My Autobiography (20 page)

‘Be careful,’ I said, jokingly. ‘You might get held up!’

He looked at me with a most evil, knowing smile, then winked. ‘Not this baby!’

A terrifying feeling came over me after that wink. It had implied a great deal. He continued smiling, without taking his eyes from me. ‘Catch on?’ he said.

I nodded wisely.

Then he spoke confidentially, bringing his face close to my ear.
‘See those two guys?’ he whispered, referring to his friends. ‘That’s my outfit, two dumb clucks – no brains but plenty O’ guts.’

I put a finger to my lips cautiously, indicating that he might be overheard.

‘We’re O.K., brother, we’re shipping out tonight.’ He continued: ‘Listen, we’re limeys, ain’t we – from the old smoke? I seen you at the Islington Empire many a time, falling in and out of that box.’ He grimaced. ‘That’s a tough racket, brother.’

I laughed.

As he grew more confidential, he wanted to make a lifelong friend of me and to know my address in New York. ‘I’ll drop you a line just for old times’ sake,’ he said. Fortunately, I never heard from him again.

I
WAS
not too upset at leaving the States, for I had made up my mind to return; how or when I did not know. Nevertheless, I looked forward to returning to London and our comfortable little flat. Since I had toured the States it had become a sort of shrine.

I had not heard from Sydney in a long time. His last letter stated that Grandfather was living in the flat. But on my arrival in London, Sydney met me at the station and told me that he had given up the flat, that he had married and was living in furnished rooms along the Brixton Road. This was a severe blow to me – to think that that cheerful little haven that had given substance to my sense of living, a pride in a home, was no more.… I was homeless. I rented a back room in the Brixton Road. It was so dismal that I resolved to return to the United States as soon as possible. That first night, London seemed as indifferent to my return as an empty slot machine when one had put a coin in it.

As Sydney was married and working every evening, I saw little of him; but on Sunday we both went to see Mother. It was a depressing day, for she was not well. She had just got over an obstreperous phase of singing hymns, and had been confined to a padded room. The nurse had warned us of this beforehand. Sydney saw her, but I had not the courage, so I waited. He came back upset, and said that she had been given shock treatment of icy cold showers and that her face was quite blue. This made us decide to put her into a private institution – we could afford it now – so we had her transferred to the same institution in which England’s great comedian, the late Dan Leno, had been confined.

Each day I felt more of a nondescript and completely uprooted. I suppose had I returned to our little flat, my feelings might have
been different. Naturally, gloom did not completely take over. Familiarity, custom and my kinship with England were deeply moving to me after arriving from the States. It was an ideal English summer and its romantic loveliness was unlike anything I had known elsewhere.

Mr Karno, the boss, invited me down to Tagg’s Island for a week-end on his house-boat. It was rather an elaborate affair, with mahogany panelling and state-rooms for guests. At night it was lit up with festoons of coloured lights all round the boat, gay and charming, I thought. It was a beautiful warm evening, and after dinner we sat out on the upper deck under the coloured lights with our coffee and cigarettes. This was the England that could wean me away from any country.

Suddenly, a falsetto, foppish voice began screaming hysterically: ‘Oh, look at my lovely boat, everyone! Look at my lovely boat! And the lights! Ha! ha! ha!’ The voice went into hysterics of derisive laughter. We looked to see where the effusion came from, and saw a man in a rowing-boat, dressed in white flannels, with a lady reclining in the back seat. The ensemble was like a comic illustration from
Punch
. Karno leaned over the rail and gave him a very loud raspberry, but nothing deterred his hysterical laughter. ‘There is only one thing to do,’ I said: ‘to be as vulgar as he thinks we are.’ So I let out a violent flow of Rabelaisian invective, which was so embarrassing for his lady that he quickly rowed away.

The idiot’s ridiculous outburst was not a criticism of taste, but a snobbish prejudice against what he considered lower-class ostentatiousness. He would never laugh hysterically at Buckingham Palace and scream: ‘Oh, look what a big house I live in!’ or laugh at the Coronation coach. This ever-present class tabulating I felt keenly while in England. It seems that this type of Englishman is only too quick to measure the other fellow’s social inferiorities.

Our American troupe was put to work and for fourteen weeks we played the halls around London. The show was received well and the audiences were wonderful, but all the time I was wondering if we’d ever get back to the States again. I loved England, but it was impossible for me to live there; because of my background I had a disquieting feeling of sinking back into a depressing
commonplaceness. So that when news came that we were booked for another tour in the States I was elated.

On Sunday Sydney and I saw Mother and she seemed in better health, and before Sydney left for the provinces we had supper together. On my last night in London, emotionally confused, sad, and embittered, I again walked about the West End, thinking to myself: ‘This is the last time I shall ever see these streets.’

*

This time we arrived via New York on the
Olympic
second-class. The throb of the engines slowed down, signifying that we were approaching our destiny. This time I felt at home in the States – a foreigner among foreigners, allied with the rest.

As much as I like New York I also looked forward to the West, to greeting again those acquaintances whom I now looked upon as warm friends: the Irish bar-tender in Butte, Montana, the cordial and hospitable real estate millionaire of Minneapolis, the beautiful girl in St Paul with whom I had spent a romantic week, MacAbee, the Scottish mine-owner of Salt Lake City, the friendly dentist in Tacoma, and in San Francisco, the Graumans.

Before going to the Pacific Coast we played around the ‘smalls’ – the small theatres around the outlying suburbs of Chicago and Philadelphia and industrial towns such as Fall River and Duluth, etc.

As usual I lived alone. But it had its advantages, because it gave me an opportunity to improve my mind, a resolution I had held for many months but never fulfilled.

There is a fraternity of those who passionately want to know. I was one of them. But my motives were not so pure; I wanted to know, not for the love of knowledge but as a defence against the world’s contempt for the ignorant. So when I had time I browsed around the second-hand bookshops.

In Philadelphia, I inadvertently came upon an edition of Robert Ingersoll’s
Essays and Lectures
. That was an exciting discovery; his atheism confirmed my own belief that the horrific cruelty of the Old Testament was degrading to the human spirit. Then I discovered Emerson. After reading his essay on ‘Self-Reliance’ I felt I had been handed a golden birthright. Schopenhauer followed. I bought three volumes of
The World as Will and
Idea
, which I have read on and off, never thoroughly, for over forty years. Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass
annoyed me and does to this day. He is too much the bursting heart of love, too much a national mystic. In my dressing-room between shows I had the pleasure of meeting Twain, Poe, Hawthorne, Irving and Hazlitt. On that second tour I may not have absorbed as much classic education as I would have desired, but I did absorb a great deal of tedium in the lower strata of show business.

These cheap vaudeville circuits were bleak and depressing, and hopes about my future in America disappeared in the grind of doing three and sometimes four shows a day, seven days a week. Vaudeville in England was a paradise by comparison. At least we only worked there six days a week and only gave two shows a night. Our consolation was that in America we could save a little more money.

We had been working the ‘sticks’ continuously for five months and the weariness of it had left me discouraged, so that when we had a week’s lay-off in Philadelphia, I welcomed it. I needed a change, another environment – to lose my identity and become someone else. I was fed up with the drab routine of tenth-rate vaudeville and decided that for one week I would indulge in the romance of graceful living. I had saved a considerable sum of money, and in sheer desperation, I decided to go on a spending spree. Why not? I had lived frugally to save it, and when out of work I would continue to live frugally on it; so why not spend a little of it now?

I bought an expensive dressing-gown and a smart over-night suitcase, which cost me seventy-five dollars. The shopkeeper was most courteous: ‘Can we deliver them for you, sir?’ Just his few words gave me a lift, a little distinction. Now I would go to New York and shed myself of tenth-rate vaudeville and its whole drab existence.

I took a room at the Hotel Astor which was quite grandiose in those days. I wore my smart cut-away coat and derby hat and cane, and of course carried my small suitcase. The splendour of the lobby and the confidence of the people strutting about it made me tremble slightly as I registered at the desk.

The room cost $4.50 a day. Timidly I asked if I should pay
in advance. The clerk was most courteous and reassuring: ‘Oh no, sir, it isn’t necessary.’

Passing through the lobby with all its gilt and plush did something to me emotionally, so that when I reached my room I felt I wanted to weep. I stayed in it over an hour, inspecting the bathroom with its elaborate plumbing fixtures and testing its generous flush of hot and cold water. How bountiful and reassuring is luxury!

I took a bath and combed my hair and put on my new bathrobe, intending to get every ounce of luxury out of my four dollars fifty worth.… If only I had something to read, a newspaper. But I had not the confidence to telephone for one. So I took a chair and sat in the middle of the room surveying everything with a feeling of luxuriant melancholy.

After a while I dressed and went downstairs. I asked for the main dining-room. It was rather early for dinner; the place was almost empty but for one or two diners. The maître d’hôtel led me to a table by the window. ‘Would you like to sit here, sir?’

‘Anywhere will do,’ I said in my best English voice.

Suddenly an industry of waiters whirled about me, delivering ice water, the menu, the butter and bread. I was too emotional to be hungry. However, I went through the gestures and ordered consommé, roast chicken, and vanilla ice-cream for dessert. The waiter offered me a wine-list, and after careful scrutiny I ordered a half-bottle of champagne. I was too preoccupied living the part to enjoy the wine or the meal. After I had finished, I tipped the waiter a dollar, which was an extraordinarily generous tip in those days. But it was worth it for the bowing and attention I received on my way out. For no apparent reason I returned to my room and sat in it for ten minutes, then washed my hands and went out.

It was a soft summer evening in keeping with my mood as I walked sedately in the direction of the Metropolitan Opera House.
Tannhäuser
was playing there. I had never seen grand opera, only excerpts of it in vaudeville – and I loathed it. But now I was in the humour for it. I bought a ticket and sat in the second circle. The opera was in German and I did not understand a word of it, nor did I know the story. But when the dead Queen was carried on to the music of the Pilgrim’s Chorus, I
wept bitterly. It seemed to sum up all the travail of my life. I could hardly control myself; what people sitting next to me must have thought I don’t know, but I came away limp and emotionally shattered.

I took a walk down town, choosing the darkest streets, as I could not cope with the vulgar glare of Broadway, nor could I return to that silly room at the hotel until my mood had worn off. When I recovered I intended going straight to bed. I was emotionally and physically exhausted.

As I entered the hotel I suddenly ran into Arthur Kelly, Hetty’s brother, who used to be manager of the troupe that she was in. Because he was her brother I had cultivated him as a friend. I had not seen Arthur in several years.

‘Charlie! Where are you going?’ he said.

Nonchalantly I nodded in the direction of the Astor. ‘I was about to go to bed.’

The effect was not lost on Arthur.

He was with two friends, and after introducing me he suggested that we should go to his apartment on Madison Avenue for a cup of coffee and a chat.

It was quite a comfortable flat and we sat around and made light conversation, Arthur carefully avoiding any reference to our past. Nevertheless, because I was staying at the Astor, he was curious to glean information. But I told him little, only that I had come to New York for two or three days’ holiday.

Arthur had come a long way since living in Camberwell. He was now a prosperous business man working for his brother-in-law, Frank J. Gould. As I sat listening to his social chatter, it increased my melancholy. Said Kelly, referring to one of his friends: ‘He’s a nice chap, comes from a very good family, I understand.’ I smiled to myself at his genealogical interest and realized that Arthur and I had little in common.

I stayed only one day in New York. The following morning I decided to return to Philadelphia. Although that one day had been the change I needed, it had been an emotional and a lonely one. Now I wanted company. I looked forward to our Monday morning performance and meeting members of the troupe. No matter how irksome it was returning to the old grind, that one day of graceful living had sufficed me.

When I got back to Philadelphia I dropped by the theatre. There was a telegram addressed to Mr Reeves, and I happened to be there when he opened it. ‘I wonder if this means you,’ he said. It read: ‘Is there a man named Chaffin in your company or something like that stop if so will he communicate with Kessel and Bauman 24 Longacre Building Broadway.’