OLD MAN'S BEARD

by H. R. Wakefield

  But the vividness of these impressions faded quickly away and he never felt them so vividly again, except very occasionally in dreams.

  The next morning he went back to London, leaving the chambermaid the richer by an Australian shilling.

  He returned to work the next day and made a searching inspection of the factory. All was well. The great vats, simmering and formidable, seemed to hiss forth defiance to every shade of superfluity; black, auburn, ‘ripe corn’; a reassuring sight for Iris Storm and her soignée and ‘well-dressed’ sisters. For the first time Mr Parsley followed up, as it were, the career, the latter end, the raison d’être of his ‘unique’ eliminator, and he got a curious little vague thrill from this imaginative mental pursuit. The tow-haired, the scarlet-lipped, squeezing little tubes, and then delicately erasing with tiny towels, and then going forth to conquer and torture men! Men — he was a man! Let them try conquering him!

  As he passed through the filling-room he scrutinised each neat-handed Phyllis with a less detached eye. He regarded their faces and they stealthily regarded his. Suddenly, this new, less detached eye of his was caught by a young woman in the third row by the door. She was tow-haired and scarlet-lipped, and when her eye met his she looked back at him. And in that look was surmise, expectation and, as he vaguely felt, danger. He went back to his office and told the forewoman to send the young woman to him. Presently she came in and gave him that look again. And, suddenly, a wave seemed to strike his navel and drench him from head to foot. . . . He took out his note-case and presented her with two months’ wages — and the sack.

  Unrehearsed

  MR RICHARD CANTELOPE is one of those happily situated persons who make glad the heart of golf club secretaries, for he is nearly always available for mid-week team matches, and he is just good enough to bring up the rear of hot sides creditably, and not too formidable for a gambol with the ‘rabbits’. Furthermore, he is of a sociable habit, commanding a wide repertoire of seemly anecdote and packed brightly with entertaining reminiscences of the many persons of note and notoriety with whose friendship he has been honoured. In a word, he can keep the ball rolling admirably both on and off the course and is a most desired acquisition. He is fifty-three years of age, just not retired from a fine old business, a bachelor, and a connoisseur of good food, good wine and good mezzotints. His character is firm but kindly, his outlook on life mildly disillusioned, his health excellent.

  On a beautiful morning in June 1927 he was driving himself down to Moor Park to represent that club against the Stage Golfing Society, and musing on an effervescence from a young poet, not remarkable for self-effacement. This fellow had delivered himself of the opinion that actors nowadays were so busy trying to be gentlemen and golfers that they had no time to learn their job. But for the life of him Mr Cantelope failed to fathom why this criticism did not equally apply to any member of any profession — even to poets. If it were possible to be a well-mannered poet and a good putter, why was it impossible to be a well-mannered mummer and a master of the mashie? A hasty and fatuous utterance this of Mr S.——, Mr Cantelope decided.

  During the ensuing three hours he was strongly entrenched in this opinion through being heavily defeated by a most delightful gentleman and admirable actor whom we will call Mr Stanley Willoughby. In spite of being outdriven and outputted by him, Mr Cantelope enjoyed his round thoroughly, for his opponent showed himself to possess a nimble wit, a sunny disposition and a pleasantly cynical outlook on that particular scene of the human tragedy or farce in which it had been his fate to appear. The attraction seemed to be mutual, for Mr Willoughby appeared delighted to accept Mr Cantelope’s invitation to dine with him that evening at his club. So, after being chiefly instrumental in gaining a point for his side in the foursomes, Mr Cantelope drove the actor back to London and they met again later on at the Bachelors’ Club. For a time Mr Willoughby greatly entertained his host with his memories (and there is something peculiarly entrancing in being taken behind the scenes unless one is professionally compelled to spend much time there.) Mr Willoughby’s gently caustic revelations of the foibles and frailties of his famous colleagues were delightfully instructive to his host, and then, some vague reference to the occult having been made, Mr Cantelope observed that he was somewhat attracted by such phenomena. ‘I’ve never seen a ghost or even thought I’d seen a ghost,’ said Willoughby, ‘though I was once mixed up in something which seemed to require more explanation than it got, but I’m insufficiently mediaeval to imagine that what appears inexplicable is necessarily supernatural. However, it may interest you to hear about it, but,’ he added, laughing, ‘you must promise not to say you heard it from me.’

  ‘Of course you must tell it me,’ replied Mr Cantelope, ‘but may I ask why you feel it necessary to extract such a vow?’

  ‘For what you will consider a ludicrous reason; because members of my profession are the most superstition-ridden creatures in the world. I despise them for it and yet I share their miserable weakness; and were it not for the fact that, as a result of inheriting a modest competency, I have just retired, I should never have even considered referring to the affair.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear we shall see you no more,’ replied Mr Cantelope. ‘Believe me when I say that it means a considerable loss to the stage.’

  ‘Thanks very much, but I fancy it will survive. As a matter of fact I am becoming slightly antique for the parts in which I have been usually cast. I can see grey wigs before me, and I find it more and more of a strain to learn my lines. The machine-made and machine-gun dialogue of today is far harder to learn than the more leisurely and legato brand to which I have been accustomed. Anyway, I was referring to our professional superstitiousness. It is all-pervasive and the taboos are typically irrational — whistling in dressing-rooms, quoting Macbeth, repeating the last or “tag” line of a play before the first night. No one knows where the interdict will fall next, and it was probably mere caprice that it became an unwritten law that no one who was in the cast of The Eleventh Hour should ever refer to it again lest some dire doom should be inflicted on the transgressor.’

  ‘Absit omen,’ said Mr Cantelope with a smile.

  ‘You mean I may repent my indiscretion in telling this tale to you. No, I take it that the curse only falls on the guilty party in his professional capacity. Well, I have made my last bow and am consequently immune. Anyway, I will risk it. Do you remember an actor-manager named Duncan Littlemore?’

  ‘Very vaguely I do,’ replied Mr Cantelope, ‘but he’s little more than — oh, acquit me of the vilest pun — it was absolutely unintentional — he is just a name to me. As I recall him he produced and acted in pieces which did not greatly appeal to me.’

  ‘And that is all you remember about him?’

  ‘Yes, I believe that is all.’

  ‘Very well then, I shall have to describe him to you briefly. Well, he was a highly competent actor, though his methods were florid, stagy and over-emphatic, but he possessed an absolute sense of what his public expected from him. He was extremely good-looking, again in a curled, rather vulgar way, and his dressing-room was usually thronged by persons of position, particularly ladies; and there is not the slightest doubt that many a well-known dame entrusted her reputation to his discretion, with justification, for as a snob and a sensualist he greatly appreciated these decorative surrenders, and was sensible enough to know that if he wanted to add to their number he must keep a tight rein on his scurrilous tongue, for he was a vile fellow, vain to a degree, uncultured, the epitome of selfishness, crooked and corrupt. I know of no other profession in which such a loathsome animal could have secured a large and effusive following. There were many tales related of his bumptious insolence. For example, when A Flight of Birds was first produced, Eleanor Dundas and Jimmy Block played the leads, and Eleanor as the better-known artist of the two had the Star’s dressing-room. When Jimmy surrendered the part Littlemore succeeded him; and without saying a word to Eleanor he rushed down to the t
heatre and had all her gear shifted to another room, installing himself in hers. That was typical of his caddish little soul. Once he became a manager he never picked a play in which there was a decent part for anyone else; he got rid of anyone who seemed to be making a competitive hit, and no one was ever allowed on the stage when he was taking a “call”. He was a bully and a “sweater”, but as his plays usually ran for months, he got the casts he wanted and his own way in everything. And then one day Arthur Wells sent him in a play.’

  ‘A drink?’ asked Mr Cantelope.

  ‘No, thanks. Lately I have had some of those symptoms of that Change of Life known as “blood pressure” in men. Arthur had had one big success with Tweedledee, but he could never “click” again, and he was in very low water when he submitted What Does it Matter? to Littlemore. He was a huge Irishman, violent-tempered, but generous and greatly loved. His disappointments found a conventional outlet in brandy. About this time, however, he had married and reformed courageously. Littlemore kept the play for five months. But had it been lying idly on his desk? Oh no! He kept an unscrupulous hack called Richards, one of whose functions it was to pinch ideas from plays sent in to his boss and fake up a new play round those ideas. Usually, he chose pieces by obscure individuals who could do nothing but protest and, I suppose, Littlemore considered that Wells had sunk sufficiently low to make it safe to rob him. Apparently What Does it Matter? was a fairly good play with a very strong central situation and a really good third act. I never read it myself, but I heard that was so. Anyway, six months after returning it Littlemore announced with a mighty flourish of Press trumpets that he would shortly produce a new play by Samuel Richards. I was engaged for a tiny speaking part, the first time I had ever been paid for opening my mouth on the stage, being eighteen at the time.

  ‘After rehearsals began, Leonard Wilkins, who was also in the cast, happened to meet Wells, and in conversation with him outlined the plot of The Eleventh Hour. Wells realised at once that it had been “lifted” straight from his play, and, beside himself with fury, rushed round to Littlemore. Though they actually came to blows, Wells got no change from the actor, merely insolence and abuse, whereupon Wells took legal opinion, having obtained a copy of the script of The Eleventh Hour from Wilkins. This opinion stated that while there were remarkable resemblances or parallells between the two plays they were very general and plagiarism would be difficult to establish. If Wells cared to employ expensive counsel he would have a sporting chance, but no more. The theft — if it was such — had been most carefully and cunningly perpetrated and would require able and expert pleading to prove. This was enough for Wells, who had no resources for employing expensive counsel. So he sat down and wrote the following letter to Littlemore:

  ‘ “You are a blackguard and a thief. You have stolen my play, as you have stolen dozens of others, you foul bloody swine.”

  ‘He sent copies of this epistle to every member of the cast and a good many other people. And then he forced his way into Littlemore’s dressing-room at the Thespian and blew his brains out in front of him. He had always been a great admirer of Chinese customs.

  ‘This shook Littlemore somewhat, for the inquest might be unpleasant. So he sent Wells’s widow fifty pounds, which she returned. Sure enough the coroner did want some explanations, for he had been sent anonymously a copy of Wells’s letter. However, Littlemore employed a K.C., who very delicately suggested that Wells had been suffering from delusions due to his appreciation of neat brandy. A typically mean insinuation. But as there was quite a posse of coffins in the mortuary and the jury were disturbed at being compelled to get so much close-up evidence of human fragility and anxious to be through with it, the inquiry was not pursued, and Littlemore was able to breathe freely once more, and he returned to rehearsals in the highest of spirits.

  ‘I may say things were made more or less all right for Mrs Wells. Our profession is generous to a fault whatever else it may be, though possibly a realistic psychologist might suggest that such generosity is to some extent a case of casting one’s bread on the waters, for the many hours come when all mummers must “rest”.

  ‘Littlemore personally produced his own plays for the very good reason that no one with any self-respect would have done it for him; producing being to him a process by which his own part became fatter and everyone else’s proportionately skimmed, so much so that I began nervously to conjecture whether I should be able to retain all my eight lines, for he listened hungrily when I was repeating them. As a producer he was a bully with a quick, foul temper and a dirty tongue, and I realised more and more each day what a matchless egoist he was, and as a timid beginner I was absolutely terrified by him, and yet he fascinated me in a way, he was so complete and perfect a tyrant. The Eleventh Hour was a dud play if ever I saw one, simply and solely constructed to permit Littlemore to occupy the centre of the stage for two hours and a quarter out of two hours and a half.

  ‘The theme of What Does it Matter? had been that of a man deliberately sacrificing his reputation to save his friend’s. So, of course, was that of The Eleventh Hour; but Richards had changed the setting from London to the Wild and Woolly West, then a much more romantic region than it is today when all the most sex-appealing and expert Cowboys have gravitated to Hollywood or formed Rodeo troupes. Littlemore, in the decorative raiment of a Plainsman, nobly chose to sacrifice his existence to save that of the brother of his inamorata. Near the end of the third act his neck was encircled by a rope, a sheriff in attendance. However, the brother, overcome by the spectacle, broke down and confessed to a rather amateurish spot of horse theft at The Eleventh Hour, and all was well. I have to tell you these dull facts to explain what happened.

  ‘Littlemore had another trait typical of the tenth-rate theatrical mind; he loved a ludicrous degree of realism in his “props”. With the slightest justification he would bring in real horses, real Red Indians, real goldfish and that sort of thing, so the gallows in the act was a most serviceable engine, and during rehearsals many longing eyes were directed to it when Littlemore’s neck was in the rope. Wilkins — the sheriff — told me it was as much as he could do to keep his feet from kicking the chair from under him.

  ‘Considering everything rehearsals were carried through successfully, booking we heard was very good indeed, and when the first night came we all were confident that the Thespian would be full for many months and that we should not be worrying our agents for a very long time — to the actor a most blessed and soothing sensation.

  ‘I do not think anything out of the way or untoward occurred during the earlier part of that evening. I should not have noticed it if there had been, for the prospect of having to utter for the first time on any stage eight whole lines of melodramatic prose before a first-night audience was so utterly monopolising my faculties that everything else in the world seemed but the vague antics of phantoms. Time after time those cursed eight maliciously eluded my memory, and all the experienced reassurance of Wilkins that they would be duly forthcoming at the critical moment failed to comfort me. But I do remember that for two acts Littlemore gave the performance of his life. He was word perfect and full of most convincing fire, so much so that he made that tuppence-coloured drivel almost seem like a decent play. The audience gave him a tremendous “hand”, and we petty ones were greatly cheered by the success of the Colossus, for it meant economic ease for us for many months. I did not appear in the later portions of the second act, and I went down to see the stage door-keeper about five minutes before the curtain. I wanted to leave a message with him so far as I remember. I found him in a state of indignation and irritation. “Blasted sauce, that’s what I call it,” he was remarking to one of the orchestra. I asked him what was the matter. “Well,” he replied, “about five minutes ago a chap came in without so much as a ‘by your leave’ and shoves past me. I shouted after him, but he takes no notice, so I runs up the stairs after him and sees him go into the Guvnor’s dressing-room. I couldn’t go in after him, for the Guvno
r would fire me in one act if I went into his room.”

  ‘ “What was he like?” I asked.

  ‘ “A great big chap, very quick and quiet.”

  ‘ “Probably only a reporter,” I said.

  ‘ “Well, what’ll the Guvnor say to me when he finds this bloke in his dressing-room?” asked the janitor in an aggrieved and melancholy tone.

  ‘I had a pretty shrewd idea of the answer to that question, but I wasn’t in a position to help, and after leaving my message went back to my room just as a roar of applause announced the fall of the curtain.

  ‘Wilkins came in shortly after, and we were chatting casually as we changed our attire when Mr Littlemore’s dresser burst in with consternation on his face.

  ‘ “Will you come up to the chief’s room, sir?” he said to Wilkins. “When I went in I found him in a faint and I can’t bring him round.”

  ‘We both dashed off, Wilkins having picked up a flask of brandy from the dressing-table. Littlemore was lying on the floor, his face dead-white, his eyes closed. Wilkins forced some brandy down his throat and I poured cold water over his face, but for some time without result. We sent the dresser off to tell the stage-manager what had happened and to keep the curtain down. We were just beginning to despair of bringing Littlemore round and about to fetch a doctor from the audience when he opened his eyes. Their expression was blank and unseeing for a moment or two, and then a look of extreme terror came into them. We helped him to his feet, but he took absolutely no notice of us, keeping his eyes focussed on a spot behind us. Luckily he hadn’t to make a change for the last act, so we cleaned him up and gave him another strong tot of brandy. By this time we could hear demonstrations of impatience coming from the audience. And then Littlemore did a very curious thing; he crooked and extended his right arm as though linking it with another’s, and he was staring straight in front of him, and, as though being supported and led, went down to the stage. We feared the absolute worst, but to our relief and amazement Littlemore seemed perfectly capable of carrying through. The fire had gone out of him and his acting became strangely mechanical, but he made no call on the prompter and his actions were sufficiently natural. The only time there was the slightest contretemps was when Wilkins as the sheriff was adjusting the rope round his neck, for he attempted rather feebly to resist him, but even that must have seemed all right from the front. But all through that act his eyes were staring into vacancy. For the last ten minutes I wasn’t wanted on the stage and went back to my dressing-room. Eventually I could tell by the applause the curtain was down, and then by its renewal and increased volume that Littlemore was taking his call. And then all the lights in the house went suddenly out. For a moment I could hear a confused murmur from the audience, and then a curious cry, half shout, half scream — and then a moment later the lights came on again. And I heard a chorus of cries of consternation, alarm and horror. I rushed out and down the passage, to the steps leading to the stage. At the bottom of them was a scene of the utmost confusion, the members of the company and the staff being in a state of the most intense excitement, and then there was a cry of “Make way”, and four men carrying a body passed through the throng and came towards me. I drew back against the wall to let them pass. I have seen many dead men since in France and Flanders, but none has filled me with such horror as that thing in Cowboy kit, with its head dangling from its broken neck.