Paul Kelver Part 65

I stood this sort of thing for a week. "They are people of experience,"

I argued to myself; "they must know more about it than I do." By the end of the week I had arrived at the conclusion that anyhow they didn't.

Added to which I lost my temper. It is a thing I should advise any lady or gentleman thinking of entering the ranks or dramatic authorship to lose as soon as possible. I took both ma.n.u.scripts with me, and, entering Mr. Hodgson's private room, closed the door behind me. One parcel was the opera as I had originally written it, a neat, intelligible ma.n.u.script, whatever its other merits. The second, scored, interlined, altered, cut, interleaved, rewritten, reversed, turned inside out and topsy-turvy--one long, hopeless confusion from beginning to end--was the opera, as, everybody helping, we had "knocked it into shape."

"That's your opera," I said, pushing across to him the bulkier bundle.

"If you can understand it, if you can make head or tail of it, if you care to produce it, it is yours, and you are welcome to it. This is mine!" I laid it on the table beside the other. "It may be good, it may be bad. If it is played at all it is played as it is written. Regard the contract as cancelled, and make up your mind."

He argued with force, and he argued with eloquence. He appealed to my self-interest, he appealed to my better nature. It occupied him forty minutes by the clock. Then he called me an obstinate young fool, flung the opera as "knocked into shape" into the waste-paper basket--which was the only proper place for it, and, striding into the middle of the company, gave curt directions that the d.a.m.ned opera was to be played as it was written, and be d.a.m.ned to it!

The company shrugged its shoulders, and for the next month kept them shrugged. For awhile Hodgson remained away from the rehearsals, then returning, developed by degrees a melancholy interest in the somewhat gloomy proceedings.

So far I had won, but my difficulty was to maintain the position. The low comedian, reciting his lines with meaningless monotony, would pause occasionally to ask of me politely, whether this or that pa.s.sage was intended to be serious or funny.

"You think," the leading lady would enquire, more in sorrow than in anger, "that any girl would behave in this way--any real girl, I mean?"

"Perhaps the audience will understand it," would console himself hopefully the tenor. "Myself, I confess I don't."

With a sinking heart concealed beneath an aggressively disagreeable manner, I remained firm in my "pigheaded conceit," as it was regarded, Hodgson generously supporting me against his own judgment.

"It's bound to be a failure," he told me. "I am spending some twelve to fifteen hundred pounds to teach you a lesson. When you have learnt it we'll square accounts by your writing me an opera that will pay."

"And if it does succeed?" I suggested.

"My dear boy," replied Hodgson, "I never make mistakes."

From all which a dramatic author of more experience would have gathered cheerfulness and hope, knowing that the time to be depressed is when the manager and company unanimously and unhesitatingly predict a six months'

run. But new to the business, I regarded my literary career as already at an end. Belief in oneself is merely the match with which one lights oneself. The oil is supplied by the belief in one of others; if that be not forthcoming, one goes out. Later on I might try to light myself again, but for the present I felt myself dark and dismal. My desire was to get away from my own smoke and smell. The final dress rehearsal over, I took my leave of all concerned. The next morning I would pack a knapsack and start upon a walking tour through Holland. The English papers would not reach me. No human being should know my address. In a month or so I would return, the piece would have disappeared--would be forgotten. With courage, I might be able to forget it myself.

"I shall run it for three weeks," said Hodgson, "then we'll withdraw it quietly, 'owing to previous arrangements'; or Duncan can suddenly fall ill--she's done it often enough to suit herself; she can do it this once to suit me. Don't be upset. There's nothing to be ashamed of in the piece; indeed, there is a good deal that will be praised. The idea is distinctly original. As a matter of fact, that's the fault with it,"

added Hodgson, "it's too original."

"You said you wanted it original," I reminded him.

He laughed. "Yes, but original for the stage, I meant--the old dolls in new frocks."

I thanked him for all his kindness, and went home and packed my knapsack.

For two months I wandered, avoiding beaten tracks, my only comrades a few books, belonging to no age, no country. My worries fell from me, the personal affairs of Paul Kelver ceasing to appear the be all and the end all of the universe. But for a chance meeting with Wellbourne, Deleglise's amateur caretaker of Gower Street fame, I should have delayed yet longer my return. It was in one of the dead cities of the Zuyder Zee. I was sitting under the lindens on the gra.s.s-grown quay, awaiting a slow, crawling boat that, four miles off, I watched a moving speck across the level pastures. I heard his footsteps in the empty market-place behind me, and turned my head. I did not rise, felt even no astonishment; anything might come to pa.s.s in that still land of dreams.

He seated himself beside me with a nod, and for awhile we smoked in silence.

"All well with you?" I asked.

"I am afraid not," he answered; "the poor fellow is in great trouble."

"I'm not Wellbourne himself," he went on, in answer to my look; "I am only his spirit. Have you ever tested that belief the Hindoos hold: that a man may leave his body, wander at will for a certain period, remembering only to return ere the thread connecting him with flesh and blood be stretched to breaking point? It is quite correct. I often lock the door of my lodging, leave myself behind, wander a free Spirit."

He pulled from his pocket a handful of loose coins and looked at them.

"The thread that connects us, I am sorrow to say, is wearing somewhat thin," he sighed; "I shall have to be getting back to him before long--concern myself again with his troubles, follies. It is somewhat vexing. Life is really beautiful, when one is dead."

"What was the trouble?" I enquired.

"Haven't you heard?" he replied. "Tom died five weeks ago, quite suddenly, of syncope. We had none of us any idea."

So Norah was alone in the world. I rose to my feet. The slowly moving speck had grown into a thin, dark streak; minute by minute it took shape and form.

"By the way, I have to congratulate you," said Wellbourne. "Your opera looked like being a big thing when I left London. You didn't sell outright, I hope?"

"No," I answered. "Hodgson never expressed any desire to buy."

"Lucky for you," said Wellbourne.

I reached London the next evening. Pa.s.sing the theatre on my way to Queen's Square, it occurred to me to stop my cab for a few minutes and look in.

I met the low comedian on his way to his dressing-room. He shook me warmly by the hand.

"Well," he said, "we're pulling them in. I was right, you see, Give me plenty of opportunity.' That's what I told you, didn't I? Come and see the piece. I think you will agree with me that I have done you justice."

I thanked him.

"Not at all," he returned; "it's a pleasure to work, when you've got something good to work on."

I paid my respects to the leading lady.

"I am so grateful to you," said the leading lady. "It is so delightful to play a real live woman, for a change."

The tenor was quite fatherly.

"It is what I have been telling Hodgson for years," he said, "give them a simple human story."

Crossing the stage, I ran against Marmaduke Trevor.

"You will stay for my scene," he urged.

"Another night," I answered. "I have only just returned."

He sank his voice to a whisper. "I want to talk to you on business, when you have the time. I am thinking of taking a theatre myself--not just now, but later on. Of course, I don't want it to get about."

I a.s.sured him of my secrecy.

"If it comes off, I want you to write for me. You understand the public.

We will talk it over."

He pa.s.sed onward with stealthy tread.

I found Hodgson in the front of the house.

"Two stalls not sold and six seats in the upper circle," he informed me; "not bad for a Thursday night."

I expressed my gratification.