CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE GENTLE READER IS TAKEN
TO THE PANTOMIME IN THE COMPANY OF
MARGE AND TIMOTHY AND ALICE CLARA
AND DICK AND THE BABE AND HELEN
AND LUCY NANNA, AND WE HOPE YOU’LL
ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS THEY DID
THE door of Marge’s taxi was opened by a benevolent bewhiskered policeman, who, being himself a family man, lifted her out as if he was pleased to see her. Uncle Phil then handed out Timothy and Alice Clara; and then he got out himself and performed an action which we are forced to view with regret. He opened the little purse which he kept in the pocket opposite to the gold hunting repeater, and presented a whole “bar” to the member of the criminal classes whose number we have so unfortunately omitted to take. And that dark-visaged misdemeanant, who, if every man had had his due would have had the blood of half the West End of London on what he was pleased to call his conscience, spat for luck on his guilty emolument when no one was looking, and thought of the new hat he would be able to buy the missus. At least we hope he did, although Mr. G-lsw-rthy rather has his doubts.
Shoals of other kids were converging upon the portals of Drury; kids in taxis, kids in growlers, kids on foot. It was 1:28, and all were frightfully anxious to be in their places by the time the curtain—the real, not the fireproof curtain—went up. Timothy and Alice Clara were inclined to hustle round a bit, but Marge had such implicit faith in Uncle Phil that to her mind hustling was not called for and was therefore unladylike.
In justice to Marge, it is only fair to say that her faith in Uncle Phil was justified. Crowds of arrivals were in the vestibules; kids with their fathers, kids with their mothers, kids with their nannas, kids with their maiden aunts. But straight as a die Uncle Phil cut out a course for his convoy. In double file his party of seven—five kids and two quite nice-looking nannas—followed in the wake of his astrachan collar and whanghee cane with silver mountings. At 1:29 Marge was seated in Box B, next to the stage and on a level with the dress circle. Timothy and Alice Clara and Dick and the Babe were seated beside her—certainly a great triumph for all concerned, including the criminal eating his dinner out of his handkerchief within a stone’s throw of the editorial office of the Spectator.
Uncle Phil bought a programme and paid a shilling for it, although sixpence was the price.
“Cinderella, I see. Rippin’.”
Marge knew it was Cinderella. She had dreamed that it was. Besides all the best pantomimes are Cinderella. But where was Daddy? Why didn’t he make haste? There was Mr. Lover—loud applause—the orchestra was tuning up. Oh, why didn’t Daddy—
Oh, joy! Oh, providence! Daddy came into Box B just as Marge was inquiring for him, in his tall hat, fresh from Mincing Lane. A rather tired and sad-looking Daddy, a little hollow in the cheeks and with rings under his eyes, although fortunately Marge didn’t notice them. But as soon as he caught sight of the heir to the barony, which his other name is Uncle Phil, a smile seemed to come right over him.
“Damned good of you, old boy,” he said, as he hung up his tall hat beside the very latest performance on the part of Messrs. Scott. “Ungodly hour to begin,” said Daddy. “Hope you got your lunch all right.”
“Ra-ther,” said Uncle Phil. “You?”
“Oh, ye-es.”
We know what Uncle Phil is, and we are afraid we must say the same of Father.
But Mr. Lover is already under way with his overture.
And then Father asked Marge if she could see, and if Timothy could see, and was the Babe comfortable, and other well-meaning but superfluous questions, almost as it were to convey a sense of his importance. And there was the curtain actually going up, on a field of new-mown hay. It was magnificent, but, with all respect to Mr. Hollins, the scent of the hay was only just able to get across the footlights. But don’t let Mr. Hollins take it to heart, because Marge, quite one of the most important people in all his noble theater, was able to smell the scent of the new-mown hay all right.
“A toppin’ good chorus,” said Uncle Phil.
Put that plume in your cap, Mr. Hollins, because no young man of his years in London has had more theatrical experience than the heir to the barony. So lately as the Monday previous he had made his forty-sixth appearance at Our Miss Gibbs. Hunting chorus, too, though what the followers of the chase were doing in a field of new-mown hay—but after all, what’s the use of being in Arcady if you can’t have things exactly as you want ’em?
Dick and the Babe fairly crowed with pleasure. Helen Nanna hoped they would restrain themselves, and whispered to Lucy Nanna that never had she seen anything like it. And while she was whispering this truth to Lucy Nanna there came a roar from the house, and an oldish, middle-aged person sauntered into the field of new-mown hay, immediately tripped over herself, and assured all whom it might concern that she was a perfect lady. She then proceeded to sing a song about a gentleman of the name of Kelly.
The enthusiasm that was caused by her song and behavior would be vain to describe.
“Chap’s a genius,” said Father. “Who is he?”
“Wilkie Bard, of course,” said Uncle Phil.
“Has anybody here seen Kelly?” inquired the old lady. It appeared that every single person there, including the occupants of Box B, either had seen or hoped to see Kelly.
And then quite suddenly the lights went out, the orchestra rolled in semi-darkness, something happened to the scenery, the lights went up again, and there was a kitchen in the ancestral halls of Baron de No-Cash.
Again crowed the Babe with pleasure, and he had a perfect right to do so; because it was really a remarkable sort of a kitchen, larger by far than the one in Eaton Place where cook kept the marmalade; though, doubtless, what most intrigued the fancy of the Babe was the enormous fireplace which had accommodation for a turnspit and at least twenty-four persons.
In the temporary absence of any single human individual the turnspit had the stage all to itself. This was a subtle device on the part of the management. An air of rapt expectation enfolded the great audience, as of something going to happen.
And something did.
A perfect roar of enthusiasm heralded the happening of the something. Now what do you suppose it was? Nothing less than the arrival of the Principal Girl.
She just wandered in, no-how as it were, with a broom in her hand and her skirt in tatters, and a red cap over her curls and her feet in slippers. She was merely the maid of all work in the kitchen of the Baron de No-Cash, a downtrodden creature according to legend and according to the libretto, but you would hardly have thought so, since she had to stand bowing for two whole minutes over her broom handle before she was allowed to proceed with the business of life.
The roar reverberated from the roof of the gallery to the floor of the pit. Kids in boxes, kids in stalls, kids in the dress circle, and an infant in arms at the back of the pit all did their best; and responsible middle-aged gentlemen from the Kaffir Circus and the Rubber Market, a grandee from the Home Department, a judge of the Court of King’s Bench, a solicitor who had applied the money of his clients to his own purposes, although nobody had found him out at present, a substantial family from Hammersmith, the proprietor of a flourishing Brixton laundry, whose eldest girl was in the ballet, an old charwoman in the front row of the gods, and a thousand and one other heterogeneous elements whom we are only able to refer to in the most general terms, assisted Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara, and Dick and the Babe to make the welkin behave frightfully foolish, over a rather plain-looking girl of twenty-four who had to keep bowing over her broom handle before she could get on with the business of life.
And when at last she was able to get on with the business of life, what do you suppose it was? Why, to sing, of course, “Come with me to Arcadee.” What in the world else do you suppose her business in life could be?
A little well-timed assistance from Mr. Lover, which she really didn’t require, and away she soared straight up through the middle register, and at the same moment something seemed to go ping, ping, beneath the knitted waistcoat of chocolate worsted of the heir to the barony, standing at the back of Box B by the side of Father.
“Come with me to Arcadee.”
Uncle Phil accepted her invitation without the slightest hesitation—we are not so sure as we should like to be about Father—but Nannas Helen and Lucy, and Marge and the rest of ’em, indeed an overwhelming majority of that crowded and representative assembly, went straight to Arcadee with that rather plain young woman who was suffering from a cold in the head.
We call her plain as much out of deference to Mr. G-lsw-rthy, and Mr. H. G. W-lls and Mr. Arnold B-nn-tt as any other reason we can think of. Because in the opinion of the heir to the barony she was already enshrined as “a nailer,” and no girl absolutely and unmistakably plain could possibly have been granted the highest of all diplomas by one of such a ripe experience of all phases and degrees of womanhood.
No, Mr. G-lsw-rthy, perhaps not a patrician beauty, like the daughter of whom we wot, still plain is not the word exactly. Can you call any young woman plain, who, attired in her nondescript manner, hypnotizes the whole of Drury with her tiny handkerchief edged with lace, every time she plucks it out of her tatterdemalia?
Plain?—no, sir, decidedly not. A plain girl could never hypnotize the whole of Drury with her handkerchief, including an austere old gentleman in the second row of the stalls, allowing a question of taxed costs to stand over till the following Tuesday. Plain, Mr. G-lsw-rthy!—we at least, and the heir to the barony are forced to dissent.
“She’s a nailer. What’s her name?” said Uncle Phil.
Father lowered his sombre eyes, and shook his head at Uncle Philip. He had not gone to Arcadee with the Principal Girl, you see. Upon a day another Principal Girl had lured him thither, and Father had had to come back again, and Father was feeling that he wanted never to go any more to Arcadee—except with the Principal, Principal Girl.
Helen Nanna, a good, kind girl and high up in the class at Old Dame Nature’s Select Academy for Young Ladies, handed the programme to Uncle Philip, who perused the same as soon as the vibrations under the chocolate waistcoat would allow him to do so.
“Birdie Brightwing—no, she’s Prince Charming, and this is Cinderella. Mary Caspar is Cinderella.”
Uncle Philip, for all his ripe experience, had never heard of Miss Caspar, and Father hadn’t either. Never been seen at the Gaiety or the Lyric. No wonder a star had had to be placed by the Management opposite the name of Miss Caspar to denote an explanatory footnote at the bottom of the programme.
“By special arrangement with the Royal Italian Opera House, Blackhampton.”
Ha! that explained it. Deep minds were in this. Merely one more stroke of genius on the part of Mr. Hollins. When Florence de Vere had broken her engagement at the eleventh hour in order to take part in the Beauchamp Season, to the dismay of all that was best in the life of the metropolis, what did Mr. Hollins do? Sit down and twiddle his thumbs, did he? Not so, my masters. He called for his coat with the beaver collar, and his new bowler hat from Mr. Lock, and he took a first-class ticket for the Royal Italian Opera House, Blackhampton.
“Not for the King of England, not me,” said the Lessee and Manager haughtily. “We open on Boxin’ Night with Aladdin, and the bills are printed.”
Oh, vain Lessee! Little he recked of the Napoleonic faculty of Mr. Hollins in combination with his cheque-book. Meetings of indignation were held in Blackhampton and its environs, but after all, the loss of the famous midland city was the gain of the great metropolis.
Miss Caspar had come, had been seen, had overcome.
“’Core!” roared the bloods in the stalls.
“’Core!” echoed the cads in the pit.
“’Core!” cried the young ladies in the dress circle.
“’Core!” yelled the members of nature’s nobility, cheek by jowl with the magnificent ceiling.
Mary Caspar’s cold was really frightful, but she couldn’t help herself, poor girl. Once more she took ’em all to Arcadee—Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara and Dick and the Babe and Helen and Lucy Nanna and certainly Uncle Phil. As for poor Father, he leaned back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, and almost wished he hadn’t come. There was something about that girl taking ’em all to Arcadee that somehow—no, dash it all, he must learn to keep that upper lip a bit stiffer.
“’Core!” shouted Father—but so feebly that nobody heard him.
“Only a hundred a week,” said Mr. Hollins in the ear of the Chairman of the Syndicate in the box below. “Dirt cheap.”
“Sign her for five years at double the salary,” said the Chairman of the Syndicate in the ear of the famous manager.
“Nothing like a provincial training,” said Mr. Hollins. “Teaches ’em how to get right home to the heart of the people.”
“’Core!” roared the Chairman of the Syndicate.
“Absolute nailer,” said Uncle Phil.
And then her acting! It was so perfectly easy and natural that it really didn’t seem like acting at all. Her speaking voice, for all that it hurt her so, was clear and low and quite agreeable; and wiser men than Uncle Phil have thought that such a voice as that is the greatest charm in any young woman. Not quite so ultra-refined perhaps as that of the seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls; not quite so much torture was inflicted upon the letter “o,” that honest vocable. Icy tones had been Adela’s that morning in the opinion of the heir to the barony; those of the new-risen star of Blackhampton were clear and unaffected and ringing with human sympathy. No wonder that the sensitive mechanism behind the chocolate waistcoat was thrown clean out of gear.
She acted beautifully that fine scene inside the fireplace with a nondescript entity, by the name of Buttons, which his proper name is Mr. Graves and a man of genius; acted it beautifully during the time her wicked sisters had left her at home to work like a menial while they had gone to the Prince Charming’s ball.
After the Principal Girl had sung another ballad, to the entire satisfaction of all that was best in the life of the metropolis, the great and good Mr. Lover handed up to her a noble box of chocolates from an unknown friend in front.
The appearance of this rare box of chocolates struck the heir to the barony with deep dismay. What had happened to the ill-fated box he had bought of B. Venoist!
“I’m hanged,” he said, “if I haven’t left that bally box in the taxi after all!”
The heir to the barony waited until the Principal Girl had retired to get into her famous glass slippers and her ballroom kit, and then like a thief in the night he stole out of Box B, that none should see him go, and crept round the back of the dress circle to the refreshment buffet presided over by a Hebe of three-and-forty summers in an outfit of yellow curls.
He would never be able to forgive himself if the kids should think he had forgotten those chocolates.
“Price o’ those?”
The heir to the barony disbursed the sum with his accustomed munificence.
“Hullo, young feller, what are you doing here?”
This question was asked by a gentleman of prosperous appearance who was holding up a yellow fluid in a tiny glass and looking as though he might presently imbibe it.
“Party o’ kids,” said the heir to the barony. “Toppin’ good show.”
The gentleman of the prosperous appearance quite agreed and invited him civilly to drink.
“Must get back with this,” said the heir to the barony, holding up a very fine performance on the part of good Messrs. Cadbury.
Although the heir to the barony stayed not to partake of liquid refreshment at the expense of the gentleman at the buffet, and rightly so, we think, having regard to the tragedy of B. Venoist, yet the latter, who was engaged in recruiting exhausted nature with a sherry and angostura bitters, was one of the most distinguished men throughout the length and breadth of the metropolis. Arminius Wingrove was the name of him; a man of consequence to this narrative as to many another one; envied by some, yet esteemed by all who knew him, inasmuch as he was one of the leading dramatic authors of the period. More of him anon. But please to remember, when the time arrives, that you have already had the honor of a formal introduction to Arminius Wingrove.
The slave of duty stole back to Box B, and his reappearance with the signal triumph of Messrs. Cadbury went entirely unmarked, his luck being such that he crept in at the moment the Fairy Godmother waved her wand, and the rats and mice, not to mention the lizards, became piebald ponies who bore off Cinderella in her state chariot to the Prince’s Ball.
Helen and Lucy Nanna had never seen anything like it—never; the Babe crowed with pleasure; Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara could merely gasp; and Father confided to Uncle Phil in a sombre undertone that it was the best pantomime he had seen for years.
We give Mr. Hollins our grateful and cordial meed for Part I of his noble annual production, what time the fire-proof curtain falls upon salvos of wild applause, in order that the ladies of the ballet may change their clothing, and the orchestra may remove the froth from a pint of bitter, and Mary Caspar, brave girl and true-blue she-Briton, every inch of her, may drink a much-needed cup of tea; while Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara and Dick and the Babe and the rest of ’em obtain first hand information as to what that box is that Uncle Phil has acquired by barter from good Messieurs Cadburyee for the sum of three half-crowns.
Dick fancies the pink one. Can’t have it, because it ain’t cricket for kids of three to take precedence of grown-up ladies rising five. Pipe his eyes, does he? Not so, my masters—the yellow one is just as agreeable to Master Richard who will probably play for Middlesex in after life. Timothy thinks that the one with the walnuts on it—if Marge don’t mind. Marge don’t mind, because there is another one with walnuts on it; but even if it stood alone she’d say she didn’t, not that there is any particular credit due to her, it simply being that she’s kind of made like that.
Helen Nanna preferred the plain. She had never tasted anything nicer. Lucy Nanna fancied the one with the nougat in it. Daddy didn’t care for choc-o-lates. As for Uncle Phil, the munificent donor who had missed his luncheon, although no one knew it besides himself, he took a peppermint warily, but found it quite all right.
But there is the orchestra blaring like a giant refreshed with wine; and in respect of the great Mr. Lover this is no more than sober verity, since, at the instance of a friend and admirer, he had been to interview Hebe with yellow curls. Boomed and blared the cornets to hail the reappearance of the ladies of the ballet, in canary-colored stockings which had no clocks upon ’em. Austere old gentleman, second row of stalls, letting question of taxed costs, etc., dived for opera glasses, for which he had duly disbursed the fee of sixpence as by law prescribed.
Ping went the clockwork under the chocolate waistcoat of Uncle Philip. There she was again. What a dream she was in her golden chariot with a diadem over her chestnut curls. Bowed and kissed her hand to the admiring multitude; stepped down from her chariot, smiling, smiling in her royal manner at the footmen as she passed them, and followed by all that was best in the life of the metropolis as she crossed the threshold of the Prince’s domicile.
Ping went the heart of Uncle Philip. Austere old gentleman fumbled for his programme—dear old boy lamenting his wretched memory for names. Bald-headed light of the Chancery Bar unfolds his pince-nez; outspoken youth in gallery roars out “Good on yer, Mary!”
In our humble judgment outspoken youth was quite correct. O ye Maries of England, you ought to be proud of her! Trumpets blared, lights went out, transformation to Fairyland, and there again was Mary! Once again she was going to let the painter go.
O ye Maries of England, true heroism is not the private perquisite of the Royal Horse Guards Blue. The precious seed is in you all, my dears. May you always do your respective duties as this particular Mary did when England expects it of you.
Right up she went through the middle register, tearing her poor throat to pieces at every note she took. Fairly launched the painter—“Nelson and his Gentlemen in Blue.” Don’t know whose the words are—Swinburne maybe, or Campbell Thomas, or Dibdin, or Gilbert W. S.; music may have been by Brahms or Schubert, or Strauss or Wagner or Debussy, but critics of Leading Morning Journal seem to think by none of these.
“’Core!” roared the cads in the stalls.
“’Core!” yelled the bloods in the pit.
“’Core!” cried the young ladies in the dress circle.
“’Core!” roared the members of nature’s nobility all over the house.
“Right on the spot all the time,” said the Chairman of the Syndicate. “Hollins, have that five years’ contract put in hand at once.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Hollins, forgetting the degree to which it had pleased providence to call him in the lilt of that nautical tune.
“Good on yer, Mary,” proclaimed outspoken youth with almost pathetic enthusiasm from the front row of the gods.
At the end of the twenty-fourth verse Mr. Lover presented a bouquet of lilies of the valley, smilax and maidenhair fern to this national heroine. Paid for by the management, saith young friend of the Standard News. May be, young sir, but Marge waved frantically; and the Babe crowed shrilly, and Uncle Philip deplored the fact that he had not had the sense to bring one himself.
We pray of your patience, gentles all, to retain your seats until the Principal Girl has married the Prince. She won’t be long now, that good, brave girl. How she has done it we don’t quite know; and remember, people, what British pluck has already done this afternoon, British pluck will have to do all over again this evening.
“Girl ought to be in bed,” says Harley Street Physician in box, opposite Box B, to old college friend the house surgeon at Bart’s. “She’ll have a temperature if she isn’t careful.”
“She’s given the house a temperature all right,” said the house surgeon at Bart’s, mingling refined humor with grave thoughts like the American judge at the funeral of his mother-in-law.
Kids staying of course for the end of it all. Details much too banal to inflict upon the overwrought patience of the gentle reader. But Father and Uncle Phil, lunchless and thirsty, patient and uncomplaining, though bored to tears, stand as ever at the back of Box B, at the post of duty. Whole-hoggers these upright citizens, though one was the eldest son of a peer and the other connected by marriage with several. But let justice be done to ’em. They would see it all out to the end, in order that Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara and the Babe and Helen and Lucy Nanna should be sent back in taxis to Number 300 Eaton Place, just as they ought to be.
Father’s handicap was four at Prince’s, and he would have much preferred to spend his only free afternoon that week at Mitcham where the common is, and where you can lose a golf ball about as soon as in any other rural spot in Surrey. As for the heir to the barony, as all the world doth know, his path as designed for him that afternoon by the lady his mother, was the Queen’s Hall by Portland Place—that temple of elevated and serious energy, wherein Busoni had designed to charm—and we hope he would be able to do so—the seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls.
Don’t think us forward, O ye Liberal organs of opinion, for mentioning details so trite as these; but observe that young plutocrat, that idle, rich young fellow, with astrachan collar and whanghee cane, white spats by Grant and Cockburn, bowler hat by Messrs. Scott—observe him conducting that convoy of motherless kids and their nannas, as simply and politely as though he was the father of ’em—and may he one day have five kids and two quite nice-looking nannas of his own!—conducting ’em through kids in cloaks, kids in mufflers, kids in hats and kids without ’em; through the seething vestibule of Drury, down the steps and round the corner; watch him hail an honest but ill-favored, likewise a dishonest but better favored, motor man. Watch him pack ’em in and give directions, assisted by the unsought attentions of a Distinguished Member of the Great Unwashed.
“Three hundred Eaton Place. Drive slowly.”
Oh, Irony!
Seeks to find a small piece of silver for the Great Unwashed. Can discover four pence merely. Tempered gratitude on part of Great Unwashed. A real Toff never condescends beneath a tanner; and if he hasn’t got one, why, what’s the matter with a bob?
“Time for a game of pills before dinner?” says the heir to the barony.
“’Fraid there won’t be time, old boy,” says Father. “Letters to attend to.”
“Time for a drink at the Betterton, anyhow,” says Uncle Philip.
That temple of aristocratic Bohemia, at which monarchs sup and which actor managers frequent, is in such close proximity to Drury, that only plutocracy in its most aggravated form would have called for a taxi in order to get to it. But what can you expect, O ye Liberal organs of opinion, from the heir to a Tory peerage!