Barrie, J M - Half Hours Read online

  HALF HOURS

  BY

  J. M. BARRIE

  NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  1920

  HALF HOURS

  COPYRIGHT. 1814. BT CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  DEB TAG

  COPYRIGHT, im, BT J. M. BARRIE

  CONTENTS HALF HOURS

  MM

  PANTALOON 1

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK .... 41

  ROSALIND 87

  THE WILL 153

  DER TAG - 09

  HALF HOURS

  PANTALOON

  scene makes - believe to be the private home of PANTALOON and COLUMBINE, though whether they ever did have a private home is uncertain.

  In the English version (and with that alone are we concerning ourselves) these two were figures in the harlequinade which in Victorian days gave a finish to pantomime as vital as a tail to a dog. Now they are vanished from the boards; or at best they wander through the canvas streets, in everybody's way, at heart afraid of their own policeman, really dead, and waiting, like the faithful old horse, for some one to push them over. Here at the theatre is perhaps a scrap of COLUMBINE'S skirt, torn off as she squeezed through the

  wings for the last time, or even placed there

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  intentionally by her as a souvenir: COL UMBINE to her public, a kiss hanging on a nail.

  They are very illusive. One has to toss to find out what was their relation to each other: whether PANTALOON, for instance, was COLUMBINE'S father. He was an old, old urchin of the streets over whom some fairy wand had been waved, rather carelessly, and this makes him a child of art; now we must all be nice to children of art, and the nicest thing we can do for PANTALOON is to bring the penny down heads and give him a delight ful daughter. So COLUMBINE was PANTA LOON'S daughter.

  It would be cruel to her to make her his wife, because then she could not have a love-affair.

  The mother is dead, to give the little home a touch of pathos.

  We have now proved that PANTALOON and his daughter did have a home, and as soon as we know that, we know more. We know, for instance, that as half a crown seemed almost

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  a competency to them, their home must have been in a poor locality and conveniently small. We know also that the sitting-room and kitchen combined must have been on the ground floor. We know it, because in the harlequinade they were always flying from the policeman or bashing his helmet, and PANTALOON would have taken ill with a chamber that was not easily commanded by the policeman on his beat. Even COLUMBINE, we may be sure, refined as she was and incapable of the pettiest larceny, liked the homely feeling of dodging the policeman's eye as she sat at meals. Lastly, we know that directly opposite the little home was a sausage-shop, the pleasantest of all sights to PANTALOON, who, next to his daughter, loved a sausage. It is being almost too intimate to tell that COLUMBINE hated sausages; she hated them as a literary hand's daughter might hate manuscripts. But like a loving child she never told her hate, and spent great part of her time wasting sausages to a turn before the fire, and eating

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  her own one bravely when she must, but con cealing it in the oddest places when she could.

  We should now be able to reconstitute PANTALOON'S parlour. It is agreeably stuffy, with two windows and a recess between them, from which one may peep both ways for the policeman. The furniture is in horse-hair, no rents showing, because careful COLUMBINE has covered them with antimacassars. All the chairs (but not the sofa) are as sound of limb as they look except one, and COLUMBINE, who is as light as an air balloon, can sit on this one even with her feet off the floor. Though the time is summer there is a fire burning, so that PANTALOON need never eat his sausages raw, which he might do inadvertently if COL UMBINE did not take them gently from his hand. There is a cosy round table with a wax-cloth cover adhering to it like a sticking- plaster, and this table is set for tea. His trionic dignity is given to the room by a large wicker trunk in which PANTALOON'S treasures are packed when he travels by rail, and on it

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  is a printed intimation that he is one of the brightest wits on earth. COLUMBINE could be crushed, concertina-like, into half of this trunk, and it may be that she sometimes travels thus to save her ticket. Between the windows hangs a glass case, such as those at inns wherein Piscator preserves his stuffed pike, but this one contains a poker. It is interesting to note that PANTALOON is sufficiently catholic in his tastes to spare a favourable eye for other arts than his own. There are various paint ings on the walls, all of himself, with the exception of a small one of his wife. These represent him not in humorous act but for all time, as, for instance, leaning on a bracket and reading a book, with one finger laid lightly against his nose.

  So far our work of reconstitution has been easy, but we now come to the teaser. In all these pictures save one (to be referred to in its proper place) PANTALOON is presented not on the stage but in private life, yet he is garbed and powdered as we know him in the harle-

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  quinade. If they are genuine portraits, there fore, they tell us something profoundly odd about the home life of PANTALOON; nothing less than this, that as he was on the stage, so he was off it, clothes, powder, and all; he was not acting a part in the harlequinade, he was merely being himself. It was un doubtedly this strange discovery that set us writing a play about him.

  Of course bitter controversy may come of this, for not every one will agree that we are right. It is well known among the cognos centi that actors in general are not the same off the stage as on; that they dress for their parts, speak words written for them which they do not necessarily believe, and afterwards wash the whole thing off and then go to clubs and coolly cross their legs. I accept this to be so (though I think it a pity), but PANTALOON was never an actor in their sense; he would have scorned to speak words written for him by any whippersnapper; what he said and did before the footlights were the result of

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  mature conviction and represented his philos ophy of life. It is the more easy to believe this of him because we are so anxious to be lieve it of COLUMBINE. Otherwise she could not wear her pretty skirts in our play, and that would be unbearable.

  If this noble and simple consistency was the mark of PANTALOON and COLUMBINE (as we have now proved up to the hilt), it must have distinguished no less the other members of the harlequinade. There were two others, the HARLEQUIN and the CLOWN.

  In far-back days, when the world was SG young that pieces of the original egg-shell still adhered to it, one boy was so desperately poor that he alone of children could not don fancy dress on fair days. Presently the other children were sorry for this drab one, so each of them clipped a little bit off his own clothing and gave it to him. These were sewn together and made into a costume for him, by the jolly little tailors who in our days have quite gone out, and that is why HARLEQUIN has come down

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  to us in patchwork. He was a lovely boy with no brains at all (not that this matters'), while the CLOWN was all brain.

  It has been our whim to make PANTALOON and COLUMBINE our chief figures, but we have had to go for them, as it were, to the kitchen; the true head of the harlequinade was the CLOWN. You could not become a clown by taking thought, you had to be born one. It was just a chance. If the CLOWN had wished to walk over the others they would have spread themselves on the ground so that he should be able to do it without inconveniencing him self. Any money they had they got from him, and it was usually pennies. If they dis pleased him he caned them. He had too much power and it brutalised him, as we shall see, but in fairness it should be told that he owed his supremacy entirely to his funnin
ess. The family worshipped funniness, and he was the funniest.

  It is not necessary for our play to reconsti tute the homes of HARLEQUIN and CLOWN, but

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  it could be done. HARLEQUIN, as a bachelor with no means but with a secret conviction that he was a gentleman, had a sitting-and-bed combined at the top of a house too near Jermyn Street for his purse. He made up by not eating very much, which was good for his figure. He always carried his wand, which had curious magical qualities, for instance it could make him invisible; but in the street he seldom asked this of it, having indeed a friendly desire to be looked at. He had delightful manners and an honest heart. The CLOWN, who, of course, had appearances to keep up, knew the value of a good address, and un doubtedly lived in the Cromwell Road. He smoked cigars with bands round them, and his togs were cut in Savile Row.

  CLOWN and PANTALOON were a garrulous pair, but COLUMBINE and HARLEQUIN never spoke. I don't know whether they were what we call dumb. Perhaps if they had tried to talk with their tongues they could have done so, but they never thought of it. They were

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  such exquisite dancers that they did all their talking with their legs. There is nothing that may be said which they could not express with this leg or that. It is the loveliest of all languages, and as soft as the fall of snow.

  When the curtain rises we see COLUMBINE alone in the little house, very happy and gay, for she has no notion that her tragic hour is about to strike. She is dressed precisely as we may have seen her on the stage. It is the pink skirt, the white one being usually kept for Sunday, which is also washing-day; and we almost wish this had been Sunday, just to show COLUMBINE in white at the tub, washing the pink without letting a single soap-sud pop on to the white. She is toasting bread rhyth mically by the fire, and hides the toasting-fork as the policeman passes suspiciously outside. Presently she is in a whirl of emotion because she has heard HARLEQUIN'S knock. She rushes to the window and hides (they were always hiding), she blows kisses, and in her excitement she is everywhere and nowhere at

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  once, like a kitten that leaps at nothing and stops half-way. She has the short quick steps of a bird on a lawn. Long before we have time to describe her movements she has bobbed out of sight beneath the table to await HARLE QUIN funnily, for we must never forget that they are a funny family. With a whirl of his wand that is itself a dance, HARLEQUIN makes the door fly open. He enters, says the stage direction, but what it means is that somehow he is now in the room. He probably knows that COLUMBINE is beneath the table, as she hides so often and there are so few places in the room to hide in, but he searches for her elsewhere, even in a jug, to her extreme mirth, for of course she is peeping at him. He taps the wicker basket with his wand and the lid flies open. Still no COLUMBINE! He sits dejectedly on a chair by the table, with one foot toward the spot where we last saw her head. This is irresistible. She kisses the foot. She is out from beneath the table now, and he is pursuing her round the room. They

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  are as wayward as leaves in a gale. The cunning fellow pretends he does not want her, and now it is she who is pursuing him. There is something entrancing in his hand. It is a ring. It is the engagement-ring at last! She falters, she blushes, but she snatches at the ring. He tantalises her, holding it be yond her reach, but soon she has pulled down his hand and the ring is on her finger. They are dancing ecstatically when PANTALOON comes in and has to drop his stick because she leaps into his arms. If she were not so flurried she would see that the aged man has brought excitement with him also.

  PANTALOON. Ah, Fairy! Fond of her dad, is she? Sweetest little daughter ever an old 'un had. (He sees HARLEQUIN and is genial to him, while HARLEQUIN pirouettes a How-d' ye-do.) You here, Boy; welcome, Boy. (He is about to remove his hat in the ordinary way, but HARLEQUIN, to save his prospective father-

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  in-law any little trouble, waves his wand and the hat goes to rest on a door-peg. The little service so humbly tendered pleases PANTALOON, and he surveys HARLEQUIN with kindly condescension.) Thank you, Boy. You are a good fellow, Boy, and an artist too, in your limited way, not here (tapping his head), not in a brainy way, but lower down (thoughtfully, and includ ing COLUMBINE in his downward survey). That 's where your personality lies lower down. (At the noble word personality COLUMBINE thankfully crosses herself, and then indicates that tea is ready.) Tea, Fairy? I have such glorious news; but I will have a dish of tea first. You will join us, Boy ? Sit down. ( They sit down to tea, the lovers exchanging shy, happy glances, but soon PANTALOON rises petulantly.) Fairy, there are no sausages ! Tea without a sausage. I am bitterly disappointed. And on a day, too, when I have great news. It 's almost more than I can bear.

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  No sausages! (He is old and is near weeping, but COLUMBINE indicates with her personality that if he does not for give her she must droop and die, and soon again he is a magnanimous father.) Yes, yes, my pet, I forgive you. You can't abide sausages; nor can you, Boy. (They hide their shamed heads.) It 's not your fault. Some are born with the instinct for a sausage, and some have it not. (More brightly) Would you like me to be funny now, my dear, or shall we have tea first ? (They prefer to have tea first, and the cour teous old man sits down with them.) But you do think me funny, don't you, Fairy ? Neither of you can look at me without laughing, can you? Try, Boy; try, Fairy. (They try, but fail. He is moved.) Thank you both, thank you kindly. If the public only knew how anxiously we listen for the laugh they would be less grudging of it. (Hastily) Not that I have any cause of complaint. Every

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  night I get the laugh from my gener ous patrons, the public, and always by legitimate means. When I think what a favourite I am I cannot keep my seat. (He rises proudly.) I am acknowl edged by all in the know to be a funny old man. (He moves about exultantly, looking at the portraits that are to hand him down to posterity.) That picture of me, Boy, was painted to commemorate my being the second funniest man on earth. Of course Joey is the funniest, but I am the second funniest. (They have scarcely listened; they have been ex changing delicious glances with face and foot. But at mention of the CLOWN they shudder a little, and their hands seek each other for protection.) This portrait I had took done in honour of your birth, my love. I call it 'The Old 'Un on First Hearing that He is a Father.' (He chuckles long before another picture which represents him in the dress of ordinary

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  people.) This is me in fancy dress; it is how I went to a fancy-dress ball. Your mother, Fairy, was with me, in a long skirt! Very droll we must have looked, and very droll we felt. I call to mind we walked about in this way; the way the public walks, you know. (In his gaiety he imitates the walk of the public, and roguish COLUMBINE imitates them also, but she loses her balance.) Yes, try it. Don't flutter so much. Ah, it won't do, Fairy. Your natural way of walking 's like a bird bobbing about on a lawn after worms. Your mother was the same and when she got low in spirits I just blew her about the room till she was lively again. Blow Fairy about, Boy. (HARLEQUIN blows her divinely about the room, against the wall, on to seats and off them, and for some sad happy moments PANTALOON gazes at her, feeling that his wife is alive again. They think it is the auspicious time to tell him of their love, but

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  bashfulness falls upon them. He only sees that their faces shine.) Ah, she is happy, my Fairy, but I have news that will make her happier! (Curiously) Fairy, you look as if you had something you wanted to tell me. Have you news too? (Tremblingly she extends her hand and shows him the ring on it. For a moment he misunderstands.) A ring ! Did he give you that? (She nod$ rapturously.) Oho, oho, this makes me so happy. I '11 be funnier than ever, if possible. (At this they dance gleefully, but his next words strike them cold.) But, the rogue ! He said he wanted me to speak to you about it first. That was my news. Oh, the rogue! (They are scared, and sudden fear grips him.) There 's nothing wrong, is there? It was Joey g
ave you that ring, wasn't it, Fairy? (She shakes her head, and the movement shakes tears from her eyes.) If it wasn't Joey, who was it? (HARLEQUIN steps forward.) You ! You

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  are not fond of Boy, are you, Fairy? (She is clinging to her lover now, and PANTALOON is a little dazed.) But, my girl, Joey wants you. A clown wants you. When a clown wants you, you are not going to fling yourself away on a harlequin, are you? (They go on their knees to him, and he is touched, but also frightened.) Don't try to get round me; now don't. Joey would be angry with me. He can be hard when he likes, Joey can. (In a whisper) Perhaps he would cane me ! You wouldn't like to see your dad caned, Fairy. (COLUMBINE'S head sinks to the floor in woe, and HARLEQUIN eagerly waves his wand.) Ah, Boy, you couldn't defy him. He is our head. You can do wonderful things with that wand, but you can't fight Joey with it. (Sadly enough the wand is lowered.) You see, children, it won't do. You have no money, Boy, except the coppers Joey sometimes gives you in an envelope of a

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  Friday night, and we can't marry with out money (with an attempt at joviality), can't marry without money, Boy, (HAR LEQUIN with a rising chest produces money.) Seven shillings and tenpence ! You have been saving up, Boy. Well done ! But it' s not enough. (COLUMBINE darts to the mantelshelf for her money-box and rattles it triumphantly. PANTALOON looks inside it.) A half-crown and two sixpences ! It won't do, children. I had a pound and a piano-case when I married, and yet I was pinched. (They sit on the floor with their fingers to their eyes, and with diffi culty he restrains an impulse to sit beside them.) Poor souls $ poor true love ! (The thought of Joey's power and greatness overwhelms him.) Think of Joey's indivi duality, Fairy. He banks his money, my love. If you saw the boldness of Joey in the bank when he hands the slip across the counter and counts his money, my pet, instead of being thankful for what-