Magnus was coy. He would prefer not to make public a private act of gratitude and respect. But he was willing to admit, among friends, that what he meant to do was part of the subtext of the film; an act related to his own career; something he did whenever he found himself in London.
He had now gone so far that it was plain he wanted to be coaxed, and Ingestree coaxed him with a mixture of affection and respect that was worthy of admiration. It was plain to be seen how Ingestree had not merely survived, but thriven, in the desperate world of television. It was not long before Magnus yielded, as I suppose he meant to do from the beginning.
“It’s nothing in the least extraordinary. I’m going to lay a few yellow roses—I hope I can get yellow ones—at the foot of the monument to Henry Irving behind the National Portrait Gallery. You know it. It’s one of the best-known monuments in London. Irving, splendid and gracious, in his academical robes, looking up Charing Cross Road. I promised Milady I’d do that, in her name and my own, if I ever came to the point in life where I could afford such gestures. And I have. And so I shall.”
“Now you really mustn’t tease us any more,” said Ingestree. “We must be told. Who is Milady?”
“Lady Tresize,” said Magnus, and there was no hint of banter in his voice any longer. He was solemn. But Ingestree hooted with laughter.
“My God!” he said, “You don’t mean Old Mother Tresize? Old Nan? You knew her?”
“Better than you apparently did,” said Magnus. “She was a dear friend of mine, and very good to me when I needed a friend. She was one of Irving’s protégées, and in her name I do honour to his memory.”
“Well—I apologize. I apologize profoundly. I never knew her well, though I saw something of her. You’ll admit she was rather a joke as an actress.”
“Perhaps. Though I saw her give some remarkable performances. She didn’t always get parts that were suited to her.”
“I can’t imagine what parts could ever have suited her. It’s usually admitted she held the old man back. Dragged him down, in fact. He really may have been good, once. If he’d had a decent leading lady he mightn’t have ended up as he did.”
“I didn’t know that he had ended up badly. Indeed I know for a fact that he had quite a happy retirement, and was happier because he shared it with her. Are we talking about the same people?”
“I suppose it depends on how one looks at it. I’d better shut up.”
“No, no,” said Lind. “This is just the time to keep on. Who are these people called Tresize? Theatre people, I suppose?”
“Sir John Tresize was one of the most popular romantic actors of his day,” said Magnus.
“But in an absolutely appalling repertoire,” said Ingestree, who seemed unable to hold his tongue. “He went on into the twenties acting stuff that was moth-eaten when Irving died. You should have seen it, Jurgen! The Lyons Mail, The Corsican Brothers, and that interminable Master of Ballantrae; seeing him in repertory was a peep into the dark backward and abysm of time, let me tell you!”
“That’s not true,” said Magnus, and I knew how hot he was by the coolness with which he spoke. “He did some fine things, if you would take the trouble to find out. Some admired Shakespearean performances; a notable Hamlet. The money he made on The Master of Ballantrae he spent on introducing the work of Maeterlinck to England.”
“Maeterlinck’s frightfully old hat,” said Ingestree.
“Now, perhaps. But fashions change. And when Sir John Tresize introduced Maeterlinck to England he was an innovator. Have you no charity toward the past?”
“Not a scrap.”
“I think less of you for it.”
“Oh, come off it! You’re an immensely accomplished actor yourself. You know how the theatre is. Of all the arts it has least patience with bygones.”
“You have said several times that I am a good actor, because I can put up a decent show as Robert-Houdin. I’m glad you think so. Have you ever asked yourself where I learned to do that? One of the things that has given my work a special flavour is that I give my audiences something to look at apart from good tricks. They like the way I act the part of a conjuror. They say it has romantic flair. What they really mean is that it is projected with a skilled nineteenth-century technique. And where did I learn that?”
“Well, obviously you’re going to tell me you learned it from old Tresize. But it isn’t the same, you know. I mean, I remember him. He was lousy.”
“Depends on the point of view, I suppose. Perhaps you had some reason not to like him.”
“Not at all.”
“You said you knew him.”
“Oh, very slightly.”
“Then you missed a chance to know him better. I had that chance and I took it. Probably I needed it more than you did. I took it, and I paid for it, because knowing Sir John didn’t come cheap. And Milady was a great woman. So tomorrow morning—yellow roses.”
“You’ll let us send a photographer?”
“Not after what you’ve been saying. I don’t pretend to an overwhelming delicacy, but I have some. So keep away, please, and if you disobey me I won’t finish the few shots you still have to make on Hommage. Is that clear?”
It was clear, and after lingering a few minutes, just to show that they could not be easily dismissed, Ingestree, and Jurgen Lind, and Kinghovn left us.
(2)
Both Liesl and I went with Magnus the following morning on his sentimental expedition. Liesl wanted to know who Milady was; her curiosity was aroused by the tenderness and reverence with which he spoke of the woman who appeared to Ingestree to be a figure of fun. I was curious about everything concerning him. After all, I had my document to consider. So we both went with him to buy the roses. Liesl protested when he bought an expensive bunch of two dozen. “If you leave them in the street, somebody will steal them,” she said; “the gesture is the same whether it’s one rose or a bundle. Don’t waste your money.” Once again I had occasion to be surprised at the way very rich people think about money; a costly apartment at the Savoy, and a haggle about a few roses! But Eisengrim was not to be changed from his purpose. “Nobody will steal them, and you’ll find out why,” said he. So off we went on foot along the Strand, because Magnus felt that taking a taxi would lessen the solemnity of his pilgrimage.
The Irving monument stands in quite a large piece of open pavement; near by a pavement artist was chalking busily on the flagstones. Beside the monument itself a street performer was unpacking some ropes and chains, and a woman was helping him to get ready for his performance. Magnus took off his hat, laid the flowers at the foot of the statue, arranged them to suit himself, stepped back, looked up at the statue, smiled, and said something under his breath. Then he said to the street performer: “Going to do a few escapes, are you?”
“Right you are,” said the man.
“Will you be here long?”
“Long as anybody wants to watch me.”
“I’d like you to keep an eye on those flowers. They’re for the Guvnor, you see. Here’s a pound. I’ll be back before lunch, and if they’re still there, and if you’re still here, I’ll have another pound for you. I want them to stay where they are for at least three hours; after that anybody who wants them can have them. Now let’s see your show.”
The busker and the woman went to work. She rattled a tambourine, and he shook the chains and defied the passers-by to tie him up so that he couldn’t escape. A few loungers gathered, but none of them seemed anxious to oblige the escape-artist by tying him up. At last Magnus did it himself.
I didn’t know what he had in mind, and I wondered if he meant to humiliate the poor fellow by tying him up and leaving him to struggle; after all, Magnus had been a distinguished escape-artist himself in his time, and as he was a man of scornful mind such a trick would not have been outside his range. He made a thorough job of it, and before he had done there was a crowd of fifteen or twenty people gathered to see the fun. It is not every day that one of these shabby street performers has a beautifully dressed and distinguished person as an assistant. I saw a policeman halt at the back of the crowd, and began to worry. My philosophical indifference to human suffering is not as complete as I wish it were. If Magnus tied up the poor wretch and left him, what should I do? Interfere, or run away? Or would I simply hang around and see what happened?