My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin Read Free Book Online Page A

Sydney left the
Exmouth
and I left Hanwell and we joined Mother again. She took a room at the back of Kennington Park and for a while she was able to support us. But it was not long before we were back in the workhouse again. The circumstances that led up to our return were something to do with Mother’s difficulty in finding employment and Father’s slump in his theatrical engagements. In that brief interlude wekept moving from one back-room to another; it was like a game of draughts – the last move was back to the workhouse.
    Living in a different parish, we were sent to a different workhouse, and from there to Norwood Schools, which was more sombre than Hanwell; leaves darker and trees taller. Perhaps the countryside had more grandeur, but the atmosphere was joyless.
    One day, while Sydney was playing football, two nurses called him out of the game and told him that Mother had gone insane and had been sent to Cane Hill lunatic asylum. When Sydney heard the news he showed no reaction but went back and continued playing football. But after the game he stole away by himself and wept.
    When he told me I could not believe it. I did not cry, but a baffling despair overcame me. Why had she done this? Mother, so light-hearted and gay, how could she go insane? Vaguely I felt that she had deliberately escaped from her mind and had deserted us. In my despair I had visions of her looking pathetically at me, drifting away into a void.
    We heard the news officially a week later; we also heard that the court decreed that Father must take over the custody of Sydney and me. The prospect of living with Father was exciting. I had seen him only twice in my life, on the stage, and once when passing a house in the Kennington Road, as he was coming down the front garden path with a lady. I had paused and watched him, knowing instinctively that he was my father. He beckoned me to him and asked my name. Sensing the drama of the situation, I had feigned innocence and said: ‘Charlie Chaplin’. Then he glanced knowingly at the lady, felt in his pocket and gave me half a crown, and without further ado I ran straight home and told Mother that I had met my father.
    And now we were going to live with him. Whatever happened, Kennington Road was familiar and not strange and sombre like Norwood.
    The officials drove us in the bread van to 287 Kennington Road, the house where I had seen my father walking down the garden path. The door was opened by the lady who had been with him at the time. She was dissipated and morose-looking, yet attractive, tall and shapely, with full lips and sad, doe-like eyes; her age could have been thirty. Her name was Louise. Itappeared that Mr Chaplin was not at home, but after the usual formalities and the signing of papers the official left us in charge of Louise, who led us upstairs to the first landing into the front sitting-room. A small boy was playing on the floor as we entered, a most beautiful child of four with large dark eyes and rich brown curly hair: it was Louise’s son – my half-brother.
    The family lived in two rooms and, although the front room had large windows, the light filtered in as if from under water. Everything looked as sad as Louise; the wallpaper looked sad, the horse-hair furniture looked sad, and the stuffed pike in a glass case that had swallowed another pike as large as itself – the head sticking out of its mouth – looked gruesomely sad.
    In the back room she had put an extra bed for Sydney and me to sleep on, but it was too small. Sydney suggested sleeping on the sofa in the sitting-room. ‘You’ll sleep where you’re told to,’ said Louise. This caused an embarrassing silence as we walked back into the living-room.
    Our reception was not an enthusiastic one, and no wonder. Sydney and I had been suddenly thrust upon her, and moreover we were the offspring of Father’s estranged wife.
    We both sat mutely watching her preparing the table for something to eat. ‘Here,’ she said