My Autobiography (16 page)

As I waited I realized I had not seen her without make-up. I began to lose the vision of what she looked like. Much as I tried, I could not recall her features. A mild fear seized me. Perhaps her beauty was bogus! An illusion! Every ordinary-looking young girl that alighted sent me into throes of despair. Would I be disappointed? Had I been duped by my own imagination or by the artifices of theatrical make-up?

At three minutes to four, someone got off a tram-car and came towards me. My heart sank. Her looks were disappointing. The depressing thought of facing the whole afternoon with her, keeping up a pretence of enthusiasm, was already deplorable. However, I raised my hat and beamed; she stared indignantly and passed on. Thank God it was not she.

Then precisely at one minute past four, a young girl alighted from a tram-car, came forward and stopped before me. She was without make-up and looked more beautiful than ever, wearing a simple sailor hat, a blue reefer coat with brass buttons, with her hands dug deep in her overcoat pockets. ‘Here I am,’ she said.

Her presence so overwhelmed me that I could hardly talk. I became agitated. I could think of nothing to say or do. ‘Let’s take a taxi,’ I said huskily, looking up and down the road, then turned to her. ‘Where would you like to go?’

She shrugged. ‘Anywhere.’

‘Then let’s go over to the West End for dinner.’

‘I’ve had dinner,’ she said calmly.

‘We’ll discuss it in the taxi,’ I said.

The intensity of my emotion must have bewildered her, for all during the drive I kept repeating: ‘I know I’m going to regret this – you’re too beautiful!’ I tried vainly to be amusing and impress her. I had drawn three pounds from the bank and had planned to take her to the Trocadero, where, in an atmosphere of
music and plush elegance, she could see me under the most romantic auspices. I wanted to sweep her off her feet. But she remained cool-eyed and somewhat perplexed at my utterances, one in particular: that she was my Nemesis, a word I had recently acquired.

How little she understood what it all meant to me. It had little to do with sex; more important was her association. To meet elegance and beauty in my station of life was rare.

That evening at the Trocadero, I tried to persuade her to have dinner, but to no avail. She would have a sandwich to keep me company, she said. As we were occupying a whole table in a very posh restaurant, I felt it incumbent to order an elaborate meal which I really did not want. The dinner was a solemn ordeal: I was uncertain which implement to eat with. I bluffed through the meal with a
dégagé
charm, even to my casualness in using the finger-bowl, but I think we were both happy to leave the restaurant and relax.

After the Trocadero she decided to go home. I suggested a taxi, but she preferred to walk. As she lived in Camberwell nothing suited me better; it meant I could spend more time with her.

Now that my emotions had simmered down she seemed more at ease. That evening we walked along the Thames Embankment, Hetty chattering away about her girl friends, pleasantries and other inconsequential things. But I was hardly aware of what she was saying. I only knew that the night was ecstatic – that I was walking in Paradise with inner blissful excitement.

After I left her I returned to the Embankment, possessed! And illumined with kindly light and a fervent goodwill, I distributed among the derelicts who slept on the Thames Embankment the remainder of my three pounds.

We promised to meet the following morning at seven o’clock because she had rehearsals at eight o’clock somewhere in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was a walk of about a mile and a half from her house to the Underground in the Westminster Bridge Road, and although I worked late, never getting to bed before two o’clock, I was up at dawn to meet her.

Camberwell Road was now touched with magic because Hetty Kelly lived there. Those morning walks with hands clasped all the way to the Underground were bliss mingled with confused longings. Shabby, depressing Camberwell Road, which I used to
avoid, now had lure as I walked in its morning mist, thrilled at Hetty’s outline in the distance coming towards me. During those walks I never remembered anything she said. I was too enthralled, believing that a mystic force had brought us together and that our union was an affinity predetermined by fate.

Three mornings I had known her; three abbreviated little mornings which made the rest of the day non-existent, until the next morning. But on the fourth morning her manner changed. She met me coldly, without enthusiasm, and would not take my hand. I reproached her for it and jokingly accused her of not being in love with me.

‘You expect too much,’ she said. ‘After all I am only fifteen and you are four years older than I am.’

I would not assimilate the sense of her remark. But I could not ignore the distance she had suddenly placed between us. She was looking straight ahead, walking elegantly with a schoolgirl stride, both hands dug in her overcoat pockets.

‘In other words, you really don’t love me,’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ she answered.

I was stunned. ‘If you don’t know, then you don’t.’ For answer, she walked in silence. ‘You see what a prophet I am,’ I continued lightly. ‘I told you I would regret ever having met you.’

I tried to search her mind and find out to what extent her feeling was for me, and to all my questions she kept replying: ‘I don’t know.’

‘Would you marry me?’ I challenged.

‘I’m too young.’

‘Well, if you were compelled to marry would it be me or someone else?’

But she was non-committal and kept repeating: ‘I don’t know… I like you… but – ’

‘But you don’t love me,’ I interposed with a sinking feeling.

She was silent. It was a cloudy morning and the streets looked drab and depressing.

‘The trouble is I have let this thing go too far,’ I said huskily. We had reached the entrance to the Underground. ‘I think we’d better part and never see each other again,’ I said, wondering what would be her reaction.

She looked solemn.

I took her hand and patted it tenderly. ‘Good-bye, it’s better this way. Already you have too much of a power over me.’

‘Good-bye,’ she answered. ‘I’m sorry.’

The apology struck me as deadly. And as she disappeared into the Underground, I felt an unbearable emptiness.

What had I done? Was I too rash? I should not have challenged her. I’d been a pompous idiot and made it impossible to see her again – unless I made myself ridiculous. What was I to do? I could only suffer. If only I could submerge this mental agony in sleep until I meet her again. At all costs I must keep away from her until she wants to see me. Perhaps I was too serious, too intense. The next time we meet I shall be levitous and detached. But will she want to see me again? Surely she must! She cannot dismiss me so easily.

The next morning I could not resist walking up the Camberwell Road. I did not meet her, but met her mother. ‘What have you done to Hetty!’ she said. ‘She came home crying and said you never wanted to see her again.’

I shrugged and smiled ironically. ‘What has she done to me?’ Then hesitantly I asked if I could see her again.

She shook her head warily. ‘No, I don’t think you should.’

I invited her to have a drink, so we went to a corner pub to talk it over, and after I entreated her to let me see Hetty again she consented.

When we reached the house, Hetty opened the door. She was surprised and concerned when she saw me. She had just washed her face with Sunlight soap – it smelt so fresh. She remained standing at the front door, her large eyes looking cold and objective. I could see it was hopeless.

‘Well,’ I said, attempting to be humorous, ‘I’ve come to say good-bye again.’

She didn’t answer, but I could see she was anxious to be rid of me.

I extended my hand and smiled. ‘So good-bye again,’ I said.

‘Good-bye,’ she answered coldly.

I turned and heard the street door gently closing behind me.

Although I had met her but five times, and scarcely any of our meetings lasted longer than twenty minutes, that brief encounter affected me for a long time.

I
N
1909 I went to Paris. Monsieur Burnell of the Folies Bergère had engaged the Karno Company to play for a limited engagement of one month. How excited I was at the thought of going to a foreign country! The week before sailing we played at Woolwich, a dank, miserable week in a miserable town, and I looked forward to the change. We were to leave early Sunday morning. I almost missed the train, running down the platform and catching the last luggage van, in which I rode all the way to Dover. I had a genius for missing trains in those days.

The rain came down in torrents over the Channel, but the first sight of France through the mist was an unforgettable thrill. ‘It isn’t England,’ I had to keep reminding myself, ‘it’s the Continent! France!’ It had always appealed to my imagination. My father was part French, in fact the Chaplin family originally came from France. They landed in England in the time of the Huguenots. Father’s uncle would say with pride that a French general established the English branch of the Chaplin family.

It was late autumn and the journey from Calais to Paris was dreary. Nevertheless, as we neared Paris my excitement grew. We had passed through bleak, lonely country. Then gradually out of the darkened sky we saw an illumination. ‘That,’ said a Frenchman in the carriage with us, ‘is the reflection of Paris.’

Paris was everything I expected. The drive from the Gare du Nord to the rue Geoffroy-Marie had me excited and impatient; I wanted to stop at every corner and walk. It was seven in the evening; the golden lights shone invitingly from the cafés and their outside tables spoke of an enjoyment of life. But for the innovation of a few motor-cars, it was still the Paris of Monet, Pissarro and Renoir. It was Sunday and everyone seemed pleasurebent.
Gaiety and vitality were in the air. Even my room in the rue Geoffroy-Marie, with its stone floor, which I called my Bastille, could not dampen my ardour, for one lived sitting at tables outside bistros and cafés.

Sunday night was free, so we could see the show at the Folies Bergère, where we were to open the following Monday. No theatre, I thought, ever exuded such glamour, with its gilt and plush, its mirrors and large chandeliers. In the thick-carpeted foyers and dress circle the world promenaded. Bejewelled Indian princes with pink turbans and French and Turkish officers with plumed helmets sipped cognac at liqueur bars. In the large outer foyer music played as ladies checked their wraps and fur coats, baring their white shoulders. They were the habituées who discreetly solicited and promenaded the foyers and the dress circle. In those days they were beautiful and courtly.

The Folies Bergère also had professional linguists who strolled about the theatre with the word ‘Interpreter’ on their caps, and I made a friend of the head one, who could speak several languages fluently.

After our performance I would wear my stage evening-dress clothes and mingle with the promenaders. One gracile creature with a swan-like neck and white skin made my heart flutter. She was a tall Gibson Girl type, extremely beautiful, with retroussé nose and long dark eye-lashes, and wore a black velvet dress with long white gloves. As she went up the dress-circle stairs, she dropped a glove. Quickly I picked it up.

‘Merci,’
she said.

‘I wish you would drop it again,’ I said mischievously.

‘Pardon?’

Then I realized she did not understand English and I spoke no French. So I went to my friend the interpreter. ‘There’s a dame that arouses my concupiscence. But she looks very expensive.’

He shrugged. ‘Not more than a louis.’

‘Good,’ I said, although a louis in those days was a lot, I thought – and it was.

I had the interpreter put down a few French
phrases d’amour
on the back of a postcard:
‘Je vous adore’, ‘Je vous ai aimée la première fois que je vous ai vue’
, etc., which I intended to use at the propitious moment. I asked him to make the preliminary
arrangements and he acted as courier, going from one to the other. Eventually he came back and said: ‘It’s all settled, one louis, but you must pay her cab-fare to her apartment and back.’

I temporized a moment. ‘Where does she live?’ I asked.

‘It won’t cost more than ten fancs.’

Ten francs was disastrous, as I had not anticipated that extra charge. ‘Couldn’t she walk?’ I said, jokingly.

‘Listen, this girl is first-class, you must pay her fare,’ he said.

So I acquiesced.

After the arrangements had been settled, I passed her on the dress-circle stairs. She smiled and I glanced back at her. ‘
Ce soir!’

‘Enchantée, monsieur!
’

As we were on before the interval I promised to meet her after my performance. Said my friend: ‘You hail a cab while I get the girl, then you won’t waste time.’

‘Waste time?’

As we drove along the Boulevard des Italiens, the lights and shadows passing over her face and long white neck, she looked ravishing. I glanced surreptitiously at my French on the postcard.
‘Je vous adore,’
I began.

She laughed, showing her perfect white teeth. ‘You speak very well French.’

‘
Je vous ai aimée la première fois que je vois ai vue
,’ I continued emotionally.

She laughed again and corrected my French, explaining that I should use the familiar
‘tu’
. She thought about it and laughed again. She looked at her watch, but it had stopped; she indicated she wanted to know the time, explaining that at twelve o’clock she had a very important appointment.

‘Not this evening.’ I said coyly.

‘
Oui, ce soir.’

‘But you’re fully engaged this evening,
toute la nuit’!

She suddenly looked startled.
‘Oh, non, non, non! Pas toute la nuit
!’

Then it became sordid. ‘
Vingt francs pour le moment?’

‘C’est ça!’
she replied emphatically.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I think I’d better stop the cab.’