Who Killed Dick Whittington? Read online

  Nigel Moss

  CHAPTER I

  INTRODUCING THE COMPANY

  The Pavilion Theatre at Burlington-on-Sea was ablaze with twinkling lights which flickered with pleasing warmth from the revolving ball at the top of the theatre to the flickering colours which ran round the illuminated sign in front, telling of the programme that was being performed within.

  Beneath the lights the dark streets were thronged with advancing columns of people jostling one another in a jolly and friendly way as they converged from various directions on the square of pavement before the vestibule of the theatre: old people, younger people and merry children, chattering with one another in joyful anticipation of the pleasures to come. For this was the annual pantomime season at the Pavilion; and the fairy story being played for old children as well as young ones was the popular favourite Dick Whittington.

  And a very good production it was, too. The wide and revolving stage of the Pavilion lent itself particularly well to massive scenery; the modern stage lighting with which the Pavilion was wired gave every artifice of illusion. There was no stage superior to it in the West End of London, and very few comparable. Nor was there a back-stage to equal it.

  Old actors who came out once a year—in pantomime engagements—entering a dressing-room at the Burlington Pavilion and being confronted with a bathroom leading off, equipped with shower, had been known hurriedly to retrace their steps to the street, dash round the corner for a couple of quick ones, and then, fortified, return to see if the bathroom was indeed a new elaboration of the ‘Pink Elephant’ hallucinations to which they were more accustomed. Add to the bathrooms the lift from stage to dressing-rooms, the real dressing tables, instead of a bare and dirty shelf running the length of the rooms, which is the average theatre dressing-room table, the mirrors, the brightly glazed walls, the easy chairs, the drying and ironing rooms, and the Green Room at the side of the stage, where the ladies and gentlemen waited their cues, or slipped out of the way of the revolving stage when it was in action, and you will realize why actors looked upon an engagement at Burlington as a week of holiday and ease at a good salary.

  They gave of their best, too, for the artist in them responded to the ease, comfort, in fact, luxury, of their surroundings. Each year the pantomime of Mr. Henri de Benyat had been an improvement on the previous one. But Dick Whittington was, in Henri’s own words, ‘the daddy of the lot’.

  Apart from the fact that Dick Whittington is always popular with children—even those up to ninety—Mr. de Benyat had produced it in its full glory, generously providing the Moroccan scene with camels (and the necessary attendants) the appearance of which delighted the audience, but put the fear of death into the hearts of the veiled Moroccan glamour girls whose part it was to lay posed about the stage and have the camels wend a graceful way between them, to the thunderous applause of the children. The applause on one occasion at least drowned the comment of one of the Moroccan maidens in an embarrassing moment. “Cor, lumme, Dais, it don’t ’arf pong”—which was just as well, since the Lambeth accent did not come well from the damsel in Eastern robes.

  The pantomime had run for a fortnight in Burlington, and this was its last week before finding new fields to conquer. Its success as an entertainment for the townspeople, and a financial triumph for the corporation of Burlington and the impresario, had not, alas, been shared by the company who, from its earliest hours had been beset by bickerings and quarrellings behind the scenes, and whispered asides in innuendo on the stage itself. It had, everybody agreed, been a most uncomfortable engagement.

  This, as any stage associate could tell you, was decidedly unusual with a Henri de Benyat company. There are producers and impresarios whose misfortune it is never to be able to surround themselves with ‘happy’ companies. And for no definable reason. They are affable, they pay good salaries, they produce well and elegantly. Yet the players are invariably at sixes and sevens.

  But this was not so with Mr. de Benyat. “It’s always a happy crowd in a Henri show”, was a by-word in the theatrical profession; and the genial, smiling producer had, accordingly, always a large repertoire of players upon whom to draw. The majority of the present crowd had been with Henri for some years. The rule is that re-engagement for pantomime in the following year is arranged before the current show is concluded. Unfortunately for the company this year, however, the Principal Boy of the last three years had taken on the role of leading lady to a principal comedian, and had vacated the Boards, she said, for ever. And Mr. de Benyat had engaged in her place Miss Norma de Grey. It was round Miss de Grey that the winter of discontent had circled. From the moment that she had swirled through the door of the Soho rehearsal room on a London November day, the company had taken a dislike to her, her voice, her bearing and her accent.

  As the run of the piece proceeded the dislike and the discontent had grown in intensity, stoked by recriminations on both sides, by Miss de Grey as Principal Boy objecting to ‘business’, or interjections or gags which gave other members of the company more applause than she herself received; and by her insistence in interpolating songs to the exclusion of a song by somebody else—a necessary accompaniment since the scenes of the pantomime had to run to a time-table.

  On the morning that our story opens a number of the principals on their pre-luncheon visit to the theatre for the purpose of collecting their mail, gathered in discourse in the Green Room, and there exchanged their conclusions on the date now drawing to its close. Their verdict was unanimous, and blunt.

  It was given succinctly by the Demon King to the Captain. “My dear old boy, the lady’s a complete cow,” he said.

  Why that noble animal, the cow, should have been thus anathematized so slanderously nobody seemed to know, or troubled to ascertain; but it seemed to be accepted by common agreement rather than as a considered opinion by the King. Nobody, as a rule, took much notice of what Freddie said. He was a little peculiar, temperamental some designated it, and though he knew almost everybody in the profession, he had very little good to say of any of them other than himself. Unsuccessful and warped actors are not infrequently taken that way. There was, on this occasion, however, no adverse comment, and Freddie, after a look round, continued.

  “Yes, my dears, she’s lousy, with a capital ‘L.’ Can’t understand what Henri was doing to engage her. Legs, I suppose, though she can’t use the blasted things.”

  He waxed warm with anger.

  “Good Lord, the camel walks better than she does. Looks as if she’s a lady with two professions. She must be damned good at the other one to get on in this.”

  A little restlessness betrayed itself among the company at this openness of expression, and Idle Jack intervened.

  “Oh, don’t take too much notice of Freddie,” he urged. “He’s always belly-aching about somebody. Miss de Grey was a bit hasty with Peggy about choosing the numbers, but we got over that. Peggy can sing anything.” (Peggy Prue, the Principal Girl, was in private life Idle Jack’s wife.)

  “That’s right,” agreed Miss Prue. “We didn’t let her worry us. There’s too many real things in life to worry over, but it’s funny how one in a company can create a nasty atmosphere. Still, we’re happy enough. It’s a good pantomime.”

  “Well, I think she’s horrid,” the Fairy announced; and the tone of Miss Low’s voice suggested that there was more magic in the fairy’s wand than would appear on the surface, since its dulcet nuances each night had wished the Boy good fortune. “I’ve only one song to sing,” she continued, “and she had a verse cut out of that, because she said it was too long for her to lie on the Highgate Hill while I was singing it. The Principal Boy last year didn’t complain. Mean, I call it. No voice herself, of course. Jealous, I suppose.”

  “Gor blimey, what a nark!” burst out the Captain. “A ’ambone, that’s what she is. Throwin’ her weight abaht. Why, my missus could run rings round her even now, though she do weigh sixteen stone. Ask Henri. He’ll tell you. One of the finest
Principal Boys as ever worked Merthyr Tydfil.”

  “Nanty polari—the mozzie’s just comin’ cross the greengage.” The Cat gave a whispered warning. “Good morning, Miss Grey. Nice day,” he said, as the subject of the conversation walked past them. “There, see what I mean?” he added. “The perisher didn’t even answer. Thinks she’s the blooming queen of blooming Sheba. I’d like to dot her one, ripe and juicy. Allus on to me: ‘Don’t rub against my legs in the hill scene; you’ll ladder me tights.’ ‘Don’t scratch me legs.’ Blimey, if you scratched her lousy legs sawdust’d come out.”

  He waxed more loquacious. “Wot a ‘boy’. Complained about me to Henri, she did. Me, wot’s worked circus and panto for Henri fifteen year. Miss de Grey. Wot a moniker for a louse.” He spat in disgust. “Look at the way she talks to Bill here.”

  The stage-manager, thus dragged into the conversation, spread his hands deprecatingly. “As a matter of fact, old man, I usually keep my opinions to myself,” he said. “It’s safer in my position. But I must say Miss de Grey certainly causes difficulties. You usually get that kind of thing with newcomers. They don’t understand the team spirit like the old troupers do. They get kind of selfish, I’m afraid. The guv’nor steers clear of Miss de Grey, so I have to use the kid gloves and sort things out for myself. There’s always one line you can get away with with this type—just tell ’em they’re wonderful.”

  “I should sum up the position this way.” The understudy put in her oar. “The management engaged a special walking understudy just in case, which shows the lady’s temperament. And Bill here keeps telling her how good I am, and so she keeps playing. Get me? I sit round, waiting to make my name in dead men’s shoes, and I’d cut her throat for the chance. Four years I’ve understudied Dick Whittington now, with never a sound of Bow Bells for me. If it goes on much longer, I’ll be so old when my chance comes they’ll have to wheel me up Highgate Hill in a bath-chair.”

  It was left to a lady of the chorus to have the woman’s last word. “I think you’re all horrid,” she announced. “I think Miss de Grey is wonderful. She wears such lovely diamond rings.”

  A ripple of laughter restored the company’s good humour. One by one they wandered away for lunch, a drink and a rest before beginning the exertions of the evening.

  CHAPTER II

  THE STAGE IS SET

  “Overture and beginners, please—”

  The voice of the diminutive call-boy rang out the ages’-old stage warning, the tocsin call to the boards that four hundred years ago brought running to the stage the actor Shakespeare, yet fresh from his old profession of holding horses’ heads outside the theatre.

  “Overture and beginners, Number One.” The boy tapped on the star dressing-room of Miss Norma de Grey; he tapped on number two door, and on the door of number three room; and so on, to the corridor upon which the chorus rooms converged.

  “Overture and beginners, PLEASE.” He finished with a plaintive emphasis of his own on the last word, an appeal to avoid, if it were at all possible, another tour of the rooms.

  Doors opened, and a bevy of laughing and chattering ballet and chorus girls came fluttering into the passage, and scurried away towards the Green Room. Others came staidly and industriously knitting jumpers; and still others, arms round companions’ waists, whispering confidences of the day’s happenings, or the happenings that were to follow when the curtain fell and the town’s young gallants gathered outside the stage door. Still others there were hurriedly putting the finishing touches to their dressing and make-up. They were those who slipped into the theatre at the last moment. “Lor, girls, you’ll never be ready in time,” the dresser had warned them. One and all were making their way for the first scene, for which the stage was set—the market scene of Dick Whittington, traditional opening to the pantomime.

  Behind the dropped curtain the scene stood waiting. Mr. Henri de Benyat prided himself on the picturesqueness of his stage settings. He felt that a spectacle that pleased the eye was half-way to the success of the performance, and it was the invariable rule that when the curtain went up on a Benyat production there was a general burst of applause from an appreciative audience for the work of Mr. de Benyat’s brain and the work of the scene-makers and painters.

  His Cheapside scene for this pantomime was no exception. The shops at the back looked too real to be painted canvas; the sets of plywood canvas and battens with a frontage and nothing behind looked as natural, for shops stocked with wares, as a real shop would have appeared had it been suddenly dumped in the same place on the stage. A fountain, cross-centre stage, had its attendant chorus gentlemen, arranged as villagers.

  Beyond the curtain the orchestra was reaching the final bars of the overture. The stage-manager looked over his artistes and rounded them as a shepherd rounds his flock.

  “Now, come along, ladies. The overture’s nearly over. Put down that knitting, please. This isn’t a tea-party. Miss Young, look at your tights. They’ve laddered. See Mrs. Green as soon as you come off. . . . Now, Harry, swing those lights back of the shop. . . . Come along. . . . come along. . . . Ready? . . . Stand by.”

  He ran to his corner and, as the orchestra broke into the bars of the opening chorus, pressed a button in his box. The beautiful velvet tabs parted . . . scurled back. The village maidens poured into Cheapside, gambolling and laughing. They broke into song:

  “In Cheapside, in Cheapside,

  In dear old London town,

  You buy a hat, you buy a mat,

  Or buy a wedding gown.

  Never worry, never flurry,

  Never wear a frown,

  It’s cheap to buy in Cheapside

  When you shop in London Town.”

  The curtain was up. . . . The show was on.

  The chorus ended—one never heard the words, of course; one never does, but the libretto is traditional—the stage filled up. On danced the wee Twinkle Belles; on came the Captain and his mate, just returned, they told the audience, from foreign parts, and looking for a crew. On came Idle Jack from the Fitzwarren store to joke about the work he never did. On came Alderman Fitzwarren and his daughter Alice, to explain their identities, and to mix with the company.

  Presently the crowd dispersed on their day’s business. In groups, and in singles, the company danced off, left and right, into the shops.

  The stage stood empty.

  The lights lowered to rose-pink and amber spots. The audience waited expectantly. From behind the market cross came a lonely figure, tired, and walking slowly.

  Dick Whittington. . . .

  The applause broke out.

  The children in the audience saw only the fairy story of their books come to life; the grown-ups caught for a moment a remembrance of their childhood days, and remembered their first pantomime; a memory which never fails to revive the thrill of the first theatre expedition.

  Miss Norma de Grey was a Dick Whittington worth seeing. Tall and slim and graceful, in scalloped leather jerkin, full, brown tights and thigh boots of soft kid, topped withal by the wee, jaunty cap with feathers, and carrying, of course, the stick with, tied to it, the bundle covered with the spotted red handkerchief, she stood bowing to the applause which came upon her like an avalanche over the footlights. It died away, to be succeeded by an even greater burst as, following his master into the view of the audience, came the Cat, Tommy, faithful friend and pet.

  Again the clapping and the tumult died, and the audience settled down to listen to the story of Dick Whittington and his Cat.

  Strange though it may seem, it was the story of Whittington. Mr. Henri de Benyat took pride in the fact that when he presented pantomime, it was the pantomime which came from the fairy stories, not from the ‘gags’ of artistes which, since the artistes had been doing them on the music-hall for at least twenty years, were already well-known. Henri de Benyat’s pantomimes had a script, and the script was working along now, to the finale of the first half.

  The audience saw Dick meet Alice Fit
zwarren, saw him engaged in her father’s store, saw him making love to Alice.

  They saw—and the children greeted it with cat-calls—Idle Jack plant the shop’s takings in Dick’s pocket; saw the lad accused, and the crowd in the shop brand him in song, a la Grand Opera.

  “He is a thief, and to prison he must go.”

  And Alice:

  “Oh, father, spare him.”