World of Wonders

by Robertson Davies

  “During all the years I worked with Sir John there was one standing direction for the electricians that was so well understood Macgregor hardly had to mention it: when the play began all lights were set at two-thirds of their power, and when Sir John was about to make his entrance they were gradually raised to full power, so that as soon as he came on the stage the audience had the sensation of seeing—and therefore understanding—much more clearly than before. Egoism, I suppose, and a little hard on the supporting actors, but Sir John’s audiences wanted him to be wonderful and he did whatever was necessary to make sure that he damned well was wonderful.

  “Ah, that scenery! In the last act, which was in the salon of a great aristocratic house in Paris, there were large windows at the back, and outside those windows you saw a panorama of Paris at the time of the Revolution that conveyed, by means I don’t pretend to understand, the spirit of a great and beautiful city under appalling stress. The Harkers did it with colour; it was mostly in reddish browns highlighted with rose, and shadowed in a grey that was almost black. Busy as I was, I still found time to gape at that scenery as it was assembled.

  “Costumes, too. Everybody had been fitted weeks before, but when the clothes were all assembled, and the wig-man had done his work, and the actors began to appear in carefully arranged ensembles in front of that scenery, things became clear that I had missed completely at rehearsals: things like the relation of one character to another, and of one class to another, and the Callot spirit of the travelling actors against the apparently everyday clothes of inn-servants and other minor people, and the superiority and unquestioned rank of the aristocrats. Above all, of the unquestioned supremacy of Sir John, because, though his clothes were not gorgeous, like those of Barnard as the Marquis, they had a quality of style that I did not understand until I had tried them on myself. Because, you see, as his double, I had to have a costume exactly like his when he appeared as the charlatan Scaramouche, and the first time I put it on I thought there must be some mistake, because it didn’t seem to fit at all. Sir John showed me what to do about that.

  “ ‘Don’t try to drag your sleeves down m’boy; they’re intended to be short, to show your hands to advantage, mphm? Keep ’em up, like this, and if you use your hands the way I showed you, everything will fit, eh? And your hat—it’s not meant to keep off the rain, m’boy, but to show your face against the inside of the brim, quonk? Your breeches aren’t too tight; they’re not to sit down in—I don’t pay you to sit down in costume—but to stand up in, and show off your legs. Never shown your legs off before, have you? I thought as much. Well, learn to show ’em off now, and not like a bloody chorus-girl either, but like a man. Use ’em in masculine postures, but not like a butcher boy either, and if you aren’t proud of your legs they’re going to look damned stupid, eh, when you’re walking across the stage on that rope.’

  “I was green as grass. Naive, though I didn’t know the word at that time. It was very good for me to feel green. I had begun to think I knew all there was about the world, and particularly the performing world, because I had won in the struggle to keep alive in Wanless’s World of Wonders, and in Le grand Cirque forain de St Vite. I had even dared in my heart to think I knew more about the world of travelling shows than Sir John. Of course I was right, because I knew a scrap of the reality. But he knew something very different, which was what the public wants to think the world of travelling shows is like. I possessed a few hard-won facts, but he had artistic imagination. My job was somehow to find my way into his world, and take a humble, responsible part in it.

  “Little by little it dawned on me that I was important to Scaramouche; my two short moments, when I juggled the plates, and walked the wire and thumbed my nose at the Marquis, added a cubit to the stature of the character Sir John was creating. I had also to swallow the fact that I was to do that without anybody knowing it. Of course the public would tumble to the fact that Sir John, who was getting on for sixty, had not learned juggling and wire-walking since last they saw him, but they wouldn’t understand it until they had been thrilled by the spectacle, apparently, of the great man doing exactly those things. I was anonymous and at the same time conspicuous.

  “I had to have a name. Posters with the names of the actors were already in place outside the theatre, but in the programme I must appear as Macgregor’s assistant, and I must be called something. Holroyd mentioned it now and again. My name at that time, Jules LeGrand, wouldn’t do. Too fancy and, said Holroyd, a too obvious fake.

  “Here again I was puzzled. Jules LeGrand an obvious fake? What about the names of some of the other members of the company? What about Eugene Fitzwarren, who had false teeth and a wig and, I would bet any money, a name that he had not been born to? What about C. Pengelly Spickernell, a withered, middle-aged fruit, whose eyes sometimes rested warmly on my legs, when Sir John was talking about them. Had any parents, drunk or sober, with such a surname as Spickernell, ever christened a child Cuthbert Pengelly? And if it came to fancy sounds, what about Milady’s stage name? Annette de la Borderie? Macgregor assured me that it was indeed her own, and that she came from the Channel Islands, but why was it credible when Jules LeGrand was not?

  “Of course I was too green to know that I did not stand on the same footing as the other actors. I was just a trick, a piece of animated scenery, when I was on the stage. Otherwise I was Macgregor’s assistant, and none too experienced at the job, and a grand name did not befit my humble station. What was I to be called?

  “The question was brought to a head by Holroyd, who approached, not me, but Macgregor, in a break between an afternoon and evening rehearsal during the final week of preparation. I was at hand, but obviously not important to the discussion. ‘What are you going to call your assistant, Mac?’ said Holroyd. ‘Time’s up. He’s got to have a name.’ Macgregor looked solemn. ‘I’ve given it careful thought,’ he said, ‘and I think I’ve found the verra word for him. Y’see, what’s he to the play? He’s Sir John’s double. That and no more. A shadow, you might say. But can you call him Shadow? Nunno: absurd! And takes the eye, which is just what we don’t want to do. So where do we turn—’ Holroyd broke in here, because he was apt to be impatient when Macgregor had one of his explanatory fits. ‘Why not call him Double? Dick Double! Now there’s a good, simple name that nobody’s going to notice.’ ‘Hut!’ said Macgregor; ‘that’s a foolish name. Dick Double! It sounds like some fella in a pantomime!’ But Holroyd was not inclined to give up his flight of fancy. ‘Nothing wrong with Double,’ he persisted. ‘There’s a Double in Shakespeare. Henry IV, Part Two, don’t you remember? Is Old Double dead? So there must have been somebody called Double. The more I think of it the better I like it. I’ll put him down as Richard Double.’ But Macgregor wouldn’t have it. ‘Nay, nay, you’ll make the lad a figure of fun,’ he said. ‘Now listen to me, because I’ve worked it out verra carefully. He’s a double. And what’s a double? Well, in Scotland, when I was a boy, we had a name for such things. If a man met a creature like himself in a lane, or in town, maybe, in the dark, it was a sure sign of ill luck or even death. Not that I suggest anything of that kind here. Nunno; as I’ve often said Airt has her own rules, and they’re not the rules of common life. Now: such an uncanny creature was called a fetch. And this lad’s a fetch, and we can do no better than to name him Fetch.’ By this time old Frank Moore joined the group, and he liked the sound of Fetch. ‘But what first name will you tack on to it?’ he said. ‘I suppose he’s got to be something Fetch? Can’t be just naked, unaccommodated Fetch.’ Macgregor closed his eyes and raised a fat hand. ‘I’ve thought of that, also,’ he said. ‘Fetch being a Scots name, he’d do well to carry a Scots given name, for added authority. Now I’ve always had a fancy for the name Mungo. In my ear it has a verra firm sound. Mungo Fetch. Can we do better?’ He looked around, for applause. But Holroyd was not inclined to agree; I think he was still hankering after Double. ‘Sounds barbaric to me. A sort of cannibal-king name, to my way of thinking.
If you want a Scotch name why don’t you call him Jock?’ Macgregor looked disgusted. ‘Because Jock is not a name, but a diminutive, as everybody knows well. It is the diminutive of John. And John is not a Scots name. The Scots form of that name is Ian. If you want to call him Ian Fetch, I shall say no more. Though I consider Mungo a much superior solution to the problem.’

  “Holroyd nodded at me, as if he and Macgregor and Frank Moore had been generously expending their time to do me a great favour. ‘Mungo Fetch it’s to be then, is it?’ he said, and went about his business before I had time to collect my wits and say anything at all.

  “That was my trouble. I was like someone living in a dream. I was active and occupied and heard what was said to me and responded reasonably, but nevertheless I seemed to be in a lowered state of consciousness. Otherwise, how could I have put up with a casual conversation that saddled me with a new name—and a name nobody in his right mind would want to possess? But not since my first days in Wanless’s World of Wonders had I been so little in command of myself, so little aware of what fate was doing to me. It was as if I were being thrust toward something I did not know by something I could not see. Part of it was love, for I was beglamoured by Milady and barely had sense enough to understand that my state was as hopeless as it could possibly be, and that my passion was in every way absurd. Part of it must have been physical, because I was getting a pretty good regular wage, and could eat better than I had done for several months. Part of it was just astonishment at the complex business of getting a play on the stage, which presented me with some new marvel every day.

  “As Macgregor’s assistant I had to be everywhere and consequently I saw everything. Because of my mechanical bent I took pleasure in all the mechanism of a fine theatre, and wanted to know how the flymen and scene-shifters organized their work, how the electrician contrived his magic, and how Macgregor controlled it all with signal-lights from his little cubby-hole on the left-hand side of the stage, just inside the proscenium. I had to make up the call-lists, so that the call-boy—who was no boy but older than myself—could warn the actors when they were wanted on stage five minutes before each entrance. I watched Macgregor prepare his Prompt Book, which was an interleaved copy of the play, with every cue for light, sound, and action entered into it; he was proud of his books, and marked them in a fine round hand, in inks of different colours, and every night the book was carefully locked in a safe in his little office. I helped the property-man prepare his lists of everything that was needed in the play, so that a mass of materials from snuffboxes to hay-forks could be organized on the property-tables in the wings; my capacity to make or mend fiddling little bits of mechanism made me a favourite with him. Indeed the property-man and I worked up a neat little performance as a flock of hens who were heard clucking in the wings when the curtain rose on the inn scene. It was my job to hand C. Pengelly Spickernell the trumpet on which he sounded a fanfare just before the travelling-cart of the Commedia dell’ Arte players made its entrance into the inn-yard; to hand it to him and recover it later, and shake C. Pengelly’s spit out of it before putting it back on the property-table. There seemed to be no end to my duties.

  “I had also to learn to make up my face for my brief appearance. Vaudevillian that I was, I had been accustomed to colour my face a vivid shade of salmon, and touch up my eyebrows; I had never made up my neck or my hands in my life. I quickly learned that something more subtle was expected by Sir John; his make-up was elaborate, to disguise some signs of age but even more to throw his best features into prominence. Eric Foss, a very decent fellow in the company, showed me what to do, and it was from him I learned that Sir John’s hands were always coloured an ivory shade, and that his ears were liberally touched up with carmine. Why red ears, I wanted to know. ‘The Guvnor thinks it gives an appearance of health,’ said Foss, ‘and make sure you touch up the insides of your nostrils with the same colour, because it makes your eyes look bright.’ I didn’t understand it, but I did as I was told.

  “Make-up was a subject on which every actor had strong personal opinions. Gordon Barnard took almost an hour to put on his face, transforming himself from a rather ordinary-looking chap into a strikingly handsome man. Reginald Charlton, on the other hand, was of the modern school and used as little make-up as possible, because he said it made the face into a mask, and inexpressive. Grover Paskin, our comedian, put on paint almost with a trowel, and worked like a Royal Academician building up warts and nobbles and tufts of hair on his rubbery old mug. Eugene Fitzwarren strove for youth, and took enormous pains making his eyes big and lustrous, and putting white stuff on his false teeth so that they would flash to his liking.

  “Old Frank Moore was the most surprising of the lot, because he had become an actor when water colours were used for make-up instead of the modern greasepaints. He washed his face with care, powdered it dead white, and then applied artist’s paints out of a large Reeves’ box, with fine brushes, until he had the effect he wanted. In the wings he looked as if his face were made of china, but under the lights the effect was splendid. I particularly marvelled at the way he put shadows where he wanted them by drawing the back of a lead spoon over the the hollows of his eyes and cheeks. It wasn’t good for his skin, and he had a hide like an alligator in private life, but it was certainly good for the stage, and he was immensely proud of the fact that Irving, who made up in the same way, had once complimented him on his art.

  “So, working fourteen hours a day, but nevertheless in a dream, I made my way through the week of the final dress rehearsal, and something happened there that changed my life. I did my stage manager’s work in costume, but with a long white coat over it, to keep it clean, and when Two, two came I had to whip it off, pop on my hat, take a final look in the full-length mirror just offstage in the corridor, and dash back to the wings to be ready for my plate-juggling moment. That went as rehearsed, but when it was time for my second appearance, walking the rope, I forgot something. During the scene when André-Louis made his revolutionary speech, he began by taking off his hat, and thrusting his Scaramouche mask up on his forehead. It was a half-mask, coming down to the mouth only; it was coloured a rosy red, and had a very long nose, just as Callot would have drawn it. When Sir John thrust it up on his brow, revealing his handsome, intent revolutionary’s face, extremely picturesque, it was a fine accent of colour, and the long nose seemed to add to his height. But when I appeared on the rope I was to have the mask pulled down, and when I made my contemptuous gesture toward the Marquis it was the long red nose of the mask I was to thumb.

  “I managed very well till it came to the nose-thumbing bit, when I realized with horror that it was my own nose flesh I was thumbing. I had forgotten the mask! Unforgivable! So as soon as I could get away from Macgregor during the interval for the scene-change, I rushed to find Sir John and make my apologies. He had gone out into the stalls of the theatre, and was surrounded by a group of friends, who were congratulating him in lively tones, and I didn’t need to listen for long to find out that it was his performance on the rope they were talking about. So I crept away, and waited till he came backstage again. Then I approached him and said my humble say.

  “Milady was with him and she said, ‘Jack, you’d be mad to throw it away. It’s a gift from God. If it fooled Reynolds and Lucy Bellamy it will fool anyone. They’ve known you for years, and it deceived them completely. You must let him do it.’ But Sir John was not a man to excuse anything, even a happy accident, and he fixed me with a stern eye. ‘Do you swear that was by accident? You weren’t presuming? Because I won’t put up with any presumption from a member of my company.’ ‘Sir John, I swear on the soul of my mother it was a mistake,’ I said. (Odd that I should have said that, but it was a very serious oath of Zovene’s, and I needed something serious at that moment; actually, at the time I spoke, my mother was living and whatever Ramsay says to the contrary, her soul was in bad repair.) ‘Very well,’ said Sir John, ‘we’ll keep it in. In future, when you walk the r
ope, wear your mask up on your head, as I do mine. And you’d better come to me for a lesson in make-up. You look like Guy Fawkes. And bear in mind that this is not to be a precedent. Any other clever ideas that come to you you’d be wise to suppress. I don’t encourage original thought in my productions.’ He looked angry as he walked away. I wanted to thank Milady for intervening on my behalf, but she was off to make a costume change.

  “When I went back to Macgregor I thought he looked at me very queerly. ‘You’re a lucky laddie, Mungo Fetch,’ said he, ‘but don’t press your luck too hard. Many a small talent has come to grief that way.’ I asked him what he meant, but he just made his Scotch noise—‘Hut’—and went on with his work.

  “I don’t think I would have dared to carry the matter any further if Holroyd and Frank Moore had not borne down on Macgregor after the last act. ‘What do you think of your Mungo now?’ said Frank, and once again they began to talk exactly as if I were not standing beside them, busy with a time-sheet. ‘I think it would have been better to give him another name,’ said Macgregor; ‘a fetch is an uncanny thing, and I don’t want anything uncanny in any theatre where I am in a place of responsibility.’ But Holroyd was as near buoyant as I ever saw him. ‘Uncanny, my eye,’ he said; ‘it’s the cherry on the top of the cake. The Guvnor’s close friends were deceived. Coup de théâtre they called it; that’s French for a bloody good wheeze.’ ‘You don’t need to tell me it’s French,’ said Macgregor. ‘I’ve no use for last-minute inspirations and unrehearsed effects. Amateurism, that’s what that comes to.’