III
At the outset of his career as an actor Wynne found much to disappoint him. He learnt that brains and application do not necessarily result in stage success.
Among all the actors he met it was all too often the case that the most intelligent were the least successful. Personality and notoriety outweighed intellect. Even the most egregious ass, provided he was representative of a certain type, prospered exceedingly, while the really clever ones languished in the understudy room or formed unspeaking props to hang clothes upon.
A man needs to be on the stage some while before he can appreciate that casting and the box office are the chief considerations in a producer’s mind. It is easier and more satisfactory to engage a fool to play a fool than to ask a wise man to turn his wisdom to folly. Also it is a shrewd business stroke to give the public some very rapturous feminine vision to behold rather than give the part to some lady whose brain has a greater claim to admiration than her features. The world forgives stupidity when offset by loveliness—or even by a hint of subtle scandal—but a very high standard of intellectual perfection is required before the world will ignore a youth which has passed.
Taking these matters into consideration, Wynne was constrained to believe that if theatre-goers were blind, and men gave up talking of matters which concerned them not, there would be an immediate demand for a class of actors, and particularly actresses, of a far higher mental quality than heretofore.
Regarding acting as an Art he had more admiration for the surviving members of the old school, who handed over their lines with an assumption of great importance, than he entertained for the scions of the new.
“You, at least, do something,” he observed to one old fellow, in a drama company of which he had become a member. “You do something, and do it deliberately.”
“That’s so, my boy—that’s so,” came the mightily satisfied endorsement.
“These moderns do nothing but realize their own ineffability.”
“It’s true—it’s too true!”
“And of course the worst of it is what you do is utterly useless—utterly false—and utterly wrong—”
“Eh?” A stick of grease-paint fell to the floor.
“Whereas what they fail to do is, in the general sense, absolutely right.”
Remarks of this kind do not make for popularity. This, however, did not concern Wynne in the least. He had acquired the habit of talking rather less than he was used to do. The thoughts and convictions which at one time had bubbled to the surface he now mentally noted and preserved. He felt, in the pride of his egoism, that it was not wise to give away his ideas in conversation to the more or less trivial people with whom he came into touch.
It was otherwise when one of the more successful members of the company deigned to exchange a few remarks, for then he would bring all his mental batteries to work with a view to prove to them how vastly inferior they actually were.
One or two engagements were lost through the exercise of this habit, and several straitened and penniless periods resulted. Twice in three years Wynne left the stage, but from circumstance or inclination gravitated back again. He was always able to earn two pounds to two pounds ten a week playing small character parts, and if his attitude had been a shade more congenial it is probable he would have done still better.
As a character actor he was singularly faultless and singularly conscientious. He possessed a remarkable facility for submerging his own personality and throwing off tiny portraits of different types, which were recognizable to the minutest detail. In the performance of these he took special pride, but if the producer interfered or made any suggestions he was truculent to a degree, and fought for his rendering with tiresome constancy.
“It isn’t as if your suggestion would be in the least improving, and—good God!—if I am not to be trusted alone with eight lines, why on earth engage me?”
This remark was fired at a super-eminent producer before an entire West End company, and brought back from the black void of the auditorium:
“Would you please draw a fortnight’s salary from the business manager, Mr. Rendall, and return your contract?”
He left the theatre straight away, and did not attempt to draw the salary. In the sunshine outside he was overtaken with a masterful desire to cry:
“They shan’t lead me—they shan’t! they shan’t!”
It was the wail of a little boy rather than of a man who fain would be a king.
He returned to his room in Endell Street and flung himself face downward on the bed, where he lay with heaving shoulders for a long, long while. Presently he turned round and sat bolt upright.
“Everybody is against me, and I’m against everybody.”
On the table before him was a heap of books and a pile of papers, odd jottings, queer little articles, scraps of poetry written in the after-theatre hours. With a sudden fury he kicked at the table-leg and sent them tumbling and fluttering to the floor.
“Why do I hate the world when I want to exalt it? Oh, God—God—God! Damn this room! Oh, I’m lonely, I am so—so horribly lonely!”
He went and stood in the corner, rested his head on the faded wallpaper, and sniffed:
“I’m lonely—lonely—lonely—lonely—lonely! I don’t think I’m very strong—I think I’m ill—ill and lonely—lonely and ill—very ill, and very lonely!”
Then suddenly he burst out laughing:
“Fool!—idiot!—I’m all right! Papers all over the place. Pick ’em up. What’s all this rot about?” He read a few lines in his own handwriting: “A good sort is the type of man with whom we trust our sisters—a bad sort is the type of man with whom our sisters trust themselves!’ Epigram! Too long! ‘A sport is a man who says Cherio, and carries his brains in a cigarette case.’ Necktie would be better. Oh! what’s the good of writing this rubbish? What am I going to do now?”
He snatched a hat and went out. Presently he found himself in Pen and Ink Square, with the ceaseless grumble of the news-producing engines throbbing in the air. Before him was a doorway over which was written “The Oracle.” He knew “The Oracle” for a democratic organ which shrieked obscenely at the politics and morals of the country—under the guise of seeking to purify, it contrived to include in its columns some very prurient matter, without which its sales would have been even smaller than they were.
Wynne walked straight in, mounted some stairs, and beholding a door labelled “Editor—Private,” entered without knocking.
“Who the devil are you?” said a stout man sitting before a roll-top desk.
“You wouldn’t know if I told you,” replied Wynne. “I’m nobody yet.”
“What d’you want?”
“Thought I’d write some articles for you.”
“Think again—outside!”
“Might not get in so easily another time.”
“Well, get out now, then.”
“That’s very foolish. How d’you know I may not be bringing you a fortune?”
“I’m prepared to take the risk.”
“Then take a smaller one, and give me a subject to write you a sample about.”
“Write about damn nuisances,” said the editor.
“Give me a sheet of paper.”
“Look here! Are you going to get out?”
“No. You told me to write about damn nuisances, and I’m going to do it.”
At this the editor leant back in his chair and said:
“Well, if you haven’t a profound cheek—”
Realizing the opening, Wynne seated himself before a vacant table and took up a pen.
“Paper and silence,” he said, “are the ingredients required, and you shall have your article in an hour’s time.”
Being a man of some humour the editor relaxed, and laughed exuberantly.
“Go to it then,” he said. “I’m off to tea, and I shall clear you out when I come back.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind. I’ll be on the permanent staff by nightfall.”
In writing upon damn nuisances Wynne took for his subject such widely divergent national symbols as the Albert Memorial and The Oracle. Of the two The Oracle fared worst, and came in for the most complete defamation in its heartily criticized career. The article was iconoclastic, spirited and intensely funny. The entire office staff read it, and the editor volunteered to take Wynne out and make him drunk then and there. This offer Wynne declined, but he accepted the post of a casual article writer at a penny a line, and returned home with a greater feeling of satisfaction than he had known for some time.
The satisfaction, however, was short-lived, for in a very little while he was heartily ashamed of subscribing his signature to scurrilous paragraphs deprecating the private lives of parsons, and hinting darkly at dirty doings in Downing Street.
He perceived that by such means greatness was not to be achieved, and sought to ease his conscience by spending nearly all his earnings on reputable books, and most of his spare time in the reading-room at the British Museum. In the matter of food he was most provident, scarcely, if ever, standing himself a good meal. He acquired the habit of munching chocolate and of making tea at all hours of the day and night. By this means, although he staved off actual hunger, he was never properly satisfied, and his physical side became ill-nourished and gaunt. The hours he kept were as irregular as could well be conceived, and he frequently worked all night without a thought of going to bed.