“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.