The Old Card by Roland Pertwee - HTML preview

 

CHAPTER XII
 THE FINAL CURTAIN

A keen eye would have failed to detect Eliphalet Cardomay’s real feelings during the last week of his last tour. Outwardly he presented the appearance of a man at ease with his conscience and at peace with the world.

A lucky public holiday added a couple of really good houses to the week’s receipts, and the thirty sovereigns that arose therefrom he presented to Mornice as a wedding gift.

With many thoughtful considerations he helped her purchase a trousseau and fixed up details with Ronald’s father. These two elderly gentlemen discussed marriage and contracts with the cordial gravity such important matters demand.

The entire company was at the wedding, and very smart indeed was the appearance they presented. Eliphalet had given the ladies the Redfern gowns and added permission for them to be worn at the church. He himself was most spruce, a white gardenia in his buttonhole and his silk hat (it had been treated with stout the night before to flatten the nap) reflected the sunshine like a mirror.

He gave away the bride with a nobility that kings might have envied, and at the reception which followed, the little speech he made was full of the happiest moments. He actually allowed a waiter to pour him out a glass of champagne, but although the glass was certainly emptied, there was a strong rumour running that an aspidistra close at hand received the wine.

The wedding took place the day before the final performance, and the happy pair departed in a shower of confetti and a great draught from waved handkerchiefs, to reappear on the two succeeding nights at the theatre.

“I want to say good-bye to you and Ronald to-morrow over a little dinner,” Eliphalet whispered to the bride. “It will be easier than in the theatre. It is going to be rather hard to lose you altogether.”

She and Ronald were sailing for America, and were going straight to Liverpool after the curtain had fallen.

Eliphalet made great and tender preparations for that parting feast, and laid the table lovingly with his own hands. Then at six o’clock he lit the fairy candles that twinkled among the fruit and smilax, and waited. And Mornice arrived, dressed in her prettiest trousseau frock—all by herself.

“Where is Ronald?” he asked.

“I told him to stop at home, Pummy. I sort of guessed you want me by my lone.”

How many of these exquisitely-prepared little feasts are left untasted? We are in love—or have to say farewell—and we centre all our beforehand time setting out rare flowers, fair dishes and delicate appointments, to show how very greatly we care. And perhaps someone says, “How lovely of you to do all this to me,” or maybe breaks a white rose from its stem to keep in memory.

Then a hand stretches across the table, and another’s takes it, and the little dishes are all neglected and the fairy candles burn low. After the long, long silence and unspoken words of love or parting, it all breaks up into a commonplace putting on of coats, whistling of cabs, or catching of trains.

Arm-in-arm and hugging very close together, they walked to the theatre, and as the illuminated face of the Town Hall clock proved beyond question they were late, there was nothing for it but to run the last hundred yards.

Ronald Knight was at the stage-door and was cheered to see them arrive breathless and laughing.

Then Eliphalet stooped and planted a hurried kiss on Mornice’s cheek.

“God bless you, my boy,” he said almost fiercely to Ronald, and passed through the swing-door toward his dressing-room.

He had meant to make a speech on the day he went out of management, and the company, knowing this, grouped themselves on the stage when the curtain fell on the last act. Then, quite naturally, he knew it could not be done. The things about which one really feels have so small a part in speeches. So, when he found himself confronted by the most sympathetic audience before which an actor ever appeared, he learnt that all his art, technique and experience availed nothing. Those dear, honest, familiar faces dimmed as he looked toward them into a grey wet mist. Somewhere in his throat a new pulse started to throb—and throbbed burningly.

Eliphalet Cardomay shook his head like a child who is lost.

“I—I can’t,” he said. Then, with a feeble, impotent gesture of farewell, he turned away.

“Three cheers for him,” gasped Freddie Manning, his face scarlet with emotion.

And Eliphalet Cardomay bolted from the theatre.

During the performance he had managed to say a few words, individually, to those old corner-stones of his dramatic edifice who, for years and years, had worked the provincial theatres under his managership. That had been hard enough, God knows. Old Kitterson made no bones about it, and frankly howled when Eliphalet gripped him by the hand.

Scarcely less reserved was Freddie Manning—the least emotional of creatures.

“I’m hating it, Guv’nor,” he said.

He kissed all the ladies of the company and had a kind word for each, but Mornice he steadfastly avoided, for there was a limit to his powers of endurance, and he wished to escape without any show of weakness.

The last person he spoke to was his dresser.

“I won’t sleep at night, sir, for worrying about you and your things. You won’t never be able to look after yourself proper.”

“Nonsense,” said Eliphalet. “I shall miss you, of course, but it will come easier after a while. You—you’ve been more than attentive, Potter, and just a little parting gift——” He pressed a five-pound note into the dresser’s hand—a note that Potter secretly replaced in his master’s pocket while helping him, for the last time, into the big fur overcoat.

Eliphalet Cardomay’s great farewell tour, with seventy-five pounds a week spent on advertisement, was over and done with, and out of the wreckage he salved four hundred pounds.

He did not raise a wail over the loss—he was too game; but in his inner self was a tiny cry of disappointment.

He had always cherished the belief that when he retired it would be to go to the first real home he had ever known.

The home, as he pictured it, was a little detached villa at New Brighton. It would face the sea and there would be tamarisk bushes, forming a guard of honour, from the garden gate to the front door. He had worked out how each room would look—just what furniture and pictures there would be—as though it were a scene in a play. Every detail was cut and dried and ordered in his mind. This was to be his compensation for the sacrifice of his profession. And now——!

Four hundred pounds and his lonely self were all that remained.

For about six weeks Eliphalet Cardomay drifted aimlessly. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Late hours having been the habit of his lifetime, it was impossible to go early to bed, and the empty evenings hung like lead upon his hands.

A letter or two came from America, forwarded from his old lodging, and these were the only bright spots on a desolate landscape.

Sunday was a day that bothered him dreadfully. Every Sunday for forty years he had been accustomed to the rush of packing—of cabs—porters and long train-journeys. To sit idle in his rooms and read the Referee, which in the past had often seemed a very desirable thing to do, proved in practice a very trying ordeal. He fretted all the morning with a sense of important duties neglected, and usually finished up by walking to the nearest railway station to watch the theatrical trains pull out. Then he would return and settle down, with a sigh, to an afternoon of irksome inactivity.

He had never been a man with a wide circle of friends, and the few acquaintances he met mostly took their pleasures by leaning across the bar or hiving round the cheese at a Bodega—a practice which he showed no disposition to emulate. In consequence he was thrown entirely on his own resources, and, as a result, there set in a kind of incipient melancholy. He began to speculate how long four hundred pounds would last, at an expenditure of thirty shillings a week.

“And three years of this sort of thing is about as much as we could stand, old boy,” he said, when he looked at the result of the calculation.

So he continued to drift in a melancholy isolation, until one day, upon a bench in Roundhay Park, he espied a familiar figure.

It was a man—or, more truthfully, what was left of a man—poor, shivering, down-and-out. But Eliphalet needed no second glance to assure him that here was Sefton Bulmore—old Sefton, who had done him a good turn—old Sefton, squeezed from the boards to make room for younger blood and fresher funniosities.

“Sefton!” said Eliphalet, stretching out his hand.

A pair of watery eyes were raised jerkily and scanned his features. Then the old fellow came to his feet with astonishing vigour. Lifting his right hand high in the air, he brought it down whack into the extended palm, covering it instantly with an embracing grasp from his left. It was an old stage formula, executed with technical perfection. (Try it yourself; you will find it is none too easy to do.)

“The Old Card. By God, it’s the Old Card!”

There was a world of enthusiasm in the tone—then suddenly his manner changed to an extremity of confidence.

“This is uncommonly fortunate. To tell you the truth, old son, I’ve been a bit unlucky lately. But the Profession sticks together, eh? For old sake’s sake—and if—if you can’t lend me ten bob, five ’ud do!”

“Sit down—let’s talk,” said Eliphalet.

So they sat together on the park bench and talked, and a hundred old stage memories and old stage personalities were dug out from the unforgotten past.

“Aha! ha! fine fellows—fine fellows, all of ’em. ’Tisn’t what it was in our young days. The Profession’s going to the dogs, Cardomay, old son, going to the dogs fast.”

“Fate’s been unkind to you?” queried Eliphalet.

“Unkind! Ha! I can remember turning up my nose at forty pounds a week—and look at me now!” He pulled out two empty trouser pockets and turned the palms of his hands up.

Eliphalet considered for a moment.

“Bulmore,” he said, “I have a bit—not much, but a bit, and, old man, I’m sick for someone to talk to. I worked out that, taking things easy, I’ve enough to last about three years—alone. Well, one-and-a-half in company would please me better. Will you share?”

“Mean it?”

“Here’s my hand.”

“By God, the Old Card’s a trump!” cried Bulmore, taking it.

It seemed that years had fallen away from him in a moment.

“D’you know,” he went on, “I haven’t tasted solids for a couple of days.”

“Tea is waiting at home now,” said Eliphalet.

Sefton Bulmore rose at once.

“And I hope that home isn’t far away, either,” he flashed, with a touch of his old humour.

During the tram-ride Bulmore’s spirits rose by leaps and bounds.

“Tell you what,” he exclaimed. “You and I together—tragedy and comedy—we’ve the elements of a fortune between us—a fortune, my boy. We’ll write a play—Cinema—pooh!—No good to anyone! We’ll write such a play as was never written before. And if we don’t knock ’em——! By God!”

A light danced in Eliphalet’s eyes—the light of reviving enthusiasm.

“It’s an idea, Sefton,” he said. “An idea. Perhaps, after all, we shall be wanted.”

They bought watercress for tea, and cucumber, sardines and potted meat, so it is no small wonder that the meal was a success. Sefton Bulmore fairly expanded under its influence.

Eliphalet arranged with his landlady for an extra bed to be made up in his room.

“And now,” he said, “shall we fetch your things?—and you can settle in comfortably.”

For answer Bulmore produced a pile of pawn-tickets and laid them on the table.

“That’s the lot,” he answered, “save what I stand up in.”

Eliphalet went through the tickets to see what most essentially should be redeemed.

“You’d like your ulster, eh?”

“It’s been a good friend to me—still, two pound ten, y’know.”

“Not another word,” said Eliphalet.

When they emerged from the pawn-shop Sefton Bulmore was clad in a fur-collared coat which, despite a shade of wear about the cuffs and elbows, was a garment any actor might be proud to wear.

“And now,” said Eliphalet, “we’ll make for home and have our first talk about the play.”

There was a note of disappointment in Bulmore’s acquiescence, that called for a querying eyebrow from Eliphalet.

“I was only thinking—just to-night—old friends re-meeting—and—as a little celebration——” He tilted his head suggestively toward the brilliantly-lighted windows of the Goat Hotel.

“I never do,” said Eliphalet.

“No, no, I understand—but—to the success of the play—a couple of glasses!”

Eliphalet shook his head.

“You go,” he said. “Here, take——” And he pressed some silver into Bulmore’s palm, “I’d—I’d rather not.”

“It’s sad work drinking alone.”

“I shall have the pleasure of your company at home all the sooner, then.”

It was after eleven before Bulmore returned, and bed was the obvious prescription. So Eliphalet helped him undress, and listened to a good deal of maudlin matter, without which the evening would have been a happier one.

Next morning they set to work mapping out a scheme for their future. Being accustomed to work at night, they made their plans accordingly.

They would breakfast late, partake of their one serious meal at three o’clock, enjoy a cup of tea about half-past five, and devote the evening hours to work upon the play. At midnight the traditional Welsh rarebit, washed down with a jug of good milky cocoa, would be served—then a pipe and bed. To relieve any embarrassment in giving or receiving, Eliphalet arranged that each should draw the same weekly sum, and share alike in all things.

Thus the terms of partnership were laid down, and together they set about to write such a play as would stagger the world.

The plot was everything, they decided, and so to the making of the plot were dedicated countless hours and an incredible quantity of paper.

As the work proceeded Bulmore’s spirits grew apace.

“We’ve got ’em!” he would shout. “There’s a fortune here, old man.” And so great would be his enthusiasm that it was an all-too frequent occurrence for him to abandon work in the early part of the evening and drink copious draughts to their inevitable success.

These little excesses were the cause of no small concern to Eliphalet Cardomay. Bulmore would often spend his entire weekly allowance in a night at the bar; thus, when the day for settling their accounts arrived, it would be necessary for Eliphalet to draw on his dwindling principal to make good the deficit.

Once the plot was finally determined, the actual writing of the play began. In this Eliphalet did most of the work. Bulmore’s temperament was such that he could not sit still, and must needs pace up and down, gesticulating and pouring forth a ceaseless stream of red-hot ideas.

In itself this method proved a somewhat disturbing factor, and tended to retard the progression of the work; but Eliphalet strove manfully, and some eleven months from the day of their first meeting had the exquisite pleasure of subscribing the word “Curtain” on the final page.

Then he and his partner gripped hands with a pride too full for words.

“Read it aloud, Eliphalet, old man,” said Bulmore. “Let’s have it! Let it go! Here, old man—wait a minute!” He rushed from the room, returning a moment later with the breathless landlady, Mrs. Wattle, and her anæmic niece, Annie. These he literally flung (no other word is possible) one at each end of the plush settee. “Don’t make a sound,” he warned them, with a threatening gesture. “You are going to hear the finest play that ever was written—a masterpiece! On you go, Eliphalet, with all your voice, and all you’ve got. Give ’em a bit of the old.”

So Eliphalet filled his lungs, and read. Both he and his audience were in tears when he intoned the final heart-rending passages.

Then he closed the book and laid his hand upon it—his eyes filled with the light of triumph.

“What did you think of it, Annie?” demanded Mrs. Wattle, when she and her niece were restored to the kitchen.

“Be-utiful, be-utiful,” replied Annie. “It was just like any drama you might see on the stage.”

There was no intended satire in this truest of criticisms.

The reading had proved altogether too much for Sefton Bulmore, and being so elevated by the marvels of their achievement, he went forth and indulged in a debauch, beside which his previous excesses were as child’s play.

Eliphalet sat alone with the glory he had created. He turned his eyes to the level of the gods, and prayed aloud.

“Be pleased to bless our work, O Lord!”

Then a cold tremor crept down his spine—brought to existence by the sight of an unopened letter leaning against the clock. He knew what it was—a statement of credit from the bank—and had delayed breaking the seal, until the play should be finished, lest, perhaps, the tidings should divert his attention from the final scene. But now that reason no longer existed. So he rose and tore open the envelope.

Fifty-seven pounds was all that was left between two old men and starvation. Almost miraculously the rest had melted away. Fifty-seven pounds—and the Play.

“AND the play, old boy,” said Eliphalet. He tore the sheet in two and dropped it in the fire; then, picking up the manuscript, made his way to bed.

That night he slept with a fortune beneath his pillow. Of course the play had to be typed. They were too old at the game to risk spoiling chances by sending it in MS. form. The bill for the typing was four pounds—a big lump from a capital of fifty-seven.

Eliphalet had a long talk with Bulmore, and pointed out the need for economy during the next few weeks, while managers were considering their work. Bulmore was quite huffy about it.

“Seems a sin not to have a good time, with a fortune like this waiting to be picked up,” he grumbled.

But Eliphalet was firm, and for the first time a slight estrangement arose between them. To mark his disapproval, Bulmore went out and got drunk.

The three copies of the play were duly registered and posted to the three likeliest managers.

“I’m sending the original manuscript to Mornice,” said Eliphalet, “I would like her to see the part she might have played, had she not given up the legitimate stage to play in pictures.”

So he packed it up, with a fatherly little note, and despatched it to Mornice, c/o Raphaeli Film Company, at some unpronounceable city in the United States.

Then, in a fever of excitement, they sat down and waited for the herald of their fortunes to sound the trumpet of success.

And quite suddenly Sefton Bulmore was taken ill. The first-class doctor whom Eliphalet sent for at once, shook his head over the case.

“The machinery is worn out,” he said. “You can do nothing, Mr. Cardomay, beyond care and attention. A nurse may be necessary later on. Give him plenty of light food—chickens, fish, and so forth, and above all keep him cheerful.”

“What’s he say?” demanded Bulmore, when Eliphalet returned after seeing the doctor out.

“That you must take things easily for a while.”

“Ha! that’s all very well, but rehearsals will be starting soon, and I’ve got to be there, y’know—I must be there. Any news?”

“Not at present. There’s hardly time yet.”

“A fortnight. Ought to be hearing something soon.”

“And depend upon it, we shall,” soothed Eliphalet.

And he was right, for the first copy was returned that evening, with a curt note of refusal.

Eliphalet took it into the sitting-room and read it again and again. It was unbelievable. Power, the likeliest of all managers, had refused his play.

“Can’t have read it,” thought Eliphalet. “Can’t possibly have read it! I mustn’t let Sefton know this.”

So he put the play in a fresh envelope and despatched it elsewhere, and to salve his conscience for the deceit he meant to perpetrate, he bought Bulmore some hothouse grapes and a bottle of calf’s-foot jelly.

Poor old Bulmore was an indifferent patient—subject to fits of depression and excitement. The sound of the postman’s knock in the street brought him to his elbow at once.

“Down you go, down you go!” he would cry; then when Eliphalet returned empty-handed, he would work himself into a passion and curse the dilatoriness of managers or accuse Eliphalet of having addressed the envelopes wrongly.

Then, one day, about three weeks after his illness began, two more copies of the play were returned. In one there was no comment at all, and in the other a letter stating that a market for such stereotyped work no longer existed.

“Oh, oh!” cried Eliphalet, with the tone of a wounded child. “They don’t understand.”

“There was something that time,” exclaimed Bulmore, as he slowly entered the room. “Quick—what was it?”

“Lambert has written,” he said. “Wants to see me in Bradford—to-morrow.”

The old comedian’s body relaxed, and he gave a sigh of wonderful relief. “Good God! To-morrow, eh? That will be to discuss terms—yes. You’ll have to be firm—he’s slippery—’ll want watching. Pity I’m like this. Pity—pity!”

Then followed a mass of details that Eliphalet must be sure to observe, and in the midst of them the doctor arrived.

“You’ll want that nurse,” he said, as Eliphalet conducted him downstairs. “He’s very rocky—practically living on nervous energy. A bit intemperate in the past, I should say. Well, well! I’ll send her in to-night. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Eliphalet, and turned into the sitting-room to review the situation. At the present rate of expenditure his finances could scarcely be relied upon to last much longer. Yet what could he do? Bulmore must have everything he wanted, of course, and the lie about the play must be maintained.

He re-addressed the two returned copies and posted them, with a silent, fervent prayer. There were but six managers in all to whom the play would be of possible use, and half of these had already refused.

“Even chances, old boy; we mustn’t throw up the sponge yet.”

Then he returned to minister to his partner.

“I’ll have some champagne to-day—champagne, a sole, and a dish of quails. We can afford ’em now,” croaked old Bulmore. “No longer any need for economy.”

And to maintain the lie Eliphalet bought all he asked for, and more besides.

When the nurse came he told her of his deception, and between them they kept the story going. Eliphalet invented a wonderful interview with Lambert, in which he had asked for and been accorded exceptional terms. Rehearsals would be beginning in a very short while——

“And, by Jove, Sefton, we shall have such a cast!”

And so the poor fraud went on, and twice more the play was returned.

It was almost more than Eliphalet could endure, but he kept a firm lower lip, and saw it through.

About three o’clock one night the nurse awoke him.

“I think he’s going,” she said.

Old Sefton Bulmore was propped up in bed, and looked a very sick man.

“Laddie!” he gasped. “It’s up! Fate’s cheating me—you—you’ve been a real friend—but I’m paying it all back. Here—under my pillow!”

Eliphalet drew from beneath the pillow a scrap of paper, scrawled over with the words, “I bequeath all the interests that will accrue to me from the play, ‘Right Triumphant,’ to my friend, colleague and benefactor, Eliphalet Cardomay.”

“It’s a fortune, o’ man—a fortune.”

Eliphalet took the drooping hand from the coverlet and grasped it.

“It is beautiful of you,” he said.

There was a long silence; then Bulmore stirred slightly.

“Make it a good funeral,” he whispered.

“I will, old man.”

As a final touch of irony, the last remaining copy of “Right Triumphant” was returned a few moments before Bulmore’s coffin was carried down the steps. And Eliphalet Cardomay dropped it into the grave beside his dead comrade.

It would be profitless and painful to follow Eliphalet through the job-seeking, grey underworld in which, during the following months, he drifted. And while he drifted, he lost heart and his pride began to forsake him. Eliphalet Cardomay disappeared, and left no address. He lacked the courage to confess his real state to Mornice. One deception makes another easy, and about the time he had lied to Bulmore about the play, he had written in answer to Mornice’s constantly-expressed reproaches regarding his dilatoriness in taking the little house, to say he had at last secured the villa of his dreams. To make the story good, he described the decorations of every room from attic to basement, and even threw in a picture of the tamarisks in the front garden. There had been a chance then that the play would bring his words to truth, but that chance had gone, and he could carry on the deception no longer. Thus with his disappearance the sweet ties that had existed between himself and his little adopted daughter were severed.

Somehow or another he managed to eke out an existence—but it was existence, and nothing more. Only once did he try to obtain work upon the stage, and the experience was so humiliating he did not repeat it. Somehow he had managed to preserve his old friends, the fur coat, the broad-brimmed hat and the cane which had supported him for so many years. He obtained an interview at a Bedford Street Agency with a flaccid, swag-bellied Semite, who wore a white waistcoat and check uppers to his glossy boots.

“Never heard of it,” said this gentleman, when Eliphalet roundly pronounced his full titles. “And there’s nothing for your sort here. I’m looking over a bunch of supers at five o’clock, and if you care to line up with them you can take a chance.”

“Thank you,” said Eliphalet gravely, “but I think not.”

“Then, for the Lord’s sake, get out. We’re busy here.”

And Eliphalet retired with dignity—as befitted one who had held provincial audiences for nearly half a century, and was part author of the finest play ever written.

Fate was a little kindlier after that, for he found employment in a tiny Brixton paper shop, owned by a widow. She, poor soul, was so occupied by her husband’s legacy, a girl of three and two twin boys, that to attend to the shop was an impossibility. So Eliphalet sat on a kitchen chair behind the counter and dispensed halfpenny journals, bottles of gum, penny note-books, and pencils with little tin covers to them.

In these surroundings he was moderately happy. There were plenty of theatrical papers to read, for the neighbourhood was patronised by the lesser geniuses of the dramatic and music-hall world. In a way he became something of a local character, and many an old “pro” would step in of a morning to exchange reminiscences. Once or twice he was recognised, but on these occasions he always begged his discoverers not to disclose his identity.

“It is not that I am ashamed,” he said, “but there are many I knew who, if they heard, would pity me—and pity is a quality more blessed to bestow than to receive.”

So his wishes were respected, and for six tranquil months the Old Card sold his papers and followed in the dramatic columns the movements of members of his old companies. Thus he learned that Freddie Manning had abandoned the Road for the business managership of the Royal Theatre, New Brighton.

“Good boy, Manning,” he said. “That’s capital. New Brighton, too!” Rather a twisted smile came to the corners of his mouth, for he could not help thinking of that Dream Villa, facing the sea. It would have been very pleasant with Manning so close at hand, dropping in of an evening, maybe, for a bit of late supper and a chat about old times. Through the same medium he learnt how Mornice had sprung to Fame as a Film Artiste and was commanding a truly Chaplinesque salary.

This was a matter that gave him less pleasure, for, although rejoicing in her success, he could not conquer the underlying conviction that the Cinema was the bastard child of the stage, and an ignoble art.

“I wonder what she thought of my play,” he ruminated. “I would like to have known.”

One day there burst into the shop a little music-hall comedian named Dwyer. He was one of the very few who had recognised Eliphalet, and something of friendship had sprung up between them.

“Seen this week’s Foot-Lights?” he demanded. Then, without waiting for an answer, “They’re advertising for you.”

He produced a crumpled periodical, flung it on the counter and pointed to a certain passage with a nicotine-stained forefinger.

“If Eliphalet Cardomay will call upon or communicate with Messrs, Newman & Stranger, 108A, Henrietta Street, W. C., he will hear something greatly to his advantage.”

“Good gracious!” said Eliphalet. “I wonder what that means. I must step round there this evening.”

“You’ll step round now, old cock.”

“I can hardly leave the shop——”

“That for a tale!” yelled the little comedian; then, making a megaphone of his hands, he shouted, “Mother!” at the very top of his voice.

In response to the call the owner of the shop appeared, a baby in her arms and the little girl towed along by her skirts.

“He’s come into a fortune—see this! Mustn’t wait a minute—You can spare him. Tell him to get his hat! Shop’ll look after itself!”

Infected by the excitement of the moment, Mrs. Nelson said he must go at once. Furthermore, she gave Eliphalet the baby to hold, while she brushed his hat and coat and polished the knob of his stick.

“I’ll stand a cab,” said Dwyer, “for I won’t let you out of my sight till I’ve heard the best.” With which, he half swallowed two fingers of his right hand and produced a whistle so piercing that a taxi seemed to spring from nowhere.

Bread cast upon the waters returns after many days. There was a certain quality in “Right Triumphant” which, even though the stage desired it no longer, was still of an order to find favour in the hearts of cinema audiences.

The manuscript copy of the play, sent to Mornice, was read, at her request, by Mr. Raphaeli, who at once realised, with her in the leading part, a film version might be played with every hope of success.

Mr. Raphaeli was seldom wrong, and on this occasion he was “righter” than usual. Eliphalet Cardomay had disappeared, and enquiry failed to locate him, but to his credit, on a ten per cent. royalty, a sum of three thousand pounds had accumulated.

“She looked after your interests pretty closely,” remarked Mr. Stranger of Henrietta Street. “I think you may rely on that sum doubling itself before the interest on the film expires. By the way, here’s a bundle of letters from her addressed to you.”

Eliphalet Cardomay was wonderfully calm during the interview, and did not betray by word or gesture the slightest excitement, but his fingers trembled a trifle as he took the letters. He received the address of a firm of solicitors, who were looking after the money on his behalf, shook hands, and walked from the office.

On the pavement outside he conveyed the news to the little comedian who, in his enthusiasm, performed a war-dance which drew toward them a massive policeman, complete with warnings.

“But you don’t look half pleased enough,” he gasped, when Eliphalet took his arm and drew him away.

“I am—I am—very pleased and very grateful. It’s just a shade of disappointment that the play should not have made its success on the legitimate stage.” But the cloud faded almost before it came in the bright blue horizon of the future.

A twinkle showed in his eyes.

“Dwyer,” he said, “in all my life I have never yet borrowed from a fellow-artist, but I am wondering now if you would lend me a sovereign.”

“Whatever you want, old man; whatever you want.”

“Simpson’s is just over there, and I was thinking—an undercut from a saddle of mutton—you and I together-a little celebration, what?”

“Fine!” echoed Dwyer. “Take what you want out of this——” producing a fiver from a Friday night envelope.

As they turned into Bedford Street there were a few old down-and-outers of the profession, leaning disconsolately against the wall of an agent’s office.

Eliphalet jerked his head toward them.

“Would you mind if I did?” he questioned.

“Better still!” shouted Dwyer enthusiastically. So Eliphalet crossed the street.

“Boys,” he said, addressing the group, “will you take a bit of lunch with me? Just to talk over old times.”

Eliphalet Cardomay has the pleasantest villa in New Brighton, with tamarisks forming a guard of honour to the front door. The rooms inside are just what you would expect—cosy, warm, hospitable. Sir Henry Irving’s signed portrait, as Thomas à Becket, hangs over the fireplace in the parlour, and there are many others of great-hearted, if less celebrated, performers dotted about the walls in comforting disorder.

Prominent in the centre of the mantelpiece is the portrait of a baby, and scrawled across one corner in Mornice’s go-as-you-please hand is written “Eliphalet to his grand-dads.” Probably this photograph is his most cherished possession, and he is justly proud that so bold a name should rise afresh in a new generation. Mornice even on the occasion when she and Ronald and the baby came over from the States and spent a glorious three weeks at New Brighton, never divulged the secret that this wonderful child was ordinarily termed “-Potkins.”

To minister to his wants are Potter, his one-time dresser, and Potter’s wife—she was wardrobe-mistress in the company for many a year. Between them they look to it that the Old Card is kept out of draughts—has his socks scrupulously darned—his sheets aired, and is served only with the dishes he likes best.

You may see him any day you care to look, walking up and down the parade with a firm step and his hat at a fearless angle. Under his arm is the ivory-knobbed gold-mounted cane of quaint design, and he shows a marked favour for fur coats, of which he possesses more than one.

It is rare indeed for a Saturday to pass without Freddie Manning looking in for an hour after the show. And whether it be a supper of tripe, cooked in milk, a Welsh rarebit, or a dish of sizzling liver-and-bacon, it all goes down with equal appreciation, to an accompaniment of happy reminiscences that mostly begin with:

“Remember that time in ’93—we put up ‘The Silver King’ the following season——” And somewhere each evening as regular as clockwork⁠——

“Say what you will, the stage isn’t what it was, Manning; it isn’t what it was.”

 

END