22 The Man With Two Left Feet Read online

  The other song that he intended to sing was one of those moon songs. He told me in a hushed voice that he was using it because it was one of the songs that the girl Ray sang when lifting them out of their seats at Mosenstein’s and elsewhere. The fact seemed to give it sacred associations for him.

  You will scarcely believe me, but the management expected Gussie to show up and start performing at one o’clock in the afternoon. I told him they couldn’t be serious, as they must know that he would be rolling out for a bit of lunch at that hour, but Gussie said this was the usual thing in the four-a-day, and he didn’t suppose he would ever get any lunch again until he landed on the big time. I was just condoling with him, when I found that he was taking it for granted that I should be there at one o’clock, too. My idea had been that I should look in at night, when—if he survived—he would be coming up for the fourth time; but I’ve never deserted a pal in distress, so I said good-bye to the little lunch I’d been planning at a rather decent tavern I’d discovered on Fifth Avenue, and trailed along. They were showing pictures when I reached my seat. It was one of those Western films, where the cowboy jumps on his horse and rides across country at a hundred and fifty miles an hour to escape the sheriff, not knowing, poor chump! that he might just as well stay where he is, the sheriff having a horse of his own which can do three hundred miles an hour without coughing. I was just going to close my eyes and try to forget till they put Gussie’s name up when I discovered that I was sitting next to a deucedly pretty girl.

  No, let me be honest. When I went in I had seen that there was a deucedly pretty girl sitting in that particular seat, so I had taken the next one. What happened now was that I began, as it were, to drink her in. I wished they would turn the lights up so that I could see her better. She was rather small, with great big eyes and a ripping smile. It was a shame to let all that run to seed, so to speak, in semi-darkness.

  Suddenly the lights did go up, and the orchestra began to play a tune which, though I haven’t much of an ear for music, seemed somehow familiar. The next instant out pranced old Gussie from the wings in a purple frockcoat and a brown top-hat, grinned feebly at the audience, tripped over his feet blushed, and began to sing the Tennessee song.

  It was rotten. The poor nut had got stage fright so badly that it practically eliminated his voice. He sounded like some far-off echo of the past ‘yodelling’ through a woollen blanket.

  For the first time since I had heard that he was about to go into vaudeville I felt a faint hope creeping over me. I was sorry for the wretched chap, of course, but there was no denying that the thing had its bright side. No management on earth would go on paying thirty-five dollars a week for this sort of performance. This was going to be Gussie’s first and only. He would have to leave the profession. The old boy would say, ‘Unhand my daughter’. And, with decent luck, I saw myself leading Gussie on to the next England-bound liner and handing him over intact to Aunt Agatha.

  He got through the song somehow and limped off amidst roars of silence from the audience. There was a brief respite, then out he came again.

  He sang this time as if nobody loved him. As a song, it was not a very pathetic song, being all about coons spooning in June under the moon, and so on and so forth, but Gussie handled it in such a sad, crushed way that there was genuine anguish in every line. By the time he reached the refrain I was nearly in tears. It seemed such a rotten sort of world with all that kind of thing going on in it.

  He started the refrain, and then the most frightful thing happened. The girl next to me got up in her seat, chucked her head back, and began to sing too. I say ‘too’, but it wasn’t really too, because her first note stopped Gussie dead, as if he had been pole-axed.

  I never felt so bally conspicuous in my life. I huddled down in my seat and wished I could turn my collar up. Everybody seemed to be looking at me.

  In the midst of my agony I caught sight of Gussie. A complete change had taken place in the old lad. He was looking most frightfully bucked. I must say the girl was singing most awfully well, and it seemed to act on Gussie like a tonic. When she came to the end of the refrain, he took it up, and they sang it together, and the end of it was that he went off the popular hero. The audience yelled for more, and were only quieted when they turned down the lights and put on a film.

  When I had recovered I tottered round to see Gussie. I found him sitting on a box behind the stage, looking like one who had seen visions.

  ‘Isn’t she a wonder, Bertie?’ he said, devoutly. ‘I hadn’t a notion she was going to be there. She’s playing at the Auditorium this week, and she can only just have had time to get back to her matinee. She risked being late, just to come and see me through. She’s my good angel, Bertie. She saved me. If she hadn’t helped me out I don’t know what would have happened. I was so nervous I didn’t know what I was doing. Now that I’ve got through the first show I shall be all right.’

  I was glad I had sent that cable to his mother. I was going to need her. The thing had got beyond me.

  During the next week I saw a lot of old Gussie, and was introduced to the girl. I also met her father, a formidable old boy with quick eyebrows and a sort of determined expression. On the following Wednesday Aunt Julia arrived. Mrs Mannering-Phipps, my aunt Julia, is, I think, the most dignified person I know. She lacks Aunt Agatha’s punch, but in a quiet way she has always contrived to make me feel, from boyhood up, that I was a poor worm. Not that she harries me like Aunt Agatha. The difference between the two is that Aunt Agatha conveys the impression that she considers me personally responsible for all the sin and sorrow in the world, while Aunt Julia’s manner seems to suggest that I am more to be pitied than censured.

  If it wasn’t that the thing was a matter of historical fact, I should be inclined to believe that Aunt Julia had never been on the vaudeville stage. She is like a stage duchess.

  She always seems to me to be in a perpetual state of being about to desire the butler to instruct the head footman to serve lunch in the blue-room overlooking the west terrace. She exudes dignity. Yet, twenty-five years ago, so I’ve been told by old boys who were lads about town in those days, she was knocking them cold at the Tivoli in a double act called ‘Fun in a Tea-Shop’, in which she wore tights and sang a song with a chorus that began, ‘Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay’.

  There are some things a chappie’s mind absolutely refuses to picture, and Aunt Julia singing ‘Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay’ is one of them.

  She got straight to the point within five minutes of our meeting.

  ‘What is this about Gussie? Why did you cable for me, Bertie?’

  ‘It’s rather a long story,’ I said, ‘and complicated. If you don’t mind, I’ll let you have it in a series of motion pictures. Suppose we look in at the Auditorium for a few minutes.’

  The girl, Ray, had been re-engaged for a second week at the Auditorium, owing to the big success of her first week. Her act consisted of three songs. She did herself well in the matter of costume and scenery. She had a ripping voice. She looked most awfully pretty; and altogether the act was, broadly speaking, a pippin.

  Aunt Julia didn’t speak till we were in our seats. Then she gave a sort of sigh.

  ‘It’s twenty-five years since I was in a music-hall!’

  She didn’t say any more, but sat there with her eyes glued on the stage.

  After about half an hour the johnnies who work the card-index system at the side of the stage put up the name of Ray Denison, and there was a good deal of applause.

  ‘Watch this act, Aunt Julia,’ I said.

  She didn’t seem to hear me.

  ‘Twenty-five years! What did you say, Bertie?’

  ‘Watch this act and tell me what you think of it.’

  ‘Who is it? Ray. Oh!’

  ‘Exhibit A,’ I said. ‘The girl Gussie’s engaged to.’

  The girl did her act, and the house rose at her. They didn’t want to let her go. She had to come back again and again. When she had finally d
isappeared I turned to Aunt Julia.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘I like her work. She’s an artist.’

  ‘We will now, if you don’t mind, step a goodish way uptown.’

  And we took the subway to where Gussie, the human film, was earning his thirty-five per. As luck would have it, we hadn’t been in the place ten minutes when out he came.

  ‘Exhibit B,’ I said. ‘Gussie.’

  I don’t quite know what I had expected her to do, but I certainly didn’t expect her to sit there without a word. She did not move a muscle, but just stared at Gussie as he drooled on about the moon. I was sorry for the woman, for it must have been a shock to her to see her only son in a mauve frockcoat and a brown top-hat, but I thought it best to let her get a stranglehold on the intricacies of the situation as quickly as possible. If I had tried to explain the affair without the aid of illustrations I should have talked all day and left her muddled up as to who was going to marry whom, and why.

  I was astonished at the improvement in dear old Gussie. He had got back his voice and was putting the stuff over well. It reminded me of the night at Oxford when, then but a lad of eighteen, he sang ‘Let’s All Go Down the Strand’ after a bump supper, standing the while up to his knees in the college fountain. He was putting just the same zip into the thing now.

  When he had gone off Aunt Julia sat perfectly still for a long time, and then she turned to me. Her eyes shone queerly.

  ‘What does this mean, Bertie?’

  She spoke quite quietly, but her voice shook a bit.

  ‘Gussie went into the business,’ I said, ‘because the girl’s father wouldn’t let him marry her unless he did. If you feel up to it perhaps you wouldn’t mind tottering round to One Hundred and Thirty-third Street and having a chat with him. He’s an old boy with eyebrows, and he’s Exhibit C on my list. When I’ve put you in touch with him I rather fancy my share of the business is concluded, and it’s up to you.’

  The Danbys lived in one of those big apartments uptown which look as if they cost the earth and really cost about half as much as a hall-room down in the forties. We were shown into the sitting-room, and presently old Danby came in.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Danby,’ I began.

  I had got as far as that when there was a kind of gasping cry at my elbow.

  ‘Joe!’ cried Aunt Julia, and staggered against the sofa.

  For a moment old Danby stared at her, and then his mouth fell open and his eyebrows shot up like rockets.

  ‘Julie!’

  And then they had got hold of each other’s hands and were shaking them till I wondered their arms didn’t come unscrewed.

  I’m not equal to this sort of thing at such short notice. The change in Aunt Julia made me feel quite dizzy. She had shed her grande-dame manner completely, and was blushing and smiling. I don’t like to say such things of any aunt of mine, or I would go further and put it on record that she was giggling. And old Danby, who usually looked like a cross between a Roman emperor and Napoleon Bonaparte in a bad temper, was behaving like a small boy.

  ‘Joe!’

  ‘Julie!’

  ‘Dear old Joe! Fancy meeting you again!’

  ‘Wherever have you come from, Julie?’

  Well, I didn’t know what it was all about, but I felt a bit out of it. I butted in:

  ‘Aunt Julia wants to have a talk with you, Mr Danby.’

  ‘I knew you in a second, Joe!’

  ‘It’s twenty-five years since I saw you, kid, and you don’t look a day older.’

  ‘Oh, Joe! I’m an old woman!’

  ‘What are you doing over here? I suppose’—old Danby’s cheerfulness waned a trifle—’I suppose your husband is with you?’

  ‘My husband died a long, long while ago, Joe.’

  Old Danby shook his head.

  ‘You never ought to have married out of the profession, Julie. I’m not saying a word against the late—I can’t remember his name; never could—but you shouldn’t have done it, an artist like you. Shall I ever forget the way you used to knock them with “Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay”?’

  ‘Ah! how wonderful you were in that act, Joe.’ Aunt Julia sighed. ‘Do you remember the back-fall you used to do down the steps? I always have said that you did the best back-fall in the profession.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it now!’

  ‘Do you remember how we put it across at the Canterbury, Joe? Think of it! The Canterbury’s a moving-picture house now, and the old Mogul runs French revues.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m not there to see them.’

  ‘Joe, tell me, why did you leave England?’

  ‘Well, I—I wanted a change. No I’ll tell you the truth, kid. I wanted you, Julie. You went off and married that—whatever that stage-door johnny’s name was—and it broke me all up.’

  Aunt Julia was staring at him. She is what they call a well-preserved woman. It’s easy to see that, twenty-five years ago, she must have been something quite extraordinary to look at. Even now she’s almost beautiful. She has very large brown eyes, a mass of soft grey hair, and the complexion of a girl of seventeen.

  ‘Joe, you aren’t going to tell me you were fond of me yourself!’

  ‘Of course I was fond of you. Why did I let you have all the fat in “Fun in a Tea-Shop”? Why did I hang about upstage while you sang “Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay”? Do you remember my giving you a bag of buns when we were on the road at Bristol?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Do you remember my giving you the ham sandwiches at Portsmouth?’

  ‘Joe!’

  ‘Do you remember my giving you a seed-cake at Birmingham? What did you think all that meant, if not that I loved you? Why, I was working up by degrees to telling you straight out when you suddenly went off and married that cane-sucking dude. That’s why I wouldn’t let my daughter marry this young chap, Wilson, unless he went into the profession. She’s an artist—’

  ‘She certainly is, Joe.’

  ‘You’ve seen her? Where?’

  ‘At the Auditorium just now. But, Joe, you mustn’t stand in the way of her marrying the man she’s in love with. He’s an artist, too.’

  ‘In the small time.’

  ‘You were in the small time once, Joe. You mustn’t look down on him because he’s a beginner. I know you feel that your daughter is marrying beneath her, but—’

  ‘How on earth do you know anything about young Wilson?

  ‘He’s my son.’

  ‘Your son?’

  ‘Yes, Joe. And I’ve just been watching him work. Oh, Joe, you can’t think how proud I was of him! He’s got it in him. It’s fate. He’s my son and he’s in the profession! Joe, you don’t know what I’ve been through for his sake. They made a lady of me. I never worked so hard in my life as I did to become a real lady. They kept telling me I had got to put it across, no matter what it cost, so that he wouldn’t be ashamed of me. The study was something terrible. I had to watch myself every minute for years, and I never knew when I might fluff my lines or fall down on some bit of business. But I did it, because I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me, though all the time I was just aching to be back where I belonged.’

  Old Danby made a jump at her, and took her by the shoulders.

  ‘Come back where you belong, Julie!’ he cried. ‘Your husband’s dead, your son’s a pro. Come back! It’s twenty-five years ago, but I haven’t changed. I want you still. I’ve always wanted you. You’ve got to come back, kid, where you belong.’

  Aunt Julia gave a sort of gulp and looked at him.

  ‘Joe!’ she said in a kind of whisper.

  ‘You’re here, kid,’ said Old Danby, huskily. ‘You’ve come back…. Twenty-five years!… You’ve come back and you’re going to stay!’

  She pitched forward into his arms, and he caught her.

  ‘Oh, Joe! Joe! Joe!’ she said. ‘Hold me. Don’t let me go. Take care of me.’

  And I edged for the door and slipped from the room. I
felt weak. The old bean will stand a certain amount, but this was too much. I groped my way out into the street and wailed for a taxi.

  Gussie called on me at the hotel that night. He curveted into the room as if he had bought it and the rest of the city.

  ‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘I feel as if I were dreaming.’

  ‘I wish I could feel like that, old top,’ I said, and I took another glance at a cable that had arrived half an hour ago from Aunt Agatha. I had been looking at it at intervals ever since.

  ‘Ray and I got back to her flat this evening. Who do you think was there? The mater! She was sitting hand in hand with old Danby.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He was sitting hand in hand with her.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They are going to be married.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Ray and I are going to be married.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Bertie, old man, I feel immense. I look round me, and everything seems to be absolutely corking. The change in the mater is marvellous. She is twenty-five years younger. She and old Danby are talking of reviving “Fun in a Tea-Shop”, and going out on the road with it.’

  I got up.

  ‘Gussie, old top,’ I said, ‘leave me for a while. I would be alone. I think I’ve got brain fever or something.’

  ‘Sorry, old man; perhaps New York doesn’t agree with you. When do you expect to go back to England?’

  I looked again at Aunt Agatha’s cable.

  ‘With luck,’ I said, ‘in about ten years.’

  When he was gone I took up the cable and read it again.

  ‘What is happening?’ it read. ‘Shall I come over?’

  I sucked a pencil for a while, and then I wrote the reply.

  It was not an easy cable to word, but I managed it.

  ‘No,’ I wrote, ‘stay where you are. Profession overcrowded.’

  WILTON’S HOLIDAY

  When Jack Wilton first came to Marois Bay, none of us dreamed that he was a man with a hidden sorrow in his life. There was something about the man which made the idea absurd, or would have made it absurd if he himself had not been the authority for the story. He looked so thoroughly pleased with life and with himself. He was one of those men whom you instinctively label in your mind as ‘strong’. He was so healthy, so fit, and had such a confident, yet sympathetic, look about him that you felt directly you saw him that here was the one person you would have selected as the recipient of that hard-luck story of yours. You felt that his kindly strength would have been something to lean on.