CHAPTER VIII
THE SIDES OF THE 'BUSES O!
Jimmy had suddenly found himself a personage – in something of a roundabout and accidental fashion. Paragraphs had appeared in newspapers, giving strange accounts of the young dramatist; a photographer had most surprisingly asked for a sitting, for which no charge would be made, and in regard to which certain copies of the photograph were actually to be presented to Jimmy; and many other things had happened.
So far as the actual play was concerned, matters had not gone so smoothly as might at first have been anticipated. The synopsis, to begin with, seemed to puzzle Mr. Bennett Godsby not a little; he suggested that he "couldn't see himself in it." Jimmy waited a little hopelessly at the theatre on several evenings; had messages sent out to him by the great man, declaring that the great man was changing – or absolutely worn out – or that he hadn't had time to think about the matter. Finally, one night Jimmy received a note, requesting him to call and see Mr. Bennett Godsby at his house on the following morning.
Jimmy went, and discovered Bennett Godsby, in a sense, in the bosom of his family – that family consisting of Mrs. Bennett Godsby, and a young and rather plump Miss Bennett Godsby. Mrs. Bennett Godsby had at one time appeared with her husband; Jimmy seemed to understand that there must have been acrimonious discussions when the time came when Mrs. Bennett Godsby was no longer young enough, nor slim enough, to play lead with him. She had the appearance, not only of being very plump, but of threatening to be plumper; she was somewhat negligently dressed, and she wore even at that early hour all the rings that could possibly be got on her short fingers. Mr. Bennett Godsby introduced Jimmy, and then led the young man into another room in order to talk business.
"Now, my dear Larrance," he began, "I confess I'm a little disappointed. I don't know how it is – but you haven't quite hit it; at least, that's how it strikes me. I suppose it's lack of experience, or something of the sort – or perhaps I was mistaken when I thought there was a play in the thing after all. It won't carry; there's nothing in it to grip 'em."
"I'm sorry," said Jimmy, with a sinking feeling at his heart. "Perhaps you could suggest – "
"Just what I'm going to do," said Mr. Godsby, sitting down and drawing Jimmy's synopsis towards him. "You know" – he looked up with a pained expression – "this thing has worried me more than you think. You'll understand that men like myself – men who live for their art – are bound to understand and to feel the characters they portray. I can assure you I've found myself speaking abruptly to Mrs. Bennett Godsby – in the fashion in which I imagine the man in your play would speak. She's been surprised. 'Bennett,' she has said to me, 'what is this? What is troubling you?' She knows; she's been through the mill herself – only, of course, in a smaller way. I should love to play that character," he added, with a sigh, as he tapped the paper.
Jimmy sat silent; he did not know what to do or what to say. More than that, he dared not break in upon the reflections of Mr. Bennett Godsby, for that gentleman was evidently thinking deeply. After a moment or two the actor got up and strolled across the room, and frowned at a picture; turned round, and frowned upon Jimmy by way of a change. "It's lack of experience – that's what it is," he said, nodding his head sagely.
"On my part?" Jimmy looked anxious.
"Yes, sir, on your part. The brain is there – the creative force, if I may say so; but you can't convey things. Now, if only I had the time to set to work on that myself – but, of course, one mustn't interfere with another man's work. Oh, no – not to be thought of."
Jimmy hastened to assure Mr. Bennett Godsby that he would value any suggestion that gentleman cared to make – would esteem it a privilege to do anything in his power to meet the wishes of such a man – to profit by his experience. Mr. Godsby, saying nothing, picked up the offending pages, and rapidly scanned them; presently sat down opposite Jimmy, and began to go steadily through the thing, scene by scene.
The alterations were somewhat drastic, but they did not affect the plot very greatly. The chief thing desirable seemed to be that Mr. Bennett Godsby should turn up at effective moments; should have a scene twisted here that would gain for him the sympathy of the audience; should have this changed, and that made bigger, in order, as he phrased it, to "lift the thing up."
"You see, my dear Larrance," he said confidentially, "they want me. I assure you that if I'm off for ten minutes it becomes a question of their looking round about them, and whispering, and saying to themselves: 'Where's Bennett Godsby? Why isn't he here? Why doesn't he lift the thing up?' I've been assured of it again and again by those who have sat in the front of the house, and have heard those things said. See the position it places me in!"
Jimmy said he quite saw the position, and he was honestly sorry for Mr. Bennett Godsby. At the same time —
"Well, you see; I know what the public wants; I've sampled its tastes pretty well. Now, my suggestion is this: I'll help you with the play; I'll show you what it wants, and how it might be turned about; and – well, in a sense, we'll write it together."
Jimmy pondered. "But then, you see, it wouldn't be quite my play," he said.
"Oh, yes, it would; we're not going to quarrel about that," said Bennett Godsby. "There's nothing grasping about me; I shall be pleased if I've helped a young dramatist; better pleased still, perhaps, if I've got the play I want. You keep your name to it by all means, and together we'll make a success of it. You've got my notes there (I'm afraid I've pencilled the thing all over, but you mustn't mind that), and you can go to work at once. We'll call this synopsis, with its alterations, the synopsis I wanted. And I'll send you a cheque to-night."
"You are really very good, Mr. Godsby," said Jimmy, rising as the other rose, and gathering up the papers.
"Oh, that's all right; I only want to do the best for both of us," replied the other. "You get to work, and bring it to me bit by bit; we'll talk it over. I won't forget the cheque. Good morning!"
Jimmy came out of the house convinced once more that there really were some very wonderful people in the world, and that all the nonsense talked about those in high places in the various professions ought to be contradicted without delay. He modified that exuberant feeling a little on receiving a letter the next morning from Mr. Bennett Godsby, enclosing a cheque for ten pounds.
"My dear Mr. Larrance.
"Under all the circumstances, I feel you are right about the joint authorship; if I am to do half the work (or probably more than half) I ought to have something of the glory. I need scarcely say it will be a good thing for you to have your name associated with mine, and I shan't mind a bit. It will be a good advertisement for each of us. Under all the circumstances, too, I quite see that for half the work (or more than half, as I have suggested) I ought to have half the pay. Therefore, I have credited my private account with ten pounds, and I send you the other ten herewith. Good luck to our united efforts.
"Ever yours most cordially,"Bennett Godsby."
Jimmy consoled himself with the thought that, after all, it was a very big chance for him; he saw himself connected indefinitely with Mr. Bennett Godsby, and the two of them rising to fame and fortune (the second somewhat more limited than he had at first imagined) side by side. Obviously, too, Mr. Bennett Godsby would do his best for a play in which he was so intimately concerned.
Then began for Jimmy a matter, as he afterwards described it, of waiting on doorsteps. For, pinning his faith to the play and to the play only, and seeing in its certain success a relief from all the hack work he had been doing for so long, Jimmy set aside everything else for its sake; worked at it night and day, and waited on Bennett Godsby at all times and seasons, with scenes and ideas, as they occurred to him and as he wrote them down. As Mr. Bennett Godsby had at least three addresses at which he might (or might not) be found, Jimmy's task was not an easy one. The three addresses were the theatre, the club, and Mr. Bennett Godsby's house; and it became sometimes a stern chase on Jimmy's part to get hold of his man. Even then, if he ran him to earth, it was a thousand chances to one that Bennett Godsby was going out – or desired to talk about something else – or was engaged with a visitor; and in those days every visitor spelt, in the mind of Jimmy, a new man with a new play to catch the fancy of the actor.
In that business of manufacturing the play Jimmy learnt much, and incidentally almost starved himself again in the learning. Cherished scenes and bits of dialogue had to be cast overboard and lost. Phrases from the melodramatic brain of Mr. Bennett Godsby had to take their place. The original pile of notes had grown into a chaotic heap of blotted and altered sheets of paper before the thing was done; but it was done at last, and almost to the satisfaction of Bennett Godsby.
"Mind, I won't say that we've got it," said Mr. Godsby (and be it noted that in this time the great man had dwindled a little in the sight of Jimmy, and did not seem quite so great). "A little more niggering at it would have done a lot of good; but I suppose it'll have to do until we get to rehearsals. I'll send you the other cheque to-night."
The other cheque did not come that night, nor the next morning; it came about a week later, and it was something short of the ten pounds, because Mr. Bennett Godsby had deducted Jimmy's share of the type writing bill. But Jimmy looked forward to the rehearsals, and to the production of the great play; Jimmy hugged himself over paragraphs in the papers, in which his name was openly associated with that of the great Bennett Godsby.
Some slight mistake had been made over the paragraphs – a little misunderstanding. It was declared that the great Bennett Godsby, hitherto known only in the front rank of living actors, had suddenly blossomed out as a dramatist; had written a dramatic version of a novel by a certain Mr. James Larrance; the paragraphs seemed to suggest that Mr. James Larrance was lucky in having been selected for that honour.
Then, in the very midst of rehearsals, other paragraphs appeared, which stated that the play had been written by Mr. Bennett Godsby; that he hoped for lenient treatment from his ever faithful public in this his first essay with such work. Jimmy pointed out the paragraph to him one morning when they stood together on the half-lighted stage; rehearsals were getting to an end at last.
"I can't understand it," said the great man, staring with a puzzled air at the paragraph. "I quite see your meaning; it isn't right at all. But these beasts of writers will say anything to get a few shillings; they've put words in my mouth before now that I've never uttered. I tell you what I'll do," he added, with deep indignation, "I'll write to these people – sort of letter that they must put in, and that will help things along a bit – and I'll tell them the true facts of the case. I'm glad you called my attention to it, my dear Larrance; there mustn't be any misunderstanding."
But the curious part was that when next day a letter appeared in that paper, signed by Mr. Bennett Godsby, it did not seem to put things quite as straight as it should have done. Much was made of Mr. Bennett Godsby in the letter; much of Mr. Bennett Godsby's kindness to a young author, but mighty little of James Larrance. And that morning Bennett Godsby, in what appeared to be a towering rage, informed Jimmy that that had not been his letter at all; "they had disgracefully garbled it."
Other mistakes occurred also in regard to printing; according to Bennett Godsby, you never could trust a theatrical printer to put things as they should be. Here, for example, was one scoundrel (Bennett Godsby pointed it out himself, and almost tore his hair over it at the time) who had had the audacity to print the name of the play, and then underneath the authors' names, with Bennett Godsby first – and James Larrance very much second, and in much smaller type! Did you ever hear of such a thing; would you have conceived it possible that an intelligent firm of printers could have committed such an outrage? Too late now, of course, to alter it, because every bill had been printed, and the loss would be enormous.
"However, it's all right, you know," said Bennett Godsby, taking him by the arm confidentially, and leading him aside. "Everybody knows the real facts of the case; the public will understand that of course the book was yours – and the title – and all that sort of thing."
"But the book isn't mentioned," objected Jimmy.
"Another oversight," whispered the other. "But, of course, everybody knows about that, too; it was mentioned to me yesterday on several occasions. I said to one man in particular, just as I might say to you, 'You know the book?' I said. 'Know the book?' he replied – just like that, and laughed. It was such an absurd question – wasn't it?"
Jimmy was vaguely comforted; he felt that in all probability everybody did know about it. More than that, he had been comforted from time to time by the assurance of various members of the company as to the value of certain lines, and the excellence of certain business; and they had been careful to inform him (in whispers, and out of the hearing of Bennett Godsby) that they knew perfectly well who had written the play, and that Bennett Godsby could probably not have done it "for toffee."
Of course, there came the moment when by no possibility could this play be produced; and when Jimmy sat quaking in the stalls, and wondered what was going to happen to him. The further moment when Bennett Godsby wondered why he had ever adopted this particular profession, when so many others were open to him; the further moment when he did not see what there was in the thing after all, or how it came about that he had ever imagined this was a play that would strike the public. Then, to crown matters, Mrs. Bennett Godsby came down, and tittered audibly in the midst of the big scene; true, she apologised afterwards, and said that she had not taken it "in the right spirit"; but that apology was received with gloom.
Some two days before the actual production a card was brought to Jimmy, while he sat disconsolately in the stalls watching Mr. Bennett Godsby raving up and down on the other side of the footlights, and expressing his opinion volubly concerning the musical director, and the fashion in which the incidental music had been arranged. The card bore the name of "Mrs. Daniel Baffall"; and the messenger whispered that the lady was in a carriage outside. Jimmy presently went out, to find the good-natured creature flutteringly leaning towards him over the door of the carriage, and wondering if he remembered her.
"Why, of course," said Jimmy, "although it seems such a long time ago. How did you find me?"
"Oh – everyone knows you," said Mrs. Baffall, glancing across at a young girl seated at the other side of the carriage. "And we're all so tremendously proud of you – and we can't possibly think how you've managed to do it. Even Mr. Baffall has almost forgotten about the warehouse – though he did say once (not meaning it in the least, poor dear man) that he was sure you'd starve."
"We have taken a box, Jimmy," said the young girl, in the most surprising fashion; and Jimmy wheeled about to look at her.
In a moment he remembered who this must be; yet the change in her was so great that he might not have known, but for connecting her with Mrs. Baffall and the carriage. For this was a radiant vision, beautifully dressed, and belonging to the carriage far more than poor Mrs. Baffall could ever hope to do. She held out her hand to him and laughed at his evident embarrassment.
"You do remember me, I hope," she said.
"Why, of course – Alice," he replied. "I'm very glad you're coming; I'm very anxious about it all."
"Oh – it's certain to be all right – and a big success," she replied. "Aunt Baffall is making up her mind at this very moment to ask you to come and dine with us to-night – aren't you, Aunt Baffall?"
"Yes, of course – if you think so – and if Mr. Jimmy can spare the time. I'm sure that if I'd ever tried anything of this kind (that is, always supposing that Baffall would have let me), I should have had such a dreadful headache that I shouldn't have been able to eat or walk or do anything else. You know what it is, my dear" – Mrs. Baffall turned plaintively to Alice – "you know what it means for me when I even try to write a letter. And when you come to a book (not that I could quite make out the end of it, Mr. Jimmy, but I suppose you meant well), and then a play, which, I suppose, has to be written too – it makes me feel quite sorry for you. So that if you can eat anything – "
Jimmy promised, almost with eagerness. It was a rare event in his life to be going out anywhere in a friendly way; and he needed greatly just then to find someone to whom to talk – someone to tell of his great success and all that the future was to hold for him. He found himself wondering, as he sat in the theatre, why he had not thought of Alice before – why he had not known instinctively that she must have grown into this flower-like creature – this rare and delicate beauty. He was to see her to-night; he would have a chance of telling her a great deal about himself and his work. He had been foolish to lose sight for so long of such a girl as this; he remembered what good friends they had been in far-off childish days. More than that, he considered with gratification that they must regard him as something rare in the world of young men; this boy who had been started in a warehouse, and now had blossomed into an important man. He felt glad that they had come to find him at the theatre.
Escaping at last from the theatre, and from what now amounted almost to the reproaches of Mr. Bennett Godsby, Jimmy hastened to his room, and put on his rarely used dress suit. From a financial point of view, things were very, very wrong with Jimmy; it was only by persistently pointing out the flattering paragraphs in the newspapers that he had been able to convince his landlady that if only she waited for a week or two he would be able to pay all that was due. He had tried her with a photograph of himself, reproduced in an evening newspaper; but it seemed that she had once had a nephew "in trouble," as she expressed it, and his portrait had appeared in much the same fashion; she was distrustful.
Jimmy walked, because he could not afford a cab, and because also the night was fine. And as he walked, there passed him, going along the road, an omnibus, and on the side of the omnibus, standing out clearly and distinctly, the name of the theatre and the name of his play; it was there for all London to read. He wondered what people would have thought, had they known who he was, and what the names on the sides of the 'buses (for there were others going on other routes) meant to him. Though he walked with but a shilling or two in his pocket that night, he felt once again as he had felt before – that he envied no man, and that the world was very pleasant, and that the world smiled upon him.
For he was young, and he was talked about; and he had done something already in the world. And a pretty girl had held his hand that day, and had said that she was proud of him; and he was on his way now to see her. What more, in the name of Fortune, need any man ask?
CHAPTER IX
THE DAWN
Jimmy had been dressed three hours before it was absolutely necessary that he should be at the theatre, and then had wandered about his rooms, tortured by doubts and fears; wondering if by chance it would not have been better to have altered this line at the last, or to have extended that phrase, so as to convey the meaning better. Suppose, after all, the theatre took fire – now, when people were gathering at its very doors; suppose the iron curtain refused to go up (such things had been known to happen); or suppose Bennett Godsby, in the very hour of his triumph, dropped dead from sheer excitement. Would there be a call for the author, and should Jimmy go on, in that case? Nay, more – would he be permitted to go on? That was the more vital question, because Bennett Godsby had to be reckoned with in such a matter.
He went down to the theatre at last, to find the man at the stage door, who always sat in the company of the gas stove and the very old dog, rising to his feet to wish him good luck; Jimmy blushed to think that he had not sufficient in his pocket for a tip. Also, there were telegrams; one in particular from Alice, which he thrust into an inner pocket. Then he went down on to the stage and looked about him.
Actually there was a man there – a property man, or some other debased character – lounging on a settee, and whistling! It did not seem to occur to him that so much depended on this night; if anything, the debased one looked a trifle bored. Jimmy trembled at the thought that in the hands of such people as this rested perhaps the fate of the play; for, according to Bennett Godsby, the wrong coloured carpet put down on the stage, or a chair six inches too much to the left, had ruined the fate of the finest ere this. Thinking that, Jimmy went in search of Bennett Godsby, with the object of cheering him.
He found him in his dressing-room, opening letters and telegrams, and apparently not in the least anxious. The great man looked round at Jimmy as he entered and nodded.
"I've got a ghastly feeling come over me, Larrance," he said – "a horrible feeling that I shan't do myself justice to-night. It's the life, I suppose; it's telling on me a bit. Every blessed thing seems to have gone out of my head. I know I look calm," he added, as if in reply to Jimmy's deprecatory smile, "but that's only manner. I've got to that pitch that I simply don't care what happens – I don't indeed. It may suit the part better, in a way – and it may not. Here – take this coat!"
He turned to the dresser, and began to prepare for the evening's work. Jimmy, with a dull feeling that all was over with him, and that he wished someone would stop the band then tuning up in the distance, turned to go. Mr. Bennett Godsby called him back.
"By the way – you'll be somewhere about, I suppose?" he said.
"Oh, yes; I shall be somewhere about," replied Jimmy, and went out into the streets again.
But the curtain went up in due time, and Mr. Bennett Godsby, also in due time, went on to receive the applause of his friends in his dual capacity of author and actor. Jimmy knew nothing of what was happening; he could only guess, as he paced about outside, that this part of the play had been reached, or that part; he knew that an act was over and another begun when men in caps came tumbling out of the stage door, and adjourned hurriedly to a neighbouring public-house. Then Jimmy ventured inside again.
But he was not alone that night in his anxiety; there was someone else who counted the hours, and wondered what was happening; someone who, like Jimmy, but for a different reason, could have no sight of the proceedings. Although Jimmy did not know it then, and was not to know it until long, long afterwards, Moira had counted the days, and then the hours; knew to a moment when the curtain was to rise; guessed almost to a moment when it might fall again, and Jimmy's fate be known. And it was her fate to stand outside, bitterly enough, and to see nothing.
She had not seen Jimmy since that night when she had gone to his rooms, and had told him of herself and Charlie; that night she was so often to remember, when she had seen him sitting in the circle of light from his lamp; that night when the merciful darkness of the room had hidden her tears. But she had thought about him often and often; had once, on a little foolish impulse, put a common newspaper to her lips when she was alone, because it spoke of him kindly and wished him well. Charlie knew nothing of that; Charlie stood outside, as another part of her life – something Jimmy did not touch.
Yet there had been a faint hope in her mind that she might have seen the play – might have been present at Jimmy's triumph – for to imagine him failing was impossible, she felt. More than that, there was in the girl this night that strong, fine feeling – half the feeling of motherhood almost – that made her feel she would have liked to take him in her arms, and whisper words of comfort and of hope to him. It never occurred to Moira that there might be others to do that; it never seemed possible to her that this was a new Jimmy, grown out of old ways, and leaving her lightly and easily enough to Charlie. To-night at least Jimmy – her Jimmy! – stood alone, as it seemed to her, and she only understood from what he had come, and what struggles he had had, before his name could shine out before men as it did now. She wanted to tell him all this; wanted to be somewhere near him – and yet quite secretly – so that at the last crucial moment he might understand that she knew what he felt, and that she was with him in his fight.
And yet – the difference! There had come no word from him – no suggestion that she might like to see the play. She waited bravely until the very end – the very moment when she knew that people must be gathering at the theatre, and still nothing came. She determined then that she would go down to the place; she might see something of him at least – might even hear from others what was happening. Alone, and thinking only of him, she made her way down the stairs; stopped for a moment at Charlie's door. And as she stopped the door was opened, and Charlie stood there, looking out at her.
"Hullo! – going out?" he asked, yawning a little. From his appearance he had evidently been sitting over the fire for a long time, brooding.
"Yes, but only a little way," she said hurriedly, without looking at him; for in a sense this was a disloyalty to Charlie. "I shan't be long."
"Shall I come with you?" he asked, but with no alacrity in his tone.
"No – I shall be back directly – very soon, I mean," she replied.
"Oh – all right," he said, and as she went down stairs he closed the door and went back to the fire.
He sat down there in the comfortable warmth, and fell asleep. His pipe dropped from his mouth, and lay unheeded at his feet; he slept for quite a long time. When he awoke the room seemed cold and dark; the fire had died down and was almost out. Muttering impatiently against it, he set to work to replenish it; then, shuddering, looked round the place with a frown.
"I hate this room," he muttered. "Here I seem to spend my life; to this I get up in the morning; from this I go to bed at night. I wonder how long it'll last? No hope – nothing to look forward to; every jolly fellow I ever met gone from me, or gone ahead of me. It's cursed bad luck; if it wasn't for Moira, I'd – I wonder whether she's back yet?"
After a moment or two he went up softly to the upper rooms, and opened the door. Patience sat in her deep chair against the fire, asleep; there was no one else there. Charlie closed the door, and came down again; looked irresolutely about his own room.
"I'll go out," he muttered to himself. "I've got a fit of the blues, and I'll walk them off. What the deuce did Moira want to go out for – and stay away all this time?"
He got his hat and coat, and went out into the streets. It was a windy, gusty night, with splashes of rain flung at the few people in the streets; for a moment he hesitated, and almost turned back. But the thought of the cheerless room decided him against it; he walked on sharply into the brighter streets. And as he walked his spirits rose a little.
Meanwhile Moira had gone on, making straight for the theatre. Almost at that time she was obsessed with the idea that Jimmy wanted her; that on this night of all other nights he was lonely, even in the midst of his success, and that he called to her. Wind nor gusts of rain mattered anything to her then; it was Jimmy who called – Jimmy of whom she was proud; Jimmy whom she loved at this moment as she had never loved him before. In this hour her heart, so long held in check and starved within her, woke and cried for him, as a child, waking from some uneasy dream in the night, cries out for the touch of love – the sweet whisper of love to calm and soothe its fears. Jimmy in a blaze of glory in the lighted theatre was nothing to her then; her soul went out to the Jimmy of the woods and the fields of her childhood. Through the streets of that London that had taken them both into its cruel arms, and made of them what it would, she went on to meet her Jimmy.
She came to the theatre, to find a crowd about it, and carriages and cabs driving up in a long line. Only then did she realise that her errand was a wrong one; that here was no place for her. She drew back – poor shabby figure that she was – among those who waited in a line at either side of the big doors to watch the carriage folk going in. And then, for the first time, understood the bitterness of her position, as she saw one bright girlish figure emerge from a carriage and flutter in at the great doors. It was Alice.
Mr. and Mrs. Baffall came immediately afterwards, Mr. Baffall very much out of place, and Mrs. Baffall but little more at ease. Peering through the little crowd, Moira saw the girl greeting acquaintances inside – almost heard the light ripple of her laughter. It wasn't fair – it wasn't right that Jimmy should have forgotten. She drew back, and got away from the crowd, and began to pace the streets again.
They would be taking their places now; Jimmy's play would be beginning. Perhaps after all, she thought, she might contrive to get in; it would be good to think that she might sit aloft somewhere and watch it, and tell Jimmy about it afterwards. Yes – she would go in, although shillings were hard to spare. She went round to a door in an alley, and mounted a flight of stone steps; a man behind a little paybox window shook his head at her.