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.
seven
IN 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
