Bram Stoker - Bram Stoker - The Complete Novels

The rehearsal did not take much longer, and then the various actors and employes dispersed. Mons came over to Jerry and asked him to come to his dressing-room for a moment. Jerry was anxious to get home, and said so.

“You need not fear,” said Mons. “I shan’t detain you a minute. I only want to give you what you paid for me.”

“Nonsense, man,” said Jerry, who felt almost insulted, for, like all Irishmen, he had one virtue which too often leans to vice’s side — generosity, and considered that hospitality was involved in the question of “who pays?”

Of all the silly ideas that ever grew in the minds of a people, feeding on their native generosity of disposition, this idea is the most silly. Let any man but think honestly how honour or hospitality can be involved in the mere payment of a few pence, and then ask himself the question in his heart of what difference there is to him between the nobler virtues of his soul and the pride of superabundant coinage. Jerry O’ Sullivan was no fool, and often reasoned with himself on the subject; but still the prejudice of habit was too strong within him to be easily overcome, and so he felt hurt in spite of his reasons. Mons answered him suavely —

“No nonsense at all. I borrowed a small sum of money off you, which you kindly lent me. I now wish to repay you.”

“Sure there isn’t need of repayment because I paid for a glass of beer.”

“But a debt is a debt, large or small, and I don’t want to remain due to any man.”

Jerry thought for a moment or two. The justness of the statement struck him so forcibly that he felt that any further talk would be unfair to his friend; so answered simply — “Fair enough,” and took the money proffered, thinking to himself what a good-hearted, honest fellow his new friend was.

It was well nigh dark when Jerry got home. He found Katey up to her eyes in work; for between settling the rooms and unpacking, and looking after the children and the supper, she had quite enough to do. She had given the rooms a thorough cleaning — a thing very much required — and as they had not quite recovered from the effects; were not so comfortable as they might have been. The floors still presented that patchy appearance which newly-washed woodwork always assumes; and even the bright fire was not able to quite overcome the idea of damp thus suggested.

Nevertheless, the change even to unfinished cleanliness was pleasant after the unutterable grime of the theatre; and Jerry felt how pleasant was the idea of home, albeit he regretted in the core of his heart that his real home — the place where he was born and bred — was far away.

Katey bustled about; and soon the supper was ready, and in its consumption things began to assume a pleasanter aspect. All were tired and went to bed early.

In the morning Jerry was up early and round the neighbourhood looking about him. Theatrical life, save on occasions, begins late, even for the subordinates, and Jerry’s services were not required till an hour which, when compared with his habitual hour for going to work, seemed to him to be closer to evening than morning. At the time appointed he was waiting to see the manager, who did not appear, however, till more than an hour after his engagement. Jerry waited with impatience for his coming. To a man habitually as well as naturally active in occupation, nothing is so tiresome as that of waiting: it is only the drones in the hive of life that enjoy idleness in the midst of others’ work.

It is the misery of all those whose work is connected with the arts that there is a spice of uncertainty in everything. It would seem as if Providence had decreed that those who soar above the level of commonplace humanity should bear with them some counterbalancing weakness to show them that they are but of the level after all. The ancients showed this idea by an allegory in the story of him who, with wings of wax, thinking himself no longer a mortal, but a god, flew close to the sun till the waxen pinions melted, and he fell prone.

Jerry was in no good humour at the end of his long wait, and more than once the idea occurred to him that a theatre was a very dry place. Fortunately, however, he was afraid to leave his post, or else Mr. Grinnell might have benefited by his thirst.

When the manager, Mr. Meredith, came in he spoke to Jerry in an off-hand way, telling him what his duties would be, and what his salary; that he should be always up to time; that he should keep his subordinates in good order, and so forth; and ended by sending him off to Mr. Griffin to find out the details of his work.

Mr. Griffin was available, for the rehearsal of the day was only that of a stock piece, whose management he could trust to the hands of the prompter. He went right over the stage with Jerry, showing him the various appliances and their manner of use. Jerry’s practised mind at once took in what was required in each case, and he saw his way to many improvements, to execute which his hands itched. The new style of work was not a little confusing, however, and the names of the different things got so mixed up that when he was asleep that night Jerry kept dreaming of slots, and flies, and wings, and flats, and vampire traps, and grooves, and PS (prompt side), and OP (opposite prompt side), all which got jumbled together and puzzled him not a little. He was not required at the theatre in the night time for a couple of days, and so spent the evenings at home.

At last he got regularly to work, and began his task of reorganisation, commencing by trying a general cleaning up. After half-an-hour’s work he was astonished. He could not have believed that any place could be so dirty, or that such a pile of dust and rubbish of every kind could have been accumulated into the space from which the pile before him had been removed. In the cleaning process he had got so dry that he found it necessary to have a drink, and accordingly he went to a corner of the cellar, where there was a tap, to get some water. As he was about to drink, Mons, who had followed him, spoke —

“You don’t mean to say you’re drinking water at this time of day?”

“Bedad I am. I’ve the thirst of the lost upon me,” and Jerry raised his hands, of which he had made a bowl, to his lips. Mons gave him a shove, which spilled the water.

“Don’t be an ass, man,” he said. “Have a glass of beer, or try Barclay and Perkins.”

“What is Barclay and Perkins?”

“Entire.”

“Entire! what do you mean?”

“I mean, my dear O’Sullivan, that you are green as your Emerald Island. Barclay and Perkins are two great philanthropists who aid suffering humanity by brewing a delicious liquid called ‘Entire’.”

“Oh, I see, they’re the London Guinness.”

Mons laughed satirically. “Exactly,” he said. He could not fancy any one judging of anything except by a London standard of comparison. In the meantime Jerry was getting more thirsty than ever, and, on Mons renewing his invitation, he went with him to Grinnell’s, to see, as the latter suggested, “whether Ireland was equal to England in brewing or not.”

As they were leaving the theatre Mons stopped and said —

“Hold on a moment, wait here — or stay, wait for me over there. I want to go up to my dressing-room to get some money.”

Jerry accordingly went across alone to the public-house.

As he opened the door his ears were greeted by sounds of strife — curses both loud and deep, falling furniture and breaking glass, and the scuffling and trampling of angry feet; added to these was the ceaseless yelping of a dog.

Jerry pushed open the door hastily and entered the house. The sight which met his eyes was not a pleasant one to a peaceably-disposed man. Two men were struggling in the centre of the room with all the intensity and ferocity of wild beasts. They were not fighting “fair,” in the ordinary acceptance of the term, but were clutching wildly at each other’s throats and hair, and were trying to scratch as much as to hit.