“The creature’s mad!” said Lady Bilbury flushed and indignant, as her nephew’s back view vanished in the crowd. “Hopelessly crazy! It’s not safe to let him go about!”
“He does certainly seem very strange,” observed Miss Tyrwhitt. “He’s been saying the most extraordinary things in the most peculiar language. I wonder if it’s safe for Clara to be with him?”
“It’s the sort of thing some of them do,” said one of Benyon’s friends, who had joined the party. “Do in Rome as the Romans do, you know, and all that. They call their parishioners ‘blokes’ and that, and they say it goes down wonderfully. There’s the Bishop of Limehouse, now—”
“Oh, of course, we know the Bishop of Limehouse,” said Lady Bilbury, smoothing her ruffled plumage; “but he’s no excuse for Aubrey, and the Bishop does draw the line somewhere. He doesn’t behave like a drunken bargee among his friends. No, it’s actual mental derangement, I’m sure, and what I’ve expected all along. These absurd enthusiasms always lead to something of the sort. Something must be done, and quickly; he mustn’t be allowed to go about disgracing his family.”
“Shall we wire to Clara?”
“That would scarcely be of much use. This affair would be all over long before she could get here. Besides, we’re not sure how Clara might take it. I hate to say it, my dear but I’ve a horrid fear she may he almost as bad herself, if it’s only from constant association with him. She worshipped him, you know, and we’ve seen nothing of them for ever so long, since they went so mad over this East-end business. No, the family must interfere, and we must really do something to restrain him among all these people. There will he a perfect scandal. What can we do? We can scarcely ask Sir Hudson Bagg to have him turned out; that would make a scene at once. But we really must do something.”
“He keeps saying he wants to think out a sermon,” remarked Harry Benyon. “I’ve heard him say it half-a-dozen times at least—the sort of cranky, persistent thing they’re apt to say, you know. I think that’s the side to take him on. Get Sir Hudson Bagg to lend him his study to do his sermon, and then lock him in.”
“Excellent, Mr. Benyon—a really admireable suggdstion. I’ll see Sir Hudson Bagg at once.” And Lady Bilbury, with recovered dignity, sailed off in search of her host.
Lady Bilbury was one of the great captures of the occasion, and Sir Hudson Bagg, under Lady Bagg’s instructions, would gladly have lent her the whole house for a week if she had asked for it. Consequently the mere request of the study for an hour or two was met with alacrity, and the faithful Benyon was dispatched to decoy the Reverend Mr. Fitzmaurice into the toils. The task was easy, for nothing, it seemed, could have pleased the sermon cogitator better.
“That’s a little bit of all right,” he observed gratefully. “I’m gettin’ fed up with all this noisy push outside, an’ I must get on some’ow with that sermon.”
He was seen safely into the study, and a trusty servitor of the house was placed just without the study door. And with that Harry Benyon sought Lady Bilbury to report that her reverend nephew was safely withdrawn from public notice.
“It’s all right now,” he said. “He’s put away in the study with a new pen and a pile of foolscap. I found him talking to a newspaper man.”
“A newspaper man, Mr. Benyon?” exclaimed Lady Bilbury. “But that will never do. We shall have all his insanities published broadcast—and exaggerated, if that is possible. We must find that newspaper man and forbid him absolutely forbid him—to print anything about Aubrey. Where is he?”
Harry Benyon knew where the newspaper man had been, but he was not there now, nor anywhere else to be seen. The fact was he had found the meeting rather dull copy and, having hit on something much more attractive, had now vanished to write up his little scoop.
Meantime, the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice was somewhat restless in the study as the trusted servitor in the passage could hear. After a little while he appeared suddenly at the door, stared at the servitor for a moment, and then retreated. The servitor—called ordinarily simply a footman—had been made somewhat apprehensive by the mysterious instructions given him; and when, ten minutes later, the door once again opened, and once more the clerical gentleman glared wildly at him and again disappeared, his apprehensions vastly increased. He grew firmly convinced that he was deputed to guard a dangerous madman, and on the whole he judged it expedient to turn the key of the study door, which he did, with a loud click that refused to be stifled. At once the door was tried from the inside; the footman retreated to an angle of the passage and watched; and the sequel was witnessed from the grounds.
The study window opened on a balcony, which made a roof for the veranda of the ground floor. The butler was in the act of emerging from the veranda, bearing a very large tray of ices, when he was suddenly rooted to the spot by the apparition of a pair of human legs depending from the balcony and kicking within an inch of his nose. The next instant the legs, the body thereto attached, the ices, the tray, and the butler were involved in one cataclysmal smash, from the thick of which rose the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice, splashed and veined in pink and cream, and darted across the lawn for the nearest shrubbery.
“Stop him!” screamed Lady Bilbury, her worst fears realized and doubled.
But nobody made the attempt save one portly dean, who, chancing to be in the line of flight, extended his arms and for one second danced before the fugitive as of yore danced the Bishop of Rum-ti-foo. In the next second the dean had turned three-quarters of a somersault, and the Reverend Mr. Fitzmaurice vanished like a harlequin through an arbutus.
II.
NEXT day’s issue of that bright little paper the Telephone, contained a bright little personal article, contributed by the journal’s representative at the meeting of the Philanthropic Society for Harassing the Indigent. He had, it appeared, “enjoyed an unusual opportunity of a chat with that fascinating and interesting personality, the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice, whose devoted work among the poor of his East London parish has made his name familiar to all who are interested in the upraising of the masses. Amid a thousand calls of duty the reverend gentleman gladly gave ‘’arf a mo,’ to use his own picturesque expression, to a few remarks on his opinions and experiences. In spite of his high connections and his University education, he has become one of the people, sharing their joys and sorrows, and adopting their simple manners and earnest vocabulary. By dint of continued perseverance he has completely succeeded in eliminating the noxiously undemocratic consonant ‘h’ from his speech, and he has as carefully assimilated the expressive locutions of the down-trodden toiler. As he himself says, he finds Stepney a fair knock-out, and, although he wears a black ‘I’m afloat’ and ’round the ’ouses’—playful synonyms for coat and trousers—he is truly right in the push at ’Oxton. Questioned as to the prevalent views as to the localities he loves, the reverend gentleman replied with the pregnant monosyllable ‘Rats!’ As for himself and his old Dutch—an affectionate reference to Mrs. Fitzmaurice—residence anywhere else would speedily drive them balmy on the crumpet.
“In regard to the type of pulpit discourse he considered best fitted to his parishioners Mr. Fitzmaurice expressed no very particular views, beyond a general opinion that the preacher should chuck it off his chest with no hank and serve it up very OT—or, as you might say, peas in the pot.”
Several more paragraphs followed, in which a pleasant picture was drawn, from the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice’s own information, of the devoted vicar traversing his parish in cheerful guise, reproving an acquaintance who seemed elephant’s trunk in one place, correcting an unruly parishioner elsewhere with one on the I suppose, and farther along encountering a tragedy that wrung his raspberry tart; all explained as being translatable on the usual principles of rhyming slang. ‘And, finally, the vicar was represented as he tore himself away from his interviewer to prepare an urgently needed sermon. “Don’t forget,” were the partin
g words of this remarkable man, accompanied by a cordial shake of the hand, “whenever you’re near the vicarage, be sure to knock at the Rory O’More and give us a chyike!”
The Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice did not see the Telephone that day till he returned to the vicarage from a round of visits in the afternoon. He read the opening lines of the article with some surprise, the rest with a growing sense of gasping stupefaction. He blinked, gazed at the familiar furniture about him, rubbed his eyes, looked at the paper again, and finally groped his way to the door and called for his wife.
“Clara,” he said, “do read this article and tell me what in the world it means, or if I’m mad or dreaming.”
“Yes, dear,” his wife replied. “I didn’t know you were in. There are two gentlemen waiting to see you in the drawing-room; they were told to call by Lady Bilbury, they say. They seem to be doctors, and they’ve been asking the oddest questions about you. And I’ve had a strange letter from my cousin Mary. She wants to know if you’ve been home since yesterday, and says she’s terribly afraid that your work here has upset yours mental balance!”
“Has it? Perhaps it has,” replied the distracted vicar. “I shouldn’t have believed it till five minutes ago, when I read that paper. Just look at it, Clara, and tell me—do tell me—what it all is. Either I am mad or somebody writing there is.”
III.
Three streets away from the vicarage, in the darkest corner of the bar of the Feathers, Snorkey Timms was bitterly reproaching Dido Fox for the failure of an attempt on Sir Hudson Bagg’s household valuables.
“I said what it ’ud be,” snarled Snorkey. “You an’ your Reverend Aubrey! There’s bin no ’oldin’ you since that parson come down here and everybody began callin’ you Aubrey. If I’d ’a’ done it, like I wanted, it ’ud ’a’ bin all right. I wouldn’t ’a’ bin nobody in particular, ’cept an anonymarious parson in them clothes you’ve got to pay Ikey Cohen for. I’d ’a’ gone in easy enough with all that mob an’ made no ’ank, an’ got in the place an’ done it neat an’ quiet. Nobody ’ud ’a’ come talkin’ to me, an’ if they did I wouldn’t ’a’ give meself away like that. ’Tain’t enough to wear a parson’s clobber, you idjit!”
“But look what a chance it was,” protested Dido—“me lookin’ the very livin’ spit of ’im when I’ve ’ad a wash an’ a shave.”
“Chance? Rats! It’s lookin’ like the parson that’s busted the show. So mighty proud o’ yerseif an’ yer Aubrey, once you got the togs you must go an dress up in ’em an’ fancy yourself, I s’pose! So o’ course the first thing somebody thinks ’e knows you, an’ o’ course the next thing you go a-jawin’ up an’ down an’—Why, what’s the good o’ lookin’ like a parson unless you talk like one? That’s where I’d ’a’ come in. I’d ’a’ chucked ’em the proper dialogue. I may not look like any partic’ler parson, but I can sling orf a few words classy.”
“Classy? You? Rats!”
“There you are—‘rats’ is just what you’d say. You’ve got no polite savvy yerself, so you bloomin’ well can’t see mine. That’s your ignorance.”
BUSKERS AT BAY
First published under syndication in 1902.
Truly it seemed like to be what is called an old-fashioned Christmas in the matter of cold and snow. The weather had cheated all observers till as late as three days before the festival. Autumn had lingered long, ways weir dank, leaves still brown about boughs, and what little chill hung in the air was all pointless and in the main a mere effect of damp. But a night had changed all, and what had begun as drizzle turned to sleet and that to snow. All that day it fell, and toward evening, prevailing over the mire, it whitened the roads at last, even as it had already whitened fields and hedges and the housetops of the little town of Crowbridge. So that morning, the morning before Christmas, broke upon a muffled whiteness and, though the fall had ceased, the sky had an even grayness that promised another.
Of the townsfolk of Crowbridge the more robust looked out of window and called it reasonable, and others who had grumbled a week ago because of the mugginess, now that they had what they asked for, grumbled again. But there were visitors long past grumbling at anything, though the change hit them sorely. At the end of the town, nearest the railway station, on a piece of common ground given to fairs and markets, Leatherby’s Royal Victoria theatre stood forlorn and solitary. It was a dismal construction of canvas and wood, called an outdoor fit up, and it had stood almost unregarded for a week. Never had Leatherby’s so little encouragement to stay, never so grievous a lack of means to get away. Business had been bad, and worse than bad, even for a strolling company. And now—
The whole concern was fallen on evil times, and its early welfare was gone with its early paint. All show of salaries had been dropped months ago and equal division made of what poor sums might remain after expenses. But now it seemed that an end had come to all things. Once upon a time the show had been wont to travel by rail and the buskers to take cheap lodgings: now it moved as it might and sheltered the company itself. It had crawled into Crowbridge drawn by two angular horses, hired in the last town, but there seemed no possibility of its ever crawling out unless the company harnessed themselves and dragged it. The load of one van stood more or less erect, with a groan and a flap at each stir of wind, and was the theatre; in the other Leatherby himself and his wife had taken to lodge, with their daughter of seventeen, Lou, called in print in the days when it ran to bills, Miss Sibylla de Vere.
It was a horrible place, this Crowbridge: nobody would trust, nobody would support the drama. As for trust, a gallant effort had been made in the beginning, when Teddy Norton, general utility—all the company were general utility—was endued in the best mixture of clothes the show could get together and sent forth to pledge the credit of the concern with butcher and baker. He did it all with an air, poor fellow—somewhat the air of a private secretary conferring a royal appointment in person, and he was careful to stipulate for the punctual presentation of bills next Saturday. But the Crowbridge shopkeepers were a stony-hearted, even a stony-faced, lot, and they wanted money down and made no bones of saying so, without circumlocution. And as for the drama, they would have none of it. It would seem, indeed, that most of them judged it sinful, for Crowbridge was a most dull and proper place, and the money it sent to Leatherby’s doors scarce paid for lamp oil.
“Patronage,” too, failed utterly, and every cover was drawn blank. Chiefly and first, Leatherby attacked Baring Spencer, Esq., and attacked him again and again. Baring Spencer. Esq., would neither send his servants nor support a “special performance” nor presently permit Leatherby standing room on his doorstep. It seemed that something must be got out of Baring Spencer, Esq., if only he were pestered enough, for he was a man of vast projects in money and companies, and he was here at Crowbridge, where he had taken a furnished house for a few months, with schemes in bicycle factories that would make the place rich. Indeed, it was said that he was buying the house outright and would some day go to Parliament for the county. The local paper was full of Baring Spencer, Esq., his undertakings and his designs for the nourishment and glory of Crowbridge. He “patronized” everything, and his name was everywhere, so that it was doubly maddening to find him resolute not to patronize the drama as represented by Leatherby’s. There was his house, almost in sight of the “pitch,” and his fame and his glory pervaded Crow-bridge. It would seem that every applicant might tap him, if not for money, for his name, except Leatherby. Him he would not even see.
Last night had been bad indeed at the show. They had tried a wonderful version of “The Courier of Lyons,” slashed and battered out of all recognition to fit the five male and three female members of the company and the only two scenes available, and the “house” (2s. 4d. and a few passed in loafers) had merely sniggered and rattled its feet. Tomorrow would be Christmas and unless something occurred desperately like a miracle the festival must be celebrated by a tota
l fast. What could be done? A desperate suggestion of carol singing had bean considered and abandoned early. There were already two parties each night, one from the church and one from the chapel, each with its harmonium and each audible to the other at intervals even from opposite ends of the town. And it was plain, as Sam Davis (general utility) observed, that outside competition was useless when the regular crowd worked for nix.
Mrs. Leatherby, her daughter and Mrs. Hendy sat about a little coke fire behind the stage mending and darning, a task that grew day by day—grew in difficulty as well as magnitude. The girl was haggard an sharp beyond her years, and already her complexion was rough and unwholesome because of the nightly paint: perhaps it was worse today from overnight weeping. Even her mother, staunch through a hundred ups and downs, made but a poor face of it, try as she might, and the widening bulk that had long led her, with rare frankness, to abandon juvenile parts, was now merely recorded by a slackness of clothes. As for Mrs. Hendy, who was also Miss Beaumont, leading lady, she almost wept as she sewed. She lamented aloud, in season and out, the fate that had brought her to such a pass, for she would have it known that she, above all the rest, had known better things and had played Pauline to the great Kedgerton’s Claude Melnotte at Liverpool. She was at great pains to impress these things on anybody who would listen, and she made them a ghastly affliction to her husband, into whose misfortunes she had married, and little thanks she got for it, as she was insistent to remind him.
For his part it was his habit to receive her reproaches sometimes with querulous retort, but mostly with mild deprecation, and to make his escape, when it was possible, in the direction of the nearest liquid refreshment he was aware of.
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