James Hilton: Collected Novels (70 page)

Here a sharp-nosed, jockey-sized man with bloodshot blue eyes and straw-colored hair came across the room to be introduced, shook hands wordlessly and continued to do so while he glanced around with concentrated expressionlessness. Presently, turning his eyes on Smith, he whispered: “What made you first take an interest in slumming?” He went on, before Smith could think of any reply: “We’re just a low vulgar crowd. Rogues and vagabonds, they called us in Shakespeare’s time—am I right, Lanvin? We have no homes, we live in dingy lodginghouses in every middle-sized town in England, we know which landlady counts the potatoes, which theater’s full of fleas, and which has a roof that leaks on the stage when it rains. None of your high’ class West End stuff for us—we lure the coppers, the orange peel, and the monkey nuts and we spend our one-day-a-week holiday chewing stale sandwiches in Sunday trains.”

Mrs. Gregory then came in with what was evidently the main dish—quantities of fried fish, chip potatoes, and hot peas; meanwhile Mr. Borley had been out and now reappeared carrying a crate of bottled beer. The party began to find places at the table while the sorrowful-looking man, whose name was Margesson and whom one would have expected to speak like an archbishop boomed across the table quite unsorrowfully and with the zest and accent of an auctioneer: “Ladies and gentlemen, may I remind you that we shall soon be at the mercy of Mrs. Beagle.” Here followed a chorus of groans and catcalls. “So I’m not going to keep you from the really serious business of the evening, which is to eat the last decent meal we shall have for a week. Before we begin, though, and speaking as the senior member of this company,—bar Lanvin, who’s a permanent resident,—may I offer you a welcome, Mr. Smith, and beg you to take no further notice of that truncated nitwit Tommy Belden, nor of that moon-faced stewpan, Richard Borley, nor of …” He had an insult for each of them, culminating in the arrival of a fat over-powdered woman with a large smile she bestowed upon everyone from the doorway, whereupon Margesson turned on her and exclaimed: “Now, Miss Donovan, you old bag of bones, don’t stand there ogling the men—come and meet our guest, Mr. Smith, commonly called Smithy—”

And so it went on. Not till weeks later, when he had got to know them as human beings, did he realize that they had behaved with extra extravagance that evening in order to put him at his ease, and that the insults were a convention in which they took particular pride—the more horrific and ingenious, the warmer the note of friendliness indicated. A climax came when Margesson, at the end of dinner, rose to make an appeal on behalf of an actor whom they had formerly known and who had fallen on bad times, Margesson’s speech began: “Ladies and gentlemen, if such there still are among this depraved and drink-sodden gathering—some of you, even in your cups, may remember Dickie Mason, one of the dirtiest dogs who ever trod the boards of a provincial hippodrome—”

The party lasted till after three in the morning, and was only then dissolved at the energetic request of Mrs. Gregory, who said the neighbors were being disturbed. Towards the end of it, Margesson took Smith aside and said: “Well? Can you stand us?”

Smith answered with a laugh: “I think so. I’m having quite a good time, anyhow.”

“The train’s at ten tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Paula told me.”

“Some people sleep late, that’s all.”

That seemed another odd remark, but he didn’t begin to grasp its significance till later on when several people shook hands or clapped him on the back with the remark: “See you tomorrow, Smithy.”

Paula walked with him to the corner of the road. He said: “I’m really glad I came—they’re a warmhearted lot, and it’s nice of them to expect me to see them off in the morning.”

“I’d better tell you what else they expect. They think you’re coming with us—to Rochby and all the other places.”

“But—”

“Now don’t begin to argue. Maybe I’ve bungled again—you’ve only got to say so, and the whole idea’s dropped. But there’s a job for you if you want it. In fact it’s just about a hundred jobs rolled into one—you’ll find that out, if you take it on, and if you don’t like it or something better turns up, then you’re free to go like a shot.”

He said quietly: “What did you tell them about me?”

“Just part of the truth. I said you’d been ill, that you were better now, that you were a friend of mine, and that you wanted a job. … But all that didn’t get it for you—don’t worry.”

“What did, then?”

She laughed in his face. “I may as well go on telling the truth, even if you hate me for it. I think it was probably because they could all see you were such a gentleman.”

Afterwards he realized the meaning behind the remark. The other members of the company were
not
gentlemen, nor ladies either, in the restricted sense of the word. They could act the part, successfully—even terrifically; no duke or baronet ever wore an opera cloak or swung a gold-knobbed cane with such superb nonchalance as Mr. Borley—indeed, it is extremely probable that many a duke and baronet never possessed an opera cloak, or swung a gold-knobbed cane at all. And that, of course, was the point. The gentlemen in
Salute the Flag
lived up to the ninepenny-seat idea of gentlemen; they were much realer than the real thing. So also in speech and accent nobody could approach Paula for aristocratic hauteur: when, in her impersonation of a duchess, she exclaimed to a footman, “Do my bidding, idiot!” the blue blood became almost as translucent in her veins as in those of Mr. Borley when the latter addressed the German officer—“You contemptible hound—you unmitigated cur—you spawn of a degenerate autocracy!”

In private life, so far as members of a second-rate touring company could enjoy any, they tended to keep up the manners and moods of their professional parts, combining them with a loud geniality expressed by a profusion of “old boys” and hearty back-slappings; yet behind all that they well knew the difference between the real and the too real, and how the same difference was apt to be recognized by others. Hence the usefulness of Smith. He had a way with him, despite—or perhaps
because
of—his shyness, diffidence, embarrassments, hesitations. Where Mr. Borley’s loud and overconfident “Trust me till the end of the week, old chap” failed to impress a country tradesman, Smith could enter a shop where he wasn’t known and ask for what he wanted to be sent to his hotel without even mentioning payment. And where even Mr. Margesson could not, with all his sorrowful glances, persuade a small-town editor to print as news a column of disguised and badly composed puffery, Smith could rewrite the stuff and have the newspapers eager for it.

No doubt it was for somewhat similar reasons that Nicholas Nickleby became a success with the company of Vincent Crummies—except, of course, that Nicholas graduated as an actor. Smith did not aspire to that, but he speedily became almost everything else—advance press agent, scene painter, bookkeeper, copy writer, toucher-up of scenes that were either too long or too short or not wholly successful, general handy man, odd-jobber, negotiator, public representative, and private adviser. He was always busy, yet never hurried; always pleasant; yet never effusive; always reserved, yet never disdainful. In short, a perfect gentleman.

There certainly could not have been devised a more likely cure for all that remained of his mental and temperamental difficulties. The constant meetings with strangers, the continual handling of new problems and thinking out of extempore solutions, the traveling from one town to another, the settlement in new lodgings—all combined to break down the pathological part of his shyness; yet shyness still remained, and with it there developed an almost ascetic enjoyment of certain things—of rainy hours on railway platforms with nothing to do but watch the maneuvers of shunting in a goods yard, of reading the numbers on houses in a strange town late at night, knowing that one of them hid a passing and unimportant destiny. His work also brought him into contact with average citizens of these many provincial towns—the barber, the tobacconist, the stationmaster, the shopkeepers who were given a couple of free seats in exchange for a playbill exhibited in their windows, the parson who sometimes preached a sermon attacking the show as indecent (good publicity if you could get it), sometimes the parson who came himself with his wife and children, but most often the parson who neither attacked nor patronized, but just passed by in the street with a preoccupied air, recognizing the smartly dressed strangers as “theatricals” and therefore in some vaguely opposite but no longer warring camp. One of these clerics, with whom Smith got into conversation, commented that the Church and the theater were now potential allies, being both sufferers from the same public indifference—“Your leaky roof and my leaky roof are the price paid for the new cathedrals of Mammon.” Whereupon he pointed across the street to a new cinema advertising a film which, so it turned out after further conversation, they had both of them recently enjoyed.

Smith saw a good deal of Paula during these busy days and even busier evenings, but somehow their relationship did not seem to progress to anything warmer or more intimate. Outwardly he became just as friendly with a few of the others, especially with young Ponderby, the tweedy youth, whom he grew to like. Ponderby was not much of an actor; his job depended entirely on the possession of astoundingly conventional good looks. In
Salute the Flag
all he had was a couple of lines; he rushed into the general’s headquarters with the cry, “The enemy are attacking! Give the order to advance!”—whereupon the general, who was a spy in disguise, was supposed to look sinister while Ponderby backed towards the door, delivering his second line as an exit: “Or if you don’t, sir, then, by heaven, I will myself!” This was designed to bring a round of applause, and by careful attention to timing and movement Ponderby usually got one. Margesson, who managed the company, was very strict about everyone getting his “round.” There was a technique about such things: you stood in the doorway, hand on the doorknob, staring hard and throwing your voice up to the farthest corner of the gallery—if the “round” didn’t come, or came too sluggishly, you rattled the doorknob and repeated the final line with greater emphasis.

One Saturday, in the town of Fulverton, Ponderby spent the morning drinking in an attempt to destroy the effect of too much drinking the night before; by midafternoon, when he and Smith happened to be alone together in the lodginghouse, it was clear that he could perform in the evening only with extreme hazard, if at all. He had done this sort of thing several times before, so Smith neither believed nor disbelieved a story of bad news from home; but he felt some sympathy for the youth, especially as he knew this latest offense would probably cost him his job. Ponderby knew this too, and as the hour approached for the first show he took quantities of aspirin and pick-me-ups, all of which only added to his symptoms of physical illness. By six o’clock he was begging Smith to take over his part, as the only way by which Margesson might be placated; after all, provided the show wasn’t interfered with, Margesson might not care—the part was so small, and the clothes would fit too. Smith was reluctant to agree; he didn’t feel he would be any good as an actor, even in the least possible part; but then Ponderby wasn’t good either, so that argument didn’t carry far. And it was undoubtedly true that the part, though small, was structurally important, so that a last-minute cut would be extremely awkward; and Saturday, also, was the best night for Fulverton audiences. Everything forced him to an eventual consent, subject to Margesson’s approval; but he still did not like the idea.

He went to the theater earlier than usual and found Margesson in the midst of some trouble with scene shifters; when he said that Ponderby was ill and he himself could take his part, Margesson merely answered in a hurry: “Had too much to drink again, I suppose. … All right then—mind you get your round.”

He did not have any chance to tell Paula about it, but the news that he was taking Ponderby’s part caused little surprise; he was such a handy man, and the part was only two lines—there seemed nothing very remarkable about the arrangement.

He was a trifle nervous as he changed into the uniform of a British second lieutenant, but not more so than he often was at times when people would never guess it. Quite a natural nervousness too; he knew that many actors and public speakers were always like that, it was really abnormal not to be. Something in the look of himself in the mirror struck a half-heard chord in his submerged memory; he did not come on till the middle of the last act, so he had time to smoke cigarettes and try to catch the chord again, but that was stupid; the more he stared at himself in the mirror, the less he could remember anything at all. Then suddenly, with a frightening stab of panic, he asked himself what Ponderby’s lines were—he had never thought of memorizing them, because he assumed he knew them so well; he practically knew the whole show by heart, for that matter—they all did. But now, when he sought to speak them to himself, what the devil were they? He tried to visualize that part of the play: the general at his desk, twirling his mustaches and muttering
“Hein”
under his breath—that was to show he was a spy in disguise; then Ponderby rushing in—“The enemy are attacking! Give the order to advance!” Now why should a second lieutenant tell a general what to do? Never mind—that was part of the play. Anyhow, Ponderby backed across the stage—not too quick, though—give the general time to give some more twirls and look suspicious; then on the exit—“Or if you don’t, sir, then, by heaven, I will myself!” That was it; and wait for the round. … He said it all over again to himself: “The enemy are attacking—give the order to advance—or, if you don’t, sir, then, by heaven, I will myself!” Twenty words—the smallest part in the show. Saying them over a third time, he heard the call boy’s “Ready, sir.”

He went out into the wings, standing where he could see the general at his desk. The general (little Tommy made up with comic mustaches) was rifling drawers with a terrific amount of noise (exactly as a spy wouldn’t do), glancing through piles of paper in search of a stolen treaty—even if it were there, he was going through them so fast that he couldn’t possibly find it; but that again had to be done or nobody would get the point—anything else was what Margesson called “this damsilly West End pansy-stuff where you come on the stage and light a cigarette with your back to the audience and call it acting.” Smith stood there, waiting for the cue, which was the word
“Hein.”
He felt a little queer; he was going to do something he had never done before; it would be awful if he did it badly, or didn’t get his round; the only comfort was that Ponderby did it pretty badly himself.