Edith Holler, page 19
“I do count myself a bit of a scribbler indeed. I have penned, oh, a few dozen monologues and three whole plays, all of them set in the drawing rooms of fine London houses. Perhaps you may care to read . . .”
“No, Oliver, no indeed. I don’t. You, Oliver, may care to write—”
“Yes?”
“—a new play, Oliver.”
“A new play?”
“For me. For the theatre. To save it. I have this wonderful notion, for our future. It will be a great work, Oliver. It will be the play you were born to write.”
“Oh!”
“O for Oliver, indeed! And let me tell you of the play’s subject.”
Then followed some words which were so quietly laid out that they were impossible to hear, and indeed they were further obscured by the short gentleman’s ejaculations of the first letter of his first name, sent out like smoke rings—no doubt in part thanks to the unaccustomed proximity of a large and breathing woman. In the end, it seemed that sufficient information had fallen out of Margaret and into Mealing, for Mealing to grin, nod vigorously, and retreat from the apartment.
This is conjecture, for I was not there. But I pieced it together later.
* * *
• • •
Fighting that beetle noise, I went all about the back stage gathering wonders, and then to my little room with the plate glass window to perform, for Norwich, one last time while I may: the dumb show before the great performance. (This is a practice done in older times, a show of the upcoming play performed solely through silent gestures.) So now did Edith, while yet she might, reveal to Norwich: THE TRUE HISTORY OF MAWTHER MEG.
That afternoon, before all was forbidden me—with no time for rehearsing but with gathered props and clever business here and there—all was quickly ready. I pulled the cord to open the curtain. Now may Norwich see me well. See what? A strange old woman in dirty garments (me, thanks to Nora) and before her a great cauldron (a large pot for a plant, dragged over from the foyer). I stirred the pot with a great spoon (a broom handle), and as I banged my head against the pot, I looked up through the window and saw a child standing there watching, eating a pork pie. Then another young fellow came to join him, and next their mother probably, and then an older couple out for a stroll, and an office worker shirking off and some wanderers from the market. And so it went on, Norwich people come across the road to look. As they pointed at me and nodded, on and on I mimed, stirring and stirring my cauldron, making large dramatic poses, my eyes as big as saucers. Then I looked, as if in great alarm, and pointed here and there, and from my pocket I showered dead beetles (from a bucket of Bleachy’s). So now they knew it was the Mawther Meg story—a story often told, one that they all were familiar with—but then the twist: From behind the pot I pulled up a doll of a child (a prop we used for Young Macduff’s body) and I dropped it in the pot and stirred with glee, putting my hand to my stomach and letting out a silent cackle. Now the Norwich people stared! Most confused, they were, but hooked. Then another doll of a child (one we used for a prince in the Tower from Richard III), and another (the other prince), all of them in the pot. Then, one final child (this was the Boy from Henry V, murdered by the French at Agincourt). With a nod to the boy with the pork pie, to ensure that he paid particular attention, I put the child doll to my mouth, and employing an old bit of sleight of hand, I seemed to bite its head off.
The boy in the window dropped his pork pie.
Then I ripped open the doll’s canvas chest, and out poured a flow of blood—red rags and red ribbons—and these I mimed eating all withal.
And I saw, then, Norwich silently screaming.
Oh, I did have them, the people of Norwich, Norfolk! Yet then,
“What are you doing?” someone in my room. Agnesia stood there.
“You cannot come in,” I whispered, my mouth covered. “I’m doing my play.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“Go away.”
“I’ve been sent to get you. Mother wants you, you’re to come back to the apartment.”
* * *
• • •
I wrapped the doll in my own Maw Meg clothing, and followed Agnesia up the old familiar staircase.
“Careful!” said Agnesia. “No running on the stairs, Mama said so.”
Along the way I saw a new sign: NO MORE THAN TWO AT A TIME UPON THESE STAIRS.
On the way up we passed Mealing on his way down. He looked most content, I noted. Turning toward me with a frown, he spoke with a strange significance:
“Edith indeed! A tragedy!”
And hurried along.
“You’re breaking the rules, Edith,” said Agnesia. “We are three on the stairs!”
He went down and I went up. The door was open. So then must the heart be too.
“Father! Father, I have come home!”
No. Nothing. Only Margaret. And Uncle Jerome, I should add, and two official-looking people I did not recognize. And a policeman, for some reason, standing at the door. Whatever for? It is not like us to have policemen in the theatre. The murders we have upon the stage, you know, are all pretend.
“Father?”
“Hullo, dear Edith,” said Margaret. “How lovely. How are you? What have you been doing?”
“Father?” I called. “Father, I am here!”
“Your father is elsewhere, child. But, Edith, why were people peering through your window?”
“Hello, Uncle Jerome.”
“Hello, Edith,” said Jerome, nervously, “it is good to see you.”
“You have not forgotten me, then?”
“No, certainly, indeed not.” Very red was Jerome.
“If not for Father, why then have I been sent for?”
“Can we not be friendly? Are you unhappy to see us, your own family? Indeed, we have not spoken since we had our talk upon the steps, and how I have missed you.”
“I have found the backdrops, Uncle Jerome. I have not forgotten my play.”
“I know of no backdrops,” said Margaret.
“I have great hopes for it still.”
“Give them up, Edith dear. You know you must.”
“No, of course not! I shall write it out again.”
“Write what, child?”
“My play, of course! I shall put it on paper once more.”
“Edith, I thought the matter settled. Edith, we have no stage.”
“We will again.”
“Thanks to my involvement.”
“Indeed! We are so grateful! A new stage, and soon. We all, I’m sure, thank you!”
“It is noted, my dear, that your manners are improving. And also you have been cleaning for us and this progress must be rewarded, and so, of an afternoon or morning when you are called for, you may come again unto these rooms and then you shall, in keeping with a child your age, play with your sister.”
“To play?”
“With your sister.”
“Yes, madam.”
“You may say, Edith: yes, Mother.”
But I could not.
“Yes, madam.”
“Not ready yet? I do appreciate your honesty, Edith. One day, let us hope, you shall think of me as your mother.”
“Thank you, madam. Thank you for repairing the theatre.”
“That is lovingly said, Edith, and I bless you for it. We are friends again.”
I was sent to my sister and down below the iron descended and the theatre was cut in two.
* * *
• • •
The room where I’d lived was no longer Edith’s. No evidence of her there. All I knew had been removed. Gone, too, were my belongings, my wallpaper, my carpet. You would not know it was a place formerly called Edith’s room at all; only the shape of the room was the same. It was like the stage, I thought; it could change its personality utterly, it could become a different scene from a wholly different play. Did it remember the girl who used to live here?
“This was my room,” I said. “Though you would not know it.”
“Does it not look well?
“Even Leadenhall Street. It’s very wrong, I’m sure of it.”
“What’s the mutter?”
“My typewriter.”
“It broke.”
“I shall write my play out longhand, I don’t mind. I have neat writing.”
“Did you have any other toys, Edith?”
“No,” I said, “there is nothing else.”
“I heard about toy theatres.”
“No,” I said.
“Well, then, we are to play together. Mother says so. I offered you this once before, however, and you turned me down. So now we shall have to be more discerning. I shall audition you.”
“You audition me?”
“That’s it. What shall you do then? Will you dance for me?”
“No,” I said.
“Will you sing for me then?”
“No,” I said.
“Will you clown for me?”
“No,” I said.
“What will you do? How will you show yourself, how entertain the heir of the Utting fortune? Come now, I am looking for quality.”
“Nothing,” I stammered.
“Ah!” cried Agnesia, clapping her plump hands together. “I have it! If you do nothing, then I shall do something. You’re my doll, aren’t you? Yes, that’s it. I have seen a poor boy once, one of the factory workers, and he kept his best toy in his pocket. And do you know what his toy was? I’ll tell thee, ’twas a rat! He had a living toy. What a notion! And how he loved it. It was truly an impressive thing to see: that boy and that rat. I told on him, of course—you cannot have a rat upon a factory floor—and he was sent up to Mother’s office. Whatever happened to him afterward, I cannot say, for I never saw him more.”
She continued. “So now I have a doll of my own, but a very drab one to be sure. I must color her up. In dress, in makeup. I’ll change her now!”
“What are you doing?” I cried.
“A doll, you know, cannot talk. Not a word from you, doll. Not until five of the clock. Then you may go down again, and I shall have my dinner.”
And she let out the loud and exaggerated laugh of a stage villain.
* * *
• • •
Agnesia was in fact mostly gentle with me. She never stripped me of my own shabby gown, only added bright garments over it. My hair was brushed, tenderly even. Makeup was added to my face. It was even, at times, pleasant. She showed me great affection and sometimes held me close and rocked me back and forth. She was, in her particular way, sisterly.
In those strange days, it seemed, only Agnesia was allowed to fashion stories. The knock had made her a little storyteller, and she found little doll histories and tragedies where all the rest of my family, drooping about the knocking theatre, found only sleep. At first I was only her silent doll, but soon I was a crowd of others:
If she glued a beard upon my chin and put a crown upon my head, I may be king.
If she gave me an eye patch and a cutlass, I was pirate.
If she gave me epaulets and a rifle, I soldiered.
If she gave me whiskers and a tail, I catted for her.
If she gave me a doll much smaller than myself, I gianted.
I took on so many roles, stood in such different fashions, and let the costumes guide me. Agnesia let me speak then, and so intense was our play that I felt, truly felt, I had left myself behind. I was everyone then—everyone but Edith. I would wake in the morning with Aunty Bleachy and wonder: Who shall I be today? I traveled so far without ever leaving the theatre. I had so many fresh dramas that I quite forgot about writing down my play.
“Oh, you are wonderful!” cried Agnesia.
She was often very close to me and would demand that we held each other tight.
“What does it feel like, to be Edith, Edith?”
What could I say to that? “It comes to me naturally.”
“May I wear your old smock? I’d like that very much. Please, oh please!”
I let her, and soon was down to my underclothes.
“What is the red ribbon around your neck?”
“Nothing—a gift from my Aunt Bleachy.”
“Oh, I don’t like her, let’s not think of her, not now that I’m Edith Holler!” she cried. And she clung to the role for the rest of the afternoon. She tried very hard to be me, and I aided her to better her performance. In a way, there were two Ediths then.
“Well done,” I said. “That’s very like!”
“I am learning what it is to be a girl, to be an Edith. Do I convince?”
“I would swear,” I lied, “that you are the legitimate and I the mere doll.”
“I feel it so. I do! I am Edith herself! I’ve quite taken over!”
She did go on, rather.
* * *
• • •
As the playing continued, elsewhere Oliver Mealing dabbed a little rouge onto his cheeks and said, “I am come into my own.” Up in his little room he sat, knocking away at his typewriter—and under his hand a play began to form. At first a germ, a little smudge in the darkness, but Mr. Mealing fed it with ink and little by little the dreadful thing grew. Bit by bit the smudge increased to the size of a flea and then a fly, then of a bat and then a rat, next of cat proportions was it, and shortly after swine-sized, and then it was a great black bitch dog, like old Shuck itself. By then the knocking had grown so loud that Mealing could control it no longer.
Now the play controlled Mealing and not he it. Not only did the play drink up all the ink and demand ever more, it even began to eat away at Mealing himself. In his days of inspiration, out of daylight, the playwright grew thinner and paler and weaker, and soon there was less of Mealing than there had been before. The more play there was, the less Mealing. He smalled himself, gave himself over to the great black play, which grew finally to the size of an elephant, a dark and oily elephant.
And then at last, marking a new stage to that time of playing and playwriting, came the builders. With them came much disturbance and you could no longer hear the knocking anymore, instead all was:
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
16.
Quarter House, Theatre Street.
They never spoke to anyone from the theatre, the builders didn’t. Not even Mr. Peat, who let them in and out every day. We had long been yearning for them, yet when they came, there was no communication between us few remaining and the builders. I stood by the stage door to watch their arrival.
“They are here to get their work done,” Margaret said, “not to talk to you.”
They were Utting’s people, the builders, not theatre people. It was like we were two different species and had no understanding each of the other. They barged right through and would not shake hands when Uncle Wilfred offered his. It felt as if we had been invaded, as if some foreign army had come to take the theatre by force.
They had arrived at last to fix our stage, but we could not cheer them.
We never saw them in their work. We were strictly forbidden to enter the building site. We only observed a great supply of steel—girders and winches and great metal sheets and so many metal pipes. We had always been a wooden and stone people before; how it hurt, this growing into metal, this becoming modern.
Once the iron was down, I was stuck on the stage side. I could no longer get to front of house, that luxury place full of light and red, nor to my little room in the front, with my doll dressed as Maw Meg. Instead I must stay stageside, in that darkest of places.
Our address was Half House, Theatre Street, Norwich. Yet now, it seemed, we had only half of half the house because the stage was forbidden us. Quarter House, Theatre Street.
* * *
• • •
All about the theatre in those terrible months was the sound of drilling and hammering. Clanking and tolling of metal upon metal, a clamorous shrieking that would go on for so long—minutes on end, sometimes an hour—before letting off. Great new holes were being made in the roof to make way for new chimneys so that finally the theatre, which according to Margaret was desperately drafty, might be comfortable for the people of Norwich. But how this transformation hurt the poor building.
Those noises were with us so persistently, from the moment the builders arrived until they left in the evening, that we unhappy few remaining residents felt that we ourselves were being drilled into, hammered upon, cruelly smacked about; as if our own bodies were undergoing a terrible metamorphosis. How my bones ached! Aunt Bleachy told me, in our white pocket of communication, that my pain was surely growing pains, that I was becoming a more adult Edith; they were the feelings of my young ivory frame morphing into a different creature. I wondered what sort of creature I was shifting into, with such new hair about me. And what also were these red welts about my arms and legs and forehead? As if nails were being driven into me? Mosquito bites surely, said Bleachy, or the spots that young people get on the road to adulthood. Yet why, I wondered, were there small teeth marks upon my skin? They would be far less red if you never scratched them, Bleachy told me as she bathed my wounds. My chest and head and bones hurt. I lost weight. Aunt Jenny was no longer around to offer her strange medicine, I missed it now, I believed in it.
At length, Dr. Cottes came back. He put the stethoscope to my chest. Around us, the builders boomed on.
“I hear nothing,” said the doctor. “There’s too much racket.” He seemed very nervous and unhappy. He tried again; again the theatre roared. “No nothing, no sound. No sound at all.”
