The Greatest Christmas Murder Mysteries & Thrillers - Джером К. Джером

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why not? What is Shakespeare but a great sun that shines upon humanity — the large heads and the little, alike? Have not the rays of that mighty light penetrated into many poor and lowly places for good? What marvel then that they should fall, pleasant and invigorating, even upon Reuben Wray?

      So — right or wrong — with Shakespeare for his textbook, and Mr Kemble for his model, our friend in his old age bravely invaded provincial England as a teacher of elocution, with all its supplementary accomplishments. And, wonderful to relate, though occasionally enduring dreadful privations, he just managed to make elocution — or what passed instead of it with his patrons — keep his grandchild and himself!

      I cannot say that any orators or clergymen anxiously demanded secret improvement from him (see advertisement) at three-and-sixpence an hour; or that young ladies sought the graces of delivery, and young gentlemen the proprieties of diction (see advertisement again) from his experienced tongue. But he got on in other ways, nevertheless. Sometimes he was hired to drill the boys on a speech day at a country school. Sometimes he was engaged to prevent provincial amateur actors from murdering the dialogue outright, and incessantly jostling each other on the stage. In this last capacity, he occasionally got good employment, especially with regular amateur societies, who found his terms cheap enough, and his knowledge of theatrical discipline inestimably useful.

      But chances like these were as nothing to the chances he got when he was occasionally employed to superintend all the toilsome part of the business in arranging private theatricals at country houses. Here, he met with greater generosity than he had ever dared to expect: here, the letter from Mr Kemble, vouching for his honesty and general stage-knowledge — the great actor’s legacy of kindness to him, which he carried about everywhere — was sure to produce prodigious effect. He and little Annie, and a third member of the family whom I shall hereafter introduce, lived for months together on the proceeds of such a windfall as a private theatrical party — for the young people, in the midst of their amusement, found leisure to pity the poor old ex-player, and to admire his pretty granddaughter; and liberally paid him for his services full five times as much as he would ever have ventured to ask.

      Thus, wandering about from town to town, sometimes miserably unsuccessful, sometimes reanimated by a little prosperity, he had come from Stratford-upon-Avon, while the present century was some twenty-five years younger than it is now, to try his luck at elocution with the people of Tidbury-on-the-Marsh — to teach the graces of delivery at seventy years of age, with half his teeth gone! Will he succeed? I, for one, hope so. There is something in the spectacle of this poor old man, sorely battered by the world, yet still struggling for life and for the grandchild whom he loves better than life — struggling hard, himself a remnant of a bygone age, to keep up with a new age which has already got past him, and will hardly hear his feeble voice of other times, except to laugh at it — there is surely something in this which forbids all thought of ridicule, and bids fair with everybody for compassion and goodwill.

      But we have had talk enough, by this time, about Mr Reuben Wray. Let us now go at once and make acquaintance with him — not forgetting his mysterious cash box — at No. 12.

      III

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      The breakfast things are laid in the little drawing-room at Reuben’s lodgings. This drawing-room, observe, has not been hired by our friend; he never possessed such a domestic luxury in his life. The apartment, not being taken, has only been lent to him by his landlady, who is hugely impressed by the tragic suavity of her new tenant’s manner and ‘delivery’. The breakfast things, I say again, are laid. Three cups, a loaf, half-a-pound of salt butter, some moist sugar in a saucer, and a black earthenware tea-pot, with a broken spout; such are the sumptuous preparations which tempt Mr Wray and his family to come down at nine o’clock in the morning, and yet nobody appears!

      Hark! there is a sound of creaking boots, descending, apparently, from some loft at the top of the house, so distant is the noise they make at first. This sound, coming heavily nearer and nearer, only stops at the drawing-room door, and heralds the entry of —

      Mr Wray, of course? No! — no such luck: my belief is, that we shall never succeed in getting to Mr Wray personally. The individual in question is not even any relation of his; but he is a member of the family, for all that; and as the first to come downstairs, he certainly merits the reward of immediate notice.

      He is nearly six feet high, proportionately strong and stout, and looks about thirty years of age. His gait is as awkward as it well can be; his features are large and ill-proportioned, his face is pitted with the smallpox, and what hair he has on his head — not much — seems to be growing in all sorts of contrary directions at once. I know nothing about him, personally, that I can praise, but his expression; and that is so thoroughly goodhumoured, so candid, so innocent even, that it really makes amends for everything else. Honesty and kindliness look out so brightly from his eyes, as to dazzle your observation of his clumsy nose, and lumpy mouth and chin, until you hardly know whether they are ugly or not. Some men, in a certain sense, are ugly with the lineaments of the Apollo Belvedere; and others handsome, with features that might sit for a caricature. Our new acquaintance was of the latter order.

      Allow me to introduce him to you: — THE GENTLE READER — JULIUS CAESAR. Stop! start not at those classic syllables; I will explain all.

      The history of Mr Martin Blunt, alias ‘Julius Caesar’, is a good deal like the history of Mr Reuben Wray. Like him, Blunt began life with strolling players — not, however, as an actor, but as stage-carpenter, candle-snuffer, doorkeeper, and general errand-boy. On one occasion, when the company were ambitiously bent on the horrible profanation of performing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the actor who was to personate the emperor fell ill. Nobody was left to supply his place — every other available member of the company was engaged in the play; so, in despair, they resorted to Martin Blunt. He was big enough for a Roman hero; and that was all they looked to.

      They first cut out as much of his part as they could, and then half crammed the rest into his reluctant brains; they clapped a white sheet about the poor lad’s body for a toga, stuck a truncheon into his hand, and a short beard on his chin; and remorselessly pushed him on the stage. His performance was received with shouts of laughter; but he went through it; was duly assassinated; and fell with a thump that shook the surrounding scenery to its centre, and got him a complete round of applause all to himself.

      He never forgot this. It was his first and last appearance; and, in the innocence of his heart, he boasted of it on every occasion, as the great distinction of his life. When he found his way to London; and as a really skilful carpenter, procured employment at Drury Lane, his fellow-workmen managed to get the story of his first performance out of him directly, and made a standing joke of it. He was elected a general butt, and nicknamed ‘Julius Caesar’, by universal acclamation. Everybody conferred on him that classic title; and I only follow the general fashion in these pages. If you don’t like the name, call him any other you please: he is too goodhumoured to be offended with you, do what you will.

      He was thus introduced to old Wray: —

      At the time when Reuben was closing his career at Drury Lane, our stout young carpenter had just begun to work there. One night, about a week before the performance of a new Pantomime, some of the heavy machinery tottered just as Wray was passing by it; and would have fallen on him, but for ‘Julius Caesar’ (I really can’t call him Blunt!), who, at the risk of his own limbs, caught the tumbling mass; and by a tremendous exertion of main strength arrested it in its fall, till the old man had hobbled out of harm’s way. This led to gratitude, friendship, intimacy. Wray and his preserver, in spite of the difference in their characters and ages, seemed to suit each other, somehow. In fine, when Reuben started to teach elocution in the country, the carpenter followed him, as protector, assistant, servant, or whatever you please.

      ‘Julius Caesar’ had one special motive for attaching himself to old Wray’s fortunes, which will speedily appear, when little Annie enters the drawing-room. Awkward as he might be, he was certainly no encumbrance. He made himself useful and profitable

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