Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (108 page)

“The English is easy enough,” I replied; “but I shouldn’t clamour for anything new and original if I were you.”

“Why not?” he asked, looking up from his letter.

“You might get it,” I answered. “Then you would be disappointed.”

He laughed. “Well, you know what I mean — something we could refer to as ‘new and original’ on the programme. What do you say? It will be a big chance for you, and I’m willing to risk it. I’m sure you can do it. People are beginning to talk about you.”

I had written a few farces, comediettas, and they had been successful. But the chief piece of the evening is a serious responsibility. A young man may be excused for hesitating. It can make, but also it can mar him. A comic opera above all other forms of art — if I may be forgiven for using the sacred word in connection with such a subject — demands experience.

I explained my fears. I did not explain that in my desk lay a four-act drama throbbing with humanity, with life, with which it had been my hope — growing each day fainter — to take the theatrical public by storm, to establish myself as a serious playwright.

“It’s very simple,” urged Hodgson. “Provide Atherton plenty of comic business; you ought to be able to do that all right. Give Gleeson something pretty in waltz time, and Duncan a part in which she can change her frock every quarter of an hour or so, and the thing is done.”

“I’ll tell you what,” continued Hodgson, “I’ll take the whole crowd down to Richmond on Sunday. We’ll have a coach, and leave the theatre at half-past ten. It will be an opportunity for you to study them. You’ll be able to have a talk with them and get to know just what they can do. Atherton has ideas in his head; he’ll explain them to you. Then, next week, we’ll draw up a contract and set to work.”

It was too good an opportunity to let slip, though I knew that if successful I should find myself pinned down firmer than ever to my role of jester. But it is remunerative, the writing of comic opera.

A small crowd had gathered in the Strand to see us start.

“Nothing wrong, is there?” enquired the leading lady, in a tone of some anxiety, alighting a quarter of an hour late from her cab. “It isn’t a fire, is it?”

“Merely assembled to see you,” explained Mr. Hodgson, without raising his eyes from his letters.

“Oh, good gracious!” cried the leading lady, “do let us get away quickly.”

“Box seat, my dear,” returned Mr. Hodgson.

The leading lady, accepting the proffered assistance of myself and three other gentlemen, mounted the ladder with charming hesitation. Some delay in getting off was caused by our low comedian, who twice, making believe to miss his footing, slid down again into the arms of the stolid door-keeper. The crowd, composed for the most part of small boys approving the endeavour to amuse them, laughed and applauded. Our low comedian thus encouraged, made a third attempt upon his hands and knees, and, gaining the roof, sat down upon the tenor, who smiled somewhat mechanically.

The first dozen or so ‘busses we passed our low comedian greeted by rising to his feet and bowing profoundly, afterwards falling back upon either the tenor or myself. Except by the tenor and myself his performance appeared to be much appreciated. Charing Cross passed, and nobody seeming to be interested in our progress, to the relief of the tenor and myself, he settled down.

“People sometimes ask me,” said the low comedian, brushing the dust off his knees, “why I do this sort of thing off the stage. It amuses me.”

“I was coming up to London the other day from Birmingham,” he continued. “At Willesden, when the ticket collector opened the door, I sprang out of the carriage and ran off down the platform. Of course, he ran after me, shouting to all the others to stop me. I dodged them for about a minute. You wouldn’t believe the excitement there was. Quite fifty people left their seats to see what it was all about. I explained to them when they caught me that I had been travelling second with a first-class ticket, which was the fact. People think I do it to attract attention. I do it for my own pleasure.”

“It must be a troublesome way of amusing oneself,” I suggested.

“Exactly what my wife says,” he replied; “she can never understand the desire that comes over us all, I suppose, at times, to play the fool. As a rule, when she is with me I don’t do it.”

“She’s not here today?” I asked, glancing round.

“She suffers so from headaches,” he answered, “she hardly ever goes anywhere.”

“I’m sorry.” I spoke not out of mere politeness; I really did feel sorry.

During the drive to Richmond this irrepressible desire to amuse himself got the better of him more than once or twice. Through Kensington he attracted a certain amount of attention by balancing the horn upon his nose. At Kew he stopped the coach to request of a young ladies’ boarding school change for sixpence. At the foot of Richmond Hill he caused a crowd to assemble while trying to persuade a deaf old gentleman in a Bath-chair to allow his man to race us up the hill for a shilling.

At these antics and such like our party laughed uproariously, with the exception of Hodgson, who had his correspondence to attend to, and an elegant young lady of some social standing who had lately emerged from the Divorce Court with a reputation worth to her in cash a hundred pounds a week.

Arriving at the hotel quarter of an hour or so before lunch time, we strolled into the garden. Our low comedian, observing an elderly gentleman of dignified appearance sipping a glass of Vermouth at a small table, stood for a moment rooted to the earth with astonishment, then, making a bee-line for the stranger, seized and shook him warmly by the hand. We exchanged admiring glances with one another.

“Charlie is in good form to-day,” we told one another, and followed at his heels.

The elderly gentleman had risen; he looked puzzled. “And how’s Aunt Martha?” asked him our low comedian. “Dear old Aunt Martha! Well, I am glad! You do look bonny! How is she?”

“I’m afraid—” commenced the elderly gentleman. Our low comedian started back. Other visitors had gathered round.

“Don’t tell me anything has happened to her! Not dead? Don’t tell me that!”

He seized the bewildered gentleman by the shoulders and presented to him a face distorted by terror.

“I really have not the faintest notion what you are talking about,” returned the gentleman, who seemed annoyed. “I don’t know you.”

“Not know me? Do you mean to tell me you’ve forgotten — ? Isn’t your name Steggles?”

“No, it isn’t,” returned the stranger, somewhat shortly.

“My mistake,” replied our low comedian. He tossed off at one gulp what remained of the stranger’s Vermouth and walked away rapidly.

The elderly gentleman, not seeing the humour of the joke, one of our party to soothe him explained to him that it was Atherton,
the
Atherton — Charlie Atherton.

“Oh, is it,” growled the elderly gentleman. “Then will you tell him from me that when I want his damned tomfoolery I’ll come to the theatre and pay for it.”

“What a disagreeable man,” we said, as, following our low comedian, we made our way into the hotel.

During lunch he continued in excellent spirits; kissed the bald back of the waiter’s head, pretending to mistake it for a face, called for hot mustard and water, made believe to steal the silver, and when the finger-bowls arrived, took off his coat and requested the ladies to look the other way.

After lunch he became suddenly serious, and slipping his arm through mine, led me by unfrequented paths.

“Now, about this new opera,” he said; “we don’t want any of the old stale business. Give us something new.”

I suggested that to do so might be difficult.

“Not at all,” he answered. “Now, my idea is this. I am a young fellow, and I’m in love with a girl.”

I promised to make a note of it.

“Her father, apoplectic old idiot — make him comic: ‘Damme, sir! By gad!’ all that sort of thing.”

By persuading him that I understood what he meant, I rose in his estimation.

“He won’t have anything to say to me — thinks I’m an ass. I’m a simple sort of fellow — on the outside. But I’m not such a fool as I look.”

“You don’t think we are getting too much out of the groove?” I enquired.

His opinion was that the more so the better.

“Very well. Then, in the second act I disguise myself. I’ll come on as an organ-grinder, sing a song in broken English, then as a policeman, or a young swell about town. Give me plenty of opportunity, that’s the great thing — opportunity to be really funny, I mean. We don’t want any of the old stale tricks.”

I promised him my support.

“Put a little pathos in it,” he added, “give me a scene where I can show them I’ve something else in me besides merely humour. We don’t want to make them howl, but just to feel a little. Let’s send them out of the theatre saying: ‘Well, Charlie’s often made me laugh, but I’m damned if I knew he could make me cry before!’ See what I mean?”

I told him I thought I did.

The leading lady, meeting us on our return, requested, with pretty tone of authority, everybody else to go away and leave us. There were cries of “Naughty!” The leading lady, laughing girlishly, took me by the hand and ran away with me.

“I want to talk to you,” said the leading lady, as soon as we had reached a secluded seat overlooking the river, “about my part in the new opera. Now, can’t you give me something original? Do.”

Her pleading was so pretty, there was nothing for it but to pledge compliance.

“I am so tired of being the simple village maiden,” said the leading lady; “what I want is a part with some opportunity in it — a coquettish part. I can flirt,” assured me the leading lady, archly. “Try me.”

I satisfied her of my perfect faith.

“You might,” said the leading lady, “see your way to making the plot depend upon me. It always seems to me that the woman’s part is never made enough of in comic opera. I am sure a comic opera built round a woman would be a really great success. Don’t you agree with me, Mr. Kelver,” pouted the leading lady, laying her pretty hand on mine. “We are much more interesting than the men — now, aren’t we?”

Personally, as I told her, I agreed with her.

The tenor, sipping tea with me on the balcony, beckoned me aside.

“About this new opera,” said the tenor; “doesn’t it seem to you the time has come to make more of the story — that the public might prefer a little more human interest and a little less clowning?”

I admitted that a good plot was essential.

“It seems to me,” said the tenor, “that if you could write an opera round an interesting love story, you would score a success. Of course, let there be plenty of humour, but reduce it to its proper place. As a support, it is excellent; when it is made the entire structure, it is apt to be tiresome — at least, that is my view.”

I replied with sincerity that there seemed to me much truth in what he said.

“Of course, so far as I am personally concerned,” went on the tenor, “it is immaterial. I draw the same salary whether I’m on the stage five minutes or an hour. But when you have a man of my position in the cast, and give him next to nothing to do — well, the public are disappointed.”

“Most naturally,” I commented.

“The lover,” whispered the tenor, noticing the careless approach towards us of the low comedian, “that’s the character they are thinking about all the time — men and women both. It’s human nature. Make your lover interesting — that’s the secret.”

Waiting for the horses to be put to, I became aware of the fact that I was standing some distance from the others in company with a tall, thin, somewhat oldish-looking man. He spoke in low, hurried tones, fearful evidently of being overheard and interrupted.

“You’ll forgive me, Mr. Kelver,” he said—”Trevor, Marmaduke Trevor. I play the Duke of Bayswater in the second act.”

I was unable to recall him for the moment; there were quite a number of small parts in the second act. But glancing into his sensitive face, I shrank from wounding him.

“A capital performance,” I lied. “It has always amused me.”

He flushed with pleasure. “I made a great success some years ago,” he said, “in America with a soda-water syphon, and it occurred to me that if you could, Mr. Kelver, in a natural sort of way, drop in a small part leading up to a little business with a soda-water syphon, it might help the piece.”

I wrote him his soda-water scene, I am glad to remember, and insisted upon it, in spite of a good deal of opposition. Some of the critics found fault with the incident, as lacking in originality. But Marmaduke Trevor was quite right, it did help a little.

Our return journey was an exaggerated repetition of our morning drive. Our low comedian produced hideous noises from the horn, and entered into contests of running wit with ‘bus drivers — a decided mistake from his point of view, the score generally remaining with the ‘bus driver. At Hammersmith, seizing the opportunity of a block in the traffic, he assumed the role of Cheap Jack, and, standing up on the back seat, offered all our hats for sale at temptingly low prices.

“Got any ideas out of them?” asked Hodgson, when the time came for us to say good-night.

“I’m thinking, if you don’t mind,” I answered, “of going down into the country and writing the piece quietly, away from everybody.”

“Perhaps you are right,” agreed Hodgson. “Too many cooks — Be sure and have it ready for the autumn.”

I wrote it with some pleasure to myself amid the Yorkshire Wolds, and was able to read it to the whole company assembled before the close of the season. My turning of the last page was followed by a dead silence. The leading lady was the first to speak. She asked if the clock upon the mantelpiece could be relied upon; because, if so, by leaving at once, she could just catch her train. Hodgson, consulting his watch, thought, if anything, it was a little fast. The leading lady said she hoped it was, and went. The only comforting words were spoken by the tenor. He recalled to our mind a successful comic opera produced some years before at the Philharmonic. He distinctly remembered that up to five minutes before the raising of the curtain everybody had regarded it as rubbish. He also had a train to catch. Marmaduke Trevor, with a covert shake of the hand, urged me not to despair. The low comedian, the last to go, told Hodgson he thought he might be able to do something with parts of it, if given a free hand. Hodgson and I left alone, looked at each other.