New Albion (26 page)

The two dollymops near me swooned mightily. The Judge, unruffled by the news, said, “Very well, then. Bond is posted at twenty pounds.” He rapped his gavel on the bench in front of him. “Next case.”

After the proceedings, Edwards’ emissary shook Pratty’s feebl
e hand, offered Mr. Edwards’ best wishes, and scurried away, leaving Mr. Farquhar Pratt and myself standing on the sidewalk in front of the Worship Street court.

“Please take my coat, sir,” I said. He was shivering and so frail that he could not have denied me the opportunity of bestowing my coat upon him had he wished to.

“No need of that, sir,” was his reply. “There is no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty. As the good Farquhar once said.”

“There is a cafe across the street,” I said, draping my coat over his thin shoulders. “We’ll go inside and have a bowl of soup.”

“Not for me, sir, but for my wife.” His nobility, even in these dire circumstances, filled me with admiration.

“I’ll take you home, then, sir,” I said. “We’ll stop at the butcher’s and the green grocer’s along the way.” I was beginning to think that he did not recognize me. His dim eyes did not meet my gaze.

Then he said, “You are a kind man, Mr. Phillips. A good man.”

I hailed a hansom cab and helped Pratty to a seat inside, ordered the driver to take us to Nova Scotia Gardens.

“Blimey,” the oil-capped driver said, “ain’t no gentlemen wot lives in Nova Scotia Gardens.”

We stopped at a green grocer’s along the way. Back inside the hansom cab, Mr. Farquhar Pratt fell upon some overripe pippins that we were able to purchase, devoured them cores and all. We proceeded through Islington toward Friar’s Mount, then onward to the city’s edge and the Nichol, past a hoarding of the Eastern Counties Railway and a ditch filled with human waste. This stinking broth of contagion gave off an odour so pungent as to force me to cover my nose with my kingsman. Children in ragged clothes were playing near the ditch, hunting for frogs and snakes with which to frighten their sisters, apparently without fear of the railway locomotives which chugged along the tracks nearby. Across the tracks stood a nightman’s house, one of the few houses in the area not of clapboard but of brick, and beyond that smoldered a mountain of garbage, wood, tin, steel, fecal matter, rotting textiles, anything that had not been picked clean by scavengers. This unsanitary refuge heap, I came to learn, is affectionately known as Nova Scotia Gardens. We passed under several arches and tressels as we made our way to Pratty’s abode and, as it was nearly five o’clock and would soon
be getting dark, I was concerned that highwaymen or footpadders
might well be lurking around each new turn. The cab driver himself seemed nervous; I heard the tension in his voice as he gee’d and haw’d his horse along the route. At last we stood
alongside a series of clapboard houses, leaky, rat-infested
remnants of the Thirties, in plain view of the Nova Scotia Gardens’ refuse heap. I bade the driver wait for me as I meant to accompany Mr. Farquhar Pratt inside. “Don’t be long.” The driver’s words were uttered through clenched teeth.

We proceeded inside, where Pratty’s wife lay on the floor, propped against a bare wall, one of Mrs. Carmichael’s stolen blankets wrapped tightly around her as though its intimacy with her aged body were insurance against its being taken from her. Against the wall opposite, another family, a rough-looking young man, his cadaverous wife, and three filth-covered urchins huddled and gnawed on bones, apparently chicken bones although it was difficult to tell. The young husband cast a surly glance in my direction.

“We are sharing this accommodation with another family,” Pratty said. “Please refrain from mentioning this to the others when you return to the theatre.” Mr. Farquhar Pratt knelt by his wife and produced an apple from the paper bag which the green grocer had stocked for us. She ate with gluttonous fervor. Soon the children of the other family were gathered round, and Pratty distributed the remainder of the vegetables among them, a pippin, a few green tomatoes, and some cabbage. I could not protest this action as the children were obviously as hungry as Farquhar Pratt’s wife. I was only unhappy that I had been unable to give them more.

After the Farquhar Pratts and the children had eaten, Pratty returned my greatcoat to me, thanked me for my charity, and bade me good night. “These streets are not safe after dark,” he said. “You must leave now.”

Promising to return soon, I exited the clapboard shanty, assaulted by the stench of the ditch and the dung heap as I shut the door behind me. “It’s about time,” the cabby said as I climbed into the cabriolet. The sun was touching the western horizon, and the trestles and archways threw long and unhappy shadows, as the cabby raced his nag along muddy streets and cobblestones towards Cloudsey Street.

Tuesday, 7 January 1851

Having worked late into the evening yesternight in the preparation of Eustace Heywood’s prompt script, I ventured into the dressing room before I left the theatre because I had heard something dropping to the floor, a hairbrush or something. My first thought was that Algernon, the company cat, had gotten into the dressing room or had been left there by mistake, and I intended to let him out into the backstage area to chase mice, as is his usual pastime. Mrs. Wilton claims to be allergic to
Algernon, and she frequently complains, if he is left in the dress
ing rooms, that his hairs have adhered to her costumes and are making her sneeze.

When I arrived at the dressing room door, which had been left ajar, I realized that I had been mistaken in my impression that I was alone in the theatre. I will not describe in detail what I witnessed. Suffice it to say that young Master Weekes had been stripped of his clothing and was supporting himself against a mirror while Neville Watts, naked to the waist, embraced the young man most passionately. The sound I had heard was of Mr. Watts’ greasepaint tray falling to the floor as Master Weekes was forcibly pushed against the dressing table. I must have gasped involuntarily at what greeted my eyes, for I saw Mr. Watts in the mirror open his eyes to meet my gaze. Even with his eyes open for some time, it seemed as though Mr. Watts had not entirely registered my presence. I ahemed loudly, and he ceased his manipulations of young Master Weekes and was still, his slender person almost covering and concealing the young man’s body. It was as if he thought he might camouflage himself and disappear if only by standing stock-still. Mr. Watts’ eyes
never left mine, as he fixed his gaze intently upon me in his mir
ror. At last, I came to my senses and stepped backward into the hall, shutting the door upon them.

This morning, Neville Watts was uncharacteristically the first actor in the theatre. He arrived alone and before the other actors had appeared to begin the morning’s rehearsal. He came directly to my desk at the side of the stage, where I pretended to be engulfed in my prompt script. He looked grey; he clearly had not slept, and he was wearing the same suit of actorish black that he had worn on the day previous. “I want to apologize,” he murmured. “You witnessed something last night that I had no intention of letting anyone witness.”

“Such conduct is objectionable,” I said, without looking up, “inside the theatre or outside of it.”

“I know,” he said. His eyes were drained of all expression excepting vacant abjection. “I have endeavoured to rip these feelings from my heart for some time now. But to no avail.”

“You have abused the trust of young Master Weekes and of his father and mother, “ I went on. “It is conduct unbecoming of a master-apprentice relationship.”

“I know.” Mr. Watts’ habitual haughtiness had deserted him entirely; I thought for a moment that he would dissolve in tears in front of me, but he fought back the emotion.

I looked at him sharply. “What you have done is also illegal and punishable in a court of law.”

“Yes,” he said. “I only beg that you will tell no one. My career would otherwise be at stake.” A new thought struck upon his addled, sleep-deprived brain. “Unless you have already informed on me.”

“I have told no one,” I said.

“Not even Mr. Wilton?”

“I have told no one, sir.” Abomination though it was, abomination in the sight of the Lord, it struck me that perhaps Neville Watts had no more control over his predilections than I or any other man. He had perhaps not chosen to bestow his affections upon boys instead of ladies, and his situation was all the more pitiable for that sad fact. I secretly thanked heaven that my affections did not lie that way, and I also thought that I might one day require lenience for my own transgressions. “I am prepared to forget the entire matter,” I heard myself say, “and to let it rest. But I would make one demand.”

Mr. Watts steeled himself. “What is your demand?”

“That you will refrain from using this theatre as a site of your romantic interludes.”

“I will, sir,” said Mr. Watts, his relief apparent. “I am currently in negotiations for more private lodgings. Away from the prying eyes of my landlady.”

“The young man is already debauched,” I added, “but I must ask that you treat him with respect. And that you find a more suitable object for your affections.”

Neville Watts’ expression was downcast. “I will try,” he said, at last, “but my affections run as deeply as any man’s. I will try.”

I looked at him sharply. “You must do more than try.”

“I will.” At that moment, he seemed sure of himself.

“Then you have my word,” I said, “that this will remain a private matter.”

“Thank you, Mr. Phillips. You are a true gentleman.” Like a
recently kicked dog, Neville Watts slinked off toward the dress
ing room, and I remarked to myself and to my journal how closely the position of stage manager at a minor theatre sometimes resembles the position of headmaster at a private school.

At any rate, I trust that I have helped to precipitate a desired change in Mr. Watts’ character.

* Chapter Sixteen *

Wednesday, 8 January 1851

I have had no opportunity
to return to Mr. Farquhar Pratt’s lodgings these past two days, owing to the fact that we are rehearsing morning, afternoon, and evening for this Friday’s opening of
Hector, the Pirate of the Spanish Main
. Eager to please Mr. Wilton, Eustace Heywood has rewritten the last act three times already. Our new stock playwright works like a machine, through the night, and he arrives at the theatre every morning the same chalky color as he was the morning previous, scenes in hand, and sober. The actors are pleased with Mr. Heywood’s diligence, particularly Mrs. Wilton, who loses no opportunity to compare Heywood’s machine-like efficiency with our former stock playwright’s very human fallibility.

The actors, for their part, have begun taking up a collection for Mr. Farquhar Pratt. They have asked me to present the money to him at the week’s end, when they say they will surely have ten pounds or more.

Friday, 10 January 1851

I awoke this morning at eight o’clock but only after having had a most unusual nightmare. In my oneiric state, I had dreamt that Mr. Farquhar Pratt and myself were set the task of ascending
endless flights of stairs. Together we performed this task with unsurpassed jocularity for the first while, and
then, when it became apparent to us that our task was unending,
I grew surly. It seemed that we were ascending to the moon. At last, I looked Pratty full in the face and saw that his eyes were burning coals in his head.

I was relieved when Sophie awakened me from the possibility
of these endless tortures. I washed and shaved and ate my break
fast. Little Susan brought the morning edition of
The Times
to the table. I turned the pages and found the following brief article:

Death of a Stock Playwright.
At approximately eight o’clock Wednesday evening was discovered the body of Mr. Ned Farquhar Pratt, who had hanged himself from a railway tressel in the Nichol. Mr. Farquhar Pratt had formerly been stock playwright at the New Albion Theatre, the Victoria Theatre, the Standard Theatre, Shoreditch, and several other minor theatres in London. He had fallen upon hard financial times and was recently arraigned at Worship Street Court, where he appeared to
be in a state of mental turmoil, on charges of stealing and pawn
ing the furniture from his Bethnal Green lodgings. Mr. Farquhar Pratt leaves to mourn his wife, Anna, who has been admitted to the Spitalfields Workhouse. The Nightman, who was
first upon the grisly scene, remarked that suicides are quite
common in Friar’s Mount and that this was not the first self-
hanging he had encountered in the area.

Internment will take place at the public cemetery in Islington on Sunday, January 12, at ten o’clock.

Poor Mr. Farquhar Pratt. Poor all of us.

Sunday, 12 January 1851

Attended Mr. Farquhar Pratt’s funeral this morning. Not for him the pageantry of an ostrich-plumed hearse. Not for him the crepe armbands and the long line of mutes, pretending to be sad. Not for him the ivory-inlaid casket.

I had half-expected him to be buried at a crossroad, shoved into a pit of lime after a stake had been driven through his heart. These were the burial rites afforded suicides thirty years ago.
And what of Mr. Farquhar Pratt’s suicide? Is the act in itself evi
dence of a diseased mind? Is it truly an act of ungodliness, as so many of our philosophers tell us? Or is it a plausible reaction
to a future of squalor and ignominy? White hairs have no honour
when they are buried, buried down in London Town.