy grasp of an iron cross-tie, where, gripping tenaciously, she moved in rhythmic sympathy to the motions of the channel tide. But the case of Eliphalet was none so good. Neither was Rome built, nor are divers made, in a day. Eliphalet had landed (to use a contradiction in terms) full-length and flat upon the waters, and as a result suffered the loss of every vestige of wind his lungs contained. Wherefore the process of drowning was but a matter of moments. Already he had made one of his allotted three excursions among the laminaria of the ocean bed, and the second was in active course of preparation.
“Oh, Guv’nor!” wailed Mr. Manning. “You can’t swim, and neither can I.”
And then the unexpected came to pass. Mr. Aloysius Cartwright—one-time coward and craven—of a sudden became a hero and a man. Disregarding the sensibilities of the feminine element in the crowd, he peeled off his coat and vest, kicked his beautiful brogue shoes right and left (incidentally breaking one of the photographer’s windows), and performed a dive so faultless in its athletic perfection as to excite a cry of rapture and amazement from all present.
He “took off” at the precise moment Eliphalet came to the surface for the second time, and it was only by a miracle he failed to torpedo that unhappy man or alight head-first in the prow of the boat which had unexpectedly shot out from beneath the pier.
It is certain and beyond dispute that had he delayed another second he would have broken his own neck, sunk the boat and driven Eliphalet finally to the bottom. But the tragedy was averted, and he cleft the waves with scarce a bubble to mark his entry. Reappearing with a strong side-stroke some twenty feet away, he made for the boat, where his assistance was instrumental in considerably delaying the work of rescue.
It was a sorry-looking and draggle-tailed trio who eventually came to port at the little iron stairway by the pier-head. Between them Cartwright and Mr. Manning conveyed Eliphalet Cardomay to a couch in his dressing-room. The young lady who caused these sensational happenings was carried off by one of the peroxide sisterhood, and departs from our field of vision in a semi-hysterical condition.
It was Mr. Manning who took entire charge of the work of bringing “the Guv’nor” round, and did it with that thoroughness which distinguished all his undertakings.
Eventually Eliphalet opened his eyes and let them drift round the room until they came to rest on Aloysius Cartwright, who was forming an island in an ocean that dripped from his clothes. Eliphalet regarded him with a puzzled expression which suddenly cleared and was supplanted by a rare and almost beautiful smile.
“That was a wonderful dive, Mr. Cartwright,” he murmured. “Just what I wanted.” The smile transformed itself into a look of great contentment. “I have always believed I could bring out the best in any member of my company. I think I am justified in holding that opinion still.”
This is an advertising age, and the success of a commodity depends not so much on its quality as the quality of the advertisement bringing it before the public eye. Nevertheless, and despite the packed houses which patronised his new production, Eliphalet Cardomay was highly incensed when asked by a reporter to confide to the columns of the Brestwater Mercury the precise sum he had paid in gold to the young lady who fell into the sea.